Romneyconomics

[edeevee]

During the 2008 presidential primary season I considered supporting Mitt Romney. His stance on the issues wasn't too far from mine. I was impressed by his success with the Olympics and he seemed like a genuinely good guy. Before I got very far in researching him, McCain became the obvious contender for the Republicans and Obama emerged as a viable candidate whose philosophy was an even closer match with mine. Obama won and overall I've been happy with my choice. IMO he's done an okay job considering the domestic and international economic debacles he started with and the bunch of idiots he's been saddled with in congress (on both sides of the aisle). I figured I'd probably vote for him again but decided Romney was at least worth consideration. Of course, the Romney that ran in '08 is not the Romney of '12 but maybe all that extremism was just a big show to get the nod from his party. Maybe he'd drift closer to center again once he sealed the nomination. I took a closer look.

I wasn't happy with what I found. The flip flopping and the inability to keep his foot out of his mouth were cause for concern but his business acumen still appealed to me. We could use someone who really understands the economy, I thought, and that's where I concentrated my research efforts. I am no expert at finance and international investment. It's freaking complicated. I figured the only way I could understand it was to take his history with one company and see how that panned out. The company I chose was Cambridge Industries. I picked them because I'd heard the most about them and I knew they had manufacturing interests right here in Indiana. Here's what I found out:

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE’S GUIDE TO MAKING 10 MILLION DOLLARS (or more) IN 12 SIMPLE STEPS

STEP ONE: Be born to a millionaire. (It takes money to make money.)

STEP TWO: Hire really smart lawyers.

STEP THREE: Locate a company with growing pains. Purchase stock interest in said company for $2.2 million by offering to protect the financial health of the current owner and other major stock holders. Pay yourself $2.25 million in fees as soon as the deal is complete while structuring it so additional investors receive compensation only when (or if) the company succeeds. (See step #2.)

STEP FOUR: Finance the company’s debt through your own Bermuda based offshore investment company so that interest income cannot be taxed in your country. Allow regular US tax payers to make up your share.

STEP FIVE: Downsize the company’s management employees, replace hourly employees with part time and temporary employees. Renegotiate wage and benefit packages for employees who remain.

STEP SIX: Under the newly acquired company’s name, seek out other companies with similar growing pains. Purchase those companies by taking on additional debt financed (again) by your company in Bermuda.

STEP SEVEN: Repeat steps Five and Six eight times. Take .75 % of purchase price as fee for each transaction.

STEP EIGHT: Along the way, don’t forget to collect your $950,000 advisor fee each year.

STEP NINE: Uh-oh. The company’s purchases are starting to add up. It needs to refinance to get a lower interest rate than the one you’re charging them. Go ahead, have the guys you placed on the company’s board of directors approve that – as long as they pay you a $2 million early payoff penalty.

STEP TEN: CONGRATULATIONS! The company you purchased has now swallowed up so many of its competitors that it qualifies as a leading resource within its industry, thus gaining major contracts. It’s time to PAR-TAY!

STEP ELEVEN: Oops. Those new contracts will mean major purchases of raw materials and some retooling. All of that costs money. But the company is now paying more money in interest than they are bringing in through production. They’re broke (or will be after they pay your annual fee).

STEP TWELVE: Push the company into filing for bankruptcy. Stick your investors with a loss. Laugh all the way to the bank.

[evilkumquat]

For all of Romney's talk about loving America, he and Wall Street seem to be acting like gamblers cashing in their chips in our country, what with deliberately crashing struggling businesses and moving assets and jobs offshore and overseas.

Boehner recently complained that President Obama never had a "real job". If Romney's vulture capitalism positions are the kinds of jobs the Republican speaker and others in his party consider "real", we REALLY don't want them back in power after November.

[edeevee]

For all of Romney's talk about loving America, he and Wall Street seem to be acting like gamblers cashing in their chips in our country, what with deliberately crashing struggling businesses and moving assets and jobs offshore and overseas.

Boehner recently complained that President Obama never had a "real job". If Romney's vulture capitalism positions are the kinds of jobs the Republican speaker and others in his party consider "real", we REALLY don't want them back in power after November.

Evil, even though Romney is using it as his main argument that he is best qualified to be our president, I guess you and I are the only ones who are bothered by Romney's path to success. I've heard a lot of people argue that what he has done is not illegal, like that makes it okay. In the first place, I'm not sure anyone can definitively say that all of his business strategies were legal. There's more than one instance where he failed to list certain assets and about three tons of others where we have NO IDEA how or where he got some of his money and what he did with it because he intentionally placed it in accounts in places where EVEN ASKING about those things is a crime. And all of that is just from the parts we KNOW ABOUT. If I had to guess, I'd suppose there are some verrrry interesting items on those tax returns that Romney doesn't want to release. But in the second place, just because something is not illegal, that doesn't automatically make it right.

Consider this, it is not illlegal to publish magazines with naked women in them but when Larry Flynt ran for president we all thought that was a joke. Being a smut peddler didn't legally disqualify Flynt for president but who would actually vote for someone who chose to make his fortune that way? And yet, we're not just asked to overlook Romney's rape and plunder tactics, we're supposed to use them as the basis for voting for the man? Seriously?

In an election we are hiring someone to lead our country. What if we if we all followed this leader? What if we all had our wages declared investments and paid 20% less tax on them? What if every business decided to operate through a shell corporation located in Bermuda so we didn't have to pay even that 15% on the real investments we made? What if we hid unknown chunks of money in Swiss bank accounts so no one could determine if we owed taxes on them or not? Who would be left to pay for schools and roads and the military and police and fire if we all decided to become Romneys and the little guys cover our share?

And then there's this ... self employment isn't for everyone but what if anyone who ever dreamed of owning his or her own business stuck to the Romney plan? In Romney's world you don't make money by building or manufacturing THINGS, you make your money by taking it from others. (Kind of ironic, given the whole don't take from the rich mantra that's brewing in the Republican party.) Case in point: Cambridge Industries. Once upon a time it was a small independent Michigan manufacturer of plastic automobile components. Then some MBA type targeted it as his own personal pyramid scheme. He bought Cambridge, "streamlined it" then bought a couple other small manufacturers to lessen the competition. The problem was, his collateral was limited and for a pyramid scheme to work it has to keep growing. Enter Romney and Bain. When they purchased 39% of the company in 1996 the SEC filings list Cambridge as having around 2500 employees. Less than five years later, when the company was forced into bankruptcy, the SEC filings list 2000 employees. Some job creator, huh?

But that's not even the whole story because, remember, along the way Bain forced Cambridge to buy EIGHT OTHER COMPANIES. All of them were under the Cambridge umbrella when they went kaput. That means ALL of the other eight companies lost ALL of their employees while under Romney's watchful eye too. I've never been that great at math so let me ask you this, if we all became Romney-style job creators -- would anyone in this country still have a job?

Is this what we really want?

[HomeyG]

Do you think Romney should release his tax records? Why do you believe he hasn't released them yet?

[edeevee]

Do you think Romney should release his tax records? Why do you believe he hasn't released them yet?

I think it is his personal decision whether to release tham or not. It is my personal decision to remain suspicious of someone who does not wish to release them

P.S. I hope you are well and enjoying your summer.

[HomeyG]

I think it is his personal decision whether to release tham or not. It is my personal decision to remain suspicious of someone who does not wish to release them

P.S. I hope you are well and enjoying your summer.

Are you suspicious of the President for not releasing his college records?

[HoosierHelen]

Evil, even though Romney is using it as his main argument that he is best qualified to be our president, I guess you and I are the only ones who are bothered by Romney's path to success. I've heard a lot of people argue that what he has done is not illegal, like that makes it okay. In the first place, I'm not sure anyone can definitively say that all of his business strategies were legal. There's more than one instance where he failed to list certain assets and about three tons of others where we have NO IDEA how or where he got some of his money and what he did with it because he intentionally placed it in accounts in places where EVEN ASKING about those things is a crime. And all of that is just from the parts we KNOW ABOUT. If I had to guess, I'd suppose there are some verrrry interesting items on those tax returns that Romney doesn't want to release. But in the second place, just because something is not illegal, that doesn't automatically make it right.

Is this what we really want?

Vanity Fair did an informative article on those who are interested in Romney's approach to life & business. Here is a snippet from their lengthy article on his approach to business economics. I wouldn't expect to see improved jobs as a result of this thinking:

Romney, for his part, contrasted the capitalistic benefits of creative destruction with what happened in controlled economies, in which jobs might be protected but productivity and competitiveness falters. Far better, Romney wrote in his book No Apology, “for governments to stand aside and allow the creative destruction inherent in a free economy.” He acknowledged that it is “unquestionably stressful—on workers, managers, owners, bankers, suppliers, customers, and the communities that surround the affected businesses.” But it was necessary to rebuild a moribund company and economy. It was a point of view he would stick with in years ahead. Indeed, he wrote a 2008 op-ed piece for The New York Times opposing a federal bailout for automakers that the newspaper headlined, LET DETROIT GO BANKRUPT. His advice went unheeded, and his prediction that “you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye” if it got a bailout has not come true.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2...-romney-201202

[HoosierHelen]

When Bain Capital began and Romney was assigned to recruit investments to the new company...where did some of the original investments come from? They always say....follow the money!

Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads

In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.
When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.
Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globereporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.
It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war.
The death squads committed atrocities on such a mass scale for so small a country that their killing spree sparked international condemnation. From 1979 to 1992, some 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran civil war, according to the United Nations. In 1982, two years before Romney began raising money from the oligarchs, El Salvador's independent Human Rights Commission reported that, of the 35,000 civilians killed, "most" died at the hands of death squads.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1710133.html

[evilkumquat]

When Bain Capital began and Romney was assigned to recruit investments to the new company...where did some of the original investments come from? They always say....follow the money!

Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads

In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.
When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.
Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globereporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.
It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war.
The death squads committed atrocities on such a mass scale for so small a country that their killing spree sparked international condemnation. From 1979 to 1992, some 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran civil war, according to the United Nations. In 1982, two years before Romney began raising money from the oligarchs, El Salvador's independent Human Rights Commission reported that, of the 35,000 civilians killed, "most" died at the hands of death squads.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1710133.html

Saint Ronnie armed Central and South American death squads, so the Republicans won't have any problems with Romney doing the same.

[evilkumquat]

Do you think Romney should release his tax records? Why do you believe he hasn't released them yet?

"Yes", and "because they will only damage his chances."

Remember: he released what? Twenty years or more worth of returns to the McCain campaign back when he was sniffing at the VP spot? When McCain's people saw what was in them, they decided SARAH PALIN made a better choice.

Again: Mitt Romney's tax returns made Sarah Palin a better choice for VP.

[evilkumquat]

Are you suspicious of the President for not releasing his college records?

Barack Obama was President of his Harvard class, which makes me curious how documentation showing how much smarter he is that Romney would help the latter's campaign; regardless, what bearing would his college transcripts even have at this point? Smart people (like Obama) have already reached the conclusion that after the whole Birther fiasco, nothing Obama releases would satisfy the conspiracy nuts or Republicans.

The precedent of releasing a decade or more of tax returns, however, has been set (by Romney's own father for that matter). It's hard to HONESTLY argue that how one made his money would not be a good indicator as to how one might approach the economy when occupying the Oval Office, not to mention one's patriotism (or lack thereof) if most or all of his money is stored in offshore accounts free from the tax burden felt by the REST of us.

Incidentally, we're STILL waiting for the records detailing W. Bush's last few years in the National Guard.

[blue adept]

Evil, even though Romney is using it as his main argument that he is best qualified to be our president, I guess you and I are the only ones who are bothered by Romney's path to success. I've heard a lot of people argue that what he has done is not illegal, like that makes it okay. In the first place, I'm not sure anyone can definitively say that all of his business strategies were legal. There's more than one instance where he failed to list certain assets and about three tons of others where we have NO IDEA how or where he got some of his money and what he did with it because he intentionally placed it in accounts in places where EVEN ASKING about those things is a crime. And all of that is just from the parts we KNOW ABOUT. If I had to guess, I'd suppose there are some verrrry interesting items on those tax returns that Romney doesn't want to release. But in the second place, just because something is not illegal, that doesn't automatically make it right.

Consider this, it is not illlegal to publish magazines with naked women in them but when Larry Flynt ran for president we all thought that was a joke. Being a smut peddler didn't legally disqualify Flynt for president but who would actually vote for someone who chose to make his fortune that way? And yet, we're not just asked to overlook Romney's rape and plunder tactics, we're supposed to use them as the basis for voting for the man? Seriously?

In an election we are hiring someone to lead our country. What if we if we all followed this leader? What if we all had our wages declared investments and paid 20% less tax on them? What if every business decided to operate through a shell corporation located in Bermuda so we didn't have to pay even that 15% on the real investments we made? What if we hid unknown chunks of money in Swiss bank accounts so no one could determine if we owed taxes on them or not? Who would be left to pay for schools and roads and the military and police and fire if we all decided to become Romneys and the little guys cover our share?

And then there's this ... self employment isn't for everyone but what if anyone who ever dreamed of owning his or her own business stuck to the Romney plan? In Romney's world you don't make money by building or manufacturing THINGS, you make your money by taking it from others. (Kind of ironic, given the whole don't take from the rich mantra that's brewing in the Republican party.) Case in point: Cambridge Industries. Once upon a time it was a small independent Michigan manufacturer of plastic automobile components. Then some MBA type targeted it as his own personal pyramid scheme. He bought Cambridge, "streamlined it" then bought a couple other small manufacturers to lessen the competition. The problem was, his collateral was limited and for a pyramid scheme to work it has to keep growing. Enter Romney and Bain. When they purchased 39% of the company in 1996 the SEC filings list Cambridge as having around 2500 employees. Less than five years later, when the company was forced into bankruptcy, the SEC filings list 2000 employees. Some job creator, huh?

But that's not even the whole story because, remember, along the way Bain forced Cambridge to buy EIGHT OTHER COMPANIES. All of them were under the Cambridge umbrella when they went kaput. That means ALL of the other eight companies lost ALL of their employees while under Romney's watchful eye too. I've never been that great at math so let me ask you this, if we all became Romney-style job creators -- would anyone in this country still have a job?

Is this what we really want?

Sorry E, you and Evil are not the only ones worried, Homey and the gang are just tired of hearing from some of us.

[blue adept]

Do you think Romney should release his tax records? Why do you believe he hasn't released them yet?

I would quote his father,but you know what he said right? Because even the American people aren't that stupid or apathetic.

[blue adept]

Are you suspicious of the President for not releasing his college records?

No, are there other presidents that have released their college records? or is this another pick on the sore thumb?

[HoosierHelen]

I heard on NPR this afternoon that Romney's father provided 12 yrs of past tax returns when he made his run for Presidency. I've also heard how much Mitt respected his father and his beliefs. So...I must ask myself...WHY...does he make this choice to NOT reveal his past 10 yrs of tax returns?

Evil made an excellent point earlier...McCain saw the last 20 yrs of Romney's tax returns and he chose Palin as a VP over Romney. Indeed there is reason for this.

[HomeyG]

No, are there other presidents that have released their college records? or is this another pick on the sore thumb?

Don't know, don't care. Just wondering why he won't release his college records, is he hiding something he doesn't want us to see.

[evilkumquat]

Don't know, don't care. Just wondering why he won't release his college records, is he hiding something he doesn't want us to see.

Or his dental records, too!

I bet there's some sort of metal used as a filling that is only manufactured in Kenya.

HE'S NOT A REAL AMERICAN! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Seriously, though, Homey. Why do YOU care to see his college records? What are they supposed to offer?

At least those asking to see Romney's tax returns have a legitimate reason. The college transcripts nonsense just sounds like a fishing expedition.

[edeevee]

Are you suspicious of the President for not releasing his college records?

When I first saw your response I thought 'huh?' 'what?' and - is this something that all presidents or candidates normally release but Obama has refused? I went to my friend Google and here's what popped up" http://factcheck.org/2012/07/obamas-sealed-records/

Upon looking further I found out that no modern day president or candidate has voluntarily released this information, not even Clinton who was an extraordinary student and could have used them as bragging rights. All the rest, McCain's, Bush's, Gore's, Kerry's were eventually leaked without their approval.

So I guess the answer is no. I'm not suspicious of Obama for following the lead of those who came before him. BTW, Romney hasn't released his college records and that doesn't raise my eyebrows either.

[evilkumquat]

When I first saw your response I thought 'huh?' 'what?' and - is this something that all presidents or candidates normally release but Obama has refused? I went to my friend Google and here's what popped up" http://factcheck.org/2012/07/obamas-sealed-records/

Upon looking further I found out that no modern day president or candidate has voluntarily released this information, not even Clinton who was an extraordinary student and could have used them as bragging rights. All the rest, McCain's, Bush's, Gore's, Kerry's were eventually leaked without their approval.

So I guess the answer is no. I'm not suspicious of Obama for following the lead of those who came before him. BTW, Romney hasn't released his college records and that doesn't raise my eyebrows either.

Oh my GOD! It's actual factual, researched evidence!

RUN!!!

This whole college paper ******** is the usual Republican bag of tricks of hammering at their opponents STRONGEST points. In this case, President Obama's superb intellect.

[HomeyG]

When I first saw your response I thought 'huh?' 'what?' and - is this something that all presidents or candidates normally release but Obama has refused? I went to my friend Google and here's what popped up" http://factcheck.org/2012/07/obamas-sealed-records/

Upon looking further I found out that no modern day president or candidate has voluntarily released this information, not even Clinton who was an extraordinary student and could have used them as bragging rights. All the rest, McCain's, Bush's, Gore's, Kerry's were eventually leaked without their approval.

So I guess the answer is no. I'm not suspicious of Obama for following the lead of those who came before him. BTW, Romney hasn't released his college records and that doesn't raise my eyebrows either.

Let me get this straight, it's okay to demand the Romney release his tax records because of suspicion that he is hiding something and there is past precedent; however, it's not okay to demand that President Obama release his college records because of no past precedent although there may be suspicion of his grades and how he entered Occidental, Columbia and Harvard. Could it be that no one has asked for release of college records before now because there has not been a need.