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...
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.
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