not as light as the usual post, but this is one of the best things i have read in a long time... and i am sure cory the DRILLER sips suds!
From the Gartman letter, A letter from an American Worker:
Mr. Obama,
Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by
Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been
heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find
myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While
Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have
started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me
introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I
am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to
college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world"
when I finished high school.
25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well
drilling business at a time when the economy here in East
Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil
boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I
look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my
uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape
together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my
first job. My businesses did not start as a result of
privilege. They are the result of my personal drive,
personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a
determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very
start my business provided one other (than myself) East
Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first
few years (something every well drilling business had), so
I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are
necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I
had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my
water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).
A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped
together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan
and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger
drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my
area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig
while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through
these years I never knew from one month to the next if I
would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got
behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next
two years paying that back (with penalty and interest)
while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my
water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the
second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying
it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing
supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured
through these experiences and years is hard to measure.
I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for
being the most competent and most honest water well
driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired
another full time employee for the drilling business so that
we could provide full time water well pump service as well
as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought
a water well screen service machine from a friend,
starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business
loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production,
computer controlled screen service machine. I had
designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3
years so I had to make the loan payments without the
benefit of any added income from the new machine. No
government program was there to help me with the
payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake
wondering how I would solve my machine problems or
pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen
machine working properly, and that provided another full
time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.
2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time
for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all
the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill
rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans.
Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made
a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the
third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on
the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.
A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for
a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary
pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life
savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of
the pump and took it to the national water well convention
to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out
of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a
problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype,
and nobody would make me a business loan to start
production of the new pumps. With several deposits for
pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started
applying for as many credit card as I could find and took
cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over
$150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister
and brother), to get this 3rd business going.
Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in
an effort to start another business. I had never
manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into
production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested
prototype to a reliable production model (in six months).
How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just
made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you,
but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into
production, which immediately created another 2 full time
jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year
suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship
of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee
(another East Texan employed) had to drive across the
country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast
to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments
to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my
brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and
refining the product, building a reputation for the pump
and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig
manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit
cards. During all this time I continued to manage a
growing water well business that was now operating 3
drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen
service business continued to grow. No government
programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's
ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy
fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for
the government to help me.
Now, after manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my
combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and
distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local
economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed
$1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled
machining equipment to start my 4th business, a
production machine shop. The machine shop will serve
the mud pump company so that we can better
manufacture our pumps that are being shipped
worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work
for outside companies as well. This has already produced
2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it
in the next few months. This should work out, but if it
doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional
politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our country's'
(and the world) economy with your meddling with
mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation
and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that
unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at
the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get
my mud pumps into production, you were working with
Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to
make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes
with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet,
bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No
Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified
borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates,
I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that
I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump
business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's
funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every
dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow
them, it has been only in the last two years that I have
finally made enough money to be able to put a little away
for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped
40% because of the policies you and your ilk have
perpetrated on our country.
You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise
taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and
sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to
build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has
been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen
times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating
more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to
take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what
I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you
characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the
most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide
income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who
have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or
risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone
who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay
a higher percentage of my income than those who have
bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr.
Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a
tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each
year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement
culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a
better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding
through more than 40 years of collaborative effort
between the predominant liberal media, and liberal
indoctrination programs in the public school systems
across our land.
What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was
made great by people who embraced the one-time
American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self
determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard
work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that
success was in reach of every able bodied American who
would strive for it. Each year that less Americans
embrace that culture, we all descend together. We
descend down the socialist path that has brought country
after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states.
If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school
systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a
culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating
your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large
embracing the conviction that they can elevate
themselves through personal betterment, personal
achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people
embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act
on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find
herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would
eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr.
Obama? The country would not need you if the country
was convinced that problem solving was best left with
individuals instead of the government. You and all your
liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating
a dependent class in our country. It is the very business
of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on
government. What's remarkable is that you, who have
never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to
take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't
need my money if they would get off their entitlement
mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand
more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal
politicians to raise their station in life.
You see, I know because I've had them work for me
before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People
who simply will not show up to work on time. People who
just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days.
People always looking for a way to put less effort out.
People who actually tell me that they would do more if I
just would first pay them more. People who take off work
to sit in government offices to apply to get free
government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would
have turned out for them if they had spent that time
earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see,
all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.
Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr.
Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the
average percentage of your income has been given to
charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the
years you started running for office - can you pronounce
"politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1%
annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged
less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable
contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals,
the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it
is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't
say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years,
but the percentage is several times more than you and
Joe Biden. combined (don't you just hate Google?). Tell
me again how you feel my pain.
In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent
everything that is wrong with our country. You represent
the culture of government dependence instead of self
reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal
achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the
unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open
mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you
may preside over the final transformation of America from
being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth,
to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit
around looking to the government to solve their problems.
Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All
countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities,
have a little less to offer mankind every year.
God help us...
Cory Miller
just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of
Americans used to be.
P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American...
www.cmillerdrilling.com
Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by
Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been
heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find
myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While
Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have
started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me
introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I
am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to
college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world"
when I finished high school.
25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well
drilling business at a time when the economy here in East
Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil
boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I
look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my
uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape
together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my
first job. My businesses did not start as a result of
privilege. They are the result of my personal drive,
personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a
determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very
start my business provided one other (than myself) East
Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first
few years (something every well drilling business had), so
I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are
necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I
had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my
water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).
A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped
together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan
and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger
drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my
area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig
while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through
these years I never knew from one month to the next if I
would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got
behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next
two years paying that back (with penalty and interest)
while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my
water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the
second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying
it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing
supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured
through these experiences and years is hard to measure.
I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for
being the most competent and most honest water well
driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired
another full time employee for the drilling business so that
we could provide full time water well pump service as well
as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought
a water well screen service machine from a friend,
starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business
loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production,
computer controlled screen service machine. I had
designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3
years so I had to make the loan payments without the
benefit of any added income from the new machine. No
government program was there to help me with the
payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake
wondering how I would solve my machine problems or
pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen
machine working properly, and that provided another full
time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.
2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time
for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all
the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill
rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans.
Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made
a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the
third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on
the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.
A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for
a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary
pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life
savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of
the pump and took it to the national water well convention
to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out
of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a
problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype,
and nobody would make me a business loan to start
production of the new pumps. With several deposits for
pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started
applying for as many credit card as I could find and took
cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over
$150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister
and brother), to get this 3rd business going.
Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in
an effort to start another business. I had never
manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into
production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested
prototype to a reliable production model (in six months).
How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just
made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you,
but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into
production, which immediately created another 2 full time
jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year
suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship
of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee
(another East Texan employed) had to drive across the
country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast
to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments
to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my
brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and
refining the product, building a reputation for the pump
and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig
manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit
cards. During all this time I continued to manage a
growing water well business that was now operating 3
drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen
service business continued to grow. No government
programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's
ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy
fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for
the government to help me.
Now, after manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my
combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and
distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local
economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed
$1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled
machining equipment to start my 4th business, a
production machine shop. The machine shop will serve
the mud pump company so that we can better
manufacture our pumps that are being shipped
worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work
for outside companies as well. This has already produced
2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it
in the next few months. This should work out, but if it
doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional
politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our country's'
(and the world) economy with your meddling with
mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation
and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that
unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at
the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get
my mud pumps into production, you were working with
Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to
make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes
with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet,
bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No
Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified
borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates,
I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that
I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump
business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's
funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every
dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow
them, it has been only in the last two years that I have
finally made enough money to be able to put a little away
for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped
40% because of the policies you and your ilk have
perpetrated on our country.
You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise
taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and
sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to
build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has
been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen
times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating
more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to
take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what
I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you
characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the
most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide
income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who
have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or
risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone
who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay
a higher percentage of my income than those who have
bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr.
Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a
tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each
year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement
culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a
better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding
through more than 40 years of collaborative effort
between the predominant liberal media, and liberal
indoctrination programs in the public school systems
across our land.
What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was
made great by people who embraced the one-time
American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self
determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard
work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that
success was in reach of every able bodied American who
would strive for it. Each year that less Americans
embrace that culture, we all descend together. We
descend down the socialist path that has brought country
after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states.
If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school
systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a
culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating
your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large
embracing the conviction that they can elevate
themselves through personal betterment, personal
achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people
embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act
on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find
herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would
eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr.
Obama? The country would not need you if the country
was convinced that problem solving was best left with
individuals instead of the government. You and all your
liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating
a dependent class in our country. It is the very business
of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on
government. What's remarkable is that you, who have
never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to
take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't
need my money if they would get off their entitlement
mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand
more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal
politicians to raise their station in life.
You see, I know because I've had them work for me
before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People
who simply will not show up to work on time. People who
just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days.
People always looking for a way to put less effort out.
People who actually tell me that they would do more if I
just would first pay them more. People who take off work
to sit in government offices to apply to get free
government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would
have turned out for them if they had spent that time
earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see,
all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.
Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr.
Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the
average percentage of your income has been given to
charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the
years you started running for office - can you pronounce
"politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1%
annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged
less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable
contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals,
the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it
is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't
say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years,
but the percentage is several times more than you and
Joe Biden. combined (don't you just hate Google?). Tell
me again how you feel my pain.
In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent
everything that is wrong with our country. You represent
the culture of government dependence instead of self
reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal
achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the
unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open
mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you
may preside over the final transformation of America from
being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth,
to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit
around looking to the government to solve their problems.
Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All
countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities,
have a little less to offer mankind every year.
God help us...
Cory Miller
just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of
Americans used to be.
P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American...
www.cmillerdrilling.com
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