Bain Money Honest; Obama Team isn't

[Michchamp]

The previous owners are also potentially big winners in this scheme, so I can see why they'd help Bain do this sort of thing.

not necessarily the owners; the shareholders just get bought out at whatever the FMV of their shares are.

the officers of the targeted company are the ones who benefit, as Bain "greases the wheels" by promising them bonuses. essentially they also get to suck a little blood out of the company they're supposedly managing in the interests of the shareholders...

otherwise, the officers could oppose the takeover attempt. that becomes a lose-lose for both sides, since the cost of the transaction becomes higher for bain (hurting their expected returns), and the officers get nothing when they lose (and they most certainly will lose when up against big wall street banks).

so the officers have almost every incentive to cooperate with Romney when he shows up, promising them a share of the plunder...

 

[redandguilty]

...and this is a terrible argument from that article:

If, however, these institutions relish the yields that Bain Capital generates by supporting start-ups and rescuing distressed companies, 80 percent of which have prospered, then this money is honest – and Team Obama isn't.

Who on this board agrees with this statement?

 

[Michchamp]

Entrusting $130 M to Bain is not the same thing as benefiting by $130 M.

don't ask him to think for himself. the concept of finance is all very foreign to him, and he's just cutting and pasting from what talk radio tells him to.

 

[Michchamp]

...and this is a terrible argument from that article:

Who on this board agrees with this statement?

I didn't see that. when I clicked his article the first time, I got a dead link, and considering the source, decided it wasn't worth searching for anyway.

so if I like the fact that the bank robber shared some of his loot with me... the act of robbing the bank becomes "honest"???

 

[lionsFTW]

VultureCapatilismFTW???

 

[tinselwolverine]

If people think that a guys like Carl Eichan, or Kirk Kirkorian or Mitt Romney shouldn't be the president because of their backgrounds in business and the business they were in, that's reasonable; everybody is entitled to vote for or against anyone for any reason they want.

As far as Taibbi being "the only journalist in america pulling the curtain back on how leveraged buyouts/private equity operates:'

Well - this Rolling Stone article, dated within the last week, is actually talking about events that Romney's Republican Primary opponents were talking about in main stream media during the early Republican Debates.

Rick Perry



Romney's response has always been along the lines of "If you invest, as we did, in over 100 different businesses, there's no one in America that will have had a record where all of them were successful, where none of them shrank or where none went out of business," Romney told Time.' ABC News.

Sure, he and his M&A team were paid fees...that's the nature of that business too.

Oh...people like this do benefit from limited shareholder liability under corporate bunkruptcy laws as they stand; I was gonna mention this...

So...if people think those laws should be changed, they can actively persue those changes...

 

[byco42]

This is not a "breaking" story. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/15/romneys-profit-from-bains-buyouts-up-to-20-000-per-laid-off/

 

[tinselwolverine]

This is not a "breaking" story. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/15/romneys-profit-from-bains-buyouts-up-to-20-000-per-laid-off/

Maybe Taibbi's and the Rolling Stone's editorial thinking is that, since a lot of people who get their news from Rolling Stone only get their news from Rolling Stone, as a service to their readers, they'd better get them caught up on stories and claims that regular mainstream people have been aware for months now.

 

[byco42]

Rolling Stone should stick to reviewing records and profiling rock idols.

 

[oletoes]

Entrusting $130 M to Bain is not the same thing as benefiting by $130 M.

Agreed, but entrusting Bain to spin a profit from their investments of $130 M with the company and then profiting from that investment is a "Benefit"...and THEY DID profit!

 

[tinselwolverine]

Rolling Stone should stick to reviewing records and profiling rock idols.

Or at least stick to the "Gonzo" style political coverage of yesteryear...

I would apply for that job, but I haven't dropped nearly acid in my life to be any good at it...

 

[oletoes]

don't ask him to think for himself. the concept of finance is all very foreign to him, and he's just cutting and pasting from what talk radio tells him to.

Are you serious? That's your argument? "He's just cutting and pasting from talk radio"? I'll say it again, you are the one copying and pasting from an article written from the Rolling F-in Stones and you are criticizing me for pointing out the Hypocrisy and saying that its from a right wing conspiracy talk radio host etc (which has already been pointed out that its not)... I know you can do better than that. Attacking me personally is your whole argument?

 

[Michchamp]

This is not a "breaking" story. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/15/romneys-profit-from-bains-buyouts-up-to-20-000-per-laid-off/

never said it was. just posting it to refute the claims in the initial post.

maybe Taibbi's not the only one doing it (or attempting to) either, but he has one of the higher platforms, and he's good at what he does.

 

[byco42]

never said it was. just posting it to refute the claims in the initial post.

maybe Taibbi's not the only one doing it (or attempting to) either, but he has one of the higher platforms, and he's good at what he does.

He's good at incendiary journalism. And there's some pushback on the accuracy of his story out there.

 

[Michchamp]

He's good at incendiary journalism. And there's some pushback on the accuracy of his story out there.

Well, the story itself, the nature of what Bain does, yet the way Mitt's been allowed to portray it in the press (because the press is stupid, yellow and craven) is incendiary all by itself. Taibbi just does a superb job of putting complex, and intentionally opaque transactions into plain english.

I don't think the pushback is related to the accuracy of his story; what I've read so far is the sort of misleading stuff that numbnutz posted when he started this thread: the democrats, unions and universities have benefited from Bain too. ( BTW, Taibbi responded with a follow-up blog post about this. )

Misleading I think because the people need to recognize just what Bain does; Taibbi hasn't given the democrats a pass here.

if you've seen any rebuttals that refute the facts and figures in his story, I'd be interested to read them.

 

[Michchamp]

He's good at incendiary journalism. And there's some pushback on the accuracy of his story out there.

Taibbi published a reply to one (not sure if there are more) of his critics.

I remain in Taibbi's camp on this one. He defends the factual accuracy of his piece, and points out that where Primack is accusing him of being wrong, or inaccurate, what's actually the case is that they have a difference of opinion here...

This is what you call a difference of opinion. It?s the difference between believing that PE is socially beneficial and believing, as I do, that it?s often predatory and antisocial. It would be healthy to hear this debate aired out normally, but in this case, Primack depicts that disagreement as factual inaccuracy on my part, which is just obnoxious. We just don?t go there in this business unless it?s true (mainly because most experienced writers are cognizant of the "there but for the grace of God" factor when it comes to factual mistakes); you have to learn to distinguish between what is absolutely a wrong fact and what you think is a wrong opinion.
​

Primack can get away with that because he is defending the big money. He just has to make colorable claims about Taibbi's piece, and CNBC, the WSJ, Fox Business, etc. will take it and run with it. it's a rhetorical drive-by shooting, or mobbing; doesn't have to be accurate, just has to brutally take the other guy out; shout him down.

But Taibbi on the other hand, is the one fighting the uphill battle against moneyed interests here... he has no such luxury.

just the nature of the beast, I guess.

 

[tsmith7559]

there are alot of Bain guys running around the DNC this week in Charlotte.

probably the one running GST when it shut down and killed the cancer woman...he's now a bundler for Obama

 

[TheVictors]

probably the one running GST when it shut down and killed the cancer woman...he's now a bundler for Obama

You are an insult to the idiots roaming freely across this wonderful planet of ours tonight.

.

 

[tsmith7559]

You are an insult to the idiots roaming freely across this wonderful planet of ours tonight.

.

Jonathan Lavine was in charge of Bain during the GST layoffs...He is now Obama's top bundler...ouch

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