Off topic: Mitt Romney, American Parasite

I'm an economic conservative. I like Obama, I voted for him in 2008. I don't want to vote for him again because like most liberals he knows nothing about capitalism. I don't like his idea that government should punish success (raise taxes for rich pigs). Wealthy people do most of hiring in this country. Steal their money and they will hire less people or fire more people. How does that help our weak economy?

Unfortunately the alternative to Obama, Mr. Romney, has some problems. How can I vote for this asshole after reading this. Romney is going to lose the election for sure if this disgusting story is brought up in the debates.

I just sent this email to Mr. Romney:
Mr. Romney, I'm an economic conservative and I love capitalism. I want very much to vote for you but I'm very concerned about what I read at a website (see below) about you and your Bain Capital. If it's true it makes you look like a destroyer of profitable businesses and jobs. I once worked for a corporation that was destroyed by people like you. This will probably come up in the debates. I hope you can explain it and I hope you can be honest about it. Many thanks and good luck. http://onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com/2012/04/mitt-romney-american-parasite.html

To be fair I sent a copy of my email to Romney to President Obama. He should know what the heck is going on with his opponent. I would really like an answer from Romney for what looks to me like some very despicable behavior.

Mitt Romney, American Parasite

It was the early 1990s, and the 750 men and women at Georgetown Steel were pumping out wire rods at peak performance. They had an abiding trust in management's ability to run a smart company. That allegiance was rewarded with fat profit-sharing checks. In the basement-wage economy of Georgetown, South Carolina, Sanderson and his co-workers were blue-collar aristocracy.

"We were doing very good," says Sanderson, president of Steelworkers Local 7898. "The plant was making money, and we had good profit-sharing checks, and everything was going well."

What he didn't know was that it was about to end. Hundreds of miles to the north, in Boston, a future presidential candidate was sizing up Georgetown's books.

At the time, Mitt Romney had been running Bain Capital since 1984, minting a reputation as a prince of private investment. A future prospectus by Deutsche Bank would reveal that by the time he left in 1999, Bain had averaged a shimmering 88 percent annual return on investment. Romney would use that success to launch his political career.

His specialty was flipping companies—or what he often calls "creative destruction." It's the age-old theory that the new must constantly attack the old to bring efficiency to the economy, even if some companies are destroyed along the way. In other words, people like Romney are the wolves, culling the herd of the weak and infirm.

His formula was simple: Bain would purchase a firm with little money down, then begin extracting huge management fees and paying Romney and his investors enormous dividends.

The result was that previously profitable companies were now burdened with debt. But much like the Enron boys, Romney's battery of MBAs fancied themselves the smartest guys in the room. It didn't matter if a company manufactured bicycles or contact lenses; they were certain they could run it better than anyone else.

Bain would slash costs, jettison workers, reposition product lines, and merge its new companies with other firms. With luck, they'd be able to dump the firm in a few years for millions more than they'd paid for it.

But the beauty of Romney's thesis was that it really didn't matter if the company succeeded. Because he was yanking out cash early and often, he would profit even if his targets collapsed.

Which was precisely the fate awaiting Georgetown Steel.

When Bain purchased the mill, Sanderson says, change was immediate. Equipment upgrades stopped. Maintenance became an afterthought. Managers were replaced by people who knew nothing about steel. The union's profit-sharing plan was sliced twice in the first year—then whacked altogether.

"When Bain Capital took over, it seemed like everything was being neglected in our plant," Sanderson says. "Nothing was being invested in our plant. We didn't have the necessary time to maintain our equipment. They had people here that didn't know what they were doing. It was like they were taking money from us and putting it somewhere else."

History would prove him correct. While Georgetown was beginning its descent to bankruptcy, Romney was helping himself to the company's treasury.