2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMrs. Ryan's Interior Decorating venture - Small Business or hobby?
"On Wednesday, Paul Ryan capped off an evening littered with small business references by sharing an emotional story about his mother, Betty Douglas. He explained that, following his fathers death, his mother returned to school and eventually launched her own interior decorating company in Wisconsin.
She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business, Ryan said during his address accepting the vice presidential nomination. It wasnt just a new livelihood. It was a new life, and it transformed my mom from a widow in grief to a small business woman whose happiness wasnt just in the past. Her work gave her hope, it made our family proud."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/small-business-a-common-theme-at-republican-convention/2012/08/30/62997f8e-f275-11e1-892d-bc92fee603a7_story.html
"He also said that after her husbands death, his mother, who later remarried, went back to college and started an interior decorating business with three or four employees."
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/18/news/la-pn-paul-ryan-mom-medicare-20120818
So the Ryans were proud of her, but Paul isn't sure whether she had 3 or 4 employees.
I'm not running down interior decorators here; I'm just wondering if Mrs. Ryan, who I suspect owned a share of this:
http://www.ryancentral.com/history.html
was really dependent on her small business for her bread and butter.
Awknid
(381 posts)I have to ask what difference does it make if it was more of a hobby? Does that negate her efforts?
The world is full of people who wish they could make money by working on what they love to do and it would be a much better world if they did.
As a Democrat, I agree that most of what Ryan said is malarkey. As an interior designer who went back to school at 40 and has her own business, I must say its a weak argument. Let's talk about the multitude of things Ryan distorted or lied about instead!
ret5hd
(20,480 posts)hedgehog
(36,286 posts)her bread and butter. It's possible that her other sources of income actually supported the business.
Not to mention, while she was attending college and starting up a business, who was home taking care of the grandmother with Alzheimer's? Not saying that it is wrong to hire some caretakers, family members and the patients do better if the caregivers get frequent breaks. But the suggestion that she was a full time care taker and that she was engaged in those other activities doesn't seem possible.
mnhtnbb
(31,371 posts)and even some of the work for O'Hare airport--in other words, government contracts!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)http://www.ryancentral.com/history.html
And ryancentral was paul ryan's only non-government/political adult job after graduating from college ... he served as a
"marketing consultant" (read: did find a job so my uncle gave me a "special projects" job) for about a year before getting into politics.
So the myth that paul and family struggled is pure bull.