Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

[Exterminator]

But Mitt believes the same things those guys believe: He's been right with them on the front lines of the financialization revolution, a decades-long campaign in which the old, simple, let's-make-stuff-and-sell-it manufacturing economy was replaced with a new, highly complex, let's-take-stuff-and-trash-it financial economy.

[Locutus]

I hope everyone takes the time to actually read that and think about it.

[The Troll]

But Mitt believes the same things those guys believe: He's been right with them on the front lines of the financialization revolution, a decades-long campaign in which the old, simple, let's-make-stuff-and-sell-it manufacturing economy was replaced with a new, highly complex, let's-take-stuff-and-trash-it financial economy.

  The guy is saying what I have thought of Mitten and Bug Eyes Ryan.  The worse thing that could happen to America since George W. Bush is if they are elected.   Just saying. 

[Palehorse]

. . .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. . .


Hypocrite and professional liar. . .Yup. That's him all right!

[Palehorse]

Here's a local aspect of the Romney led Bain's efforts:

. . .Take a typical Bain transaction involving an Indiana-based company called American Pad and Paper. Bain bought Ampad in 1992 for just $5 million, financing the rest of the deal with borrowed cash. Within three years, Ampad was paying $60 million in annual debt payments, plus an additional $7 million in management fees. A year later, Bain led Ampad to go public, cashed out about $50 million in stock for itself and its investors, charged the firm $2 million for arranging the IPO and pocketed another $5 million in "management" fees. Ampad wound up going bankrupt, and hundreds of workers lost their jobs, but Bain and Romney weren't crying: They'd made more than $100 million on a $5 million investment. . .

. . .Romney has always kept his distance from the real-life consequences of his profiteering. At one point during Bain's looting of Ampad, a worker named Randy Johnson sent a handwritten letter to Romney, asking him to intervene to save an Ampad factory in Marion, Indiana. In a sterling demonstration of manliness and willingness to face a difficult conversation, Romney, who had just lost his race for the Senate in Massachusetts, wrote Johnson that he was "sorry," but his lawyers had advised him not to get involved. (So much for the candidate who insists that his way is always to "fight to save every job."). . .



And though not Bain itself, Smurfit-Stone / Graphic Packing International in Muncie went through this exact same "game plan" run on it by another "private equity firm" resulting in the shuttering of a plant that was once the flagship of the Smurfit-Stone container division, and an employer within the community for several decades.

[Exterminator]

I hope everyone takes the time to actually read that and think about it.

They won't because they don't want the truth.  People like Mitt Romney are directly responsible for the downfall of our country and they will vote for him just because he is white.  It's disgusting.

[Locutus]

They won't because they don't want the truth.  People like Mitt Romney are directly responsible for the downfall of our country and they will vote for him just because he is white.  It's disgusting.

It's doubtful it will do any good even if they do read it.  Sad.

[Y]

They won't because they don't want the truth.  People like Mitt Romney are directly responsible for the downfall of our country and they will vote for him just because he is white.  It's disgusting.

Hear!  Hear!

Mutt is the dog crap I wouldn't scrape off my shoe - I'd burn 'em.

The Repugs are putting up the last "Great White Hope!(TM)" as the last gasp of the OWG's before the ethnic make up of this country shifts to the point those two whitebreads couldn't get elected to dog catcher.

[me]

But Mitt believes the same things those guys believe: He's been right with them on the front lines of the financialization revolution, a decades-long campaign in which the old, simple, let's-make-stuff-and-sell-it manufacturing economy was replaced with a new, highly complex, let's-take-stuff-and-trash-it financial economy.

A Rolling Stone article written by someone who is obviously biased....gimme a break....    And you have the guts to put down HH and my sources?   

[Henry Hawk]

 Keep on buying all of that garbage my friends. I only hope and pray that Mitt/Paul become our next leaders of this nation.

Four more years of this kind of foolishness will be the destruction of this nation.

Now, with that said, say what you will, because I have never, ever been more fired up and patriotic than I am right now. I will do whatever I can to see to it, that we have new leadership come this November.

The old saying, keep your friends close and your enemy's closer........has proven to be very valuable, as I have only learned by the best, on the demonization and the destructiveness, by those with opposing views.

Not in the last 30 plus years, have I ever been more committed to working behind the scenes of an upcoming election.  To assure this country WILL have something to offer my kids, other than government hand-outs.

I am seeing before me, the arrogance and harsh attacks by those who are beginning to understand the failures of a broken ideology.

Go Romney/Ryan!!! 

[Palehorse]

The only reasons it is "garbage" to you is the fact you were never subjected to the results of the efforts of the likes of Bain and Romney, and your addiction to the lies and propaganda the repugnican party are bombarding you with.

I have been impacted by the actions of Bain and other firms like them and can tell you with 100% certainty that the accounts within the story that started this topic are truth and nothing but the truth.

I lived the "nightmare" wrought by these jackwagons, and the AmPad portion of this story indeed touched the company I worked for at the time as well. I remember it well, though admittedly did not know the firm involved in the whole debacle was Bain until I read this story.

Your denial of the truth is one of the most clear and present dangers to the longevity of this country and its ideals.

[Henry Hawk]

The only reasons it is "garbage" to you is the fact you were never subjected to the results of the efforts of the likes of Bain and Romney, and your addiction to the lies and propaganda the repugnican party are bombarding you with.

I have been impacted by the actions of Bain and other firms like them and can tell you with 100% certainty that the accounts within the story that started this topic are truth and nothing but the truth.

I lived the "nightmare" wrought by these jackwagons, and the AmPad portion of this story indeed touched the company I worked for at the time as well. I remember it well, though admittedly did not know the firm involved in the whole debacle was Bain until I read this story.

Your denial of the truth is one of the most clear and present dangers to the longevity of this country and its ideals.

I am, in no means in denial Palehorse.  I have earnestly been involved with many conversations with people I respect.  I have read all the negatives that you guys have entered on here.  I have paid very close attention to my own surroundings and the impact that liberal ideology has had on them.  I have watched our country become divided.  I have also heard some of the most incredible strories as to why that is.... I have been called a racist, simply because I 100% disagree with this administration. 

Screw that crap.......I am very secure with who I am, and where I have been.  I made mistakes, and realized those mistakes.  I also, very much like who I am, and what I have accomplished.  I have learned to listen to that voice, that tells me my right and wrong.  We are headed down the wrong path, and we MUST turn it very soon.  After listening to Ryan speak last night, it only assures me, that we can have a restored nation, if we get the right leadership in the White House.

So, I fervently disagree with you, and say with a great deal of poise, that staying the course IS a extremely 'clear and present, danger'.

[Exterminator]

While I'll be the first to admit that the Rolling Stone's political pieces have a decidedly intellectual liberal tone, the facts persented in this article about how much Bain invested in these companies, how much debt was accumulated, how much Bain took out as management fees and "dividends" and the eventual fate of those companies is all public record via SEC filings and other sources by anyone who actually wants to do the research and learn the truth.  Those parts of the story and how Bain and Romney made their money are irrefutable and should give pause to any thinking person.  Key word...thinking.

[The Troll]

  Just think how long it has been since the Golden Mitten has been asked for his tax records.  He knows he is a crook and doesn't have the ball to show them. 

  But the Republican Sheeple trusts him because he said.  "Trust me, I am a good man".      Trust him?  You got to be kidding me.    Hell, Burnie Madoff said that.