TheOnion: if someone posts an article (ideally slightly more neutral than the original linked one) I'd be happy to read it. Something from like CNN, BBC, or some other big news company would be good and reputable.

Its already been pointed out to you that the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press have done their own exploring and you're capable of using Google yourself. So you're just trolling then?



Congratulations. A winrar is you.

TheOnion: Somacandra: TheOnion: And high risk demands a higher return. If they had gotten unlucky seems like they'd have gone out of business. Not to say that neither they nor Romney acted unethically, but making high risk investments and getting high returns on them sometimes isn't unethical inherently.

Yeah--you didn't read the article, did you? The entire point is that by charging hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly for management fees and siphoning capital out of the company, Bain investors are paid immediately. They don't have to wait for dividends. And if the company can't survive and the jobs are lost, Bain doesn't suffer and neither do their investors--they already got paid. You really might try at least skimming TFA.

I read the whole article but, as I said, it's clearly pushing an agenda, so I just ignored it.

Let's say they buy a business. They have to at least pay whatever it is worth, right? And presumably they can't then extract more than it is worth. I mean, where is the money that they're taking out of the business coming from? No one is gonna sell a business for $10 if they could extract $100 from it, right?

Yeah, seems like you ignored it because you have an agenda.

propasaurus: Yeah, seems like you ignored it because you have an agenda.

And the fish keep on biting. It's an interesting phenomenon. TheOnion did a masterful job of trolling and throwing the thread off track before it went green. Bottom line, Mitt Romney is a talentless, greedy, bastard, thief, who gutted companies for his own gain and he wants to be President. Discuss. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread, which was previously derailed by a brilliant troll.

Let me guess: he's a privileged sociopath that has a daddy complex

[reads article]

Well, the daddy issue is still up in the air.

It's a beautiful scam: buy a moderately healthy company that can handle a huge debt load, load it up with huge debts, cut worker payroll any way you can, stop doing anything that is geared towards long-term health of the company (because you're not going to be there that long, so who gives a flying fark about that kind of stuff), get local governments to give you subsidies, pay yourself a shiat-load of money and then sell it as a loss or profit - it doesn't really matter since you already paid yourself back the initial cost and then some. Repeat process until you have hundreds of millions of dollars in your bank account.

This is the kind of guy that should be running America.

Bain Capital invested in my company. First thing they did: sold all of the real estate we owned (and we owned a LOT of real estate) and then rented the same exact property back to ourselves from the people that bought the property from us.

It makes sense in the short term. And they're all about the short term.

MorrisBird: propasaurus: Yeah, seems like you ignored it because you have an agenda.

And the fish keep on biting. It's an interesting phenomenon. TheOnion did a masterful job of trolling and throwing the thread off track before it went green. Bottom line, Mitt Romney is a talentless, greedy, bastard, thief, who gutted companies for his own gain and he wants to be President. Discuss. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread, which was previously derailed by a brilliant troll.

And, as was I think mentioned somewhere upthread, many of the same folks who were thrown out of work, had their lives and livelihoods destroyed by Romney's thieving will line up to vote for him solely because he has an 'R' after his name.

I'll say it again. The leeches aren't at the bottom, they're at the top.

MorrisBird: propasaurus: Yeah, seems like you ignored it because you have an agenda.

And the fish keep on biting. It's an interesting phenomenon. TheOnion did a masterful job of trolling and throwing the thread off track before it went green. Bottom line, Mitt Romney is a talentless, greedy, bastard, thief, who gutted companies for his own gain and he wants to be President. Discuss. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread, which was previously derailed by a brilliant troll.

actually, he highlighted the problems Romney has...so if the intent was to derail the thread, then...well...that failed.

Romney certainly benefited from what would otherwise be called 'corrupt business practices'. the only reason he's running for president rather than sitting in a jail cell is because there's a LOT of people on wall street who are doing the same damn things.

marfar: It can be pretty hard to trust an article that starts off with a picture comparing Romney to insects.

That's true. Insects work hard for a living.

Weaver95: TheOnion: I read the whole article but, as I said, it's clearly pushing an agenda, so I just ignored it.

um...what agenda do you think they're pushing? dude - they're laying out what Romney (and a lot of other people) have been doing to this country.

Let's say they buy a business. They have to at least pay whatever it is worth, right?

nope! they put a fraction of the price down in order to buy the business and then leech as much operating capital out of it as fast as possible. then when the business implodes, they chop up whatever's left, sell off the bits and move on to the next victim.

essentially they're destroying companies and leaving a wasteland devoid of value in their wake.

Save your breath -- if it's not on Fox or World Nut Daily he's not going to believe it.

Weaver95: Romney certainly benefited from what would otherwise be called 'corrupt business practices'. the only reason he's running for president rather than sitting in a jail cell is because there's a LOT of people on wall street who are doing the same damn things.

But, they're not running for President. Mitt is. It's like he has this vision of himself. He's supposed to be President! Then he'll have done better than daddy, or something.

marfar: larrycot: TheOnion: I don't know what all happened with Romney and Bain, but this article is pretty obviously not giving an objective history, so I'm going to ignore it. I'd like to know the real story though. Wikipedia wasn't much help.

Probably just to ignore it. Neither Romney nor Bain will disclose exactly what happened, so I'm sure it was all on the up-and-up, and the reporter in TFA is just a commie.

It can be pretty hard to trust an article that starts off with a picture comparing Romney to insects.

Yeah, insects can be useful.

Lando Lincoln: It makes sense in the short term. And they're all about the short term.

Funny -- you could make the exact same comment about the Republican Party of the past 30 years.

MorrisBird: Weaver95: Romney certainly benefited from what would otherwise be called 'corrupt business practices'. the only reason he's running for president rather than sitting in a jail cell is because there's a LOT of people on wall street who are doing the same damn things.

But, they're not running for President. Mitt is. It's like he has this vision of himself. He's supposed to be President! Then he'll have done better than daddy, or something.

it's entirely possible that Romney is just an egomaniac. to be honest, most of the name brand GOP seem to suffer from serious personality disorders these days - everything from borderline sociopathic behavior up through and including all kinds of narcissistic personality disorders. Romney seems to fit that mold quite well. he doesn't seem to care about anyone other than himself or his immediate desires, nor does he seem to be able to relate to common voters and the issues that we all confront on a daily basis. not to mention that Romney comes across as something of a control freak. not good qualities for a leader to have, least in my book.

meh. not like anyone listens to me anyways. take it for what you will.

TheOnion: Somacandra: TheOnion: And high risk demands a higher return. If they had gotten unlucky seems like they'd have gone out of business. Not to say that neither they nor Romney acted unethically, but making high risk investments and getting high returns on them sometimes isn't unethical inherently.

Yeah--you didn't read the article, did you? The entire point is that by charging hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly for management fees and siphoning capital out of the company, Bain investors are paid immediately. They don't have to wait for dividends. And if the company can't survive and the jobs are lost, Bain doesn't suffer and neither do their investors--they already got paid. You really might try at least skimming TFA.

I read the whole article but, as I said, it's clearly pushing an agenda, so I just ignored it.

Let's say they buy a business. They have to at least pay whatever it is worth, right? And presumably they can't then extract more than it is worth. I mean, where is the money that they're taking out of the business coming from? No one is gonna sell a business for $10 if they could extract $100 from it, right?

Pushing an agenda you are hostile to. Be honest with yourself at least.

Profitable and Healthy companies, bought with nothing down, profits extracted from skilled labor, the pieces sold off for pennies on the dollar.

BAIN made a living raping the middle class.

If you can't see this, then you have a serious partisan bias playing out inside your head.

quatchi: marfar: lt can be pretty hard to trust an article that starts off with a picture comparing Romney to insects.

I felt sorry for the insects too.

I don't feel sorry for the Tick. He has Arthur at least.

X-boxershorts: quatchi: marfar: lt can be pretty hard to trust an article that starts off with a picture comparing Romney to insects.

I felt sorry for the insects too.

I don't feel sorry for the Tick. He has Arthur at least.

And SPOON!!!!

TheOnion: Weaver95: TheOnion: To claim that the government is giving millions in public money to a private equity firm, over and over, as they default each time, is a pretty amazing claim, and would require serious, direct evidence for me to believe. The linked article is not enough.

hit up google then. it's not like any of this is secret information or hidden. its all out in plain sight. that is EXACTLY what's been going on for the past 20 years or so. the Fed gives out oodles of money to CEOs who default on loans, reap massive profits for themselves and a select few investors, and then go out and repeat the cycle.

I read the news (and not news) and haven't heard about this. I feel like it's something I would have heard about it. I'm not going to go searching for this, but if someone posts an article (ideally slightly more neutral than the original linked one) I'd be happy to read it. Something from like CNN, BBC, or some other big news company would be good and reputable.

I know you think you're being funny but troll/alt/jackass accounts like you should be banned. By IP address.

TheOnion: So you're saying Bain pays for the companies with government backed or private loans, and then defaults on the loans so they don't have to pay them, and makes money that way? Perhaps I misunderstood.

They pass all of the debt to their new acquisition as quickly as they can. Millions and millions of dollars in debt, on top of what Bain extracts in profits from the company. Between that and immediate-profit-centered mis-management (pretty much every person interviewed in the article says the exact same thing- money stopped being spent on maintenance the day Bain took over), companies go bankrupt.

GWLush: Meh. It is interesting to watch a guy act like he knows everything but admits he knows nothing at the same time. He tried to successfully make excuses for Bain without knowing fark all about it. It's like me arguing what feels better in a vagina a dildo or a pickle.

No, he did know. That's the whole point. He was "playing dumb" as it was. See, that way the people responding to him both feel annoyed but superior to the troll account, and the troll account gets to laugh because people done been trolled, yo.

TheOnion: Let's say they buy a business. They have to at least pay whatever it is worth, right? And presumably they can't then extract more than it is worth. I mean, where is the money that they're taking out of the business coming from? No one is gonna sell a business for $10 if they could extract $100 from it, right?

They're selling the seed corn - the assets and infrastructure of a company that are in place to generate future profits. It's like buying a dairy farm and selling all the bulls for meat. In the short term it seems like a good idea, the bulls don't produce milk so they're just a drain on the profits. However, once the dairy cows start dying off those bulls will be missed.