I’d like to see a lot of these signs.
Of course, they would be vandalized by the Obamabots.
33 thoughts on “Compare And Contrast”
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I’d like to see a lot of these signs.
Of course, they would be vandalized by the Obamabots.
Comments are closed.
The last thing Romney needs is more attention paid to Bain. The list of bankrupt Bain companies is not short, and it’s politically toxic to talk about how Romney made so much money from those deals while the companies’ workers lost their jobs. It just reinforces the notion that the rich play the angles for special breaks while the rest of the country suffers. And that’s before you get into Bain’s “tax efficient” offshore accounts that help keep Romney’s tax burden lower than what most people pay.
Romney is seen as a rich guy who doesn’t understand or care about the problems of regular people. Drawing more attention to his genius as an businessman doesn’t help him. It might help him if he could talk more about how he extended health insurance to 98% of the people of Massachusetts — that shows empathy and an ability to make a real difference in people’s lives. But he can’t talk about that either. He’s painted himself into a very tight corner.
Concern trolling duly noted.
The difference is that Bain risked private capaital on businesses that sometimes failed. Obama has thrown billions of taxpayer dollars at one failed “green energy” company after another, with a high percentage of that money going to cronies and political contributors. You want to compare that to Bain?
Bain risked
How much risk is there when you can walk away with huge profits even when the company fails? It’s a heads I win, tails you lose setup. Bain put the risk onto the workers, other shareholders, lenders, and the taxpayer (we got to bail out the pensions of failed Bain companies).
It’s just like the deal Romney got when he agreed to start Bain Capital: if it works, great; if it flops, you get your old job back, with retroactive pay raises.
How much risk is there to taxpayers when Obama channels billions of dollars to cronies and bundlers? How much risk did the GM bond holders have when Obama violated the law and stiffed them in favor of the UAW?
To compare the two is stupid. Obama is perhaps the most corrupt president in US history. Whether his corrupton rises to the LBJ level is debateable but I think he topped the old Texas crook.
How much risk is there to taxpayers
The DOE loan portfolio is doing fine.
to cronies and bundlers
Along with the politically neutral (e.g. Elon Musk) and political opponents (80% of wind energy comes from GOP districts). By far the biggest loan guarantees were offered to the nuclear power industry, typical hippie Democrats….
How much risk did the GM bond holders have
No more than if Obama hadn’t acted and GM had been liquidated.
Obama is perhaps the most corrupt president in US history
And yet unlike every other president since Carter, he hasn’t had any top official charged with a crime. Is he a criminal genius, or are rumors of his corruption perhaps exaggerated for political effect?
…unlike every other president since Carter, he hasn’t had any top official charged with a crime. Is he a criminal genius, or are rumors of his corruption perhaps exaggerated for political effect?
I’m trying to figure out if he typed this with a straight face.
The DOE loan portfolio is doing fine.
Red herring.
Along with the politically neutral
Not a denial. Just a quibble about the percentages.
No more than if Obama hadn’t acted
Pure bullshit. They should have been first in line.
he hasn’t had any top official charged with a crime.
In other news, the fox guarding the hen house says “there’s nothing to see here.”
…time after time, Bain companies failed while Bain and its investors turned a profit.
Your statement seems to be missing a point.
Were these companies forced at gunpoint to take money?
No more than if Obama hadn’t acted and GM had been liquidated.
Bzzzzt. “Liquidated”, with the proceeds going where exactly Jim?
The DOE loan portfolio is doing fine.
How so? The DOE loan portfolio is underwritten by the taxpayers. In case you haven’t noticed, we are $16 trillion in debt. We can’t afford to loan money to high risk companies. And note, the DOE identified Solyndra as too high a risk, yet they received a loan anyway. There is no question that Solyndra’s executives walked away with some of the remaining equity when the company went under, that the equity taken could have repaid a portion of the loan, and that the executives donated to DNC (and went to their DNC convention). With this type of corruption, saying the DOE portfolio is just fine sounds similar to what Ken Lay told employees as he froze their ability to sell their stock.
The independent consultant’s report on the DOE loan portfolio.
There is no question that Solyndra’s executives walked away with some of the remaining equity
No question? I have questions. My understanding was that Solyndra’s debts exceeded its assets, that there was no equity. So what exactly did those executives get? What did the shareholders get? What was their ROI?
Solyndra was not a Bain-style deal. No one got rich while the company failed.
the executives donated to DNC
So what? DOE loans also went to companies with investors who give to the RNC.
Were these companies forced at gunpoint to take money?
No, but they sure regretted it later. Their experience is a cautionary tale for anyone considering putting their economic future in the hands of Mitt Romney.
a cautionary tale
Something the media should be doing. Take another look at that yard sign Jim.
You’re right about one thing Jim. We do not know exactly where Romney will take us. Which is why he should be elected. Any name out of the phone book should beat Obama.
“How much risk is there when you can walk away with huge profits even when the company fails?”
Say what? I’ve worked (as an attorney) for private equity investors, and I can assure you that when a PE fund’s investments fail, their investors feel the pain (and so does the PE manager – since 95% of his compensation is performance-based, not salary).
Romney and his fellow PE guys have a lot more skin in the game than Obama & Co. do when they invest taxpayer money in Solyndra, etc.
And yet, time after time, Bain companies failed while Bain and its investors turned a profit.
Jim, the risk is always on the workers and employers. That’s called good capitalism. If Mitt always walked away a winner, that’s called great capitalism.
We succeed because we risk failure. You want to spread the fantasy that risk is bad at all costs and the bigger fantasy that it can or should be avoided.
You have just defined what’s wrong with socialism and why it should be DESTROYED ABSOLUTELY. Have a nic day. 🙂
We succeed because we risk failure
And yet Romney insisted on a no-failure guarantee when he started Bain Capital.
I’m all for linking risk and reward, but the Bain story is one where other people took on most of the risk, and Romney got the reward. That isn’t great capitalism, it’s a rigged game.
In which all the participants were entered freely. Pressure always exists when you need money and management. You would replace that with a little thing called extortion.
Jim, what do you think would have happened to those failing companies had Bain not gotten involved, that they would have magically stayed alive? Looking at Bain’s record, their best chance for survival was with Bain. That Bain couldn’t always turn a company around just shows how hard running a business really is.
As other people have pointed out, the companies Obama
investedloaned money to were in bad shape financially. Obama made bad loans, just like he encouraged banks to make bad hoising loans. The CEOs and top executives of these companies got richer while their companies failed. You think they didn’t draw over priced paychecks until the companies were bled dry?Remember the days when Democrats were pissed off at the evil 1% and their salaries that are so much higher than their workers and how they would float away as things got rough on golden parachutes never being held responsible for their malfeasance? It seems like it was just a few comments ago…
“As we pulled up to traffic lights, I noticed that the shoppers and businesspeople who were standing only a few feet from me didn’t even see me. It was as if I was invisible. Perhaps it was because a lot of us don’t think garbage men are worthy of notice; I disagree – anyone who works that hard deserves our respect.”
You’re right, you dumb bunny, Romney’s obviously so out of touch with the middle class he can’t empathize at all.
Point conceded that Obama sucks as a venture capitalist, but I’m not sure that Romney’s record in this regard is really a great talking point. Presidents shouldn’t be investing taxpayer dollars in private companies, period. I’d be concerned that Romney thinks he’s good enough at it that it would be Okay if he did it.
Certainly a concern, but since congress has the purse strings it’s more likely he’ll be vetoing spending. We can’t be sure since we aren’t given a choice of a real fiscal conservative (which are always parodied as whackos.)
I think the point is that Romney would be less inclined to make any such “investments” in the first place, since he understands that wishing doesn’t make it so.
Wishing doesn’t??? But he promised!!! [stamping feet]
Romney would be less inclined to make any such “investments” in the first place
He was so inclined in Massachusetts.
MA is a very weird state politically. We all know Romney is squishy. If the Dems had a decent candidate it’s a good chance they would win.
The sign is great because it is short, sweet and true, and therefore, effective. It works because after the details are forgotten, an emotional memory remains. Here’s my take away: Romney is competent; Obama is not. Romney invested private money to build successful ventures that we know and patronize; Obama transferred massive amounts of public money to cronies under the guise of funding BS Green ventures that all failed. Romney represents America as we have known it; Obama is pushing something antithetical.
Expressed concerns notwithstanding, I’d say that sign works.
ventures that all failed
Really? They all failed? That’d be pretty big news if it was true. Here in the real world the DOE loan portfolio is doing better than was expected when Congress created it.
I’d say that sign works.
It only works if you’re on board to begin with. The latest WSJ poll shows the same level of disapproval for Bain and Solyndra. Obama knows better than to brag about Solyndra; Romney knows better than to brag about Bain.
So when he does brag about Bain during the debate, what will you have to say? It’s guaranteed that Solyndra will not be praised tonight.
Scratch the word “all.” I was referring to all those on the very effective sign.
That’d be pretty big news if it was true.
No it wouldn’t. Nothing is big news when it comes to negatives about the Obama administration. However, your assessment would be correct if there was a republican in office. Then any *one* of these crony-related bankruptcies would in the news–continuously, through the election and beyond.
The latest WSJ poll shows the same level of disapproval for Bain and Solyndra.
Before I saw this sign, I didn’t know all the successful companies tied to Bain. I am thinking there are a lot of people working today because of them. Going down the list I am amazed to see so many familiar companies there. Again, my take away is that Romney did good.
Better than expected? They planned on losing tens of billions? This is a defense of Obama-loans?
It is impossible to recoup the losses on the rest of the portfolio. This isn’t PE or VC. The federal government can’t make a return larger than a couple percent on any one loan, they don’t have a stake in the company nor should they.
Hey Jim, how’d you like Mitt saying Obama only picks losers (well beyond saying govt. should not be picking winners and losers?) I thought that was the line of the night.