Posted on 01/09/2012 6:24:44 PM PST by americanophile
The last two presidential election cycles have revealed a stinking hypocrisy in conservatives: They profess their love of capitalism and entrepreneurship, but when offered a real capitalist and entrepreneur, they go, “Eek, a mouse!” And they tear him down in proud social-democrat fashion. In the off season, they sound like Friedrich Hayek. When the game is on, they sound like Huey Long, Bella Abzug, or Bob Shrum.
Last time around, Mike Huckabee said Romney “looks like the guy who laid you off.” Conservatives reacted like this was the greatest mot since Voltaire or something. To me, Romney looked like someone who could create a business and hire the sadly unentrepreneurial like me.
Others said, “He looks like a car salesman,” or, worse, “a used-car salesman.” Ho ho ho! Commerce, gross, icky, yuck. Better Romney looked like an anthropology professor.
As I say in Impromptus today, I was watching a clip of Romney tangling with an “Occupy” protester last week. Romney was defending corporate profits. I was astounded. I don’t think I had ever seen a candidate do this. When the subject comes up, you’re supposed to denounce corporate profits or say, “Hey, nice weather we’re having, huh?”
Phil Gramm once explained to Bill Buckley why he never talked about free trade on the stump — he, a professor of economics and a free-marketeer: It wasn’t worth the trouble. “Free trade benefits almost everybody,” said Gramm. “But they don’t know who they are. Free trade hurts a few, and they all know who they are.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
This is bunk. Free traitorism only benefits the small globalist elite that underwrites economics chairs at universities and bribes both parties.
So his anti-gun, pro Romney Care, etc., stances mean nothing?
I don’t have have any problems with him being a captialist. I have problems with him being a Liberal. The fact that he was elected Governor of the People’s Democratic Republic of Massachusetts is proof enough for me.
And for many many years have folks been saying the the R are really the same as the Rats, just a little less so? So R’s attacking free enterprise, capitalism and constitutionalism is not really all that surprising.
Mitt Romney is neither a true Republican nor a conservative. FR will continue to tear him a new one as per the owner.
I remind you all that there is a distinction between pro-market and pro-business (see Gov. Palin’s latest book, or better still the writings of her favorite Chicago-School economist Luigi Zingales). When the two diverge, I hope that most American conservatives will be pro-market, rather than pro-business.
Certainly corporate raiding or asset-stripping can serve a function in the economy rather like predators and carrion fowl serve in nature, but it is at best an unlovely part of capitalism, and at worst an abuse of capitalism. Do corporate raiders actually deliver shareholder value to the owners of the companies they take over, or do they line their own pockets as the new managers (and largest, though most often not majority shareholders) at the expense of their fellow owners? Too much of what passes for capitalism these days are managers delivering value for themselves at the expense of the shareholders, whose fiduciaries they are in theory. When “pro-business” policies support management shafting shareholders or plurality shareholders shafting the rest, I turn “anti-business”, and do so with a good conscience as a conservative. I’m not particularly interested in whether Bain Capital downsized companies to took over. I’m interested in how the other shareholders, the other capitalists who has perhaps originally built up the company, fared under Bain’s stewarship. From what I have read, they did not fare well, and that is reason enough to hold Bain’s behavior against Romney.
Rick Santorum just denounced this line of attack on Hannity’s show..
I’m not thrilled with some of today’s business tactics but they are what they are. The last company I worked for was bought by Collins and Aikman who promptly squeezed the value out of my company and dumped the corpse. Today Collins and Aikman are themselves gone after going chapter 11 in 07 (David Stockman’s watch)
Too bad you’re sacrificing something much bigger than Romney to do so...this is myopic! This issue isn’t Romney, it’s that the GOP is embracing this Marxist rhetoric. I’m absolutely astonished by this and the apparent approval of it. The means does not justify the ends here! Capitalism is one of the bedrock foundations of this nation.
Good for Santorum!
Perry is jumping in on this anti capitalism theme too. I think this is going to back fire big time. kinda validates the contention that their is no difference between the 2 parties, when the conservative party attacks conservative principles. Attack Mitt for being a capitalist and attack Paul for being a constitutionalist. wow, just wow.
I figure by morning we’ll be hearing how Santorum is helping Romney and hoping for a VP slot.
This kind of crap is destroying the GOP more effectively than the left could ever hope to do.
I am disgusted with the entire lot of candidates.
I am now resigned to the Anyone But Obama ticket.
Romney is a liar and REAL conservatives WILL expose him. He’s as dishonest as they come and if you think he was an honest businessman and only dirty in politics you’re naive.
Newt is only retaliating because Romney brought up his consulting for Fannie Mae. Newt didn’t start that fight.
Bain invested in over 240 companies, overwhelmingly as startups or faltering companies in troubled industries with the intent to turn them around and eventually sell them. In no case was their original intent to “asset strip”. In the very few cases where they did asset strip a company it was because it failed and the the sum of the parts was worth more than the whole.A venture capital company answers to its shareholders not populist voters.In those instances they exercised good business judgement in selling off the assets to recoup some or all of their investments.I only wish Obama had provided the government with the ability to sell off Solyndra assets and recoup some of the taxpayers’ money instead of bargaining this right away to his bundlers who invested in the company.
Romney and Bain made a lot of their money as corporate raiders.
Romney talks about job creation. Let him open his books. Staples is one success: Mostly minimum wage jobs.
Talk is cheap and Romney has been proved a liar more times than we can count.
OWS was created for The Marxist to run against Romney. Let's see how Romney stands up to this during the primaries not afterward, when it's too late.
Just try to imagine Romney speeches and campaign events interrupted and jammed by OWS protests and other ilk all summer and up till Election Day in November!
NO ROMNEY! NO WAY!
GO NEWT!
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