Three Reasons why Romney's Quit Date Matters

[Dalai_1]

So what? Three reasons why it matters:

Outsourcing. There are two Democratic attacks that Romney has defended himself from by citing the 1999 departure date from Bain: that he's an outsourcer and that he's a corporate raider. President Obama's ad calling Romney an "outsourcing pioneer" are based on a June 21 Washington Post story looking at how Bain, led by Romney, was an early outsourcer. FactCheck.org rates the Obama commercial false, because much of the outsourcing happened after 1999. For example, Bain didn't become a majority shareholder in Stream International, which set up call centers overseas, until later in 1999. A subsidiary created by the deal, Modus Media, closed a California plant in 2000 and opened one up in Guadalajara, Mexico. Again, FactCheck.org rated the Obama ad based on the Modus outsourcing false, because Romney said he'd left Bain in 1999. The same goes for SMTC, which closed plants in Denver and opened them up in Mexico in 2001.

Corporate raiding. As for the corporate raider charge, Obama's campaign says Bain took over companies, extracted huge fees, and then let them fail. One example is Ampad, which NPR's Planet Money has cited as an example of private equity gone wrong. Bain bought the paper company in 1992, took on a ton of debt, and the promised turnaround never happened. Instead, Planet Money explains, workers lost their jobs, stockholders were "wiped out," and lenders "got back a fraction of what they were owed." But so what? Ampad declared bankruptcy in January 2000, almost a year after Romney's official quit date. But the Globe's report makes that more complicated. Likewise, GS Industries, which Bain formed in the early 1990s by merging multiple steel plants, went bankrupt in 2001, "two years after Romney left Bain," as the Los Angeles Times reported. Or one year before he left?

Legal issues. There are legal implications no matter which date is correct. Romney's most recent federal financial disclosure form says that "Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way." Earlier this month, in evaluating the truth of an ad by President Obama's campaign calling Romney an outsourcer, FactCheck.org said that if Romney hadn't really left Bain when he said he did, "then Romney is guilty of lying on official federal disclosure forms, committing a felony."

But the Boston Globe says that if he did leave in 1999, and kept being listed as controlling the firm, that could be problematic too. Former SEC commissioner Roberta S. Karmel told the Globe:

"If someone invested with Bain Capital because they believed Mitt Romney was a great fund manager, and it turns out he wasn’t really doing anything, that could be considered a misrepresentation to the investor... It’s a theory that could be used in a lawsuit against him."

Source:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/07/why-romneys-quit-date-bain-matters/54489/

[siligut]

1. Thick as thieves

"If someone invested with Bain Capital because they believed Mitt Romney was a great fund manager, and it turns out he wasn’t really doing anything, that could be considered a misrepresentation to the investor... It’s a theory that could be used in a lawsuit against him."

I doubt you will have any investors bringing law suits against Bain or Romney.

[XemaSab]

2. People on FR have their hackles up about the disposal of aborted babies too

Like I said in a different thread, it's a 200-car train wreck.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. reason #4 - Bain owned fetus disposing company during that time, Romney doesn't want to

lose the anti-choice crowd