THE FEDERAL BAIL OUT OF BAIN CAPITAL - Mitt, you can say "thank you" to the American taxpayers.

[Bill USA]

This is one nobody should miss, over on GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021223422#post23

[patrice]

1. MITT ROMNEY IS A WEALTHFARE QUEEN - eof.

[Bill USA]

2. addemdum: reaction to Bain Bailout intelligence: Biden blasts Romney’s Bain bailout

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/31/biden-blasts-romneys-bain-bailout/

For Biden, the Bain attack is a new one, based upon a report filed Wednesday in Rolling Stone. Documents obtained by reporter Tim Dickinson show that Romney settled more than $30 million in debts Bain owed to a bank the FDIC had taken control of by threatening to loot the company’s assets for executive bonuses and put Bain into bankruptcy if the government didn’t cancel the company’s debt for just 30 cents on the dollar.

“You know, he is absolutely against the federal government or any government using funds to save jobs, to save industries,” Biden said Friday, speaking to a group of auto workers in Lordstown, Ohio. “It’s bad business, he says. Except when it comes to his business.”

“Let me quote from recent reporting,” he went on. “‘Romney was willing to go to extremes to secure a federal bailout’ when Bain Consulting was on the verge of collapse. The way they reorganized cost the government $10 million. Imagine that: It was one thing when a million middle class jobs were on the line. It was another when his own financial interests were on the line. And now they say they care about the middle class?”

Earlier in the speech he also corrected Romney’s running mate, Rep. Ryan, who said during his RNC speech that a General Motors plant in his hometown closed down because of President Obama’s policies.
<more>

[Bill USA]

3. and re Bain Bailout in The Economist

(emphasis my own)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/08/mitt-romney-and-bain-company

DID Mitt Romney extort the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation into taking a $10m loss in a bail-out of Bain & Company, the consulting firm he once worked for?

That's the case that Tim Dickinson makes in a Rolling Stone article that should give the Romney campaign jitters. Bain & Company is a consulting firm, which in the 1980s spun off a private-equity firm, the similarly named Bain Capital. Mitt Romney became the head of the new private-equity company. Many of the founders of the original consulting firm (including Bill Bain, pictured with Mitt) cashed out some of their stock in Bain & Company to put it into Bain Capital. But a series of unlucky shocks (a scandal, and the 1989 recession) put the original Bain & Company (cash-poorer, since its stock had been depleted) on the financial ropes. Mr Romney was called in to revive the consulting firm.

Which he did in successful fashion, according to the story known publicly so far. But Mr Dickinson, through a Freedom of Information Act request, got documents showing how Mr Romney forced Bain & Company's creditors to accept painful "haircuts" on their loans to the consulting firm. The federal government was involved, because one creditor bank had been taken over by the FDIC, an arm of the federal government that assures depositors aren't devastated when banks go bust.

Somehow, a strange clause had been inserted into the banks' agreements with Bain & Company:

“Bain had inserted a poison pill in its loan agreement with the banks: Instead of being required to use its cash to pay back the firm's creditors, the money could be pocketed by Bain executives in the form of fat bonuses—starting with VPs making $200,000 and up. "The company can deplete its cash balances by making officer-bonus payments," the FDIC lamented, "and still be in compliance with the loan documents."
What's more, the bonus loophole gave Romney a perverse form of leverage: If the banks and the FDIC didn't give in to his demands and forgive much of Bain's debts, Romney would raid the firm's coffers, pushing it into the very bankruptcy that the loan agreement had been intended to avert."

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thanks for pointing out that article. n/t

[tokenlib]

5. We need to show how Bain defines Romney--spread this article everywhere!