Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
By Matt Taibbi
August 29, 2012 7:00 AM ET
The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.
The critics couldn't be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He's closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he's trying for something big: We've just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we've been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.
The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race.
snip...
And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House.
snip...
see full text ;
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
if you believe the republicans want to ‘take the country back’, you may be correct. but what they will take it back to is like Vice President Biden said, back in chains, back to the stone age of the only person that had any civil rights were white, male, rich, folks. if your not white, if your gay, if you’re a woman, if your poor or middle class, if your mentally challenged, or disabled, not healthy, then you’re a dog I tell you, and if the republican gop romney ryan platform gets elected, America will be set back 50 years or more in terms if civil rights, women’s rights, human rights.
let's take care of our own, the Vets, our poor, our elderly, our disabled, our mentally challenged, and yes, even the hungry homeless deserve help.
if a gay couple gets sick, do they not deserve health care? are gay people not human?
healthcare for all Americans. why not? all the rich and Congress have it (all the same).
stop the war on women.
stop the war on gays.
stop the war on minorities.
we must educate our children, sending them to school everyday is not good enough. they must learn. we must teach them to be physically fit again.
TAXES
SOME OF ROMNEY RYAN GOP ‘FOR THE RICH’ PLATFORM
TAXES:
"We reject the use of taxation to redistribute income, fund unnecessary or ineffective programs or foster the crony capitalism that corrupts both politicians and corporations."
It says a Republican administration would extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, pending reform of the tax code.
It says the party would strive to eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains altogether for lower- and middle-income taxpayers. It also would work to repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. ..end
tax the rich. hit them hard. make the rich finally start paying their fare share, and please include their pensions, stock options, annual incentive, etc., because taxes on one million salary is one thing, but taxes on annual incentive, stock options, and other perks, well, that's another story. tax it all the same. this is the top paid exec. out of 100 examples in Houston area alone recently ;
base salary $1,400,000.
Annual incentive $21,821,400.
total equity $6,414,055.
all other comp $276,207.
change in pension $1,617,757.
Total direct compensation $31,529,419.
see more here, top 100 greedy in Houston, Texas.
see why the romney ryan gop platform wants to ;
"We reject the use of taxation to redistribute income, fund unnecessary or ineffective programs or foster the crony capitalism that corrupts both politicians and corporations."
It says a Republican administration would extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, pending reform of the tax code.
It says the party would strive to eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains altogether for lower- and middle-income taxpayers. It also would work to repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. ..end
see why here ;
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/07/30/pay-swells-for-top-bosses/
SHOW US YOUR TAX RECORDS MITT, ALL OF THEM !
OBAMA 2012
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill
By Matt Taibbi
August 29, 2012 7:00 AM ET
The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.
The critics couldn't be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He's closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he's trying for something big: We've just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we've been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.
The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race.
snip...
And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House.
snip...
see full text ;
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
if you believe the republicans want to ‘take the country back’, you may be correct. but what they will take it back to is like Vice President Biden said, back in chains, back to the stone age of the only person that had any civil rights were white, male, rich, folks. if your not white, if your gay, if you’re a woman, if your poor or middle class, if your mentally challenged, or disabled, not healthy, then you’re a dog I tell you, and if the republican gop romney ryan platform gets elected, America will be set back 50 years or more in terms if civil rights, women’s rights, human rights.
let's take care of our own, the Vets, our poor, our elderly, our disabled, our mentally challenged, and yes, even the hungry homeless deserve help.
if a gay couple gets sick, do they not deserve health care? are gay people not human?
healthcare for all Americans. why not? all the rich and Congress have it (all the same).
stop the war on women.
stop the war on gays.
stop the war on minorities.
we must educate our children, sending them to school everyday is not good enough. they must learn. we must teach them to be physically fit again.
TAXES
SOME OF ROMNEY RYAN GOP ‘FOR THE RICH’ PLATFORM
TAXES:
"We reject the use of taxation to redistribute income, fund unnecessary or ineffective programs or foster the crony capitalism that corrupts both politicians and corporations."
It says a Republican administration would extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, pending reform of the tax code.
It says the party would strive to eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains altogether for lower- and middle-income taxpayers. It also would work to repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. ..end
tax the rich. hit them hard. make the rich finally start paying their fare share, and please include their pensions, stock options, annual incentive, etc., because taxes on one million salary is one thing, but taxes on annual incentive, stock options, and other perks, well, that's another story. tax it all the same. this is the top paid exec. out of 100 examples in Houston area alone recently ;
base salary $1,400,000.
Annual incentive $21,821,400.
total equity $6,414,055.
all other comp $276,207.
change in pension $1,617,757.
Total direct compensation $31,529,419.
see more here, top 100 greedy in Houston, Texas.
see why the romney ryan gop platform wants to ;
"We reject the use of taxation to redistribute income, fund unnecessary or ineffective programs or foster the crony capitalism that corrupts both politicians and corporations."
It says a Republican administration would extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, pending reform of the tax code.
It says the party would strive to eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains altogether for lower- and middle-income taxpayers. It also would work to repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax. ..end
see why here ;
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/07/30/pay-swells-for-top-bosses/
SHOW US YOUR TAX RECORDS MITT, ALL OF THEM !
OBAMA 2012