- Jun 6, 2007
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President Obama has been heavily criticized for his "If you got a business you didn't build that!" comment in a speech in Roanoke, Va on July 13. Critics say he was disparaging business owners, attacking success and stoking class warfare with his speech but that is an unfair evaluation. His speech in Roanoke was actually quite good its theme that America needs to restore the American dream to its people where if you work hard and play by the rules you will earn enough money to have a good life is exactly what ordinary Americans want to hear! The "you didn't build that" comment has been taken out of context by the President's critics, if one reviews the entire speech it is clear the President was referring to fact that the American people past and present have made collective contributions whether it be in education and transportation infrastructure for example which have made it possible for that business owner to achieve the success he or she has as a business owner; in fact, in the speech the President actually says
"the point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative" so the President recognizes business owners hard work and effort in building their businesses. The President touched on a topic here which in our public debates we don't focus on enough which is that the wealthy and big businesses and their executives overall, there is many exceptions, don't meet their civic obligations. These individuals and businesses don't remember the contributions of Americans past and present to their success. Businesses that operate in America have the benefit of operating in a large overall wealthy country where consumers not only have a lot of money to spend but access to lots of credit; the laws across the country are such that it is relatively easy to conduct business across the country as the President alluded to the country's transportation system is relatively good; the tax rates in the country are likewise relatively good where a business owner gets to keep at least a good portion of his or her profit from his or her business; and business owners don't have to worry about having to bribe government and non-government officials to conduct business as well dealing with theft related problems. All these good things as well as many other good things which makes business owners success in America possible are the results of the service and efforts of countless Americans past and present. The point being and cannot be underscored enough is that business owners in America and their executives owe a duty to the American people collectively to do right by the American people collectively to consider their interests and to do what is good by their interests, and to a large degree the American business community and their executives are failing egregiously in fulfilling this duty, notable examples abound!
This year America is experiencing the worst drought that it has in generations, farmers in large numbers are just giving up plowing over the crops in their fields cutting down crops before they've developed to get some animal feed value from them. This would just be a terrible situation that the country would have to quietly endure if this was an aberration if it wasn't for the fact that the country has had significant drought and rain related problems for the prior two years the country pulled through because toward the latter part of the growing seasons the weather was favorable enough for farmers squeeze out a decent crop. Not this year though even the U.S. government is predicting that food prices will increase on average 3 to 4 percent during the next year because of this drought and to ordinary Americans the prices for food are already too high especially for bread and meat. What should really make ordinary Americans angry even livid is that during the past two years the farming industry and their allies and not to forget the U.S. government has been promulgating this false gospel that America has no more significant amount of arable land for farming America is tapped out when it comes to farm land. This is a huge injustice America has an abundance of land that could be utilized for farming people in power in government and the respective industries have to just push for the agricultural utilization of this land. This writer is from Pennsylvania and if one drives suburban and rural roads in Pennsylvania one has to conclude it is an absurd conclusion America is tapped out on farm land; sure there may not be many locations where one can add thousand acre farms but the country has almost countless locations where a farmer could locate at least a twenty-five to one-hundred acre farm field. America has a long history of such small farms even its modern history there is many forty and older Americans I am sure that remember in their youth many small farm fields which today are lands that have residential developments on them. If truth be told big farming corporations, grain processors, financial institutions that run commodity exchanges and big investors in commodities don't want America to grow an abundance of grains that would keep prices low and consequently their profits low. If the leadership in these vested interests groups decided to act with a social conscience like they should they would allow America to bring more farm land on line, America could see a significant improvement in commodity supplies in one year and have this supply problem go away in five years. America should have enough farm land on line across the nation where it can survive two years of drought like the drought it is currently experiencing and see no dramatic rise in commodity prices. The federal government could do this by supporting loans for small farmers, assembling teams of experts throughout the country helping good applicants for small farming to enter into the industry, the federal government could make laws such that for owners of land that are willing to lease their land for farming they receive tax credits (only to be used against income from farming) to pay for modifications to the land to make it suitable for farming and to pay for increased real estate taxes if such ensues. Because of this drought the price of corn has exceeded $8.00 a bushel around three years ago corn was selling at slightly above $3.00 a bushel if government and industry were doing their job corn would be selling at about $3.50 to $3.75 a bushel which is fair to consumers and fair to farmers; the price of other grains mirrors this shocking situation of corn and should be corrected likewise. The wealthy in America have the power to fix this food problem and they better wake up start acting with a social conscience and do it or ordinary Americans will force them too and it might not be pretty how they force them too!
Another example of business owners and executives not acting with a social conscience is the case of Caterpillar and its treatment of its union workforce, specifically, in Jolliet, Illinois. Caterpillar has a two-tiered wage scale with newer workers being paid $12.00 to $19.00/hour and older workers being paid on average $26.00/hr.. For a new contract, Caterpillar wants to freeze the higher wage workers pay and get them to increase their health insurance contribution up to $1900 per year with the lower wage workers Caterpillar has made no commitment on wage increases saying they might increase wages based on some local condition standard. Caterpillar argues that they need to pay market rate wages to stay competitive. This is a key part of the problem America has America's businesses always say they need to pay market rate how about making the standard be paying a good livable wage based on your profits. Caterpillar is and has been doing great for the last several years their stock price is doing very well of course due to their business it goes up and down with the economy, nevertheless, their profits are excellent last year it was $4.9 billion. Caterpillar pays their executives very well how about their rank and file workers. In light of Caterpillars profits and the compensation packages given to their executives at least they should be giving their union workers all their union workers a wage increase with the inflation rate if for the higher wage workers they want to use this inflation increase toward their added cost for health insurance premiums so be it, but none of the union workers should be paying more for their health insurance. Caterpillar complains about how costly this higher tier union worker cost them but they should remember those workers will not work forever one day they will leave and be replaced by the lower tier worker, Caterpillar has the money to pay these workers the compensation involved and this compensation is only that which would provide a good standard of living which is what a big business with a social conscience should have as its goal!
"the point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative" so the President recognizes business owners hard work and effort in building their businesses. The President touched on a topic here which in our public debates we don't focus on enough which is that the wealthy and big businesses and their executives overall, there is many exceptions, don't meet their civic obligations. These individuals and businesses don't remember the contributions of Americans past and present to their success. Businesses that operate in America have the benefit of operating in a large overall wealthy country where consumers not only have a lot of money to spend but access to lots of credit; the laws across the country are such that it is relatively easy to conduct business across the country as the President alluded to the country's transportation system is relatively good; the tax rates in the country are likewise relatively good where a business owner gets to keep at least a good portion of his or her profit from his or her business; and business owners don't have to worry about having to bribe government and non-government officials to conduct business as well dealing with theft related problems. All these good things as well as many other good things which makes business owners success in America possible are the results of the service and efforts of countless Americans past and present. The point being and cannot be underscored enough is that business owners in America and their executives owe a duty to the American people collectively to do right by the American people collectively to consider their interests and to do what is good by their interests, and to a large degree the American business community and their executives are failing egregiously in fulfilling this duty, notable examples abound!
This year America is experiencing the worst drought that it has in generations, farmers in large numbers are just giving up plowing over the crops in their fields cutting down crops before they've developed to get some animal feed value from them. This would just be a terrible situation that the country would have to quietly endure if this was an aberration if it wasn't for the fact that the country has had significant drought and rain related problems for the prior two years the country pulled through because toward the latter part of the growing seasons the weather was favorable enough for farmers squeeze out a decent crop. Not this year though even the U.S. government is predicting that food prices will increase on average 3 to 4 percent during the next year because of this drought and to ordinary Americans the prices for food are already too high especially for bread and meat. What should really make ordinary Americans angry even livid is that during the past two years the farming industry and their allies and not to forget the U.S. government has been promulgating this false gospel that America has no more significant amount of arable land for farming America is tapped out when it comes to farm land. This is a huge injustice America has an abundance of land that could be utilized for farming people in power in government and the respective industries have to just push for the agricultural utilization of this land. This writer is from Pennsylvania and if one drives suburban and rural roads in Pennsylvania one has to conclude it is an absurd conclusion America is tapped out on farm land; sure there may not be many locations where one can add thousand acre farms but the country has almost countless locations where a farmer could locate at least a twenty-five to one-hundred acre farm field. America has a long history of such small farms even its modern history there is many forty and older Americans I am sure that remember in their youth many small farm fields which today are lands that have residential developments on them. If truth be told big farming corporations, grain processors, financial institutions that run commodity exchanges and big investors in commodities don't want America to grow an abundance of grains that would keep prices low and consequently their profits low. If the leadership in these vested interests groups decided to act with a social conscience like they should they would allow America to bring more farm land on line, America could see a significant improvement in commodity supplies in one year and have this supply problem go away in five years. America should have enough farm land on line across the nation where it can survive two years of drought like the drought it is currently experiencing and see no dramatic rise in commodity prices. The federal government could do this by supporting loans for small farmers, assembling teams of experts throughout the country helping good applicants for small farming to enter into the industry, the federal government could make laws such that for owners of land that are willing to lease their land for farming they receive tax credits (only to be used against income from farming) to pay for modifications to the land to make it suitable for farming and to pay for increased real estate taxes if such ensues. Because of this drought the price of corn has exceeded $8.00 a bushel around three years ago corn was selling at slightly above $3.00 a bushel if government and industry were doing their job corn would be selling at about $3.50 to $3.75 a bushel which is fair to consumers and fair to farmers; the price of other grains mirrors this shocking situation of corn and should be corrected likewise. The wealthy in America have the power to fix this food problem and they better wake up start acting with a social conscience and do it or ordinary Americans will force them too and it might not be pretty how they force them too!
Another example of business owners and executives not acting with a social conscience is the case of Caterpillar and its treatment of its union workforce, specifically, in Jolliet, Illinois. Caterpillar has a two-tiered wage scale with newer workers being paid $12.00 to $19.00/hour and older workers being paid on average $26.00/hr.. For a new contract, Caterpillar wants to freeze the higher wage workers pay and get them to increase their health insurance contribution up to $1900 per year with the lower wage workers Caterpillar has made no commitment on wage increases saying they might increase wages based on some local condition standard. Caterpillar argues that they need to pay market rate wages to stay competitive. This is a key part of the problem America has America's businesses always say they need to pay market rate how about making the standard be paying a good livable wage based on your profits. Caterpillar is and has been doing great for the last several years their stock price is doing very well of course due to their business it goes up and down with the economy, nevertheless, their profits are excellent last year it was $4.9 billion. Caterpillar pays their executives very well how about their rank and file workers. In light of Caterpillars profits and the compensation packages given to their executives at least they should be giving their union workers all their union workers a wage increase with the inflation rate if for the higher wage workers they want to use this inflation increase toward their added cost for health insurance premiums so be it, but none of the union workers should be paying more for their health insurance. Caterpillar complains about how costly this higher tier union worker cost them but they should remember those workers will not work forever one day they will leave and be replaced by the lower tier worker, Caterpillar has the money to pay these workers the compensation involved and this compensation is only that which would provide a good standard of living which is what a big business with a social conscience should have as its goal!
