Two people can simultaneously profit from the same transaction. If that wasn’t true, there would be no such thing as trade.
(As a matter of fact, two people can simultaneously own and operate the same yacht. Or airplane. Or bicycle.)
I do not have to make my profit at your expense, or at the expense of anyone else. I certainly wish that the element of ignorance that thinks that I only make a buck by taking a buck from someone else would just dry up and blow away.
No, I don’t. But I wasn’t trying to “help my case” because my case needed no help. And I often use the ridiculous to underscore something else that is ridiculous. Deal with it.
I have often perceived an irrational hatred of the rich just because they’re rich, which is often translated into a contrived moral justification for depriving them of their (undeserved) wealth.
No, it makes you think I look foolish. That bothers me not at all, because you are of no importance to me–you’re just a screen name and a few lines of text.
Or the Olympics will provide a convenient hook for stories about how Romney lobbied the Federal government for tens of millions of dollars to bail out “the most expensive games in U.S. history”:
Or maybe it’ll be a good time to remind everyone about how the making of those special 9/11/2001 patriotic Olympic pins was outsourced to China, and how many of the Utah Olympic pins featured… Mitt Romney!
Meanwhile, as Bain’s record comes under increasing scrutiny, even business-friendly folks like Bloomberg are being critical:
And we haven’t even gotten to the junk bonds and Michael Milken yet!
The one point I find interesting yet seemingly absent entirely from the public thrashing on this issue is the quesiton of sole ownership. The Romney camp is defending hard on operational/administrative control because they don;t want him to be tarred by activities after Feb 1999 (job losses, bankrupt companies, discarded fetuses, et al). I can certainly understand why. The Obama campaign is trying hard to show that he was an active force in the company until 2002 (SEC filings, taking a salray, etc.) And I can understand why they want to do that, too.
What seems to be ignored altogether is teh idea that Romney was the sole shareholder of Bain during that same period. I don’t think the Romney camp is disputing that. Which seems to imply that from both sides of the political debate it is presumed that ownership comes without responsibility. How strange. I don’t recall when last I experienced such a sense of dislocation from my political community. Even the CNN article, and the factcheck finding it references, appear to accept as given that simply being the owner of a business does not in itself carry any expectation or obligation for the decisions and actions being taken by the company’s officers. “Hey, he was just cashing the checks - you can;t blame him for how the money was made.” It is a fascinating and somewhat depressing illustration of the way wealth is viewed in modern America.
For myself, I believe that Mitt Romney is teling the truth when he says that he was not involved in the administrative workings of Bain (and subsidiaries) after Feb 1999. I also believe that he continued to be listed as CEO & sole shareholder, that he accepted $100k/year for “doing nothing” and felt he was justified in doing so, that he profited directly from his ownership of Bain and was i a position to significantly affect comany direction had he desired to do so as sole shareholder, and that the SEC filings listing him as CEO may represent a violation of the letter of the law but probably had neither the intent nor the efect of misleading any investors interested in the company.
And I believe that none of the above absolves Mitt Romne from responsibility for how his money was being made.
Nitpick. He accepted AT LEAST 100K per year. We actually have no idea how much, just that it is listed as greater than 100K. It is likely much greater.
The issue of Romney’s tax returns and his involvement with Bain really should have been fully explored during the Republican primaries. But except for a brief effort by Newt Gingrich, none of his rivals went there. And now the Republican Party is paying the price. Sweet!
This was interesting reading: McCain 2008 Oppo File | PDF | Mitt Romney | American Government
“McCain Campaign’s Full 2008 File On Mitt Romney”
Heh, there is probably more in there that will make right-wingers go crazy then liberals.
He chose to practice the LDS lifestyle and further the Mormon agenda while other young men were dying to protect real Christians from communism.
Boy it’s fun when you can throw away any sense of decency.
Now Romney is saying he does want to give any ammunition to Obama to distort by releasing more tax returns. He really is sticking to the “What’s he hiding?” problem; It’s safe to assume that’s preferable to what’s actually in them.
Obama hasn’t even gotten to attacking Romney on his massive and wide-ranging flip-flopping. I assume that will come in the debates.
In the “Thanks for the help but you’re not helping” file, McCain pushed back today against jokes that he looked at Romney’s record and immediately picked Palin by saying
So it wasn’t Romney’s tax returns, it’s just that he’s not as good as Palin.
Has a political party ever be as unenthusiastic about a candidate for President as the Republicans seem to be about Mitt?
One of those people has no business questioning a real American, doncha know. It simply is not done.
Yeah, that must be it. He’s not releasing his tax returns because he’s a racist. That makes loads of sense.
Is it true that Palin is not invited to the Republican convention? Maybe Mitt shouldn’t be either.
Now, now, Chumley; there are plenty of white folks among those people. You know, the wrong sort, the plebians who can count the houses they own on the fingers of one hand… the ones who are simply not our kind…
This whole idea of retroactive retirement is one of the most ridiculous instances of verbal gymnastics that I’ve ever heard. Seriously, the average voter is going to hear that phrase and immediately think, “Retroactive retirement? What the FUCK does that even mean? Bullshit.” Hell, I pay attention to this nonsense far more than most of the electorate and I can’t even fucking square this shit away.
But I want to move onto an even larger point.
I think that a few posters on here have already pointed this out, but seriously, it makes NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE - none, zero, zilch, nada - whether Romney was actively involved in managing Bain post-February 1999 or whether he really had distanced himself from the company after that period. These documents clearly show that Mittens continued to be the CEO and receive an annual SALARY during that time; he could have been living on the fucking MOON and it wouldn’t have made any difference. He owned the damn firm, he was the CEO, so all of these cases of outsourcing (or offshoring, whatever the fuck they’re calling it) that Bain encouraged and profited from during those years happened under Romney’s watch, and he is responsible for them. Period.
Heh. At least the statements “I didn’t inhale” and “I was for it before I was against it” convey a clear understanding of what the speaker was asserting.
Indeed. By Romney’s logic, since Captain Hazelwood was not actively directing the maneuvers of the Exxon Valdez when it ran aground, it is unfair to blame or criticize him for the resulting oil spill.
It’s not relevant because there is NOTHING that can make a Republican acceptable as a President. All Republicans are unsuitable to be POTUS is the axiom to start with. Specific things that change the degree of unsuitability do not change that binary fact.
Not really. I was talking about the fact that he’s a Republican. That fact can’t be mitigated.