OOPS: Mitt Romney Calls United States A ‘Company’

[ProSense]

OOPS: Mitt Romney Calls United States A ‘Company’

By Annie-Rose Strasser

Mitt Romney is focused on convincing Americans that his private-sector business record qualifies him to be President, which is perhaps why he accidentally called the United States of America a “company” instead of a “country” on Friday.

While Romney has spoken extensively about running the government more efficiently, like a private business, he has never compared the entire American enterprise to an actual business enterprise. But today, at an event in Florida, Romney did just that, saying his administration will reach out to people who “want to make sure this company deals with its challenges”:

Paul Ryan and I understand how the economy works, we understand how Washington works, we will reach across the aisle and find good people who like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America on track again.

Watch it:

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/31/783791/romney-calls-america-company/

This is proof Mitt wants to bankrupt America.

Business Is Not Economics

President Obama gets this exactly right:

When some people question why I would challenge his Bain record, the point I’ve made there in the past is, if you’re a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It’s not to create jobs. It’s not even to create a successful business – it’s to make sure that you’re maximizing returns for your investor. Now that’s appropriate. That’s part of the American way. That’s part of the system. But that doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole, because as president, my job is to think about the workers. My job is to think about communities, where jobs have been outsourced.

A country is not a company — and it’s definitely not a private equity firm.

And here’s the thing: Romney is running for president entirely on the basis of his business success...Once the Bain record becomes a liability instead of a strength, there’s nothing there.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/business-is-not-economics/

He’s No Averell Harriman

Fred Kaplan has what I think is the best take so far on Romneyshambles:

The thing that Krauthammer doesn’t get is that Romney is not the sort of businessman—that his brand of capitalism is not the sort of enterprise—that requires even the most elementary understanding of diplomacy, courtesy, or sensitivity to other people’s values, lives, or perceptions.

The American capitalists-turned-statesmen of an earlier generation—Douglas Dillon, Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze—took risks, built institutions, helped rebuild postwar Europe, befriended their foreign counterparts: in short, they cultivated an internationalist sensibility at their core. Whatever you think of their politics or Cold War policies generally (and there is much to criticize), financiers formed an American political elite in that era because finance (through the Marshall Plan, the World Bank, the IMF, and so forth) was so often the vehicle of American expansionism.

By contrast, private-equity firms, such as Bain Capital, where Romney made his fortune, tend to view their client companies as cash cows, susceptible to cookie-cutter formulas from which the firms’ partners reap lavish fees, almost regardless of the outcome. Their ends and means breed an insularity, a sense of entitlement, a disposition to view all the world’s entities through a single prism and to appraise them along a single scale.

I would only add that the bankers of yore operated by building relationships; Bain made its investors money in large part by breaking relationships, e.g. by walking away from implicit promises to workers. It’s not a style that makes for good diplomacy.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/27/hes-no-averell-harriman/

[Drale]

1. This is not a surprise

one of the main Repuke ideas is that the country should be run like a business. Which in the Repuke view means bleed the country for everything they can before leaving it to die and let others clean up their mess.

[ProSense]

3. Yes, but if Mitt thinks the

country is actually a business, then he's unfit to be President. I mean, that's asinine.

[Drale]

5. There is no doubt that he is unfit for the Presidency

I would trust my girlfriends neighbor, who is constantly extremely high, as president before I trust Mitten in the office.

[Scuba]

2. Nor is it an "oops".

[Angry Dragon]

4. Hey Willard ......... where is the business plan??

[nc4bo]

6. Here it is...following the father of The Bain Business Model outsourcing included....

Start with a company or umm country that is profitable like Contec, Ltd. and let it do what it do.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/contec-holdings-bankruptcy_n_1843474.html

The company, which repairs more than 2 million cable set top boxes a year, was founded in 1978 and last year generated $110.5 million in revenue. In its bankruptcy filing, the company said that "fast-paced and drastic technological and economic changes" have weakened demand for traditional cable services, with revenue and profit margins suffering over the years as a result.

Bain bought its stake in Contec in 2008 from American Capital Ltd.

http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2012/08/30/the-daily-docket-bain-owned-contec-enters-bankruptcy/

Contec Holdings Ltd., the cable-box repair company owned by Bain Capital Partners, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday with a plan in hand to restructure some $360 million in debt.

http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/article?an=DJFDBR0020120830e88udnrwn%20&r=wsjblog&ReturnUrl=http%3a%2f%2fbankruptcynews.dowjones.com%3a80%2farticle%3fan%3dDJFDBR0020120830e88udnrwn%2520%26r%3dwsjblog

Contec Holdings Ltd., the cable-box repair company owned by Bain Capital Partners, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday with a plan in hand to restructure some $360 million in debt.
<...>
Court papers show that under Contec's restructuring plan, senior lenders owed $201 million and led by units of Barclays PLC would take the majority of the new equity issued in the restructured company as well as $27.5 million in new second-lien term note.

Contec said certain senior lenders have also agreed to provide $35 million in bankruptcy funding and $25 million bankruptcy exit loan.

And kill it from the inside out.

I don't care if he's no longer actively involved with Bain, Bain was his baby, he developed it and even after he left, they are still operating under the same business model.

I can't even give Romney the benefit of the doubt because he has such a loooooooong history of doing exactly the same things over and over.

[ProSense]

11. Offshore accounts for everyone! n/t

[HopeHoops]

7. That's the only way he can see it - a way to make more money for himself.

[RedSpartan]

8. Does that also mean that Mitt thinks America is a person?

After all, corporations are people, my friend.

[ProSense]

12. Countries are people, my friend.

Of course, Mitt believes destroying people's lives is a path to wealth.

[ProSense]

9. Romney calls America a "Company" (We'd ALL Be Working For Him)

Romney calls America a "Company" (We'd ALL Be Working For Him)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/31/1126356/-Romney-calls-America-a-Company-Would-He-Run-it-Like-the-RNC-Convention

[trof]

10. K&R