I’ll give Romney credit for being a smart guy. He came up with a pretty clever high finance scheme that worked within the law. But I won’t give him credit for being ethical, honest, trustworthy, likable, socially responsible, charitable, having a moral center, putting the needs of others above or even on par with his own, etc.
Most of the companies Romney talks about as creating jobs were ones Bain worked on as startups in the venture capital business model. No one out there criticizes the venture capital model. This seems to be an honest one that rewards great performance in the marketplace. On the other hand, Romney takes credit for investing in them, not for running them. From what I’ve seen, he was one among many investors in these companies, different people actually managed and ran the companies, and he may have sold off his investment before they created a lot of those jobs. So it’s dubious how much credit he deserves for even those.
He doesn’t take much credit for companies in the private equity business model, because this is the one that thrives on loading up companies with debt. This only helped contribute to many of them going into bankruptcy and for many of the ones that survived to struggle to grow their business, due to being saddled with so much debt and interest payments. And, yes, the original owners of these companies bear some blame for bringing Bain in to take control of them. But when those people remained on as partners, Bain of course cut them in on the deal to make off with the dividends and fees, so they likewise were motivated to act against the best interest of the company, the customers and the employees.
Bain’s venture capital investment in Staples was 10%, they did not run Staples yet Romney takes credit for creating those Staples jobs. When you think Romney think flake
Amusingly enough his father was a real live “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” capitalist and industrialist.
(WIKIPEDIA)George Romney started working in wheat and sugar beet fields at the age of eleven and was the valedictorian at his grammar school graduation in 1921.[22]