How many of those 80,000 Staples jobs Romney created resulted in mom and pop stationary stores

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9. Independent stationary stores, book stores, drug stores, hardware stores, are all

in general, except for certain niche circumstances are doomed, unfortunately.

This is one of the areas that would show that Romney was a sharp investor of entrepenurial start ups rather than a leaverage buy out guy that used massive amounts of capital to pick off vulnerable undervalued firms desparate for a lifeline.

Problem was that Romney fought hard against the Staples investment at Bain and then got Bain out as quickly as he could:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/06/1089253/-Romney-Lies-He-Did-Not-Start-Staples

Two men named Leo Kahn and Thomas Stemberg started Staples.

As they grew their business, Stemberg approached Bessemer Venture Partners, a competitor of Romney's Bain. Stemberg wanted to borrow money from Bessemer to open more Staples stores. Bessemer then approached Bain about joining in the venture to spread the risk.

But Romney didn't like the idea at all. He thought Staples was a bad investment and turned Bessemer down. Not once, not twice, but three times.

Only after other people at Bain pushed did Romney reluctantly reconsider. He still expressed strong opposition to the deal, but would not stand in the way of providing some backing. The proposed investment in Staples was tiny compared to other Bain deals.

Bain then made a modest $650,000 investment in Staples. Because he headed Bain, Romney was offered a seat on the Staples board. While on the board, Romney had no direct involvement in the company nor any management control. He simply showed up at a board meeting every few months. He was absent from meetings more times than he was present.

Bain made additional modest investments in Staples, for a total of $2.5 million. As soon as the company went public, Romney dumped Bain's share and was out of the investment.

When Bain got rid of its stake, Staples was still a small chain, with only 24 stores in New England and barely a thousand part-time jobs. It was nowhere near the mega-giant it would become. With time, Staples grew to more than 2,200 stores with 89,000 employees.

All of that growth occured long after Romney had left Bain and long after he had any connection whatsoever with the company.

A company Romney thought was a bad investment. Which he demonstrated by pulling out as quickly as he could.

What's troubling most about this is how the lie "Romney started Staples" is endlessly repeated by his supporters and even some of his opponents.

The Staples story shows that Romney may have been a good leverage guy but he wasn't very good at seeing trends and investing in talented people with good ideas, something that would be handy for a President to have.

There's a reason that you don't see Romney talking much about Staples, it shows his weakness as an investment broker, he was better at the vulture, buy it cheap, strip off the assets kind of investment. I just can't see how it helps him make a very good Presidential prospect.