The problem with "You didn't build that."

[KentuckyWoman]

Of course it's been taken out of context and repeated ad nauseum.

But it struck a cord and still does because there is a huge difference between a millionaire who's spent a lifetime working 20 hr days to build a business from the ground up and someone who sits back and rakes in the dividends. Yes the vast majority of 1% think the fruits of everyone elses hard work is rightfully theirs. We've got to recognize there are 1%ers who did build that and still work their asses off every day or have handed it off to the kids, grandkids etc who work their asses off.

[snooper2]

1. like Star Wars!

Published on Nov 30, 2014
Francis answers the questions you asked, including about the new Star Wars episode VII trailer, grumpy cat, christmas, and more!

[NYC_SKP]

2. Yes, there is a handful of these folks, but they still benefitted from highways, unions, etc.

And, yes, they deserve to keep much of their wealth, but they ought to give back just as the others must.

Let's look at returning to the tax structure and rates post depression:

[geek tragedy]

3. You know it's not 2012, right?

No one cared about that. Ask President Romney.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Thank you

And many of those people who touch their employees every day - also pay much higher than average wages, give close to 6 weeks vacation when you count paid shut downs for holidays, and pay full medical insurance.

Many give back directly to those who help them grow their wealth.

There's also a huge difference between a millionaire on Wall Street - and one who built their business doing physical hard labor.

[RadiationTherapy]

27. "many of those people" Why do you think many people who worked hard to build a successful business

"pay much higher than average wages, give close to 6 weeks vacation when you count paid shut downs for holidays, and pay full medical insurance?" Is that just your opinion or is there something more to it?

[JustAnotherGen]

28. My husband does

His lowest paid person is a receptionist making 19 and change an hour.

All of those benes -

That's what happens when people immigrate from Europe with about $10K in USD in their pockets.


He follows the Italian business model where if your business unionizes - you bring shame on your family. That means you aren't an honest man.

The paid shut downs he gives at Christmas and over 4th of July.

Don't get him started on sick time. That's the stupidest thing he's ever heard. But - his shop - It's iron, and fire, and copper and water - or hanging from ceilings and rafters in old buildings. You are putting other peoples' lives in dangers when they are coughing and sick and you are dealing with extreme hot flames.

[RadiationTherapy]

29. Ok, that's great. Let me mark that down... *1*

Ok, got it.

I hope that there are thousands of people like your husband spread out across the country, but I certainly haven't seen nor heard of many good paying jobs at any level in any craft. Anyone I know who is paid even decently - not talking "american dream" scales, just $40k a year or so - feels very lucky. The only people I know who make more are lawyers and doctors and a couple of builders/mechanics. Of course I live in a town where $40k is decent pay in a shitty job market squashed by a university that exploits its employees and harvests money to its administrators, but it isn't enough to live well or save anything.

[JustAnotherGen]

31. I think he's a good start

Sent you a pm.

Someone posted a few days ago about blacksmithing being a good job - and it truly is. He's directly reached out to young women in Camden NJ (an apprenticeship program he has) that no one has told them -

You can get time and a half and travel the world and have a good life - if you forgo nail tech or hair dresser for welding.

His first one in that program - his 'fair haired girl' as I call her - will make as much this year as I made when I moved to NJ to work for a Telecom with a masters and 12 years experience - and she's in her early 20's. You couldn't have told that girl who would sleep in a bathtub with her mom 10 years ago to avoid gunshots -

That she would own her own home, speak two languages and had been to places like Belgium, Spain, Italy, France etc. etc. They also do restoration work and she's on track for her UNESCO certification. My husband's cert is what drove him to come here. Not a lot of folks are authorized to work on historical locations in the US - think iron work balconies in New Orleans that are several hundred years old.

[RadiationTherapy]

33. Welding and metalwork was my brother's trade for a while and I admire it very much.

My brother's career was cut short at age 24 by a malignant naso-pharyngeal cancer which he survived due to the most intense radiation treatment available at the time. The radiation burned his nose, mouth, throat and nerves so he breathes through a hole like a dolphin and eats stomach-injected purees. His tongue is paralyzed so he can barely speak and he is also mostly deaf. His left arm is a dangling skin covered bone due to nerve damage. I visit him every week and we make music, paint, do videos, etc. Art and memories of our thousands and thousands of miles of hitchhiking and road-tripping are all we have now, really, since it is so difficult for him to travel or interact with others. He is also a bit reclusive due to the disfiguration of his body.

Anyways, welding is an amazing trade and I think it is one to take pride in due to its practical and artistic potential.

(I hope I am not too heavy here, but I don't get to talk about this aspect of my life very much. Sorry if it was a downer.)

One of my favorite videos together:

Our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrAgqfIXdvdY9lx_n8Cz_4w

[LanternWaste]

5. I yet think we should all laud Paris Hilton for the economic, artistic and ethical contributions she

I yet think we should all laud Paris Hilton for the economic, artistic and ethical contributions she's made to this great nation. She's an Ameri-CAN, not an Ameri-CAN'T. So incredibly star-spangled awesome I get funny feelings in my private places that I can't put into words...

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Am I in some kind of fucking time warp here

[KentuckyWoman]

18. Election.....

We got our butts handed to us.

Roll around the floor if you must. But if you seriously want to move forward you are going to have to deal with the fact the gazillion small business owners that each employ small numbers of people are not being well served.

I am one of them. By no means a 1% and thank goodness not because the ones have met are generally an embarrassment to humanity. .... Quite frankly I'm insolvent at the moment since I started up the new thing in town....

Lumping business owners who've been in it long enough to have built a little something that can employ other people in with the Mitt Romneys and Paris Hiltons is wrong, didn't do us any favors, and isn't likely to in 16.

[Drunken Irishman]

24. I'm pretty sure we won the election where your talking point dominated discussion.

[unblock]

7. the fallacy of the half-truth.

yes, many, rich people work hard to make a their riches.

*but* they *also* had many other advantages as well.

the hard work they put in is very salient and one of the few variables they can see and explicitly control on a daily basis. this gives them the illusion that that's the biggest determinant of their riches.

but it's not. in particular, how is it that poor people can work their asses off as well and merely tread water? because they lack those other things that make the difference. a poor person can work 20 hours a day and then go home and do all the housekeeping and cooking themselves and not get anywhere. a rich person can work 20 hours a day and order in food and have a maid and a nanny help at home.


and from a different angle, a thief can work hard to plan and execute a brilliant robbery. that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean he earned the loot.

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. and there are advantages available to them....that the rest of us slubs do not have access to...

[unblock]

17. and in truth a lot of their "work" is merely seeing that the money winds up in their pockets

instead of being fairly shared among all stakeholders.

[KentuckyWoman]

21. Affluent people are not "rich"

You made my point exactly.

You just compared a small business owner who works 20 hour days and goes home tired and hungry to a thief. Most of DU would agree with you.

I don't agree the way to get better wages and benefits for poor working people is to take it from middle and upper middle class more affluent people who work their asses off as well.... we accomplish nothing more than losing elections we could have won and putting a bunch of maids and nannies out of work (excuse me but seriously you think the lady that owns the dry cleaner is sitting on her can eating bon bons while the maid does all the work?)

The 1% is a global menace, this is sure. They keep us fighting over who got the bigger crust of bread so we don't ever find the energy to actually go after them and demand some of the cake.

[unblock]

25. and you made mine. for the most part it's not about the hours you put it.

it's about how you get the loot and how you share the loot.

there's a small business owner around here who literally shortchanges customers. if you want not to be ripped off, you literally have to count your change, or the number of goods he gives you when you give him your money. he's not subtle about it and i'm not at all the only one who has noticed this.

there's another small business owner around here who chats with homeowners all decked out with a rolex and cartier jewelry while several people who don't speak english dig up septic systems. i seriously doubt they're getting paid even minimum wage.

yes, there are small business owners who made it up to the million dollar mark over the course of many years after treating everyone fairly. i have no problem with that. those are not the thief to which i'm referring, but even they need to be appreciative of the support they still got, from the government to the schools to the infrastructure, etc.


and yes, plenty of people who aren't even close to millionaires use maids and nannies. not live-in, full-time, but perhaps, a maid every other week to clean, and a nanny during working hours, or at least once or twice a week if they have other help with the little ones.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. The problem is... the Third-Way poseurs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12771192

[FSogol]

9. The problem with "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

Let's do the time warp again!

[JaneyVee]

10. The problem is you misinterpreted that statement.

It was never about those who sat back and collected dividends vs. those who built a business. It was about every single person who created a business did so wirh govt help. From providing electricity and roads to making sure the lumber they used is inspected and building safe, etc.

[Mass]

11. This is not what "You didn't build that." is about.

It is about the fact that even the hardest working entrepreneur benefits from government working well and providing services (roads, security, ...).

Without security, for example, people can lose their work product (see Ferguson). Without roads, people cannot deliver. Without schools, they cannot have competent workers.

We have to stop accepting the framing of the GOP and remind people what Warren was talking about when she said that.

[JoePhilly]

13. We should cut their taxes as recognition!!!

[belzabubba333]

14. havent you been paying attention

i love these drive-by posters

[napkinz]

15. any thoughts on Benghazi?

also, any thoughts on Benghazi?

[DrewFlorida]

16. The issue of "you didn't build that" is about the socially built infrastructure, paid for by

all taxpayers, which is the backbone of our dynamic capitalist economy. In other words, our capitalist economy would not work without socialist built infrastructure. No capitalist in America would have a dime if not for our publicly funded road/highway system, our extensive railroad system, our electrical transmission system, our police and fire protection systems, etc etc etc.

[bhikkhu]

20. Not to mention, no decent employees to work for them without our education system

Most employers have training programs and so forth, but all the long hard years of preparation are managed by our public educators in advance, and paid for with tax revenue.

[DrewFlorida]

23. Exactly!

[AverageJoe90]

19. I see what you're saying, I think.

There are indeed some well-to-do people out there who earned the money they got, and it's not fair, in my view, to lump them all in with somebody who really did cheat his way to the top. BTW, I do realize full well, that that isn't what the President had intended to say.....so no worries there, at least.

[Recursion]

22. I read this and expected "Titanium" to come on the radio

It is still 2014, right?

[Doctor_J]

26. it should have been,

"You didn't do it alone", or, "you had help". Speech writers could have done better on that one.

[Skidmore]

30. The only way to make that point in a manner that is understood by the 1%

is a general strike--workers and consumers. There is no way whatsoever to accomplish this without everyone feeling some pain. It also requires that the 99% or whatever percent is in the middle class and working poor are willing to share resources to wait something like that out. It happens in other countries. Good ole rugged individualism capitalist Americans are unwilling to share with their extended family quite often. As much as I would like to see this happen, I know it won't.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

32. Two things:

1) As you note, it was taken out of context.

and

2) Even if you read it in the context that it's been used, it bears noting that no one is a "self-made millionaire". No one. Everyone gets help in their success in part from other people. So no one is 100% responsible for their own success.

Why you are making a big deal about this now, I have no idea.