Tag Archives: Bain

Workers and Women Will Know Their Place With Mormons in Charge

25 Oct

Have you noticed the increase in pernicious GOP dirty tricks currently being exposed during this election, which is now at its apex? Sadly, perhaps half of this superficial, material-obsessed country feels this sketchy Mormon candidate is a step up from President Obama, who’s saved us from a depression. They believe Mitt Romney’s assertion he’s going to “fix” the economy by restoring the policies of the Bush crime family, who, as we all know, has wreaked havoc on the U.S. and the world’s economies.

It’s no wonder he idolizes a master manipulator like his cult founder, Joseph Smith. Like Smith, except in a more grandiose way, Willard Romney has helped this cult fraudulently dupe millions of adherents out of billions of dollars. Romney is the manifestation of Smith’s White Horse Prophecy coming to fruition if elected to the highest office in the land. It is also their last hope, because if the GOP is dealt the crushing blow they so richly deserve, their right-wing Teaparty agenda will fade into oblivion (albeit slowly) as will the desperate proponents of the Mormon Cult. Romney and Ryan long to bring America “back” to the days where both women and the proletarian “working stiffs” knew their place and wouldn’t dare demand equal rights.

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Will this be the America of the future?

When your candidate speaks fondly of a trip to what is essentially a Chinese sweatshop, where workers sleep on premises, twelve to a room for pennies an hour, you know this callous man cares little for AMERICAN workers and their families. It’s obvious a couple of entitled boys born with silver spoons in their mouths will never understand there is such a thing as the working poor. “Job creator” is just code for we really could care less about the poor and are preoccupied with anti-abortion legislation. Willard Romney’s main objective is to harvest human labor for profit. His specious sophist of a running mate has legislated little other than laws to restrict women’s rights when it comes to their own bodies. Ryan and Romney are controlled by Teaparty puppet strings, so you know it will only get worse if they’re elected based on previous behavior.

Paul Ryan’s Teaparty Congress Legislated Nothing But Abortions

Mormons and many of their GOP cohorts have shown a severe distaste for workers’ rights and unions. There is a history of nepotism and cronyism in the Mormon Church unlike any other group, so if you’re not one of the indoctrinated, you’re undeserving of a promised life. You are also a second class citizen if you happen to be a woman as well.

Not only did Romney never say he’d support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, his cult has a patriarchal bias. If only the media would ask a few relevant questions. Just once I’d like to hear this asked to the Mormon candidate: If a person believes that god is a patriarch who rules over multiple wives, that likewise practicing said polygamy is an eternal requirement to be with him in the “highest degree of the celestial kingdom” in the afterlife, and that only men can have priesthood power to run and administer god’s church on earth, can I truly trust that person to fight for and defend absolutely equal rights for women in society via legislation and judicial decisions? The Mormon Cult is desperate for new converts and looks mainly to the less educated Third World for more brainwashing.

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We all know exactly what these two will do. They will roll back the clocks to the good ol days, say pre-1890, when polygamy was legal and install activist misogynist justices on the Supreme Court while removing all semblance of parity when it comes to workers’ rights. As Edmond Burke wisely noted, those who ignore history are destined to repeat it. Make no mistake, Romney and Ryan long to repeat all the mistakes of the Bush Administration and then make a few more colossal whoppers that will most assuredly propel the United States into Third World status. History has taught us no less.

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Bain Orders Workers: Train Your Chinese Replacements, Then Say Goodbye to Your Job

16 Sep

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The irony continues with the Romney campaign. His latest barrage of false attacks on President Obama are touting the recent mass exodus of jobs to China. Interestingly enough, Romney has been quite instrumental in that shameful profit-driven action. In order to protest the outsourcing of their American jobs, workers at the Freeport, Illinois Sensata Technologies Factory (a Bain subsidiary), began to camp outside the factory in protest of the venture capital firm’s decision to ship their jobs to China. They’ve labeled the tent city Bainport, in the hopes of attracting the attention of the GOP presidential candidate and current benefactor of Sensata profits, Willard Mitt Romney. Originally the company was owned by Honeywell but sold to Sensata in 2010. The employees, pleading for the very same jobs some have held for over four decades drafted a letter:

“We work at Sensata Technologies in Freeport, Illinois — a company owned by Bain Capital, which you started, ran, and still profit from.

Our jobs are about to be outsourced to China. More than 150 of us will lose our jobs — and some of us have worked here for over 40 years. The worst indignity is that many of us are being asked to train the Chinese workers who are taking our jobs.

It’s not right that our good American jobs are being sent to China. It’s not right that you stand to get even richer off of our loss and pain.
We are not going down without a fight. We join together today to call on you to save our jobs.”

Workers outside “Bainport” in Freeport, Ill.

Willard and Bain worship the profit more than Mitt’s prophet and cult founder, Joseph Smith. Not only does this man have brass ones, but a heart which must have been assembled at the very factories he closes to outsource the livelihood of countless Americans. The human casualties at the hands of Bain Capital are stacking up and this is just another example.

The Sensata workers reported that management took down the American flags from the flag poles in front of the building before the Chinese delegation took a tour of the facility, and returned the flags after the Chinese left. Ironically, the protesting workers being are being labeled “communists” by Mitt Romney supporters while the factory and the job are planned for relocation in Communist China!

Tom Gaulrapp and Cheryl Randecker, employees of Sensata Technologies for 33 years went to Tampa and called upon Mitt Romney to help save their jobs. Obviously these efforts were ignored by most of the media, except for the good folks at Democracy Now!

It sure seems like Mitt is following the Karl Rove playbook to a “T”. One of his plans is this: To play the race card and appeal to the far right wing fringe of voters who are leery of an African American in the White House. Make Obama appear as if he’s the one who’s the foreigner, he’s the outsider, he’s the one who’s actually in favor of shipping jobs to China. However, Americans are no longer ignoring the harsh realities; no one is more guilty of this egregious practice than Willard Romney. It is a diabolical plan, but pesky folks like these workers in Freeport, Illinois may just put a damper on this evil strategy. I sure hope they succeed. Mitt Romney has no business being anywhere near the White House. Support the workers and visit the Bainport Site. These folks deserve a fair shot at the American Dream. Sign the petition on behalf of the workers HERE.

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White Collar Mafia Style Bust-Outs Make Romney Very Rich

7 Sep

Unless you’ve been asleep for the last year, you know Mitt Romney was a pivotal figure in the creation and operation of Bain Capital. Willard, a.k.a. Mitt, touts this as his “private sector” experience, which undoubtedly qualifies him for the highest office in this land. He apparently feels being a man with any type of experience in the financial world is far more important than being a Constitutional Law Scholar, like our President, Barack Obama. Our President, unlike the Mormon Bishop, isn’t practiced in masterful money manipulation and debt creation. The Republican Party holds Mitt’s business acumen in such high esteem, they’re literally banking on it by throwing billions at this unsavory candidate.

I have learned of Bain’s questionable legal practices by following some of the companies raided by Willard and his gang at Bain and the tribulations faced by those whose life he destroyed. In addition to the information I’ve come across, Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone Article Greed and Debt: the true story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, and the PoliticusUSA’s (RMuse) The Vampire Squad: Meet Romney’s Bain Team that Sent Jobs Into the Twilight both elucidated aspects of Bain Capital’s corporate raider practices.

Willard Romney at Bain, hard at work undermining the American worker

The concept is called “busting out”. White collar crooks described bust-outs as “the perfect crime.” They explained that, by using existing business laws and practices as a cover, they were able to loot and pillage, then pocket the booty without fear of criminal prosecution because, as they noted, it’s not illegal to fail in American business. “So we’re lousy businessmen,” they claim when authorities, regulators or judges would ask them what happened to all the money. Vulture capitalists, not satisfied with the loot alone from these scams have their standards. And what kind of professional bust-out artist would allow big chunks of their ill-earned dough to be siphoned off by – of all people – the feds, in form of taxes? So, total tax avoidance at the end of a successful bust-out is considered mandatory in order to maintain the first rule of a well-executed bust-out: nobody gets paid, not the banks, not the creditors and certainly not the feds. Which brings us to the world of off-shore banking and countries like Bermuda or Panama come into the picture. When full autopsies are performed on the more spectacular bust-outs you almost always find the “equity partners” hiding their identities behind opaque off-shore shell corporations (such as Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors) . Even the members of the boards of directors of these smoke-and-mirror paper corporations are “proxy directors,” these are off-shore lawyers who make a living doing nothing but pretending to sit on the boards of hundreds, even thousands, of paper corporations.

We know Bain saddles failing companies with debt, and somehow profits whether the company makes it or goes bust, as in the case of Kay Bee Toys. When they see they are going to fail, the manager (CEO Michael Glazer who was also with Mitt Romney’s Stage Stores) paid himself and Bain Capital $100 million and then filed bankruptcy. Then Bain Capital is represented by the attorney of eToys (whom sold eToys to Bain Capital/Kay Bee basically for free). The one who asked to prosecute the special bust out was Paul Traub (who was the creditors attorney in eToys and was also with Romney’s Stage Stores). Simple open and shut case, where Bain owns all the parties involved. In essence, no matter where they go or how they do it, even in literal “fire sales” to themselves, they never lose and everyone else gets fried. It’s a brilliant yet extremely insidious plan.

This is surely not the type of business model that is good for America. In fact, (using Taibbi’s words) Willard Romney is “one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time.” Matt Taibbi, Rmuse and special councel Laser Haas have only scratched the surface. There’s a lot more if we just look. If this man and his corporate backers are going to try to do this to America, it is our obligation as patriotic citizens to stop them.

Special thanks to @Laserhaas01 for his valuable assistance with the eToys Petters Fraud case.

Recent development: the case has been reopened, this time not in Delaware but in the New York Supreme Court. See:eToys IPO Suit Against Goldman Moves to NY High Court for more information. Justice will be served! Great News.

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Corruption and LDS Cronyism at Romney’s Olympics

18 Jul

It seems Willard Romney is more than desperate for positive coverage lately. His private sector “magnum opus”, Bain Capital, has been portrayed as less than favorable in the press these days, not to mention the secrecy his campaign has shown by withholding tax returns. The fact he would rather have wild speculation about what’s in or not in his tax returns rather than release them speaks volumes. The idea that McCain chose Palin over Willard Romney leads everyone to believe that after seeing these returns, he’d rather commit political suicide and choose the least qualified Vice Presidential candidate in modern history than have Willard on the ticket. I believe Dan Quayle may have been her intellectual superior. But I digress. Willard Romney refuses to tout his record as governor of Massachusetts because, frankly, he wasn’t much of a success there. He did implement an insurance mandate, but this is something he’s not allowed to discuss as the right wing is vehemently opposed to any policies designed to benefit anyone who is not filthy rich. In any event, the only other positive on Willard’s record is the Winter Olympics he helped “rescue” in 2002. In retrospect, it may be just another blemish on his history, a history laden with unscrupulous business practices, bribes, and very obvious Mormon favoritism.

Willard Romney not really a “savior”

The corruption scandal that plagued the Salt Lake City Olympic bid became national news back in 1998. Salt Lake is a relatively small, insular western city dominated by the Mormon Church. This Olympic committee operated in typical Mormon fashion, laden with secret, private meetings. In April 1998, the board attempted to safeguard its aura of secrecy by amending its bylaws to stipulate that any member providing the press with confidential information could be dismissed. A Salt Lake Tribune reporter spoke less than fondly of the business practices of the city. He said, “What you have are a lot of wealthy white Mormon businessmen who watch out for one another. They run the big businesses and they run the state and are indelibly linked to one another through church ties .” The local media are not nationally known for aggressive news coverage or for challenging the power structure (in fact, the Mormon Church owns a daily newspaper and a television station in Salt Lake City). It was very rare for this LDS-dominated community to expose wrongdoing within its ranks. Prior to Willard’s arrival, the 2002 games were plagued by fundraising woes, bribery scandals — and the committee was also heavily infiltrated by Glenn Beck’s Mormon Church.

He promised to run a tight ship. No handouts, no freebies for anyone at Willard’s Olympics. He angered local safety officials when his office denied free or discounted tickets to widows and orphans of firefighters who died at the World Trade Center a few months earlier. They cited a policy that barred free ticket giveaways. However, the committee found itself with unsold seats and Romney approved distributing 100 tickets valued at $885 each to Utah legislators….”In less than two months, he went from saying we’re going to run a tight ship to throwing out free tickets to a group of people who could help him politically.” He’d rather give to local Mormon officials than those poor folks who only a few months earlier personally suffered due to the events of 9-11.

The Salt Lake Olympic Village

Willard sought federal assistance for his games via the lobbying contacts he acquired from his vulture capitalist days at Bain. It is more than likely he was the active CEO of Bain until 2001, but cites his role as director of the Olympics as a cover for some of the unsavory practices engaged by the firm. As far as his private sector acumen goes, Willard’s games were anything but a financial success. The 2002 Winter Olympics was the most expensive Olympics by far at that time (video). Senator John McCain was outraged by the enormous cost to the American taxpayer for these Olympics and perhaps this led to his decision to pick Palin over Willard. Corporations made out like bandits at these games, especially Mormon-owned companies. Some of the more notables were Marriot (led by close family friends to Romney, and with Romney on its board); Sealy (owned by Bain); Monster.com (where one of Romney’s kids worked as a consultant); GM (whose vice-chair sat on Marriott’s board with Romney) Blue Cross & Blue Shield and Sears (whose directors sat on Marriott’s board) all of which received handsome profits from the 2002 Winter Games.

Romney seems to mirror the extraordinary secrecy with which the LDS church conducts its multibillion-dollar corporate dealings, all of which are aided by religious tax perks. The Mormon church and affiliated businesses make untold sums of obscene money which is earned by any means necessary. Willard Romney operates his life a lot like this secretive business. His Mormon cult always takes care of its own and will continue to do so with increased power. The Salt Lake City Olympics is another example of Willard’s proclivity towards unscrupulous and furtive practices rather than the transparency we should all demand from our leaders. This man is dangerous and his past record, when examined more closely, shows us just how dangerous he will be for America.

Update: According to TPC, the records from his 2002 Olympics are soon to be released.  Journalists have wanted to get their hands on them for years now.  Perhaps more dirtiness will be exposed from Willard’s shady business practices?  We shall see.

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Beck and Limbaugh got Huge Raises while Romney’s Clear Channel Fired Thousands

18 Jun

If you need an economic model that will predict the behavior of Willard Romney, simply look at his Bain Capital subsidiary, Clear Channel Communications™. It is a company that has recently fired thousands of lower wage employees while giving two incredibly hate-mongering misogynist bigots undeserved raises of obscene proportions.

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Obviously the raises are not based on merit. In 2011, Glenn Beck’s ratings dropped 50%. Bain and Clear Channel, under Willard’s guidance I imagine, recently DOUBLED HIS SALARY!! Perhaps because Glenn Beck is a member of Willard’s LDS club? Who knows? It’s certainly not because of his performance.

In light of Rush’s recent misogyny with the Sandra Fluke incident, he has lost over 51 sponsors yet has not suffered a single admonishment from his bosses at Bain Capital.

It’s interesting to note the timing of some of these mass firings. The first round happened in March of 2009, Clear Channel fired 1500 plus employees. Does anyone believe this wasn’t another calculated attempt by right wing business to help tank the economy? The timing couldn’t have been worse for American workers. If these monsters cared one bit about profit, Limbaugh and Beck would have seen their salaries unchanged. So, America, we see the motive for everything Willard, Bain and their band of obstructionist bastards in the Senate do: SPITE. This is a mere preview of what’s to come.

If you are a loud, white, preferably LDS bully, you are guaranteed a prominent spot in the Romney administration. Perhaps we can then solve the very pressing question: where’s the birth certificate? When that relevant issue is resolved, we can focus on jobs. Except the focus will be on getting rid of them to make Bain even more powerful. Frightening!

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The United States is a Country, Not a Business!

24 May

It’s presented in the media as a largely positive business venture. Equity capital firms are wealth creating machines. But really, are they good for America? Historically no.

The original equity capitalism is the slave trade. Equity capital has had a spin machine since the colonial era when the huge profits that exploded from the trafficking of human beings for three centuries were interpreted as a response to a demand for labor. Not so. Labor was available. Europe was facing economic depressions and wars; poverty was rampant, and those trapped by class, circumstances and history were eager to better themselves. So slavery was a convenient way to maximize profits.

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A Typical Sight for 3 centuries shameful!

Presidents Warren Harding (1921-23) and Calvin Coolidge (1923-29) were very conservative men who believed strongly in laissez-faire and in the primary role of business in American life. Business men who felt the free market could regulate itself. Obviously the economy tanked and FDR implemented necessary regulations including the Glass-Steagall Act. At the time, “improper banking activity,” or what was considered overzealous commercial bank involvement in stock market investment, was deemed the main culprit of the financial crash. According to that reasoning, commercial banks took on too much risk with depositors’ money. This was working great until 1999 when Phill Graham (with the influence of his Enron wife) repealed the Act and implemented Graham Bailey Leach in 1999 that let the banks just gamble away depositors money.

Business men. Running the country like a business. A business which exploits workers, engages in reckless financial practices and cares nothing for the workers and their families. For more insight into how private equity works, see this Robert Reich video explaining it perfectly

20120524-080810.jpg Newark Mayor Booker & new friend Governor Christie

In light of Mayor Booker’s “nausea” comments when referencing an ad denigrating Bain Capital, it’s important to note why he was so completely out of line. Sometimes it’s not about who is Republican or Democratic, but who is moral, true to the deepest human principles not attached to profits or partisanship. Cory Booker failed to nurture or articulate the values that have been roots of wisdom from ancient times. To betray those values is to betray humanity. As quoted in Digging Deeper,President Barack Obama is right to call attention to the difference. And when a prominent politician feels nausea for the criticism of equity capital but not a moment’s discomfort over its balance sheet approach and the human carnage that marks its history, who thinks equity capital has charged?

Venture capitalism, although a sometimes necessary profession, is NOT an career to be idolized. A teacher or a steel worker is far more admirable. They actually create something, not just move money around from the poor to the wealthy. A vampire capitalist like Mitt Romney, an MBA graduate like the Bush, Harding and Coolidge Presidents, is far from virtuous. He’s going to run the business of the United States right into the ground and still somehow make a profit.

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Romney: Job Creator or Job Cremator

22 May

Amidst a sea of diversity: white voters from all walks of life: Teapartiers, Birthers, Constitutionalists, NRA members, hedge fund managers; Mitt Romney speaks of his record on job creation. He’s equating the creation of employment with the creation of wealth for a lucky few. Bain Capital is his crowning achievement. A business based on using borrowed capital, raising the value of a business by lowering costs (a.k.a. firing people), then selling it for a profit to investors, often times breaking up the company and displacing the lowly worker. The figure began at ‘hundreds of thousands’ of jobs created and has now morphed into simply ‘thousands’ of jobs. In typical Romney fashion, his facts evolve as often as his positions.

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Here he is trying to explain why the auto bailout was his idea even though he criticized the President’s plan as foolish back in 2008. In fact, the Conservative Wall Street Journal stated this “foolishness” created 1.5 million jobs. Meanwhile, we hear not a peep of Romney’s jobs record as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. Paul Begala, Former Clinton advisor, said this strategy is a mistake. Romney should be defining his record in Massachusetts before his opponents can define it for him.

As Governor, Willard took Massachusetts from 37th in job creation to 47th. It ranked only ahead of Katrina-ravaged Louisiana and two rust belt states, in dire straits due to George Bush’s outsourcing and the continuation of NAFTA and other harmful trade policies. The National Journal asserts, ‘Economists from Massachusetts also say Romney was never able to solve the structural problems inherent in the state’s economy — issues that now plague the country as a whole and will challenge whoever becomes president in 2013 — such as the decline in manufacturing and the dearth of employment for less-educated, low-income workers.’ Sounds to me these workers were helped immensely by President Obama and thrown under a bus by Governor Romney.

Willard is quite awkward when it comes to relating to the common worker. A child of privilege and wealth, he can’t seem to connect with the average American. But it’s not just the stark socioeconomic differences. It’s also a matter of Mitt’s defining Mormon faith that creates this barrier between himself and the voter.

As Governor, he displayed ‘sense of detachment…a function partly of his faith, which has its own tight social community that most outsiders don’t see. Indeed, the stories of Romney’s humanity and warmth come mostly from people who know him as a fellow Mormon.’ He can’t seem to relate to anyone outside his ward or stake. Since most of his prospective constituents are not LDS churchgoers, most folks won’t be able to relate to him on the same personal level as President Obama, a man far more comfortable in his own skin.

His business beliefs that profit is far more important than people is as contrary to many Americans as his other belief that Jesus will rule from Missouri in his Second Coming. That’s a blog for another day….

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