The LuLac Edition #2079, June 5th, 2012

You'll be hearing a lot about this coming before election day.

  

BAIN OF OUR EXISTENCE

Until this year, I’d venture to guess that there were very few people in America who knew anything about Bain Capital. That is starting to change. Bane Capital is going to be front and center in this year’s Presidential campaign. GOP contender Mitt Romney will tell you how great Bain Capital was even if it paints him as a titan of big industry. One thing he doesn’t want to do is tell you about his health care law that was passed in the Bay State. If he championed that bill, (which some people say The Affordable Health Care Act was based on) he has to agree that the President’s Health Care bill isn’t all that bad. Romney has said, like other Republicans that he will get rid of the Act. If of course the Supreme Court, now a political wing of the Conservative Right, strikes it down. Bain Capital did the following: It is an alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit and public market investments. Bain invests across a broad range of industry sectors and geographic regions. As of the beginning of 2012, the firm manages approximately $66 billion of investor capital across its various investment platforms. The firm was founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Since inception it has invested in or acquired hundreds of companies including such notable companies as AMC Entertainment, Aspen Education Group, Brookstone, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Clear Channel Communications, Domino's Pizza, DoubleClick, Dunkin' Donuts, D&M Holdings, Guitar Center, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), Sealy, The Sports Authority, Staples, Toys "R" Us, Warner Music Group and The Weather Channel. So you see some of the companies Bain handled are recognizable. They are also companies that have been winners. If you show that list to the average American, all they’ll see is success. And for some Americans, they might see those companies as better than the companies they are working at now. Or worse yet, if they are unemployed, they might think that a Romney Presidency will get them some of those jobs in the Blue chip companies. That’s the good part about Bain Capital. But the President’s team has focused in on Bain as being helpful to the big investors but of no help to the working class. If you look at that list of companies, most of the rank and file jobs there are under 11 bucks an hour. The President’s team has been saying that while Bain made money for the big shots, it did little to advance the dwindling middle class. The President’s team has charged that Romney’s Bain invested 22 percent of the money it raised in five businesses that ended up filing for bankruptcy and walked away with a $578 million in profit. Meanwhile those laid off workers had to scratch for unemployment benefits. Obama’s team has stated that Bain was a stripping and flipping” company — sucking cash out of businesses, laying off workers, and eventually hitting bankruptcy all while making investors like Mitt Romney even richer. There are TV ads that say so too. One guy in an ad compared Romney and Bain to vampires sucking the blood out of employees. So, there are two sides to every story. It is true Romney made money at Bain and they invested in some companies that hit and some that missed. If you take a look at the ledger, you can’t deny that Bain created and saved jobs. And in another time, Bain and the guy who helped run it might be a good thing to keep the economic engine going. But there is a problem and it’s the fact that since 2001, when the GOP took office, they were hellbent on helping firms like Bain with tax breaks and government money. In the meantime, the middle class was squeezed by paying for two wars, having stagnated wages, no tax breaks until Obama took office and a Republican Congress that is deadest on destroying the middle class. 

IT IS A FACT THAT MIDDLE CLASS INCOME HAS STAYED STAGNANT SINCE 1996. 16 YEARS OF NO APPRECIABLE INCREASES.

What type of jobs were created during that time? Low paying ones. Bain Capital as a sole entity creates jobs. But not quality of life. The President’s stimulus plan didn’t help either because it wasn’t enough. Obama had leverage but instead choose to kiss the asses of a few GOP Senators that were going to knife him in the back anyway. This election will com,e down to the economy. The President will be the first occupant in the Oval Office since Franklin Roosevelt to run for re-election with an unemployment rate above 8%. Obama has to convince the country that things aren’t great but they are getting better. He also has to prove a Harry Truman and run against a GOP Congress that has been hellbent on being the most obstructionist legislative body in the history of modern Democracy. He has to say those words exactly or else the American people won’t understand. Meanwhile, he can’t demonize Bain because it did create jobs. Romney has a track record although it’s a record that won’t bring up the middle class. I feel that Romney in his heart might want to do that….but he will be a captive of his own party’s recalcitrant ideology. So for the next few months, you’ll hear about Bain. You’ll hear from the GOP how great it made the country. You’ll hear from the Obama administration how little it advanced the middle class. For years, Americans felt business had its place as an ignition for the economy. Americans trusted business. But that’s when business was fair and was content to make a decent profit and give its employees a fair shake. Wall Street and the near bankruptcy of this country changed that. On the economy, it will come down to this. Who do you trust? A creator of mediocre paying jobs or a leader who stumbled along the way, has as his core the restoration of the middle class. It’ll be your choice. And for political followers, the bane, aka bain of our very existence.  Wikipedia, AP, LuLac.