Tell the truth: Bain didn't create wealth. It moved wealth.

[bleever]

Watching these poor folks on Ed Schultz from Freeport, Illinois, who are losing their jobs because Bain management is closing their plant and moving the production to China really drives home a point for me:

We are told that Bain Capital created wealth. It's more accurate to say that Bain specializes in moving wealth.

Yes, some people (overwhelmingly people who were already wealthy) got wealthier. But what about the wealth of the workers whose jobs go overseas? Their loss of employment and their meager wealth is exactly what turned into the wealth that flowed up to Bain investors.

All the dollars that cascade into the accounts of Bain investors directly corresponds to wealth and opportunity lost by "overpaid" U.S. workers, and to their lost equity in homes they can't afford, and lost opportunities for a decent and dignified retirement, and lost opportunities for their children and grandchildren.

And don't forget that the U.S. government, through tax incentives, pension guarantees, etc. also contributed to the flow of wealth from taxpayers to the fortunes of Romney and his cohorts.

So let's stop letting them get away with saying, "At least Romney was successful at creating wealth in his business career". He wasn't; he specialized in moving it from other, weaker people and institutions to those with the money and power to make the system work in their favor, at the cost to the rest of us.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Wealth consolidation as opposed to wealth creation

It's late-stage capitalism, with the real spoils being divided by self-dealing insiders, 1980-present.

[progressivebydesign]

2. they borrowed against America and American workers...

then once they got their money, dumped them.

[bleever]

4. AND, instead of repaying the favor to the American taxpayer,

used offshore accounts to pay as little in U.S. taxes as our byzantine system legally allows.

[hedgehog]

3. By firing people who actually

produced goods and services, Romney destroyed potential wealth.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

5. And the reason why he and others like him won't be investigated and prosecuted? Time for excuses,

including "What he did was perfectly legal." And people will pretend to know this while expressing their disapproval of any call for investigations to determine whether that is true or not.

[GeorgeGist]

6. It's more like redistributing money from the haves ...

to the has more.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. "I create nothing. I OWN."--Gordon Gekko, Oliver Stone's leveraged

buyout CEO in "Wall Street" (1987).

One of Bain Capital's earliest deals illustrates the ingenuity and irresponsibility of the leveraged buyout business perfectly. In 1986, Bain capital acquired Accuride, an aluminum truck-wheel manufacturer, for $2.6 million plus FORTY TIMES that amount in borrowed money. After 18 months of tax deductions for interest payments and of stripping the company of millions of dollars in "management fees" and dividends, Bain flipped it for a gain on sale of $61 million,
for an annualized rate of return of 1,123 percent (see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/romney-s-bain-yielded-private-gains-socialized-losses.html ).

Bain's extraordinary profit came not from any research or engineering breakthroughs or from creating any jobs but rather from pure buying and selling using other people's money and huge tax loopholes.