Krugman: Romney's Snow Job on Jobs
Snow Job on Jobs
"Mitt Romney talks a lot about jobs. But does he have a plan to create any?
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But Mr. Romney, it turns out, doesnt have a plan; hes just faking it. In saying that, I dont mean that I disagree with his economic philosophy; I do, but thats a separate point. I mean, instead, that Mr. Romneys campaign is telling lies: claiming that its numbers add up when they dont, claiming that independent studies support its position when those studies do no such thing.
Before I get there, however, let me take a minute to talk about Mr. Romneys claim that he knows how to fix the economy because hes been a successful businessman. That would be a dubious claim even if he were honestly representing his business career, because the skills needed to run a business and those needed to manage economic policy are very different. In any case, however, his portrait of his own experience is so misleading that it takes your breath away.
For Mr. Romney, who started as a business consultant and then moved into the heady world of private equity, insists on portraying himself as a plucky small businessman.
I am not making this up. In Tuesdays debate, he declared, I came through small business. I understand how hard it is to start a small business. In his speech at the Republican convention, he declared, When I was 37, I helped start a small company.
Ahem. Its true that when Bain Capital started, it had only a handful of employees. But it had $37 million in funds, raised from sources that included wealthy Europeans investing through Panamanian shell companies and Central American oligarchs living in Miami while death squads associated with their families ravaged their home nations. Hey, doesnt every plucky little start-up have access to that kind of financing?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/opinion/krugman-snow-job-on-jobs.html
sigh
front page of tomorrow's paper has a yucky article