I think he does “get it”. He’s counting on the same mentality that leads people who work in Wal-Mart stores to grouse about not getting a share of WMT profits.

They want reward without risk. And where risk does bring reward, they expect government to capture the “winnings”.

“For example : The question being propounded, What is the value of the combined services to man of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, as compared with those of Sir Henry Bessemer? Ninety-nine out of a hundred men of sound judgment would doubtless say, ” The value of the services of the two statesmen is quite unimportant, while the value of the services of Mr. Bessemer is enormous, incalculable.” But how many of these ninety-nine men of sound judgment could resist the fascination of the applause accorded to the statesmen ? How many of them would have the moral courage to educate their sons for the career of Mr. Bessemer instead of for the career of Mr. Disraeli or of Mr. Gladstone?* Not many in the present state of public sentiment. It will be a great day for man, the day that ushers in the dawn of more sober views of life, the day that inaugurates the era of the mastership of things in the place of the mastership of words.”

Okay, you need a bit of historical knowledge to get this quote from long ago but the gist is that two Prime Ministers of the most powerful nation on earth at the time do not measure up to the contribution of one man with an idea for a new way to make steel.

Actually the point is that nowadays businesses, especially financial sector takes profit but has neither accountabiility nor losses nor risk. And before I will be named a liberal or obamist I’d like to point that many (if not majority) of Republicans voted to bail-out banks in 2008 (including Mitt Romney).
And that’s because big business has influence on both GOP and dems and these connections are the real and probably biggest pathology of US political system imho…