Doctor Fate wrote:

Danivon wrote:Not that Romney is consistently opposed to failing companies being rescued with a bit of Federal money. Apparently Bain & Company (which begat Bain Capital) after it hit big trouble in the early 90s did a deal that cost the taxpayer $10 million in written off debts. The Romney campaign have been toutong how Romney saved Bain and Company and bank savers. Seems that he 'didn't do it on [his] own'.

Bailouts for me, but not for thee, Mitt?

No citation? Whatever.

Sorry, on the mobile web at work. It's been on several news sites but was broken in Rolling Stone magazine:

In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.

They produce a set of documents here

What I love about it is that it reminds me of the banks we bailed out a few years ago, shelling out bonuses to managers while they were losing loads of money.

What I love about it is you will take a left-wing rag's interpretation of events as gospel. Reading the article, it's not even as bad as I expected.

He did not start the problem and we only have RS' interpretation of the solution. I'll wait. If there's one thing I've learned, it's never to jump on the first left-wing hit piece and consider it true.

Even so, I would vote for rickyp over Obama. He has done what no President ever has--keep the American economy on life support during a "recovery."

Did he start the problem? Not really. His former boss, Bain, started it, although there was quite a bit of debt caused when Romney's Bain Capital was set up.

But he did come back in 1990 to fix it. He did such a great job that it was bailed out in 1993, with the claim that without assistance from the FDIC it would go under.

While you are waiting, have you read the documents, or just the article?

danivon wrote:Did he start the problem? Not really. His former boss, Bain, started it, although there was quite a bit of debt caused when Romney's Bain Capital was set up.

But he did come back in 1990 to fix it. He did such a great job that it was bailed out in 1993, with the claim that without assistance from the FDIC it would go under.

While you are waiting, have you read the documents, or just the article?

I looked at the documents.

They are evidence of something. However, without all the facts, I prefer not to jump to conclusions.

I know RS is a lying dog publication. I stopped subbing 25+ years ago. It was so radical, it turned me off to liberalism. I could no longer even justify it for the music reviews.

The founders took out $200M. That's a nice piece of change. Like I said, I can't help but feel that I've just seen Michael Moore's version of events. I am willing to wait until a sane person analyzes it.

So what did you think when you read the memo that says that they have an amount of money that they can use to repay creditors, but unless all of them agree to a waiver by the end of 1992, that money would go to management as bonuses and the creditors would get nothing.

It was number 9 of 13.

if Romney came to fix the company in 1990, and claims to have left it in 1992, how come it was getting to this stage at the end of 1992 and getting debt relief of $10m from FDIC in 1993?

danivon wrote:So what did you think when you read the memo that says that they have an amount of money that they can use to repay creditors, but unless all of them agree to a waiver by the end of 1992, that money would go to management as bonuses and the creditors would get nothing.

It was number 9 of 13.

if Romney came to fix the company in 1990, and claims to have left it in 1992, how come it was getting to this stage at the end of 1992 and getting debt relief of $10m from FDIC in 1993?

I told you. Unlike you, I'll wait.

No offense to Jann Wenner, but he's pretty much known as a Leftist. I view RS as less reliable than most. If they could tie Romney to Bigfoot, they would.

That look suspiciously like an ad hominem argument to me...

danivon wrote:That look suspiciously like an ad hominem argument to me...

Call it whatever you like . . . what part of "I'll wait" confuses you?

And, there is reason to wait. Is Rolling Stone a Leftist magazine or not? Is it published by Jann Wenner, noted liberal and contributor to Barack Obama, or not?

However you care to classify it, it has the benefit of being true:

. . . a U.S.-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner. . .

Jann Wenner:

From 2004 to 2006, Wenner contributed approximately $63,000 to Democratic candidates and liberal organizations.

Contributions to Obama:

It's not necessarily ad hominem to point out that it's worth waiting to see if the facts are as RS has reported them, when the publisher of the magazine has a fanboy relationship with the President. There is reason to pause and evaluate more evidence, isn't there?

The author of the piece is Matt Taibbi. I suppose he too is a leftist . Everything he`s reporting is in the public reqcord. Adn what he`s really commenting on, broadly, is what has changed about the nature of capitalism. That Mitt was smart and entered into the new fangled realm of leverage buyouts wasn`t illegal. He may be questioning his public persona and the public description of all this investing as `creating jobs`. That is the morality of it all.
But, beyond the juxtaposition of Mitt`s campaing and Mitt pointing to his Bain years as a paragon of capitalism, society has to wonder at large whether or not economic activity like this is really productive.
At one time capitalism was the investment in a business that created actual things, marketed and sold them and made a profit for its investors and management that way.
A leveraged buyout often creates debt so that the purchassers can make money and walk away as the company, crippled by debt, fails. Ending the original`enterprise. Nothing has been created. It is a distortion of capitalism.

Here;s Taibbi responding to a question about pension funds and unions investing in `private equity funds`.

This is a valid point. It is true, many of the biggest investors in private equity deals are pension funds and workers' unions. I think this is unfortunate, and I know for a fact that many union leaders discourage unions from investing in private equity takeovers. But it's an undeniable fact that unions and pension funds do sometimes make money on private equity deals.

But what people need to understand about private equity firms like Bain is that they are not in the business of turning around companies and creating jobs. The unions and pension funds that invested in those deals did not do so to rescue companies.

If you invest in a Bain or a Carlyle or a KKR takeover deal, you’re not betting on the future success of whatever company they took over. You're betting on the ability of those firms to make money on the deal, which may – or, just as importantly, may not – involve turning the target company around

.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-tai ... z25EhYmTc2

Hmm, Ryan starting to build up a reputation of being a fibber..

.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/0 ... 48715.html

freeman2 wrote:Hmm, Ryan starting to build up a reputation of being a fibber..

.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/0 ... 48715.html

blah blah blah.

When I hear you complaining about the Democratic ticket having an admitted plagerist on it, I'll take this complaint more seriously.

Well, the public has known Biden a long time and the incidents involving plagiarism took place what in 1988? Ryan's dishonesty is much more recent. Blah, blah, blah--what kind of argument is that--I am certain that you did not plagiarize that.

Biden plagiarised Neil Kinnock didn't he ? You'd think he'd merit more criticism for lack of judgment than for the plagiarism itself...

Sassenach wrote:Biden plagiarised Neil Kinnock didn't he ? You'd think he'd merit more criticism for lack of judgment than for the plagiarism itself...

Poor Neil. I always think he was underestimated. Certainly his speeches were good on paper, if not well delivered.

But it's certainly old news. It was dragged up in 2008, and I don't see whay it should be much of a factor now. As for more recent issues, well...

As I understand it, Ryan came forth (quickly) on the Marathon fib prior to the press sniffed it out. That's got to count for something, right?