It would be a very different world if you or I could borrow money, put a big chunk of what we borrowed in an bank account in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland, and then stick someone else with the debt. That's what Mitt Romney did.
You see, Bain Capital was a mechanism for Romney to make himself and his "NASCAR team owning" buddies and the tax dodgers he advised very, very rich. The essence of the Bain Scheme was to borrow a lot of money to buy a company, saddle the company with the debt while paying himself big fees and then walk away.
Here is a wonderful analysis of this "business" plan. Thank god most of his investments missed Oregon, though Bain is investing in hospitals and Romney still gets money from Bain.
Sometimes things worked out, like the company Staples. Sometimes what happened is a lot of American workers lost their jobs and the companies went bankrupt.
While Romney raked in a cool quarter billion dollars. And it is likely he raked in a lot of money from Goldman Sachs and others that were getting bailed out by our tax dollars. A transfer from Main Street to Wall Street to Bain Street!
We don't know. Romney is hiding that information. Why? Because there is something to hide.
Does anyone, anyone, really think this man of piercing ambition, who has and will say anything to anybody to get elected, would not release his tax returns if they validated his argument that he should be president?
Not bloody likely.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
You know not, of what you speak.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/look_who_parks_their_cash_at_bain_88KSQrw8BXciEidja2ZQXN
Bain is sooo evil. Rube.
Rube? RUBE!? How DARE you, Sir!
As far as I could tell from the New York Post story you linked, (I'll see your New York Post and raise you a Rolling Stone and a New York Times) it says that Bain Investors made money. Yes, Bain and Bain investors made money.
And to do so they looted a lot of companies by saddling them with debt and firing workers. and paying themselves huge fees. And Romney got rich, and Romney is hiding his tax returns.
Legal, yes. Moral? Kinda sucks if you were one whose company crashed or got fired while Romney sucked the cash out.
And where did all that money go that Romney got for the Salt Lake Olympics? You won't be able to find out, because he had the records burned.
And he had the hard drives removed from computers as he left the governorship of Massachusetts.
THE MAN IS HIDING HIS WHOLE HISTORY! LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT! DON'T TRUST HIM!!! HE IS NOT WHAT HE SAYS HE IS!!!
God, I am such a rube.
Dear Mr. Rube:
Thematic essays, your blogs. Without the rules of essay writing in evidence, of course. Fragmented thematic essays.
Patterned themes. For instance, the ugly, tyrannical, megalomaniac Large Corporation. Villain du jour.
From sea to shining sea, the definition of ‘person’ includes business entities, in all colors, shapes and sizes. ‘Personhood’ is critical – businesses are sucked into the system along with persons covered in sweating flesh. Sucked into the basics – civil and criminal laws. The enhanced “sucking”: the ungodly stacks of Rules and Regulations, government agency oversight, regulatory hearings, investigations, inspections, reporting, record keeping, administrative officers, quasi-judicial bodies, etc.
I have a friend who steered his deep sea charter-fishing business to success, despite competition. And while newbie fishermen falling overboard are idiots, they are idiots with lawyers. And what did Ordinary Man do to protect his American Dream? Built a tower of legal defense. LLCs for each fishing boat, LCCs owned by LLP, LLP governed by a C corp. And secondary defense lines were put in play.
Clever. Applauded. And Big Business is different how?
My friend hired a local accounting firm; friends of friends; nice people. Anti-tax tactical forces fully exploited the gaps and perks of the tax laws. Hands shake again at a backyard BBQ while dogs run and kids bark.
And this is different from Big Business how? And while tax ‘efficiencies’ are legal, are they the moral choice? Temporary Aid for Needy Families is in jeopardy; unemployment compensation may be cut, education grants are reduced, funding of the arts degrades.
Small businesses are the stuff of Americana. The stuff of neighbors, friends and families. Tinkers. Tailors. Farmers. Small manufacturers. Bakeries and brothels.
Big Businesses are the stuff of high drama movies. Legendary corruption. Powered by monopolistic engines. Destroying the economy and our children’s opportunities, no compassion, no moral compass. Damn those iPhones made in Chinese sweatshops, thank god they’re pretty.
Business entities, large or small, successful or not, are driven by the best, the worst and the mediocre - just like any other human endeavor.
Small enterprises represent 99.7% of all employer firms & employ half of all private sector employees. They also represent the largest sector of tax fraud and tax evasion. Small businesses are well skilled in all sorts of wicked ways.
Label employees ‘independent contractors’ to avoid workers comp, unemployment comp, employment taxes, minimum wage laws, etc.
Don’t comply with ADA standards. (My god the costs are huge – I go to church with the disabled, I invite them to BBQs. Surely they don’t want me to coddle them at such a cost.)
Small businesses in the compliance zone of employment rights who just don’t. Small business owner knows how to do the Right Thing.
Liquidating small businesses who “sell” stuff to friends, family and neighbors before filing bankruptcy. Who don’t disclose all assets – how are they going to survive if everything but the family bible is put up for auction? Big Bank and Big Business creditors can absorb the loss; and, quite frankly, should take the hit – if BBs knifed the economy, then surely the weeping wounds have spread their puss to the innocent small business?
Small business owners are good people trying to their best survive with as much integrity as they can afford. Bless their little hearts.
What’s good for small businesses is good for the country. To hell with Big Businesses.
Two things. You talk about Romney the debt maker? What about the National Debt maker? Obama! Oh, yeah, and Bush, too. But Obama to a degree that pales Bush's effort. How are your kids and grandkids going to pay that one back? And he wants to spend more... a lot more.
The other thing, talking about small business. What about the estate tax, or "Death Tax." Hell, you can't even pass the family farm down to your kids without them having sell it to pay the taxes. Pay the taxes on an asset that's already been heavily taxed. And that's how Obama wants to help the middle class?
Whoa there,"Two Things."
Thing One -- take that up with Mr. Rube, that ain't my area of debate.
Thing Two -- I tried to keep my writing to the seventh grade level. Damn -- just can't get it low enough. So, here are the Cliffs Notes: Big ain't necessarily evil and Small ain't ever pure. Nothing is pure or evil. Business is burdened by human frailties and too often governed by overactive primitive, reptilian brains.
As for the 'family farm?' Most of the heartland is corporate farming -- owned not by families but something other than Pa, Ma and the progeny. And my uncle can't pass down his business without selling it for taxes. Boo Hoo. Just like everybody else, their children need to run away from home.
There are such things as thousand year land trusts, ya know. Salaries can be damn nice under a land trust operated by the family employees. The dirt becomes a kinda quasi-public lands held in trust for the good of mankind, but who is going to wander into a soybean field in Northwest Iowa. Put a day care in the corn-crib and it's a charitable organization.
Great business model. Droughts? Plow under and subsidized. Too much rain? Plow under and subsidized. Farmers have been subsidized, glorified and selling out for two generations.
And one last note on 'passing down the family farm.' Farming is an extraordinarily capital-intensive business (but they also get air conditioned cabs with TV and Pandora Radio and those small fridges stocked with tiny liquor bottles. Wait, scratch the bottles -- that's when farmers go ice-fishing).
Thousands of farm acres are required to break even. Most family farms can't make it anymore because the ancient homestead just ain't big enough. And the next generation wants to program video games. You know, the 3rd largest global business.
Well. I feel better. Don't you? Time to go boil some corn-on-the-cob. You know, the tiny, tiny, barely farmed species in the vast midwest prairies of feed corn.
And where is my butter from Wisconsin, melted and slopped?
And while the water is boiling, I wanted to make sure you were aware of the obvious --
Circle back to business entities to waylay estate taxes. The usual suspects: General partnerships, limited liability creatures, blah blah blah. Pretty rudimentary and coached to completion by their friends at the Grange. Forms from the stationery store, signed, sealed and buried in the office, pigs slaughtered, BBQ in the back yard, and life is good again.
Oh, and don't forget those wonderful, magical valuation discounts. Just for the All American Family Farmer.
Salt, anyone?
Post a Comment