A local news site, Complete Colorado, has an interesting story today:
Former Denver Mayor and Obama National Campaign Co-chair Federico Peña has a résumé surprisingly similar to Mitt Romney’s.
President Obama continues to hammer presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney on his record with Bain Capital. In a fundraiser on Wednesday in Denver, the President continued to push the “Venture Capital Vampire” theme saying, “What Gov. Romney doesn’t seem to get is that a healthy economy doesn’t just mean a few folks maximizing their profits through massive layoffs or busting unions.” ….
Peña has been a partner at venture capital firm Vestar Capital since 2000. And while President Obama has been giving private equity a bad name, both Peña and Vestar managing director James Kelley have made recent contributions to Obama’s re-election efforts.
Visitors to Denver may recall driving down Peña Boulevard, named for Peña, who pushed through the new Denver Airport construction project during his time as Denver’s Mayor. DIA was budgeted for $1.7 billion but eventually cost $4.8 billion, was conspicuously over schedule, and eventually opened with an automated baggage handling system that didn’t work at the time, and never worked, finally being abandoned.
I have a question? Does Obama have money in the market? Any of it in firms like Bain? How about Pelosi? Reid? Anyone want to lay me some odds on this?
Well, I can answer the last question.
No.
He’s sure as hell not returning the Bain contributions: http://politicker.com/2012/05/president-obama-wont-be-returning-his-donations-from-bain-capital/
The problem is not vampire capitalists in private industry. It is vampire capitolists in DC, using the federal government to suck the blood out of the rest of the country.
O did a great job himself, with Solyndra. DOE invested $535 million. Company went bankrupt. 1100 jobs lost. Pensions destroyed. No severance pay, including nothing for vacation credits. Oh, but wait, the 20 “boys in the band” who managed the company received a total of $370,000 in bonuses for doing such an excellent job. Then “ditto” for Ener1, Beacon, and Fisker. $82 billion of taxpayer money to GM and Chrysler to preserve the unions’ pension funds while closing at least 1000 dealerships around the country. Oh, and 2500 non-union workers in GMs supply division were barred from competing for jobs at other GM plants.