obama basically saying the rich got that way through luck or handouts

I find this very very offensive. He's gone off the rails. This is now the second time in a week he's implied that rich people got that way out of luck or people handing them something. I bet you $5k he doesn't think he became president because he was lucky or handed things. Only those jerk rich people.

Obama to business owners: 'You didn't build that' | Fox News


If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. 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. Somebody else made that happen,” he said. “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

 

So infrastructure and environment has nothing to do with success?

 

we all have equal access to freeways and the internet. if that's all it took everyone would own their own company.

 

WOW! I've been standing in the wrong lines to get help. All along I though it was going to school, passing classes and getting two diplomas. What was I thinking?

 

be warned. some bad luck and you can go from making $1 mil a year to working at denny's. hard work and smarts never helped anyone. apparently there are lots' of extremely hard working and brilliant people making $15 an hour welding rivets at GM.

 

What a condescending piece of shit.

See, people become successful because they are either a) smarter b) work harder c) smarter and harder working than everyone else. People that get handed stuff rarely keep it.

The successful small businesses should thank the government for roads? It's why the f u c k we pay taxes. You don't get a pat on the back for doing your job.

 

BS. Too many turtles on fence posts. Luck and help are factors. A lot of people get a leg up due to gov and never even realize it.

 

I'll agree that sometimes people get good breaks, but they had to a) put themselves in position to get a good break and b) take advantage of the opportunity when it is in front of them. Luck and assistance are certainly involved in most cases of becoming rich I'm sure, but it's stupid to pretend that that's all there is too it.

 

let me ask you a question. do you know any extremely smart and hard working people who are unsuccessful in life? i'm not talking about making a mil a year, but having a good job, stable income etc? i don't. i know smart people working paycheck to paycheck, but are they workign their ass off? no way. i actually know very few hardworking people (not even smart) working paycheck to paycheck or unemployed. you can convince me a guy like mark zuckerburg is a billionare, rather than say a very wealthy person, because he was in the right place, with the right idea, at the right time. but don't tell me that guy in another life isnt' making big money doing something else.

 

No man lives on an island, but this isn't anything but class warfare and pandering

 

When I say infrastructure, i mean more than internet and highways. You went to a public school that operates witg state and federal funding. You operate in a legal and logistic framework maintained by government. There are no islands of wealth. It was The Wealth of NATIONS for a reason

 

How's that hope and change coming?

 

of course. i also was born here rather than north korea. i had good parents. i'm not arguing everyone starts at birth on the same field. i'm arguing that this theory that the rich get there simply by birth or luck is bs. it makes the middle class feel better to think that they arent' as successful as other people because those people got handed their life. it has no basis in reality.

 

No, not just by birth or luck. That just helps immensely. Did Obama say they only got there by luck or birth? Did he say they didn't work hard or be smart to get there? No. He explicitly said the opposite by saying it wasnt JUST because of those things.

 

I know a fair amount of wealthy people. None of them are self-made. Maybe i am just young with young friends.

 

How?

People either work their asses off and put themselves in a position of success or they don't.

 

"There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there."

if that's what he is saying than why imply the middle classes is filled with people just like the rich? what's the difference between those groups according to him? birth and luck no? i don't see him saying that hard work or being smart is needed to be rich. if anything he is saying exactly the opposite.

 

Paid for by the taxes levied against those working. The way he comes across is that no one is able to operate without Big Brother helping them out, which is complete and total bullshit.

 

Will they continue to be wealthy of their family makes them go out on their own? Being born into money helps, but you don't keep it unless you figure out a way to make more. That takes either brains or a work ethic, usually both.

There will always be rich people that are rich simply because they were given more than they could spend. That money was made by someone working to get it.

 

every study i've seen has shown the overwelming majority of millionares are self made.