Romney's Bain Investment Record: Three Times the Bankruptcies of Fed Investments

[buzzman]

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17618-romney-s-bain-investment-record-three-times-the-bankruptcies-of-fed-investments


Jon Stewart lacerated the myth of Romney's alleged expertise as a venture capitalist the other night. (See video here.) Quite simply, under Mitt's leadership, Bain Capital had a worse investment record than the federal government's backing of alternative energy companies (e.g., Solyndra).

In fact, Romney's record at Bain showed him picking firms that went into bankruptcy at three times the rate of the fed record.

Stewart started by quoting part of Romney's "closing argument" to the American voters:

The government of the United States is not a very good venture capitalist …. [Obama] doesn't just like picking winners and losers, he likes picking losers. Half of the ones [alternative energy companies that the government has invested in under Obama] have gone bankrupt.

But, as Stewart pointed out, a CNN Money article from October 22 analyzed Romney's claim and found:

[DreamGypsy]

1. Of course an important part of the Bain strategy...

...was to bleed money out of their investments and force them into bankruptcy. See a 22% bankruptcy rate can be a GOOD THING!

Maybe the U.S. government should adopt a similar strategy ... oh, I forgot, there's this government of the people, by the people, for the people thing. I guess that means the government, as opposed to Bain, has to consider the impacts of its policies on the people of America.

Furthermore, The Daily Show, which has a far better rate at connecting dots than most major media, went on to quote from an article in the Wall Street Journal that analyzed Bain Capital investments while Romney headed the firm. The Journal found that 22% of the companies went bankrupt within eight years.

So that's 8% failure for government investments in alternative energy firms vs. a 22% bankruptcy record under Mitt Romney's leadership at Bain.

"The government can't even beat Mitt Romney at picking failure," Stewart quipped.