Romney’s Mix of Apples and Oranges
Mitt Romney is milking the airways with his dishonest AND misinformed take that the President is “a leader (who) divides us with the bitter politics of envy”. Mixing the term “envy” with the President’s fight for “fairness” is like mixing apples and oranges. Romney needs to stop using the President as a scapegoat for his WEAK DEFENSE against attacks by HIS fellow Republican presidential candidates regarding his less than honest Bain claims. Let’s talk about those claims…
The Washington Post reported that during his time at Bain, Romney pursued two different kinds of investments – venture capital and private equity. Venture-capital investments involve investing money in fledgling start-ups, typically through obtaining a minority stake. Romney’s campaign trail claims regarding Bain’s $5 million investment sunk into Staples in the 1980’s - which made Bain $13 million by the way - are, currently, ONLY A FRACTION of Bain’s portfolio.
Romney’s claim of creating “more jobs at Bain than the President” is MATHMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. The December Jobs Report states that the 1.9 million private sector jobs were created as a result of President Obama’s economic stimulus. According to Romney, he “created 100,000 jobs” for the Staples and Sports Authority while FAILING TO DISCLOSE that 94,000 of those jobs are those that Staples and Sports Authority ALONE have created to date. How can Romney even begin to compare his 6,000 job creations to the President’s 1.9 million job creations with a straight face?
Let’s talk about Romney’s private equity time at Bain Capital. Private-equity investments involve pursuing corporate buyouts; helping reorganize them, then selling them off a few years later. That’s where Romney made his biggest PERSONAL gains during the Bain years. Ten of those private-equity deals produced 70 percent of dollar gains for Bain between 1984 until 1999 – about $1.75 BILLION in total according to the Wall Street Journal. Romney’s Bain-related private-equity deals resulted in some of the MOST high-profile BANKRUPTCIES AND JOB LOSSES in private-equity investment history. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Four of the 10 companies that made Bain the most money under Romney WENT BANKRUPT” while Bain Capital AND Romney made off like fat cats.
Instead of mixing “fairness” with “envy”, Romney needs to join the President AND the Responsible Wealth Network comprised of over 700 business leaders and wealthy individuals in the top five percent of income and/or wealth in the U.S. who “advocate for FAIR TAXES AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY”.
The “envy” card makes Romney look envious of having created over 1 million FEWER jobs than the President!
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