Vampire Capitalism? Please - GST Steel would have failed much earlier without Bain

Wall Street Journal ^ | 05/18/12 | Kimberly Strassel

[MissesBush]

This week the Obama campaign debuted its attack on Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Mitt Romney founded. Its two-minute ad purports to tell the story of GS Technologies, a Kansas City-based Bain investment that went bankrupt in 2001.

To hear the Obama campaign, this is a tale of greed: GST was a healthy, happy, quality steelmaker until Bain plundered its worth and stripped its 750 workers of their due. "It was like a vampire," laments one former employee in the ad. "They came in and sucked the life out of us."

GST is a tragic tale, though in a different way. The real story of GST is that of a private-equity firm trying to spark some life into a uncompetitive, over-unionized industry. Bain's crime here—if that's what you call it—was giving a dying steel plant an unexpected eight-year lease on life.

When Bain bought the Kansas City mill in 1993, steel was a scene of carnage. Global players were pouring out cheap products, and America's high-cost steel plants couldn't compete. The industry had lost 200,000 jobs in preceding years. In 1992 alone, the six largest U.S. steel mills had lost a combined $3 billion. Armco, the company Bain would buy the plant from, would lose $641 million in 1993.

The Kansas City plant was itself dying. At its 1970 height it employed 4,500; by the late 1980s it was down to 1,000. A year before acquisition, Armco had laid off another 75. Its equipment was old; it faced fierce competition at home and abroad.

B.C. Huselton, a vice president of the business at the time, tells me that in 1990 the Armco CEO held a meeting. "He told us, 'Look, we either try to sell it, or we've got to shut it down.'"

[MissesBush]

This is a piece with Obama calling Romney a "vampire capitalist" the very day he went to campaign fundraise among other private equity CEOs, including the CEO of Blackstone Tony James who defended Romney's own private equity dealings thusly "The truth is that private equity creates jobs and is necessary for a healthy economy." Even Obama's own supporters say he's full of crap attacking Romney and private equity firms.

How can anyone with an ounce of integrity support this man-child Obama and his never ending river of lies and hypocrisy??

[Diogenesis]

How could anyone support the backstabbing, lying
author of RomneyCARE?

[chuckee]

“How could anyone support the backstabbing, lying
author of RomneyCARE”

Same reason most would prefer living in a hot kitchen than in the oven.It’s called relativity.Romney is no conservative but there is absolutely no equivalence between Obama and Romney if that is what you are trying to express.

[Diogenesis]

ROmney and Obama are the same.

ROmneyCARE. Gay Marriage (begun by Romney, himself)

Both are ineligible. Both are terrible at governing.

Both lie and lie and lie.

Both are friends of Soros and TARP.

Both imagine themselves as divine.

[BillyBonebrake]

I’ll take the imperfect capitalist for a last ditch chance at the survival of the republic for 500, Alex.

[Hostage]

You’re taking the side of a liar against a liar. Does that make you feel better?

We’re screwed no matter what unless:

* Tea Party elects a conservative TP Speaker of the House
* Obama is elected
* Obama is impeached from Sheriff Arpaio’s and F&F investigations
* Biden is ruled ineligible to be sworn as POTUS because Obama was not legitimate
* GOP TP Conservative Speaker is sworn in as POTUS

Otherwise it’s bunker time until 2014 when GOP TP continues to oust GOP-e backed RINOs and takes commanding control of Congress while showing massive amounts of backbone

But as to listening to any supporter of ORomna, NO SALE.

[chuckee]

“ROmney and Obama are the same....Both are ineligible.”

How is Romney ineligible? Was he born in Kenya?

[Reily]

People keep trying to make the claim that Romney's grandfather renounced his citizenship when he went to Mexico to do the polygamy thing. George Romney was apparently born at this Mormon commune. Mexico never recognized these people as citizens even if they wanted top be. (And there is no evidence that was even tried! Actually getting Mexican citizenship is quite difficult to do then and now!)

Dislike Romney but do it for real reasons, instead of bogus ones.

[RavenATB]

Not all who are less than perfect are “equal.”

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Interesting.

[make no mistake]

How could anyone support the backstabbing, lying
author of RomneyCARE

I do not “support” Romney because of his trashing of Sarah Palin last election and trashing fellow Republican Candidates this election. Can't feel no sympathy for him when Obama trashes him. But will vote reluctantly for him because he is supposedly the republican candidate and we need Obama to lose.

[make no mistake]

How could anyone support the backstabbing, lying
author of RomneyCARE

I do not “support” Romney because of his trashing of Sarah Palin last election and trashing fellow Republican Candidates this election. Can't feel no sympathy for him when Obama trashes him. But will vote reluctantly for him because he is supposedly the republican candidate and we need Obama to lose.

[MissesBush]

Uhhhhh Romney was forced by the Mass Supreme Court to implement gay marriages. It is Mornon Church policy to oppose gay marriage and Romney opposed it as governor. Additionally he clearly stated the day Obama came out for gay marriage that he is still against it. Romney’s far from the perfect candidate but I’ll take a plate for dinner of 75% of what I want which is what we’ll get witt Romney over a full plate of steaming cow pies we’ll get from Obama. Pragmatism is better than suicide.

[MissesBush]

Whatever you think of Romney, Obama and Biden are FOS on private equity and should be called out on it as part of our overall defense of free markets against these socialist demagogues. That is why I posted this.

[MissesBush]

Whomever posted that is an ignoramous. Dislike Romney all you want but Romney has a valid US birth certificate from Detroit, Michigan. I think it was the same person who also claimed, incorrectly, that Romney supported gay marriage as Gov of Mass.

[MissesBush]

Not to mention Romney has a valid US birth certificate from Detroit Michigan. Romney is no less eligible for the presidency having a fattier born in Mexico, to a US citizen, than Santorum was for having a mother born in Italy.

[MissesBush]

What did Romney ever say trashing Palin? I’ve certainly never heard of him trashing her.

[Hostage]

Obama unites our party.

Romney divides our party.

[Diogenesis]

Romney, himself, and no one else, installed gay marriage.

Convenient of the LIAR to blame others, is it not?

Note Romney’s use of improper executive authority. [The Romney Way™]

"Experts: Credit Romney for homosexual marriage"
"What he (Governor Bishop Mitt Romney) did was exercise illegal legislative authority'

"While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney claims he did everything possible to throttle homosexual marriage in his state – his campaign now saying he took "every conceivable step within the law to defend traditional marriage" – several constitutional experts say that just isn't so.

"What Romney did [was] he exercised illegal legislative authority," Herb Titus said of the governor's actions after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court released its opinion in the Goodridge case in 2003. "He was bound by what? There was no order. There wasn't even any order to the Department of Public Health to do anything."

Titus, a Harvard law graduate, was founding dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. He also worked with former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, ...

Romney's aides have told WND that after four of the seven court members reinterpreted the definition of marriage, he believed he had no choice but to direct clerks and others to change state marriage forms and begin registering same-sex couples.

Some opponents contend that with those actions, Romney did no more or less than create the first homosexual marriages recognized in the nation. And Titus agrees."

"....But the court's decision conflicts with the constitutional philosophy of three co-equal branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial, Titus said. It also violates with the Massachusetts Constitution, which states: "The power of suspending the laws, or (suspending) the execution of the laws, ought never to be exercised but by the legislature..."

And it cannot even be derived from the opinion itself, asserts the pro-family activist group Mass Resistance, which says the decision did four things:

* First, it acknowledged that the current law does not permit same-sex marriage.

"The only reasonable explanation is that the Legislature did not intend that same-sex couples be licensed to marry. We conclude, as did the judge, that G.L. c. 207 may not be construed to permit same-sex couples to marry."

* Second, it said it is NOT striking down the marriage laws (among other things, the Massachusetts Constitution forbids a court to change laws)

"Here, no one argues that striking down the marriage laws is an appropriate form of relief."

* Third, it declared that not allowing same-sex marriages is a violation of the Massachusetts Constitution.

"We declare that barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution."

* And fourth, given that the court is not changing any laws, the SJC gave the Legislature 180 days to "take such action as it may deem appropriate."

"We vacate the summary judgment for the department. We remand this case to the Superior Court for entry of judgment consistent with this opinion. Entry of judgment shall be stayed for 180 days to permit the Legislature to take such action as it may deem appropriate in light of this opinion."

After the Legislature did nothing during the 180 days, Romney then took action "on his own," the group said.

"Gov. Romney's legal counsel issued a directive to the Justices of the Peace that they must perform same-sex marriages when requested or 'face personal liability' or be fired," the group said."

[Diogenesis]

The liar and backstabber Myth Romney is NOT eligible.

Furthermore, your defense of Romney vis a vis Gov Palin
is also inaccurate:

FLASHBACK:

The McCain/Palin ticket was up ++4 to 10 pts
in some polls, days prior to Election 2008.
So rather than helping the GOP, Romney and
TeamROMNEY and the RNME (Republican National Media Establishment)
decided …to attack Gov. Palin to throw Election2008.

Romney, and the Van der Sloot RNME RINOs for Obama in 2008

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."

---

The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.

---

"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

---

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

---

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

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