This might just be the bourbon talking, but if the Romney campaign had managed to turn the outsourcing/offshoring distinction into anything but potato/potatoh, oysters/ersters, I’d probably be sharpening the razors and drawing a hot bath. Let’s look at the guts of the Post story that they were trying to discredit:
Bain’s foray into outsourcing began in 1993 when the private equity firm took a stake in Corporate Software Inc., or CSI, after helping to finance a $93 million buyout of the firm. CSI, which catered to technology companies like Microsoft, provided a range of services including outsourcing of customer support. Initially, CSI employed U.S. workers to provide these services but by the mid-1990s was setting up call centers outside the country.
Two years after Bain invested in the firm, CSI merged with another enterprise to form a new company called Stream International Inc. Stream immediately became active in the growing field of overseas calls centers. Bain was initially a minority shareholder in Stream and was active in running the company, providing “general executive and management services,” according to SEC filings.
By 1997, Stream was running three tech-support call centers in Europe and was part of a call center joint venture in Japan, an SEC filing shows. “The Company believes that the trend toward outsourcing technical support occurring in the U.S. is also occurring in international markets,” the SEC filing said.
See that part in quotes in the last paragraph? That’s Stream (dancing on Bain’s string) doing exactly what the Romney campaign is accusing the Post of doing: failing to acknowledge the delicate, almost imperceptible difference between “offshoring” and “outsourcing”. That’s because “offshoring” is a kind of “outsourcing”–it’s the kind of outsourcing that sends jobs to Mumbai rather than a right-to-work state.
Let’s review the bidding: The Romney campaign is asked for a comment on a completely predictable story about Mitt’s outsourcing past at Bain. Instead of pushing back then, as a prepared campaign would do, they stonewall. After the story’s in print, they come up with a ridiculous, Jesuitical, hair-splitting distinction that they try to use to work the refs. Even the post-orchiectomy Post calls bullshit on that one. This isn’t rocket surgery. Barring a spectacular reboot, Romney’s a stone loser.
Eric k
If the Romney campaign keeps responding to stuff like this so hamhandedly he may end up with Bush level approval ratings.
If they think they can explain a subtle nuanced difference between outsourcing and offshoring to a bunch of workers who have down sized or live in constant fear of being downsized they’re even more delusional than I thought.
feebog
We havn’t even gotten into the campaign season yet, and rMoney has already stepped on his dick so many times it looks like a three day old ballon. I trust there is more out there, and that there are hundreds of little Obama elves digging into every dirty deal he ever made.
Roger Moore
Expect to hear from the Society of Jesus’ lawyers accusing you of defamation for comparing them to Mitt (R-Money).
D0n Camillo
@Eric k:
This is where never having been in fear of losing your job, having your pay slashed or losing health insurance can be a disadvantage. A lot of people have been badly affected by the last 5 years, and they really couldn’t give a shit about the difference between offshoring and outsourcing.
General Stuck
It’s kinda Clintonian, a question of what the meaning of ‘is’ is. Not even the WAPO would do a shot in the head for what’s left of their integrity. But the all out panic from the Romney, smells something like victory.
Linda Featheringill
“post-orchiectomy” WaPo
:-)
Jeff(the other one)
It is getting clearer and clearer every day that Rmoney’s campaign “brain trust”is seriously deficient in brains. I don’t know whether it is due to Mitt’s obvious deficiencies as a candidate, (let alone as a human being) or third rate campaigning, they just do not seem to be up to the job of putting on a major league campaign.
Perhaps this is due to his strategy of carpet bombing his rivals into submission. He never felt the need to develop a cogent message, or a staff that could think on its feet.
I think that Obama is going to wipe the floor with him.
(And I’m not being cocky in saying so)
JPL
Glenn Kessler needs to rethink his pinocchios for the President’s ad on outsourcing. He might have bought the Romney’s camp crap but fortunately his boss did not.
eric
allow me to break from the CW with the following. I do not think that people are auditioning for the VP spot. Instead, I think Romney is auditioning to the higher tier players because I think that those players see him as a 75-25 underdog and a terrible candidate that could do brand damage for their future. If I am one of those higher tier player, this episode makes think a third and fourth time about accepting the losing VP spot.
Martin
Outsourcing is all about risk management. You do it for things that have much more downside than upside, so you hand that stuff off for other people to take the risk on. The whole point of doing this is to absolve yourself of the responsibility of making jobs, relocating workers, paying benefits, etc. and instead just cutting a check to some 3rd party that you really don’t give a fuck where they are or how they do it.
Put short, once you outsource, you’re handing away responsibility to prevent offshoring. There’s simply no difference at that point. The only way to prevent offshoring is to:
1) Not offshore your own workers
2) Not outsource those workers to someone else
Bain intentionally failed that test.
Roger Moore
@D0n Camillo:
This is also the kind of messaging where the Republicans are usually miles ahead of the Democrats. You want to keep the message simple and easily digestible, not complex and dependent on fine distinctions. If your message can’t fit on a bumper sticker or in a tweet, it’s not going to sell.
slightly-peeved
Well, that’s much better for Mitt – he’ll still be unpopular with everyone who has a job now, but this’ll increase his popularity with all those unemployed Republican voters. Great trade.
It seems Mitt Romney has taken ‘you can never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people’ as some sort of challenge.
RinaX
I’m shocked, shocked at all of this. I was assured by many important media types, and certain liberal bloggers (a few may or may not blog here), that this Bain stuff wasn’t working and the Obama campaign needed to move on already or else they were DOOOOOOMED!!!!
Litlebritdifrnt
Like I said earlier the best line of today was from Joe Biden. “Two guys are stood in the unemployment line, one says to the other were you offshored or outsourced”. Of course neither of the guys are going to give a rats arse about which it was. Joe Biden is an actual treasure, and should be sent out on the campaign trail every day and twice on Sundays.
Also it was monumentally stupid for the Romney campaign to go to the Post and ask that this story be retracted. As Charles at LGF and Weigel said all it does it drive more traffic to the story and keep it in the news for several more days.
dmsilev
(from here)
That’s pretty much all that needs to be said.
slightly-peeved
‘underestimating the INTELLIGENCE.’ goddammit.
eric
@dmsilev: when i heard the line i thought New Yorker cartoon. that is a BRILLIANT line
Mental note: Obama campaign is a wee be better than the campaigns of rick perry, newt, and herman cain. Welcome to the big leagues mr hobbs. ;)
dmsilev
@eric: Biden is basically the anti-Romney. And it certainly helps that he’s obviously enjoying the endless opportunities to rhetorically smash Romney in the mouth.
ericblair
I think they already rebooted him, and he came up in safe mode.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
There’s also some outsourcing that’s about focusing your business and depending on outside specialists for the rest of what you do. Some of this is about cutting costs by not offering low skill workers benefits and letting a contractor take the heat for it, but there’s something to be said for letting Sodexo run your company’s cafeteria, Instashred handle your document destruction, Waste Management deal with your trash, etc. Of course those companies are all providing on-site services, so offshoring isn’t really an option.
eric
@dmsilev: plus, it appears that there really is a republican bob schrum and he works for romney
Roger Moore
@ericblair:
FTMFW!
David Koch
actions speak-y louder den just words
despite media elites saying Bain was a non issue, polls and mitten’s panic-y, desperate plaintiff plea to WaPo prove otherwise.
PeakVT
@Jeff(the other one): Romney and his campaign weren’t that impressive during the primaries, either. He won because the other candidates were less well-funded and outright crazy.
cat48
@Eric k:
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@Jeff(the other one):
“It is getting clearer and clearer every day that Rmoney’s campaign “brain trust”is seriously deficient in brains. I don’t know whether it is due to Mitt’s obvious deficiencies as a candidate, (let alone as a human being) or third rate campaigning, they just do not seem to be up to the job of putting on a major league campaign.”
I think Rmoney is an awful candidate, but I also think that he can’t stand not being in charge, which means nobody can help him to get any better. I think he won’t have anybody working for him who has the good sense to whip him into shape, since that would mean telling good ol’ Mitt what to do, and he won’t have it. I recall a few months ago, some staffer helped him with his debating, and it worked, and everybody was talking about how much better he was, and then Rmoney fired the guy for outshining him or something. The guy has real problems, bad ones. He needs help.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Roger Moore:
One of our local “sausage factory” personal injury law firms decided on a whim to place all their paralegals on “independent contractor” status, cancelling all their benefits, and issuing a 1099 at the end of the year, while still expecting them to work the 40 hours a week that they had been previously. Apparently the attorneys were not making enough money to pay their employees a living wage.
Keith
Congrats on Mitt for feeding the news cycle!
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt:
This reminds me a lot of the sort of distinction that the vile Jeanne Kirkpatrick made about the difference between an “authoritarian” and a “totalitarian” government. If you’re being tortured by either, the distinction is without the slightest difference.
Biden absolutely nailed this. OvenMitt again looks like a tool. Except he’s not as useful as a tool.
General Stuck
Though I can’t find any write ups yet at my usual stops, was listening to a NPS segment driving in the truck about the coming auto cuts to the military, that wingnuts first proposed and agreed to in the debt ceiling deal. With the usual suspect war pigs, with Gramps Mccain leading the way.
They are going to hold rank and file workers in the MIC as hostages in this one, with companies like Lockheed and other big defense contractors planning to send out notices of coming layoffs due to the cuts to begin in Jan 2013. Seems their is a law called the Warren Act, or something that requires defense industry corps to notify 60 days in advance, when they plan to lay off workers. Which will work out about a week before the election. Of course, Lockheed notifying all 130,000 of their employees that they plan to do, is no where remotely near the number of layoffs that might occur later on. Then there is Rambo Mccain complaining that roughly cutting 50 billion year off an 700 billion military budget, is going to bring hordes of terrorist and russkies, and gawd knows what other barbarians to our gates. Both excuses are bullshit, of course. The real reason is to keep funneling to the MIC to make more rich people, and keep the war profiteering plutocrat contingent fat and happy
bleh
@Eric k:
Could we please be clear from the start: there is no difference between offshoring and outsourcing. Why? Because the firms to which one outsources — I know this from personal experience — offshore almost all of the jobs, and indeed many of them are non-US firms. The (apparent) cost advantage of offshoring is precisely why they are able to offer an (apparently) attractive outsourcing deal.
There. Is. No. Difference. Anyone who believes there is, or says they do, is a fool or a liar.
Wiesman
Dammit, I just posted this in the last thread about this massive fail.
Your honor I strenuously object.
http://somedisagree.com/2012/06/27/your-honor-i-strenuously-object/
jl
Saw a clip of Biden already joking about this: “Two people in line unemployment office and one asks the other ‘So, did you get outsourced of offshored.’ Literally folks, literally. No Joke! God love ’em” or someting like that.
Bain hid under private equity label, but from what I have read it was mostly leveraged buyouts. So, there will more Ampads (I felt like I was building my own coffin) than GSKs or Staples.
And even for distresed companies that asked Bain in, there will look see at who carted away tons of money, who got shafted and who (taxpayers maybe?) had to pick up the tab for the shafted (to extent that the tab was picked up).
Where financial and legal and tax loophole gimmickry produced incentives for Bain and the target company execs to make gazillions by elmininating or downsizng a firm, and shafting the laid off workers. Makes no differene whether it was offshoring or outsourcing, or Bain handled it in house or contracted it out.
Whatver, it damage the US economy (ie, inefficient corporate rent seeking), was wrong for the workers, and cost joe taxpayer some bucks.
The story has money and high drama, so it should stay in the news. Now if we cand find one with a sex angle, that will be newsworthy trifecta.
Nice that Romney started off by BSing.
joes527
@eric: Only makes sense if there is a chance of Romney getting booted at the convention.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
The only thing that would be more disastrous for the GOP than Romney coming out of Tampa the nominee would be Romney not coming out of Tampa the nominee.
I’m sure that Trump is ready in the wings but sadly, no.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
EDIT:
Do we have odds yet on who come out first with he line: “Biden was laughing at the unemployed!”
Calouste
@dmsilev:
Biden is the guy who put Rudy Guilliani’s chances of the Presidency 6 feet under by mentioning that every sentence of his consisted of a noun, a verb and 9/11.
jl
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Dang, you beat me to it.
Biden has been out doing speeches to unions and community groups on a regular basis. Seems like at least one big speech a week.
David Koch
You. Can’t. Make. This. Up.
Villago Delenda Est
The Rmoney campaign staff is demonstrating that they do not have the slightest fucking clue as to what they are supposed to be doing.
All they are doing is reinforcing the Obama campaign’s points about the record of OvenMitt.
Putting lipstick on the pig that is OvenMitt is a hopeless task.
Brilliant.
scav
Biden is providing some pretty solid evidence of why it’s often better to already have a date to this particular dance rather than still be at the flirting and come-hither-fluttering-eyelashes stage of the game.
Patricia Kayden
“Barring a spectacular reboot, Romney’s a stone loser.”
Hope you’re right about the Bot. If he wins, America will be the stone loser.
Steve
I come from Detroit where the debate started long ago, only we were mostly talking about automation killing jobs as opposed to outsourcing or offshoring. But it all amounts to the same thing – these good blue-collar jobs keep draining away and they never seem to come back.
Honestly, maybe there’s nothing to be done about it, maybe all this is just economic forces at work and those workers are screwed regardless. Maybe it really is like the automobile driving all the buggy-whip manufacturers out of business. But the thing is, electing someone like Mitt Romney would basically be putting the stamp of approval on the whole process, saying that not only are we okay with these jobs going away, we’re actually in agreement that it’s a good and healthy thing and the economy really ought to work this way. What a depressing thought.
SFAW
From your lips to FSM’s noodle-y ears.
I know, I know, too much to hope for.
Ruckus
Barring a spectacular reboot, Romney’s a stone loser.
Have to be the most spectacular reboot in the solar system. Probably have to be in the range of a supernova.
joes527
@David Koch:
The jokes – they write themselves.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
He also came up with the bumper sticker worthy “Bin Laden is Dead, and GM is Alive”.
SFAW
Don’t worry, Mitt will outsource/offshore it to Alpha Centauri.
cat48
Now, Rombot complaining about all of the Prez’s negative ads! heh
Pot, Kettle
Litlebritdifrnt
@jl:
And they should keep him doing it, he is the real deal, he really is, and people get it. Biden is one of the few politicians in Washington that has NOT become a millionaire while he has been an elected official. He had something like 300K in income last year, that was his salary along with Jill’s. While I know that is a lot of money for your average Joe it is fucking peanuts for most of those on the take in DC. Joe is the best person in the world to get out there and tell it like it is.
gwangung
I’d be OK with it if there’s a rational plan to get those workers back into the economy and contributing.
But Romney, like most MBA CEOs, I suspect, isn’t thinking any further than the next quarterly report.
Difference between a corporation and a country.
dmsilev
Excellence in Campaign Staff Work:
(from TPM)
SFAW
But-but-but-but Neil Kinnock ! ! !
Yeah, Joe’s a pisser. (I mean that in a good way.)
Pen
Outsourcing vs Offshoring. If you care about the difference it’s not your job on the line.
The fact that Romney thinks people outside of the pundit circles and Fox echo chamber really says a lot about his campaign’s intelligence.
pk
Jeff(the other one) Says:
I’m not sure it’s his brain trust which is at fault. How can anyone possibly present this nonsense in a favorable light? At some point people do realize that the emperor has no clothes. They may get fooled again and again, but the stupidity of the republicans is reaching such absurd levels that only the most stubbornly ignorant are going to vote for Romney.
Ruckus
@ericblair:
I think they already rebooted him, and he came up in safe mode.
There is nothing safe about mittens. If, IF the was a reboot, it is hopefully in destruct mode.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
The big-hearted, wise-cracking sidekick is the white guy?.
He is the real deal, and yeah, Joe oughta be out there every single day.
Yutsano
@pk:
Is he a straight white male? You’d be amazed for how many people that’s good enough.
shortstop
@pk:
Certainly think that’s true, but I also think of all the times they should have had their message (weak as it had to be) prepared, were caught flatfooted and flailed — his tax returns, immigration, the Ledbetter Act (during a call designed to convince reporters of his support for the XX crowd), etc., etc.
shortstop
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Refreshing, no?
@Yutsano: 40-odd percent. Every time.
Yutsano
@shortstop: Not a dirty librul hippie who gives away hard earned tax dollars to young bucks with T-bone steaks. Also. Too.
Xenos
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That is so not going to fly with the IRS. Those attorneys must have been hard up, and stupid, if they did not get some decent advice from a tax lawyer about doing this.
bjacques
@ericblair: He’s made by Cisco and he booted up in ROMMON mode.
My CCNA recertification exam is tomorrow.
If one thinks the people are really stupid, it sets a low bar for one’s own intelligence, and sets one up for failure when the people do occasionally wise up.
You can outsource to companies that are still in America. And if you offshore, Hawaii, Puerto Rico or even the Northern Marianas are offshore. Thought about that? Romney’s created more American jobs than you all have. In theory.
ThresherK
(Real late, but the Fred and Ginger fans tip their hat to the post title.)