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Strawman. I never took any absolutist position. That was you, claiming that 9/10 businesses failed because of bad luck.
Here it is folks, he's redefined the word risk.
Risk is no longer "exposure to the chance of injury or loss" as defined in the dictionary, risk is now "exposure to the grim reaper"
Okay.
You're wrong.
Strawman. Never said that.
I said chance did not play the key role.
I wasn't referring to the bus when I said that. I was referring to the percentage of business success defined by luck.
Stab.
Well some of us work hard and are more successful than others. I, for example, work harder than anybody I know, and I get paid nicely for it. And yeah, about 98% of this is as a direct result of the work I do, not my good luck.
I got unlucky and got a flat tire last month. That cost me a tiny percentage of the money I've earned since. By doing work.
Okay, I'm with you.
Yes, this is common sense. Now, how much of this do you attribute to luck? That's what I'm asking you.
I hear you, but you don't have to explain to me what luck is, you just have to explain how luck is the dominant factor in determining success.
Yawn.
Yeah, we agree, except you keep ignoring that chance plays a role in success.
How many times do I have to say this? Chance plays a role in success.
Just not the primary/key role.
What kind of fantasy fairy land do these people live in?
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On the other hand, 9\10 business aren't incredibly successful. They all do what they're supposed to, but due to some event out of the business owners control (chance), one business becomes more successful than the others. That is a large reliance on luck. If luck played a small role, you'd have more "successes."
Apparently these people think random people are kidnapped or something, taken to a secret undisclosed random location and dropped off into a dark secret room with a big roller filled with pieces of paper with types of businesses written on them that's handed to them by some random pixie who then sprinkles pixie dust all over the new business owner who's then hauled off to a discrete fun house where homey-the-clown smacks them in the face with a rubber mallet and they suddenly have an epiphany about where they want to put their new found business.
I can only imagine what sort of Alice in Wonderland ideas they have running through their heads about keeping the books, marketing, pricing, labor, ordering, etc.
No wonder these people are complete failures. They based their entire futures like they were playing the game of The Game of Life.
Hey Sam, I'll bet you've noticed the same thing I've noticed: The harder I work, the luckier I get.
Lots of people work hard. My cleaning lady works hard. My gardener works hard. Taxi drivers work 12 hr. shifts. It's insulting to millions of hard working Americans to presume that hard work alone (e.g. it's about me) is what makes success.
It's a mixture of many things. Very important, as the President was stating, is the country that you live in. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would not have been a successes had they been born in Somalia, where they couldn't get the opportunities to become what they became. In Somalia, it's a struggle to survive; not so in America;
Without the educational infrastructure; the modern utilities and public infrastructure those two people would never be known to the world.
These concepts are not strangers to our history. Many others, including the founders of the nation accepted these concepts.
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Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, two men who literally built the country, expressed similar sentiments in the 1700s. And, reading the passages suggests that they wouldn't take all the credit for founding the country, either.
In a Christmas Day letter to Robert Morris in 1783, Franklin wrote that "the remissness of our people in paying taxes is highly blameable," and that "all property…seems to me to be the creature of public convention."
He continues:
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"All the Property that is necessary to a man, for the conservation of the individual and the propagation of the species, is his natural right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all property superfluous to such purposes is the property of the publick, who, by their laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the welfare of the publick shall demand such disposition. He that does not like civil society on these terms, let him retire and live among savages."
Paine, in 1795's Agrarian Justice, puts it even more bluntly:
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"Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally."
"Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich,"
Who needs to win the Powerball when we hit the hard/smart work lottery everyday?
Oh, BigJon, it is OK to talk about this secret quite openly. The President of the United States has been assuring the country that smarts and hard work don't enter into it: " 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..."
This is a treasure that is hiding in plain sight. It is quite safe. And besides, if more people discovered it, we would all be richer--the better off your customers are, the better off you will be. America is not a zero-sum game.
Oh, BigJon, it is OK to talk about this secret quite openly. The President of the United States has been assuring the country that smarts and hard work don't enter into it:
.
Why do you feel it is necessary to lie about what the President ACTUALLY said? Do you feel that the merit of your argument is so weak that the only what to boost it is to lie? The President did not say that "smarts and hard work" are unimportant. In fact, he said the opposite. This is the direct quote:
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The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
Again, these are not controversial ideas. The country was founded by people who had the same ideas.
Man, you right-wingers would take exception to Obama if he read the Gettysburg Address.
Why do you feel it is necessary to lie about what the President ACTUALLY said? Do you feel that the merit of your argument is so weak that the only what to boost it is to lie? The President did not say that "smarts and hard work" are unimportant. In fact, he said the opposite. This is the direct quote:
Good try-
The "full speech" has been heard many times. The implication of the message is that the state and government support trumps individual effort. It is the message of a socialist who values the government and its influence over that of the individual.
That is simply who Obama is (and what most liberals believe)- that the rights and actions of the government supercede those of the individual. Do you deny that this is true?
The "full speech" has been heard many times. The implication of the message is that the state and government support trumps individual effort. It is the message of a socialist who values the government and its influence over that of the individual.
That is simply who Obama is (and what most liberals believe)- that the rights and actions of the government supercede those of the individual. Do you deny that this is true?
No, that's not what the implication of the message. The message is that when we succeed, we do it together.
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The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.
As Jon Stewart said, "when someone says "the point is," the stuff after that 9 out of 10 times IS the point." The righties just want to create a fake controversy .
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