Mitt is in the deepest of trouble................

[ronpaulhawaii]

agreed. I had read Bain got a bailout, but I'm not sure of details. I will watch the video.

Capitalism is good. Bailouts and Government Intervention, not so much...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-campaign-romney-bailout-idUSTRE8050LL20120106

The company, along with other steelmakers, successfully petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission for tariff rate quotas on imported wire rods and also entered the federal loan guarantee program for troubled steel companies -- two remedies at odds with a free-market stance. Romney now says it was a mistake for the government to try to protect the steel industry.

The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, which insures company retirement plans, determined in 2002 that GS had underfunded its pension by $44 million.

and more bailouts

http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-15/news/29778328_1_mitt-romney-loan-forgiveness-federal-bailout

Politico released an ad left over from Romney’s unsuccessful Senate race against Senator Edward M. Kennedy that takes Romney to task for a $10 million loan forgiveness granted in 1993 to his Bain & Co. by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The Kennedy camp’s ad, based on a 1994 Globe story, blasts Romney for using a “federal bailout’’ to save troubled Bain & Co.

 

[acptulsa]

Can you explain more what in the video says why Romney can't beat Obama?

So, Romney's claim to competence in the presidency is he's a businessman and will run the nation in a businesslike manner. But he never ran a business, he merely bought companies in trouble, borrowed money in their name, got the federal government to bail out their pension funds or whatever else they could get the government to bail out, sliced and diced them and sold off the components, and pocketed the spoils while people wound up out of work.

In this economy, you ask how that fact might damage his reputation as a competent businessman who would run a tight ship? Got it yet?

 

[socal]

Strongly agree. Capitalism and Crony Capitalism are two completely different things. LBO's are evil. Investing money in a business which adds value and grows benefits society. Bain does both. The issue is are you trying to add value or transfer value.

Win Win Capitalism is a thing of beauty and the essence of a free society.

The K B Toys episode looks like a transfer of value from the former owner and bank(s) to Bain. (Part of) Romney's defense is that he didn't have an active management role in Bain at the time. From a previous post in an earlier thread,

Quote is from file #5 in list below,
http://www.bankruptcymisconduct.com/...archphrase=all

5. In or around April 2002, notwithstanding the deterioration in the KB Companies' business as the nation slid into recession in 2001 and early 2002, the Defendants severly leveraged and further encumbered the already strained KB Companies by borrowing many millions of dollars from secured lenders and paying the proceeds, together with substantially all of the KB Companies' available cash, to themselves in the form of bonuses and repurchases of 65% of KB Holdings' stock, worth in excess of $85 million. Together, the KB Companies' borrowings and the subsequent cash payments to the Defendants are hereinafter referred to as the "Equity Distribution Transaction".

6. The effect of the Equity distribution Transaction was to encumber substantially all of HCC's assets and to strip all of the value from HCC and the Operating Subsidiaries. The Equity Distribution Transaction resulted in the Defendants' receiving an enormous and unjustified return on their investment of more than 600% (not counting the substantial additional bonus payments made to Defendants Glazer and Feldman and other insiders) and ultimately in HCC's default on Big Lots' $45 million HCC Note.

7. As part of the Equity Distribution Transaction, HCC and the Operating Subsidiaries made millions of dollars of payments to certain of the defendants and other insiders, including: (1) in excess of $85 million in cash payments, principally to the Bain Defendants (as defined below), ...

 

[voytechs]

I don't think that the campaign wants to attack Mitt at this time. They have a plan and I believe the plan is for the other candidates to first go after each other. When there is only RP and Mitt, that is when they will most likely go after him since we are the only conservatives in the race. In the meantime, we are building the necessary momentum and the important thing is not to scare away Mitt's supporters since we will need them to come over to our side. So far we've taken the high road on Mitt and I think that is already paying off.

I am 99% sure that is the plan. The campaign kind of said that after NH second place victory that all the other candidates should just drop out now and this fight is between Mitt and RP. They will probably press on this topic, after each primary. I bet they have enough fire power on Mitt that they want this to be a 2 man race or possibly something else behind the scenes is going on.

 

[LibertyEagle]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

This. At least for the time being.

 

[moostraks]

Strongly agree. Capitalism and Crony Capitalism are two completely different things. LBO's are evil. Investing money in a business which adds value and grows benefits society. Bain does both. The issue is are you trying to add value or transfer value.

Win Win Capitalism is a thing of beauty and the essence of a free society.

I watched this yesterday and the part of Mitt's personality highlighted in the video strikes me as why he has the insider support that he does. It seems to me that he is the chosen one to unwind the situation we are currently in.

 

[idiom]

Mitt Claims to be good at wealth creation. The attack is that he is merely good at wealth extraction.

It is not an attack on capitalism at all.

 

[llepard]

Imho, rp has jumped the gun in defending Bain.
The free market certainly contemplates companies failing and their assets being sold off.
But that is NOT what the 1990 PE business was about.
This how it worked:

1. buy company.
2. Dress it up a bit (usually by drastically cutting expenses (i.e. Jobs)
3. Have the company borrow a shitload of money
4. Take the majority of this money out in the form of dividends and managemtn fees
5. Then have the company declare bankruptcy.

The creditors (step 3) are screwed.
The jobs are lost forever.
And Bain makes a fortune.

Any deal that PLANS on a bankruptcy is not captialism.
It is fraud.

You might wonder why the creditors would loan money if they knew Bains modus operandi.
The answer is alluded to in the video.
The same creditors are involved in the IPO. they pump up the value of the stock.
They get their money back there.
Ultimately, the ones left holding the debt are the shareholders (grandmas mutual fund).

this is not capitalism.

It's fraud.

The material misrepresentation is that the shareholdes and private investors were never told that Bain intended on dmping all their stock and declaring bankruptcy.

Excellent analysis. Pure and simple. It was control fraud. RP does not understand this fully. He defends capitalism and is sometimes blind to the fact that there are very bad actors. It is the flaw in pure libertarian thought. There must be a referee, rules and regulations. Well said Babylon. Bravo

 

[trey4sports]

let's hope you're right.

 

[Forty Twice]

Personally, Newt PAC's video did not impress me. It had too much drama and not enough details on how Bain really operated.

This topic is morally comparable to Gingrich's deferments. Paul went. Gingrich didn't. What Gingrich did was legal, but should disqualify him from ever sending Americans to war.

Romney's business practices were likely legal. So was nearly all of the Wall Street actions that fleeced the middle class out of their IRA's in 2000 and persuaded people to finance homes they couldn't afford in mid/late 2000s. This was not productive capitalism.

If you hire an investment bank like Lehman Bros to put a "BUY" rating on a stock that doesn't deserve one, you are using deception to fool unsophisticated investors into buying a stock you know is heading to bankruptcy. It's legal, but is it moral? Should someone who operates that way in their business life be trusted to govern in the public's interest?

If you buy a pig of a company, put lipstick on it, then borrow to the company's credit limit, then extract the loan value into your pockets through dividends and fees, then sell your stock in the company to unsophisticated IRA/401K investors, and then smile as the company goes bankrupt, is that moral? You have damaged a company so that it cannot continue to exist and thus causes workers to lose jobs. You have borrowed money in the name of the company without ever intending to pay back the debts. You have screwed over the creditors. There were probably insolvent retirement funds that the US public had to bail out.

If these business practices are really what Romney and Bain did with their talents to make their fortunes, then they do not have my respect. They probably broke no laws. There probably should have been better laws to protect the public from such immoral use of capitalism. However, a person who does business this way should be shunned. You should not let them visit your house for barbecue. They should be called out as cheaters whenever discovered. Kids should grow up believing it is shameful to conduct business this way. We should not hold them in high esteem because they made a lot of money. We should not validate their actions by electing them to be our President.

Ron Paul has acted honorably throughout his life and is a great role model for our children. I don't think Gingrich or Romney have conducted themselves honorably. We should not hold them up as role models for our children to emulate. Their behavior should be grounds for disqualifying them from Presidential consideration.

 

[acptulsa]

Excellent analysis. Pure and simple. It was control fraud. RP does not understand this fully. He defends capitalism and is sometimes blind to the fact that there are very bad actors. It is the flaw in pure libertarian thought. There must be a referee, rules and regulations. Well said Babylon. Bravo

This isn't what he said when I called in and posed a question to him on The Diane Rheem Show. Not at all. I pitched him a softball that allowed him to go on at length about how it's better to have referees in every state because it's too easy for those with money to buy rules that serve to their advantage in Washington, and when they do it screws more people. Ron Paul made it very clear that he wouldn't interfere with state and local regulation, and he isn't ideologically opposed to state and local level regulation. Very clear.

This is just another thing like competing currencies. When the people of one state start seeing an advantage over the people of another because of a body of regulatory law which is superior, it will spread. So long as we get all of this regulation handed down from Washington, such advantages cannot be discovered to work well. Let the states compete. That is the purpose and spirit embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

 

[gb13]

Gingrich has asked for the creator of this video to remove the inaccuracies, or to pull it off the web altogether.

Of course, he damn well knew what was in the video. He just doesn't like the blowback.

Yeah, I think he's just covering his ass with that. Like you said, he doesn't want the blowback. He's trying to play it as though he disapproves and still wants people to focus on his "positive campaign".

 

[Snowball]

People, I have low expectations for both SC & FL.
Talking distant 3rd at best. Possible 4th place showings.
SC is a neocon poppy field. They keep electing Lindsey Graham to office,
very pro-AIPAC crowd of evangelical judeo-christians.
Read Gingrich/Santorum/Perry.
Then you have Nikki Haley plugging for Mittens.

In Florida, massive elderly population and Cuban American population.
You know we get 3x as many under 40's to vote for Ron as over 65's.
The Republican Party base in Florida is also very moderate, ala Crist, Bush, Rubio.

On to the delegates race. All non-Romney, non-Paul delegates will be instructed
by candidates and party activists to use those delegates for Romney.

I don't think Ron should push this all the way to the Convention.
I am hoping against hope that he breaks away from the party after Florida,
cements himself on the ballot as Independent/3rd Party soon enough to build
the movement as a permanent, organized, official force.
Not just a minority of the Republican Party,
but a long-standing challenger to the Republicrat/Demopublican hegemony.
We would get in the debates because of high enough poll numbers, just like
Ross Perot did in '92 & '96.
Constitution Party, Libertarian Party, and others will endorse us and not field
candidates. Rand Paul will be ok in Kentucky as Republican or as a member of
the new party.

 

[llepard]

Personally, Newt PAC's video did not impress me. It had too much drama and not enough details on how Bain really operated.

This topic is morally comparable to Gingrich's deferments. Paul went. Gingrich didn't. What Gingrich did was legal, but should disqualify him from ever sending Americans to war.

Romney's business practices were likely legal. So was nearly all of the Wall Street actions that fleeced the middle class out of their IRA's in 2000 and persuaded people to finance homes they couldn't afford in mid/late 2000s. This was not productive capitalism.

If you hire an investment bank like Lehman Bros to put a "BUY" rating on a stock that doesn't deserve one, you are using deception to fool unsophisticated investors into buying a stock you know is heading to bankruptcy. It's legal, but is it moral? Should someone who operates that way in their business life be trusted to govern in the public's interest?

If you buy a pig of a company, put lipstick on it, then borrow to the company's credit limit, then extract the loan value into your pockets through dividends and fees, then sell your stock in the company to unsophisticated IRA/401K investors, and then smile as the company goes bankrupt, is that moral? You have damaged a company so that it cannot continue to exist and thus causes workers to lose jobs. You have borrowed money in the name of the company without ever intending to pay back the debts. You have screwed over the creditors. There were probably insolvent retirement funds that the US public had to bail out.

If these business practices are really what Romney and Bain did with their talents to make their fortunes, then they do not have my respect. They probably broke no laws. There probably should have been better laws to protect the public from such immoral use of capitalism. However, a person who does business this way should be shunned. You should not let them visit your house for barbecue. They should be called out as cheaters whenever discovered. Kids should grow up believing it is shameful to conduct business this way. We should not hold them in high esteem because they made a lot of money. We should not validate their actions by electing them to be our President.

Ron Paul has acted honorably throughout his life and is a great role model for our children. I don't think Gingrich or Romney have conducted themselves honorably. We should not hold them up as role models for our children to emulate. Their behavior should be grounds for disqualifying them from Presidential consideration.

Points well taken. The law cannot protect us from all evils. But, laws were broken by Bain. Levering up a Company, sucking it dry and then letting it go BK is fraudulent conveyance. Their profits should have been clawed back by the bankruptcy trustee. Just shunning them from the barbecue is not quite enough. Of course, the short term emphasis of quick profits which come with fiat money is the root of the problem. Sound money and market based interest rates would make the LBO business die as it should. The LBO business is how crooks get rich off inflation and mispriced credit.

 

[llepard]

This isn't what he said when I called in and posed a question to him on The Diane Rheem Show. Not at all. I pitched him a softball that allowed him to go on at length about how it's better to have referees in every state because it's too easy for those with money to buy rules that serve to their advantage in Washington, and when they do it screws more people. Ron Paul made it very clear that he wouldn't interfere with state and local regulation, and he isn't ideologically opposed to state and local level regulation. Very clear.

This is just another thing like competing currencies. When the people of one state start seeing an advantage over the people of another because of a body of regulatory law which is superior, it will spread. So long as we get all of this regulation handed down from Washington, such advantages cannot be discovered to work well. Let the states compete. That is the purpose and spirit embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

I am all for pushing power down to the States and setting rules and regulations there. But, there are national scale businesses which require national scale regulations. For example the SEC and stock regulations. Should we have a stock market in every state and different regulations in every state? Kind of inefficient. Seems like national scale businesses should be regulated at a national level. Then we must figure out a way to make sure the ones writing to regulations actually serve the people and not the businesses they regulate.

 

[llepard]

People, I have low expectations for both SC & FL.
Talking distant 3rd at best. Possible 4th place showings.
SC is a neocon poppy field. They keep electing Lindsey Graham to office,
very pro-AIPAC crowd of evangelical judeo-christians.
Read Gingrich/Santorum/Perry.
Then you have Nikki Haley plugging for Mittens.

In Florida, massive elderly population and Cuban American population.
You know we get 3x as many under 40's to vote for Ron as over 65's.
The Republican Party base in Florida is also very moderate, ala Crist, Bush, Rubio.

On to the delegates race. All non-Romney, non-Paul delegates will be instructed
by candidates and party activists to use those delegates for Romney.

I don't think Ron should push this all the way to the Convention.
I am hoping against hope that he breaks away from the party after Florida,
cements himself on the ballot as Independent/3rd Party soon enough to build
the movement as a permanent, organized, official force.
Not just a minority of the Republican Party,
but a long-standing challenger to the Republicrat/Demopublican hegemony.
We would get in the debates because of high enough poll numbers, just like
Ross Perot did in '92 & '96.
Constitution Party, Libertarian Party, and others will endorse us and not field
candidates. Rand Paul will be ok in Kentucky as Republican or as a member of
the new party.

I don't know about Florida, but I just spoke to Jim Forsythe in SC and he says we are doing well and moving up. Jim DeMint just said nice stuff about RP and that will help.

I think we will be fine.

 

[Karsten]

If you ever promote the video, make sure you also promote the Ron Paul compassion ad to show the stark comparison in these two men's pre-political careers.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Imho, rp has jumped the gun in defending Bain.

Ron Paul DID NOT defend Bain Capital in any way, shape or form.

See the following 'tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baLaCl5WpIM

@ 3:50 - Ingraham starts discussion of Mitt Romney / Bain Capital
@ 4:25 - RP states he has NO familiarity w/the particulars of Bain Capital's business dealings (&, by implication, whether those dealings were legitimate or shady).

Excellent analysis. Pure and simple. It was control fraud. RP does not understand this fully. He defends capitalism and is sometimes blind to the fact that there are very bad actors. It is the flaw in pure libertarian thought. There must be a referee, rules and regulations. Well said Babylon. Bravo

In the interview, he praises what he calls "restructuring" under the rigors of the (truly) free market and denounces the moral hazards exploited by bad actors (bailouts, gov't contracts, etc.).

He is clearly NOT defending Bain Capital or the Federal Reserve system exploiters who use cheap & easy credit to do their LBO dirty work.

He is criticizing the idea that those who engage in honest free market "restructuring" can be justifiably denounced because "restructuring" often causes (transient) unemployment.

IOW, he's not defending Romney so much as he's attacking Gingrich et al. for pandering on the jobs/employment angle (by throwing basic free market principles under the bus).

I really don't see anything that makes me think Ron Paul has his head in the clouds (or the sand) on this issue.

 

[acptulsa]

I am all for pushing power down to the States and setting rules and regulations there. But, there are national scale businesses which require national scale regulations. For example the SEC and stock regulations. Should we have a stock market in every state and different regulations in every state? Kind of inefficient. Seems like national scale businesses should be regulated at a national level. Then we must figure out a way to make sure the ones writing to regulations actually serve the people and not the businesses they regulate.

You have a point, and I have seen Ron Paul talk about how some regulation must be done on the federal level--such as regarding pollution, which freely crosses state lines. So, I see no reason to assume that where this is necessary, he won't do it.

That said, regulation is seldom about increasing efficiency...

 

[llepard]

Thanks Occam's Banana, that clip is good.