But what distinguishes this deal from the nearly 100 others that Romney did over a 15-year period was his close work with Milken’s firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.
[….]Romney, meanwhile, once referred to the deal as emanating from “the glorious days of Drexel Burnham,” saying, “it was fun while it lasted,” in a little-noticed interview with American Banker magazine.
The “glorious” part, for Romney at least, was that he used junk-bond financing to turn a $10 million investment into a $175 million profit for himself, his partners, and his investors. It marked a turning point for Romney, according to Marc Wolpow, a former Drexel employee who was involved in the deal and later was hired by Romney to work at Bain Capital.
“Mitt, I think, spent his life balanced between fear and greed,” Wolpow said. “He knew that he had to make a lot of money to launch his political career.
Politifact rates the story mostly false, thuh Jaayyyuuub Creaturrrzzz have to get their hands dirty unlike you ivory tower hippies, etc.
Martin
The road to dressage is paved with shit, donchaknow?
Villago Delenda Est
Politifact = totally in the tank for the vile Ferengi synthezoid, Rmoney.
Valdivia
ah title win, as always DougJ.
I am fresh out of rage today. will try again tomorrow, since this will certainly get me going bright and early.
Southern Beale
A species of giant tortoise now officially extinct. Lonesome George, the last remaining members of the species, has died. He was believed to be about 100 years old.
Corner Stone
Really OT but if this headline doesn’t sum up our current environment and times, then I don’t know what does:
Banana truck crash destroys building from 1745
smintheus
Finally we get a media report on the most infamous of Romney’s Bain deals. It’s almost like a whole lot of oppo research about Bain suddenly got doled out to reporters at all the major papers.
Violet
Posted this earlier today, but in case anyone missed it:
This is how the Romney campaign refers to their donors. They call them investors:
People who invest expect a return on their investment. What are Romney’s “investors” expecting? What kind of “return” are they being promised?
It all ties into the “corporations are people, my friend” comment. If corporations are people, then donors are investors and voters are market share. That’s Romney’s view of the country.
burnspbesq
Yawn. Can someone explain what makes this deal more interesting than the hundreds of similar deals that were done with Drexel Burnham junk-bond money around the same time? AFAICT, it doesn’t tell us anything about Romney that we don’t already know.
Guess I’ll go back to listening to one of the most under-appreciated records of the 1970s.
smintheus
I think the most disturbing thing about this deal was that Drexel Burnham was about to be brought down and everyone knew it.
Romney knew he’d be getting down in the mud to make this deal, and he figured he’d be given a pass for it…and anyway, it was a ticket to greater riches so that made it cool.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@burnspbesq: It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, but it might to the folks who haven’t been political junkies for the last several years. Rather like this Doonesbury for Sunday June 24. Kind of sums up the difference between the candidates.
burnspbesq
DougJ is probably going nuts trying to guess what record I’m referring to, so I’ll put him out of his misery.
“801 Live.”
smintheus
@burnspbesq: Aside from the obvious, that Romney decided to get in bed with a guy who was under a huge cloud, there’s the fact that the deal became an insta-scandal:
burnspbesq
@smintheus:
I’m aware of that. I consider the evidence that the thing was ginned up as a way to get Judge Pollock off the case to be somewhere south of unconvincing. Litigants say all kinds of shit in pleadings, and the SEC is no exception. Judge Pollock had, and still has, a spotless reputation; i have no doubt that if there had been anything to the allegations, he would have recused himself in a heartbeat.
Mino
Vulture capitalists were operating under a system that Congress and the courts allowed. Even after the junk bond scandal blew up, Congress continued to allow raiders to plunder pensions and sink profitable companies with debt. Don’t imagine these were all failing companies that invited them in. A lot were hostile takeovers of companies rich in cash and funded pensions.
The courts allowed them to structure their bankruptcies so they would be paid before any other creditors. They made them a special class of creditor. The whole thing stinks and is still going on. Look at the Hostess bankruptcy. But don’t expect Dems to do anything about it either.
burnspbesq
@Mino:
Explain Internal Revenue Code Section 4980, then.
smintheus
@burnspbesq: Why would the judge feel obligated to recuse himself if it was true that Drexel B. had sought to manufacture a conflict of interest at the last moment? Anyway, the point is that Romney was fine with a deal that made him and his company notorious without any apparent scruples about how it might interfere with a high profile investigation of corruption.
russell
time for these dudes to actually create some jobs or STFU
honus
@burnspbesq: You explain it Burns. It ain’t much. It far from refutes his point. But it is an obscure reference that sort of creates an illusion of erudition to the bulk of people here who aren’t tax lawyers.
burnspbesq
@honus:
Say what, now? Mino said Congress failed to act. That’s demonstrably false, and a five-second Google search would have shown it to be false. Tell me why I shouldn’t call out that kind of lying.
Congress acted.
It imposed a 20 percent excise tax on amounts reverted from overfunded defined benefit plans (on top of the income tax that already applied), and later increased it to 50 percent. It’s an excise tax, so it can’t be reduced by NOL carryovers.
Once the excise tax was put in place, the practice Mino was complaining about pretty much came to a halt. How does an effective response to a perceived problem become “not much?”
Now what, Mr. Wagner?