Taibbi pointed out:
What most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.
And who financed Romney's leveraged buyouts? Wall Street investment banks. So don't hold your breath waiting for Romney to regulate the TBTF banks. Romney gives two thumbs up to the financialization of the U.S. economy.
During the GOP primaries, Gov. Rick Perry called Romney a "vulture capitalist." Taibbi gives an example of what Perry meant: KB Toys in Massachusetts. Bain bought it with just $18 million of its own cash and $302 million in borrowed money, and then induced KB to pay $120 million in dividends to Bain and its investors, and forced KB to take out $60 million in bank loans to finance it. Plus KB had to pay for the debt that Bain took on to buy the company!
Bain did the same thing to Dunkin' Donuts. Taibbi noted that DD must sell 2.5 million cups of coffee every month just to service Bain's debt.
Romney and Bain Capital were not in the business of "turning around" ailing companies or employing U.S. workers. Romeny was about making a big, fast return for Bain and its investors by any means necessary.
So why does this matter? Because Romney's job as POTUS would be the opposite of his job at Bain Capital: not to create a profit for a small in-group by loading up firms with debt and cutting jobs, but rather to create jobs and wealth for the most U.S. citizens possible and cutting the national debt. Romney does not know how to do that. Romney's business experience, his vast wealth, came from doing the exact opposite of what America needs today.
By Amy Goodman
August 30, 2012 | Democracy Now
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