Must-read article at Bloomberg by Anthony Luzzatto Gardner:
What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.
What’s less clear is how his skills are relevant to the job of overseeing the U.S. economy, strengthening competitiveness and looking out for the welfare of the general public, especially the middle class.
What particularly good about this is that it focuses on the period before 1999, when Mittens was, unambiguously, in charge. For example:
In 1992, Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper by financing 87 percent of the purchase price. In the next three years, Ampad borrowed to make acquisitions, repay existing debt and pay Bain Capital and its investors $60 million in dividends.
As a result, the company’s debt swelled from $11 million in 1993 to $444 million by 1995. The $14 million in annual interest expense on this debt dwarfed the company’s $4.7 million operating cash flow. The proceeds of an initial public offering in July 1996 were used to pay Bain Capital $48 million for part of its stake and to reduce the company’s debt to $270 million.
From 1993 to 1999, Bain Capital charged Ampad about $18 million in various fees. By 1999, the company’s debt was back up to $400 million. Unable to pay the interest costs and drained of cash paid to Bain Capital in fees and dividends, Ampad filed for bankruptcy the following year. Senior secured lenders got less than 50 cents on the dollar, unsecured lenders received two- tenths of a cent on the dollar, and several hundred jobs were lost. Bain Capital had reaped capital gains of $107 million on its $5.1 million investment.
Gardner has several other examples of Romney playing casino capitalism. This is the guy who would be good for the U.S. economy?
Add to that the fact that Mittens wants to cut taxes on the wealthy even more but raise them on lower income folks. It’s like he wants to do to America what he did to American Pad & Paper — borrow money to pay the guys at the top, and let everyone else suffer. And polls suggest increasing numbers of Americans realize they are permanently stuck among “everyone else” and have no hope of every being wealthy themselves.
Paul Krugman argues that this election really does boil down to a battle between the rich versus the rest:
he story so far: Former President George W. Bush pushed through big tax cuts heavily tilted toward the highest incomes. As a result, taxes on the very rich are currently the lowest they’ve been in 80 years. President Obama proposes letting those high-end Bush tax cuts expire; Mr. Romney, on the other hand, proposes big further tax cuts for the wealthy.
The impact at the top would be large. According to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the Romney plan would reduce the annual taxes paid by the average member of the top 1 percent by $237,000 compared with the Obama plan; for the top 0.1 percent that number rises to $1.2 million. No wonder Mr. Romney’s fund-raisers in the Hamptons attracted so many eager donors that there were luxury-car traffic jams.
What about everyone else? Again according to the policy center, Mr. Romney’s tax cuts would increase the annual deficit by almost $500 billion. He claims that he would make this up by closing loopholes, in a way that wouldn’t shift the tax burden toward the middle class — but he has refused to give any specifics, and there’s no reason to believe him. Realistically, those big tax cuts for the rich would be offset, sooner or later, with higher taxes and/or lower benefits for the middle class and the poor.
But it’s also the case that most American voters aren’t aware of Mittens’s specific proposals yet, or what they would do to the deficit and to their pocketbook. Krugman goes on to argue that in today’s media environment, when most people are never given straight facts, ragging Romney about his Bain record is about “the only way to bring real policy issues into focus.”
Josh Marshall explains why now is exactly the right time to hammer Mittens with his Bain Capital background.
But beyond all the specific accusations, they’re [the Obama campaign] painting a picture that makes Romney look ridiculous, like a joke. They’re making Romney look stupid and powerless on the front where he believes he’s one of the standouts of his generation. And that’s plain lethal for a presidential candidate.
But how does it come into play? Simple. Mitt Romney has two claims on the presidency: successful governor of major state and captain of industry. He’s largely written off the first by disavowing a genuine and perhaps far-reaching accomplishment: health care reform. Which leaves him with Bain Capital.
The play here is to make this swirl of awfulness the first thing people think of when that phrase gets uttered.
Think about it this: when do you think the next time will be that Romney talks about Bain Capital on the stump? What will people be thinking about when the 15 minute convention video about Romney’s life gets to the part about Bain capital? The Obama camp is working to build a mental roadblock in front of any persuasive discussion of Romney’s professional life, something which should be the major predicate of his whole campaign. They’re not quite there yet. But they’re getting close.
Mistermix asks the question — what does Romney have left to run on? The two major pillars of his biography — being governor of Massachusetts and being a successful CEO of Bain Capital — are out of play, or nearly so. What’s he got left?
The Romney campaign’s big counter-offensive today is to accuse the President of cronyism. Per Steve M., not even Cokie Roberts thinks that will work. And lawsy, when an empty-suit elitist loses Cokie, he should be very afraid.