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Economy
8 Shocking, Funny and Revealing Things Obama Told the Chamber of Commerce
2011-02-07
I'm here in the interest of being more neighborly. Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when we first moved in.
Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Rogers, but you're enough of a fruitcake for anyone.
I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders. I get it. But as we work with you to make America a better place to do business, ask yourselves what you can do for America.

I want to put more people to work rebuilding crumbling roads and bridges.

To make room for these investments in education, innovation, and infrastructure, government also has a responsibility to cut the spending that we just can't afford. That's why I've promised to veto any bill larded up with earmarks

We're trying to run the government more like you run your businesses - with better technology and faster services. In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.

The perils of too much regulation are matched by the dangers of too little

If we're fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports to help you compete, the benefits can't just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They should be shared by American workers.

We can create a virtuous cycle.
It's much like a cycle of violence, only it runs counter-clockwise.
Posted by:tipper

#11  Pan, I think TW is gobsmacked. We all know Obozo has never run a business and hasn't even read a book about it ("profit-to-earnings" ratio?) Now his fruitcake remark reveals that he doesn't even know jack about such a routine life activity as moving. (A), you bring banana bread, not fruitcake, and (B) it's the neighbor who brings it to the new people moving in (who are tired and can't easily access kitchen items for cooking).

To flub that not only suggests a total void where minimal knowledge of some basic etiquette should be (his own speeches on an iPod for the Queen? Ugh. We knew that too) - but that he's unaware of the customs, courtesies, and culture of his own (alleged?) country.

As a girl, I helped my mom clean decades of fruitcakes out of my grandmother's giant freezer. Layered in there like sediment, those at the bottom had labels bearing a year long before I was born. They are traditional, but no one actually eats them. Fruitcakes have the flavor and weight of a brick and do not make nice gifts, except to a boy with a mini catapult who can use them as ammo.
Posted by: RandomJD   2011-02-08 00:19  

#10  pan, I was responding to the first sentence of the article, which I should have quoted first. This one:

Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when we first moved in.

Ok, Barbara, that's three of us who like fruitcake. About the cat: to be fair, they didn't know they packed him. He snuck into a half-wrapped couch while the packers went to lunch, and slept through them finishing the job. Thank God the movers didn't load the shipping container until the next day -- the container was on the ship and unheated/cooled storage for two months before we moved into the rental. The diapers were in the diaper pail -- don't laugh, I'd never had movers do the work before, and hadn't thought that bit through, either -- happily, they were nicely mulched by the time we unpacked.
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-02-07 23:53  

#9  T-wife: Huh?

You say what, exactly?
Posted by: pan   2011-02-07 22:35  

#8  I love fruitcake, tw - at least Claxton's (almost all fruit, very little cake).

They packed the cat? How'd they catch it to pack?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2011-02-07 22:32  

#7  The perils of too much regulation are matched by the dangers of too little

Not to worry Barry; I think we've avoided that one.
Posted by: Secret Master   2011-02-07 22:10  

#6  Clearly the man has never managed a move in his entire life. Who brings over fruitcake? As far as I can tell, only lotp and I actually like fruitcake, and then it takes a solid month of marinating in liquor before it's ready to serve. Besides, in America it's the people already there who bring the newcomers a coffee cake or quickbread that one whipped up while the movers were busy. I generally make carrot cake or banana bread; the best one I ever received was a pumpkin bread.

In any case, I can't imagine getting the movers to properly pack up last year's fruitcake along with Grandma's secretary and Baby's used diapers (I once had extremely efficient moving men. They also packed up the cat without realizing it.) That's the kind of thing one gives away to friends before leaving, to save a few pennies and make things easier at the far end.
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-02-07 21:56  

#5  Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when we first moved in.

That comes off as incredibly condescending, given that there are some serious issues between Obama and the Chamber of Commerce; his dislike of market economies and over-fondness for regulation being only two of them. When he says "I get it", you know it is just a rhetorical flourish.
Posted by: SteveS   2011-02-07 20:59  

#4  I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders. I get it. But as we work with you to make America a better place to do business, ask yourselves what you can do for America.

See preceeding sentence, ie, SHAREHOLDERS!!! Dumb ass!!!
Posted by: Besoeker   2011-02-07 17:12  

#3  "you need to concentrate less on the bottom line, and more on how you can facilitate organizing your community"
Posted by: Frank G   2011-02-07 17:09  

#2  and the tea party, and the ranchers and farmers, and the small buisnessman, and the community bankers, and on and on.
Posted by: bman   2011-02-07 15:38  

#1  So Obama wants to give the Muslim Brotherhood a seat at the table in Egypt but he has been at war with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. WTF?
Posted by: JohnQC   2011-02-07 15:06  

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