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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (465483)	1/17/2012 3:19:37 PM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 793564

This is Romney's answer to Gerald Seib's question about Bain. Does it make any sense? Did Romney answer the question to people's satisfaction? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "SEIB: Governor Romney, let's look a little deeper at the business record that you're talking about. In a nutshell, what your opponents here are saying is that Bain Capital and other private equity firms, buy companies, load them up with debt, take the profits and then head for the exits. Let's look at another example and allow you to respond through that. America Pad and Paper is a company that Bain Capital bought with $5 million, took on more debt to expand, couldn't pay back the loans, went bankrupt and several hundred people lost their jobs. Bain Capital though, took $100 million in profits and fees. Does that show a flaw in the Bain Capital model? Or is that just the rough and tumble of America capitalism? ROMNEY: Well, first of all you never want to seen an enterprise go bankrupt. And you never want to see anyone lose a job. At the time I was at Bain Capital, the business was still going and didn't go bankrupt. What the company did, is they had one paper company and then they bought another one down the road and they said, we don't need to have, in -- in an industry that's shrinking, two different plants making the same product, so lets consolidate the two plans together. And all the people in the plant that was closed were offered jobs in the new plant. Now they were union workers. They didn't all want that non-union plant work rule setting. But ultimately, do I believe that -- that free enterprise works? And that -- and that private equity and the various features of our economy work to actually improve our economy? To make America more productive with higher incomes and a brighter future? Absolutely. The -- the -- this is a major part of our economy, has been for a long time. Free enterprise, with all of it's different dimensions and players, makes America the -- the strongest economic nation in the world. The GDP per capita in this country, income per capita in this country, is about 50 percent higher than the average in Europe. Every time we invested, we tried to grow an enterprise, add jobs to make it more successful. And -- and I know that people are going to come after me. I know President Obama is going to come after me. But the record is pretty darn good. You look at places like Staples, Bright Horizons, that steel company I talked about, the Sports Authority. They alone added 120,000 jobs as of today. And -- and those kinds of experiences are the kinds of things that allow me to know what it takes to get this economy working and to put people back to work. We've got a president in office three years, and he does not have a jobs plan yet. I've got one out there already and I'm not even president, yet. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)" blogs.suntimes.com