A few nights ago, the DNC argued that Mitt Romney’s private sector career was . . . well, evil, “profiting off of laying off thousands of workers.”
REALITY: ROMNEY’S PRIVATE SECTOR CAREER CONSISTED OF PROFITING OFF OF LAYING OFF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS
Romney’s Fortune “Was Made On The Backs Of Companies That Ultimately Collapsed, Putting Thousands of Ordinary Americans Out On The Street;” [New York Post, 2/19/11]
Romney-Led Bain Capital Closed US Factories, Caused Hundreds Of Layoffs And “Pocketed Huge Fees Shortly Before The Companies Collapsed;” [Los Angeles Times, 12/6/07]
Romney’s Tenure at Bain “Resulted in the Loss of Thousands of Jobs Through Layoffs And Bankruptcies;” [CNN.com, 1/30/08]
Former Bain Partners: Romney Had Chances To Fight To Save Jobs But Didn’t. [Boston Globe, 1/27/08]
So, layoffs are ipso facto bad, right? There’s never a good reason for them, they’re never necessary to save a company with runaway expenses, there’s never a way to reduce staff and make a company leaner, more competitive, or better off in the long haul, right?
The DNC will be issuing press releases denouncing themselves soon, right?
November 2011:
Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Anthony Foxx, a Democrat with close ties to President Barack Obama, is taking political heat as several reports show he plans to replace local workers with out-of-state union workers during the Democratic National Convention next year.
April 2011:
The Democratic National Committee laid off half a dozen more staffers on its regional political desks Friday afternoon.
January 2011:
The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America has started laying off staff in multiple states as the first phase of a restructuring before the official kickoff of President Barack Obama’s re-election bid.
Hey, was Mitt Romney ever accused of targeting minorities in staff cuts?
The Democratic National Committee backed off plans to lay off 10 black workers Thursday, a day after outraged black party leaders complained about reduction of minority staffers. Black party leaders placed angry calls to DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe after they were given a list of 10 staffers who would be cut to save money and boost the campaign fund for the party’s presidential nominee.
Hey, did Mitt Romney ever fire someone for expressing an unpopular opinion?
Matt Stoller quickly lost his slot on the official blog of the Democratic National Convention Committee this week because of a critical comment on an unrelated group blog, the National Journal’s Technology Daily reports.
Well, let’s see what the reliable liberals at Talking Points Memo say . . . oh:
Bain’s success is undeniable and owes much to Romney’s leadership and innovative strategy.
Two thoughts and should be used by the Republican establishment.
First, cutting jobs and thus overhead when losing money seems a prudent thing to do. By doing that, it allows the company to rehire and sometimes get even more employees down the road. I hope Romney has information on some of those companies.
In my business, I have had up to 25 employees and have had to lay good people off during slow times. Sometimes, those layoffs were a positive thing because of (see below).
Second, Boeing routinely used to cull the workforce only to rehire a few years later. In Everett, it was an accepted practice to get rid of the poor employees who didn't work and blame it on the economy. Boeing had a nickname- the Lazy B.
Weyerhaeuser, on the other hand, was nicknamed Workhaeuser. Totally irrelevant to the topic but I worked at Workhaeuser at one time.
And lastly, the attack on Romney by the DNC sits better with me than does the attack by Gingrich (apparently with DNC talking points) on capitalism.
And lastly plus, the idea that once you get a job you get it for life has been employed in Democrat State of Washington where we just can't seem to get spending under control. There is just no guts likened to those exhibited by Walker, Christie, et al.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou know what, Jim? Romney structured the contracts with his portfolio companies such that Bain got paid NO MATTER WHAT. In capitalism, you make money when you succeed, not when you fail miserably. Yet Bain charged companies THAT IT ALREADY OWNED tens of millions of dollars in annual "management fees" that were paid irrespective of performance.
And those management fees were on top of the 2% fee on assets under management plus the 20% carry on all profits created by each private equity fund.
That's not capitalism, it's highway robbery. And save us the lecture on how capitalism or the private equity industry works in the real world. You're a freaking opinion columnist, for goodness' sake, not an industry expert. When you can explain to everybody all the flaws of using IRR to measure the success of a PE fund, we'll listen to your general views on the propriety of the private equity industry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Democratic Party takes the cake. They are a disaster.
Unfortunately however, similar language has crept into the sound side. Perry is pushing the most tiresome class warfare against "Wall Street" for some bizarre reason. Newt Gingrich basically offered the same anti-Capitalist nonsense.
In many arenas, repeated by many following the fashion, we see endless populism amongst us, with some pushing cheap "establishment" warfare. It sounds so much like Obama and the Democratic Party. It is embarrassing to see repeated in the comments, many following the obvious ploy to create a mythic bad guy to buy some acceptance from the crowd.
Divisive sophistry is all over the place in this realm, which has become a shell of the once serious conservative movement. Even the EIB is selling this divisive con game, trying to play the "us folks vs. them" folly. The cheapest and weakest form of politics around.
Stunning to see so many follow it, all stuck on identity, image, etc. A symbol for the folly, and the future enabling of the very worst.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"So, layoffs are ipso facto bad, right? There’s never a good reason for them, they’re never necessary to save a company with runaway expenses, there’s never a way to reduce staff and make a company leaner, more competitive, or better off in the long haul, right?"
There is a HUGE difference between what you describe above and what Bain was doing as described in the quote below. The layoffs at companies bought out by Bain were due to Bain having plundered the company's assets for their own personal enrichment. I started my professional career on Wall Street (at Morgan Stanley) and I regularly defend Wall Street and capitalism, and yet I'm sickened by what Bain did. Good companies were destroyed, thousands of people lost their jobs, and for what? So Bain could pay outrageous dividends to its own investors, and fees to itself, without a thought as to the future of the company it was plundering.
You may succeed in whitewashing, or choosing not to report, on what Romney did at Bain (he's still making money from them) to help him get through the primary, but I guarantee Obama, the Democrats and the whole of the leftwing legacy media will make every American VERY familiar with what Romney was doing at Bain. Romney won't be able to mention his private sector business excperience (much like Obama can't mention the Stimulus bill by name). We can disqualify him now and run a candidate that can win, or make him our nominee and get stuck with Obama for another four years.
"The 2000 purchase of KB Toys, then one of the country’s largest toy retailers, became one of the most contentious.
As in most Bain deals, the partnership put up a small fraction of the money — in this case $18 million — and borrowed the rest of the $302 million purchase price. Just 16 months later, the toy company borrowed more to pay Bain and its investors an $85 million dividend.
That gave Mr. Romney and the other partners a quick 370 percent return on their money. But it also left the toy company with a heavy debt burden. Before long, the company began closing stores around the country and laid off 3,400 workers. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe notion that the GOP is going to win with a guy who is a leftwing caricature of a rich wall street Republican, is laughable
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse