You’d be better served by reading objective analyses of these issues rather than relying on attack ads as your sole source of information.
Let me emphasize again, though, that this is smart, politically, for Obama. Romney set himself up with a big target on his back by boasting about creating jobs while in the private equity business. Which he did. But he also fired a lot of people, too. His job was to make money for the investors-- sometimes that meant creating jobs and sometimes that meant destroying them.
Your link doesn’t work, but I went and found the article. Even though the tone seems to vindicate Romney, if you actually read what it says, it’s full of “yabuts” from start to finish. As in, and I’m paraphrasing here, “While it is true that Bain profited by closing the plant…” or “Sure, under Bain the company dramatically increased it’s debt burden while Bain profited, but some analysts say…”
I don’t walk away from reading your link feeling that you’ve really countered anything that BobLibDem said. Perhaps I misunderstood your intent?
Besides, FactCheck, again? I’m sensing a theme. Isn’t there any other source for info on what Bain did or did not do and when?
I don’t know, what I’m seeing in your link seems to confirm the story. They took out dividends that far exceeded their investment, sold a shitload of bonds and shut the place down.
Do the steel workers still have jobs? Did they not lose their pensions? Isn’t it fair to say that some of their pension money wound up in Romney’s pocket? What do you think happened with the money raised by selling bonds?
Can you be specific about why it isn’t? I’m growing more dubious about FactCheck as I read these things. For instance, they link to a Reuters article as if it exonerates, as it were, Romney/Bain on the steel mill matter, but the linked article really casts doubts about Bain’s motives and practices there.
Here in Denver a few years ago there was a proposal to massively overhaul our section of I-25. It was a very expensive and long-term proposal. Opponents pointed out that the time and gas lost by commuters during the project as well as its cost would never be recouped. Their logic was sound as far as I can tell. The project is complete in the southern half of town now and you know what? For a freeway it’s damned attractive, it’s efficient and safe, and it feels modern. My opinion is that it was worth every cent and second despite it being a net loss no matter which objective measure you use.
Offshoring, too, makes good objective, logical sense. But it completely ignores the psychological, soul-crushing and life-altering effects on real people who already don’t have enough money despite grinding away at the same job for 30 years with only a pension, hopefully, to show for it. Yeah it’s great for the overall national economy because products and services are cheaper and those with the income to spend on them are just a little happier, but is it worth it if your neighbor has to foreclose on his home?
How happy will you be, with your strong economy and cheap Wal*Mart crap, when your own property value plummets as more and more houses in your neighborhood become vacant; you’re constantly nagged by a little voice that wonders when your job is going to India; and everything around you in your middle-class neighborhood starts looking more and more run down as people lose all hope of anything being worth anything? Sometimes aesthetics comes with a cost, and I don’t want a president who not only doesn’t understand that but also doesn’t even know what it’s like to see a neighbor lose a job in a shitty job market.
To the OP: it’s not Romney’s business acumen and wealth, how he got it and what he’s done with it that is the point of the campaign against him. The point is, he’s got NO CLUE what 99% of his constituency faces every day. Someone that out of touch does NOT need to be the commander in chief of the armed forces for starters, or have ANY say in the people he supposedly represents. The US is NOT a goddamned business, it’s a crumbling idea.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Did you? Perhaps you could summarize the main points that led you to share it with us in support of your argument that this is a bs meme.
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Since it’s tangential to the actual point of the OP I don’t really see the need, Hentor. If you don’t want to accept a FackCheck article, well, that’s fine by me. Do you have anything to actually say about THIS OP, or just come in here to whine about the article without, you know, either citing a refutation to the cite given or giving any sort of response to the actual OP? Just curious.
That’s nice. What have YOU got?
[QUOTE=HMS Irruncible]
The article’s BS in a number of ways. For one, I’ll point out that part of the article depended on the lame assertion that Romney was not a “corporate raider” according to the strict definition, that his takeovers were not hostile to management (let’s not mention the workers). For another, it depends on the fact that Romney’s tenure at Bain was not concurrent with some of these practices (let’s not mention that he’s aware of these practices and endorses them by simply actively associating with Bain).
[/QUOTE]
So, your problem with the linked article boils down to you don’t like it. What have you got that specifically refutes it? I mean, granted, FactCheck is certainly a pro-conservative/Republic publication that is obviously skewed towards them and all, attacking only Democrats and Liberals by and large and with a reputation for bias, but what have YOU got?
Not that it matters, since I specifically said this wasn’t the issue, but since it seems you folks can’t focus, lets see what you and Hentor have that specifically refutes the FactCheck article. That’s all ‘I got’…what do YOU got?
Or, you could just respond with an idiotic rant about a tangential WORD that has nothing to do with the actual fucking OP. If you don’t agree with the FactCheck article then who gives a rats ass? If you want to refute it, feel free, but THAT’S NOT GERMAIN TO THE QUESTION I WAS ASKING. Get it? :smack:
Yes. I asked you to justify your assertion that it was “bs” and that it was a “meme”. Are you able to do that or not? Since that post, I’ve followed and discussed links from John Mace, who has done more work than you to prop up your deficient OP.
I love how you CUT OUT from my quote a specific criticism that I made about your linked article, and then asked me “What have YOU got?” Really classy, XT. I guess that makes pretty clear whether you wanted to have a discussion about this or not.
I think this thread is vitriol masquerading as commentary.
Bait and switch. We’re comparing the comparative advantage of operating in the US and India. One of the costs of operating under the current model is a 380:1 CEO:worker ratio. If the CEO:worker ratio were the same as in the 1980s, it’d indubitably be cheaper to operate in the US than it is currently. Remember, Indian workers provide more surplus labour, not unlimited surplus labour.
Besides, there’s a right wing meme of “austerity” that Pete Petersen has adopted for instance, opposing handouts like social security.
The real world effects of neo-liberal globalisation are evident, as are measures beneficial to the economy on the backs of the populace. I’m not joking, child labour laws are one of the things opposed by libertarians.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I love how you CUT OUT from my quote a specific criticism that I made about your linked article, and then asked me “What have YOU got?” Really classy, XT. I guess that makes pretty clear whether you wanted to have a discussion about this or not.
[/QUOTE]
Two things, Hentor. First off, I DON’T want to discuss this…as I’ve said repeatedly. It’s not germane to the discussion I was asking for in the OP. If you want to think that Romney is all those things, or want to think it’s a bullshit ‘meme’, it’s all the same…what I was asking for is how this will play out. You know, in the election. As in ‘this is the Election forum’. That sort of thing. Do you have anything to say on that subject?
Secondly, when I said ‘What have YOU got’, that’s not a request for your opinion. What I meant was ‘I provided a cite to FactCheck. You don’t agree. If you want to back up your assertion that FC is full of shit then WHAT SORT OF CITE DO YOU HAVE THAT DOES SO??’. Sorry for the confusion, but it seemed obvious to me. If you want to discuss this aspect of my OP, despite the fact that it’s tangential to the discussion, then what, specifically, do you have that disputes what FactCheck has provided? What, specifically, in the link you provided refutes either John’s linked article or my own? Do you have any specific data, besides your opinion, that refutes the FactCheck articles?
Or, you could simply answer the OP…do you think this tactic is going to be a silver bullet through Romney’s campaign?
I have yet to see you refute the article I provided in the OP. I haven’t bothered to find anything else (and merely skimmed your linked article) because, well, I don’t think it’s important to this discussion. YOU seem to think it is, so YOU need to provide specifics (aside from your opinion) that refute the article I linked too. Personally, I don’t care if you do or don’t, Hentor. Suit yourself.
[QUOTE=gamerunknown]
I think this thread is vitriol masquerading as commentary.
[/QUOTE]
That’s nice. You should probably refrain from posting to this thread in that case, especially since, deficient as the thread obviously is you still didn’t answer the actual question I asked.
The fucking thing you cut out. The fact that they premised their primary critique of Obama’s attack on the assertion that those events happened after Romney left control of Bain. However, evidence has come out that Romney was still in charge of activities at Bain after he claims to have stepped down. The authors of the article take the position that Romney must be telling the truth, because he filled out forms to that effect and wouldn’t lie about something like that. That hardly seems like a dispassionate consideration of the issues at hand.
Their other element of critique is largely “Yeah, they did outsource framemaking jobs to China, but it isn’t clear exactly how much, and how that compared with the year before, and anyway that’s not a bad business decision.”
So, the evidence that this is a “bullshit meme” is itself pretty thin and something you apparently don’t want to back up.
Yes, I’ve already pointed to the link to the Reuters article in John’s own article. It gives evidence that the author of the second FactCheck article to which John Mace pointed was not entirely representing the Reuters article truthfully.
I think the same thing that I said when Romney finally was clearly the party’s nominee. The Republicans couldn’t have done worse for themselves in terms of the overall narrative if they put Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly character, up as their candidate.
In the midst of an economic downturn of historic proportions, the Republicans chose a guy who had a Swiss bank account, who has Cayman Islands accounts, who’s wife has multiple Cadillacs, who has plans for an elevator for his cars at one of his estates, who talks about baseball in terms of his conversations with the owners, who jokes about firing people, says he’s not concerned with the poor, and who continues to make millions and millions of dollars from his time at a company that took over companies and tore them to bits.
In response to the issue, they want to come back with quibbles over outsourcing versus off-shoring, or what the precise definition of corporate raider is, and how Mitt doesn’t quite fit that definition?
They don’t need a “silver bullet.” Mitt isn’t some hard to stop monster. Christ, he’s a walking target who basically writes his own oppo. His own party doesn’t like him, worked very hard to find someone else, and pretty much can’t endorse him with straight up praise.
Now, what the Republicans do have is nearly $1 billion in SuperPAC money ready to go in an effort to defeat Obama. They may yet succeed in doing so.
Actually, it’s a riddle hidden in an enigma. Or maybe that was an enema.
Hate to break it to you, but this is the hot political topic of the week. Obama is hitting hard with this message, and lots of people are talking about it. I think it’s a smart political move, but I’m not good at guessing how well these things will work.
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya]
It’s going to result in an historically humiliating defeat of the GOP presidential candidate.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I agree…I think that, assuming nothing changes, it’s going to be an epic defeat for the Pubs this year.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
I think the same thing that I said when Romney finally was clearly the party’s nominee. The Republicans couldn’t have done worse for themselves in terms of the overall narrative if they put Rich Uncle Pennybags, the Monopoly character, up as their candidate.
[/QUOTE]
I agree. Romney comes across as a rich and entitled elite. Bush, despite the fact that he WAS a rich and entitled elite, never came across that way to the public. This theme (if you like that better) of Romney being an ‘Outsourcer/Offshorer and Corporate Raider’ is already resonating…and not just with dyed in the wool Democrats/liberals. I think it’s going to resonate with independents and even Republicans, weakening their resolve to vote for Romney and making their participation at the polls more tepid than it might have otherwise been.
Exactly.
And they have done a singularly horrible job of even attempting to defend against this theme. Not that I think they could defend against it in the current climate…that sort of stuff has always resonated with the average American.
As you said, Mitt was probably the worst candidate they could have picked in the current climate…though, frankly, he’d probably be a bad choice in any climate, simply because of how much like a caricature of a rich entitled guy he is. Americans generally like rich and entitled people (look at how we fawn over movie stars, rock stars, and sports stars, etc etc)…but we don’t like folks who act rich and entitled. We want the rich and entitled folksy type…sort of like GW was able to portray. Just folks…with millions and a huge ranch.
Well, Obama and the Dems have quite a bit too, and I’m not seeing how with even a billion dollars the Pubs could make Romney palatable to voters in this election. The only caveat I’d say is it will depend on what the economy does between now and the election. In the (to me) unlikely even it totally tanks between now and November, that would be the only thing (short of some sort of huge scandal either with Obama or some close adviser) that might shift things and let Mitt in.
So, further evidence suggests that Romney lied about when he left Bain. FactCheck was so adamant in their defense of him. This really makes them look bad. How about the bullshit meme now, XT? John Mace?
Well, I don’t know Hentor. Romney and Bain both say that he quit in any sort of executive or major decision related position in 1999. FactCheck seemed to back that up and I’ve not seen a retraction, yet (something they do if they are wrong btw…will Mother Jones be doing a retraction if they are wrong on this?). As your cite indicates ‘further evidence suggests’ (my emphasis) that he might have been in an executive or possibly a decision making position longer (2002).
While this is interesting information (I read the same on CNN yesterday as well, IIRC), it’s hardly proof of anything. It certainly does make him look bad, especially as it’s being spun right now, but I’ll wait for confirmation before committing to just tossing out FactChecks findings, since I find them slightly more reliable, in general, and also they have a bit more beef behind THEIR article than I’ve seen thus far on the other side, which seems to consist more of speculation and attempts to connect some dots that may or may not actually connect.
Tell you what, Hentor…if it turns out that Romney DID lie about this (and let’s be honest here…if he did, you can put a fork in him…he’s done. And he’s stupid, because that kind of lie is bound to come out, and he’d have to know that he’d be under a microscope if he was a major parties candidate), I’ll be happy to come back to the thread and acknowledge that it wasn’t a bullshit meme, and though it was only tangential to this argument and not really germane, that you were right and I was wrong. If it works out the other way I hardly expect reciprocity, so don’t worry about that.
Mother Jones? I linked to a Boston Globe article. Why are you talking about re: Mother Jones?
Also, why are you making FactCheck the final arbiter on this? They don’t seem to have adopted an impartial position on this. Impartial organizations don’t respond by saying one party is all wet. And if you read the link, it’s pretty indisputable that Romney was describing himself in positions of management and responsibility well beyond 1999.
Yet your position is that we should wait for FactCheck to decide?
Eta: And your little dig? Sure, I’ll acknowledge being wrong if I am. I’m just not often because I employ a better r method of evaluating information than “well, factcheck.org says so.”