Readers push back against the others:
It’s very nice that Bain produced $2.5 billion in gains for their investors and that the company made great profits and high returns. But that’s not what Romney is running on; he’s declaring, again and again, that he’s an experienced JOB CREATOR, that he knows how to create jobs, and that in his time at Bain he created jobs. If he wants to run on how much money he made for his investors, then I agree that there’s no real reason to attack him for that – he did a hard job very well by that metric. But as long as he insists that he also helped people who were not investors in Bain Capital, and takes credit for creating jobs, it’s perfectly legitimate to look at the job-creation record. Especially since the supporting evidence his campaign provided is so laughable.
Another writes:
I'd like respond to your reader who asked, "Aren't we mature enough as a country to acknowledge that sometimes companies need to let employees go in order help their bottom line?" We sure are. Everyone knows layoffs, bankruptcies and turnover are part of life. We deal with it on a regular basis. No one begrudges the local businessman who has to let an employee go because of tough times.
The problem with your reader's point is that there is a difference between accepting that layoffs and firings are a part of life and admiring the people who do the firing, especially when those people don't even run the businesses.
The reason Romney's work at Bain is such a liability is that he is the guy who was brought in to do the firing. He didn't build new businesses, he didn't create jobs in the way a guy who opens up a local hardware store creates jobs, and he cashed in whether or not the business actually succeeded. Americans believe in fairness. Success is supposed to be earned through hard work and playing by the rules. To those of us who aren't of the finance world, there's something inherently unfair about an investor making a massive profit even as the business he invested in fails. It makes us feel like the game is rigged. That's Romney's Bain problem.
Another:
I work at a company owned by Bain and not far from another company owned by another private equity firm, so I have experienced and heard about much of what these firms do. Most Americans appreciate a free market system in which those that produce the best goods and services at the best value should be successful and become wealthy. However, when people become fabulously wealthy at the expense of others while producing nothing but investment gain for the investors, I think most Americans take pause. The company down the way is an illuminating example of this flaw in our system that firms like Bain take advantage of.
In 2004 this company was bought by a private equity firm. In order to fund the buyout the PE firm issued bonds. They then used the proceeds to pay themselves back. Essentially they leveraged the target company in order to fund their purchase of the target company. They then got back everything and left the take-over company with a mountain of debt. The interest alone on this debt is more than the company’s operating profits. The PE firm then fired the management, 1/3 of the workers, installed pay freezes and reduced benefits. The new management team that the PE firm installed were paid massive salaries (the new CEO made seven times what the former had). Obviously, the situation could not hold and the company declared bankruptcy. In order to get the bankruptcy approved, the company was forced, at the urging of the PE firm, to jettison its long-time pension plan. Now the company has about half the workforce it once did, lower wages relative to cost of living, worse benefits and no more pensions.
This is just one example, and I don’t know how the Bain takeovers were structured under Romney, but I don’t think calling what they do ‘looting’ is very far off at all. Investors and PE firm management make off like bandits in these cases. When they are taken over and stripped and laden with debt they are much more exposed to economic factors. The companies may survive and may even thrive given a favorable economy, but one hiccup can easily start them down the road to ruin.
Another:
Can we acknowledge that the party that started using this line of attack against Romney was not the Democrats (contra reader #2)? Newt went down this road weeks and weeks ago, trying to tap into his angry party's populist fervor and reaping a weird bump from it. And most of the liberal commentaries I've seen have bent over backwards exploring the nuance of his "I like firing" moment, while still underlining the reasons it might hurt him (not to mention arguing him on the actual merits of the full comment: most of us can't get rid of our insurance providers).
I guess we'll have to wait to see the actual lines of attack the Obama campaign settles on, but this isn't some left-wing anti-business smear happening. The call is coming from inside the house.
One more:
If Romney thinks he has a Bain problem now, just wait until this summer. The most anticipated summer film, and what will likely be the biggest film of the year, is The Dark Knight Rises. And the sociopathic villain is … Bane.
The Dish 