Patrick defends corporations, says we all bear responsibility for inequality

[LonePirate]

https://apnews.com/0e2787296dee47ba9b32d86e3edf5d99

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Deval Patrick is centering his fledgling campaign on a defense of corporations and capitalism that puts him directly at odds with some of the party’s most progressive figures.

“There is a role in the economy for private equity. You bet your life,” Patrick said Monday night in an interview with The Associated Press during his first visit to Iowa since officially launching his campaign. “There’s a lot of good that gets done by private interests investing in the country.”

Patrick is a former Massachusetts governor who, after serving as an assistant attorney general in the Clinton administration, built a successful and varied career working for businesses that today would be seen as anathema to the Democratic Party’s progressive grassroots.

...

“I think we all have responsibility for inequality. We vote for the people and have voted for the people who have supported some of these strategies,” he said, pointing to tax policy that has favored the rich over the middle class.

Does he know he is campaigning as a Democrat? I am not sure that message would win votes even from the Manchin wing of the party.

[msongs]

1. is this the Bain Capital corporate predation guy? nt

[2naSalit]

2. Somehow I don't see him getting much support.

With that statement and knowing that he works for Bain, pretty much makes him as attractive a candidate as that woman from Hawaii.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Except we didn't all vote for this shit

Where’s the trap-door button for this guy?

[Kaiserguy]

4. There is a lot of good that gets done by private equity.

Only if you believe that turning high paying jobs in to low paying ones is a good thing like Mitts firm did.

[CentralMass]

6. As George Carlin once said. "It's a big club and you ain't in it."

"

[CentralMass]

8. Me too.

[CentralMass]

9. Go Bernie and Elizabeth.

[Hoyt]

10. Bain has invested in: Burger King, Domino's, Dunkin Donuts, Sealy, Michaels, Staples, Brookstone,

and more.

Companies like ToyRus were broke years before private equity got involved. When Bain took over, Toys debt had been downgraded to Junk, meaning they were dead in the water. Employees would have been laid off 5 to 10 years earlier, without a last ditch effort.

I wouldn't want to be working for a company in that situation with vulture capitalists circling. But, sometimes, it's all that's left.

And, they do fund startups.

[BeyondGeography]

12. The old LBO guys were captains of industry compared with today's vultures

I’m a Private Equity Investor. Here’s Why We Need to Rein in Private Equity

Though the existence of private equity firms and hedge funds is taken for granted today, I’m long enough in my career to remember when the PE boom really took off in the mid-1980s.

Before Gordon Gekko and his maxim that “greed is good,” things worked differently. Private equity investors had a specialization then that they focused on, and when they invested, they invested for the long term.

...Today, too many PE fund managers are generalists, with little or no experience in the industry they’re investing in. And we’re seeing them use a much-discredited playbook: cut costs, take out cash for their own short-term benefit, add little genuine competitive value, and then slash jobs and worker benefits in a desperate bid for greater operating cash flow.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune.com/2019/07/22/elizabeth-warren-private-equity-bill/amp/

[Hoyt]

16. But, they are the only ones who are willing to invest in a failing business in cases like Toys.

Let's get rid of them, and let companies go under years before they've given it their best shot to restructure, survive. Don't think that helps us, but it is typical of Warren.

No company is forced to allow an equity firm to take over, unless they can't get investment or loans elsewhere.

I wouldn't want to work for a company that takes on failing industries, but they have a place.

[BeyondGeography]

17. Lol...this is a private equity guy telling you they're out-of-control

But, (predictably) Warren, bad.

[Hoyt]

18. No, that is Warren misinterpreting again, just like she does wealth taxes, global trade, etc.

[ritapria]

11. Patrick and Bloomberg

Fighting over the 5% of Democrats who love Wall Street ... Go Guys Go

[evertonfc]

13. Im not anti corporation

Hell, mine has helped raise my family, been fair to me and our community outreach has fed, clothed and assisted thousands of needy over the years. The party can't become anti corporation..We can call out the practices of some but many of us owe our livelihoods to our employeer

[ancianita]

14. Which corporation did that for you?

[evertonfc]

15. The one that

employees me, pays my salary, my insurance, pays 50% of my child's tuition, let's me off to attend soccer matches, provides generous vacation time. I mean, come on. You do realize there are lots of corporations that people enjoy working for. The message that corporations are somehow bad- is one that a lot of people disagree with.

[ancianita]

25. Why, of course corporations are not bad to *them.* My dad was in a porno ring, and an

Last edited Tue Nov 19, 2019, 11:01 PM - Edit history (1)

alcoholic, but was good to *me* -- I won't say his name, but he paid my generous allowance, bought me a car, college, access to a great job with benefits and health care, so the message that dads in porno rings are somehow bad, well, that's just some message that a lot of people disagree with! Yes, that's how reasonable people might disagree, right?

Is the standard for considering corporations -- like how they make their money -- only to come from your well paid experience and those who join you?

No one advocates ending government because parts of it are corrupt, or it hurts people here and abroad. They realistically want to "mend it, don't end it." That's one thing. But to say nothing should be done about corporations' control of government, because you, as an employee, are not on the receiving end of its flaws is quite another.

[BeyondGeography]

20. This is the corporations are more good than greedy thread

The one where real incomes have grown steadily over the last 40 years, 94 cents of every corporate profit dollar hasn’t been sucked up by stock buybacks and dividends and CEO pay hasn’t grown 940% since 1978 vs. 12% for the average worker.

And this hasn’t happened either:

Link to tweet

[ancianita]

21. Not in my understanding of corporations, which is completely at odds with that of Patrick.

Thank you for the economic inequality reality that is the result of corporate insurgency since Bush II.

[Hoyt]

19. Come on, we don't need corporations. We could all survive growing corn, blacksmithing, cutting

wood, cultivating roots for medicine, sending smoke signals rather than communicating over the internet, etc.

[ancianita]

22. Come on, yourself. State legislatures and govts held corporations under their regulation until 1886

Until that year they were "artificial persons" subject to control by the people of every state.

In a republican democracy, government's role is to serve the people and protect them from the predations of both foreign and domestic threats to their life, liberty, etc., which the Founders included to be corporations.

Because of human governmental control over corporations, criminally CEO's were fined, jailed, and corporate charters revoked in those days, while infrastructure got built -- railroads, bridges, water, sewers, military, libraries, medical schools -- paid for by taxpayers, both human and artificial.

We would never have beem left in some subsistence poverty position until corporations were unleashed by a crooked SCOTUS justice, and were unleashed due to their intergenerational assault on courts and lied about attaining personhood from constitutionally protected humans, having more constitutional protections today than any of us humans do.

[Hoyt]

23. We were in a subsistence poverty position until corporations came along.

It wasn't some cowboy, trapper or dirt farmer who built railroads, telegraphs, etc. So are the poorest countries. I've used outhouses, and I'm glad we've moved beyond that.

There are reason Sanders, Warren, trump, etc., want to keep corporations here and let poor countries starve in what some call America First, or Warren calls "Economic Patriotism." Personally, I think that is wrong, but that is another discussion.

We definitely need to tax corporations, the wealthy -- and even those but the poorest -- at higher rates to provide needed programs. We need to foster corporations, under scrutiny and tough laws to prevent polution, etc. That's what Sanders' go to example, Denmark, has done to produce the tax revenue needed and a better lifestyle.

[ancianita]

24. When did corporations come along? Corporations used slave labor to build railroads, telegraphs,

etc. You like the benefits of their methods, so we can't criticize them, eh?

We need to "foster" corporations? Adorable! You think corporations will stand for fostering? Because they'll admit they've "lost their way"?

Look to Denmark and take their laws seriously, if you wish, but if you think corporations here, -- the biggest tax haven and bought government on the planet -- won't beat yours or any or all human representation down by using their constitutional "equal protections" to beat you in federal court for generations to come, you'd better go read something on behalf of the future lifestyles of your children and grandchildren.

"The bargain" of a better lifestyle for us has never, ever excused corporations' -- the biggest environmental criminals and human killers on Earth -- from the corporate crimes we've benefitted from. It's only being discussed, lately, under the rubric of "reparations." Peanuts to corporations.

As we enjoy some misbegotten benefits of their predations in countries whose democracies they've weakened (we can easily name some) they continue to beat whole governments in court worldwide, through the WTO. They will excuse themselves when they become the one world government, which they intend to do through the WTO. Hell no, this is not some right wing talking point.This is now international law. It just hasn't hit Americans' consciousness yet.

There's a lot more going on in our elections that has nothing to do with just what Warren or Sanders say moving toward 2020. Unless we win the WH and the Senate, what they say ever won't happen. Corporations will make sure of that.

Fostering is adorable, but I promise you, corporations are not having it.

[Hoyt]

26. Slave labor was not used in WWI, WWII, during Depression, although life really sucked, especially

for minorities who weren't treated well by anyone including some of our heroes. Heck, FDR allowed a segregated military.

I agree corporations are killers, just like government, anarchists, the white wingers down the street, etc.

But, I bet most folks would be whining even louder if they depended on their gardens, outhouses, hauling water, etc., to live. If Warren and Sanders hope to have a chance to enact the programs they are promising, they better figure out a way to cultivate (ie, foster) corporations to pay for all that stuff (after we increase taxes). And, No, I'm not against tough regulation.

I won't even waste my time responding further to your comments on slavery. Where I live, it wasn't just corporations that were engaged in slavery and racism that lasts even today.

Glad you recognize we need to win WH and Senate. I question whether the populists -- like Warren and Sanders -- will help us accomplish that. Heck, they might even put House at risk.

[ancianita]

29. You didn't answer my first question. When did corporations come along? And how do you know

slave labor wasn't used in WWI and WWII. As just one obvious example, what do you think happened in the "work camps" sponsored by Germany? You think those inhabitants got to loll around all day?

Oh, heck, you got me started...

GM was building trucks for Hitler. IBM helped Hitler organize lists of Jews across Germany, at the same time IBM invented the bar code scanners for South African gold and chemical corporations (headquartered in the US and Europe) to use when controlling the majority black population in and out of "bantustans" with "passbooks" for their subsistence level lives. America's largest corporate leaders decided to stop FDR from trying to limit their power, but I won't get into that...

You can stop with the outhouse/blacksmith/water/gardening story that existed during the years of the Robber Barons' Guilded Age, too.

Too bad you don't realize what a waste of time it is to praise entities that, right now, will do more harm than good if you don't feel inclined to take them on as the very entities that are endangering your democratic system. Trump is one of their tools. Watch what happens. The more they win government, the less our side will win on the merits. You even admit that possibility, yourself, re the House.

If you're in any way interested in their power, I recommend Thom Hartmann's book (written in 2010, no less!), Unequal Protection -- How Corporations Became 'People' -- and How You Can Fight Back. The clearest, best researched, most understandable corporate history I've ever read. He writes way better than he speaks.

[Hoyt]

30. Christ, there were money changers in Biblical times. But we are talking about modern corporations

that manage to raise the money to do big things -- build hospitals, produce ships and airplanes, agricultural products that feed us, jobs for most people here, etc.

To keep it simple, they've done a lot of cruddy things too.

At least we agree, corporations aren't people and I'm against Citizens United, etc. And, I'm for holding corporations accountable too, I just don't blame corporations for all of our problems.

[ancianita]

31. Right. I blame the humans who let them take over this government all the way back to 1886.

We're the FDR Democrats for reasons that require control of them, not their control of us.

And don't forget: every last good thing they do for us is really for them, and paid for by our tax subsidies. Our seed money. That has made them more powerful in government than us.

THAT bad part of them is what we have a sliver of a chance of overturning. Or else what happens to us by turning a blind eye to what they already do to us here and the rest of the planet, will be our fault as much as theirs.

At last Warren and Sanders are heading us in the right governance direction re corporations.

Have a good night.

[redstateblues]

27. I want a car that isn't made by a corporation.

I’m tired of all these corporations dominating the market. We need some home grown cars. Whatya think?

[Hoyt]

28. Exactly. Built a car once, it only ran downhill, took long ways to stop, and it met no regulations.

[pansypoo53219]

32. capitalism or today's crapitalism?