Rmoney steps in it this time!

[moby]

"Assuming what you are doing with the politcal posts in here is campaigning, it seems like a really dumb place to do so. What percentage of this forum is CA based? I'm betting its close to 90%. The state is going for Obama. You're wasting your time here if you are trying to make a difference. But, on the other hand, you probably just get off on this. So whatever."

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

 

[Mo_Fo]

"Assuming what you are doing with the politcal posts in here is campaigning, it seems like a really dumb place to do so. What percentage of this forum is CA based? I'm betting its close to 90%. The state is going for Obama. You're wasting your time here if you are trying to make a difference. But, on the other hand, you probably just get off on this. So whatever."

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

He is saying that every once and awhile GWS shows his fvcking brilliance. As GWS had pointed out in another political thread ( <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />) that this state is an Obama state. It will vote for Obama. Our own little ballots mean chit. So you "rallying" for either candidate is rather "circle jerk-esk" if you live in California.

Your time would be much better spent arguing about local &amp; state government officials, laws, etc than worrying about who will be elected President. You actually possibly maybe have impact on the local/state level... POTUS? In CA, your vote means nada. Don't kid yourselves. Try and focus on chit that you can actually effect.

I think that's what 12 meant. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />

 

[FecalFace]

Our own little ballots mean chit.

 

[uburack]

A problem like taking a successful business that is not quite making its owners/backers enough profits? His solution is to outsource the labor and bankrupt the company... then those backers get their profits

Yeah, sorta like that. Except those backers/owners are shareholders and public funds (you know what a 401K is right)? Unlike Obama who only pours money into highly paid union "bros" and crappy co.s like Solyndra, GM and GE owned by his biggest campaign contributors and who outsourced many more jobs than Bain ever did and only lost money for us tax payers who are light years from ever recouping what we paid into it.

You probably think the companies that got liquidated were successful before Romney stepped in, don't you? Bankruptcy is actually a proper way to recoup something from what was already lost and couldn't compete. GM *should* have gone bk, now it is flailing at a time when car sales are increasing for the competition.

YOu should educate yourself before you vote and do more damage than you already did. Dude step away from the kook aid. No matter how you slice it, side by side, Romney knows how to take a failing org and salvage it, more often saving jobs and investments, Obama only knows how to lose money and kill jobs. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/deadhorse.gif" alt="" />

 

[Ifallalot]

Wrong... Making Wall Street profits have nothing to do with real world profits and improving the economy. 401ks are among the worse business sins that have raped the populace over the past 30 years by removing a pension system that guaranteed retirement and converting it to a Vegas-type Casino system

Look up Accuride....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/romney-s-bain-yielded-private-gains-socialized-losses.html

Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses

Mitt Romney touts his business acumen and job-creation record as a key qualification for being the next U.S. president.
What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.
What’s less clear is how his skills are relevant to the job of overseeing the U.S. economy, strengthening competitiveness and looking out for the welfare of the general public, especially the middle class.
Thanks to leverage, 10 of roughly 67 major deals by Bain Capital during Romney’s watch produced about 70 percent of the firm’s profits. Four of those 10 deals, as well as others, later wound up in bankruptcy. It’s worth examining some of them to understand Romney’s investment style at Bain Capital.
In 1986, in one of its earliest deals, Bain Capital acquired Accuride Corp., a manufacturer of aluminum truck wheels. The purchase was 97.5 percent financed by debt, a high level of leverage under any circumstances. It was especially burdensome for a company that was exposed to aluminum-price volatility and cyclical automotive production.
Casino Capitalism
Forty-to-one leverage is casino capitalism that hugely magnifies gains and losses. Bain Capital wisely chose to flip the company fast: After 18 months, it sold Accuride, converting its $2.6 million sliver of equity into a $61 million capital gain. That deal, which yielded a 1,123 percent annualized return, was critical to Bain Capital’s early success and led the firm to keep maximizing the use of leverage.
In 1992, Bain Capital bought American Pad &amp; Paper by financing 87 percent of the purchase price. In the next three years, Ampad borrowed to make acquisitions, repay existing debt and pay Bain Capital and its investors $60 million in dividends.
As a result, the company’s debt swelled from $11 million in 1993 to $444 million by 1995. The $14 million in annual interest expense on this debt dwarfed the company’s $4.7 million operating cash flow. The proceeds of an initial public offering in July 1996 were used to pay Bain Capital $48 million for part of its stake and to reduce the company’s debt to $270 million.
From 1993 to 1999, Bain Capital charged Ampad about $18 million in various fees. By 1999, the company’s debt was back up to $400 million. Unable to pay the interest costs and drained of cash paid to Bain Capital in fees and dividends, Ampad filed for bankruptcy the following year. Senior secured lenders got less than 50 cents on the dollar, unsecured lenders received two- tenths of a cent on the dollar, and several hundred jobs were lost. Bain Capital had reaped capital gains of $107 million on its $5.1 million investment.
Bain Capital’s acquisition in 1994 of Dade International, a supplier of in-vitro diagnostic products, was 81 percent financed by debt. Of the $85 million in equity, about $27 million came from Bain with the rest coming from a group of investors that included Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
From 1995 to 1999, Bain Capital tripled Dade’s debt from about $300 million to $902 million. Some of the debt was used to pay for acquisitions of DuPont Co.’s in-vitro diagnostics division in May 1996 and Behring Diagnostics, a German medical- testing company, in 1997. But some was used to finance a repurchase of half of Bain Capital’s equity for $242 million -- more than eight times its investment -- and to pay its investors almost $100 million in fees.
Bankruptcy Filing
Dade was left in a weakened financial condition and couldn’t withstand the shocks of increased debt payments when interest rates rose and revenue from Europe fell because of a decline in the value of the euro. The company filed for bankruptcy in August 2002, because of its inability to service a $1.5 billion debt load. About 1,700 people lost their jobs while Bain Capital claimed capital gains (net of its losses in the bankruptcy) of roughly $216 million, an eightfold return.
There are many other examples of this debt-fueled strategy. In the two years following the acquisition in 1993 of GS Industries, a steel mill, for $8 million, Bain Capital increased the company’s debt to $378 million on operating income of less than a 10th of that amount. Some of this was used to pay Bain Capital a $36 million dividend in 1994. That degree of leverage was excessive in light of the cyclicality and capital-intensive nature of the steel industry.
By the time the company went bankrupt in 2001, it owed $554 million in debt against assets valued at $395 million. Many creditors lost money, and 750 workers lost their jobs. The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures company retirement plans, determined in 2002 that GS had underfunded its pension by $44 million and had to step in to cover the shortfall.
Bain Capital’s acquisition of Stage Stores, a department- store chain, in 1988 was 96 percent financed by debt (mostly in junk bonds) -- an extreme level for a cyclical and very competitive low-margin business. Bain sold a large part of its stake in 1997 for a $184 million gain, three years before the company filed for bankruptcy because of its inability to service its $600 million debt.
Success, entrepreneurship, risk taking and wealth creation deserve to be celebrated when they are the result of fair play and hard work. President Barack Obama is correct in distinguishing the patient creation of value for the benefit of investors through genuine operational improvements and growth -- the true mission of private equity -- from the form of rigged capitalism that was practiced by some in the industry in the past when debt was cheap and plentiful.
While Bain Capital wasn’t alone in using financial engineering to turbo-charge its returns, it was among the most aggressive under Romney’s leadership. Enriching investors by taking leveraged bets isn’t a qualification for a job requiring long-term vision and concern for public welfare. It is appropriate to point that out to voters.
(Anthony Luzzatto Gardner works at Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity fund based in London, and was director of European affairs in the U.S. National Security Council in 1994-95. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View. Subscribe to receive a daily e-mail highlighting new View editorials, columns and op-ed articles.
Today’s highlights: the editors on good news from Guantanamo, why Jamie Dimon’s bonus should be clawed back and how to put more electric cars on the road; William D. Cohan on Romney’s magical IRA; Albert R. Hunt on the candidates’ need to spell out debt-cutting plans; Stephen Marche explains why Canadians are now richer than Americans.
To contact the writer of this article: Anthony Luzzatto Gardner at tonylgardner@hotmail.com
To contact the editor responsible for this article: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net

 

[uburack]

Wrong... Making Wall Street profits have nothing to do with real world profits and improving the economy. 401ks are among the worse business sins that have raped the populace over the past 30 years by removing a pension system that guaranteed retirement and converting it to a Vegas-type Casino system

Look up Accuride....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/romney-s-bain-yielded-private-gains-socialized-losses.html

[/quote]

You really are a sad little man, cutting and pasting a selective and biased article. You can spin it anyway you want but look at the WHOLE picture before you speak. Why don't you read up a little, here I'll do some of your cut and paste legwork for you. Go to the 'business experience' section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

Where are ALL THE OPPONENTS who actually worked with Romney? Obama even paid one lowly loser to be in his attack ad but the guy later retracted his opinion of Romney.

I Googled Obama's business experience but the crickets were deafening. Sorry no results.

 

[uburack]

Here is Accuride from Wiki

Accuride was founded in 1986 in order to acquire the wheel-making division of Firestone Tire &amp; Rubber Company.[1] The purchase was orchestrated by Bain Capital under the direction of Mitt Romney. With Bain Capital as its new owners, Accuride revamped production and restructured executive pay, quickly boosting the company's profitability.[2] Accuride's earnings rose 20 percent in the first year under Bain's watch, and the number of plants increased by 16 percent to 1,785.[3] Bain Capital sold the company to a mining conglomerate 18 months later, making approximately $120 million from its $5 million investment.[2] The success of the takeover and turnaround quickly put Romney and Bain on the map.[4]

 

[Ifallalot]

Wrong... Making Wall Street profits have nothing to do with real world profits and improving the economy. 401ks are among the worse business sins that have raped the populace over the past 30 years by removing a pension system that guaranteed retirement and converting it to a Vegas-type Casino system

Look up Accuride....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-15/romney-s-bain-yielded-private-gains-socialized-losses.html

You really are a sad little man, cutting and pasting a selective and biased article. You can spin it anyway you want but look at the WHOLE picture before you speak. Why don't you read up a little, here I'll do some of your cut and paste legwork for you. Go to the 'business experience' section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney

Where are ALL THE OPPONENTS who actually worked with Romney? Obama even paid one lowly loser to be in his attack ad but the guy later retracted his opinion of Romney.

I Googled Obama's business experience but the crickets were deafening. Sorry no results. [/quote]
Bloomberg is conservative <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/foreheadslap.gif" alt="" />

The last thing I want running the country is a businessman because they are the only criminals worst than politicians

 

[Ifallalot]

Here is Accuride from Wiki

Accuride was founded in 1986 in order to acquire the wheel-making division of Firestone Tire &amp; Rubber Company.[1] The purchase was orchestrated by Bain Capital under the direction of Mitt Romney. With Bain Capital as its new owners, Accuride revamped production and restructured executive pay, quickly boosting the company's profitability.[2] Accuride's earnings rose 20 percent in the first year under Bain's watch, and the number of plants increased by 16 percent to 1,785.[3] Bain Capital sold the company to a mining conglomerate 18 months later, making approximately $120 million from its $5 million investment.[2] The success of the takeover and turnaround quickly put Romney and Bain on the map.[4]

*while outsourcing all the jobs and causing thousands of Americans to be out of work, on the public dole, looking for jobs that don't exist anymore

 

[uburack]

You moron. The source is Bloomberg. Not exactly a liberal source. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hah.gif" alt="" />

Did I use the words Bloomberg, conservative or liberal anywhere? Who is the moron? Why is illiteracy so rampant on this bb? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bricks.gif" alt="" />

 

[2surf]

[quote
The last thing I want running the country is a businessman because they are the only criminals worst than politicians [/quote]

Wow you really are brainwashed. Sadly logic does escape you.

 

[uburack]

The last thing I want running the country is a businessman because they are the only criminals worst than politicians

So who exactly do you work for if not a businessman? Your fairy Godmother? Please do tell us so we can follow your example.

 

[Ifallalot]

The last thing I want running the country is a businessman because they are the only criminals worst than politicians

So who exactly do you work for if not a businessman? Your fairy Godmother? Please do tell us so we can follow your example.

I work because I have to, and God knows I don't look up to the General Manager and the Executives of my company like they are something special because they know how to move money from one pile into another

 

[Malarcus]

[quote
The last thing I want running the country is a businessman because they are the only criminals worst than politicians

Wow you really are brainwashed. Sadly logic does escape you. [/quote]

Sorry, JEwing, you've got it backwards. You've accepted the concept that running a government and running a business are analogous and they are not analogous in any meaningful way. The goal of business is profit and its focus is on a limited number of people. Government's sole focus is taking care of the needs of its citizens. Being a businessman obviously gives one a leg up in running a business, but provides no special insights into serving a town, city, county, or nation and, in fact, may actually adversely affect one's ability to serve a large number of different people with differing interests.

 

[utsasurfer]

LOL, by your example the Pres. should have been on this like stink on $hit <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />



<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hat.gif" alt="" />

 

[Ifallalot]

You moron. The source is Bloomberg. Not exactly a liberal source. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hah.gif" alt="" />

Did I use the words Bloomberg, conservative or liberal anywhere? Who is the moron? Why is illiteracy so rampant on this bb? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bricks.gif" alt="" />

You used "selective and biased"

What bias would you be alluding to if it wasn't conservative or liberal? Do tell.

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/loser.gif" alt="" />

 

[Malarcus]

LOL, by your example the Pres. should have been on this like stink on $hit <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" />

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/shrug.gif" alt="" />



<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hat.gif" alt="" />

What example did I provide?

 

[uburack]

"So who exactly do you work for if not a businessman? "
- So on here would like their boss to POTUS???? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/roflmao.gif" alt="" />

DId I say anything about your boss or my boss as POTUS? Holy crap this is becoming tedious as all hell....

...Which now makes total sense! You liberals actually are in hell. Now IFALLALOT says he only works because he HAS to. Sheit there is a word for that condition and it ain't 'happy'. No need for any further explanations here.

"Now I don't know for sure but I have it on pretty good authority", zombie liberals have been slipped enough Scopolamine to cause them to support the loser in chief. Note the compete lack of attention to detail, reading comprehension and/or critical thinking. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/foreheadslap.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/socrazy.gif" alt="" />

 

[uburack]

You moron. The source is Bloomberg. Not exactly a liberal source. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hah.gif" alt="" />

Did I use the words Bloomberg, conservative or liberal anywhere? Who is the moron? Why is illiteracy so rampant on this bb? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bricks.gif" alt="" />

You used "selective and biased"

What bias would you be alluding to if it wasn't conservative or liberal? Do tell.

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/loser.gif" alt="" />

Why don't you figure it out for yourself genius? Read a little bit about something before you run with it. Would you know a bias if it slapped you in the face, I doubt it. You're probably still struggling with the meaning of the word "is".

 

[Ifallalot]

Newsflash- unbiased sources do not exist because they are written by humans. Even your wikipedia sources are biased due to the well-known Wikipedia Super Users where a very, very select group is given undue influence over something that is supposed to be a community project.

And... I actually very much enjoy my job and I feel lucky to be one of the few people who have that going for them. That being said, would I work 12 months a year if I didn't have to? Of course not