Posted on 01/10/2012 3:24:25 PM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
Bye America, It was good while it lasted. Hello Tyranny.
I think free market capitalism is the best economic system humanity has devised.
However, if Mitt Romney is going to claim that he’s most qualified for President because he created many thousands of jobs, then it’s reasonable to see if those claims are true (just as we do reference checks for new employees).
The evidence out there seems to show that while he did make money for his shareholders, many thousands of people lost there jobs to companies that went bankrupt under Bain’s leadership.
In some cases, Bain just slashed R&D while putting more debt on the companies’ books. In many cases while doing this, Bain also awarded themselves dividends from the companies’ balance sheet (justified by these short-term profits). All of these things made it much harder for those companies to succeed in the future, as it had less innovation and cash.
I don’t think the problem we are having discussing Romney is that we don’t have the right vocabulary word for what he did at Bain. When I re-read my paragraph above, it doesn’t sound like capitalism to me. Was capitalism intended to allow a few investors to take over a firm and then slowly sabotage it with debt, which eventually doesn’t get paid because the company goes bankrupt, all the while taking money out the side door through dividends and stock sales?
To me this seems less like capitalism, and more like that scene from Goodfellas when they take out insurance on the restaurant and then burn it down to collect premium.
I support venture capitalism, but not all forms of it.
According to Forbes.com, Bain received federal subsidies. Is that kind of venture capitalism ok?
According to WaPo, debt was driven up in companies, so as to allow earlier dividend returns for investors. This debt can sink companies, employees lose jobs yet the upper crust in the company walk away fine and dandy.
Do you support that kind of venture,, debt-driven capitalism?
Do you support it when Dems do this, because they do.
Now that you've quoted Ted Kennedy, who is next Karl and Josef?
Being in business to do what? I have no idea what Bain does. Do they make a product? Provide a service?
I don’t post very often therefore I don’t know the link rules very well and I certainly don’t want to get anyone into trouble. BUT, I urge you go to legalinsurrection.com and look for the article “Selling out capitalism in defense of Romney and Bain”. At the bottom of the article is a video of Newt on Scarborough and he gives an EXCELLENT response to this whole Bain problem for Mitt.
Venture capitalism with taxpayers money? I'm willing to bet that these "investors" have raped the taxpayers many times over for their fortunes. I support honest people practicing honest capitalism not these hucksters.
If this not prevent Romney from winning the GOP nomination, the GOP is not a conservative party.
I have a better campaign slogan: "Pick me, my wife's not a bitchy, white-hating Wookie."
I have a better campaign slogan: "Pick me, my wife's not a bitchy, white-hating Wookie."
I have a better campaign slogan: "Pick me, my wife's not a bitchy, white-hating Wookie."
Geez, a double-post is bad enough - but a triple?! Sorry, folks.
I wouldn’t have to quote Ted Kennedy if that moron Romney wasn’t a RINO.
Secondly, your attacking the messenger (me, via Ted) does not bolster your argument.
Deal with the info in the video instead (the message) and think on how moron Romney is jacking up the GOP and setting the GOP up for a massive defeat.
Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post,
Townhall. Hell, I could go on. The point is these are not liberal websites and they are racking Willard Gekko over the coals for the lowlife deals that were made at Bain.
And when taxpayers bail have to bail out companies because Willard’s Bain vultures took all the money and ran, then folks there is not too ethical about it. I hope this opens up Willard Gekko like a can of worms and ruins him. I for one don’t want to see the democrat in republican clothing destroy the Republican Party and he’s well on his way.
I do too. However, our system has been bastardized by those "inside the beltway" elites and their various "friends" around the country. Crony capitalism isn't confined to just the politicians in government. It applies to every dirty scoundrel that comes in contact with them. It applies to every person who uses the system to extract "free money" from the bureaucracies built just for that purpose.
I was really hoping the tea party would succeed in ending this system of government. As I watch what is happening in this election, I am nothing but totally pissed!
Broad shoulders, thin skinned..never mind attacks, he can't even take questions, just ask Bret Baier.
We haven’t had free-market capitalism in a long time. It’s crony capitalism, government/power brokers choosing winners and losers, and capitalizing the profits while socializing the losses.
Federal aid
The US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, which insures company retirement plans, determined in 2002 that GS had underfunded its pension by $US44 million. The federal agency, funded by corporate levies, stepped in to cover the basic pension payments, but not the supplement the union had negotiated as a hedge against the plant's closure.
For Joe Soptic, who worked at the plant for 28 years, that meant a loss of $US283 per month, about 22 per cent of his pension. Others lost up to $US400 per month, according to documents supplied by the union.
Comparatively, the GS bailout was one of the pension guarantor's smaller hits. The federal fund swung from a $US7.7 billion surplus to a $US3.6 billion deficit that year as it struggled to cover bankruptcies in the steel and transportation industries. The failure of LTV Steel, for example, cost the agency $US1.9 billion.
The agency's woes prompted Congress in 2006 to require companies to contribute more toward their pensions. Press accounts said this change accelerated the shift away from pension plans toward 401(k)s and other defined-contribution retirement plans that offer less security for workers.
Exactly.
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