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Why do people make a lot of money for starting a successful business? Because they took a risk and have proven that an idea has merit. Once you have a successfu

Why do people make a lot of money for starting a successful business? Because they took a risk and have proven that an idea has merit. Once you have a successful proven business growing it is just a matter of grinding through a lot of steps. (Keeping on top is a different matter). If a startup had invented the internet we would trumpet that as the crowning achievement of free enterprise. If a small company had come up with the idea for a transcontinental railroad, we would give them all the credit even if many others profited in their wake. But the government spawns both of these things and you minimize their importance as "just" the seed for it. It was a lot more than land in the case of the railroads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railway_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railway_Act It was a lot more than just a few networks at DARPA for the internet, and privatizing a road that the government already built isn't all that hard - you are privatizing maintenance not the initial hard part of construction. When a private company can build a new bridge over the hudson I'll eat my words, but I don't believe they ever will do something like that. The bottom line is that the private sector is not good at some things, and our taxes pay for those things. And to say that the government has no impact on the money that you have made or the success you have had is flat BS. All of the people at my startup came through public schools, all of them are of the age where they grew up in those schools when taxes were significantly higher. We shortchange our kids today for our own greed even though we grew up during a time of higher taxes. Thats the bottom line.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Nobody is saying that government isn't good at some things that the private sector is not good at. You are changing the argument. Your statement was that we owe the government "A Good Chunk" for some "things" that cause people to be rich. All of these things were "built on the backs of people paying significantly higher taxes than our selfish generation pays today" I pointed out that your examples are examples of private sector and government cooperation at best, and government mucking around at worst. The private sector is NOT good at some things. Point taken and agreed. However, we have rich people and private sector profitable work all over the globe, in all sorts of governmental conditions. We have businesses that operate without roads or electricity, businesses that work under onerous governmental regulations and no regulations at all. Your thesis -- that rich folks owe the government "a good chunk" is not supported by your examples. Furthermore, countless counter-examples exist. You just can't wave your arms around and say "infrastructure" a bunch of times and make an argument. Infrastructure is not a prerequisite for people to get rich. Even if it was, people should not be indebted to nations for things that their great grandparents did -- the social contract is about here and now, not 50 years ago. Rich people are in no way morally indebted, at least as far as I can tell. Your case is thus: Infrastructure helps people get rich. Rich people live in a environment with infrastructure. The government is the sole provider of said infrastructure. Therefore, rich people owe the government more. If I'm not understanding please correct me, but you're not making any sense at all to me. It sounds like just a slogan you're repeating over and over. I'm going to bow out unless you have something truly useful. It's beginning to sound like we're talking past each other.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

Nobody is saying that government isn't good at some things that the private sector is not good at. You are changing the argument. Your statement was that we owe the government "A Good Chunk" for some "things" that cause people to be rich. All of these things were "built on the backs of people paying significantly higher taxes than our selfish generation pays today" I pointed out that your examples are examples of private sector and government cooperation at best, and government mucking around at worst. The private sector is NOT good at some things. Point taken and agreed. However, we have rich people and private sector profitable work all over the globe, in all sorts of governmental conditions. We have businesses that operate without roads or electricity, businesses that work under onerous governmental regulations and no regulations at all. Your thesis -- that rich folks owe the government "a good chunk" is not supported by your examples. Furthermore, countless counter-examples exist. You just can't wave your arms around and say "infrastructure" a bunch of times and make an argument. Infrastructure is not a prerequisite for people to get rich. Even if it was, people should not be indebted to nations for things that their great grandparents did -- the social contract is about here and now, not 50 years ago. Rich people are in no way morally indebted, at least as far as I can tell. Your case is thus: Infrastructure helps people get rich. Rich people live in a environment with infrastructure. The government is the sole provider of said infrastructure. Therefore, rich people owe the government more. If I'm not understanding please correct me, but you're not making any sense at all to me. It sounds like just a slogan you're repeating over and over. I'm going to bow out unless you have something truly useful. It's beginning to sound like we're talking past each other.