Reagan's financial guru: Romney is no job creator.

[Stinger]

David Stockman, Reagan's on financial adviser and architect of supply-side economics AND a private-equity investor himself has demonstrated that Romney's private-equity investing is more leech than capitalism and that Romney is neither a businessman nor a job creator.

But millions will continue to JUST BELIEVE the mythology no matter how many facts they run into.

Except Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better.

That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn’t be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value. But we have a rigged system—a regime of crony capitalism—where the tax code heavily favors debt and capital gains, and the central bank purposefully enables rampant speculation by propping up the price of financial assets and battering down the cost of leveraged finance.

... The whole business was about maximizing debt, extracting cash, cutting head counts, skimping on capital spending, outsourcing production, and dressing up the deal for the earliest, highest-profit exit possible.

... In truth, LBOs are capitalism’s natural undertakers—vulture investors who feed on failing businesses. Due to bad policy, however, they have now become monsters of the financial midway that strip-mine cash from healthy businesses and recycle it mostly to the top 1 percent.

LINK

There you have it, straight from a man who knows private-equity investing as well as Romney does.

[O Really]

Interesting, but they couldn't have released/promoted that a little earlier.?
Several lifetimes ago, I worked for ITT. I had nothing to do with decisions on acquisitions or divestitures, and was just one of the grunts in the legal department who helped clean up the messes. But I do know the corporation looked at companies totally as "assets" without regard for whether the company was a good employer, or made money, or was well-managed. The whole deal was to buy it, strip it to the bone, and divest it. It may be that there's nothing wrong with that business, but I really doubt that if people understood what it was like, that they'd want a corporate raider as the one chosen to re-build and economy and reduce unemployment.

[Tertius]

I only read the name,"David Stockman" and stopped.

I worked for David Stockman. He bankrupted the company he ran.

He is a failure. He has borrowed hundreds of millions to buy profitable companies and bankrupted every one.

If he said something I agreed with, I would question my opinion. I would either admit being wrong or find neutral safe ground on the subject.

[O Really]

I only read the name,"David Stockman" and stopped.

I worked for David Stockman. He bankrupted the company he ran.

He is a failure. He has borrowed hundreds of millions to buy profitable companies and bankrupted every one.

If he said something I agreed with, I would question my opinion. I would either admit being wrong or find neutral safe ground on the subject.

I don't know much about him, personally. I just like to see a Republican trash Romney.

[Stinger]

I only read the name,"David Stockman" and stopped.

I worked for David Stockman. He bankrupted the company he ran.

He is a failure. He has borrowed hundreds of millions to buy profitable companies and bankrupted every one.

If he said something I agreed with, I would question my opinion. I would either admit being wrong or find neutral safe ground on the subject.

Duh. He admits to be a private-equity investor. That's what they do. Leveraged-buyouts. Run up debt. Run off with millions, leaving other people holding the bag.

He just points out that Romney did the exact same thing, only on a bigger scale.

You don't like Stockman for buying and bankrupting companies, but you're voting for Willy Mitt -- whose major qualifications are his "business experience" of buying and bankrupting more companies than Stockman did.

What's a wingnut with that kind of personal knowledge of Romney's debt-raising destruction to do?

Why, ignore the facts and keep voting against their own self-interests, of course.

That's an area where wingnuts excel.

[Tertius]

I only read the name,"David Stockman" and stopped.

I worked for David Stockman. He bankrupted the company he ran.

He is a failure. He has borrowed hundreds of millions to buy profitable companies and bankrupted every one.

If he said something I agreed with, I would question my opinion. I would either admit being wrong or find neutral safe ground on the subject.

I don't know much about him, personally. I just like to see a Republican trash Romney.

My guess is he lost a lot of big money Republicans a lot of money and can not get a job cleaning toilets with them. He likely hopes to try Democrat big money. My guess his reputation preceded him.

He'll get a few headlines between now and the election but after that don't buy a used car from him.

[Tertius]

I only read the name,"David Stockman" and stopped.

I worked for David Stockman. He bankrupted the company he ran.

He is a failure. He has borrowed hundreds of millions to buy profitable companies and bankrupted every one.

If he said something I agreed with, I would question my opinion. I would either admit being wrong or find neutral safe ground on the subject.

Duh. He admits to be a private-equity investor. That's what they do. Leveraged-buyouts. Run up debt. Run off with millions, leaving other people holding the bag.

He just points out that Romney did the exact same thing, only on a bigger scale.

You don't like Stockman for buying and bankrupting companies, but you're voting for Willy Mitt -- whose major qualifications are his "business experience" of buying and bankrupting more companies than Stockman did.

What's a wingnut with that kind of personal knowledge of Romney's debt-raising destruction to do?

Why, ignore the facts and keep voting against their own self-interests, of course.

That's an area where wingnuts excel.

On the strength of his investment record at Blackstone, Stockman and his partners raised $1.3 billion of equity from institutional and other investors. With Stockman's guidance, Heartland used a contrarian investment strategy, buying controlling interests in companies operating in sectors of the U.S. economy that were attracting the least amount of new equity: auto parts and textiles. With the help of about $9 billion in Wall Street debt financing, Heartland completed more than 20 transactions in less than 2 years to create four portfolio companies: Springs Industries, Metaldyne, Collins & Aikman, and TriMas. Several major investments performed very poorly, however. Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy during 2005 and when Heartland sold Metaldyne to Asahi Tec Corp. during 2006, Heartland lost most of the $340 million-plus of equity it had invested in the business.

Collins & Aikman Corp.
During August 2003, Stockman installed himself as CEO of Collins & Aikman Corporation, a Detroit-based manufacturer of automotive interior components. He was ousted from that job days before a Chapter 11 filing on May 17, 2005.

Criminal and civil charges
On March 26, 2007, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Stockman in "a scheme ... to defraud [Collins & Aikman]'s investors, banks and creditors by manipulating C&A's reported revenues and earnings." At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges against Stockman related to actions he performed while CEO of Collins & Aikman. Stockman suffered a personal financial loss, estimated at $13 million, along with losses suffered by as many as 15,000 Collins & Aikman employees worldwide. Stockman said in a statement posted on his law company's website that the company's end was the consequence of an industry decline, not fraud. On January 9, 2009, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that it did not intend to prosecute Stockman for this case.

Damn if I know why. While at C&A he purchased the company I worked for. C&A had just failed to book over 3 million dollars in sales. He purchased the company I worked for amount other things we had all the Toyota Camry business. That is both domestic and Japan manufactured cars.

It only took him 18 months to lose all the Toyota business and within 3 years was bankrupt.

The good Lord looked after me. I left one year before bankruptcy and took all my retirement money with me. I am told many lost everything. Stockman even spent the 401k shadow plan's money.

If he had done to me what he did to many people, I would be posting this from some state prison.

[O Really]

So he's a sleazebag. Fine. How is he different from the Bain people, including Romney?

[Stinger]

So he's a sleazebag. Fine. How is he different from the Bain people, including Romney?

Stockman still cares about the country and the economy. Romney's sold his soul to the 1% and lies to the rest of us.

If you think Stockman started trickle-up economics, wait until you see Mitt's plans.