The Real Romney: another view

Daphne at Jaded Haven has this to say:

Chumping Romney

January 13, 2012 by Daphne

Waiting for another inconsiderate, no-show contractor today, I finally took the time to watch Newt’s controversial attack film on Mitt.
After two careful viewings, I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter if you hate Newt’s full-blown assault based solely on your pro-capitalist principles. This was a devastating piece of effective political savagery.
Spinning Romney’s track record at Bain as predatory, vulture corporatism could gain fast legs with the middle and lower classes who’ve been hit the hardest by our ongoing recession and declining manufacturing job base.
Let’s pray it takes wing.
Mitt’s casual explanation of market driven, creative destruction doesn’t quite fly in the face of how Bain actually operated in several instances. We aren’t talking about the responsive type of creative destruction following the natural demise of the agricultural age as the industrial revolution swept into constructive bloom.
What Romney did as the head of Bain Capitol was to purchase profitable mid-range companies and leverage their assets to the brink of fiscal insanity.
A short excerpt from a new book I’m reading, The Real Romney, gives a clearer picture of how our presumptive nominee ran his successful venture capitalism division at Bain.

In 1996, Bain invested $27 million as part of a deal with other firms to acquire Dade International, a medical diagnostics equipment firm, from its parent company, Baxter International. Bain ultimately made ten times its money, getting back $230 million. But Dade wound up laying off more than 1600 people and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002, amid crushing debt and rising interest rates. The company, with Bain in charge, had borrowed heavily to do acquisitions, accumulating $1.6 billion in debt by 2000. The company cut benefits for some workers at the acquired firms and laid off others. When it merged with Behring Diagnostics, a German company, Dade shut down three US plants. At the same time, Dade paid out $421 million to Bain Capital’s investors and investing partners.

If Romney’s Wall Street version of creative destruction floats your crooked boat, hat’s off to your black little hearts, have fun desecrating your warped conservative souls voting for Mitt’s rapacious vision of a prosperous America.
His petulant response of blaming wealth envy for the latest round of well-targeted criticism over his one adult act of private employment came across as smugly arrogant. I don’t expect that bucket of thin gruel will play well in Peoria, Birmingham or Sioux Falls come next November.
Most folks still recall the inestimable economic damage caused by creative destruction vampires like Bain Capital, their criminal Wall Street brethren and the corrupt political henchmen who facilitated the large-scale rape of this country’s financial landscape.
Gingrich and Santorum were part of that sordid crew, playing well-greased, civic back-ends to Romney’s private lusty thrusts.
I sincerely hope this full frontal assault on Romney’s private sector career derails his presumptive front-runner status. I can’t stand the man, couldn’t abide his amoral, plastic flexibility on the last go around. I enthusiastically applaud any effort that would see Mitt’s brand of bespoke statism burned straight into the ground.