RUSH: WE NEED TO PUSH OUR NOMINEE TO THE RIGHT, NOT THE LEFT!

www.RushLimbaugh.com ^ | January 10, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Yosemitest]

We Need to Push Our Nominee to the Right,
Not the Left!

January 10, 2012

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Wayne, Charlotte, North Carolina. You're next.
Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Yes, sir! That's where I am, sir.
I -- I -- I am livid with you today.
It's the first time I've ever been livid with you in over 20 years, Rush!
You know, you're negatively painting Speaker Gingrich when you just perfectly delineated my whole point, or at least part of it.
At one point, sir, Newt Gingrich came into this campaign with a campaign of ideas --
positive ideas, criticisms of the Obama administration and only criticisms of the Obama administration.
You said earlier with that other caller that was tired of the negativity in the campaign,
"Well, some people have been being positive."
The only person, sir -- the only person -- who created a positive agenda in the campaign and in the debates was Speaker Gingrich.
He refused to attack other people. He always said,
"Everybody on this platform would be better than what we have in the White House."
That was the tone he set.
It wasn't until Mitt Romney and it wasn't until Ron Paul came out with the attack dogs.
At what point, how many millions of dollars need to be spent broadcasting live against you until
you're able and allowed to defend yourself?

RUSH: What in the world are you disagreeing with? I've said all of this!
I've said all of this all day long.
I've gotta take a break, so you hang on.
You got time to hang on through the break?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: I knew you would.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back now to Wayne in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Wayne, thank you for holding on during the break.

CALLER: My pleasure, sir.

RUSH: Now, I'm gonna tell you something.
I have said everything that you made a point of saying right before the break.
I have pointed out precisely why this is happening, and I explained to everybody that this is because of what Romney did to Newt,
and I even asked, what would you do if you were faced with millions of dollars in the --
when you didn't have any dollars, and it happened in two weeks and you were the frontrunner,
what would you do?

It's beyond that, sir, it's not because he didn't have any dollars.

RUSH: And I have practiced remarkable restraint in face of these Newt sound bites.
These ads that Newt's running are more negative than anything I've seen in a long time on the Republican side.

CALLER: Look, you're now trying to cast Newt to be a spoiler, you know,
and you give historic references that he's a spoiler like Perot was.
You know, that is just nonsense.
Newt has come up with -- he's been working for years to develop strategies and ideas.
Why can't he be allowed to bring his ideas to the table without being ripped apart personally by his fellow Republicans?
The whole idea was supposed to be
to compare ideas, to compare concepts on how we can improve this government,
how we can answer the Obama administration abandonment of the Constitution and abandonment of capitalism,
and you want to cast Gingrich as the villain here.

RUSH: I didn't.

CALLER: You vilified him for his talking about Bain Capital.
Well, why is that not legitimate?
Because Romney is using Bain Capital to bolster his record of job creation.
Well, if that's why he's doing it, then the job creation that Bain capital achieved, not after he left,
which was what Romney wants to take credit for,
but while he was still there should be fair game,
and if he's liquidating companies and taking all the money out, and leaving entire towns unemployed,
that should be fair game.

RUSH: But that's not what happened.
It happened in two of the over 100 buyouts that Bain Capital was involved in.

CALLER: During Romney's tenure.

RUSH: And it happens to be the same two things that the New York Times is writing about in trying to take out Romney.
Where do I fit into this anyway?
I'm trying to do what I can here to maintain a field where ideas are discussed, but at some point this has devolved to where it is.
I've tried today to explain to people why.

CALLER: I don't think you can blame Speaker Gingrich for defending himself.
And when 45% of all television ads in Iowa over the month of December were anti-Gingrich ads mostly from Romney's PAC --

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: -- and also from Ron Paul's PAC --

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: -- when that's the case, at what point -- how many candidates did we have then?
Bachmann was still in the race then.
We had a lot of candidates and 45% of all aired television ads in Iowa were attacking Gingrich.
At what point do you say,
"You know what, I didn't want to answer these charges.
I didn't want to devolve the campaign into this, but at some point I have a reputation to uphold.
At some point I'm going to defend my ideas and my ability to express them."

RUSH: Look, Romney had the money.
Newt was in second place. Why is this so amazing?
This is what happens in politics.

CALLER: Well, it should be happening after the convention, not before.
We should be able to express ideas,
and if Mitt Romney can't expect to win by exchanging ideas and comparing his record fairly, then he doesn't deserve the nomination.
But, you know what, Rush?

RUSH: Why the attacks from the right?
These attacks are coming from the right.
Newt is not sounding like a conservative when he's making these attacks.
He's not giving people reason to vote for him. Trust me on this.
Not because of what I'm saying. I'm practicing restraint.
Do you realize how many people in this audience are livid when they hear these Newt bites?
They think it's what Obama says.
This is what Chuck Schumer says.
This is what Harry Reid says about us.

CALLER: And there you go again --

RUSH: No.
I'm telling you what -- I'm telling you what -- (crosstalk)

CALLER: -- Newt should have Obama at the end of his commercials?
Come on, Rush.

RUSH: I'm just helping people translate.

CALLER: Yeah, well, you know, obviously with a very broad bush,
and I think unfairly, and that's not like you.
You know, but like your caller earlier in the day, I still love you, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I still do love you.

RUSH: Who do you think I'm for in this race, can you tell?

CALLER: I can't really tell, but I think you'd be very happy with Mitt Romney.
I think you'd be very dissatisfied with Newt,
because otherwise I can't explain why you're unfairly attacking him today and --

RUSH: I'm not.

CALLER: -- you're trying to couch it by saying you're just explaining, but you're doing more than that.
You know that.

RUSH: I think more than anything here
I'm defending conservatism.
And I'm defending capitalism.
Capitalism is under assault here in the Republican Party.
I'm telling you, I don't care how much you love Newt, that is not good.
Capitalism being under assault in the Republican Party is not gonna help us at all.
It's what Michael Moore does. Michael Moore makes his career attacking capitalism.
We don't need to do that on our side.

CALLER: Job creation is a fair concept, it's a fair topic.

RUSH: Who defines fair?
What is fair job creation?

CALLER: Wait, what I'm saying --

RUSH: Who sits in judgment of that?

CALLER: Job creation is fair to talk about,
and when Romney talks about job creation, his record on job creation, he talks about Bain Capital.
Now, he wants to take credit for jobs created at Bain after, way after he left. Jobs created yesterday.
He hasn't been there, but he wants to take credit for all those jobs.
But the jobs that he actually threw away, the jobs that he took huge profits for, and then lost, he doesn't want to take the blame for.
That's not fair suddenly.
Well, it should all be fair.

RUSH: Oh, this fair business, that's another thing.
There's no enforcement mechanism for fair.

CALLER: You're right.
But it should be fair to bring up, and, you know, I'm bringing it up with you --

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: And it's fair --

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: And it's fair for you to bring it up with me.

RUSH: You are.

CALLER: We should be to talk about it.

RUSH: We are.

CALLER: And if Romney would take that plastic perma-smile off of his face
and actually answer some of the questions
he'd be better off as a candidate.

RUSH: (laughing) Plastic perma-smile off his face, I love it. (laughing.)

CALLER: Plastic perma-smile.

RUSH: I know
you think he's a Ken doll.


CALLER: Well, I do, I really do.
Because I don't think he has any core beliefs other than, you know, beliefs that guide him in his personal life.
He's a politician.

RUSH: I'm worried that we're looking at Richard Nixon II.
I'm worried that we've got a moderate here, there's no question.
But Newt is taking himself out by doing that.
I'm telling you, he's not helping himself here.

CALLER: Well, and you're not helping him to help himself, either, let me tell you.

RUSH: Well, but that's not my job.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: (laughing) What do you want me to do, say,
"Screw you, Romney. You SOB. You GDP,"
whatever the word. What do you want me to say?

CALLER: That was good enough.
I'll use that as a sound bite.

RUSH: All right, there you go, okay.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me try to 'splain this in another way.
I don't even know that I'm letting you in on a little secret here.
I have quoted a great column by Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal about Romney.
I've mentioned this a number of times.
It has appeared that the establishment wants Romney, and Romney's been leading in every poll,
and don't get mad at me for saying that he's the presumptive nominee.
That's the case that everybody's been trying to make and that's what the polling data has all showed.
Okay, so you deal with what you got.

Henninger's column was about the fact that
Romney was gonna have to be pushed to the right if he was gonna get there,
that his natural inclination is not conservatism.
Despite what he says, his natural inclination, his core, is not conservatism.
He's going to have to be pushed toward conservatism.
I don't mind Gingrich attacking Romney. I am not defending Romney.
What we have known, what we have said, is that
Mitt Romney needs to be pushed to the right.
He needs to be made a little bit more conservative, to run as a conservative, to campaign as a conservative.
Which the elites do not want him to do.

Newt is not pushing Romney to the right.
Newt is coming at him from the left.
We're seeing Newt now running to the left of Romney. That's what's going on.
That's what's so mind-boggling about this.
In a conservative Republican primary, we got Gingrich, and Perry, too, running to the left of Romney.
Gingrich and Perry running to the left of Romney.
Now, since when do Republicans hate capitalism? When did that start?
I don't hate capitalism.
Now, I know we've got some squishy moderates and some establishment types in our party that are afraid to defend it.
And we've got some squishy types who are afraid to even defend the whole profit motive and concept.
And, frankly, I have no patience for them.
But we as Republicans, we as conservatives do not hate capitalism.
We don't oppose capitalism and we do not want to talk about capitalism the way the left does.
And we're certainly not gonna push our candidates to the right in the process of coming at them from the left like this. We're pushing them to the left.

Now, in the case of Romney, Romney supported TARP and says he supports capitalism.
Those two don't go together.
So it's tough to find anybody here who's got clean hands.
Who of these candidates would you say has obvious conservative core beliefs?
Isn't it true, folks, isn't it true that when we look at the field of those remaining,
that the full-fledged pedal-to-the-metal conservative isn't there?
They've all got one degree or another or a series of degrees of flaws.
They all in one way or another end up thinking that using government to advance their policies is a good idea.
We don't think that.
So what are we left with? We don't have the ideal conservative.
So whoever's gonna win this thing has got to be pushed to the right and has got to be reminded that if they win this thing it's because that's how they did it,
and they're gonna pay a huge price if they abandon it after they're elected.

You deal with what you have. It's like Rumsfeld said,
"You go to war with the Army you have,"
and they raked him over the coals for that, but he had no choice.
Same thing here. So who has clean hands?
I mean that's the issue here when looking for a candidate, that's the big issue.
Who's got clean hands? Nobody wants to say it.
Romney people out preaching capitalism now and their supporters would never say
Santorum deserves another look even though he opposed TARP.
I mean there's hypocrisy all around.
I wouldn't have voted for TARP, but I would not have attacked Romney over Bain.
So what does that leave? Will the Romney supporters answer that?

Nobody's got clean hands here,
but whoever ends up with this is going to have to have won it by being pushed to the right.
And you're gonna have to admit with me here, folks, the past couple days that's not happening.
What is Romney supposed to do to defend?
He's gotta move left if he's gonna defend himself from this stuff.
That's not what we want.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So there's hypocrisy everywhere in this campaign.
There is hypocrisy all around.
I would not have voted for TARP, but Romney did.
Practically everybody else did, too.
Santorum was opposed to it, though.
I, at the same time, would not have attacked Romney over Bain.
So who does that leave?
Will the Romney supporters have an answer for that?
Bottom line is this, folks.
The Republican nominee, whoever it is, is only going to win the general election
by being conservative.
You know it and I know it.
The Republican establishment does not know it.
The Republican establishment is going to have to be pushed to the right.
Whoever the Republican nominee is, is going to have to be pushed to the right in the campaign, if we are to win.
We are not going to win when we say things about ourselves that the Democrats are also saying.
There will be no difference.
Since when do Republicans hate capitalism?
We don't.
And we're not gonna start now. Not on my watch.

END TRANSCRIPT

Related Links


• Wall Street Journal: The Unsinkable Mitt Romney - Daniel Henninger
  
  
• The Rush Limbaugh Show - Newt Sounds Just Like Obama: 01.10.12
  
  

[Yosemitest]

Rush, thanks again.
Let's remember what a great man said.

"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

September 21, 2011

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, this is a little Inside Baseball, but it's important because
he who controls the language ends up winning the debate,
and it might seem like a small thing, but I have learned and I have been given to understand that the "establishment Republicans" hate the term.
They don't like being called "establishment Republicans,"
and they are trying to change the term to "establishment conservatives" and in the process co-opt the definition of "conservative" and conservatism.
It's not something that you'll notice if you watch cable news or even read.
You have to be able to see the stitches on the fastball, you have to be able to read between the lines,
and you have to know some stuff going on behind the scenes
(and, of course, I am in a position to know these kinds of things).

So don't doubt me on this. The establishment Republicans are the ;establishment Republicans.
The Republican leadership is the Republican establishment, meaning the elites.
They hate it and they are in the process of trying to redefine who conservatives are and what it is --
and if they succeed, the conservatism that you and I hold dear will no longer be the definition of conservatism.
If they succeed, the current thinking of the Republican establishment will be what is called modern day conservatism.
Don't doubt me on this.
It sounds like a small thing, but in a daily ebb and flow you'll not even see any news about this,
but it's in important because it's crucial who controls the language, who controls the way words are defined.

You and I know that the establishment Republicans don't like conservatives.
They didn't like Reagan.
They were embarrassed of Reagan.
They were embarrassed of us.
They didn't like the Moral Majority, they didn't like the Christian right, they don't like the pro-lifers.
They don't like the social conservatives at all.
They're embarrassed by us, in many ways, with their other buddies, the establishment Democrats --
which combined gives us the Washington establishment,
and they very much prefer to be members of that club than ours.
But they know that it doesn't help them to be called "establishment Republicans."
So they're trying to take the term "conservative" and co-opt it
and define it as they behave, write, speak, and even vote on matters of politics.

END TRANSCRIPT

"Establishment Republicans" are Lying to Us With Threats of a Dire Default

Let's remember:

Never stand and take a charge... charge them too.

Someone on another thread said

"... Constitutional limitations of government power especially freedom of the press and speech, are designed to make government impotent in the absence of a general consensus ..."

But with the press not doing its job, and the LAME Stream Media trying to silence speech they don't agree with,
we're in a real mess and under attack by an evil force rarely seen in this country.
The Republicans and the God-Given freedoms this country has enjoyed so far, are descending into oblivion.
And the "Establishment Republicans" aren't doing a damned thing to stop it.
The "Establishment Republicans" aren't providing "the boots on the ground" to win.
They're trying to put the public back to sleep, lying to them, in order to keep their power, and "wreck the country as it commits suicide".
So now the "Establishment Republicans" have "fractured their base" and,
because they have taught us "that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics",
they're going to lose, and lose big, if they don't swing to the hard right wing of what used to be their party.
How many conservatives have re-registered as "Conservative Party" or "Independent" because they're fed up with being lied to?
We've been "treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience” ", and we're sick of it.
We don't trust them any longer.

Look, Rush said it best....

Now, the fact that the Republican establishment cannot make that case and other arguments
tells me that they may have already surrendered,
and this is a big difference between us and the establishment.
They're in this defensive posture, I've told you,
I said on Greta how many times, a lot of people inside the Republican establishment secretly don't even believe Obama can be beaten.
And that's why they want Romney,
'cause they think at least Romney will help 'em take the Senate.
He'll lose less down the ballot than Gingrich or some conservative will.
But conservatives, you Tea Party activists, you don't want to give up
and you haven't given up,
and you don't want to accept this propaganda from the left.
We insist on challenging it, we insist on fighting it
'cause there's no other way to save the country,
and continually playing these games
letting the Democrats rewrite the language, change the definition of things,
get away with false accusations against us, never do anything about it,
constantly stay on defense.

So now, because of the Establishment Republicans" there's not just a candle lit, but a bonfire lit ...
in the very heart of the conservatives, and it will burn away the dead wood that is "Establishment Republicans."

Yes, it's time to curse the "Establishment Republicans" for every thing they've NOT DONE!
And CURSE THEM for most of the things they HAVE DONE!

"Attack, repeat, ATTACK!"


"Establishment Republicans" Want to Redefine the Term "Conservative"

"DO CONSERVATIVES WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?"

DO CONSERVATIVES "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" WANT TO WIN IN 2012 OR NOT?

Palin was my first choice, but she dropped out.
Bachmann became my first choice,and she dropped out.
Cain was my second choice, but he dropped our.
Now ... Newt was my second choice, but he challenged Rush.
So now ... Rick Santorum, who use to be my third choice, is now my first choice.

But Romney, Perry, Ron Paul, Huntsman, and Johnson are NOT acceptable,
and if on the ballot for the general election for President or V.P., would cause me to do a write in.

There's no way in hell I can compromise my values.

Jack Kerwick wrote an article on May 24, 2011 titled The Tea Partier versus The Republican and he expressed some important issues that I agree with.

Thus far, the field of GOP presidential contenders, actual and potential, isn’t looking too terribly promising.

This, though, isn’t meant to suggest that any of the candidates, all things being equal, lack what it takes to insure
that Barack Obama never sees the light of a second term; nor is it the case that I find none of the candidates appealing.
Rather, I simply mean that at this juncture, the party faithful is far from unanimously energized over any of them.

It is true that it was the rapidity and aggressiveness with which President Obama proceeded to impose his perilous designs upon the country
that proved to be the final spark to ignite the Tea Party movement.
But the chain of events that lead to its emergence began long before Obama was elected.
That is, it was actually the disenchantment with the Republican Party under our “compassionate conservative” president, George W. Bush,
which overcame legions of conservatives that was the initial inspiration that gave rise to the Tea Party.

It is this frustration with the GOP’s betrayal of the values that it affirms that accounts for why the overwhelming majority
of those who associate with or otherwise sympathize with the Tea Party movement
refuse to explicitly or formally identify with the Republican Party.
And it is this frustration that informs the Tea Partiers’ threat to create a third party
in the event that the GOP continues business as usual.

If and when those conservatives and libertarians who compose the bulk of the Tea Party, decided that the Republican establishment
has yet to learn the lessons of ’06 and ’08, choose to follow through with their promise,
they will invariably be met by Republicans with two distinct but interrelated objections.

First,
they will be told that they are utopian, “purists” foolishly holding out for an “ideal” candidate.

Second, because virtually all members of the Tea Party would have otherwise voted Republican if not for this new third party,
they will be castigated for essentially giving elections away to Democrats.



Both of these criticisms are, at best, misplaced; at worst, they are just disingenuous.
At any rate, they are easily answerable.

Let’s begin with the argument against “purism.” To this line, two replies are in the coming.


No one, as far as I have ever been able to determine, refuses to vote for anyone who isn’t an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidates, by definition, don’t exist.
This, after all, is what makes them ideal.
This counter-objection alone suffices to expose the argument of the Anti-Purist as so much counterfeit.
But there is another consideration that militates decisively against it.

A Tea Partier who refrains from voting for a Republican candidate who shares few if any of his beliefs
can no more be accused of holding out for an ideal candidate
than can someone who refuses to marry a person with whom he has little to anything in common
be accused of holding out for an ideal spouse.
In other words, the object of the argument against purism is the most glaring of straw men:
“I will not vote for a thoroughly flawed candidate” is one thing;
“I will only vote for a perfect candidate” is something else entirely.



As for the second objection against the Tea Partier’s rejection of those Republican candidates who eschew his values and convictions,
it can be dispensed with just as effortlessly as the first.

Every election season—and at no time more so than this past season—Republicans pledge to “reform Washington,” “trim down” the federal government, and so forth.
Once, however, they get elected and they conduct themselves with none of the confidence and enthusiasm with which they expressed themselves on the campaign trail,
those who placed them in office are treated to one lecture after the other on the need for “compromise” and “patience.”

Well, when the Tea Partier’s impatience with establishment Republican candidates intimates a Democratic victory,
he can use this same line of reasoning against his Republican critics.
My dislike for the Democratic Party is second to none, he can insist.
But in order to advance in the long run my conservative or Constitutionalist values, it may be necessary to compromise some in the short term.

For example,

as Glenn Beck once correctly noted in an interview with Katie Couric,
had John McCain been elected in 2008, it is not at all improbable that, in the final analysis,
the country would have been worse off than it is under a President Obama.
McCain would have furthered the country’s leftward drift,
but because this movement would have been slower,
and because McCain is a Republican, it is not likely that the apparent awakening that occurred under Obama would have occurred under McCain.


It may be worth it, the Tea Partier can tell Republicans, for the GOP to lose some elections if it means that conservatives—and the country—will ultimately win.

If he didn’t know it before, the Tea Partier now knows that accepting short-term loss in exchange for long-term gain is the essence of compromise, the essence of politics.

Ironically, he can thank the Republican for impressing this so indelibly upon him.

I'm fresh out of "patience", and I'm not in the mood for "compromise".
"COMPROMISE" to me is a dirty word.
Let the RINO's compromise their values, with the conservatives, for a change.

The "Establishment Republicans" can go to hell!

[Sybeck1]

I pay Rush sixty dollars a year, just for him to defend a rino

[Sybeck1]

I pay Rush sixty dollars a year, just for him to defend a rino

[Utmost Certainty]

Rush misunderstands big time what Newt is really saying. It's an unfortunate reflection on many Republicans that they don't seem to understand it either.

Newt's case is simple:

1) Romney's vaunted "private sector experience", is of a particular kind that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election. Nobody's asserting that Bain Capital's actions were necessarily illegitimate nor unlawful, but it's obvious that Romney was no white knight of heroic, entrepreneurial capitalism.

2) Questions on business ethics are legitimate inquiries that one should have to answer for, especially if they're running for public office—these are not attacks on capitalism, and it's completely goofy that some would construe it that way. Those advocating a "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" attitude towards private enterprise activity, aren't doing capitalism any favors.

[livius]

What the heck is the matter with Rush? This was irrational and I honestly don’t understand what he was trying to say.

Personally, I hold Rush at least partly responsible for electing Obama because of his stupid “Operation Chaos” stuff in the last election. He spent most of his shows talking about the Dems, never focused on the lousy candidate that was being pushed on us by GOP Central, and got people so confused by encouraging them to vote for Hillary in open primaries that the conservative “base,” as he likes to call them, had no idea what to do about getting a decent GOP candidate.

I used to think he was having problems answering callers because he didn’t hear them very well, but now (with the supposed wonder hearing aids he keeps pushing) I have no idea what he is doing.

[CainConservative]

Rush getting mushy.

All the sweeter it will be when Newt wins SC and it becomes a whole new ballgame.

Grassroots versus Establishment.

[Sybeck1]

I pay Rush sixty dollars a year, just for him to defend a rino

[Sybeck1]

I pay Rush sixty dollars a year, just for him to defend a rino

[montag813]

Newt went over the line on FoxNews this morning, telling us when Capitalism is ok, and when it’s not. Telling us the difference between profits which are ok and those which are too much. I thought he would find lots of nastiness in the Bain records. Instead he is parroting Oliver Stone from “Wall Street” and portraying venture capitalists like Romney as Gordon Gekko. Newt actually said that capitalists should reduce their profits to share with the workers “who made the profits”. Isn’t that a Leftist position? This is a VERY risky play. Democrats are giddy today. One of them said that the “greedy capitalists” position is no longer a left-wing one, but a centrist one, because of Newt and Perry’s attacks. I am increasingly convinced that we need someone new to come into this race - perhaps someone who has already refused.

[CainConservative]

Pick a Conservative going forward to SC..

New Hampshire

NEWT 11%
Rick 10%
Perry 1%

[fatima]

Why do you pay him?

[xzins]

I agree.

I believe Romney’s actions in certain cases were illegal. He intentionally drove companies to bankruptcy by overborrowing against their assets while his company siphoned off a huge share of the BORROWED money.

He took advantage of both bankruptcy law and corporate law to achieve his end.

Has no one asked why, if Bain Capital owned, for example, AMPAD, why Bain Capital did not have ITS assets seized in the Ampad bankruptcy in order to satisfy AMPAD’s creditors?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Ping

[Pelham]

In Rush’s imagination ‘conservatism’ often seems to equate to support for the interests of the corporate suite.

This is a far cry from the traditional conservatism of Russell Kirk and the Southern Agrarians, who possessed a healthy skepticism for the world of big business. Not that they were hostile to it, but they certainly didn’t put the mercantile interests of business on their list of first principles.

Try this quote from Kirk’s ‘The Conservative Mind’:

“The United States had come a long way from the piety of Adams and the simplicity of Jefferson. The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of ‘private enterprise,’ economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests—such a nation was inviting the catastrophes which compel society to re-examine first principles.”

[livius]

This is called “vulture capitalism” and it’s not a good thing. Driving a company into the ground and then feeding off it is not capitalism, except in the most distorted of worlds.

And as for sharing with the workers, yes: give them good wages and good working conditions. Why not? Should the few top execs be the only ones to benefit from a good year...they certainly weren’t the only ones who did the work.

I worked for a big financial services company for several years, and they rewarded everybody in the firm, right down to the mailroom, when they did well. What’s wrong with that?

[elvis-lives]

To be honest, if Newt’s message is that there is a difference between positive, productive capitalism where investors spur growth and innovation to turn a profit for themselves while building a workforce thus producing jobs and a corrupted capitalism that decays the workforce by cynically bleeding companies of wealth and talent before selling off the scraps, then I am for his message.

We knew all along that Obama is going to go full on Class Warfare. Obama will try to paint all capitalists as the latter greedy, evil ilk. Do we want Newt making the counter argument, promoting beneficial capitalism that has historically made this country great, or do we want Romney taking the point on that argument? I go with the gentleman from Georgia.

[Pelham]

” Romney’s vaunted “private sector experience”, is of a particular kind “

Bill Gross of PIMCO and Eric Janszen of iTulip, neither of whom could be accused of being anti-capitalist, both have written of a distinction between the finance sector and the productive sector of the economy. Bain Capital belongs to the finance sector.

The productive sector of the economy grows as more things are produced. The standard of living of the middle class historically rose along with the productive economy.

The finance sector grows as asset prices increase. Its growth doesn’t always correspond to an improved life for the middle class. The finance sector used to support the productive economy, but in recent decades their interests often diverged. Instead of fueling the growth of the productive economy the finance sector could make money dismantling American manufacturing or shipping it overseas.

[xzins]

Nothing is wrong with having all workers share in a company’s good business results. In fact, it builds team and commitment.

Bain’s bankruptcy tactic was, in my opinion, illegal. It was not just workers who were injured by their abuse of bankruptcy laws, but also creditors and contractors. All of those took serious losses at pennies on the dollar.

I continue to wonder how Bain Capital controlled these companies but were not liable for their debt out of Bain assets.

How were they able to siphon off millions upon millions in fees from the borrowed money but have to pay with their assets when the bankruptcy was dealt with in court?

[xzins]

Nothing is wrong with having all workers share in a company’s good business results. In fact, it builds team and commitment.

Bain’s bankruptcy tactic was, in my opinion, illegal. It was not just workers who were injured by their abuse of bankruptcy laws, but also creditors and contractors. All of those took serious losses at pennies on the dollar.

I continue to wonder how Bain Capital controlled these companies but were not liable for their debt out of Bain assets.

How were they able to siphon off millions upon millions in fees from the borrowed money but NOT have to pay with their assets when the bankruptcy was dealt with in court?

[kalee]

Placemarker