Mitt Romney misquoted Barack Obama: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen,”and then said, “Speaking Tuesday in Irwin, Pa., Romney called the remark “startling and revealing” and said that it was “extraordinary that a philosophy of that nature would be spoken by a president of the United States.
He ran with the idea. “The idea that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple, that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motors, that Papa John didn’t build Papa Johns, that Ray Kraut didn’t build McDonalds, that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft,” Romney said. “It’s not just foolishness, its insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America and it’s wrong.”
Of course, Mr. Obama said that we all benefit from the common nvestment in schools, infrastructure, etc.
To help Mr. Mitt:
Steve Jobs did not build Apple, Wozniak built the computers, used parts that came out of the US space program and from physics labs, and was able to sell them (even though they were pretty sad in comparison to other PCs at that time) because Dan Bricklin wrote Visicalc for the Applke II and Jobs was a marketing genius.
Henry Ford was pretty damn clever and does deserve huge admiration. Of course Mr. Ford was also a major suporeter of Adolph Hitler.
Bill Gates, with Pual Allen, took the publically funded basic from Lemeny at Dartmouth and adapted it to run on a toy .. the Altair. That toy, the first true PC, was built with parts that again came from US government funded research. Of curse Gates also benefitted immensley from having a very rich father who supported his son until MS took off.
Ray Kraut did not create McD, he bought it and marketed it. His main tool was the US highways system built by the Socialist President, Eisenhower. no highways, 15 cent burgers! Also McD benefotted and still does from the huge subsidy the US beef industry gets.
Papa John??? well …… at least they do nto moutsource their jobs to China!