Posted on 01/09/2012 4:20:37 PM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
Gordon Gekko Romney is being taken to task over his proclivities, and activities at Bain. To make it short, Romney engaged in what is commonly known as asset-stripping.
My point in this thread isn't to delve into the minutiae of what asset-stripping entails, but rather to point out that Romney is attempting to pigeonhole Gingrich as being anti-free market capitalism through the use of a false choice:
If Gingrich doesn't support what Romney did at Bain, then he is anti-free market capitalism.
Romney's false choice...
And all the while, Romney is trying to use a smokescreen to cover what he did at Bain.
In the end, just because you CAN take on more debt to procure investors an earlier dividend, for example, doesn't mean that you SHOULD.
Might doesn't always make right...
Wait until Newt totally exposes this liberal jackass Romney. The was is just starting.
Since when have liberals ever based decisions on what they should do?
Personally I find nothing wrong in what Bain did or any other company like Bain does..
The was is just starting.
Should have been - The war is just starting.
(My old eyes are not as good as they used be)
As posted in another thread:
A lot of those defending Romney’s time at Bain Capital seem to be missing what should be the real point of this. That point being—if Romney’s going to run on his vaunted “private sector experience”, then it’s worth scrutinizing exactly what kind of “private sector experience” it really was, and whether that kind of experience is really conducive to the sort of entrepreneurial, free-market knowhow which it’ll really take to get the economy rolling again.
I’d argue that Romney knows more about vulture corporatism, than he does about real, free-market entrepreneurialism. And that it is absolutely not mere Leftist, Michael Moore-style rhetoric to attack Romney on this.
And just because what Romney was doing looks like capitalism on the surface, doesn’t mean it was. His whole firm could very well been based around the kind of crony capitalism any defender of real, free-market capitalism should rightfully despise.
There is a thing known as suffocating socialism, and on the other side there is compassionless capitalism. Both extremes are wrong.
Jesus never advocated Socialism (forced compassion), but scriptures are replete with him and the prophets being against widows homes being devoured.
Bingo!
As posted in another thread:
A lot of those defending Romney’s time at Bain Capital seem to be missing what should be the real point of this. That point being—if Romney’s going to run on his vaunted “private sector experience”, then it’s worth scrutinizing exactly what kind of “private sector experience” it really was, and whether that kind of experience is really conducive to the sort of entrepreneurial, free-market knowhow which it’ll really take to get the economy rolling again.
I’d argue that Romney knows more about vulture corporatism, than he does about real, free-market entrepreneurialism. And that it is absolutely not mere Leftist, Michael Moore-style rhetoric to attack Romney on this.
Also, just because what Romney was doing looks like capitalism on the surface, doesn’t mean it was. His whole firm could’ve very well been based around the kind of crony capitalism that any defender of real, free-market capitalism should rightfully despise.
Romney is indeed in favor of Corporatism. And you nailed it by affixing Vulture to the front end.
Romney’s sort and type of business knowledge will not get America going again.
If you don’t like what Bain does, outbid them next time.
Sorry but when you run a business you can’t have compassion..
Try doing all the nonsense that went on in the 80's 90's and 2000's without Greenspan's credit bubble explosion which was all about crony capitalism for bankers. Try asset stripping using your own and your clients money rather than credit sloshing around the system looking for a quick hit and takedown.
No. What Romney was doing was not capitalism - investment in the means of production to increase productivity. He and his vulture friends just want to call it that.
By the way Bain worked with Staples, Dominos Pizza and the Sports Authority... I guess that is bad...
Need to take a legitamate route to taking down Romney. Companies go to places like Bain because they are poorly managed and need cash. Theynegotiate the terms and most of the time, the company is in no position to survive. I hate Mitt’s politics, but the attacks coming out tofay on his work at Bain are indeed anti-capitalist.
False. I’ve owned businesses for over 40 years and can assure you that compassion often increases business. God rewards compassion.
Sorry believing in God does not make me money.
Another preposterously ill-informed thread regarding Romney’s business activities.
There are many reasons to oppose Romney, but now people with a grasp of venture capital, turnarounds, and finance no more robust than might be found in an average troop of Girl Scouts are writing posts that sound like they were scribbled with a crayon by Michael Moore or the halfwits of the Occupy Movement.
Hating Romney to insanity reduces one’s effectiveness in stopping him.
Then you are anti-Jesus, anti-John the Baptist, etc.
Romney is anti-Jesus, anti-John the Baptist.
Both Jesus and John railed against devouring widows homes, whether or not it was “goid business.”
“Sorry but when you run a business you can’t have compassion..”
I do. Others do too. To be in control of the economic lives of people who trust you isn’t a position to be taken lightly,
unless you are without an ethical foundation.
Your post, however, missed the point. It wasn’t just about dumping people on the street with no concern for them.
It is about stripping assets out, larding the business up with debt while you quickly fill your bank account, then
abandoning the business in a condition it cannot survive in, and moving on to the next rape target. Did some occasionally
survive? Sure.
I purposely use the rape word because vultures take what they want, to spend on their own pleasure, and move on,
leaving the victim to fail.
” And just because what Romney was doing looks like capitalism on the surface,doesn’t mean it was. His whole firm could very well been based around the kind of crony capitalism any defender of real,free-market capitalism should rightfully despise.”
Well if there is anything there regarding crony capitalism, political favors, kickbacks, or graft, bring it out, but that is not what I am seeing. Your statement is mere speculation. If something is there, it is a story, but I havent seen anything. What is there are flip flops and a very liberal politicql record. As far as I can see, his private sector experience is solid.
NationalJournal.com - Meet the Billionaire Who Wants to Help Newt Gingrich Destroy Mitt Romney - http://bit.ly/zfF2KO
5 minutes ago
I would suppose then that “and all these things shall be added unto you” means nothing to you?
It is about stripping assets out, larding the business up with debt while you quickly fill your bank account, then
abandoning the business in a condition it cannot survive in, and moving on to the next rape target. Did some occasionally
survive? Sure.
For some obscure reason this reminds me of a Mafia quote, Something about “pin it, take it and then eat it, if you can’t do that then eat it while its still running.” It had to do with how the Mafia would take over businesses and then just leave the shells as they searched for their next target.
Sometimes places like Bain come to companies (whether that was the case with Bain, I don't know, and today's WSJ article doesn't make it clear.) At the company where I used to work, a place like Bain came. Vultures, corporate raiders, who bought a bunch of stock of the company, something like 3%, to became the fifth or seventh largest stockholder, and started making demands, threats, blackmail. The company was doing fine without them, even if its stock was undervalued, which is why they bought it, and the company had to bend over.
Explain to me then why a plethora of news articles, both from the left, right, middle, from a variety of perspectives have boiled Romney down to engaging in asset-stripping. Same conclusion I came to.
And all the ad hominem advanced by you bolsters not your argument.
It seems sooner or later that threads here or at other sites always devolve to someone using ad hominem attacks.
I’m done. I have no time for this.
Excellent post. You said it better than I could.
Matthew 25:44-45 44 “Then they also will answer Him,[b] saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
Gingrich put it well...In a nutshell, if the company went bankrupt because it failed, and the investors take their losses or modest gains like the rest of the employees and share-holders that’s one thing, but if a rich guys comes in a sucks the company dry for millions of dollars, and leaves the employees with nothing but an unemployment check, although that’s legal, it’s immoral.
Sheldon Adelman supports Newt for his defense of Israel.
What's wrong with that?
I think the premise is off. What is ‘vulture capital’? Is it any more definable than greed? Companies in trouble do not get the terms they wish they would get. As a person who’s been in Venture funded businesses I know that the terms that you want, the valuation that you want, ... are not what you get. You get the terms and $$ that the market is willing to provide to you based on your company’s profile and the general market.
If anyone here can define vulture capital or where ‘asset stropping’ crosses the line, we should compare what Bain did to that definition. I suspect that will be far more difficult than throwing around terms and slurs.
What Newt is doing reminds me of the Bill Clinton anecdote when confronted about untrue negative attack ads. "You gotta do what you gotta do." I suppose most politicians think that way when an election is on the line.
LLS
Bain and the corporate raiders are the junk yard owners. They make money on the leftovers of others.
Can I be the first to proclaim:
Romney is toast!
In the end, just because you CAN take on more debt to procure investors an earlier dividend, for example, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.
So it was a ponzi scheme?
Comeon. I’m all for hammering this jackass but Bain did everyone a favor.
Without their advice many companies wouldn’t be in business today
Without their foresight many investors would have lost their azz or continued to pour money down a drain hoping they will recoup their investment.
Bain shut down companies that, in their opinion, could not reach profitability objectives and Bain created a package to mitigate losses or create a product that at least made some money in the transaction of shutting down a broken business.
Hell, I’ve done it. “This thing ain’t making me money. I’m shutting it down and getting rid of the assets”.
That’s life and most businesses have a life cycle.
Sorry for the unemployed people but again, that’s life.
In the years 1999-2007 I worked for no less than 11 companies who went bankrupt. Two of them should have been put the stake and burned in effigy years before they ultimately died. Their business model sucked and their management was worse.
Another, “suddenly” found their American operations unprofitable. This one I couldn’t figure out. I mean we were the highest priced guys in any selling situation and I could their viewpoint, sort of.
But, I ultimately decided they had to answer to their investors at Adam Smith and they were being pressured to come up with some dough and distribute it. American operations took the hit.
I got laid off from each of these jobs and that’s just life.
Move on. Bitterness will keep you right were you are.
Here, here. There’s no creation - of anything except dollars - when you buy a company to take it apart, fire all the workers, ship the jobs overseas, and then use the money in the pension funds to play the market. This is more than vulture capitalism. It is more like a Mayan sacrifice capitalism: pull the still-beating heart out of the victim and then eat it.
Now he wants to use all the money he made pulling American businesses apart to buy his way into the Presidency, with a 527 headed by his personal lawyer pouring tens of millions into attack ads against other Republicans. What does Romney *want* the Presidency for, anyway? It can’t be because he is so committed to particular beliefs and values - because we KNOW that he’ll change his positions to suit whatever the polls are. Perhaps he’s planning to do for the US what he did for other companies what Bain Capital did - take the bits that are left apart and sell them off. Interested in buying the Grand Canyon? How about corporate sponsorship for the Washington Monument? Certainly he’s not going to be “putting America back to work” - because his work experience consists of using his inherited money to buy companies that he then tore to pieces.
American “capitalism” eviscerated manufacturing in this country. Now we are at the mercy of the Chinese, who make almost everything that is offered for sale at WalMart. They collect our debt while they work on hacking into all of our most secure computer systems, from finance to aerospace to military. We probably won’t even get an opportunity to fight once the war starts - all they have to do is yank the plug on our computers.
Man, rant over. But this Romney guy just chafes my tender parts.
So new financial products are not products?
Bain primarily worked with stressed companies. They could be considered junk - at least their bonds are likely to be. Turning the undesirable into a desirable product (which Bain was successful at since equity sale was their primary means of revenue) is a popular wealth pattern. I’ll never forget when i was doing research on companies in college and talked with a representative of Waste Technologies, his motto was “Your S**t is our bread and butter”. Besides being nasty enough to appeal to my college humor, it seemed like a pretty smart description of what they did and did well.
Overall, I guess I fail to see how what Bain did fails your very definition of Free enterprise.
Read this morning’s WSJ article (linked here somewhere) to see how many of those “stressed companies” that Bain made “desirable” went bankrupt after Bain collected its share.
‘vulture corporatism’ another FReeper characterized it earlier today.
Agreed - LBO’s are a tool - neither good or bad. So what metrics should we choose to judge Bain’s use of it?
I think net jobs is fair / reasonable. Also ROI seems reasonable. I’m not wowed by an anecdotal evidence to tug on the heartstrings without any context.
Yours is a fair perspective but that’s not what I think is going on in the majority of anti-Bain/Romeny-Bain comments here.
Perhaps it is time to change your handle?
I read it. If you read beyond the headline and first few paragraphs, then you’ll see that the bankruptcy rate was:
a) not unreasonably high
b) skewed by small Bain’s small company focus
c) skewed by the inclusion of firms up to 7 years past when Bain controlled them (remember Bain has a duty to sell to the highest bidder not to the smartest bidder unless their interest is ongoing)
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