OK, but if that's why you think it's disgusting then I think your reaction is based on making too much of a poorly worded phrase when the intended meaning is made clear later on in the quote.

I don't see any reason to think that Obama was particularly hostile to the wealthy, and that comment isn't hostile at all.

I get how you and I may have differing opinions about what policies make sense re: income/wealth inequality, taxes, or whatever else related to economics. I was mostly surprised by the word "disgusting". I can't really fathom having such a strong reaction to such a banal argument as the one Obama actually made. But it seems like the difference is probably that you are reading a lot more into it that I don't think you should.

My "argument" is that Donald Trump is literally the Tiger Woods of losing money. You put it better then I ever could!

I have no real observation to make other then that the fact that the current President of the United States regularly loses more money then literally every any other person in the country is one of the most wonderful, on-point and gobsmacking facts in the history of this country. Also utterly, fantastically hilarious. The end.

Also funny is seeing posters like Inso finding my reaction hopelessly naive - just an artifact my own business inexperience. Losing more money then anyone else on the continent is just a hum-drum occurrence in business life for shrewd real estate big-wigs. He sees it every day!

Errr, playing a little fast and loose with the idea of proof imo.

Most moderate wealth is "earned". Democrats who think otherwise are wrong. Most great wealth is "unearned" (except in a technical sense involving the law of supply and demand.) Republicans who think otherwise are wrong.

What you make should be correlated to how hard you work, how long and hard you trained, how yucky the job is, how much risk you took of failing and a few other things. And most people do indeed make approximately in proportion to these factors. But some don't. Especially guys like centerfielders, hedge fund managers, velcro inventors, movie stars, and authors who write best sellers about subjects less important than poker. Why is this not obvious?

He's only right in the sense that no large-scale enterprise is literally built and operated by one individual. That entire statement is about diminishing the role of the builder/leader, which is what many right wingers find offensive.



CLEARLY this is the focus, since he repeats it twice.


Okay, so? Ideas are a dime a dozen. Put it into action if you want to have an impact on society.

Yeah, and? Hard work for the sake of hard work is often meaningless. It's hard work to light fires with sticks or feed your family off the land in your immediate vicinity. It's hard work to haul cargo across the wilderness on the backs of animals. Society was moved forward by people who took risks and built better tools and put in the work to perfect and spread those ideas, often at the expense of a more stable and sustainable personal life until things caught on.

Those who can, do. Those who can't teach. Isn't that the trope? Cheeky comment aside, this is just a pointless statement. Yes, humanity is a collective. We've been that way forever.

Initially? BUSINESS OWNERS, to make their own lives easier and increase the reach of their businesses.

If there were no profit motive, how quickly do you think that new Internet takes off and becomes widely adopted to improve society? That was a massive financial risk for a lot of people. The same can be said for damn near every major invention throughout human history.

You know what else started out as a for-profit business? Firefighting.


The whole thing just reeks of disdain for private industry. It's gross, and entirely unAmerican.

FWIW, I like Obama as a person. But this was not his finest moment.

I think is one of those things where the disagreement is really more about the background assumptions we're bringing to the quote than what's in the actual quote.

It's true, Obama is pushing back on what he imagines as a kind of stereotyped individualist/libertarian reading of success, i.e. one in which only the individual leader is celebrated and in which success is viewed entirely in terms of individual effort. He's pointing out that the stereotype is false. I called that argument banal for a reason, but maybe you could accuse Obama of exaggerating the extent to which people hold this stereotyped view of individual success.

On the other hand, you and bahbah seem to be reading his comment as one in which the individual should be given absolutely no credit at all. You used the word "diminished" this time but your initial reaction, and bahbah's disgust, suggest to me that you think he's not merely diminishing the role of the individual but greatly and overly diminishing it. You're reading the quote through a lens in which Obama is a stereotype of a rich-person-hating leftist collectivist. You see disdain for private enterprise but I think you're bringing that with you in your assumptions, rather than finding it in the text.

So I also think that stereotype is exaggerated. In any case, Obama often tried to highlight the idea that politics is about communities and building a sense of "we" and not just an "I". It's as much a moral or philosophical point as an economic one. The point is to try to encourage people who might get a little caught up in thinking in purely individualist terms to also consider themselves as part of a larger community and society that functions best when we all see ourselves as interdependent to some extent. This is a point Obama made in speeches all the time. I don't think you have to detest private enterprise or individual achievement to recognize the value of that point of view.

- A President Who Was Much More Despised By The Rich

I think this is the real estate version of a poker player saying he made $x last year and some clown asking, "yeah, but how much did you lose?"

What do you mean by unearned?

In your second paragraph are you suggesting people shouldn't be paid on how much talent they have?

Example: I have a buddy who never really worked hard in school, but he is one of those guys that is a natural bull****ter and he is a hell of a salesman. He now makes a hell of a living in sales. Are saying he doesn't earn the money he makes since he didn't train at his craft?

This is the Tiger Woods of weird conclusions!

Because it's not based on any real world evidence?

Insoo again did a good job of summarizing my thoughts as well. I would have finished his post saying obama has a very strong disdain for rich people and not private industry, but now we are just splitting hairs.

If you look at his whole body of work I would say it reinforces the idea that he loathes the rich.

So you do understand his point, you just don’t like the implications that successful people share their success with the society that enabled that success.

How many ****ing rich children did Obama separate from their parents and put in cages? How many rich people has he put in jail period? I mean other than those stupid enough to work for his campaign.

Little known fact: Obama threw up afterwards because he could barely stand being around so many rich people

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ind...156.html%3famp

Not from Obama. He is a genius level orator, and I don't think that speech was off the cuff either.

I had the same reaction as bahbah at the time. Total disgust.

Here's another thing, that speech carefully blends talking to/about/for the super rich and talking to/about/for the small business audience. Not an accident imho. So, Obama can spin it that he is saying super rich didn't build roads, but it also looks like he is saying small business owners didn't build their own businesses. And, he is saying, in fact, it's the same thing, per the (likely) intended interpretation of the speech. "Get over yourselves, you small business owners."

I'm really not trying to turn this into a red vs blue thing, but the truth of the matter is that republicans are more charitable with their own money than democrats are.

"We" not "I" is a sentiment shared by most people regardless of political ideology, I think. The means by which to promote those ideals are a different story. It's easy to tell other people what to do with their money. Sadly, you eventually run out of other peoples' money if they aren't incentivized to continue producing more.

I'm not seeing a "let's all come together" mentality in modern democratic rhetoric. There's a whole lot of, "Hey, let's all beat up that rich corporate fatcat over there and steal all his money" going on.


They are already paying a vast majority of the bills around here.

If we're going to call things disgusting then this truly deserves it. Trump's rhetoric has literally caused thousands of extra people to become the victims of violent crime because of their race/religion. Obama said some mean things and enacted policies that maybe cost rich people a tiny fraction of their wealth/income. To somehow equate the latter as being more hostile than the former is abhorrent.

The fact that it's poorly worded is clear from the context, no matter how skilled Obama is as an orator.

This is a very biased interpretation of the study that I assume you're referring to. The study was done at the state level and did find that people in overwhelmingly republican states report more charitable donations than in democratic states. However the tax rates were also significantly lower in the republican states and to quote one of the authors of the report:

So yes it's true that low tax, republican states report more charitable donations. But it's also true that social services in those states were less well funded, even after the larger charitable donations, than higher tax, democratic states.

Lol, Violent crime like happened to poor little Smollet? Or calling for people to physically harass supporters in public....oh wait, that was the Democrats!
I think you are confused.

WN, you explained how the speech is tribute/call to community. I get that. That's true, but it's also the following (quoting part of my above post, because I don't think I was clear in that this last paragraph is also intended to show why Obama's phrasing was not poorly worded or accidental).

"That speech carefully blends talking to/about/for the super rich and talking to/about/for the small business audience. Not an accident imho. So, Obama can spin it that he is saying super rich didn't build roads, but it also looks like he is saying small business owners didn't build their own businesses. And, he is saying, in fact, it's the same thing, per the (likely) intended interpretation of the speech. "Get over yourselves, you small business owners."

To me it seems clear that Obama is pointing out that those small business owners didn't create all the infrastructure on which their businesses depend, not that they didn't create their own businesses: "Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that." That is very clearly a reference to roads and bridges, which flows rhetorically with the entire rest of the passage.

There is certainly a challenge there, like I said, to this idea of someone who owns a business and thinks their success is entirely a result of their own hard work. So sure, "get over yourself", Obama is saying -- at least if you think that. This is why I mentioned the idea of a too-libertarian/individualist stereotype. But the rhetorical purpose is not really about criticizing business owners, it's about appealing to people to support political programs in support of shared interests, e.g. infrastructure and basic research. Hence the remarks immediately following in the same speech:

Sure, he's criticizing a certain kind of libertarianism, but he's not actually intended to impugn the dignity of entrepreneurs in general.

Honestly, what you wrote here struck a chord with me and I had a little moment of self reflection on what biases I brought into my opinion on it. I never saw the original speech, only the transcript and outrage afterward, so I looked it up.





After seeing it in action and how he played to the audience response, I think my opinion that this was Obama just ****ting on business owners is somewhat justified, even if what you specifically wrote here may be correct.

I'll take what I can get :P

I mean at some point there's probably little use in arguing about what Obama meant specifically in a 7 year old speech. It's not that important to me what you think about Obama, per se.

But I think the ideas motivating his remarks are obviously still relevant to some parts of the partisan divide, and I also happen to think the larger point of his remarks is clear enough that it's worth trying to clarify. That is, sometimes we disagree on things and it's fuzzy enough I doubt I could ever persuade you. But I think I can persuade someone to at least consider the broader thrust of that speech, because it's so clear in the context. Whether Obama got it perfectly right or not, I think it's worth thinking about that broader argument.

And having seen lots of Obama speeches and having followed his policy ideas it also just seems absurd to me to think that he hates business owners as some general rule. *shrug*

careful not to let that mask slip