tenpoundsofcheese: rewind2846: Ba'boon: If Mitt Romney really *made* a hundred million dollars by shutting down a plant... it deserved to be shut down. Non profitable ventures don't have any room in a capitalist society.

And that's why I don't want Rmoney or anyone like him in The Big Chair.

Nations, states, counties and cities are not businesses. In business profit is the main objective, and shareholders and owners are the only people that matter. Non-owner employees don't matter worth a sh*t.
Governments don't deal with shareholders or profit, they deal with people - and everything that goes with them. Looking at a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet doesn't work here.
I want someone in office who can deal with people as people, not as numbers in a profit or loss column. Capitalism has no place in government. It's an economic system, not a legal system.



But you are okay with the thousands of jobs lost by GM when it was restructured due to the 0bama administration investment?

Obviously Obama should've just let GM go under leaving even more people out of work amright?

tenpoundsofcheese: LEHMAN BROTHERS, ring a bell, moron? All the Repo 105s in the world couldn't save that shiathole from bankruptcy!

Yes, a bank. Not the banking system has collapsed

tenpoundsofcheese: Washington Mutual's collapse?
Yes, a bank. Not the banking system has collapsed

tenpoundsofcheese: Bear Stearn's collapse?
Yes, a bank. Not the banking system has collapsed



Architecture, by 4.4 kilograms of fermented dairy product. Remove a few of the high load bearing beams of a structure (the banking system in this case), everything is fine! The structure is COMPLETELY STABLE.

Debeo Summa Credo: Getting proved wrong? How so? My main point, that PE firms' business model doesn't involve intentionally defaulting on loans is proven right by the very fact that private equity exists today and hasn't disappeared because nobody will finance them!

You keep arguing your gut-feeling about how things work in the face of historical evidence that proves you wrong. The fact that banks were knowingly making unsound loans is an irrefutable documented fact. But, go with "truthiness" if that makes you feel better.

Lenny_da_Hog: Cletus C.: For some reason the ad doesn't include the part where the guy calls Obama a "pantywaist."

Link

Different ad. That one is for a steel plant that Bain destroyed, not the paper plant that Bain destroyed.

Oops. Romney's path of destruction can be a difficult one to follow, what with all the bodies littering the trail.

Corvus: tenpoundsofcheese: Corvus: tenpoundsofcheese: ftfa: Mitt Romney made over $100M by shutting down our plant and devastating our lives"

Really?

I thought he was only worth about $250M.

According to tfa Mitt made $100M from closing down a plant.

Do you believe that Mitt made that much from closing down a plant or is it yet another lie from the democrats?

You were wrong he has made more money than 250 million!!!
I never said he didn't. I said he is worth $250M. do try to read and keep up.


Stick with the question: do you believe that Romney made $100M from closing down this plant or is it a lie?

Corvus: tenpoundsofcheese: So what you believe is that when some banks have trouble that it means that the entire banking system has collapsed.

Maybe because the Fed is loaning banks trillions of dollars for free? Maybe that's a bit of a sign that it's collapsed?

signs? you go with signs? that is the best you can do?

what does fed lending rates have to do with whether or not the banking system has collapsed?

(hint: nothing)

"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime."

tenpoundsofcheese: (hint: nothing)

LOL. Willful ignorance. Introduced by the GOP faithful, perfected by 4.4 kilograms of fermented dairy product.

Pincy: tenpoundsofcheese: Pincy: tenpoundsofcheese: Pincy: Geotpf: Bloody William: robrr2003: Like I said.. If you're going to lie why not go big. Sorry for confusing you (and the one or 2 other slow people)
Though I would imagine a money transfer like that would probably take a lot less then a day.
Maybe the Ad should say "OMG Romeny made 100 trazillian gaudillion dollars in 5 min!!111!"

What the fark are you even talking about?

Also, you pedantic whiner,

robrr2003: I'm not denying that Bain Capital made $100 million from closing the company.

BAIN WAS 100% OWNED BY ROMNEY!!!!

Sheesh.

Come on now, everyone knows that the only shareholder, president, and CEO of a company is really just a figure head and nothing more. And lucky for Mitt because that's exactly what we are looking for in a President.

Oh look, someone else who doesn't understand what Bain Capital does.

Just because you have 100% corporate ownership does not mean that you have 100% of the returns on the funds.

I know this is fark, and people just derp, but if you thought for a second, why would anyone invest in the Bain Funds if Romney got 100% of the returns?

Oh look, another person who doesn't understand that it's not about the amount of money Romney made, it's about how he went about making that money.

Nice try.

You mean legally? Using business practices that were common (ref: GE, IBM, Dell, HP, Boeing, Maytag, Apple, etc)?

If everything was so nice and legal then why doesn't he want to talk about it?

I believe it was probably all legal, just not necessarily moral, and definitely won't reflect good on him.

TBH I don't care Romney didn't pay a lot of taxes and has offshore accounts. The system sucks, but it's not Romney's fault he took advantage. I don't care that much about Bain. I just care that his experience at Bain doesn't necessarily make him a 'Job Creator' - which people should know anyway. Being a CEO doesn't mean you maximize jobs, it means you maximize profits. Not a good way to run a country. And I believe that his economic policies aren't anything new and will drive the US further in a hole.

I alone am best:
The production was moved to another facility. What was the net loss of jobs?

See, this is where folks like you fail. You're thinking "business" where the average voter, like the person in the ad, sees "personal".
They don't give a sh*t about how many jobs the corporation has overall, or what its profit margins are, or what its stock does... they are concerned about their job, in that plant or office, because that is what keeps food on their table, a roof over their head, clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and gas in their tank.

So the net loss of jobs per person that worked there? One.

If the job they had was moved to another state or another country, it is still a loss to them. One person. And they will remember the people who made that happen come November, with their one vote.

Giltric: Lenny_da_Hog: Giltric: jodaveki: Which have been declining... was there a point you were making?

The incongruous unemployment rate decline accompanying such anemic job growth is a sign of a troubling trend: a shrinking labor force. The unemployment rate is calculated as a percentage of people either with jobs or looking for jobs. When that number shrinks, the unemployment rate can also fall, even without substantial job growth. In April, the labor force participation rate fell to 63.6 percent, the lowest it has been since 1981.


did you think it was declining because everyone was magically finding jobs?

/theres always more to the story.

Hey, what's Romney's job plan?

I don;t know, I haven;t been following his campign. But if we have a president that can;t get anything done because of republican obstructionism or republican racism and whatnot, wouldn;t it be easier to just get a republican in office so we can move on.

It would be like settling a case out of court. Like Activision and West/Zamparella

This is a brilliant BSABSVR - i expect you'll be trotting this horseshiat out on a regular basis.

Lenny_da_Hog: One keeps the company alive.

One kills companies for profit.

Both are the same.


Ampad wasn't killed. It's still in business selling paper products. So your comparison is false. It was bought by another investment firm and very likely restructured again in the last decade to keep it afloat.

Mrtraveler01: Obviously Obama should've just let GM go under leaving even more people out of work amright?


So you think that Bain should have just let Ampad go under in 1992?

tenpoundsofcheese: Geotpf: When your defense involves stupid word games like "offshoring versus outsourcing" , you've already lost.

That is only because you are too stupid to understand what offshoring is and why it is used.

it is okay to lose to people who are stupid.

I'm talking about losing the election. Kerry's comment that "I voted for (one version of the bill) before I voted against (another version of the bill)" was technically correct as well. Still was stupid to say.

My point is if you are arguing about technicalities, you've already lost the election.

RolandGunner: Mrtraveler01: Obviously Obama should've just let GM go under leaving even more people out of work amright?


So you think that Bain should have just let Ampad go under in 1992?

Still pretending like it wasn't Bain that loaded Ampad up with debt? Why even be in the thread if you refuse to acknowledge information that has been repeatedly presented to you in it?

Lenny_da_Hog: Is Ampad the only investment made by Bain?

No, but Ampad is the company that is the subject of the original article and campaign ad, though. 80% of Bains companies grew and avoided bankruptcy. Ampad only filed bankruptcy 7 years later because they started losing market share to Asian paper manufacturers.

The closure of the Marion Indiana plant described in the aricle was because, when Ampad was purchased by Bain, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. That plant closure was part of the consolidation that was done to avoid bankruptcy. The re-org apparently worked because the $8 million that Bain bought worth $200 million just 4 years later.

The commercial in question has a disgruntled employee complaining that Romney made $100 million off of that plant closure, which is false. He made $100 million by saving the company and then successfully marketing the shiat out of the company and growing it. To save the company for all the other Ampad employees that plant was closed. The disgruntled employee was going to be out of work one way or the other.

Lenny_da_Hog: Here. Read this. It explains how debt works in these transactions.


FTFA: Essig, who voted for Obama in 2008 but this year plans to vote for Romney, doesn't blame him.

"No matter how you look at it or what side of the fence you're on, a plant closing is a tragedy for people. I think when you try to tie it to a person and say, Mitt was responsible for this - a lot of steel companies went out of business at that time, and Mitt had nothing to do with it," he said. "That was a macro-industry tidal wave that hit that plant. I bet if the Bain folks had to do it over again, they wouldn't have gotten involved with it. It can't be treated lightly, but to lay it at the doorstep of Mitt, I think, is not accurate."

Yeah, totally Mitt's fault!

Mrtraveler01: tenpoundsofcheese:
But you are okay with the thousands of jobs lost by GM when it was restructured due to the 0bama administration investment?

Obviously Obama should've just let GM go under leaving even more people out of work amright?

For obvious reasons (most of them having to do with gross mental instability) 4.4 kilos of soured mammal milk hasn't figured out that sometimes sacrificing the few to save many more is a choice that leaders must sometimes make. This is especially true when the many are already near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. That's a "human" decision, and not just a "business" decision.

rewind2846: Mrtraveler01: tenpoundsofcheese:
But you are okay with the thousands of jobs lost by GM when it was restructured due to the 0bama administration investment?

Obviously Obama should've just let GM go under leaving even more people out of work amright?

For obvious reasons (most of them having to do with gross mental instability) 4.4 kilos of soured mammal milk hasn't figured out that sometimes sacrificing the few to save many more is a choice that leaders must sometimes make. This is especially true when the many are already near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. That's a "human" decision, and not just a "business" decision.



And maybe one day you will realize that the dumbass in the commercial that is the subject of this whole thread was one of those casualties that allowed the rest of the company to survive and grow.

Lenny_da_Hog: Debeo Summa Credo: GameSprocket: Debeo Summa Credo: No, your analogy doesn't work because lenders are sophisticated enough to know who owns the companies to whom they are lending. If Bain's portfolio companies started defaulting lenders would connect the farking dots pretty quickly and stop lending to Bain's other companies or for other Bain acquisitions and Bain would be through.

You keep saying it even though you keep getting proved wrong. If you were a rat you would have died of electrocution or starvation by now.

Getting proved wrong? How so? My main point, that PE firms' business model doesn't involve intentionally defaulting on loans is proven right by the very fact that private equity exists today and hasn't disappeared because nobody will finance them!

My advice to you is to abandon your partisan fueled futile defense of an indefensible point and take this as a learning moment.

You should realize that going into deals intending to defaulting on loans is not part of the PE business model as it is objectively and obviously unsustainable. Take this nugget of newfound information and use
it to refine future arguments against Bain. Focus on the outsourcing of jobs to reduce costs criticism or what have you and omit the nonsensical intentional default
talking point behind. You can still hate Bain and Romney even after improving your understanding.

Hell, even though i find the BAin bashing dishonest im still almost certainly voting for Obama.

Here. Read this. It explains how debt works in these transactions.

That's actually a more thorough description than I've seem elsewhere in the media. Still, it is only one of the portfolio companies that Bain has invested in. The article speaks about exogenous variables that led to the demise of this company (cheap foreign steel, higher energy priced). It also refers to the fact that most of the new debt went to expand and modernize the company.

Keep in mind that you only hear about the Bain companies that went bankrupt- for every bankruptcy story you hear there are many more successful investments.

Lastly, and most pertinent to my original point: Bain took these loans expecting to pay them back. The lenders provided these loans knowing what they would be used for, including investor dividends. It's not part of the Bain or any PE business model to intentionally default on debt.

Further, the dividend after incurring debt is simply a
company changing it's capital structure and goes on all the time in all corps, not just those owned
by PE firms.

Corporations will issue debt and use the proceeds to buy back shares all the time, shifting the capital structure from equity to debt. If the firm is deemed too risky by lenders and the market, it won't be able to do this or will have to pay high interest rates.

Muk_Man: Being a CEO doesn't mean you maximize jobs, it means you maximize profits. Not a good way to run a country. And I believe that his economic policies aren't anything new and will drive the US further in a hole.

Exactly, which basically exposes the whole trickle-down theory as a complete hoax which is why the Republicans aren't too key on talking about this stuff right now.

I think the question to ask is how Mitt was able to cause all of those other steel companies to go out of business when they didn't even own them. The devious greedy bastard. We're just scratching the surface here.

Lenny_da_Hog: Debeo Summa Credo: That's actually a more thorough description than I've seem elsewhere in the media. Still, it is only one of the portfolio companies that Bain has invested in. The article speaks about exogenous variables that led to the demise of this company (cheap foreign steel, higher energy priced). It also refers to the fact that most of the new debt went to expand and modernize the company.

It also clearly states that they borrowed money to pay out themselves dividends and then left themselves without enough capital to respond to market changes, and that profits were wiped out by the interest incurred by that debt.

FTFY

js34603:
/go to Romney's site, I'm sure you'll find articulated reasons why he closes plants...somehow I'd guess no matter what reasons he gives, you'll ignore them for this narrative.

Another one that doesn't get it. While Romney's "reasons" might be fine and logical and even legal in a business sense, that is not the attitude or behavior I want in a president.
From a corporate wall street vulture capitalist asshole, I would expect this behavior... hell it would make news if one doesn't act like this. That doesn't mean I want one of these buzzards riding the Big Desk.

Vulture capitalist = Profit before people
President of the United States = People before profit anything else.

Lenny_da_Hog: Just because he maimed one instead of killing it doesn't make him a person that cares about Americans' well-being.

Hah, he didn't "maim" it either. He grew the company by 53% annually for years, and the company is STILL bigger today than it was when Bain acquired it in 1992. The only portion of Ampad that was really hit in 1999 and 2000 was the paper producing arm because, like most of Bain's small number of failures, the locally manufactured goods market dried up in the face of low cost foreign competition.

In fact, when you think about it, when Bain did start outsourcing some work back in the early 2000s is was likely because of their experience with GSI and Ampad. Bain management looked at their books from the late 90s and realized that most of their losses were coming from low cost foreign competition. They were not going to be able to stem that tide.

Did the executives of this company donate to the Obama election fund?

If so, they would have benefited from a taxpayer-funded injection of $500 million; then they could have sailed away on their golden parachutes and Mr. stage builder with the rest of his schlub buddies would still be unemployed when the company went tits up.

Romney Plan: Make $100 million for investors. Company gone.
Obama Plan: Piss away $500 million public funds for his cronies. Company gone.

Lenny_da_Hog: Here. Read this. It explains how debt works in these transactions.

How can that even be legal?

Lenny_da_Hog: Debeo Summa Credo: That's actually a more thorough description than I've seem elsewhere in the media. Still, it is only one of the portfolio companies that Bain has invested in. The article speaks about exogenous variables that led to the demise of this company (cheap foreign steel, higher energy priced). It also refers to the fact that most of the new debt went to expand and modernize the company.

It also clearly states that they borrowed money to pay out dividends and then left themselves without enough capital to respond to market changes, and that profits were wiped out by the interest incurred by that debt.

Yea, not the kind of great business acumen that I would brag about.

Graffito: Yea, not the kind of great business acumen that I would brag about.


They're batting .800 with that strategy. They should totally stop doing it.

Hell yes! This is good. They need more of these. Whoever is in charge of putting this and the, I believe it was "Firms" together, needs a promotion. This is the kind of fight the democratic party needs, not the bullshiat acquiescence that plagues almost everything else surrounding the party.

I hate to jump in when this thread seems exhausted but Bain capital was not
a firm that invested in a operated companies. They were corporate raiders pure and simple.
The bought a company to suck every last penny out of it then scrapped them. They didn't give
a shiat about the people in those companies they only cared about how much they could stuff
their pockets with. The real rub is that they didn't even care if the company was profitable they
killed it anyway.

bulldg4life: Just saw a new Obama commercial with Mitt Romney singing America the Beautiful while quotes about outsourcing and offshore bank accounts scroll by.

That's rough

It's been airing here in NC for about a week now. I think it's only airing in battleground states.

I'm way late to the party, so pardon me if this has already been discussed, but the fact that they had a stage constructed to announce the firings is not so much a reminder of the fact that they fired the workers, but that they didn't have the balls or common decency to look the workers in the eye when firing them.

Why would you want someone to run a government like a business? The main drive of a business is to generate as much profit for itself and its shareholders by charging its customers as much as possible in return for as little as it can get away with. You're not providing your goods and services for the sake of the common man, your goods and services are merely an incentive for the common man to give you his money. Government isn't about creative ways of making obscene amounts of money for itself, it's about managing and distributing the resources necessary to keep the country running. You can't just sell off the country when it's no longer profitable.

...Farking shiat. Damn, Mitt. That's just...

/Does he have an empathic disorder or something? Maybe outright sadism?

kook-a dillo-dip-adillo, quarrmontingten dippy dom...

Old news, but I'll repeat what I wrote in the original thread:

What kind of sociopath decides to make a production of these things? I've been laid off, and I've been around when other people got the axe but I survived. It's never made into a public affair. People are very quiet and somber, and I know that none of the people that did the firing took any pleasure in doing it. It takes a real sick fark to take pleasure in things like that. Mitt Romney is a sick fark.

Don't Troll Me Bro!: Old news, but I'll repeat what I wrote in the original thread:

What kind of sociopath decides to make a production of these things? I've been laid off, and I've been around when other people got the axe but I survived. It's never made into a public affair. People are very quiet and somber, and I know that none of the people that did the firing took any pleasure in doing it. It takes a real sick fark to take pleasure in things like that. Mitt Romney is a sick fark.

And you are assuming he took pleasure in any layoffs due to... ?

MHudson: Don't Troll Me Bro!: Old news, but I'll repeat what I wrote in the original thread:

What kind of sociopath decides to make a production of these things? I've been laid off, and I've been around when other people got the axe but I survived. It's never made into a public affair. People are very quiet and somber, and I know that none of the people that did the firing took any pleasure in doing it. It takes a real sick fark to take pleasure in things like that. Mitt Romney is a sick fark.

And you are assuming he took pleasure in any layoffs due to... ?

The fact that he gave a command for people to build a stage, then marched them out onto the stage they just built to fire them, and all the people watching. Basically he made a public spectacle of it.