She Didn’t Build That! Now on Reddit…
This made the first page of Reddit:
On Tuesday night, small business owner Sher Valenzuela will address the nation at the RNC on how she “built it herself”. Unfortunately, she forgot to build www.firststatemanufacturing.com. So, I built it for her! (firststatemanufacturing.com)
This is hysterial!
Tags: Sher Valenzuela
I guess that was an actual slide show from a presentation she does going around saying how great the government is and how she really LOVES the economic impact of government spending. I’ll bet her speech in Tampa will follow the same line.
Tom Carper might even get a shout out!!
Delaware peeps — be sure to post this on your Facebook pages and tweet it out!
The parody site strikes me as just a bit racist. I suppose one can’t expect too much from reddit, so whatever.
I t could be down already and dang it… I didn’t get screen shots.
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We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact the webmaster/ tech support immediately to have them rectify this.
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The Repubs are going nuts trying to rearrange the shortened schedule. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sher gets bumped. I guess this week we find out which Repubs are on the C list.
This works:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.firststatemanufacturing.com/
Link is back up and running!
well played.
Sher and Eli Valenzuela are a successful couple who took the bull by the horns and built a company from nothing. They are entrepreneurs of the first caliber.
If they were democrats, you would be singing Sher’s praises. You would point out that she single-handedly in true woman style built and successful enterprise. This is true but she and her husband worked hand-in-hand working long hard hours while raising their family and an autistic son.
Say all you want about Sher and Eli Valenzuela but they are a true American success story.
Sher and Eli Valenzuela are a successful couple who took the bull by the horns and built a company from nothing. They are entrepreneurs of the first caliber.
Nobody disputes that part of the story.
they are a true American success story.
Yes they are. An American story made possible not only the indirect benefits of our publicly funded system, but in this case also direct government benefits.
There was a bull? They took it by the horns?
For Chissake, they started a business. Thousands of people do it every day. I realize you conservatives get a chubby over it, but the rest of us treat it as no more or less wonderful than people doing their jobs.
Perhaps it has escaped your notice as you bow towards Wall Street five times a day, but lots of us work in fields in which there’s no reason or opportunity to work for yourself.
If you’re a teacher, are you a failure if you don’t start your own private school? If you’re a researcher, are you a failure if you don’t start your own laboratory?
By raising the entrepreneur above the worker, conservatives want to start a new, privileged — call it aristocratic — class of people. Class warfare indeed.
Awesome, Geezer. I was sort of thinking along those lines but never figured out how to say it.
American big business has actually forced the creation of millions of small businesses – workers who are misclassified into being independent contractors (“permatemps”) so the big business can avoid paying benefits owed to their Class A workers.
Permatemps are actually employees, but if you want to pretend they are independent contractors, you have to say they are entrepreneurs. Of course these permtemps enjoy all the risk but none of the upsides of actual entrepreneurship.
Now there’s a reform worth pursuing – employee misclassification. It’s in the IRS’s ballpark (and the DOL’s), so it could be done by the executive branch.
One of the themes I think people miss here is the bit about the autistic son.
This family had an emergency in their health and education life. Instead of being able to solve that by, I dunno, routes where health and education were involved, they needed to take advantage of the ONLY government support… support for business.
So, is that the plan? If your kid has special needs you have to quit your jobs and roll ALL the dice on a start-up so you can deal with it? The D’s ought to put speakers up who tried that, or something like that, and it didn’t happen to pan out. (gold rush reference chosen with care) I know dozens of families who had to do that… quit at least one family member’s job (usually the woman’s because they’re paid less) in order to be a full-time advocate, and sometimes service provider, for a special needs child. We have millions of dollars of highly educated talent LOST to the larger society because we aren’t prepared to make our educational system work for all.
Only geezer could make visionary go-getters into villains. Got to love the lost generation of slacker Delaware youth. Finally hitting reality, boys! Have fun storming the castle!!!
Maybe I’m naive, but I still think that she’ll generously thank the taxpayers for underwriting and enabling her success. Depending on the generosity of taxpayers seems woven into her business philosophy, so I’m sure she’ll give credit where credit is due.
Why don’t they get it? We’re not hating on their success. Honestly, good for them and their successful business. It’s sort of thrilling that small businesses can still survive in this economy. Also, I’m sure they’re nice people.
What pisses people off is the hypocrisy. It’s the “I totally did this by myself (when I really didn’t) and you can too (when you really can’t) so we’re going to take away the government programs in place right now that make small business possible (and pull the ladder up after us).”
They DID build it, but the government gave them the money to buy the bricks. To say otherwise is disingenuous.
” Depending on the generosity of taxpayers seems woven into her business philosophy, so I’m sure she’ll give credit where credit is due.”
I wouldn’t call it taxpayer generosity. It’s more like self-interest. The whole point is that We The People feel it is in our country’s best interest to build the public infrastructure and to have the kind of government investment and regulation Sher benefits from. It’s Republicans who want to paint that as some kind of giveaway.
Unless the business over the length of its existence does not return the “investment” back in taxes paid, then government is ahead on the deal.
If the issue is so important, prove that FSM has been a net drain on the community, government, taxpayers, etc.
9:00 tonight. Here are the rules for the Sher Valenzuela speech drinking game. Open a bottle of your favorite adult beverage. When Sher’s hypocritical carping about how terrible the government is gets to be too painful, take a big ol’ drink. That should be about 2 minutes in depending on your pain tolerance.
I’m drinking tax-free, unregulated, uninspected moonshine made from creek water by candlelight, delivered by bootleggers in a homemade horse-drawn cart who will swear they did not use public roads.
Even if they have paid back that investment in taxes that still doesn’t change the fact that the business was helped by the government and not built by spit, determination and bootstrap pulling alone.
I maintain that saying so(on national tv at the RNC) is false and disingenuous. Also potentially damaging to future small business hopefuls. As visionary go-getters in Delaware business they should know better.
sher runs on the valenzuela name like she is the mexican in the family. she has milked the small business administration dry over the years but says government doesn’t support small businesses. she has an adopted son she kicked out of her house when he was 16. she is a tea party fanatic and a right wing nut job. has anyone ever talked to her husband. HE is a very nice man.
One simple response to Sher’s whining about government:
GIVE… BACK… THE… MONEY.
I think the hurricane may have saved Ms. Valenzuela from making an ass out of herself with her hypocritical wingnut anti-government diatribe. Looking at the schedule, I’ll bet she gets cut.
“Only geezer could make visionary go-getters into villains.”
Please show me where I made them into villains. I said they were no more worthy of admiration than workers. Are you saying workers are villains? Or are you just a typical conservative, plenty of mouth, no brain behind it?
Don’t confuse “help” with emotionless “capital”.
Government investment and private sector investment are simply options. A smart business owner weighs the advantages of each.
I own stock in many companies. I have no real pretentions to having built them. I expect to be paid or rewarded for my investment by selling that stock at a higher value at some point. I understood the risks of losing money as well. The pros outweighed the cons.
A smart business owner weighs the advantages of taking government money. A wingnut business owner takes the government money, then goes on to rant about how terrible the government is. Sher takes government money, rants about how terrible government is all the while pretending to be a minority, and wants to be cheering for being a rugged individualist who owes her success only to her own moxie and grit.
“sher runs on the valenzuela name like she is the mexican in the family”
No, she is the woman in the deal. . Federal set-asides give advantages to what’s known as “MWBE” – minority and women owned business enterprises.
I was surprised just now to find out FSM is also certified as a Veteran-owned business as well as a disadvantaged business, meaning that they are located in a disadvantaged area (take that, Milford!).
It is as though FSM was designed to capture maximum government set-aside funding. Here is their list of certifications from their own website, all of which can trigger preferences in government buying:
I’m not sure what happened to the “woman-owned” or MWBE listing – I’ll look into it.
call it help call it capital call it unicorn loans if you want. she didn’t do it by herself and she shouldn’t claim as much. period.
At first take, it appears FSM does not have women-owned status (WBE) because you need to have 51% woman ownership. They do however have minority-owned status (MBE) which requires also 51% minority ownership. Must have something to do with they way they have divided their shares (no pun intended).
Question is: would her business gotten off the ground if we did not have government supporting it? No.
Question is: would our economy be worse off if people and business were just left to their own means and we had no government help or supports? Yes, it would be worse off.
Question is: is supporting someone (Romney-Ryan) who supports something bad for the economy, (cutting out all government support and intervention) going to benefit the economy? No, supporting Romney Ryan will hurt the economy….
That is all that needs to be said… Cause it is true. Supporting Romney-Ryan will cut out the necessary platelets required to keep the economy breathing….
eli valenzuela is not service disabled and no sher’s business ONLY got off the ground because of government backed small business loans. She tried selling pamphlets she wrote on how to get small buisness loans a few years ago. She got almost everything based o her husband being mexican because let’s face it, women are not a minority in this country.
Well, on the site she didn’t build, FSM is announcing they are giving back all of their government help!
I look forward to all liberals posting here voluntarily returning all tax credits they have received for mortgage interest.
Why? We’re not here complaining about the government picking winners and losers or whatever the F you people are on about.
Point is you didn’t really pay for your house, or the portion you think you own. Even when you pay it off, it’s partly mine, your neighbor’s, the old guy down the street who mows the lawn in black socks, the second-generation publishing magnate whose dog squats and clenches on your flowers.
You are absolutely correct. Although we legally own our homes, we certainly didn’t acquire them without public help. Either directly through the interest deduction, or through the public infrastructure that allows our employers to exist, and the civic infrastructure that supports civilization. These are all good things that deserve public support.
So now it becomes a question of what to support and by how much.
Absolutely. We aren’t here complaining about the mortgage deduction, or the roads to our houses, or the fire departments or the police departments that help keep those houses safe. We don’t mind the government doing some things to make sure we can own nice houses, unlike Sher apparently.
That question you need to ask Sher then. She is the one campaigning against government backed loans and hanging with a group of people who claim they’ve built their businesses without government help.
In other words, ask Sher why she’s a hypocrite.
But you’re still missing the difference. There is competition from the private sector to provide support for businesses. Not the case for your personal mortgage tax credits.
Government has chosen in some cases to make their support more competitive. That is a variable that can be dialed up or down as economic conditions warrant.
Who is to say that Sher chose to accept the support because it made good business sense to her then, but now sees in some cases that it makes less sense from the government side? Who better to say thanks for the dough, but you really could be doing this a better way?
Actually you are the one missing the difference. The Private Sector does not have analogs for:
– SBA Small disadvantaged business concern(SDB)programs and set asides
– Service Disabled Veteran Owned set asides
– Veteran-owned (Vietnam era) set asides
– Disadvantage Business Enterprise(DBE) with the following organizations (more set asides)
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA)
– We are a small business with fewer than 100 employees
– We have the following State certification(s):
Delaware Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) (more set asides)
The Large Businesses who do their own set-asides and preferences based on these criteria are doing it to comply with Federal government or local government SB and other subcontracting goals that you have to agree to when you have contracts with these agencies. Any other programs to support SBs that aren’t attached directly or indirectly to government programs are very rare in the large business private sector world.
And what matters is that she is taking advantage of every bit of taxpayer funding that she can get while complaining about large government or even about loan guarantees that other firms have gotten. And her taxpayer subsidy — especially from the Feds — routinely DOES NOT REPRESENT THE CHEAPEST OPTION. If she doesn’t want the government to be providing supports and subsidies to business she should stop taking them herself.
you’re missing my difference. it’s not about what she did, it’s about what i think she’s going to SAY.
I know that I legally own my car but that other people’s money from the bank helped me buy it, but I’m not going to go on National TV tonight and say that I walked into the dealership with a sack full of cash bought it on my own.
Unless she includes the “thanks for the dough” part of your sentence in her speech (which I highly doubt she will), she’s a huge hypocrit. There’s just no getting around it.
sher is a hypocrite in so many ways, none of you have any idea what a huge hypocrite she really is. if she had been properally vetted her party would’ve realized she lied about most of her work history. she has no college at all either but she will run a dead man into the ground talking like the rabid tea party whack job she is
We do not get a tax credit on our mortgages we get a tax deduction. If you had ever been in business you would know there is a huge difference. I am a Viet Nam veteran , but never asked for a set aside.