Why Bain Capital Matters

There's a reason why stories about the hollowing out of the middle class resonate -- and why it resonates in this presidential election. It's deep. You probably know someone who has lost their job -- I sure do. It's not just blue collar workers. Everyone is vulnerable.

The middle class workers who have had the rug pulled out from under them by changes in our economy aren't slackers, they aren't looking for handouts or freebies. They did everything they were supposed to do -- study, work, save -- and now, they just want jobs. They want the dignity of work. They want to contribute to the economy, their families, their communities. But they can't. Their prospects continue to fall, even as corporate profits and stock indices soar.

Those who've been hit have had to clear out their desks, put their homes on the market, move their families. In many ways, they've lost their very identity.

It's why the issue of outsourcing at Bain Capital matters in this election. Today, "The War Room" and Current TV have uncovered further evidence of Mitt Romney's lies about the extent of his ties to Bain after 1999. Mitt Romney was the President, CEO and sole shareholder of Bain Capital when it inflicted this kind of pain on thousand of regular people. His Bain Capital took jobs away, closed companies, devastated communities. And to add insult to injury, he made millions off those empty desks, foreclosed homes, displaced families and shattered dreams.

That's why he's fighting the outsourcing charge tooth and nail -- precisely because it hurts so much.

Click here for an explanation and download of the newly uncovered documents that show Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was active in Bain businesses long after he said he'd left the company. "The War Room with Jennifer Granholm" airs weeknights at 9/8c on Current. Follow Jennifer Granholm on Facebook and Twitter and "The War Room" on Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

 

Follow Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JenGranholm

Comments

[wdtony]

02:17 AM on 07/22/2012

Mitt Romney campaign finance champions Mel Sembler and Robert Lichfield have both run teen torture chains where children have been abused and killed (STRAIGHT INC. and WWASPS). In addition, Mitt refuses to speak about his involvement with this "tough Love" industry as his wife claims to have a desire to help "at risk" youth if Mitt is elected President. An example: Bain Capital owns CRC Health which, in turn owns Aspen Education Group...where children have been killed and abused. Mitt is in up to his eyeballs in the teen torture for profit racket...and he doesn't want this billion dollar industry regulated. And Romney’s connections to CRC run even deeper: Of the three Bain managing partners who sit on CRC’s board, two, John Connaughton and Steven Barnes (with his wife), gave a total of half a million dollars to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Romney. They also each donated the $2,500 maximum directly to his campaign. http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/20/new-abuse-allegations-arise-at-drug-treatment-programs-owned-by-bain-capital/ and here: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/dark_side_of_a_bain_success/

[nanohydrofusion]

08:00 AM on 07/16/2012

What a joke, he never hid the fact he was owner of Bain, and how do you define active, working 17 hours a day on saving U.S. Olympics is active, so does anyone really believe he was communting back and forth from Utah to Bain corporate running both businesses actively? Give us a break, you are way off target on your attack on Romney.

[ty2501]

10:19 AM on 07/16/2012

And Jennifer Grandeosis is Not one to speak of lost jobs....she governed Michigan during Major Jobs lost ! Promoting overseas jobs to come here...that never happened !!! What a joke Jennifer..Michigan's Canadian Governor

[Grex0]

06:46 PM on 07/16/2012

One would have to his Kool-Aid devotee to think this can be dismissed as a joke. His signatures are on the SEC documents stating he remained in charge - and his policies remained flexible and representative of his vision for Bane. What other proof would it take to shake your faith?

[nanohydrofusion]

11:32 PM on 07/17/2012

Signatures on SEC documents were required by law, and Romney complied, it has nothing to do with being active in business, which was the issue.  He had no operational input during his stint at Olympics, so yes, it is funny that nobody checked before accusing him as a felon. In fact, democrats were running the company since 1999 when he left, and even they concur, Romney had nothing to do with his company other than being owner, as in, absentee owner. lol

[whitemale08]

03:54 AM on 07/16/2012

Anyone smart enough couldn't give a d*mn if Mitt Romney worked at Bain's Capital.

Folks like him would not even exist, let alone his ill-gotten gains, had it not been for thise system of fraud that is Wall Street/City of London embodied in rigging libor.

[BOBinPS]

10:26 PM on 07/15/2012

Yes, Bain did all of that. But they also built very strong companies (and failed with some others). Yes, the lower and middle classes suffered for efficiency. Lost jobs, lost pensions (some of which the evil US gov had to pay for), etc. But that is the cost of IT, globalization, automation, private contracting of traditional civic services, lack of emphasis upon job training at all educational levels, the breakdown in lower income family support of children, crap public schools teaching to the least common denominator, McDonald's, Target, the dreaded Walmart, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, ...tired now. Bain is the future. The question is how do we as a country want to deal with it.......?

[Mr Elbows]

09:37 PM on 07/15/2012

If you want Governor Granholm to speak at your next trade association convention, it will cost you $20,000-$30,000 per speech.

http://www.kepplerspeakers.com/speakers/?speaker=Governor+Jennifer+Granholm

[rickdekrak]

07:58 PM on 07/15/2012

Jennifer Granholm ruined my State now I have to listen to her blab like she is someone with an ounce of intelligence! Why anyone would listen to her is beyond me!

[donttrustthem]

08:49 AM on 07/15/2012

Bain capital is a great american success story, somethin you can't handle. It saved more jobs and created more new ones than you and obama combined. If what you say is true, and i personally know it is not, why would bain outsource and move jobs overseas? How about your crappy school system that produced young adults with no real world employability skills. How about regulations that increased the cost of employment and the cost of reporting. How about higher taxes to promote your liberal agenda? Look in the mirror, jenny, and you will find the real problem.

[Linda from Deerfield]

11:12 AM on 07/16/2012

Bain only had 115 employees when Romney left. That's not very many jobs. As for Staples, it's not like Romney or Bain invented any new use for office supplies -- they exploited a shrinking industry, and you will find that the number of industry jobs-- at Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, and independent stationers-- has done nothing but shrink. That seems to be the Republican vision for the U.S. workforce. If you really want to count the Staples jobs, then you have to count all of the job destruction -- one report said that half the companies they got involved with failed completely.

[Grex0]

06:49 PM on 07/16/2012

Yeahm but Bain even made money off their failures, suggesting they were intentional.

[TheProtectionist]

08:09 AM on 07/15/2012

As far as jobs are concerned, it won't matter who is in office after November, because ree trade is the dominant economic force destroying this country and all three parties support free trade. Our party affiliations are blinding us to this fact. Karl Marx suggested free trade as the fastest means to destroying capitalism, while Daniel Webster claimed the primary reason we have our US Constitution was to stop the economic chaos unleashed by free trade with Britain under the Articles of Confederation. Yet, astonishingly we have three political parties which have adopted unwittingly Karl Marx's advice, while the Chinese have adopted Webster’s advice. The Tea Party seems to be oblivious to Webster’s claim, and the average Republican has no idea that Lincoln was a protectionist, and that his party remained protectionist until the 1960s when it became an economic mirror image of the Democrats who have historically been free traders. The dangerous error therefore the politician makes is the failure to make a critical distinction between free international markets and free domestic markets. The reason for this, as the new website rescuingeconomics.wordpress.com suggests, is that there has never been a sound theory of economics. We can keep beating each other up politically, but in the end we will discover we are all at fault.

[Thinkster]

09:06 PM on 07/15/2012

I went to the site you cited - it's very new, and not being updated much - but I added it to my list of sites to watch - I hope to encourage them to add to their content.

I’m not sure I agree with anything they have to say – economics is very difficult – real life is even more difficult. Let’s see if they can relate the two with each other. I wonder……

[TheProtectionist]

06:58 PM on 07/16/2012

You are right, economics is very difficult. There in lies the danger. If modern theories are flawed, then it is very difficult for the average American to become aware of this potentially dangerous situation. The site's book is an attempt at a more gentle introduction to these ideas, but whether it achieves this goal is open to debate. If nothing else it is a first attempt to put a dent in the armor of mainstream theory.

[ty2501]

10:28 AM on 07/16/2012

Noting wrong with Trade Agreements as long as they are FAIR trade. The problem seems to be far from being FAIR... whatever is imported to USA from CHINA ...dollar wise...the USA should be exporting the same dollar amount.. this seems to be the Problem... UNEQUAL Trade...
We have Gradualism taking over...little by little without the people understanding what is happening... it is a planned destruction of destroying American economic capitalism..

[TheProtectionist]

06:52 PM on 07/16/2012

Thank you for the constructive feedback. I believe capitalism is being destroyed by a lack of understanding. I would like to challenge you to consider this following proposition (it's admittedly daring): Fair Trade is impossible. Why might this be? Well, the problem based on rescuingeconomics.wordpress.com is that it is impossible to measure the "wealth" of a good. For example, say one country builds pleasure boats and the other cars. Which one is more valuable, the car or the boat? Well, you might say the one that takes more labor to build. Complicating this is that fact the boats might be built by robots and the cars by hand, now how do you compare the embedded wealth of car to a boat? So with million of different products to exchange between nations, how will you set the exchange rate? Also consider the danger in an "equal" dollar value of trade (i.e. balanced trade). Say, 10 dollars of a Chinese good might have 10 labor hours in it while ten dollars of an American good will have only 1 hour of American labor. So even though you are balanced in dollar amounts, every 10 dollars of imports will cause 10 hours of American unemployment, even though when trade is balanced. You could trade 10% of GDP and yet have 90% unemployment with balanced trade. The root of the problem is that domestic money is a measure of the share of national output, not labor units. Food for thought?

[DrJay]

07:40 PM on 07/14/2012

The 1% realize via Romney and folks like him that American is one big asset they wish to sell off in the model of corp. destruction they have made so effective. If he wins America will be destroyed,sold,bankrupt, so the 1% can own everything.

[ty2501]

10:32 AM on 07/16/2012

Wrong... we ARE being destroyed, and bankrupt RIGHT now...under Hopey,,Changey.. our country has never been in such economic debt and destruction under the leadership of an unskilled, inexperienced potus

[Keif26]

05:00 PM on 07/14/2012

Mitt Romney's record IS relevant. It is a snapshot of who and what he is when he thinks no one is looking.

[Evol Syawla]

09:06 PM on 07/14/2012

F&F! They continue to complain about the President's birth certificate even after he released it! They prefer to accept the "doctored" one that fool "oily tates" shows them! Now they are insisting that school records of the President are relevant to his continued position as POTUS! But the fact that Romney is hiding his hundreds of millions of $$ in tax haven countries is of no significance. The fact that he founded a predatory company that made wealth by off-shoring of US jobs and the destruction of people lives should not be considered. His continued lying to one audience and lying to another should be just considered politics and "flip flop". If he did not have anything to hide, then why not release 10 years of tax returns? The Dems should make a public statement to that effect and shut up those who claim, more would be asked for. And what if it was anyway? His signing papers that he was still sole owner of Bain while he publicly told people he had nothing to do with it and he had left, should be completely accepted.

[nanohydrofusion]

09:47 AM on 07/18/2012

Never head of the term, absentee ownership, have you? Guess you didn't read Romney's income tax filings, or you would have known his hundreds of millions are not offshore as major media wants you to think, so think for yourself and read his tax returns, I did.

[conservativepoint]

01:22 PM on 07/14/2012

WITHOUT BAIN, UNEMPLOYMENT IN THOSE COMPANIES WOULD HAVE BEEN 100%

[DrJay]

07:34 PM on 07/14/2012

What are you talking about-- unemployment in those cos. was 100%--they were all fired and robbed of pensions, as well as Bain taking out huge loans which they profited from and defaulting on them--taking fees on each action. This is the worst kind of crooked--just like the mafia but made more and kept it barely legal. Godfather Romneny will do the same to the country!!

[ty2501]

10:40 AM on 07/16/2012

Bain is a success story ! What are you talking about...??? Romney will turn this country around...takes a businessman...not an Acorn employee to make a corporation successful. Sometimes you have to weed out and FIRE the non productive employees and hire ones that will help a company...and that's what he did. Have you ever seen this country in such demise, destruction, and debt.. GET this Acorn guy out ! O'bomb'a had to give up law license because of corrupt activity !!! Get the FACTs Dr.

[TKI]

11:41 PM on 07/14/2012

?

[waterchylde70]

12:53 PM on 07/14/2012

Love Jennifer Granholm...She puts far more experienced political reporters to shame..Her show is a must see for all political junkies!-

[Livina Ferry]

02:39 PM on 07/15/2012

hello.yeah she is wonderfuf,she broke michigan when she was governor.so she really has a lot to say.

[waterchylde70]

05:32 PM on 07/15/2012

Short memories are indeed unfortunate..The states finances were in a shambles after 8 years of John Engler if you recall..more revisionist history from the right?

[ty2501]

10:40 AM on 07/16/2012

Oh help..I guess you aren't from Michigan!

[waterchylde70]

12:45 PM on 07/16/2012

Lived here all my life actually...

[levi0804]

12:44 PM on 07/14/2012

Jenny needs to understand a little English Lit.

read the last six words from Bain. it says

" Since the day of this departure " the word departure Could be interpreted to mean the communication, it the note from Bain itself.

If you replace the word departure from meaning when SMitt Robney left Bain, with the understanding its only saying since the message from Bain was released......

this is a common play on the English language in big business and Politics.

Oh and Jenny, THANKS FOR THE DAMN CANADIAN GARBAGE. WE APPRECIATE IT.

[Evol Syawla]

08:47 PM on 07/14/2012

Pleeze speek Inglish levi!! Yes, lvi0804 when "when SMitt Robney left Bain", yes he is a robber, his name should no longer be on the documents saying he was still sole owner and manager. I don't understand how you even attempt to defend this. His name was on the documents as Manager and sole proprietor! Not only that, he signed papers for other spin off companies after that, and he made filings to the SEC that he was still in charge at Bain Capital Inc!! Either way, he is a liar. If you rent and apartment and then later left to live elsewhere, but kept paying the rent and signing the lease, then you are responsible for anything that happens there and to that property. You cannot deny responsibility, because you have indicated by signing the lease over and over again that you live there and you take responsibility for what happens to that premises. If Bain had brought back many jobs and built many successful companies during that period, would he be so adamant to deny that he was in charge? He was being paid for god's sake! What is the matter with you? Jenny may not understand English, but you, you are incapable of understanding anything. If he was not working there, then he lied to the SEC and appropriate action should be taken.

[levi0804]

12:03 PM on 07/15/2012

you may need to understand English Evol. I agree Romney is Corrupt. that is what im saying. Being from Michigan, Jenny Worked SO HARD to get Michigan to be Canadas trash dump. Michigan now IMPORTS GARBAGE from Canada thanx to Jenny. Also thanks to Jenny, Absopure and other water companies steal water from the Great Lakes, with ZERO REMUNERATION to the State or the People, and then stick it in a bottle poisen it with mercury, lead, and fluoride, stick it in a bottle and sell it to the un educated throughout the world for MONEY.

[TKI]

11:43 PM on 07/14/2012

?

[pgrlights]

12:40 PM on 07/14/2012

Well Gov, it seems that Romney is the exact thing that replaced you in Mich. Synder did THE VERY SAME THINGS AS ROMNEY..sold his Mich companys jobs to the Asians and then was elected GOV...now he is taxing the retired peoples pensions and raised taxes on the poorest in Mich.

[Chipper1]

08:47 PM on 07/14/2012

What are you complaining about? That Canadian garage brings jobs to MI and brings money to local landfill owners. Sounds like a Republican dream arrangement to me.

[Livina Ferry]

02:44 PM on 07/15/2012

hello.i can tell you michgan jobs where sold out several years ago.i know i lost mine in 1987 and other left here long before that, and i know some elite that went over seas to start up jobs theyre and the big ceos where done very well to send or take american jobs theyre.

[Gandalfage]

11:04 AM on 07/14/2012

Another presidential election, another Republican candidate who was not fully vetted. Last time, it was Sarah Palin. Oh sure, she filled out the exhaustive questionaire. But the McCain campaign was not able to complete the background check to confirm that Sister Sarah actually was who she said she was.

Just as then, it's causing problems for the Repubs, now. Mitt Romney is trying to stonewall through the controversy, but it isn't going to work. The media love uncovering all the juicy details that the candidate has tried to conceal. Oh sure, Mitt, you can continue to claim that you are not required to release your tax forms and try to boondoggle your way through on the Bain involvement, but it isn't going to work.

"Inquiring minds want to know", a famous slogan from the world of the tabloids. Political journalists also have inquiring minds and now, they're are going to make your life a living hell, Mitt.