In April 2011, Verizon rolled out a series of ads in which a little girl uses wireless smart phone technology to build her lemonade stand into a thriving corporation.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil described the ads as “a wonderful depiction of the enormous power of the tools that are in all of our hands — illustrating the democratization of innovation, and the increasing youthfulness of entrepreneurship.” They get at a basic truth: Good ideas unleash economic growth and create jobs, and anyone who is willing to put their good ideas into action stands a good chance of succeeding.
President Obama would likely say that Susie didn’t build her business, and Verizon didn’t build its business. They both used government roads and infrastructure to build their businesses and therefore owe more of what they earn to the government, in the form of higher taxes.
But the early 21st century reality in America is that not only is government not enabling the creation of business, it is actively getting in the way. Suppose Susie actually existed and wanted to start a lemonade stand. From one state to another, government would send out its law enforcement officials to stop her cold.
Georgia: MIDWAY, Ga. — Police in Georgia have shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls trying to save up for a trip to a water park, saying they didn’t have a business license or the required permits.
Iowa: CORALVILLE, Iowa — Police in Coralville shut down at least three lemonade stands run by children over RAGBRAI weekend. According to Dustin Krutsinger, police shut down his four-year-old daughters stand after just 30 minutes. Krutsinger said the officer told his wife, “this isn’t the first time I’ve had to do this.”
Krutsinger said his daughter was selling lemonade for 25 cents a glass, and had made less than $5. According to the city of Coralville, 4-year-old Abigail Krutsinger was in violation of a two day ordinance, which required all vendors to have permits when RAGBRAI rolled into town.
Government hostility to the simple lemonade stand has gotten so bad that Forbes declared it a “war” and last August there was a protest in Washington. With arrests.
Now let’s look again at President Obama’s condescending anti-work remarks. I’ll highlight a different part than the section that has drawn the most attention.
“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, there are a whole bunch of hard working people out there!” He goes on from there to tout various government services, used by the wildly successful and the totally slothful, as the basis for anyone’s success in life. Other than his words, the most disturbing thing about what he said is the cheers he enjoyed. These are the people who put bumper stickers on their cars calling for killing all rich people.
It’s Obama’s pipe dream, that government deserves credit for your success. A government that powerful, though, can also create an environment that makes it more difficult to succeed. Obama never mentions that. “You didn’t build that” may be the most demeaning thing an American president has ever said to those who, through their own blood, sweat and tears, built successful businesses. I certainly don’t remember any government officials helping us when we started Hot Air back in 2006. We worked 20 hour days and sacrificed nearly everything — personally, I sacrificed my career at NASA — to see that effort succeed, and it has.
The reality is, whether we’re talking about lemonade stands or his EPA regulations or ObamaTax, Barack Obama stands atop a government that is becoming more and more hostile to individual rights, free markets and economic freedom. His government is not an enabler of success, it is a destroyer of success.
At least he’s kept one campaign promise. . . to fundamentally transform America.
This isn’t the change we were hoping for.
become an asshole all by himself
For the last decade or so, I’ve had a dream of buying some farm land, putting in some grape vines, trees, a garden, maybe a couple bee hives or cattle or maybe even chickens, and just enjoying what it produces.
But in a way I’ve “gone Galt” on this dream. It’s an expensive dream — not just the land, but the equipment and stock and supplies, too. It likely wouldn’t net me a penny, just the satisfaction. And, like any farming, it’s risky. There’s a good chance none of it would produce.
And the last few years I’ve read more and more about the government interfering with private farms. You can’t drink the milk from your own herd; you can’t serve your friends the produce from your own farm; you can’t do this, you can’t do that.
Now what I hear from the left is that they lay claim to every second of my labor. Oh, they’ll let me keep some scraps — what they consider “reasonable” — but if I get too far ahead, well… How long until they decide they’re entitled to the literal fruit of the vine I’ve tended, as well as the metaphorical?
Why put work into anything when a third of the country openly states they’ll steal it from me?
That day arrived some time ago: United States v. Valentine Y. Byler. Even before that, a Supreme Court decision addressing the Constitutionality of military conscription upheld the practice as a tax paid in personal service rather than in cash.
Why we haven’t yet taken the muskets down from the mantel, I simply can’t imagine.
I remember in the past when there has been a lemonade stand set up in the neighborhood. The cost was about 25 cents per small cup. Seeing the joy on the kids faces was definitely worth the small outlay (which was probably less than the actual cost). I think the parents did the kids a favor (then at least) to show them how the real world works.
Unfortunately, Obama doesn’t know how a real world works – just the utopia that he and his fellow lefists (like Chavez, Castro, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, the French peasants during the reign of terror) dream of.
What amazes me is how close reality is following “Atlas Shrugged”. It’s almost as if you can use the book as a blueprint for what will come next.
Ask the CEO of Gibson Guitar how helpful the government is to his business.
Why Romney and the GOP don’t bring this up is beyond me, talk about low hanging fruit….
“Smart” and “hard-working” are closely associated with business success, but Obama displays his ignorance by not asking the truly right question: “Did I produce something other people want and are willing to pay for?”.
Nobody gets paid for “being smart” or “working hard”, they’re paid because those talents translate to desirable outputs – something Obama, with a life of academia, community organizing, and government, has zero clue about.
we are just another third world country, Obama is just finihsing off wht his predecessors started.
Socially-conscious business plan for a kid’s lemonade stand:
“Think of all the little poor children who can’t afford lemonade and whose mommies and daddies have to work two jobs and can’t help them build their own lemonade stands or buy lemonade from you. If all Americans cannot have equal access to lemonade, then your lemonade business is not worth starting.
“In addition, the fact that you plan to spend all the money you worked for instead of sharing it with the Government without which there would be no roads that the trucks can use to bring the lemonade mix from the factory to the grocery store or that you can use to get to the grocery store to buy the lemonade or for the customers can use to get to your lemonade stand, or sidewalks for you to set your lemonade stand up on, and the fact that you don’t have a business license and your place of business fails to meet city, country, state, or federal safety and sanitation standards for food preparation facilities, renders your business model untenable.
Why don’t you just go out and play?”