“Somebody Made That Happen”

 

Here’s all you need to know about what, exactly, Barack Obama thinks about business — the small kind, the large kind, the family kind, the any kind:

It’s almost too perfect, isn’t it?  And I especially love that turn of phrase —  “somebody made that happen.”

It’s always somebody for the left, isn’t it?  Somebody will pay.  Somebody will do it.

Published in General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 71 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @GreenCarder

    Amazing.

    • #1
  2. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Rapporteur

    The comment that reveals our president to be 1/32nd Cherokee, just like Liz “Lieawatha” Warren.

    • #2
  3. Profile Photo Member
    @Joker

    The man is an embarrassing ignoramus when discussing economic matters. It’s almost as if he’s contracted Biden’s disease.

    Two positives come from this: First, his instincts take him to deep, warning track left field when that teleprompter isn’t lit up. That will probably cost him in any debate concerning the state of the economy.

    But the big payoff is in campaign ad material. There’s no need to deconstruct or dissect what he has to say. It doesn’t need to be taken out of context. Quote him, then spend 20 seconds explaining that he views US citizens as children, incapable of directing their own affairs without massive government intervention. Innovation and entrepreneurship are things that someone else does. Because the process of making money is a mystery to him, he believes only exploitation can explain it. Fade to black.

    • #3
  4. Profile Photo Podcaster
    @EJHill

    Statement: “Somebody made that happen.”

    Answer: “Yeah. ME! I made that happen.”

    • #4
  5. Profile Photo Inactive
    @BrianWatt

    I’ve been waiting for years for Somebody to show up and make me a billionaire…and frankly I’m beginning to lose my patience!

    • #5
  6. Profile Photo Member
    @GeorgeSavage

    “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that; somebody else made that happen.”

    Okay.  Anyone care to guess what happens to my business if I stay home next week and wait for “somebody else” to turn up to build it for me?

    Multiply the above times many millions and gaze forth on our present economic doldrums with wide-eyed understanding.

    • #6
  7. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Yeahok

    We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants.

    • #7
  8. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Clandesteyn
    Yeah…ok.: We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants. · 2 minutes ago

    Too bad Jonah Goldberg overlooked this gem in his last book.

    • #8
  9. Profile Photo Member
    @GeorgeSavage

    Wait a minute:  What if the president’s “somebody else” is  actually Mitt Romney and Bain Capital?  After all, Mitt created untold billions of wealth for his investors by helping entrepreneurs build businesses, thereby netting the quarter-bill for himself that seems to so agitate Mr. Obama.

    • #9
  10. Profile Photo Inactive
    @LowcountryJoe

    It takes a village…to make the true producers feel guilty about the success they’ve earned — success that they could only have enjoyed by first satisfying the wants of most villagers.

    • #10
  11. Profile Photo Member
    @GeorgeSavage

    Building a business is not Marxist inevitability, Asimovian Psychohistory, or any other ineluctable process.  Building a business is path dependent.  Commitment, vision, refusal to give up in the face of underestimated adversity, these are the keys to success.  It’s an individual effort, or the concentrated effort of a small collection of like-minded individuals who voluntarily pledge themselves to the cause in a corporate effort.  And the most successful are moving against the grain of conventional wisdom, not with it, which is one more reason why politically-directed “entrepreneurism” is so wildly unsuccessful.  And this may have something to do with why President Obama–the very distillation of Left liberal conventional wisdom–is so clueless about the workings of free-market capitalism.

    • #11
  12. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @AlbertArthur
    Clandesteyn

    Yeah…ok.: We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants. · 2 minutes ago

    Too bad Jonah Goldberg overlooked this gem in his last book. · 23 minutes ago

    I had the same thought. This idea that you’re only successful because you were able to drive on publicly funded roads is a liberal cliche. No one would argue that we don’t all benefit from roads. And yet, not everyone who drive on a road starts a successful business. hmmm. Why is that?

    • #12
  13. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @FightinInPhilly

    Sorry to be lame- but is there a longer version of the quote? The numerous pronouns “that/it/you” makes it tough to even follow the sentence. I really want to pounce here but I keep replaying it but I’m not even sure what Obama is saying. The comments all seem to indicate Obama is saying people who build businesses didn’t actually build them, which seems dumb even for him. Is he making reference to the lib conviction that the environment provided by govt (the roads to your warehouse, the internet that allows you to take orders, the safe streets that allow customers to visit your) is the reason that your business florishes? I just want to direct my fire appropriately :)

    • #13
  14. Profile Photo Inactive
    @NickStuart

    “Somebody” is blowing smoke up our, er, something.

    • #14
  15. Profile Photo Inactive
    @NickStuart

    Seriously, it would be great if somebody on the producers side of the debate would point out how much of the road tax, sales tax, franchise tax, unemployment tax, &tc ad infinitum, the business owners have to pay.

    • #15
  16. Profile Photo Inactive
    @GreenCarder

    Obama seems to have appointed himself lead producer on the Romney campaign ad team. I love it when he goes off TelePrompTer and opens the kimono just enough to give away what he really thinks of this country and its citizenry.

    • #16
  17. Profile Photo Member
    @HangOn

    “And if you get elected President, you didn’t do that. Somebody else made that happen.”

    I wonder if he believes that?

    • #17
  18. Profile Photo Inactive
    @jetstream
    George Savage: Building a business is not Marxist inevitability, Asimovian Psychohistory, or any other ineluctable process.  Building a business is path dependent.  Commitment, vision, refusal to give up in the face of underestimated adversity, these are the keys to success.  It’s an individual effort, or the concentrated effort of a small collection of like-minded individuals who voluntarily pledge themselves to the cause in a corporate effort.  And the most successful are moving against the grain of conventional wisdom, not with it, which is one more reason why politically-directed “entrepreneurism” is so wildly unsuccessful.  And this may have something to do with why President Obama–the very distillation of Left liberal conventional wisdom–is so clueless about the workings of free-market capitalism. · 1 hour ago

    Ah, young whipper snapper, the material productive forces are the fountain head for the success of all running dog capitalists, you’re just a parasite.

    • #18
  19. Profile Photo Inactive
    @whatmeworry

     Specifics Obama cites of “help” that successful business people received – teachers, roads and bridges, internet, fire fighting service.  Common theme?  They are common services that everyone benefits from at the get -go.  We all work hard too.  

    It just pains Obama to acknowledge individuals’ differences result in varying outcomes.  It appears to me that his main concern is wealth disparity (i.e., lack of equality) among citizens.  If his goal is make the most people as possible as economically equal as possible, then compressing everyone into state-provided dependency means more people get the same services — that’s fairness!  

    Better that 75% of us are roughly equal at a lower standard of living than 60% roughly equal but more wealthy.  The dear Maggie Thatcher makes the point here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SQHwyNU1Q

    • #19
  20. Profile Photo Inactive
    @GreenCarder

    whatmeworry: I love that Thatcher segment. I’ve seen if a few times but thanks for sharing it. “They (the left) would rather the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich.”

    • #20
  21. Profile Photo Member
    @Joker

    Philly

    Agreed, more of the segment would help. Based on exactly what he does say:

    You didn’t build it. So someone else did. And if it succeeded, it was probably though some form of exploitation, not at will employment. And if there are exploited folks out there, why there are victims. And NOBODY takes care of victims.

    So reelect me. I protect victims from failure, dirty air, unfair lending practices, discrimination, union busting, women’s health suppression, and greedy capitalists.

    Further, I will promise to protect the American people from pipelines that add jobs, motivating success through market rewards, insurance choices and the lower premiums that go with them,  capitalism, freedom… wait a minute, scratch that last bit.

    • #21
  22. Profile Photo Inactive
    @TomRoberts

    There’s a transcript here of  a longer segment of the speech – basically the same claptrap that Elizabeth Warren came out with a while back. 

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jul/15/picketvideo-obama-if-youve-got-business-you-didnt-/

    I know that’s how lefties think, or rather “think”, but it’s still quite disconcerting to hear them say it so blatantly.

    • #22
  23. Profile Photo Inactive
    @ScarletPimpernel

    The proper response is probably simply to say that it’s sad that the President has such a poor understanding of the market economy. 

    • #23
  24. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @ChrisCampion

    If the rich didn’t build successful businesses themselves, and it’s all due to the magical powers of gov’t spending and intervention, why isn’t the country awash (and sinking under the oceans’ rise) in millions of new start-ups that are just going gangbusters right now? If the gov’t is the true path to prosperity, we have the largest-sized gov’t in terms of spending and regulation in the history of mankind – yet our economy sucks, and roughly 10-15% of people who want a job can’t find one.

    Answer:  We’re not spending enough in gov’t.  And we’re too stupid to understand that.

    If this is Obama’s case, he truly does think we’re all idiots, or he himself is the Stupidest Man on the Planet.  I’m actually thinking it’s the 2nd one, not the first.  He’s the perfect example of the incompetent who’s only safe home is in a college somewhere, so he can’t hurt himself by questioning his beliefs too hard.

    • #24
  25. Profile Photo Inactive
    @MatthewGilley

    That sentence is a Gordian Knot of ignorance.

    • #25
  26. Profile Photo Inactive
    @KCMulville

    He must have missed Econ-101, theory of public goods.

    Besides, corporate taxes are already the highest in the world. Seems like we’ve already paid for what “others” have done.

    But beyond that, it’s completely disingenuous. It’s on par with saying that unless we raise taxes, the firemen get whacked. What he’s trying to do is soften the ground to raise taxes, by arguing that taxes are needed to rebuild the infrastructure.

    But the taxes he wants to raise aren’t going to go to the infrastructure. They already had money to rebuild the infrastructure – that’s what the original Obama stimulus was about. The projects weren’t there. The money accomplished nothing.

    If you give Obama more money, the best we can hope for is that he’ll use it to pay down some debt. But that’s a pipe dream; we all know what he really intends to do with it: i.e., political grease. He wants to give it away (under various disguises) to Democrat Party supporters. 

    • #26
  27. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Todd
    Tom Roberts: There’s a transcript here of  a longer segment of the speech – basically the same claptrap that Elizabeth Warren came out with a while back.

    Their assumption seems to be that if the government didn’t build the roads, there would be no roads. Or if the government didn’t provide public schools, that people would not be educated.  And so on.

    I could easily imagine a world where roads were built and people were educated without the force of government.  And my guess is that those roads and schools would probably be better.

    Their inability to examine the both the seen and unseen is quite stunning.

    • #27
  28. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Todd

    And this could easily be turned right back against them. 

    “You want to provide free MRI’s and free vaccines and free health care?  Where do they think these things came from?  Somebody made that happen!”

    • #28
  29. Profile Photo Member
    @

    This great that this view is being discussed and seen. How many business owners are there and they vote Republican anyway so is this such a bad political speech for most voters? How do you take this and turn it around so that the voter gets annoyed by this Marxist philosophy which is the killer of the American dream. Yes, the US now has the highest corporate tax in the G20 and Canada has one of the lowest. I have a request a day from US funds and Europeans and Chinese investors looking for companies to buy. They tell me they are avoiding the US. Our Government is funding sales trips to China, Europe, for business owners to stop America from being our top trade partner. This message of anti business is heard in other countries and the capital flows away from this Socialist attitude.

    • #29
  30. Profile Photo Member
    @GeorgeSavage
    FightinInPhilly: Sorry to be lame- but is there a longer version of the quote? 4 hours ago

    It is too long to post here, but The Washington Times has the complete quote.  In my opinion, greater length doesn’t do more than reinforce the Castro-in-English feel.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.