Nobody is attacking free enterprise, except a bunch of wilfully blind RINOs who can’t seem to see the difference between asking reasonable questions about a candidate’s record and “attacking capitalism.”
Romney has boasted about his “business,” trying to give the impression that he was a captain of industry, but avoiding the fact that his activity was actually in the highly speculative financial sphere. There is nothing wrong with this, but he should be honest about it. However, because the Dems have vilified “Wall Street,” he doesn’t want to be connected with it.
There are also questions about some of the deals the company did, particularly those done during the heyday of “vulture capitalism,” which didn’t mean buying and restructing failing businesses, but buying anything you could get, stripping the assets out of it and dumping it. These things may all have been perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make them right or beneficial to anybody’s economy except that of the speculator.
In addition, some of these things were done relying on the fact that the government would come in to make up the difference; it was possible to take the entire pension fund as “management fees” because the fund was government insured and the government would bail it out.
Romney has explained none of this. But he sure has been successful at duping a bunch of people who should know better, convincing them that somehow defending his lies is defending “capitalism.”
Well, if Republicans don’t want to look at Romney’s record now, I’m sure they’ll get a chance in the summer and fall. Just counting the 80 or so companies the WSJ mentioned and the 20% or so that went bankrupt, that gives the MSM one bankrupt company a week to investigate between July through October. The guy who did the King of Bain video was apparently just a former Romney staffer who made it on his own and tried to sell it to Newt and Perry. The MSM will have about a zillion times more resources to put together their own reports.
The one common thread that seems to go through all the Bain bankruptcies is that Bain and their investors either lose nothing or very little on them. All the loss is piled onto the employees, the banks, the insurance companies, the government, etc. It’s very much like the mortgage-backed securities situation where one person uses clever financial wheeling-and-dealing to lead another person into taking all of the loss on a high risk prospect.
We’ve been focusing on the job losses, but that seems to be just one piece of a larger gaming of the financial system that shows not just ethical lapses but willful abuse of the system. It seems like the modus operandi for a lot of Bain’s acquisitions was to buy a company and cut a lot of short-term costs by selling assets, firing workers, etc. Then they would take the financial statements to creditors to show that the company is starting to show a profit and get huge loans for the acquired business. Then they would take most of that loaned money and transfer it back to Bain for their own profit in the form of fees and dividends. That money was then untouchable when the acquired business went bankrupt. The insurance companies, the government and the banks were then on the hook for the loss. The NY Times reported one case where Bain was threatened with a lawsuit and only then agreed to forego some of the fees they said they were owed from a bankrupted firm.
No one’s saying Bain didn’t have successes. But it seems like the way to “maximize their return” was to realize they could get away with scams and con jobs on 20% of their buyouts without ruining their reputation. That kept enough credit flowing and allowed them to abuse the system. I’ve seen where a couple managers from these businesses say they would’ve avoided bankruptcy if Bain didn’t drive them into debt, often just for the purpose of Bain paying itself in advance before they did anything to help the company.
I wonder if I could start a company today, get a million-dollar loan, pay myself a million-dollar consulting fee, and then let the business go bankrupt and claim it has no assets while I keep the money. Well, you have to realize this is exactly what Bain did. They just did it with a lot more cover, basically as a “side business” on top of their legitimate operations. Obviously they couldn’t do that scam 100% of the time, but they seem to have figured out they could get away with it 20% of the time without it ruining their reputation.
At any rate, most of us are amateurs trying to piece together a picture of Bain on a shoestring budget. I’m sure the MSM will do a much better job of defining Bain for us this summer and fall if Romney is the nominee.
Romney has explained none of this. But he sure has been successful at duping a bunch of people who should know better, convincing them that somehow defending his lies is defending “capitalism.”
**
Exactly. Has explained NOTHING. If he could come out, provide some walk through on any of it, providing some rationales ...ok, but he hasn’t, and he won’t. He will only attack his critics.
Just like Obama does.
A man who thinks it’s ok to have some “losers” in these deals is NOT a man I want for president.
What got me in one of the stories was hearing about the lowering of quality of the products (i.e., the washing machines, for example). It reminds me of what’s being done in healthcare now ...continue to push employees, do more with less — just to stay profitable. Eventually it runs it into the ground, runs people into the ground — the “craft” of what you do is destroyed. It’s a horrible way to operate and a horrible thing to do to tour fellow human beings.
Romney has explained none of this. But he sure has been successful at duping a bunch of people who should know better, convincing them that somehow defending his lies is defending “capitalism.”
**
Exactly. Has explained NOTHING. If he could come out, provide some walk through on any of it, providing some rationales ...ok, but he hasn’t, and he won’t. He will only attack his critics.
Just like Obama does.
A man who thinks it’s ok to have some “losers” in these deals is NOT a man I want for president.
What got me in one of the stories was hearing about the lowering of quality of the products (i.e., the washing machines, for example). It reminds me of what’s being done in healthcare now ...continue to push employees, do more with less — just to stay profitable. Eventually it runs it into the ground, runs people into the ground — the “craft” of what you do is destroyed. It’s a horrible way to operate and a horrible thing to do to your fellow human beings.
Ultimately, this whole argument comes down to “fairness”, a mythical concept of the Left used to encourage class warfare.
While it seems unfair that a business layoff employees or move elsewhere to a better business environment, it is just as unfair that investors lose their money supporting employees they cannot afford.
“...buying anything you could get”
This is exactly right! But, investors don't usually sell good investments, & Bain C cannot force any investor to sell their investments. You cannot buy that which is not for sale. There must be good monetary incentive (profit) to sell a good investment. Bad or poorly performing investments, OTOH, are easily acquired & are often selling at bargain prices.
Do you think those investors - owners - selling their business give one whit about the fate of the employees? Did they include protections for the employees in the sale & management turnover? Owners can do that, you know, but it costs them money. Or did they take their money & run?
Let's see? You've worked 20-30 years for a company, & one day the owners sell off & leave, often w/o so much as an “Adios”. New owners come in & gut the place, so it is entirely their fault you lose your job? Seems to me that if any obligation exists to the employee & I don't believe there is, it is the people who hired them that has the obligation, not the new owners or new management.
"These things may all have been perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make them right or beneficial to anybody’s economy except that of the speculator."
The exact same argument could be made against Boeing as it attempted to move manufacturing out of the Northwest to the Carolinas. Is it right or fair that all those people would lose their jobs so Boeing could make more money for their stockholders? That is the essence of the argument.