As Cole notes, Bain Capital is the gift that keeps on giving. The Obama campaign handed it over wrapped up nice and the media is now running around with it like kids on a Christmas morning sugar-high.
Even if Romney hadn’t committed perjury about his involvement, the ongoing discussion about Bain Capital’s investment activities (as outlined in the Bloomberg article by Anthony Luzzatto Gardner that Cole and I both linked to) would be almost enough to sink the SS Willard at the very beginning of its three-hour tour.
Romney’s only real selling point (other than not being near) is that he is a “businessman” who can run the country at a profit for everyone.
Now that talking point is being supplanted by the reality that Romney was a venture capitalist corporate raider who didn’t care about building businesses, but was prepared to do anything, no matter how dodgy, no matter how many lives and companies were destroyed, to make money for Bain Capital, its partners and its sole shareholder, one Willard Mitt Romney.
Speaking of whom, commenter Gin & Tonic points to an interesting article by Henry Blodget at Blodget’s Business Insider.
Blodget speculates about just how Romney collected the hoard of gold he sleeps on every night.
This is also probably part of the explanation about how Romney got so rich so fast: If he was the sole shareholder of Bain Capital 15+ years after its founding, this would be like Steve Schwarzman being the sole shareholder of The Blackstone Group, a private-equity firm he co-founded and runs. The Blackstone Group trades publicly and is worth more than $6 billion (and has thousands of shareholders in addition to Mr. Schwarzman). So unless Mitt Romney sold out of a lot of his stake in Bain, it would be conceivable that he could be worth a great deal more than the $250 million most people think he is worth.
(Bain isn’t public, so we can’t assess its financials. But it’s a big, successful private equity firm, so it is presumably worth a lot.)
Lastly, these filings may explain how Romney could legitimately have accumulated so much money in his IRA.
If Romney was given 100% of the stock of Bain Capital when it was started, he might well have stashed some of these shares in his IRA. At that moment, when Bain Capital was little more than a document of incorporation, the shares would have been worth basically zero. So Romney could have perfectly legitimately stuffed a big percentage of the stock of Bain Capital in his IRA and still not exceeded the $2,000 annual donation limit.
I’m also intrigued by this part of Blodget’s piece:
The filings said that Romney was the “sole shareholder” of Bain Capital in the 1999-2002 period, more than 15 years after Bain Capital was founded.
If this is true, it is very startling, and it raises a host of additional questions:
Why would Romney be the sole shareholder of a firm launched within Bain Consulting? Wouldn’t Bain want to own a piece of it?
Why did Romney get 100% ownership of the firm?
Weren’t there any other partners added along the way?
Etc.
Now, it’s clear that Bain Capital has always had a number of partners, starting off with 5 and rising to 18 in about 1999 when Romney “departed” to play at Olympics for a few years. They were presumably being remunerated pretty well, even if they didn’t own the company. I can also see that there were legitimate conflict of interest reasons for keeping the two Bain businesses separate.
However, it still puzzles me how Bain Capital managed to become almost entirely a cash cow for Mitt Romney’s IRA.
Lawyers advised separating the investing venture from the consulting business to avoid a conflict of interest. To ease Mr. Bain’s concerns about yielding control, Mr. Romney set up a complicated partnership structure that gave Mr. Bain the right to fire him. In the early years, Bain & Company partners received a cut of Bain Capital profits, as well, although Mr. Romney later persuaded Mr. Bain to give that up.
Still, Mr. Bain recalled, “all the risk and investment was basically on my side. I was clearly putting my neck on the line and the company on the line.”
Can someone explain this to me?
HinTN
Corporate raider, not venture capitalist. Make it stick!!!
jwb
Somebody clearly had an interest in making Mitt very, very wealthy. You might think that would be to set him up for politics, but they went about it in too dumb a fashion for that to have been the purpose at the time. So, it’s an excellent question: how did this arrangement come to be. Clearly, there is a big secret that is being hidden, and I think it’s deeper though perhaps not any more politically significant than what’s been floated so far.
Nutella
He must have known where a whole lot of bodies were buried at Bain & Co.
HinTN
Well, duh, my personal innertubes are definitely hosed.
Gin & Tonic
Humbled by the mention, but don’t confuse venture capitalists, who generally take actual risks and add real benefit to society, with “vulture capitalists”, or a significant portion of LBO/private equity operators, who do not generally provide a net gain to the economy.
The actual VC firms, at least in (computer) tech and biotech, enable the formation of companies like Google or Genentech. Yes, they make a shitload of money, but they result in something being produced or sold.
HinTN
Rinse and repeat. Sorry for the technical difficulties.
HinTN
I support the real venture capitalists. They make the engine hum. Willard, not so much IMHO.
Mark S.
It had shareholders and partners? Is that very common? Did it file taxes as a corporation or a partnership?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@HinTN:
You’re right (several times, in fact). I fixed.
Desert Dog
Yep…I’ve worked at several venture-capital funded companies over the past forty years and they actually fund with the idea that the company will become successful and they (and the employees) will make $ down the road. They play an important role.
WHat Mitten’s company was doing can only be classified as a “Corporate Raider”.
lamh35
speaking of Romney, yeah this happened: Romney says waiters at fundraiser “aren’t having a good year”
um…WOW!
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Mark S.:
It seems always to have been a private, limited liability company, but they consistently used “partner” to refer to the main vultures, even though Mitt was the only shareholder.
I suspect this is because it was an LLC.
This still doesn’t explain why Mitt got handed a fucking fortune that Bain & Company probably should have shared in.
gbear
@lamh35: I hope he says that sometime when the waitstaff is serving the desert pie. I’d like to see a video of Mtt getting pasted in a Marx Brothers’ level food fight.
the Conster
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Bain Capital Inc. was most likely the GP of the various limited partnerships or managing member of the LLCs created to hold the various assets. Limited partners/LLC members aren’t involved in the day to day activities, but receive distributions of the profits left after the GP/managing member takes its cut and settles expenses of doing business. Also, single member LLCs are often used to act as GP of LPs or managing member of other LLCs, because they’re pass through entities for tax purposes. The tax liability flows through to the parent entity. This is a common structure for corporate holdings.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@lamh35: That’s certainly a good way to encourage someone to spit in your soup, ain’t it?
WaynersT
Every day I get more curious about what’s in his taxes.
It must really be something if he managed to get over $100 million into an IRA.
I wonder if it’s possible there might be some years he paid 0 in taxes. There’s something really weird going on in those taxes. I bet he’s worth closer to a billion and has gamed the system in ways no one knew possible.
NotMax
Ah, the conundrum of confusing “partners” with “partners.”
Sarah, did you ever watch Babylon 5?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA7EJJv1oWg
Hill Dweller
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: I thought of Fight Club when reading Willard’s quote about the waiters.
Wazmo
Perhaps he was forced to pay IRS amnesty in recent returns over his Swiss accounts and doesn’t want that disclosed?
Narcissus
I bet his tax returns show he has a really, really expensive porn habit. The kind of porn habit only a Mormon could have.
Culture of Truth
11 dimensional chess, fuckers!
lol
Don’t forget that Friday we get a fresh round of Bain talk because of the Dark Knight Rises. No editorial cartoonist in the country is going to be able to resist the image of Bain breaking Romney’s back.
trollhattan
@Narcissus:
Videos of women with no underpants and no children drinking Irish coffees?
Hill Dweller
@Culture of Truth:
David Corn, who I suspect has received plenty of info from the campaign, said today that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Obama campaign is going to continue releasing stuff from now until November.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Narcissus: ‘zactly! When we drove through Salt Lake a few years ago I was astounded by how many strip clubs there were downtown. And they were everywhere.
Mnemosyne
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Romney will be lucky if it’s just spit. I’ve read Waiter Rant.
karen marie
Holy shit!
burnspbesq
@Wazmo:
In the event (which I consider extremely unlikely, but neither you nor I know a damn thing for certain) that the Romneys participated in one of the OVDIs (Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative), it wouldn’t show up on their returns. OVDI cases are resolved by means of a closing agreement.
Steve in DC
Oh fuck I’m going to say it but…
In defense of Mitt… (forgive me for now I’ll slaughter him later) it does “make sense”. Leaves of absence and merry go round officers are par for the course for any large firm, corporation, non profit, or NGO. And 100k is a rounding error in most cases. Oh well.
The real issue is 99% (lol) of the population has never seen this in action, and it seems shady as fuck that you can pay a person a salary to do nothing. Oh well. I’m very familiar with people being paid for years after “leaving” retiring years later, still having an office and being listed on records. That’s one of those reasons you pay out the ass for an ivy league education, pays like that.
The damning thing is, what do they offer? It’s usually a buddy buddy issue, or used to grease over transactions you wouldn’t have had before. And still you pull down a “kill bonus” of contracts, awards, and others received while you’re on the tab.
The killer is that this is such an alien concept to most people, their heads will explode.
The real damage here is just how unfair things are, and Romney is about to show that. Sure it’s legal, sure it’s “OK”, but it’s fucking WRONG on a human level. Somewhere, a couple dozen people could have eaten another meal, yet Mitt got a tax break for his horse and was paid to do nothing. All legal, and that’s the real crime.
clayton
Linda?
burnspbesq
@WaynersT:
There are (at least arguably) legitimate ways that could have happened. First, it would have to have been a SEP-IRA, into which he could have put $30K/yr. Second, it would have to have been funded with VERY aggressively valued common stock of highly leveraged entities. Third, it would have to have hit multiple five-run home runs over an extended period of time.
The valuation is the issue into which the IRS could sink its teeth on audit. Alas, the statute of limitation has almost surely run.
Joseph Nobles
@Steve in DC: $100,000 is the bottom figure that Mitt’s salary could have been. It’s described as being in the “$100K and above” range.
jayboat
@Steve in DC:
Right on, brother.
Joseph Nobles
@burnspbesq: I’ve heard that he may have stashed $2,000 worth of Bain stock into the IRA every time he could. That stock went through the roof.
Steve in DC
@burnspbesq:
Beyond that… “swiss banks” is fear mongering. I’m rather modest and I have foreign holdings from working there. You got a 401k? Odds are you deal with other than American banks, check your statement. Granted a 401k is elitest enough, but clobbering people over that sort of crap hits the “working class”.
I also kinda get how Mitt made his “uber IRA” it’s not uncommon or just the 1%. Thing is, the rest of us don’t get told when that shit craters, see ENRON.
And that’s my gripe, it’s not how much Mitt made, I could give a fuck, it’s the rule system. You know what makes me cry at night? The lack of finacial advice going around. I was lucky, most are not. But the rules aren’t far and if you are on the short end of the stick you have a precious few of your most young and vulnerable years to figure life out and set yourself up. If you’re black, female, gay, born to someone not in the upper 10%, you lose that chance, and thus are ruined. For something you, well, what? Were just born that way. Even if you are a white male, shit most aren’t born into the easy way out.
And then, you spend your whole life hearing from Brooks and Broder that the only way out is to sell your soul, accept your lot in life, never mind that you were fucked from the start, and suck it up. All while their friends automate more things, bask in more wealth, and tell you to work for less and dream less.
As an atheist, if I ever believed in god he’d have to be one ironic motherfucker and one hell of an ass. Because viewing your own value to the world in terms of how much you can spend instead of help, is surely not the message any sort of compasionate god would have wanted.
El Cid
@Joseph Nobles: What? Mitt Romney channelled $100 million to IRA terrorists to buy off Boston politicians? Well, I don’t know if it’s true, but, it’s out there.
Steve in DC
@Joseph Nobles:
I’ve been in the corporate world, non profit, ngo, and contractor world, even if it was a million, could still be a rounding error… it’s not the money that’s the issue.
burnspbesq
@Joseph Nobles:
I can’t get my head around what the rate of return would have to be in order to turn a series of fifteen $2,000 annual deposits into $100 million 13 years after the last deposit. I’m pretty certain it would have to be a five-digit number.
Joseph Nobles
@Steve in DC: Well, maybe it’s not the issue for you.
Steve in DC
@Joseph Nobles:
What do you care honestly?
Is the crime what Mitt made? Or is it how he fucked everybody else over to make that sum?
That’s the real question here. I say the crime is the second.
SFAW
@El Cid:
Well, he only did it because he was trying to out-Irish Teddy Kennedy during the 1994 campaign, in order to win the all-important Southie and Dot votes, and he heard that funding the IRA was a good way to do that, for Padraig’s sake!
TooManyJens
@lamh35:
Jesus CHRIST. Does he even know they’re people?
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: delete “five-digit” from comment 38, substitute “astronomical.”
Also too. FYWP.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Desert Dog:
VCs are the people who loan the farmers money to buy seed, in exchange for a taste of the resulting crops (assuming they grow… hence the risk).
The Romneys of the world are basically locusts. They wait til the crops grow, then they come to feast before anyone else can.
And if the farm is laid all to waste afterwards? Oh well. Cost of doing business.
Ash Can
@karen marie: Hell of a catch. Nice work!
El Cid
@SFAW: This is totally unfair.
He was retroactively retired from funding the IRA terrorists at the very time his leadership of IRA independence fighter funding proves he has the guts to lead America, though only liberal Democrat documents claim that he had anything to do with this IRA funding scheme at the time it was going on.
Villago Delenda Est
Photo spread of Mr. Bain with live boy, dead girl, and guzzling Woolite in Mr. Rmoney’s possession.
burnspbesq
@Steve in DC:
And politics ain’t beanbag. All of Romney’s wounds are self-inflicted. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to run every play in the offshore deferral playbook. The IRA is the least of it. It’s the Bermuda companies, the Cayman blockers, the gazillion PFICs (none of which appear to have made QEF elections).
If he didn’t anticipate that the optics of his tax returns would suck, he’s too stupid to be dogcatcher, much less Presdient.
Ash Can
@lamh35: I don’t think he’s capable of uttering anything that isn’t completely tone-deaf.
SFAW
@El Cid:
No doubt filed with the SEC, i.e. the SinnFein Explosives Clearinghouse.
Steve in DC
@burnspbesq:
I never called it out of bounds, pound on pound on. It shows the true story. Though, more than just the 1% have foreign accounts. It’s life.
Spatula
I haz a confuzed about something: Why exhaust the Bain ammo now? Isn’t it possible that if Mitt’s candidacy is going down in flames the GOP could pick someone else at their convention?
Seems it would make sense to land this seemingly mortal blow AFTER the nomination is secure.
thoughts anyone?
SFAW
@Ash Can:
Oh, I don’t know. I thought he did a perfectly stunning rendition of “America The Bought-n-Sold”
KG
@Steve in DC: I’m with you that it’s the second. Though, I’ll add another crime, and that’s how royally fucked the system is designed
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
No doubt filed with the SEC, i.e. the SinnFein Explosives Clearinghouse.
Which explains the false SEC filings. You couldn’t very well tell the world that Gerry Adams was CEO and Slab Murphy was CFO.
Walker
@Steve in DC:
This is a nonsense Republican talking point that I have seen many times now. If my 401k works with a foreign bank, I am not personally using that bank for tax avoidance.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Shit. You DO realize that we’ve just given Mittens the escape route he needed, don’t you?
Teach me to be a smart-ass, it will.
burnspbesq
@Spatula:
You’re assuming a fact not in evidence when you use the word “exhaust.” This could just be the salad, with soup, a main course, fava beans and a nice Chianti to follow.
Steve in DC
@KG:
Than we shall agree to agree, I’m on your side in all of this, I just am not bound by your identity politics.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Are you having a friend for dinner, perchance?
TheMightyTrowel
@burnspbesq: surely you mean fava bains
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
If you’re running for President of the United States and the statute of limitation is your best friend, you have a slight problem.
satanicpanic
@Hill Dweller: It occured to me that because of who McCain is, they probably went easy on him, but they’ll have no such qualms about utterly destroying Romney. Romney is already in a world of hurt, and they’re just starting. If I were a conspiracist I would say the ruling class is just allowing us a little class war by proxy because Mitt is going to be on the receiving end of an epic beatdown.
Jess
@Steve in DC: Totally agree. And this is what Gergen and the other Mitt apologists don’t get. What seems normal and legitimate in their one-percenter bubble is wildly offensive and outrageous to the rest of us peasants. I think (I hope, anyway) that the middle class will finally get what the OWS thing is all about. It’s tempting to see this as another example of Obama’s long game strategy; it’s not just about taking down Mitt, but putting vulture capitalism on the dock and getting the middle class to understand just how badly the dice are loaded. (Just read what I wrote, and I think it’s time to take my mixed-metaphors off to bed…night folks!)
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
I actually did have fish tacos for dinner, if you must know.
She wasThey were delicious.Captain C
@Narcissus: Maybe he was deducting said habit as a business expense?
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Statue with limitations? Is that like the Venus de Milo?
Rafer Janders
@burnspbesq:
Nicely done.
Steve in DC
@Walker:
But you still did invest in one no?
And that’s the thrust of the issue, where do we draw the line. I for one would be perfectly happy to have my RIRA, IRA, 403b, 401k all in US firms, but I have fuck all control over that. I don’t know what the IRA credit items I buy invest in, I just spend an hour a month at my credit union (go go Navy Federal, fuck banks).
Frankly, I don’t make enough or have enough spare time to monitor just what the fuck I am investing in.
That’s reality for those of us in the 10% or whatever, we aren’t the 1%
KG
@Spatula: The only way the GOP could pick someone else is if Romney withdrew his candidacy (I’ll wit while you stop laughing…. Still waiting… Waiting…. Ok, we good? Ok), because the delegates are bound to vote for him. No other candidate won enough sages to have his name nominated to the delegates (you need five states, Paul got four).
And really, who would the GOP pick if not Romney? The floor fight that would result would cause a popcorn bubble in the commodities market. There’s no second choice that would satisfy the various wings of the party (though, there rarely is).
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
I am envious.
Tough to get good ones where I live, and I’m too dimwitted to make them meself.
Wazmo
@burnspbesq: There would still be some documentation, no?
Quarks
Are Swiss bank accounts inherently evil? No. Do several U.S. citizens hold funds in international banks or in funds that invest in international banks? Sure.
That doesn’t change the slight problem that the many voters associate “Swiss bank accounts” with arm dealers, criminals, war lords, Magneto, James Bond bad guys and people who think James Bond bad guys are about to kill them. That’s the association Romney has to contend with, and he doesn’t seem to be doing a particularly good job of assuring people that Swiss bank accounts are not just for Bad Guys.
MikeJ
@KG:
This isn’t necessarily so. The party in each state would determine if their delegates are really bound or not. Even if you did need a ruling from the national party, if the big guys decided to ditch Mitt they could simply instruct the rules committee to make it all nice and proper.
KG
@Steve in DC: Oh, I’m fairly sure my identity politics are nothing like anyone else’s around here
SFAW
@KG:
Jeb
Angus King
Jodi Rell
Christie
Harold Stassen
burnspbesq
@Steve in DC:
At the risk of being a smart-ass, it doesn’t take all that long to read a mutual fund prospectus.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Spatula:
Who says the Bain ammo is exhausted?
Even if it is, Mitt wounded all the way to the convention is pretty good.
Mitt tanking and being replaced at the convention is even more devastating for the Rubes. Any minute now some wingnut or other is going to start talking about dumping Mitt and then the fun starts.
Who are they going to choose – one of the Circus of Morons who even Mitt managed to beat in the primaries, or some new face with no national organization and who no one voted for in the primaries?
satanicpanic
@SFAW: I’m not proud of it, but I have been really lazy and made them with frozen food section fishsticks.
Steve in DC
@Jess:
Jess, the problem you have, and the cliff you must cross is that some areas earn more than others. I’d love to see a study on just how bad it gets but for all we in DC, NY, CA, IL, cry and moan, we make more and thus save more.
I can safely say 100k isn’t much in DC, 200k either. I know that sounds insane, and it is, but given cost of living. And this is what fucks the Democrats, they can’t tax people fairly without going for that magical 250k+ (nicely pegged to DC and NYC prices I might add) number and still work for the working class.
Us urban folk need to get hit silly on sub 50k income and savaged on it higher for it to matter. This is on top of taxing income over 250k at atleast 70%.
It will also solve the side issue of having elite democrats sending their kids to private schools while asking for higher taxes to fund schools their kids aren’t in, fuck that. Public schools ONLY.
We need a radical solution.
KG
@MikeJ: True, though I can’t imagine it’ll go over so well with the Tea Party Types and their Second Amendment remedies
xian
@Steve in DC: we appreciate your *concern*
Captain C
@burnspbesq:
Plus, they’re doing a very good job early in the campaign of defining Rmoney as a vulture capitalist, a liar, and a possible crook (and if not a crook, someone who is very experienced at gaming the system); plus they’re putting a serious dent (if not more) in the idea that Rmoney is a “job creator” (i.e one of the main “rationales” for his candidacy). Once such a definition takes hold, everything he does will be seen through that filter, and it will be very difficult for Rmoney to change it, especially since, well, it’s all pretty true.
JustAnotherBob
I can’t get my head around what the rate of return would have to be in order to turn a series of fifteen $2,000 annual deposits into $100 million 13 years after the last deposit. I’m pretty certain it would have to be a five-digit number.
Baring a mistake on my part, only 52.86%.
Pretty much want my stocks earned year in and year out. Didn’t yours?
burnspbesq
@Wazmo:
Just the closing agreement and the agent’s file, which are return information protected from disclosure under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103, which means they are Exemption Three material not available under FOIA.
Steve in DC
@burnspbesq:
Eh all the firms, corporate, NGO, contractor, non proift, picked the fund choices for me, so I didn’t really have a choice. It’s gain based, off the funds from the same firms in your plan. I’m high growth through 203x.
SFAW
@satanicpanic:
Breaded or unbreaded?
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Gee, what a shock, the guy from an Ivy League family thinks everyone has foreign holdings. I mean, everyone Steve knows has them, so that means that everyone does, amirite?
Though I do love how you insist that it’s everyone else who doesn’t understand Real Americans and your coastal elite upper-class self totally groks how the working class lives better than those of us who don’t live inside the Beltway.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne:
What a shock, you are making crap up again! Having worked overseas, with a lot of not ivy leaguers (enlisted military go go go) having accounts in countries you worked in, not that shocking.
Or in your world a GED is ivy league, par for the course. Try fucking again ->
ALSO, if you have a pension or a 401k, 403b, you have foreign holdings, which was my point if you could read
MikeJ
@KG:
The teabaggers are the ones that hate Mitt most. You don’t believe they’d shed a tear if someone found a way to dump Mitt, do you?
It’s hilarious that two elections a in a row the noisiest faction of the Republican party got handed the candidate they hated most of all of those running. They need some fire in their baggery to convince them they should sit out this election since their party thinks so little of them.
xian
@JustAnotherBob: you start with stock or equity valued at zero
satanicpanic
@SFAW: Breaded. My wife deep fries stuff, but I’ve never got around to trying because I’m afraid I’ll burn my hands off.
suzanne
Check out this article on how the LDS Church makes money. Apparently Rmoney is just following in the footsteps of the Prophet.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
So you worked in Switzerland when you were in the Army? The Cayman Islands? Bermuda? Any other tax havens that your money is in that you just happened to be stationed at?
Hey, I’m not the one who was bragging about how my grandparents, parents and sister had all gone to Harvard. I don’t have a single relative who went anywhere near an Ivy League school, and yet I just don’t understand the working class like you do.
Oh, and there’s no point in telling me that my 401(K) money is in foreign holdings since I don’t have one. Newsflash: not everyone in this country has a 401(K), hard as that may be to believe.
ETA: Paris Hilton has a GED. But I guess that makes her a working-class hero just like you, amirite?
NotMax
@SFAW
Or just retroactively make Justin Bieber a natural-born citizen and 35.
Jebediah
@Spatula:
Having to pick another candidate would be utterly devastating, and also too I don’t think this is the end of the Bain ammo.
askew
So, I’ve been reading that Romney is planning on going to the Olympics in 2 weeks. He really isn’t going to stay for the whole Olympics is he? If so, his campaign team is the worst campaign team since Dukakis’s team let him get in that tank. Romney would be off the campaign trail for 2 weeks after getting pummeled by Obama for the past month+. A few photo ops isn’t going to fix that.
SFAW
@satanicpanic:
I thought you were kidding (or being modest) about the “lazy” part, but now it turns out you’re outsourcing the work!
Mitt? Is that really you?
Martin
@burnspbesq: 15 years ago, Apple stock would have cost you $3.25 a share (split adjusted). Today it’s worth $607. $30k dumped in there would only be worth $6M. Not many standard investments have fared better.
PeakVT
@Spatula: The whole thing isn’t necessarily under anyone’s control. Even if the O-Team started it, they’re not the sole source of information. Nor are they forcing Romney to utterly fuck up his response.
Steve in DC
For all you’re e-stalking my comments I’d thin you’d have picked up on the fact that I was in the Navy, stated it several times, in fact at times to correct you!
Considering Saudi, Dubai, UAE, Iraq, are tax havens and we are actually deployed there I’d think you’d have realized the issue. None the less, do you know where things you invest go, no, not always. This is pretty basic.
And yet I’m the one that enlisted in the military, funny that.
Liar and a cheap shot. I gave you RIRA, IRA, 401k, 403b and others… do you honestly not even have an IRA? Either your twisting words to cherry pick or you don’t even have savings… pick one, we can settle where this goes later.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
Well, gosh, gee. Some of my retirement account might be invested in some foreign bank, or mutual fund, so I am just like Mitt, right? Who am I to throw stones?
In one article I read, one of his mystery funds, held in ‘blind trust’ by his wife, is named Sankaty. And Sankaty Advisors is some money magic suffling outfit that is part of Bain Capital.
They have a picture of the Sankaty lighthouse on their webpage.
But Sankaty is also the name of a famous New England ferry that carted stuff around offshore islands on on international route.
So, I wonder what Sankaty really refers to?
Yutsano
@SFAW: Never been a fan. Even first tried them in San Diego.
JustAnotherBob
@xian:
Could be. I thought I stuck in $2k at the beginning of the first year and calculated on from there. That’s what my quickly thrown together spreadsheet looks like. EOY1 a bit over $3k.
Whatta do wrong?
—
Fish (soft) tacos for my dinner. Slapped a snapper fillet in the cast iron fry pan with a bit of oil. Warmed up some whole wheat tortillas, ripped up a few lettuce leaves from the garden, and topped with a bit of el mil islas.
BigD
When you think about it, if Mitt really was running Bain from 1999 to 2002, that would be equal to three years. And a lot can happen in three years. Say, for instance, Al Gore, who is fat, could lose an election to George W. Bush. In another example, one could organize a gay German pride movement.
It is possible that Mitt was the driving force behind one, or both, of these occurrences, hiding behind his whole ‘I am Mr. Bain CEO’ haughty-taughty crap. For one I don’t believe any of his crap. He is a Mormon and so I think I’m just going to pet my puppeh.
satanicpanic
@SFAW: Haha, no my wife doesn’t cook Mexican, I handle that. I don’t know how it is in other parts, but here (southern CA) when you order a fish taco it’s usually fishstick style topped with cabbage. So I do outsource my fish tacos to the freezer aisle, but I can do almost anything else. I even learned spanish rice, which takes practice, for pete’s sake.
Steve in DC
@BigD:
From what I’ve seen in my work, it’s a leave of absence with still managing control. AKA, you get paid, don’t have fuck all to do with it, and then they formally toss you, or retire you (pay you and keep you on staff and stock your office should they need to call you back), and this sort of crap happens even with non profits.
It’s entirely explainable…. but… still drags up questions as to why only some people get that treatment? And this again is the real fucking issue.
burnspbesq
R.I.P., Kitty Wells. God may not have made honky-tonk angels,but he got hisself one now.
LanceThruster
I hate to think of it as the SS Minnow as they were nice people who merely got blown off course and worked together struggling successfuly to survive and effect a rescue.
Willard’s boating story is more along the lines of “Sink the Bainmark!”
Payback ist ein hunden, ja Herr Mittens?
Steve in DC
@satanicpanic:
DC has grown…. I hate to shill for locals but….
http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-chilango-arlington
Trust me on this, if you are in DC, it’s the real fucking deal, dude is amazing as well. I’ll bring him some contractor lunches once he gets set up in yuppie ass U street.
burnspbesq
@satanicpanic:
I can see that you need a trip to Wahoo’s or Taco Mesa.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: I prefer the unfried kind. Pre cut the fish into strips, marinade for about 10 minutes to get some spice on the fish, grill ’em up. Serve with mangopineapplecoconut salsa, some of my homemade chipotle sauce, and some cabbage for crunch. Mmmm.
AZ drifter
Just read that Romney outsourced the Olympic uniforms to Burma in 2002. Uh-oh…
MikeJ
@AZ drifter: And then answered protesters by saying they weren’t made in Burma, they were made in Myanmar!
SFAW
@satanicpanic:
OK, I think I found yer problem: you “cook messican” but you have learned how to make “spanish rice”. I can hardly wait to read about how well you make that other Mexican specialty, paella.
[Just giving you a mildly hard time, not really trying to bust yer stones.]
moops
@Spatula:
This isn’t the big gun. This is good narrative to lay out ahead of the convention. This is heady stuff that requires time for our dim-witted media to harvest properly and make into good stories. This sets the narrative for the lazy press. “Rmoney the corporate raider” is a simple enough idea to form. Like Al Gore is always lying, or Bush is a good old boy. Now everything he says will get filtered thought this lazy stereotype. The rest of the GOP can either turn on him at the convention, or suck up to him. You just don’t want the GOP to get united now. Their main weapon is a powerful groupthink. Screw that up and it isn’t just the White House, you start to clean up down-ticket.
The good powder is still dry in the kegs and ready. You hold on to your simple emotional ammo until late in the game, when people don’t have time to process it with their heads. Klassic Romney quotes from his campaigning will be repackaged as attack ads.
If possible it would be nice to not spend the whole DNC warchest this year but use if for the off-year races.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Sorry, I guess I didn’t care enough to pay attention. But having grown up near Great Lakes Naval Base, I’ll just say that your choice of service is not a surprise to me.
Uh, I don’t think you know what “tax haven” means if you think Iraq is a tax haven the same way Switzerland and the Cayman Islands are tax havens. Maybe Wikipedia can help you.
Hint: a foreign country is not a tax haven just because your money is there.
I know, it’s so weird that the military wouldn’t take an asthmatic with 20/200 vision. The only possible reason is that the Navy recognized you as a Real True Working Class Hero despite being raised in an upper-class home.
Another hint: enlisting in the military doesn’t automatically make you working-class. It means that you decided to slum it with the common people for a few years before resuming your life with the social class you were born to.
I have an IRA with about $3K in it that was established for me years ago. I’ve never had enough money to add to it. I do not have an RIRA, 401K, or 402B. Because — surprise! — you need to have at least a middle-class income to have those things, and usually an upper-class income.
Again, believe it or not, your beloved “working class” people usually don’t have any money left over from their paycheck to stash away in accounts they can’t access until they’re 65. Tell them that their 401k money is in foreign banks and they’ll look at you like you’ve lost your marbles.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Which we know is totes different.
Kind of gazpacho recipe hunting but not finding one I like. I may change my mind before Wednesday night again.
SFAW
@LanceThruster:
Vielleicht “eine”?
jl
@AZ drifter:
I thought was a joke, but
Mitt Romney-Helmed Olympics Outsourced Uniforms To Burma
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/mitt-romney-olympics-outsourced-uniforms-burma_n_1677791.html
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@burnspbesq:
Yep, that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it? He had at least a decade when he knew he wanted to be Pres to get his finances optically clear and he chose Big Buck$ instead. Fuck him and the dressage horse he rode in on.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: If I wrap it in a tortilla I call it a taco. Which has gotten me smacked and called a smartass by the gf.
jl
For SPaT, who loves her some good music:
99 stories of Bain on the wall, 99 stories of Bain,
Take one down and pass it around, 98 scandals of Bain on the wall!
98 scandals of Bain on the wall, 98 scandals of Bain,
Take one down and pass it around, 97 fibs about Bain on the wall!
97 fibs about Bain on the wall, 97 fibs about Bain,
Take one down and pass it around, 96 victims of Bain on the wall!
satanicpanic
@burnspbesq: Never heard of ’em, they in socal somewhere?
I’ve done fish tacos with grilled tuna or salmon, but I felt like it didn’t work. Prefer them crispy w/lemon and cabbage. But really, they’re not my favorite to begin with. Nothing beats good carnitas tacos.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne:
For a giggle let’s define middle class, cause I felt I was at an E-3 to E-5 military income, you can google what that is. I still feel I am now.
So, have at. Let’s you and I have at and see where things go.
I joined the USN in 1999, full transfer 2000, and left pretty much 2004 (packed up leave).
So, given that I lack a college education and was just enlisted, and I’ve had no help from my parents (that was a point of my fathers who was a holocaust survivor), let’s have at and see just how much of a saint you are.
Cause honestly, I think you’re full of shit.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Also, too, one of the reasons I’m constantly busting your balls about this is that I, too, was raised in an upper-class home and went out into the scary big world to work. The difference is that I don’t have any illusions that doing that magically turned me into someone who had grown up poor. It just turned me into an upper-class person who was broke.
Read John Scalzi and tell me again how working-class you are and you totally understand what he’s talking about ’cause you spent a few years in the Navy before coming home to your comfy NGO job.
BigD
I agree that special treatment is the issue, and you are a most reasoned commenter Steve in DC. But the fact remains that most people have not run companies, and this is a democracy. So if you reference Walker, Texas Ranger (one of President Bush’s favorite TeeVee shows no doubt, haha), you understand that justice is to be pursued at all costs.
This, by the way, extends from the strict definition of legal justice to environmental justice. This is why I think Alec Baldwin (30 Rock) has way eclipsed Chuck Norris in the halls of justice.
Beware Bain people, beware. Enough of your special treatment.
Hi Yutsano
;)
Yutsano
@MikeJ: I like her already. :)
Damn. Maybe I’ll go back to the clafoutis idea.
Steve in DC
@satanicpanic:
Fuck you and come to DC
http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-chilango-arlington
If you want the fish tacos, I can get that as well, we have fucking AMAZING Latino food. The right can cry all the want, Latinos are winning our heart one dish at a time.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne:
And yet you don’t know shit about me. My work in various veterans organizations, my work before I joined the navy in food kitchens, or how I really grew up.
And that’s fucking fine. It is what is. And I’ll still play devils advocate because not all of the people on the other side are that bad, and one side is still way to full of identity politics.
And I’m fine with that, you just don’t seem to feel the same way, it’s tragic, but all in all not my issue.
Yutsano
@satanicpanic:
Fish tacos are definitely a mild white fish thing. Think tilapia or grouper. Or barramundi. Mmm…Australian sustainable whitefish.
Steve in DC
@BigD:
I can agree with all you say.
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
On the other hand, you know it’s fall when Taco del Mar starts running their salmon taco commercials.
ETA: I usually use cod for my tacos.
SFAW
@Yutsano:
Or carp or clownfish or neon tetras (although it takes a lot of ’em to make one taco).
ETA: Of course, the neon tetras are a nod to nouvelle cucina, i.e. presentation is more important than quality or taste.
Tim I
@Spatula:
Not to worry. There will be plenty of new shit hitting the fans from now through November. For instance, the Stericycle deal – Bain invested in a company which disposes of fetuses and other medical waste.
I don’t think they actually recycle them. Maybe they compost them. When that story hits the airwaves in early October (it’s a real story) we should see Romney’s poll numbers plummet to new lows in American politics.
I suspect Mitt would have to start campaigning from a hidden bunker somewhere. I hope he’s got a copy of The Last Days of the Third Reich.
satanicpanic
@Steve in DC: Sure, can I stay at your house? I kid. I’ll go there if I’m ever in DC. I’m starting a carnitas taco truck someday. Nothing but carnitas and beer.
moops
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Who are they going to choose – one of the Circus of Morons who even Mitt managed to beat in the primaries, or some new face with no national organization and who no one voted for in the primaries?
I just don’t even want to imagine it. Romney is having a nice simple and awful narrative draped around his neck now. One that I think Obama won’t have trouble defeating, and one that paints the whole wall street casino crooks in the proper perspective. a nice twofer. with down-ticket appeal.
If the GOP picks a bright new face, I don’t trust the media and the electorate to see through the show.
Palin squared. Imagine President Rice, or Powell…..
SFAW
@satanicpanic:
If you serve enough beer first, it won’t matter if your carnitas are any good, you know.
satanicpanic
@SFAW: Worst sushi I have ever had was a roll of what I swear was guppies.
Yutsano
@SFAW: Get the chopsticks at the ready. Good luck gutting the little suckers though.
@MikeJ: Taco Del Mar is horrible. Ate there once. Almost puked.
SFAW
@satanicpanic:
Yuppies? That’s sick.
Oh, wait ….
Never mind.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Steve in DC: Hell, years after I left my job working for Arlington County, the place has come alive.
Good on my planning buddies who leveraged the Metro into a thriving community. Sucks to be me, in a commercial “office park” with a 1/4 mile walk to a deli. And that’s it.
/sob/
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
I assume the numbers I’m finding online are monthly income numbers and you weren’t making $2,000 a year?
Congratulations — when you were an E-5 in the Navy, you made more than I do right now, and I don’t get a housing allowance. Still want to play this game?
I never said I was a saint. I said I was never working-class. You seem to have some illusion that you were able to shed your background like a snakeskin and none of your connections, none of your education, had anything to do with anything you did after the age of 18.
Like Mitt Romney, you think you hit a triple when you were born on third base. I at least am realistic enough to understand that I had (and still have) vast advantages of health and education that most people in this country will never have, even though I’m broke.
The advantages you grew up with are invisible to you, and you assume everyone must have had them. How many of the guys you were in the Navy with went to the same kind of schools you did? Do you even realize that the education you received is not the same education you get in rural Alabama or South Carolina, where they haven’t been able to afford textbooks for the last four years?
SFAW
@Yutsano:
You know the old joke about “Fly can no longer reproduce”? I’ll have THAT guy do it for me.
Steve in DC
@satanicpanic:
Since I don’t know who you are, LOL.
On the other hand, we’ve had a huge spike in traditional Mexican food. Price spikes driving people into PG County and all, and thus raising some new rents of U and H. Along with some food carts off Farragut and McP.
I’d say the best areas to start are K street and the Pentagon M, (Wilson off Rosslyn to DARPA main D) since Latin is the new hot thing. Avoid Madams Organ (yes yes I kid) and Mt Pleasant as well, you’ll figure it out.
In all seriousness though food trucks are huge now, a couple have managed to fucking exploded, the one I linked is just one of them. Waiting for the k bbq to hit big, cause I fucking love kimchi~
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Mnemosyne:
And even if they do, and even if the’re not working class but 10%ers, guess what? The return on investment sucks so bad they still can’t retire on it. Yay stock market! We got our investments set back years in our 50s. Try to catch up at that age.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Ah, so because you did charity work, you’re working class by osmosis?
Like I said, I have no illusions that being broke as an adult magically changed the way I grew up and transformed me into a working-class person who understands what it’s like to grow up poor. You don’t seem to have managed to realize that.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Mnemosyne:
Hell, it turned me into someone who can’t ever go to a buffet without getting thirds. The weekend I went to the wedding and pocketed the rice I was supposed to throw so I’d have dinner that night ..
Martin
@burnspbesq: Mmmm, Taco Mesa. I haven’t tried anything along the lines of fish tacos there, but Olamendes is really the best game in town, IMO.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Steve in DC: No shit on the Latino food. Salvadoran, Bolivian, any variety you want.
Steve in DC
Add jump pay, dive pay, hostile fire pay, and the E-5 basic housing for Washington DC. Then do the math.
Sure!
Cause what did I do then and what did you do then. All outcomes are not the same. I could make the same argument you made to me to Mitt, and yes I’m baiting a fight here, let’s do it.
Only in your own head did this happen. Tell me when a kid from Potomac MD ENLISTED in the military and didn’t have some sort of idea what that meant. Shit maybe you and I have a few things in common, maybe we should talk. But I’ve never stopped slamming economic issues since I started posting here. Or maybe you should check your mouth before you open it.
And yeah I fucking realize IT, I know IT, I deal with IT. I have tons of friends that just got back and never had the chance I had. I try to get them jobs, it sucks, that’s life.
So, you want to keep the shit talk going, or how can “we” fix it?
Steve in DC
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
You talking about the Salva place off Conn Ave?
TO DIE FOR.
Mnemosyne
Here’s the public school district I attended. One of the best in the nation.
Tell us, Steve, which public schools did you attend? Was it one of these, or was your school closer to the top of the heap like mine was?
satanicpanic
@Steve in DC: We used to have a really good Korean BBQ truck coming to our office park, but sadly I dont think they were getting enough customers so they stopped coming. I still miss that one. I’m trying to support the Banh mi truck but I think that’s a lost cause too. DC is high on my list of places to visit, but it may be a couple years before I have the time and $$$ to make it there.
Steve in DC
@Mnemosyne:
Whitman, BCC, and Wilson on the public side
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Steve in DC: Nope, a couple of places in Fairfax County.
One was in Vienna on 123. Another I can’t remember. A third, probably not Salavadoran, had pupusas down offa Route 1, I think. I was doing night meetings as a consultant with County planners and they knew where to have dinner before the meetings!
Bolivian was on Columbia Blvd in Arlington.
Steve in DC
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
The Boli place is in court house/clarendon it’s rather famous
http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-pollo-rico-arlington
Dunno about the pouch/pocket food, but that’s the chicken place in Arlington on the street you are on, the start the food at about 8am. It’s worth it.
If you are in the area Pho75? If you haven’t had it, you owe me, it’s stupid good. But they only take cash, only large tablets, close at 8. The cost is well… you might raise it by 50 cents a dish.
If you know where Ray’s The Steaks old school was, still there.
burnspbesq
@satanicpanic:
Wahoo’s is all over OC, plus Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach, downtown Denver, on the hill in Boulder, and across from Park Meadows in Littleton.
Taco Mesa is in Orange, Costa Mesa, and Mission Viejo.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
Which means, what, you made a shitload more than $2K a month? Sorry, not getting how making even more than I do proves that you made less money than I do right now.
That’s right. And whether you admit it or not, that outcome has a whole hell of a lot more to do with your life before you were 18 than after.
You can cry poverty and tell us all of your sob stories about having to enlist, but your parents and grandparents went to Harvard. No matter how little you make in a year, you will never, ever be working class. Deal with it.
Yes, let’s look at Potomac, MD, for a minute:
Being a kid from Potomac who enlisted meant you were slumming and knew you could wash out and come back home whenever you wanted, unlike the poor bastards from Appalachia for whom the Navy meant the difference between making a living and starving to death.
No, you’ve never stopped slamming Democrats since you started posting here. You’ve never stopped pushing your favorite “both sides do it!” bullshit and claiming that we have to give up civil rights so white men can do better economically. You’ve never stopped claiming that you understand economic issues better than people who are actually living in crappy circumstances.
If you had even the faintest clue what it was like to be poor, you wouldn’t go around talking about how the cancer screenings that poor women get at Planned Parenthood are just “social issues” that don’t have any economic impact. But, hey, if Rosario Espriella dies because she couldn’t get healthcare, you’ll be able to laugh at all of those stupid limousine liberals who thought women’s healthcare was important, so it’s all good.
M. Bouffant
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
He had at least a decade when he knew he wanted to be Pres to get his finances optically clear and he chose Big Buck$ instead. Fuck him and the dressage horse he rode in on.
He knew he couldn’t have undocumented laborers at any of his houses, for Pete’s sake!!
How all this escaped him is probably indicative of his relationship (pathological, I’m guessing) to money.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
Olamendi’s is OK. Moreno’s in Orange is better. El Matador on Newport Blvd. by Cal’s Cameras is better.
BigD
Martin; fish tacos? Bleeeeechhhhh. Academic horrible food.
For a more refreshing and fulfilling meal, I would suggest pizza. And when one thinks pizza, his mind most naturally wanders to Seattle. If I were to suggest a casual, and fun afternoon meal with that special someone, it would be Pegasus pizza. A northwest traveler’s favorite.
Greek mythology, and other potentially reactive conversations, would make for a memorable afternoon and evening. Even Al Gore, who has surely eaten too much food, could endorse such a meal. The highly fertile forbidden fruit is often succulent, and potentially a bringer of great joy.
I again would like to note that Mitt Romney is rich with special privileges and would not be a good President.
Steve in DC
And that’s where you fail, I left at age under 16 and had to live off my own wits. I sure as shit wasn’t at home and I sure as shit didn’t get a pay check.
Though I do get you, we have a certain physical difference that means I can’t have experience anything. I do get that though, it’s all common in some “elite” circles, Brooks would be proud of you.
burnspbesq
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Anita’s. Best Mex in DC. Also on Route 50 in Fairfax.
burnspbesq
@BigD:
I’m sorry, but that’s just silly. Have you never been to Ray’s at Sixth Avenue and 11th Street? Go there, and then we’ll talk.
Steve in DC
@BigD:
Honestly the best meals are the most humble and simple. Go eat some “real meat” not that crap from the super market, and eat some fresh greens.
Steve in DC
@burnspbesq:
I beg to differ, but I know the place, enchiladas yes?
Calouste
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Yeah, what you’re now seeing is air superiority being established, next round is to take out the air defenses, and only then will the attack on the ground targets begin in earnest. And by that time, Romney will make Baghdad Bob look well clued in.
And the first phase is establishing the narative that Romney has something to hide, and that’s going pretty well so far. Once the public has gotten used to that, it’s time to get a bit more specific about what he is hiding.
Martin
@burnspbesq: Don’t agree on El Matador. Will have to check out Morenos.
Yutsano
@BigD:
LOLWUT?? Why do you make teh Lombardi’s cry?
Martin
@burnspbesq: Leave BOB alone. He wouldn’t like New York – full of black people and women with clean shaven armpits. And not a tractor in sight.
Steve in DC
and thus, je te dis adieu, it’s been real.
chuck butcher
@Mnemosyne:
Aw fer cripes sake, I won in the genetic lottery – I’m not the same as most, just a handful won like that. I don’t forget it and don’t get allowed to despite almost 4 decades of blue collar work. If we have experiences and bother to think things through we may not “be” another person but we can figure it out. Not one of us gets to be another person, their experiences and processing of them are unique to them. I won’t pretend to understand who you are or SinDC either, I’ll just take apart and process what you write.
No, I don’t have retirement accounts…
Mnemosyne
@BigD:
Of course someone finally brings up a non-fish food item right when I’m ready to head off to bed.
Though I, of course, come from Chicago, the land of true pizza. The deep dish is the most famous, but IMO the thin crust is even better. None of this limp “fold it over” BS you get in New York.
Anyhoo, I must leave you all to fight it out amongst yourselves. Some of us West Coasters have to be at work at 9:00 tomorrow morning.
burnspbesq
@Steve in DC:
Among other things.
karen marie
@Ash Can: Charlie Pierce gets the credit, really.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
Pfffft. “Chicago pizza” is a poorly made calzone. The filling is supposed to go in the middle.
MattR
@Mnemosyne:
You are officially dead to me ;)
Yutsano
@MattR: No dog in this hunt really. But I have had some really great pie in NYC. And personal loyalties would have me disavow any other.
(This could be amended once I get my first Serious Pie experience.)
MikeJ
@burnspbesq: I lurve Anitas. I worked in Tyson’s Corner for ten years and it was a favorite place for lunch.
Mnemosyne
@chuck butcher:
Hey, I’m happy I won the genetic lottery — it’s made my life much easier in so many ways, even when life sucked because I was working for minimum wage. We’re never going to own a house and we can’t afford to have kids on what we make, but I still had a major head start compared to most of the people in this country.
I just get annoyed with people who think that working minimum wage for a few years makes them One With The People and suddenly they can make pronouncements on what it’s like to grow up poor and go to substandard schools because they know what it’s like out there, maaaan.
Steve in DC can come talk to my best friend. She has a nice house in Orange County now, but she grew up in Detroit and it was not uncommon for her and her sisters to get mugged for their groceries when they were walking home. She can give him a couple of clues about how people who grew up poor don’t sneer at a college education because they know damn well it’s the only reason they’re middle-class today.
Mnemosyne
Okay, really last thing before I go to bed — the two best outposts of Chicago pizza in the Valley:
Thin crust — Casa Bianca
Deep dish (never thick crust) — Prizzi’s
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@burnspbesq: Nope, the one I went to was a hole-in-the-wall Salvadoran place. I’ve seen Anita’s though, and I’ll stop in next time I get a chance.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
WANT!!
MattR
@Yutsano: I am definitely a pizza snob, at least when it comes to NY style pizza. I don’t believe you can find a good slice anywhere outside the NYC metropolitan area. The best you can hope for is a passable imitation and in many places you are lucky to even find that. It is not good when Papa John’s, Pizza Hut and Domino’s are the best options in town.
pattonbt
The thing about Bain is its morphing into a whole hell of a lot more than just Mitt made gobs of money doing sleazy, but legal stuff.
Its cemeting Mitt’s lying (SEC and his word then versus his word now).
It cements he lives in a different world from almost everybody and has a different set of rules.
His lying is opening up the tax return issue. Which allows for rampant speculation (and based on whats already known, that speculation has some merit).
He’s obfuscating / whining – looking weak.
Its making Bain, the only thing Romney was running on, look “bad” – strength gone.
Mitt will now try and pivot to the Olympics – but Rafalca / Burma (or was it Myannmar?) / Ebil Gubmint Bailout of SLC Olympics – oops, gone.
He already gave up his only governmental experience (running hard and fast away from Mass.) so without Bain and Olypics as crutches, whats he got? One thing. He’s “Not Obama”. And “Not Obama” works great for the base, but it’s just not enough for the independents. People may think Obama isnt doing a great job, but they genuinely like him. Hating on him full time will be a loser (but the knuckle draggers will love it).
And the funny thing is, Obama made Mitt throw Bain away himself. Mitt made Bain toxic by lying and running away. Not Obama through negative ads. Obama pointed to facts and Mitt ran away as fast as he could.
I am very curious to see where the polls are in two weeks time.
Steeplejack
@JustAnotherBob:
I (roughly) agree. The Excel XIRR function gives me 42.77% as the compound annual growth rate for 15 annual “investments” of $2,000, a 13-year hiatus and then a payout of $100 million.
The whole thing is a love letter to the power of compound interest. Assuming the $2,000 is put in at the beginning of each year, after five years you’d have about $31,000, after 10 years you’d have about $207,000, and after 15 years you’d have about $1.18 million.
As the principal gets bigger, that 43% a year really starts kicking ass. After 20 years you’d be at $6.6 million; after 25 years, $37 million; after 26 years, $52 million; after 27 years, $73 million; after 28 years, $103 million and change.
The question of how to get 43% a year on your investments is left as an exercise for the reader.
ETA: Oh, yeah, next year Mitt’s IRA will be worth $145 million. Kudos, sir!
Martin
@Steeplejack: That 43% is easy. Or did you want it to also be legal?
askew
Did anyone catch Rachel’s segment tonight on the DoJ/SEC investigation into Sheldon Adelson’s possible violation of the FCPA in Macau? If this storyline gets picked up outside of MSNBC/PBS, it could make Adelson’s money radioactive for GOP. Am I being naive in thinking this might have some traction in the media?
chuck butcher
@Steeplejack:
It would seem vulture capitalism works pretty well.
chuck butcher
@askew:
Sheldon’s bragging about his money has made him into a bit of a media figure so it may be hard for them to ignore if it goes anywhere legally.
NotMax
@pattonbt
Minor addition, yes, but so is the cherry atop a sundae.
Leave us not also forget to mention the made-in-China “We Stand United” pins Mitt had made for the 2002 games as a salable rah-rah item.
Wonder what the mark-up on those might have been?
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Ugh. I used to torture myself by calculating what the money I spent on my first “notebook” computer–anyone remember the Data General DG/One?–would have earned if I had just bought a boring IBM XT and parked the rest in Microsoft stock. Hindsight is a bitch.
In my defense, I was traveling for work a lot, and I hated lugging that Compaq “portable.”
Ah, good times.
dogwood
@pattonbt:
I don’t expect to see much significant change in the polls . If the President wins this election it will because he solidifies his advantage in the debates, which I expect he will. Much of the Bain, taxes stuff that the campaign is introducing now will be subject to scrutiny during those debates. Romney isn’t John McCain. McCain is rich as hell but it’s the kind of wealth people understand; his wife’s family sells beer. People get that, and his seven houses were all in the United States as far as I know. Mitt is going to be on the defensive in the debates and Obama will calmly destroy him.
askew
@chuck butcher:
I hope you are right. I am guessing that the DoJ and SEC aren’t going to bring charges against Adelson before the election though, because they want to seem non-partisan.
NotMax
askew
Adelson must be another of those totally uninvolved and hands-off owners/managers/chief officers, otherwise his company’s resorts and casinos would all shut down for the Jewish Sabbath, no?
After all, Nevada held a special primary to accommodate his orthodoxy, so it must be a deeply-held immutable conviction for him.
/snark
Steeplejack
@Martin:
That’s what we in software call an “implementation detail.” I’m an ideas guy.
Jewish Steel
Well, well, well. If it isn’t old Band-aidgate Balloon Juice itself. How you livin’, you snarly ol’ blog?
Origuy
@Steve in DC:
Chilango, by the way, means someone born in the Mexico City area. Around here, chilango food means tortas (sandwiches) the size of hubcaps.
pattonbt
@dogwood: I don’t know. I think Obama could get a nice bump from this. Mitt’s really flailing and doing so publicly. I don’t think it’s game over or anything like that, but I expect to definitely see an impact. Plus, it’s just going to keep snowballing because Mitt can’t help himself (and he’s boxed himself by trying to be too cute). I mean, Mitt is now getting hit by R’s so the cracks are showing. Blood is in the water.
But I do agree that the debates should, I stress should, be the game ender. Mitt really doesnt stand a chance, he has no presence. And Obama, by himself, debated the entire Republican house and senate at their retreat in 2009 and creamed them, to their face. He trashed them so bad Fox cut away.
Joseph Nobles
@Steve in DC: Oh, my. Long thread and I’m commenting on something started in the beginning.
Welp, I just like the figure to be stated. Most Americans would look at that figure and say, “That’s my mortgage. Mitt Romney got paid the amount of my mortgage three times over to not be responsible for jackshit for three years.” And if it turns out to be substantially more than $100K, then all the better for people to evaluate him. YMMV.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
Take it from me and Mr. Pierce: Romney never thought us peons would dare to question his statements, much less demand to root through his paperwork! We have no right to pester a Master of the Universe in this shameless, lowbred fashion!
Willard got whacked back in 1994 because Teddy Kennedy, nobody’s idea of a humble pickup-driving barn-coat-wearing working class hero, challenged him to put up or shut up — and he couldn’t do either. His money juggernaut rolled over a couple of second-tier, disadvantaged-by-the-Masshole-old-boys-network female politicians (one of them a Republican) to win his gubernatorial campaign. I think he really, honestly, can’t get his head around the idea that some mere-millionaire nobody of a not-even-white politician-person refuses to just shut down and retreat to his proper place, now that Willard “Mitt” Romney and the Greater Republican Party have duly notified the plebes that it is his turn to take over the White House.
The debate — I suspect there may be only one — is going to be a spectacle for the ages. Just having to face President Obama, shake his hand, and act as though he’s treating this as a contest and not an insult to his Mormon Bishop MBA Job Creator splendour is going to be a challenge for Romney. I hope the Secret Service still keeps medical personnel on hand, because Willard may stroke out before the 15-minute mark.
priscianusjr
@Steve in DC:
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Or his wife may conveniently have a vague and short-lived medical setback shortly before the debate date.
AMM
I don’t know much about these issues, but this is definitely the most comprehensive Romney-IRA article that I’ve seen:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204062704577223682180407266.html
If nothing else, it does clear up that we are talking about SEP-IRAs (which have a $30,000 max yearly contribution). Also, FWIW, the reporting is based on employee accounts and Bain documents and gives some specifics about the ways in which Bain Capital undervalued its “A” or “common” stocks while Romney headed the company. My apologies if I am picking up on something already-discussed and/or debunked!
SRW1
Looks like the SS Willard will suffer the same fate as the Vasa and sink on its maiden voyage.
MikeJ
@SRW1: This campaign must be the grandest ever! Build it taller! Taller!
kay
@Spatula:
Nothing unscripted is ever going to happen at a convention. National Party conventions aren’t real. They’re for political media, donors, and Party people.
Ron Paul was never going to pull off a coup. “The Pumas” were never going to hijack the 08 convention. That’s theatre.
Barring being indicted or dying, Romney will be the nominee. It’s way, way too late to replace him.
JoyfulA
@Steve in DC: That’s true about DC pay. A relative took a defense contractor job in DC paying double what he could get in central PA. A similar house also cost him double, but other costs of living are only a little higher, so he figures he’s way ahead of where he would have been.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Re: Ray’s: you talkin’ Ray’s, Original Ray’s, New Original Ray’s, No-Wait-We’re-Really-Ray’s, or Screw-Those-Other-Guys-We’re-the-Real-Ray’s?
And “Seattle City of Pizza” is in the same league as “Cleveland City of Light, City of Magic.”
SFAW
@kay:
So it could still be a brokered convention, is what you’re saying?
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
I’m onboard with the “Chicago style
politicspizza” sentiment.SFAW
@Anne Laurie:
I don’t know how the esteemed Mr. Pierce would do in an interview-type situation, but assuming he’s sharp enough to respond to all the smokescreen WillMitt would put up, I think it would be good fun to have Charlie go 1-on-1 with Rmoney.
It would be the end of Rmoney’s campaign, of course, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing.
Just One More Canuck
@MikeJ:
“You hush up your mouth!” howled the mighty King Yertle.
“You’ve no right to talk to the world’s highest turtle.
I rule from the clouds! Over land! Over sea!
There’s nothing, no, NOTHING, that’s higher than me!”
kay
@SFAW:
Or Romney could step aside under pressure from Party leaders if his polling absolutely collapsed but I’m in the camp who believe 45% is his “floor” no matter what happens, and he doesn’t strike me as a team player, so he’s the nominee.
Lojasmo
@Steve in DC:
The second is not a crime, the first could be.
SFAW
@kay:
Well, he certainly doesn’t need to explain his team-player-ness to the likes of YOU, you person of lower social standing and (probably) lower wealth. And by the way, before you are allowed to make such a statement as you did, you need to show us your college transcripts, plus the tax returns of some person you work with, plus the Title for your Rolls-Royce.
jayjaybear
@LanceThruster:
Das Bloat
LGRooney
Harvard, Yale, & Wharton MBAs take care of each other and ensure they can all get rich if they want it, by any means, as long as they agree to help other MBAs coming on line, when they get their own.
Mormons & Scientologists take care of each other and ensure they can all get rich if they want it, by any means, as long as they agree to help other Mormons & Scientologists, and the “church,” when they get their own.
The very rich take care of each other and ensure their kids will stay rich if they want it, by any means, as long as they agree to help other rich kids coming on line, after they’ve gotten their own.
RMoney bats 1.000 on these counts.
Laura
@Steve in DC: I make 40K and live in DC just fine, FYI.
LanceThruster
@SFAW: Ja, ja, danke.
xD
LanceThruster
@jayjaybear: Too funny!
Deb T
@WaynersT:
I love it. Keep the speculation going about what might be in those records. Let the imagination fly. The worse it sounds the more the pressure will build for him to open more.
I think he should show records back to when he first became involved with Bain. Not holding my breath.
On the off chance that there’s nothing in them (is that possible? Maybe he lost money? Nah. Maybe there was Mormon involvement? I know, how about a big old scandal, ala Birtherism, that the Mormon’s created Romney to take over the worle — uh I mean the US. We just don’t have enough conspiracy nuts on our side. I am surprised some of the Wingnut Repubs haven’t taken this up. Just more proof they hate Obama more than being overtaken by a big ol’ cult.
bupalos
@SFAW: Nein. Kein “Hunden”, sollte es eine “Hündin” sein. Sie sind unverkennbar Plural für Gender.
LanceThruster
@bupalos: Thank for correcting my less-than-steller Deutsche skills (2 years German in HS a long, long time ago).
I am reminded of the scene with a US Army Ranger in “The Longest Day” when he shoots a surrendering German from the gun emplacement on the cliff.
“I wonder what ‘bitte, bitte’ means?”
Mike
“Romney’s only real selling point (other than not being near) is that he is a “businessman” who can run the country at a profit for everyone.”
Except that the country is not a business and running it as one removes it completely from the “life” co-ordinates.
If the country was a business then every countryman would have a part to play. The weak, sick members have no part to play and thus would have no value to such a business.
Mike
“Romney’s only real selling point (other than not being near) is that he is a “businessman” who can run the country at a profit for everyone.”
Except that the country is not a business and running it as one removes it completely from the “life” co-ordinates.
If the country was a business then every countryman would have a part to play. The weak, sick members have no part to play and thus would have no value to such a business.
Mike
Except that the country is not a business and running it as one removes it completely from the “life” co-ordinates.
If the country was a business then every countryman would have a part to play. The weak, sick members have no part to play and thus would have no value to such a business.