Hank Miller’s grandfather started the family’s ship outfitting business more than a century ago at the Boston Seaport. Harry Miller Co., now a textile firm based in Roxbury, employs 70 people whose livelihood can be traced to that man, and the risks he took long ago.
But in recent years, the company has also thrived with the help of government military contracts and financing for its factory.
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As any reasonably informed person knows by now, President Obama's 'built it' comment was taken wildly out of context. Obama was talking about our nation's infrastructure, not businesses. What he actually said was:
"...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. 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....."
As this article points out, many businesses, if not most, also benefit directly from government contracts or programs, but even if they do not, they have all benefitted from the roads, bridges, fire and police services, educational system, and numerous other things we do in common that no business will do alone (unless paid to), and that's the simple truth, while the GOP's spin of it is sheer mendacity.
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"...many Liberals are indeed deeply suspicious of the profit motive..."
And many 'Conservatives' are indeed deeply suspicious of all manner of crazy nonsense (socialism, vast media conspiracies, Spanish-speaking Americans, just to name a few) so should we judge the GOP based on some supporters fringe beliefs?
Besides, I'm sure people with suspicions about the negative effects of the 'profit motive' have ample personal experience to justify their concerns, as I'm sure you do. For example, when was the last time you felt convinced 'new and improved' actually turned out to be either?
Only a fool thinks a successful business can built without the support and infrastructure that only a government can provide. Only a fool believes he deserves full credit for a collaborative effort. I guess Scott Brown thinks we are all fools....or should be.
It's this attitude that turned the POTUS' comment sour in the first place. "Only a fool" ? Who said that the people who are/were offended by the comment are fools? You did. They are not fools, and neither is the POTUS. The comment, a gaffe to be sure, was belittling; it wasn't meant to be, but it was. If it hadn't been, then all the back pedaling would not be necessary. I'm not anti-Obama, either -- but that comment? Why not admit that there were plenty of other ways to state that the goverment and private business owners work together -- which is obvious -- but say it in a more supportive, and less patronizing way? That would have made all the difference.
The Republicans pounced on the Presidents comments that nobody built a business by themselves. What was meant by the comment as explained by the President later is that a business needs to get goods to customers, they need to get supplies to make products that all takes public infrastructure. What hasn't been talked about is the workers who actually end up building businesses. This takes nothing away from those who come up with great ideas or invest capital, but nobody truly builds a business by themselves. It takes cooperation with others and that is what society is all about.
What I find interesting is how Scott Brown is quick to stand by business owners but also quick to abandon workers. He voted three times to block extening unemployment benefits for the workers most of whom spent their lives building businesses. He only supported the benefit extension when he secured tax breaks for the extremely rich.
I don't think Romney ever build anything. He risked other people's money to finance new businesses. He didn't build those businesses, someone else did. He is the biggest phony of them all on this subject.
Albernese sounds like a tool who either can't think for himself or chooses to spread convoluted "facts" to support his/Brown's right agenda. Anyone who reads Obama's entire speach knows that this one line used repeatedly as an attack was taken out of context.
Where did the Government get the money to provide all this help?
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The idea that government contracts awarded to private business falls into the same category as tax breaks and exceptions to regulatory oversight for those same private businesses is a total absurdity being pandered by illogical Democratic Party hacks. Most government contracts are subject to bidding procedures and standards that involve usually severe competition. Of course there are lots of political hacks - in Massachusetts most of them Democrats - who influence awarding of public contracts. But where the playing fields are reasonably level, private companies earn their government contracts by quality of work, ability to keep costs lower than copmpetitors and imagination and work ethic. This ideologically-clad Harvard Law professor and her assertions that nobody has ever built a private business needs to redrape her ivory tower and tune up her lecture chords to prepare herself to get back to work where she belongs - in an ivory tower and not in the halls of Congress. The woman is an illogical panderer. Brown at least understands the basic rudiments of performing in the national legislature.
Brown is, perhaps, a "logical panderer"? "Lecture chords" ???
The GOP insists on being dishonest about what Obama said by taking a small phrase out of a long comment to totally mischaracterize what he said. Suggest the Republicans say something for themselves instead of building their campaign on lies. Lyin Ryan's whole speech at the Republican convention was full of more than six documented lies. Just google "Ryan's lies" and see many articles about this.