The Bain Of Romney's Existence

Tom Hamburger's expose' of Romney's time at Bain Capital is pretty brutal:  Romney's company invested heavily in companies that shipped jobs overseas to China and India.

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"Pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States."   That should be written on the epitaph of Romney's campaign.  Here it lies, unremarked.

Speaking at a metalworking factory in Cincinnati last week, Romney cited his experience as a businessman, saying he knows what it would take to bring employers back to the United States. “For me it’s all about good jobs for the American people and a bright and prosperous future,” he said.

Speaking as someone who has a good job in Cincinnati Mr. Romney, you're full of it.

For years, Romney’s political opponents have tried to tie him to the practice of outsourcing American jobs. These political attacks have often focused on Bain’s involvement in specific business deals that resulted in job losses.

But a Washington Post examination of securities filings shows the extent of Bain’s investment in firms that specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas. While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field.

Remember the campaign adage "If you're explaining, you're losing" when it comes to optics?  Team Romney is losing big time with this horsecrap.

“This is a fundamentally flawed story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus offshoring nor versus work done overseas to support U.S. exports,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “Mitt Romney spent 25 years in the real world economy so he understands why jobs come and they go. As President, he will implement policies that make it easier and more attractive for companies to create jobs here at home. President Obama’s attacks on profit and job creators make it less attractive to create jobs in the U.S.”

And speaking of horsecrap, this pretty much blows a hole in the Post's own smarmy fact checker guy, Glenn Kessler, who just the day before gave the Obama ad that Bain sent jobs overseas the dreaded 4 Pinocchios.

The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of “corporate raider” to its examples of alleged outsourcing.  Simply repeating the same debunked claims won’t make them any more correct. 

Hey Glenn, check with your own paper next time you decide to make yourself look like a Romney stooge and a fool.