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"Unmasking Mitt Romney as an economic sham" by Greg Sargent at WP
Unmasking Mitt Romney as an economic shamby Greg Sargent at WP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/unmasking-mitt-romney-as-an-economic-sham/2012/10/15/8ac1b4a6-16ea-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_blog.html?hpid=z2
"SNIP...............................................
Mitt Romney claims that his essential qualification to be president is grounded in his 15 years as head of Bain Capital, from 1984 through early 1999. According to the campaign’s narrative, it was then that he became immersed in the toils of business enterprise, learning along the way the true secrets of how to grow the economy and create jobs. The fact that Bain’s returns reputedly averaged more than 50 percent annually during this period is purportedly proof of the case — real-world validation that Romney not only was a striking business success but also has been uniquely trained and seasoned for the task of restarting the nation’s sputtering engines of capitalism.
Except Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way — out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale — the faster the better.
That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn’t be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value. But we have a rigged system—a regime of crony capitalism—where the tax code heavily favors debt and capital gains, and the central bank purposefully enables rampant speculation by propping up the price of financial assets and battering down the cost of leveraged finance. So the vast outpouring of LBOs in recent decades has been the consequence of bad policy, not the product of capitalist enterprise.
This is the case that the Obama campaign has made for months, mostly in the form of a relentless barrage of ads slamming Romney over Bain layoffs and offshoring. But Obama really needs to deliver some form of it at tomorrow’s debate. More broadly, Obama needs to figure out a way of unmasking not just Romney’s claims to job-creation prowess, but also the particulars of his five-point plan for the middle class, as a bill of goods.
...............................................SNIP"
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Also stressing the "rigged system" is important.
He didn't make money the "old" old fashioned way, he didn't EARN it like most DEMs and middle class people have to do.
He didn't make money in the "new" old fashioned way by being an industry leader and creator of jobs.
He's JUST GOT LOTS OF NOTHING GOING ON
except Daddy's bank roll and the greediness to take advantage of the "rigged system" no matter who he has to step over, crush into the ground or leave behind penniless to get his 1000th helping of more than enough.
He's a RePIGlican.
