Is the GOP Caving in on Same-Sex Marriage?

The New American ^ | 02 April 2012 | Dave Bohon

[xzins]

I will never vote for Romney, and I will actively work for the defeat of both Romney and Obama.

[maryz]

As a highly successful businessman and venture capitalist, he is very likely skeptical of "top heavy," "top-down" organizational structures in general, wherein all power and authority flows from the top.

I believe Bain venture capital focus was early on, and it moved more and more to private equity (LBOs); I've read that fully one quarter of Bain's LBOs left the companies bankrupt -- though Bain made a bundle on management fees, etc.

See The Romney Fiscal Record: the 800 lb gorilla in the room that everyone ignores, especially Soul of the South's post #25:

Mitt Romney was supposedly a management genius working with private equity at Bain. Let’s be clear as to what private equity really is as opposed to venture capital which funds new business startups.

Private equity is all about realizing inordinate returns on a small highly leveraged capital investment by the partnership. It is predatory management. Once a firm is acquired, it is loaded up with debt, productive assets are sold or leased back to the company at higher than market rates, it is loaded up with management fees and its headcount is slashed. The partners extract their cash quickly so if the firm then dies they are covered. This is not about building — investing in people or productive assets to create more customers. It is about extracting as much value as possible out of the goodwill and brand equity of the firm.

The private equity partners are financial manipulators, not operating managers. They load the company with management fees but are not usually involved in the day to day management of the company. Their mission is to make sure they are extracting as much cash as possible from the company and setting the bar higher and higher for management. Expecting Romney’s management experience to benefit the government is like expecting Timothy Geithner’s banking experience to benefit the budget process for the US government. Actually, Romney has more in common with Geithner than he does with truly successful operating managers and company builders.

[maryz]

Why do you believe Romney has an interest in consolidating state and corporate power?

I seem to recall that when Mitt was governor here (yes, I'm from MA, God help me!), he was a big fan of "public-private partnership." He dithers some about which level of gov't should rule (fed, state, local), but I never once heard him come out on the side of personal liberty or leaving business owners free to run their own businesses. He is a thorough-going statist.