Thom Hartmann: Greenspan's Body Count

The story of Mitt Romney is a story of two Americans - one that got bailed out and can aspire to the highest levels of power - and the other that got sold out and forced into bankruptcy, desperation, and suicide. Since he can't talk about his job as Governor of Massachusetts passing his own version of Obamacare - Mitt Romney has to talk about his private sector experience at Bain Capital. In fact - he devoted a portion of his speech at the RNC to Bain: But what Romney is leaving out - is a tumultuous time in the last 1980's and early 1990's when Romney's company nearly went bankrupt - and in fact would have - had it not been bailed out by the government. In other words, he didn't built it.

As Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone uncovered - Bain Capital's parent company - Bain and Company - ran into serious financial problems in the late 1980's - and Mitt Romney was tapped to try to save the company. The company owed more than $30 million bucks to a bank that had been taken over by the FDIC. After failing again and again to get the company back on track - Romney decided to play hardball with Bain's creditors - basically forcing them to write down Bain's debt. Romney gave everyone a take it or leave it deal: take 30-cents on every dollar Bain owes - or else he will loot the company, divert whatever remaining assets there were toward paying executive big bonuses - declare bankruptcy - and then Bain's creditors - including the FDIC - would get nothing.

The hardball worked - the FDIC agreed to take just a fraction of the money Bain owned them - and forgive the rest of the debt. Since the FDIC is a government agency - the debt write-off amounted to a multi-billion dollar bailout courtesy of the taxpayers. Bain and Company survived. Bain Capital went on to make a boatload of money taking over companies - loading them with debt while stripping them to the bone - offshoring American jobs - and pocketing huge profits. Romney went on to earn more than a third of a billion dollars managing Bain. And now he's running for President...all thanks to that government bailout. Again - he didn't build it.

But while the 1980s government bailout of Bain secured the American Dream for Mitt Romney - the millions of Americans who got screwed by Wall Street during the housing crisis - never got bailed out. And their stories reveal a very different America. There's the story of Norman Rousseau - who battled with Wells Fargo for years to stay in his home after he was conned into one of those exploding adjustable rate mortgages. Facing foreclosure - and living out his life in an RV with his wife - Rousseau wasn't bailed out like Mitt Romney - he instead shot himself.

There's the story of Sgt. Robert Bales - you may have heard of him. He was the American soldier in Afghanistan who snapped and went on a killing rampage gunning down 17 Afghan civilians. Turns out - back at home - Bales' wife was losing a battle to keep the family home from the banksters. The day after the rampage - the family home was forced to be sold for $51,000 less than the Bales paid for it. Sgt. Bales didn't get a bailout like Mitt Romney - and he snapped and committed a massacre.

There's the story of Vincenza Garcia - who had bought her home in 1996 - and won awards for her perfectly landscaped lawn. She, too, was conned into refinancing her mortgage with an adjustable rate loan. She fell behind on the payments and could have used a bailout like Mitt Romney, but she never got it. The night before she was to be evicted by the bank - she put on some music, laid on her bed, and fired a .22 caliber bullet through her head.

There's the story of Michael Marin - a former Wall Street banker - and a rich guy like Mitt Romney. But Marin, too, got caught up in the housing mess when he bought a $3.5 million mansion he couldn't afford when the housing market went bust. Marin could have used a bailout - but he didn't get one like Mitt Romney. Since he couldn't pay his mortgage anymore - in desperation - he burnt his house down to make it look like an accidental fire. He did a sloppy job - was arrested - and convicted of arson. As the verdict against him was read - Marin took a cyanide tablet and committed suicide right in the courtroom - another victim of the foreclosure crisis - another American who could have used a bailout like Mitt Romney got.

It's hard to calculate just how many Americans have suffered suicide by foreclosure like some of the people I just mentioned. There's a website called Greenspan's Body Count that tries to keep track of how many Americans have committed suicide because of financial hardship - because they couldn't get a bailout like Mitt Romney got. Currently - the death toll stands 228 - though the real number is likely much, much higher.

This is what happens in America when the rich and well-connected get bailed out - while the rest of us get sold out. We'll hear Mitt Romney again and again brag about his business accomplishments and lie that he built that business on his own. That's not true - first, he was given millions in help, and then, when he screwed it up and the company was nearly bankrupt - he was given a life line - a bailout. And thanks to that bailout, he's running for President today. No one does anything alone in America - we're all in this together.

And when we do force people to go it alone - when we leave them behind to face economic disasters on their own without a life-line - then catastrophe often follows - just look at what happened to Norman Rousseau or Sgt. Bales or Vincenza Garcia. If only they could have gotten bailed out like Mitt Romney - then maybe they'd still be here - with their families, with their friends, still trying to live the American Dream.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings