Comments on: A chat with Cory Miller – aka, Cory the Well Driller

By: Gary Williams

Gary Williams — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:31:23 +0000

As a Canadian who is married to “old family” Texan, I’m still finding myself in total amazement at some of the stuff conservatives seem proud enough of that they actually say it publicly. Cory’s “LTP” fits into this category of course.
How is that he fails to see the hypocrisy of making all these claims of having succeeded single-handedly while simultaneously regaling us with all the help he recieved from friends and using various (non-governmental) money loans. Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that mankind is a creature that has adopted the “group” approach as the best strategy for ensuring survival against the elements. Unlike solitary beasts like bears, mountain lions and others who only come together to mate, we use intellect and numbers to overcome adversity — a tactic also employed by wolves, primates, etc. Like them, we too have developed complex social rules that were originally designed to keep us from taking whatever we want from others, a behavior still in vogue among the solitary creatures.

What this means is that this social Darwinism and presumed independance I keep hearing from the right is a concept based on ignorance of what is really going on among socialised animals like us. (these claims are often accompanied by “That’s the way it is in nature”, and how their refusal to help others is actually a positive contribution their making by reducing the odds that their useless, unproductive genes are passed on to others).

The truth of the matter is that we are successful precisely BECAUSE we help each other in a relationship known as ‘reciprocal altruism’. Simply stated, it’s the tendency for social animals to risk their own life saving someone they may not even know. How do we gain from such an action? Because there’s now an unspoken reliance all the memberes of a party now have that they’ll do whatever they can to save themselves should they be in mortal danger. This is very useful when pushing the boundaries of what is known, to seek out the greener pasture that may lie on the other side of that high mountain. We are who we are precisely because we developed the emotion or skill called empathy, a tendency to feel sympathetic toward others in distress.

Unfortunately for us, the research ongoing into terrorism and brutality reveals that there are many among us whose having been raised by highly authoritarian, cold, demanding parents has undesirable effects on us all. It leaves many kids unable to socialise at properly at a time of critical importance for their later intellectual and moral develpment. Missing this phase causes them to never fully develop important cognitive skills; among them the ablity to feel for others suffering, regardless of whether the sufferers own actions were responsible for their situation.

Who are these people? RWA-SDOs. Google the term, see the research findings. This way you’ll find it harder to dismiss what is being said here as being a “mere opinion” of yet another of those fascist/socialist/atheist/Marxist/leftist/racist/America hating, tax hiking, patriot killing, terrorist conspiring, Muslim-loving people whose education is proof of exposure to commie-indoctrination! (rather like that other source of info on events in distant places — journalism. This has been /conveniently/ infiltrated as well by liberals whose entire purpose in life is apparently to lie to conservatives about what they’ve seen, desperate to get them to rethink notions they have about the inherent moral superiority of the US ! )

Well, isn’t that just special, humh?

By: Anthoni the well driller

Anthoni the well driller — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:35:40 +0000

Cory,

I couldn’t agree with you more. We were given your letter via my father-in-law, whom received it in a forwarded e-mail. Everything in your letter, about yourself and your work, describes my husband exactly! The only difference being that we don’t live in East Texas. We are having to deal with all of the same hardships (e.g. “entitlement mentalities”). Just wanted to let everyone know that people like you renew my faith in the human race! I feel there still may be some hope left…

Anthoni the well driller

By: OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | Will You Be a Leader?

OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | Will You Be a Leader? — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:17:23 +0000

[...] am signing-off and wish you all the best by paraphrasing a signature tagline by Cory Miller, also known as Core the Well Driller. I am just an ordinary, extraordinary “trader in matter [...]

By: Randy in Richmond

Randy in Richmond — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:31:04 +0000

I suspect there really is no ‘Jeff’. This email was written around the time of the election–the Texas Poll was released October 29, 2008. Nothing in the email alludes to Obama having won the election. The purpose of this and other similar emails was to dispel negative input on the internet about Obama. I doubt very seriously that one person wrote it. Notice how the allegation of Obama being Muslim was worked into the email yet Cory never mentioned anything about Muslims. And why did it suddenly show up on a site where the letter originally ran on October, 28th?

By: Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:51:54 +0000

Jeff, you are afraid to take risks, then work hard to make them pan out. Do you understand Cory and millions of others like him work hard because in our minds failure is not an option?!

By contrast, you want the government to tie a pillow to your backside before you go skating. You and pillow-butts like you do not exhibit the spirit which made our country great.

Definition of success: getting up one more time than you fall down!

By: Leapin

Leapin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:27:27 +0000

Jeff -

“people-centric government rather than a corporation-centric government”

Yes, we are on the way to being a people-centric government meaning that more and more people want to be dependent the government and the government wants the same thing.

“getting government breaks, that will be paid back if the business becomes successful anyway, is to me a much more sane approach to get you off the ground”

Who pays the government back if the business is not successful? Who will this be limited to? Maybe I and 100 million of my fellow citizens want to start a business. Where does the money come from? Where is the oversight? Maybe I’ll put half of the handout into a “business” and rest I’ll stash away. Are these business allowed to make a profit? How much of a profit? You don’t like that the oil companies made a profit. By the way if there is a big oil conspiracy why have gasoline prices fallen so much?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:14:54 +0000

everyone of course is entitled to their opinon, whether it be cory the well driller, or joe the unemployed and unlicensed (and quite clearly untimely) plumber. it’s a shame though that cory doesn’t have all the facts. i hope you read all of my response as well. first off, cory is from texas, where i’ve come to find that’s where the largest number of ignorant people live…with respect to politics. it’s a republican mecca. a poll was taken just 1 week ago, and it was found that 23% of texans still actually think obama is muslim. all they have to do is go out and visit http://www.barrackobama.com, the non-partisan site http://www.factcheck.org, or any of thousands of other sites that clearly explain that obama is a natural born citizen of the usa, a christian, and actually was raised by his white mom and her parents in hawaii and kansas…not in kenya or indonesia (only spent a brief time there) or wherever people say he was raised and picked up “extremely radical” views. or maybe all the oil people that are making record breaking quarterly profits don’t want to believe he is not muslim…and don’t want others to believe it either, so that they can continue to make money hand over fist at the expense of the “joe the plumbers” and “cory the well drillers”, and everyone else who may be struggling financially, by gauging prices at the pump. for the record though, it is not illegal to run for political office if you are of muslim faith. their are members of congress that are, as well as several city mayors. pretty discriminating to even have this rumor be going around in the first place, as not all muslims wear a turbin and a vail, and run around blowing things up. a lot of muslim-americans are business professionals and very “americanized” people. possibly cory needs to realize the following: – over the past 40 yrs, republicans have held the presidency 70% of the time (28 of 40 yrs), including the last 8 years, and 20 of the past 28 years…the entire time that cory was starting and building his businesses. also during that time, the republicans have held a senate majority or 50/50 split 18 of 28 yrs, and the house majority has been republican most of the time as well. it appears cory may need to find someone else to blame other than obama and “ilk” like him. – if cory is making so little money that he only recently was able to start saving for retirement, then he will most likely be making (after figuring in paying his employees’ salaries and benefits) less than $250K income and his taxes will not go up. if he’s making less than $200K, he will in fact get a tax CUT. if he does make more than $250K, then his taxes will only go up 2.7%. to put this in perspective, if he makes $500,000 he will only be paying an additional $13,500 in taxes each year. certainly not enough to come close to breaking him or forcing him to make cutbacks or layoffs. cory can look at this two ways: if obama’s policies were in effect during the time cory was building his business, he would have obtained a large number of yearly tax breaks before hitting the $250K threshold. so he could basically look at the tax increase as balancing out all of the tax breaks he received to help get his business off and running, that had he not received would have made him struggle or not succeed at all…like he actually did in reality without the tax breaks. OR he can simply look at it as paying back the two bush tax cuts from 01 and 03. the wealthiest people got the largest tax cuts. now that extra money he received he, in a sense, needs to pay back. if the extra money was invested properly in the first place, he still could come out significantly on top, not to mention the obama-proposed tax rate still is slightly lower than the rate during the reagan administration. – cory would be nowhere without the people around him: teachers, nurses, construction workers who build the roads he drives on and the houses he lives in. a big reason as to why education in this country has declined so much is due to the lack of quality teachers. maybe one reason why there are less quality teachers is due to them not making enough money and having to find work in more lucrative fields in order to support their families? mom may have more insight into this, as she was a quality teacher for a long time! – AND to bring it home with one final point that i can tell you first hand is true: it’s not the fault of the democrats that cory was paying outlandish 22-24% rates on his credit cards. he’s quick to blame the “ilk” of democrats, but his rationale is way off. the core fault lies in three places: the states of south dakota, the corruption of the association between lobbyists and certain members of congress, and the total lack of ethics in big business. not to mention, most financial experts point to republican former fed chairman alan greenspan as one of the biggest culprits of the economy’s breakdown, as he continually lowered the fed rate to ridiculously low numbers, in turn setting the economy up for a tailspin. greenspan himself even admitted his actions probably played a significant role. corporations work for shareholders. in order to satisfy the shareholders, a lot of corp executives will go to any length to make as much money as possible to impress shareholders, while at the same time filling their own pockets with resultant bonuses. doesn’t matter to them how right or wrong it is, or how many individuals they ruin or hurt. corporate ethics is taught in every single management and accounting class out there, yet i have yet to see it come to fruition on a large corporate scale. the initial reason for the ridiculous rates cory is paying goes back to 1980 when the state of sd, to improve ailing state economies, allowed banks to set rates at virtually unlimited levels by eliminating the usury rates of the state. delaware soon followed. this is why banks have moved and setup their credit operations in places like sioux falls, sd and wilmington, de even though their company headquarters are not there. this is a loophole that allows them to charge the high rates. the biggest reason for cory’s high rates though, is that the high paid lobbyists that the corps hire to lobby congress and the comptroller of the currency, bribe or heavily influence policians and authorities in the right places to cater the laws so that their clients (the banks) can run wild by taking advantage of consumers. now standard rates are high to begin with (15-20%) because of south dakota, but a consumer knows what he’s getting into in that respect, and if a consumer chooses to put money on credit cards knowing they won’t be able to pay it back for a while, and knowing that they will be paying the 15-20% rate, then that is the consumers decision and their is nothing wrong with it. it’s their decision, and the consumer gets what they want, and the banks profit. both parties are happy. the problem is that the banks have lobbied to have other means of charging even more money to consumers, and not readily letting the consumers know about it. the reasons are complete bs. for example, a consumer could have been making on time, minimum or more payment amounts every month for over 5 years on all credit cards and/or loans they have, but then out of nowhere their rate could get bumped from 15-20% to as much as 30% with no explanation what so ever, and with no warning what so ever. consumers are forced to play the game of calling in over and over, and mailing letter after letter in until someone finally tells them it’s because they have balances on other credit cards or they have other outstanding loans. even if you have never had a single blemish with the company that did this, and even if your overall balances are not really that high to begin with, they can still almost double your rate to suck more money out of you. the previous 5 paragraphs explain why cory the well driller was getting raped with finance charges from his credit cards – this has nothing to do with democrats or their policies; in fact, it actually has much more to due with republicans and their policies of creating exorbitant wealth for big businesses and not regulating their practices enough. the problem isn’t that people are trying to get a free ride by charging up money they don’t have. some people have no choice in order for them and their families to survive in times of harship, and some make a decision or take a risk to put money on credit cards to either enjoy something in the moment rather than let the moment slip by forever, or in cory’s case, he financed a life decision to move forward with a business startup by borrowing money on credit cards. regardless it’s a decision people make, and they know the consequences they will face (uhh, that is the ones they assume they will be facing based on the agreement). no, people charging up money they don’t currently have and can’t pay off at the end of the month is not the problem at all. it is the dirty tricks and unethical conduct of banks that dupe people into higher rates than the 15-20% standard ones consumers are expecting, to the point where most people will never be able to get their debt paid off…and then if they are lucky enough to actually make strides and get all or most of a credit card paid off, banks realize this when they run their reports each day/week, and they set out to suck these people back in by, for example, setting them up with balance transfer offers at 0% rates for 6 months, knowing they have money on other credit cards that they can transfer in, and when they do transfer the money in they immediately jack up the rates to nearly 30%, again without explanation, and again when a consumer doesn’t even have so much as a single late payment blemish anywhere on their credit record in over 5 years. it is all the practices like this that are allowed to go on every day in our coutnry that make me firmly believe we need to move more towards a people-centric government rather than a corporation-centric government, and this is exactly why i voted for barrack obama today!! well to be honest, it actually sounds to me like cory the well driller is the real whiner. he didn’t have to torture himself into heart problems by going through what he went through. he had a choice, and he chose to take the road he did. i personally feel that hard work is very important, but that people should not be forced to literally kill themselves with stress and frustration for 25 years as their only option to succeed in starting a business. getting government breaks, that will be paid back if the business becomes successful anyway, is to me a much more sane approach to get you off the ground. so basically, cory spent the past 25 yrs working his butt off and most likely not spending much time with his family as a result, so that he can possibly die of a heart attack in his mid 50-s? i’m sorry, but that’s not the road i would choose to take if govt assistance is available…especially considering cory put LOTS of money on credit cards (potentially ruining his credit record forever) and borrowed lots of money from family and friends that, if his business failed, he would not have been able to pay back.

By: Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:17:53 +0000

Dear J. Strupp,
I understood Cory to say, and Bookman to appreciate, that Cory was now employing others in the business he created.

I do not see this as the common Hollywood story, rather Hollywood is known for back-biting competitiveness, excessive drug use, and other illegal behaviors. Rather than forging employment opportunities for others, Hollywood is known to be a bit self-absorbed and self-indulgent.

N’cest pas?

By: J. Strupp

J. Strupp — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:31:49 +0000

Bookman,

I don’t get it at all. You are being selective in your “rags to riches” praise of Cory becuase you think he’s a better person than someone in the “Hollywood elite”. Plays right into the “real” America nonsense I’ve heard recently.

Are you saying that the Hollywood elite had an easier path to the top than wealthy individuals like Cory? You seem to think that individuals who don’t “work with their hands” are less deserving of praise when they make it to the top. Do the political views and personal values of the “Hollywood elite” make their ascend any less impressive? Seems that you think so.

By: Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:59:57 +0000

Kudos to you, Todd & Bookman!