How About We Compare the Investment Records of Bain Capital and the Obama Administration?
Unbelievably, the Obama campaign seems to want to have a debate about which of the two candidates is more qualified to run the world’s largest economy. Writing earlier this year I considered where the campaign seems hell-bent on going. This is a debate that can prove only disastrous for the forces of O.
To repeat what I said then: if Bain Capital buys and fails on any particular investment, the wreckage is contained to the employees of the business that was bought, the investors, and Bain management. It also means that if Bain does it too often they will be unsuccessful in raising the next round of capital.
Conversely, when the government fails, it fails on a far larger scale, particularly if the investing is done via many entities having a similar industry focus. With government investing, we all become venture capitalists, whether or not it fits our individual risk profiles.
Bain diversified itself by risking capital in a variety of industries and not going all in for any one sector. That way, its eggs are not all in one industry basket and it looks more like the overall economy.
In contrast, the administration’s attempts to invest in “green” technology, no matter what one’s views are about the efficacy of “green” technology, are a fool’s bet. Even were it able to discern winners from losers, the inevitability of bad investing in one sector should be apparent to all.
The problems for The One’s are threefold. First, he has made near-universally bad bets. Second, public entity investing possesses fundamental flaws. And third, the opportunity to make investments with politically connected business ventures has led to charges of corruption and cronyism.
Look around. Can anyone name a successful entity in which this administration has risked billions of dollars of taxpayer money? From Solyndra to LightSquared. All taxpayer money, none of it confined to only one failure and in technology whose merits none of us have any interest, expertise, and time to debate, other than for me to make the observation that Steven Chu’s fervent hope and desire that oil prices climbing much, much higher would be the first necessity for this business model to work in the real world without needing to be propped up by the government.
Moreover, the folly associated with public entities investing in established businesses (like, say, General Motors…oops!), let alone technologies best evaluated by trained professionals, is manifest for all to see. A private equity (or even venture) investor is a highly experienced individual who has seen, invested in (and/or rejected investment in) many companies in his or her career. His existence is Darwinistic: if he doesn’t know what he’s doing and makes too many bad bets, he doesn’t get to raise the next round of fund capital and is out seeking a new career by the day after that failure.
Piper Palin was more competent running her lemonade stand than Obama has been running this economy.
What do you expect?
He is a man who is openly disdainful of profit, not that he could readily define what profit is or why it is vitally important.
There is not one iota of evidence that Obama has ever turned a single dollar of profit in any venture at any time, any where. There is ample evidence that he took money in the form of grants and squandered it to no effect in Chicago with that “guy from the neighborhood” that he apparently did not really know, but shared an office with named Bill Ayers.
They could write a book about their business experiences together.
I’ve said this before – having Obama in the White House is like having the arsonist being in charge of extinguishing the fire that he started, all the while hurling insults and edicts to the fire chief.
Mitt Romney (whom I am lukewarm towards but will vote for early and often) should make his first act as president the declaration of a national holiday celebrating our deliverance from the evil Marxist-in-Chief.
He’s not the only one.
A number of his liberal supporters have dismissed the flop of Solyndra by saying “Some companies succeed, some companies fail. That’s how capitalism works.”
Evidently to liberals, “capitalism” means companies subsidized by endless flows of government money. You heard Elizabeth Warren. They don’t believe that any company can succeed without government support.
Elizabeth Warren is more proud of the public street and traffic lights in front of Steve Jobs’ house in the 1970s than of what he was building in his garage.
Too true sinZ. But we have to start using real language in our discussions. There is no such thing as ‘government money’. In order for any government to spend money, it first must take it from private entities, borrow it from some creditor, or print it from stock paper.
Re: Obama’s remarks about Solyndra’s failure showing how capitalism works — since when does Government investing taxpayer money represent capitalism? Apparently Obama knows less about capitalism than even we knew.
“I’ve said this before – having Obama in the White House is like having the arsonist being in charge of extinguishing the fire that he started, all the while hurling insults and edicts to the fire chief.”
I’ve said this before – expecting republicans to solve our economic woes is like handing the keys back to the drunk who drove the car into the ditch, all the while while hurling insults and edicts to the guy who is trying to sober them up.
There, FTFY
You fixed nothing; you merely urinated all over it. If you don’t see what a disaster the Obama administration has been, you’re not living in the world of reality.
In specific detail tell us what Romney would do different than Bush who had the luxury of a GOP house and senate? Spending ballooned under Bush and even Romney said he would not cut spending the first year (if at all, lol). History shows that Democratic presidents are generally more fiscally prudent, whereas GOP presidents are of the borrow and blow variety.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/04/business/economy/off-the-charts-shrinking-government.html?ref=economy
If you look at the full chart, back to George HW Bush, you reach an inescapable conclusion: the biggest spenders and borrowers are Republicans and the most fiscally conservative presidents have been Democrats. Given the last two decades, the Tea Party, if they really want to shrink government, should be voting for Obama. It hurts, I know …
Funny that Obama’s successes have come when following Bush’s policies.
Let’s not forget the Democrats took over congress in the 2006 midterms and blocked attempts of reigning in the houseing bubble not to mention immigration reform because they couldn’t let an old white guy take away their race card.
Bush did have a Republican Congress through 2006; however, beginning January of 2007, the was working with a Democratic congress. That’s when the problems began. Also note, that many Republicans were asking for an investigation into Fanny and Freddie; however, Barney Frank (that old sage) said not to worry — Fanny & Freddie are fine. Yea right.
Actually if you look at the charts what you see is that Democrat presidents with Republican Congresses are forced to trim their sails on spending, and can reduce the rate of growth somewhat, while with Democrat congresses they spend like drunken sailors in whorehouses. Meanwhile, Republican presidents with Democrat Congresses see the Democrat Congresses spend like drunken sailors in whorehouses. The common element here is: Democrat Congresses spend like drunken sailors in whorehouses, and Republican Congresses spend less. How a president spends depends more on the party of the Congress he has than on his own party. Democrats spend and spend and spend.
What was the unemployment rate when Bush was running for re-election? 5% with a larger workforce. I’ll take it.
Cynical Wonder, I’ve rarely seen such a faithful and unedited regurgitation of a talking point. Kudos.
I’m not so sure, though, that the administration is going to be able to keep everyone so locked into believing the only real argument they can make.
Cyic Blunder
You have a limited history of the Dems and Republicans you really should look up past of both parties to see who has caused the meltdown we are in today- begin with 1965 LBJ and Dem led house & senate and Great Society forward programs by DEMS to BUY votes from poor and Blacks all for DEM domination since then & it is breaking the US & the great GIVE AWAY Progams have destroyed whole societies which Obama wants to throw more fuel on the fire- thanks to LBJ & Dems they have destroyed the black familes in US, which is now spilling over to Mexicans and Trailer Trash
Also if you did NOT know but Bill Clinton did not pay down the debt it was Rep led House and Senate
So CW tell us YOUR plan to fix the economy, since the Relublicans in your view aren’t up to the task.
I bet you’ve got nothing.
Well, so far all your plan is to do more of what was done under Bush. That worked so well. The message isn’t any different, only the messenger just changed. Oh yeah, those Bush tax cuts created so many jobs. Is that your plan??? More tax cuts that don’t work??? Regurgitate the old policies and hope people don’t notice??? The jobs report sucked last May as well. Summer will be better. It’s going to be a rough eight-years for you people.
Are you Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in disguise? Because that is the exact same non-answer he always gives when asked about his own plan for the economy. I am forced to conclude that neither one of you, nor our president or probably any other leftist, has any clue how to fix anything.
Go look in the mirror.
You are the problem
The Obama malaise is a direct result of the government that he leads intruding upon our sacred liberties, eroding our constitutional rights – essentially urinating on our legs and chastising us for not thanking him for keeping us warm.
I reject your toxic ideology completely. It is boneheads like you that have foisted losers like Obama upon this nation.
I will thank you to stay the hell home on election day so that we can remove this Marxist creep from office.
Then we can get to work tearing down this horrible mess of a government, getting it back to within its constitutional limits, all the while getting back to work ourselves.
We don’t need a damned government to tell us how and when to do things – we can do it ourselves, thank you very much. And that goes double for you – I don’t need to hear your progressive nonsense – if you don’t like the way this country is constituted, then get the hell out.
Hey I was right !
You’ve got nothing. Just like Barack!
I can’t help but notice that CW did not answer the question posed. Typical liberal.
So your plan, your entire rhetoric, is to do more of what Obama did, which is to merely say that the plan is to do more of what was done under Bush. You don’t even know what was done under Bush, as evidenced by your inability to do anything more than repeat Obama’s pat, focus group-tested spin lines. What did Bush do that “drove the car into the ditch”? Could you name anything that Bush did that 1. is real, not a line of crap like “deregulation” (Bush didn’t deregulate anything), and 2. Obama didn’t agree with? Obama didn’t want to spend less than Bush when Obama was in the Senate–he wanted to spend more. Obama was part of the Democrat majority for two years that produced the last two disastrous years of spending while Bush was president. Then he followed up with three years of massive blowout spending, all of which he favored. He’s a Democrat. They (you) favor gargantuan government with limitless spending, and for communication, nothing but dishonest spin and obfuscation.
Well, we did have full unemployment under Bush. That’s not a bad thing is it? Certainly better then your hero has managed.
Considering Bush was handed a recession and 5 years of in country training for 911 he did a pretty good job of turning that around. The economic, psychological, financial hit was pretty hard. Because he fixed the problems members of the media and political hacks like yourself tend to forget that.
I know liberals have always been peeved about the Congress approved Iraq War but I always wondered what would have happened had Bush not done it, and the effect on Bush if Clinton, Kennedy, the CIA and FBI had not assured Bush that Saddam had WMD’s and would probably make them available for someone wanting to attack the US.
You can’t change the past to predict the present, one can only specualte.
For instance, Obama came into office with the economy falling off of the cliff because of a banking crisis created solely by the government.
What if he had not marched ahaead ramming through his political agenda.
What if he had not passed ObamaCare and Frank Dodd? What if he had not spent the last 3 1/2 years trahing business and capitalism out on the stump of his never ending campaign? What if he did not have the EPA shutting down our only proven sources of reliable energy? What if he had not gone out on the stump 24/7 trying to raise taxes, and in many instances doing so?
My guess is the economy would be booming now. But it is speculation also.
Well Turfmann, capitalism itself is a veritable disease, a real cancer that has propelled crisis after crisis throughout this world and througout human history and still does. `Moreover it reinforces poverty as well as exploitation of the masses by the so-called ‘haves’. See, for instance, how today millions of poor sods in Asia and Latin-America are being kept wage slaves in order to stuff the pockets of hypocritical American CEO’s who even dare to call themselves Christians. They’re despicable hyena’s worthy of the slugs of fire squads and nothing else. Al Quaida is waiting for ‘em.
Being a wage slave for a US corporation is a whole lot better than being a subsistence farmer- like three times the standard of living better. Not exactly what I call exploitation. Now, that’s not to say there isn’t any exploitation- it’s exploitation to force people to work overtime and then not pay them for it, but there’s no leonine contract getting them to work in sweatshops- it’s just that the sweatshops are vastly preferable to the alternative.
I gather you believe socialism is the answer. Never mind looking at what gov’t tax policies & restrictive regulations there may be which are serving to drive businesses overseas. Indeed, let’s corral all the evil CEOs together & blow their bloomin’ heads off. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Nothing less than a landslide victory will do, unfortunately. Not when you consider the unparalled voter fraud that’s going take place.
And don’t forget who’s going to be counting the votes.
“If it ain’t close, they can’t cheat.” – Hugh Hewitt
So it had better not be close because they will certainly try.
“Voter fraud? What voter fraud?” That, in a nutshell, was the journalists take on NPR’s Dianne Riehm show this morning. There’s “no evidence” of voter fraud, they insist. It’s just those evil Republicans trying to thwart minorities voting for Democrats. These “pundits” are are willfully blind to the current state of the nation’s voter rolls because, well, that serves their own political preferences.
Why are the voters not asking the simple question of the Democrats:”Can anyone name a successful entity in which this administration has risked billions of dollars of taxpayer money?” Why is this not the key issue in determining where their vote goes?
I think the voters are asking the question. It’s the media that’s not asking the question. And the media is not interested in covering the people who are asking questions.
The only enterprise they tepidly try to claim as a success is the bailout of auto union pensions, opps, I mean the American Car industry, but Rommney only has to point out the 1000′s of car dealerships and third party suppliers and all of the 100′s of thousands of people who lost their jobs and were not retrained into the new Obama economy, something the Prez is claiming Bain was obligated to do with the small percentage of investments Bain made that went sour. Bain’s record is astonishingly successful, even Bill Clinton said so, we’ve all heard of Staples, Guitar Center, Dominoes Pizza, Sports Authority, Brookestone, Seally, all Bain successes. Again the challenge to Obama’s investment picks, show us the success.
This is good but I would prefer to see Romney do it in a debate against his imperial loftistic self, the omniscient one, the seer of all things, his royal highness, Barack Hussein Obama, mmmmm mmmmmm mmmmmm.
But it will never happen. Everyone fears being called a racist for some reason. But when properly countered, it makes the accuser look incredibly stupid.
What was the return on “No Child Left Behind”? Or the GOP’s expansion of Medicare? Or the “War on Poverty”? Or any other government program? The problem isn’t confined to Obama, the problem is public spending by any politician.
Wal-Mart has done more to improve the lives of average citizens than all the government initiatives combined… at no cost to the taxpayer. Competition and free markets lift people from poverty, governments destroy everything they touch.
You’re right that this discussion should prove disastrous for “The Big O” but it’s equally disastrous for the big spending GOP. It should be an end to all subsidies which are interventions into the free market, it should be an end to Public Schools which are perversions of the market, it should be an end to all unions which distort free labor markets – why the list is almost endless and the cost-cutting opportunities are glorious. If Romney carries the argument to its logical conclusion then he’ll win in a landslide, the federal budget will be $1.25 trillion, and we’ll have the strongest economic growth on record surpassing even the Reagan Revolution. That’s if Romney carries the argument to it’s logical conclusion that free markets and competition work while government and corruption doesn’t.
Here’s Bill Clinton (yes Bill Clinton) signalling to Obama to back off from the Bain Capital attack: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/05/31/Clinton-Romney-Sterling
It’s a very clever signal: He says how some companies succeed, while others fail (so make that argument for Solyandra, because O, your’re vulnerable on that); then he advises O to talk about his plans for the second term and compare them to Romney’s plans (because he saying to O, you can’t run on your record). Now, let’s see if O has the smarts to pick up on that. (I hope not.)
I am not at all convinced that Obama really wants to serve a second term. It’s obvious to even a casual observer that he deplores most aspects of the job. His pattern of spending so much time on the golf course & gadding about on what appears to be a perpetual campaign trail serve as a testimonial to that. The fact that he allows big-mouthed, “Baghdad Bob” Joe Biden to run around with his tongue wagging is further testimonial that Obama is not all that serious about his job as POTUS. The proverbial Manchurian Candidate he is & he appears to be tiring of it.
I would submit that you gave an accurate description of the results of Affirmative Action that has been on full display!
Indeed. Obama shares many similarities to many other AA beneficiaries: Laziness, not well read, not well educated (despite the stellar-sounding academic credentials in Obama’s case) & not at all well suited for the job.
“Sounding” being a key word since he seems to have locked up any record to verify just about anything he’s done. No Republican would get away with that and the MSM won’t go there.
I don’t think Obama wants to engage in a debate – he just wants to attack Romney. It seems his vaunted Chicago political machine isn’t as slick as we thought. They are offering up trial attacks on Romney and seem surprised when he defends himself effectively. This looks like a series of trial balloons and none of them is working; perhaps he is betting that if he can get just one to stick, he wins.
The economic analysis in this column was great; there are many inherent problems with the government, rather than the markets, picking winners and losers. In addition, Obama has said so many things that show him to be an economic illiterate.
“It seems his vaunted Chicago political machine isn’t as slick as we thought”
I’m beginning to think that the puppet-master has left the room. In 2008 Obama did everything right. It was a masterful, skillful campaign that made all the right moves. Obama’s 2012 campaign is The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
That tells me that whoever was running the show last time isn’t running the show this time.
Chicago-style tactics work well in Chicago because the whole system has been set up and greased over a hundred years to favor the connected.
“Hope and Change” wasn’t exactly Chicago tactics but the Obama gang had the MSM in their hip pockets as well as an electorate tired of Bush and eager to place all their hopes on a telegenic candidate who basically fed them platitudes and let them project onto him.
There was also this little matter of Mr. reach-across-the-aisle John McCain, who was deathly afraid of saying something mean about the black guy and who basically spent half the time assuring his audiences what a great guy Obama was.
Unfortunately, circumstances have changed this time around. Now the O-gang is reverting to ugly type but All The King’s Men and all the king’s MSM horses and all the king’s cooked statistics can no longer distract (most) of us from the grim reality we’re living in.
Furthermore, this time around, it looks like this time the Great “O” is up against an opponent who is refusing to bend over and grease up for him. Juxtaposing Romney’s speech in front of the overgrown grounds of the Solyndra HQ with a heckler-hounded Axelrod’s hilarious Jack Nicholson impression in front of the MA statehouse yesterday was truly illuminating. Not to mention the even more hilarious spectacle a few days back of presidential press secretary Jay Carney plaintively whining that Romney was refusing to campaign nicely like that dear, sweet old loser McCain (Mitt’s campaign staff must have rolling on the floor over that one).
Just like the 2000 Battle of Floriduh, these people are totally discombobulated when their opponents use their own Alinsky bag-of-tricks against them.
Well said and I agree entirely. Some feel the major criticism of Romney is that he is dull and uninspiring, but he certainly has looked more presidential than Obama so far.
The President doesn’t run the economy. We’re not socialists…yet.
“All taxpayer money, none of it confined to only one failure and in technology whose merits none of us have any interest, expertise, and time to debate, other than for me to make the observation that Steven Chu’s fervent hope and desire that oil prices climbing much, much higher would be the first necessity for this business model to work in the real world without needing to be propped up by the government.”
I despise the theoretical world these morons in the Obama administration live in. Sure, Steven Chu wouldn’t mind oil prices skyrocketing just to help make his government-subsidized schemes more economical, but what are WE supposed to do while that happens? Unless you come up with a solar powered car real, real, fast, skyrocketing oil prices always have a devestating effect on both our economy and our wallets.
But Steven Chu could care less about that. These weasels from the halls of academia see both our economy and our paychecks as “social experiments,” not something YOU actually have to pay for and struggle with. They think our lives and our household budgets are something they can tinker with as if it were some sort of classroom assignment, rather than a family trying to figure out how they’re going to make the next mortgage payment in a lousy economy while trying to get to work with gas at $4.00 a gallon. Steven Chu doesn’t have to find a job, pay the family bills, or feel the pain at the gas pump. Only us poor jerks have to do that, the “great unwashed masses” who are supposed to be “greatful” for the knowledge these “smart” people are supposed to be handing down to us, as if they were Gods coming down from Mount Olympus being forced to deal with us mere mortals. What swine.
And when their plans fail and our economy is in tatters, they always say that, “Well, it was done with the best of intentions.” Do me a favor, stay back in your college classrooms and continue to soak those poor kids who keep coming to morons like you for a business education. They’re there on government student loans anyway, so as long as the government is paying the bills at least you know you’ll have a job. But for us poor folk, please leave us alone and go back to where you came from. After all, since we can see how well the colleges are doing financially these days by raising tuitions about 20% per year, we can see how well you guys can manage money. The last thing Washington needs is more people like you.
How to explain top-tier VC firms (and most of Silicon Valley firms) promoting the “alternative energy” scam? These guys are supposed to be the stewards of our future.
I then ask myself: How can any self-respecting investor, given the evidence, could be/support a Democrat?
You’re assuming that the returns on the investments come from the sale of products to customers. That isn’t necessarily true. If you expect returns in the form of government grants and subsidies, such investments are inherently rational, if morally dubious.
An easy answer. Support of alternative energy is rooted in the incentives provided. The VCs are simply responding to the stimulus, in this case, easy money provided by access provided by campaign contributions. They’re not stupid people in any form. When cheap money is available, they’re going to take advantage of it. This is very cheap money, and best of all, it’s OPM (other people’s money–ours, the taxpayers!!).
I think many here miss the starting assumption underlying much of the Left (including Obama’s) view of this issue, although sinz54 comes close.
If there are profits, then there must be losers–someone who DIDN’T make a profit. Thus, if the wholesaler buys, say, solar panels for $10 each, and sells at $12 each, then the solar panel manufacturer has “lost” $2 each (b/c what did the wholesaler do to earn his $2 extra per panel?).
Thus, if Bain made money, it is only because they must have gotten the money away from someone else, i.e., someone lost it.
Bain = robber barons
Government, however, makes its own money (never mind that taxation stuff, that’s just redistributive), and then gives it out w/ the help of wise bureaucrats who are unsullied by unworthy motives like enriching themselves or their friends.
Government = Robin Hood.
So, arguing to the Left that one could compare Bain with the government’s track record simply doesn’t compute.
Too right. I have heard exactly this argument made against capitalism, the markets. There is no concept of the creation of wealth, the making of a handful of seed corn into a bushel of corn, or the making of a bin full of parts into an F150.
Every now and then, I hear some leftist spout the “Government = Robin Hood” line. What they can’t grasp is that Robin Hood was stealing from the government tax collectors and giving the money back to the poor, thus eliminating the middle man.
Better robber barons than busybodies!
Libship,
Your comments above about the Gov’t financed student loans = economic enslavement of the next generation.
And this not by accident, but by design. Morally, no different than the drug pusher intentionally addicting his customers.
Lurking Observer has it right. Liberals are seeped in a Win-Lose mindset, for somebody to have gotten a what they want in a transaction, somebody else must have lost. The concept of capitalism where both parties in a transaction get what they want (Win-Win) is totally foreign to them, they do not understand that in order to get what THEY want, they have to work for it, or give up something they want less. Dealing with these people is like dealing with spoiled children, they can see what they want, and have no clue why they can’t just take it.
Six more months until we get some adults in charge. Hope we can survive until the Change.
geoffgo12: amen to that. This delusional thinking begins and ends in academia, which has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of government thanks to grants and student loans, and thanks to the self-congratulating coterie who circulate between cabinet posts and faculty lounges. As my mother used to say, they think money grows on trees.
This column is one of the very best –most percipient, most concise– analyses I’ve seen of why Obama should not want to debate Romney. On Bain, certainly; and maybe on anything else.
What happens when a sealed resume community organizer is elected to the chief executive of a $15T/yr national economy? To fundamentally change the American model and to attack businesses: is that a guarantee of chaos to leave prosperity through free enterprise behind? Will the rock star burn his guitar at the end of his performance? ABO 2012.
The democrats have three problems
1. Unlike previous Obama opponents, Romney is a squeaky clean Mormon. There aren’t any divorce transcripts to unseal or any DWI arrests.
2. Unlike Obama, Romney has an actual record of success turning around companies that have seemingly insurmountable problems. Bain’s success rate was about 78%. Staples employs 90,000 Americans. Obama has a record, too. He (using our money) bailed out GM. Fewer than 90,000 Americans work for GM and they haven’t returned a nickel to the treasury.
3. Obama’s policies are keeping private capital idle until the uncertainties of health care, energy, taxation, and massive over-regulation are revealed. Obama and his masters do not know (or care) what Americans want. It’s not food stamps, lifelong unemployment and free low quality health care. Most of my friends want Big Brother to get out of the way.
Lets put things into perspective ….. “Your First Amendment rights can be terminated,” yells the Chicago police officer, caught on video right before arresting two journalists outside a Chicago hospital.
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/01/11998060-first-amendment-rights-can-be-terminated-when-cops-cameras-dont-mix?lite
Now compare these 2 stories to the above action in US Constitutionality ……. Khrushchev said in this Glenn Beck Video , the USA would be transformed to Communism with small slow doses of socialism and wouldn’t even realize it till it was to late …. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU2C4vYwpjI&feature=player_embedded , then we have Obama saying this to Russian Prez Medvedev , http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120558/Obama-open-mic-Microphones-pick-U-S-President-boasting-Medvedev-winning-reelection.html
An excellent column; I’m glad I ignored the title and read it. Initially the title “How About We Compare the Investment Records of Bain Capital and the Obama Administration?” gave me pause, as it implicitly accepts the rebranding of ‘useless federal spending’ as ‘investments’ that socialists have foisted on us through their mastery of double-speak.
Have you noticed that every government program announced in the last 20 years by any left-leaning government has been labeled an ‘investment’? It’s enormously ironic that these haters of free markets have co-opted the jargon of capitalism to disguise their real intent: economic subjugation of the individual.
No one needs to run the economy. Just get out of the way, and the economy will run itself!
Gary, you’re actually spot on! Another commenter made the observation that neither one of these guys “run the economy;” the point I was trying to make is which of the two candidates is the better steward? The government-centric guy or the guy who keeps saying “let’s get out of the way” and has the actual chops to back it up.
*** There is a major difference between VC, PE, and Obama’s green “investments”. With VC and PE risk is spread among investments and losses are made up by profits from successful investments. This is because some level of ownership is retained.
Obama’s “investments” are loans given to companies, there is no ownership. The most return we will get will be nominal interest when the loan is repayed. That is of course if the loans are repayed at all. In the cases of all those companies that go bankrupt, the tax payers get stiffed. It is impossible to recoup those funds by other “investments” succeeding because the most we will get is the principal +5%.
As a whole, Obama’s portfolio is doomed to failure not just from a lack of diversity but by how it is funded and how the “investments” are paid back.
Very good point. Obamas green “investments” could not possibly succeed from the taxpayers point of view because with them being loan guarantees the gov gets nothing if the enterprise profits, and loses everything if they dont. So they were completely idiotic from an investment standpoint. Of course if your goal was to enrich bundlers and cronies, then maybe they were not so bad, since the cronies got the bennies, while any cost fell entirely on taxpayers.
There is a private sector analog for this, somebody who signs on as a 2nd borrower on a loan for an asset somebody else buys, like signing up as a 2nd on a home or business loan for your spendthrift relative or friend. I myself got burned by this when I signed up as the 2nd name on a loan for a relative, and ended up getting stuck with the payments when they defaulted. Investment professionals refer to these people as a patsy with a pen.
In Bains case, they got equity. That meant that whatever they lost in the few companies that failed, was more than made up for with large profits from the ones that succeeded.
Who would you rather have managing this nations finances, somebody who invested his own money and succeeded, or somebody who invested our money and failed.
Doesn’t anyone understand that team “great leader” has determined (and fully understood) that the jobs issue/economy/national indebtedness and this administration’s OBVIOUS failure to grow the economy and produce jobs is its BIGGEST liability?
Therefore, it must attack Romney because his GREATEST strength IS jobs creation, and that CAPITALISM works!
But, the administration fails to understand that Americans like CAPITALISM, they like to WORK, they like having self-respect and dignity for a job well-done, they like being able to take care of their families, and they like being INDEPENDENT of government intrusion.
These commies running the country, and their crony-capitalist cohorts, simply haven’t a clue how enraged Americans are at having their ability to SUPPORT their own families undermined by THUGS and MISCREANTS wearing “progressive” garb.
Very simple.. I want to see the financials on Obambi’s personal investment in those businesses that he squandered public money on.. If it was good enough for the taxpayer and he really thought it was a winner, would he not invest his own money?
Just check the list of his donors.
Obama has no more need for money in his personal life and his speaker fees will net him tens of millions but he has great need for campaign donations.
The premise of this post is absurd. The government is not a “for profit” business and comparing the two on that basis is juvenile.
Ask Mr. Romney about the investments in private the State of Massachusetts made under his administration. All of you who are cheerleading for “private industry” and no government subsidies are really just feeding the Chinese who are more than happy to subsidize industries (such as solar panels) until the US has no capabilities, then they will squeeze us on the price. That is simply anti-American (or anti-Amercian) if you prefer.
Oh yeah, and let’s get rid of the Ex-Im Bank, those manipulators of the “free” market. The efforts of the Ex-Im Bank to promote US business interests around the world only account for about a quarter of a million US jobs. But in pursuit of our pseudo-libertarian notions of free will you are driving our country into the ditch.
No, juvenile is thinking solar panels can run our electric grid. Children confuse toys for real tools; adults know the difference and don’t make that mistake. Solar panels are toys- come back when you’re ready to build a nuclear plant or a hydroelectric dam and we’ll take you seriously.
Who mentioned solar panels? Ooh, nuke plants, hydro dams (maybe guns or big bombs!)… I bet you have a great big power drill, an SUV or two, a chain saw even. Talk about juvenile. Come back when you have something to add to the conversation instead of crotch oriented talking points.
Three and a half years of “On The Job Training’, and he’s still trying to tell the teacher they’re wrong.
What a total fool.
I once had a retarded dog like that. Swat him with a newspaper for getting on the couch, and it would hang it’s head and curl up on the floor; As soon as you left the room, it was right back on the couch.
There are just some animals and people incapable of being educated. Then, there are some that can’t get enough education. Clearly, Obama is hard core ignorant, and he likes it that way.
“As soon as you left the room, it was right back on the couch.”
Well, would you like lounging around on the floor?