Rolling Stone on Mitt Romney

Read the whole thing, mouth agape for the most part, and in a rainman moment thought, "I can't believe my fucking [eyes]" and read it again. I totally agree with the author that a vote for Willard the Rat boy is a vote against American values!!

Any way to find out the author's sources? Not that I think it's bullshit. And that's what scares me. I am truly scared for this nation, should Romney win.

If this guy is accurate about Mitt's economic practices when he was just a dude in a company, then...I'd never want to put him in charge a lemonade stand, let alone a country.

Romney is one of those guys that the more the hear about him, the worst he sounds.

From the article linked in the OP:

The entire business of leveraged buyouts wouldn't be possible without a provision in the federal code that allows companies like Bain to deduct the interest on the debt they use to acquire and loot their targets.
...
Thanks to the tax deduction, in other words, the government actually incentivizes the kind of leverage-based takeovers that Romney built his fortune on. Romney the businessman built his career on two things that Romney the candidate decries: massive debt and dumb federal giveaways.

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Let's hear it for regulatory capture and unintended consequences!

Alpha Echo said:

Any way to find out the author's sources? Not that I think it's bullshit. And that's what scares me. I am truly scared for this nation, should Romney win.

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Matt Taibi is a well known journalist who has often reported (unfavorably ) on Wall Street and its financial manipulations.

He's left wing, although he has also criticized Obama harshly for his own ties to Wall Street.

I doubt this article will get much play, nor will it convince any Romney supporter to abandon him. But imo, it's accurate and gets right to the heart of the matter, going into close detail about what many of us have known all along -- that Romney, far from having been a job creator, was nothing more than a Wall Street manipulator who made immense amounts of money with no regard for the consequences to other people or the economy as a whole.

Romney has shown himself as very adept at extracting money for himself out of an economy, using the rules crafted for the rich. But that's no way to run a country.

For he and those like him, morality is quaint concept that has no meaning in financial transactions. Morality is something reserved for other's bedroom choices.

It's no accident that the Ryan/Romney economic plan for the country is really nothing but lowering taxes on corporations and the rich, getting rid of the few, almost toothless regulations we have on financial institutions, and slashing entitlements (that is, programs the poor depend on) by huge amounts.

I understand that some fiscal conservatives support Romney despite their concern over his social attitudes because they believe the economic situation is that dire. What I don't understand is how they can believe Romney is going to help, not harm the economy -- except, of course, for the very wealthy, who will indeed grow even richer as the country flounders.

Medievalist said:

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...omney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz25G9KcTp2

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That's all beside the point, though. It's not about those that lost so he could gain. He got his! That makes him successful!

Was going to have a bigger response but Rugcat said everything I could pretty much imagine.

Yeah, I'm already seeing the argument that Romney's only "moral responsibility" in Bain Capital was to his shareholders.

Fine. Except that mentality - that the ONLY people you should care about are those with whom you tight financial relationship, and fuck the little people - is sort of the exact opposite of what we need in government.

Monkey said:

Except that mentality - that the ONLY people you should care about are those with whom you tight financial relationship, and fuck the little people - is sort of the exact opposite of what we need in anywhere ever..

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fify.

Well, Matt Taibbi and all of us who have been saying parts of this all along, may have the cold comfort of pointing to this article and saying "We told you so," should the GOP win this election and the Romney/Ryan ticket finally crash the US for good.

Monkey said:

Yeah, I'm already seeing the argument that Romney's only "moral responsibility" in Bain Capital was to his shareholders.

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I have an MBA. They teach you that in business school. Well, not that it's the only moral responsibility. But that maximizing shareholder value is the top ethical priority.

clintl said:

I have an MBA. They teach you that in business school. Well, not that it's the only moral responsibility. But that maximizing shareholder value is the top ethical priority.

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It's the top legal priority, at any rate, but recently, the New England School of Business and Finance started offering another degree: the MBE, or Master of Science in Business Ethics and Compliance.

http://www.necb.edu/master-of-science-in-business-ethics-and-compliance-online.cfm

NECB's online Master of Science in Business Ethics & Compliance (MBE) program is the first U.S. program of its kind. Long-term professionals and new hires will benefit from this course of study, which was developed in timely response to disasters like the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Regulatory standards for business transactions, oversight and financial management are stricter than ever, forcing corporations to require compliance training in order to improve efficiency. Rooted in standards of excellence, NECB's cutting-edge online Master's program prepares graduates for compliance management while training them to exercise ethical judgment in the governance and operation of their companies.

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Hm, the times, are they a-changing? Are Mr. Romney and the GOP viewpoint already obsolete?

Matt Taibbi is a rare gift to present day print journalism: thorough, incisive, a razor sharp sense of irony, and able to discern the bullshit behind the bullshit and separate one steaming pile of doo-doo from the other.

I swear, if his name was just a little more pedestrian he'd be famous outside of mere journalism circles and actually be well known among the mainstream.

Rolling Stone would do well to hang on to that dude.

This was definitely more biting than the piece Vanity Fair ran on Romney.

Hmmm.

Thing is, I like what Taibbie writes. I want it to be true. It confirms my biases. But I can’t rationalise a piece with so little sourcing as being “true”.

Taibbie is a journalist. Unless he has a BA in economics of pol sci, rather than in media or writing, then you have to think about if his team of researchers and fact checkers have that knowledge. And there’s no way of knowing that.

What it falls back to is whether he is known to be biased or neutral, and he’s not that. So, I can only conclude that - without more information - this is just an Op Ed piece without much to back it up.

Maxinquaye said:

Hmmm.

Thing is, I like what Taibbie writes. I want it to be true. It confirms my biases. But I can’t rationalise a piece with so little sourcing as being “true”.

Taibbie is a journalist. Unless he has a BA in economics of pol sci, rather than in media or writing, then you have to think about if his team of researchers and fact checkers have that knowledge. And there’s no way of knowing that.

What it falls back to is whether he is known to be biased or neutral, and he’s not that. So, I can only conclude that - without more information - this is just an Op Ed piece without much to back it up.

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I'm a fan of his RS articles, but I'd have to agree. Taibbi talked about the way LBOs work, hostile and non-hostile takeovers (Bain preferring the latter), but didn't cite specific sources. It didn't cite numbers as far as Bain Capital's successes. Overall, were there more jobs created than lost? It would have been interesting to see that comparison.

That being said, his article certainly didn't make me feel any more favorably towards Romney.