Matt Taibbi Explains Why You Should Hate Mitt Romney Even More Than You May Have Hated Him Yesterday

[Kurovski]

From Wonkette:

"...making us hate Mitt Romney even more isn’t terribly difficult! You just begin by explaining the nuts and bolts of how Bain Capital destroyed several companies by loading them up with debt, and then you go into detail about how Bain partners made tons of money, much of it off government “handouts” even while laying off thousands of workers, and then you top it all off by pointing out that political and financial journalists have been unwilling or unable to explain any of this to the American public. Thank you, Matt Taibbi, for exposing not only the incompetence of the American pundit class, but also the features–rather than bugs–of the corporate tax code that allow people like Mitt Romney and Incorporated Americans like Bain Capital to happen to all of us.

We should first say that we love Taibbi’s entire article and encourage you to trot on over to Rolling Stone and read the whole thing (and then come back here, of course). But the main point of it can probably be extracted from these gems:..."


MORE...
http://wonkette.com/482863/matt-taibbi-explains-why-you-should-hate-mitt-romney-even-more-than-you-may-have-hated-him-yesterday

[Kurovski]

1. I know it's a busy night, but bookmark and read this and the Taibbi article later, if not now.

If moderate republicans knew this story I dare say they'd sit out or switch. Obama would get every independant vote out there.

[quaker bill]

3. Bain was just one fish

in a big pond. The real story since the 80s has been more about these guys than cheap labor overseas. But the media has focused predictably on the low paid brown people, not on the extremely well paid white ones. It is the well paid white one that took us to the cleaners.

[patrice]

5. +100000

[derby378]

4. If there was this much hate for George W. Bush in 2004, Kerry would have been elected

There were too many appeasers, even in our own party.

[malaise]

6. K & R Comrade leader

Must read

[Kurovski]

12. Da, baby, Da.

Central Commitee sends regards, dear sister of the revolution!

[patrice]

7. Read, STRATEGICALLY excerpt using bold text highlights, and share, share, share.nt

[Kurovski]

13. The piece at Wonkette is wonderfully highlighted and edited, even if editorial.

[siligut]

8. Mitt took classes from Micheal Milken

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2012/06/24/the_story_behind_mitt_romneys_work_with_michael_milken_it_was_fun_while_it_lasted/

Milken was so successful at selling risky bonds in exchange for possible double-digit returns that he had become one of the best-known and most controversial financiers in the nation by the time Romney and his partners met with him. A year earlier, Milken’s deals had earned him $550 million in salary and bonuses.

Romney, the famously cautious investment manager, embraced the philosophy of Milken, the embodiment of the high-flying 1980s. Romney, according to his former partners, viewed Milken not just as someone who built up piles of cash, but also as an innovator whose deals could force bloated companies to become leaner, more efficient, and more profitable.

BTW, on The Sopranos, Tony basically did what Mitt did. Take a company build up debt, bleed it and then dump it.

[Octafish]

11. The old bust-out...

Eggzackly like Tony Soprano. Works like a charm.

http://critcrim.org/critpapers/potter.htm

[siligut]

14. Thank you for the link Octafish

Great information, as always.

[Kurovski]

17. good to see you here, Octafish. Taibbi has this in his Rolling stone article...

"This business model wasn't really "helping," of course – and it wasn't new. Fans of mob movies will recognize what's known as the "bust-out," in which a gangster takes over a restaurant or sporting goods store and then monetizes his investment by running up giant debts on the company's credit line. (Think Paulie buying all those cases of Cutty Sark in Goodfellas.) When the note comes due, the mobster simply torches the restaurant and collects the insurance money. Reduced to their most basic level, the leveraged buyouts engineered by Romney followed exactly the same business model. "It's the bust-out," one Wall Street trader says with a laugh. "That's all it is."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz25ezhr2dv

[quaker bill]

20. More than classes, he also took money

Milken was an initial investor that helped Bain get started.

[upi402]

9. Taibbi is a real journalist

The "pundit class" are NOT incompetent. They are traitorous whores.

siligut is right, the MAFIA set the paradigm for corporatism.


eom

[stopwastingmymoney]

10. Kick for later

[Kurovski]

15. From the Rolling Stone article...

"...And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.

By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House..."


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz25erXYc7C

--I keep thinking of the book "Shock Doctrine"

[Kurovski]

16. Romney was basically a gold-plated leech at Bain. (nt)

[Kurovski]

18. I could just kick myself!

And so good night to all you Guillaume Clinton fanzies out there! Sweetie-pie dreams 'til the morrow.

[malaise]

19. Morning kick

Good thread

[Kurovski]

21. Romney has his own form of socialism...

privatizing profits and socializing the losses.

[pacalo]

22. Matt Taibbi explained beautifully what voters need to know about that snake.

Romney has no feeling for other people; he's incredibly selfish & callous. If he can make a profit, he'll trample other people's lives in order to add to his obscene wealth.

And there's no doubt about it: Romney did not build his fortune without the government's help.

His personal fortune would not have been possible without the direct assistance of the U.S. government. The taxpayer-funded subsidies that Romney has received go well beyond the humdrum, backdoor, welfare-sucking that all supposedly self-made free marketeers inevitably indulge in.

(...)

But the way Romney most directly owes his success to the government is through the structure of the tax code. The entire business of leveraged buyouts wouldn't be possible without a provision in the federal code that allows companies like Bain to deduct the interest on the debt they use to acquire and loot their targets.

(...)

Thanks to the tax deduction, in other words, the government actually incentivizes the kind of leverage-based takeovers that Romney built his fortune on. Romney the businessman built his career on two things that Romney the candidate decries: massive debt and dumb federal giveaways.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz25iq9R27j

And to think there are hateful kooks who are so angry that poor people in America are receiving welfare just to survive day to day, that they will vote for a sub-human whose own government welfare checks are being hidden in the Cayman Islands...talk about twisted values.

[Kurovski]

23. Well put Pacalo.

Thank you.

-Release those tax returns, mr. Romney.

[pacalo]

24. Thank you for posting the article, Kurovski.