So, why isn't it called Romney Capital? (If you started a business, you didn't build that!)

[No Elephants]

It all started in 1886, with Arthur D. Little, an MIT chemist who had invented acetate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_D._Little

In 1986, Little began Arthur D. Little, which became a very prestigious management/consulting firm. Originally, Little had a partner originally, another chemist, but he left. In 1909, Little incorporated Arthur D. Little on his own. (Contrary to its wiki, it was not based in Boston, but in Cambridge, home of both Harvard and MIT.)

ADL became an early leader in things like deregulation (of telecommunications), privatization (British Rail) and biological and chemical warfare. (ADL and all its offspring and "relatives," including Bain, have been heavy on "better living through chemistry," including things like chemical warfare and, for Bain, cients like Monsanto.)

Eventually, ADL became corrupt. In 2002, a French-based company bought it in an auction.

Charles Koch was once an employee of ADL. But, that is only a side note. Charles Henderson is the ADL employee we are going to follow out of ADL.

Charles Henderson, was a harvard Business school alum who had come to ADL from the purchasing department of Westinghouse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Consulting_Group

From or after his stint at ADL, Henderson went to a Boston company called, well, The Boston Company. (These folk were not big on imaginative names for their businesses.)

At Westinghouse apparently, Henderson had either invented or learned something called the Experience Curve, which apparently was his claim to fame, or one of them. The Boston Consulting Group also developed the "growth share matrix," which describes how a person or company that owns several companies allocates money among its companies.

One of the employees of Henderson's Boston Consulting Group was one Bill Bain.

(In 1975, Henderson and others--not including Romney--bought the Boston Consulting Group from The Boston Company, but Bill Bain was gone by then.)


In 1973, seven employees of Boston Consulting Group, headed by Bill Bain, founded Bain & Company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_%26_Company

Bain would sometimes take a share of ownership of a company (equity), instead of a fixed fee for its services. (Wiki says that Bain pioneered that practice, but that is bs. The practice of taking part ownership when a company can't pay you for your services is older than dirt.)

Meanwhile, in the 1970s, Boston Consulting Group hired one Willard Mittens Romney, just after he had been graduated from Harvard with a combined masters in business and law degree (which takes only a year more than a law degree alone).

In 1977, when Romney was 30, Bain & Company hired Romney.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

A year later, Bain & Company made him a vice president. (This is not significant, imo. Some companies make tons of vice presidents, usually without any power.) At some point, though, Romney did beome a partner of Bain & Company.

By the early 1980s, Bain & Company was losing its competitiveness and also had internal problems, such as excessive borrowing by its owners against their interest in the company.

In 1983, Bill Bain offered Romney the chance to head a new venture. I don't if the idea was to isolate a new company from the problems of Bain & Company. Romney's wiki says that he and Bain spent a year raising $35 million (in today's dollars, probably well over $100 million, but that is only my ballpark estimate. I did not look it up.) The wiki of Bain Capital gives us this tidbit.

Early investors also included members of elite Salvadoran families who fled the country's civil war.<11> They and other wealthy Latin Americans invested $9 million primarily through offshore companies registered in Panama.<12> New employees hired were generally in their twenties and top-ranked graduates from Stanford University or Harvard University, both of which Romney had attended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital


In any event, Bain & Company founded Bain Capital in 1984, with Romney and two other Bain partners and maybe some B & C employees as well.

Bain Capital did not do well in its first few years. Its first big success was Staples in 1986-- but Staples did not go public until 1989. By 1986, they were considering shutting down Bain Capital.

Meanwhile, Bain & Company itself incorporated in 1985 (maybe in order to shield the partners from individual liability for what had become a financially distressed company?).

Bain & Company defaulted on its loan with Bank of New England, one of the big reasons that bank went into bankruptcy (and had to fall back on the taxpayer, via the FDIC).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_%26_Company After it was in bankruptcy, Bain settled with the Bank (presumably really with the FDIC). By definition, a settlement would not be the full amount. So, indirectly, Bain & Company, of which Romney was then a partner, got a subsidy from the U.S. taxpayer.

Bain & Company took a cut of the profits of Bain Capital, "but Romney later persuaded Bill Bain to give that up." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bain_Capital And, as all of America now knows, Romney at some point becamse the sole owner of Bain Capital.

So, were Bill Bain and Bain & Company among the early victims of Bain Capital? (Now, there's gratitude for ya!)


In any case, given the history of Bain Capital and Bain & Company, I would say Mittens is a perfect example of the truth of what people like Warren, Obama and even No Elephants have been saying: If you built a business, someone helped you along the way, whether it was private individuals or taxpayers or, in the case of Bain Capital both.

I wonder how Bill Bain feels hearing Romney deny that. For that matter, is old Arthur D. Little rolling over in his grave while Romney pretends to have built a business all on his own? And how about all those who invested in Bain Capital, giving it the funds to take over other companies? And what about the people who started the businesses, like Staples, from which Bain profited so much?

And then there were indeed those roads and bridges that the Staples trucks use. And free protection from the military and the police. And regulation of the securities that Bain purchases. And, I suspect there were tax breaks and other taxpayer funded benefits along the way that enabled Bain Capital and Romney to get where they got And, and, and.

It is only Romney's arrogance, delusion and lack of insight that enables him to say otherwise. And his habitual dishonesty.

Note: I have culled the above info from the wikis of the various companies mentioned and from Romney's wiki. I have little doubt that all those wikis are continually monitored and scrubbed, with such info as not removed entirely being presented in the best possible light.

Still, it's a start, for which I find wiki invaluable. You can read more at the above links, if you like and take it from there.

P.S. "It isn't called Romney Capital" was a remark from my brilliant RL politics discussions buddy in California, so tip of the fedora to him.