Last edited Wed Oct 17, 2012, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

and i cant wait

He has mutual funds that include Sensata. That's why Romney went after him last night asking about Obama's pension and leering at him.

From the NYT article:

For many sophisticated and wealthy investors, as well as for ordinary workers invested in pension funds, China is a part of any diversified investment strategy. President Obama, a former Illinois state senator, has as much as $100,000 in a state retirement plan that contains shares of Sensata Technologies, the same auto parts company controlled by Bain that is closing its Illinois factory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/us/politics/as-romney-repeats-trade-message-bain-maintains-china-ties.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/st/institutional-holdings
Bain has the lion's share. Various mutual funds have a small stake, so many of us might have a few pennies worth of Sensata stock.

That should not stop Obama from going after him. I think most people understand that if you have a Vanguard mutual fund, for example, you have nothing to say about what the Vanguard manager buys in that fund, and the fund composition changes every day.

Bain holds 89,626,932 out of 178,612,907 shares -- a clear controlling interest.

I have heard the claim that Romney personally is the holder of that Bain share, but I don't see any data that confirms that.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/16/1145356/-Romney-campaign-tried-to-deflect-Sensata-blame-onto-Obama-s-pension

"Romney has $8 million in the Bain funds that control Sensata". That doesn't necessarily mean that Romney owns $8M worth of Sensata because that Bain fund might be spread across multiple properties.

This would all be much more clear if Romney would release his tax returns -- and that is how Obama can get to Romney's tax returns in the final debate that is ostensibly about foreign policy. He can argue that what we do in shipping jobs overseas is fundamental to our foreign policy. Indeed you cannot understand how Romney would deal with China without seeing his tax returns.

Sensata was a profitable U.S. company. Anybody would be proud to own shares in a company like that. The fact that Bain took it over and is now shipping it and the jobs overseas is damning to Rmoney - not Obama.

We'll see if the investors, other than Bain, actually make any money in this deal. I'm betting Bain has rigged it so they extract the profits before they shut it down.

I would never personally invest in any company that has a majority stake (or ANY significant stake) held by one of the vulture companies. But when you are in a mutual fund (or a retirement plan as in the case of Obama) you have no control over that.

with this remark:

"...keep in mind that Governor Romney invested in companies that were pioneers of outsourcing to China..."

However it went by pretty fast and didn't linger in your mind. A hint that he still holds that card to play, if he feels like it's effective.

That was a company that Romney personally invested in that operates out of China and makes its business the off-shoring of American jobs. They have sucked jobs from lots of American companies.

Sensata is a little different. It was a profitable company that Bain acquired for the purposes of sucking the life out of it. That is the Bain way.

It is the difference between "push" and "pull", if you will.

They are both valid examples, and I expect to see a heavy dose of this next week when the debate focused entirely on foreign policy.