Romney Causes Cancer

[Conan71]

I have an even better question for you. Why do you and the other right wingers who post around here insist on conflating LBO and VC? LBO shops make money by arbitraging the tax code and shifting risk away from equity owners and onto debt holders. VCs lose money (on average) by supporting crazy ideas in the hopes of striking it rich in the market. How long do you think any of Bain's acquisitions would have lasted were it not for the implicit 35% rebate on the cost of capital?

That has nothing to do with the question I asked and I wasn't conflating LBO and VC.  Again, why is Obama accepting money from these sorts if they are evil?

[nathanm]

That has nothing to do with the question I asked and I wasn't conflating LBO and VC.  Again, why is Obama accepting money from these sorts if they are evil?

Yes you did. He has never, as far as I'm aware, expressed any problem with VCs. He hasn't even expressed any broad disapproval of LBO outfits, only Romney's record at one So even if you generalize his attacks on Romney to the whole industry, he's still not talking about VC. Hence, you are conflating VC and LBO.

Bain was a VC firm at the outset. That changed in 1986.

[Conan71]

Yes you did. He has never, as far as I'm aware, expressed any problem with VCs. He hasn't even expressed any broad disapproval of LBO outfits, only Romney's record at one So even if you generalize his attacks on Romney to the whole industry, he's still not talking about VC. Hence, you are conflating VC and LBO.

Bain was a VC firm at the outset. That changed in 1986.

The only thing you seem to love more than the word "conflate" is severe mental gymnastics.  The Obama camp and their surrogates have run a complete smear campaign against VC since you obviously have not been paying attention to the attack ads and rhetoric from the left.

Obama's Venture-Capitalist Hypocrisy
By Alexander Kazam
May 16, 2012 6:38 P.M.

As Dan noted today, the Obama reelection campaign is increasingly backing itself into a corner with its attacks on private-equity and venture-capital industries. The Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday that on the same night the GST Steel ad debuted, Obama was courting big private-equity donors at a $35,800-a-head fundraiser at the Manhattan home of Blackstone Group president Tony James. The Blackstone Group is one of the largest players in the private-equity business that the Obama campaign has vilified in its caricature of Romney as a "vampire" capitalist.

Worse, Blackstone is the very same firm Obama's team singled out to shame GOP donors who "benefit from betting against America."

In recent press briefings, White House press secretary Jay Carney has strayed from "official business" and waded into campaign territory in order to attack Romney's private-sector record. But that seems to be backfiring too. As one of the press corps reporters asked today, what about the risks the Obama administration took with taxpayer-funded venture-capitalist experiments like Solyndra?

Way back in August 2010, before the Solyndra scandal broke, Businessweek ran an article calling President Obama our "venture-capitalist-in-chief" for his $69 billion gamble on a "new American industrial policy" to promote green tech.

That article contained a revealing quote from a Harvard Kennedy School professor: "What determines success in industrial policy is not the ability to pick winners but the capacity to let the losers go."

The ace venture capitalists in the federal government didn't know how to let Solyndra and other losers go.

So who will win this debate? Take your pick: Romney's private-sector venture capitalism or Obama's  public-sector crony capitalism.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/300202/obamas-venture-capitalist-hypocrisy-alexander-kazam

While President Obama's reelection campaign continues attacking Mitt Romney's former work with Bain Capital, its own spokesman and national co-chair is also a private equity manager whose firm has reportedly shut down several factories and laid off hundreds of workers.

The Daily Caller's Neil Munro reports that Federic Pena's work with Vestar Capital Partners is strikingly similar to that which Obama's campaign so openly criticizes Romney for:

Pena's private-equity role was highlighted by CompleteColorado.com, a Drudge-mimicking news aggregator.

Pena has already contributed $5,000 to Obama's campaign, even though Vestar laid off 1,000 workers from Del Monte this month, closed three factories and laid off 540 people at Solo Cup Co., and fired another 500 workers at BirdsEye food-processor in 2006, according to the report.
The Pena revelation follows reports highlighting the venture capital careers of two people on the president's jobs council.
Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup, is a senior adviser at Providence Equity Partners, and Mark Gallogly is a co-founder of Centerbridge Partners.

Pena joined Vestar in 1998. "Our strategy is simple: We look for strong management teams at successful companies with excellent growth potential," according to the company's website. "We back those teams with the capital and global resources they need to realize that potential and take their companies to the next level."

The company is based in Denver, in New York near Wall Street and in Boston, which is also home to Romney's Bain Capital company.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/05/25/hypocrisy-alert-obamas-top-spokesman-is-a-venture-capitalist/

[Teatownclown]

Wow...the difference is really lost on you, Conan.

"Presidential campaigns have long been a magnet for big money accumulated in somewhat questionable ways. (Think of the bootlegger Joe Kennedy and how he helped his son become president.) What's different this year is the highly accelerated pace of spending spurred on by the disastrous Citizens United decision, and the legitimate civic fear that a very few, very wealthy individuals, Adelson among them, may determine not only the election outcome, but the shape of policy in the next administration."



http://forward.com/articles/160867/adelsons-ethics/

The reasons for such opposition are clearly laid out in an unofficial Mormon website that Edsall quotes: Gambling "undermines the value of work and motivates one to think that they can get something for nothing."

That describes Romney perfectly.

[Red Arrow]

Gambling "undermines the value of work and motivates one to think that they can get something for nothing."

So if we were to completely outlaw gambling, we could cure liberalism.

[Gaspar]

So if we were to completely outlaw gambling, we could cure liberalism.

Nope. 
As long as one person has a penny more than another there will be liberals.
As long as government offers the power to pillage to those willing to vote for it, there will be liberals.
As long as their are men and women who believe themselves solely capable of making decisions for the benefit of other individuals, there will be liberals.

Part of the burden of living in a free society is enduring those who fear that freedom.  Ultimately the disease consumes the host.
Tyranny=>Revolution=>Freedom=>Dependence=>Tyranny

Liberalism can only be slowed, but the progressive march towards relinquishing more and more responsibility to government, and creating deeper and deeper dependencies, until production is only managed by a small controlled minority of individuals is natural.  We've just been lucky enough to have a constitution that binds government so tightly from granting additional rights and privileges, that we're having a pretty good run of it.  But, ultimately it will unravel.

Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure. – Robert LeFevre

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. – Thomas Jefferson

There is no worse crime than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

The fact throughout history is that whenever government dominates the economic affairs of its citizenry, a free society is eroded, then destroyed, and a minority government ensues. Personal liberty without economic liberty is an absolute contradiction; the one cannot exist without the other. – William E. Simon

As the state grows, one's sense of self-ownership is destroyed, liberty is traded for "security," the human spirit diminishes, and the citizenry increasingly thinks and behaves like dependent children. – Eric Englund

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler

[AquaMan]

Lotta' poop on this thread. Smells kinda bad. Here's some more.

Heard an interesting concept yesterday from a Harvard professor. Probably had R&R as students.

He suggests that the end result of the passion for marketizing everything that Libertarians and right wingers worship would be marketizing the vote itself. Many people don't care to vote, aren't knowledgeable enough to vote and would rather not be pushed into voting. Rather than go to the expense and hypocrisy of delegitimizing their votes, changing your positions for each state and buying all those negative ads.... they could be allowed to sell their votes at market value.

Of course, Oklahoma rates would be quite low as we're so deeply red. But in states like Florida and Ohio there could be some money to be made. If states had reciprocal rights, then OK could sell their votes to Romney supporters in Ohio and we all get rich.

Its purely market driven. Gas et al should love it.

[Gaspar]

Lotta' poop on this thread. Smells kinda bad. Here's some more.

Heard an interesting concept yesterday from a Harvard professor. Probably had R&R as students.

He suggests that the end result of the passion for marketizing everything that Libertarians and right wingers worship would be marketizing the vote itself. Many people don't care to vote, aren't knowledgeable enough to vote and would rather not be pushed into voting. Rather than go to the expense and hypocrisy of delegitimizing their votes, changing your positions for each state and buying all those negative ads.... they could be allowed to sell their votes at market value.

Of course, Oklahoma rates would be quite low as we're so deeply red. But in states like Florida and Ohio there could be some money to be made. If states had reciprocal rights, then OK could sell their votes to Romney supporters in Ohio and we all get rich.

Its purely market driven. Gas et al should love it.

Voting is a privilege extended to the individual and regulated by the states (not the federal government).  It is not transferrable.
It is the duty of the candidate to stimulate the casual voter. 

[Conan71]

Voting is a privilege extended to the individual and regulated by the states (not the federal government).  It is not transferrable.
It is the duty of the candidate to stimulate the casual voter. 

Or ACORN

[erfalf]

Voting is a privilege extended to the individual and regulated by the states (not the federal government).  It is not transferrable.
It is the duty of the candidate to stimulate the casual voter. 

That is the key word. As soon as our public schools start teaching that we don't live in a democracy maybe that will start to sink in to everyone.

[Gaspar]

That is the key word. As soon as our public schools start teaching that we don't live in a democracy maybe that will start to sink in to everyone.

. . .Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy. – US House Congressional Resolution 48

At least it's taught in the military.

"Democracy – A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic – negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." – U.S. Army Training Manual

[DolfanBob]

This just in. "Paul Ryan cures Cancer" so it's all kind of a wash huh? 

[AquaMan]

This just in. "Paul Ryan cures Cancer" so it's all kind of a wash huh? 

What cures erfalfian Gas?

[Red Arrow]

What cures erfalfian Gas?

Evidently not water.

[AquaMan]

Voting is a privilege extended to the individual and regulated by the states (not the federal government).  It is not transferrable.
It is the duty of the candidate to stimulate the casual voter. 

Its a concept doofus. Of course you can't do it. He used it to make fun of this movement to privatize and marketize. Once it is offered as a solution, it sets their minds reeling and the whole movement seems suspect.

So how do you feel about our marvelous governor and legislature, who pass the most inane laws in the country, having the power to decide whether you are worthy to vote? A bit unsettling isn't it?