Politifact does not believe that Bain “pioneered” out-sourcing US jobs to the developing world – but it sure did practise it. And they agree with me that the nitty gritty of managerial responsibility in 1999, 2000 and 2001 is irrelevant:
[T]he exact month that Romney stepped away from Bain makes little difference. When Modus Media closed that plant in California in 2000, it was making the kind of move Romney and Bain expected when they first got behind it. The particular decision was not known, but the general nature of the decision was, the experts we spoke with said.
Matthew Rice, Chief Investment Officer for DiMeo Schneider and Associates, a Chicago-based investment consulting firm, says he doesn’t see how Romney can divorce himself from the strategies that made Bain profitable. “Technically, I guess he can,” Rice said. “But they would have done it anyway, whether he was there or not. If you can offshore and cut costs, you do it.”… We find reasonable grounds for labeling the companies as “Romney’s.”
He was the founder of Bain and assembled a team that looked to make high returns. One strategy was to invest in companies that played off the trend in outsourcing. If picking a company makes it yours, then these were Romney’s companies and in a general sense, they did what he expected them to do. The one caveat is there is a gray area of direct accountability, because no one has reported that he was personally involved in managing those firms.
But he was the salaried CEO in that period as well, making him responsible under the law for the actions of his own company. If I were in the Obama camp, I would intensify the outsourcing criticisms of Bain in the industrial Mid-West.
The Dish 