Mitt Romney claiming he's a businessman...

[jmowreader]

Is like a man who runs a chop shop claiming he's an auto mechanic.

[liberalmuse]

1. He's a leech, a parasite.

He latches onto a company, sucks it dry, discards it, then moves on.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Or a butcher claiming to be a veterinarian.

[Skidmore]

3. I always refer to him as a corporate raider

or a vulture capitalist.

[Poiuyt]

4. Is like a commodities speculator claiming he's a farmer

I read that on another thread -- wish I could give proper credit.

[sharkman25]

5. Well this is real news! LoL n/t

[reformist2]

6. I hope there will be an expose of all the people tricked into buying companies from Bain!

Obviously it's not as useful politically to hear sob stories from capitalists tricked into investing their money in companies made profitable the "Bain Way" only to see them explode in their faces, but it would be very interesting to hear their side of the story - very interesting indeed.

[jmowreader]

7. Don't fall into Romney's biggest trap

The standard line is that Romney bought troubled companies, managed them until their operations improved then released them, new and improved, upon the world.

This is like saying Hurricane Andrew was a good thing because Miami needed a little rain.

In a raider's view, a troubled company is one whose stock trades too low. The only way Romney would be interested in an unprofitable company is if Romney already owned a competitor or they had a product that would fit into one of his companies' product lines. He would buy it, immediately close it, keep the customer list or product line and sell everything else.

Fixing a company means firing people, closing plants and selling product lines. Read Barbarians at the Gate: when an LBO is announced lots of competitors make offers for the pieces in hopes the brand they want is going to be sold to help pay for the LBO. And part of pre-LBO planning is identifying suitors for every piece of a business.

The popular fantasy of Romney's time in business is he was some sort of angel fluttering in on gossamer wings to right foundering ships of commerce. The reality is he's Gordon Ramsay charging in with a bulldozer to "fix" a restaurant with good food, happy customers and efficient staff whose profitability is being hampered because of high insurance premiums. An LBO doesn't "fix" problems, it ends them but it creates problems of its own.

[reformist2]

8. What are you talking about? A lot the people who bought companies from Bain lost big time!

I want to see if Mitt even did what he claimed, or whether that too was a sham.

[jmowreader]

9. I am talking about LBO 101

These things are designed to make two groups of people money: the private equity firm, and the people who invest with it by purchasing the securities sold to buy the company.

The groups that generally lose: the company, its.employees and people who buy into the IPO used to get the raider firm out of the deal. Oh, and also the company's vendors (who can be shanghaied into renegotiating contracts to be more favorable to the raiders), wholesale accounts (who pay more for merchandise, hence either lose money by maintaining shelf prices or customers when prices go up), retail customers (who lose in o-so-many ways), the towns the raided firms are in...basically, everyone but Mitt Romney and his friends lose out because Mitt would rather do this than get a real job.

There is a finite amount of money in the world. People like Mitt Romney don't seem to know that.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

10. is like

A black widow spider sucking her husband dry.

Till there's nothing left but a husk.