Nothing makes the 1 percent angrier than any suggestion that anyone else helped them acquire their beautiful, beautiful cash.
So I was a little surprised to find out from the New Yorker magazine this week that one of Bain Capital's very first deals was buying "a small airline that ran military shuttles between Tonopah, Nevada and Las Vegas."
Here are the details, from the Financial Times:
In the mid-1980s Tonopah, also known as Area 52, was home to the newly developed, top secret F-117A stealth fighter. Pilots and support personnel lived in Las Vegas and spent their working week in the desert.
A $10m-a-year contract to shuttle them back and forth was the prize asset of a small charter company called Key Airlines, which became a formative deal for Bain Capital…
So from the start, Bain Capital had support from the government. We all built that. Just don't ever mention that in public, or come around asking Mitt and his billionaire friends to kick in a little more so your aunt can pay for her breast cancer treatment or your 5-year-old can have a good kindergarten teacher. That would make them very angry, and you wouldn't like them when they're angry.
P.S. A federal judge ruled in 1992 that Key Airline management had illegally suppressed a 1985 attempt by its pilots to unionize. According to the pilots, they had to form a union to stop unsafe conditions; according to Bain, they were just pissed off with their "admittedly low" salaries.
Of course, if you owned a company and were being paid a lot of money by your fellow citizens to fly stealth fighter pilots to work, you might not care what the reason was -- you might be happy to improve safety OR pay your employees more. Or even both! But that's why, unlike Mitt Romney, you're not worth 230 million dollars.
Follow Michael Moore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MMFlint
Bob Burnett: Why Is Romney Losing?
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
That's right, Mr. Michael 1%-er Moore. You became rich by distrubuting your propaganda and convinced susceptible minds to actually pay for it.
"The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising topped out at about $75 million. “Every bit helps,” the campaign tweeted, noting that 98 percent of the contributions were under $250."
"Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations of under $250,"
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/romney-committees-raised-more-than-100-million-in-july/
Obama has the obviously better track record of getting donations form average citizens, and if money talks in politics (and it does), he's much more likely to be looking out for the average citizen than Mitt. Especially since Mitt's already written off 47% of the population.
Again, when I was a kid, I didn't drive myself to school. But I still got credit for my grades. Michael Moore's become more of a joke daily.
Oh, and if the taxpayers hadn't paid for your school system, you wouldn't have had any grades at all.
The bus driver gets next to no credit. He's not even mentioned. The government has done nothing valuable for me, why should I give it credit for my success?
With your attitude, it's obvious that you're one of those who wants to punish success. Not very Romney-like, now are you?
All he did was the sausage trick at Bain. Buy a good company, wreck it, rake off the excess before anybody gets wise.
The progressive tax is justified because of our economic system. Whether you're a corporate CEO or an actor or a writer or an inventor, the system only works when we have a working legal system, working methods of exchange, and customers who can buy things. All of these require monetary support. Regardless of whether you depend on 10000 employees to help generate the wealth, or just your self, without paying customers, legal enforcement, a healthy economic system, etc., your wealth would not be possible. Therefore, if you were able/lucky enough to receive $15 Million rather than $ 75K, it wasn't possible without the system working. Since you benefitted by making the extra $ 14 Million, you need to pay a higher percentage. That's it.
What that % is, is another debate, but the progressive tax should not be in question.
But there is a next level Democrats have to attain orthey
willalways be slackers and shrugged off as the 47% or
whatever.Democrats talk big, but they don't
work together and they don't followup and progress.
They get to good enough then relax and forget the
whole things some even become Repulblicans.ARGH!!!!
Kennedy said ask what you can do
for your country. I am for a solid socially just&equitable
society, to get to that isn't just all about waving our
hands and saying MAKE IT SO-RICH DUDES! I understand
why the rich complain about that,
NOT THAT I AGREE WITH THEIR WHINING,there is
some truth to it.
We all have to realize that soon we will approach
a wall at 1000MPH global warning&expensive energy,less
water, and even if we get all of that
sorted out we are pretty much killing the environment, and
the results of our actions are working themselves out for
a hundred years.
Liberals talk about they hate nuclear waste because it is
around for so long, but the results of everything we do
is also around for just as long - as least as far as our
own and our kids' lives are. we have to get serious.
We need to think of solutions and make a system that
peolpe can understand -that is the problem, the country
and life are too complex for peolpe and it is driving them
crazy.
a wall at 1000MPH global warning&expensive energy,less
water, and even if we get all of that
sorted out we are pretty much killing the environment, and
the results of our actions are working themselves out for
a hundred years.
Oh yea, global climate change, automation, peak oil, environmental degradation, overpopulation, we are in middle of the greatest extinction event since the dino's, we are headed for a massive de-population. But it may be more of two centruy long decline than an "event" or a crash. In the LONG picture, for history---it may look like a crash. but really, gradually, life for man is going to suck more and more. I don't believe there will be an answer. Just survival. For the lucky. In a way, this little rock probably IS going to hell. I'm 60 and wont be around to see it, but I'm very sad for mankind children. NO way out. Gov COULD make the slide into distopia more comfortable for many, but they probably wont.
Sounds like you are counting on something you cannot prove. All the evidence points to things accelerating, like for example the arctic ice melting. If you are 60 you were part of the problem, and now you are just glad you'll be gone.
Isn't policy just a bunch of words?