We get it that Willard (“Mitt”) Romney is the candidate of, by, and for the 1 Percent, but he keeps reminding us anyway. Going into South Carolina, where they have some of the worst unemployment, Willard might want to re-think his message. On Tuesday night in New Hampshire, he complained that the 99 Percent represent only the “bitter politics of envy.” The next morning, he doubled down in an interview with Matt Lauer.
LAUER: When you said that we already have a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy, I’m curious about the word ‘envy.’ Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?
ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus one percent — and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent — you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. The American people, I believe in the final analysis, will reject it.
LAUER: Yeah but envy? Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as ‘envy,’ though?
ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.
Many would not agree that multimillionaires and billionaires who take profits and bonuses from fraud and government bailouts are simply more “successful” than the rest of us. They belong behind bars. And 99 percent of us are never invited into the “quiet rooms” where big decisions are made — that is why people are out on the streets protesting the lack of democracy in America.
A super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich’s campaign in South Carolina is airing a 28-minute Swift Boat-style attack on Romney’s record as the chief executive officer of the private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC. Romney is depicted as a financier “more ruthless than Wall Street” and responsible for firing thousands of workers. The term “vulture capitalist” has come back into public discourse, this time specifically to describe Romney. Link to video: “When Mitt Romney Came to Town.”
Romney (reported net worth over $200 million) is still making money from the predatory equity firm while paying little in taxes.
Income inequality is at its worst level since the Great Depression and Americans are increasingly concerned about losing their place in the shrinking middle class. Most of us no longer believe that our children will live a better life, and 72% of families have grown children living with them or know someone who does. When workers in other countries are being told to accept lower wages in order to compete with lower-paid Americans, that’s a warning sign.
They only call it “class warfare” when we fight back.
UPDATE: Obama Administration Chief Economist: Talking About Income Inequality Is Not ‘An Issue About Envy At All’. According to Alan Krueger, chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, the shift in income inequality over the last three decades is the equivalent of moving $1.1 trillion of income from the 99 percent to the top 1 percent every single year. This has led to a severe shrinking of the middle class.
UPDATE: Romney negotiated a $10 million federal bailout from the FDIC to save Bain Capital from bankruptcy in 1993. It’s fair to say we all could be in the “most successful” 1 Percent if we had access to a $10 million gift.
UPDATE: Graphs: What Romney Doesn’t Want You Talking About — Except In ‘Quiet Rooms’
#1 by Cliff on January 12, 2012 - 11:27 am
GOP voters are pathetic. Romney is merely more evidence of that fact.
#2 by cav on January 12, 2012 - 12:47 pm
Not all pathologies are terminal. I’ve spent years bashing the ‘Republican’, and all too frequently am reminded that some of my best friends are just that – so, I have to grapple with that division because each and every one of them are genuinely OK, in so many ways. It’s when they get on the ‘I’ll take this pose because it’ll aggravate liberals that the fun really begins. I know I get off trying to smoke me some ‘conservative’, but it should be pretty clear to everyone by now how divisive these stances are. I guess my point here is that healing occurs, not every voter for the Bush stable can be said to be a sure thing for any ridiculous republican offering. They are no less subject to hood-winking than any other breed – still there was the supreme court and other criminal types pulling strings when all was said and done.
Now despite Willard’s protestations about the divide between the 1 and the 99%, he can ‘think’ it’s about envy from sun up til sun down and he still won’t convince the 99% it’s not simply greedy banksters and corporate heads maximizing their profits – which is just what it is.
If he gave it all away, he might gain points on the sincerity scale. As it is, he’s only fomenting more envy – of the ‘wouldn’t you really like to be more like me’ variety. That shit’s gotten real old real quick.
Anyway, in regards to another stunning divide, he seems pretty hot to extend the suffering of brown people in other parts of the world.
Having written all of this, I tend to want to puke in his general direction.
Maybe it’s just me?
#3 by Richard Warnick on January 12, 2012 - 1:36 pm
UPDATE: Romney negotiated a $10 million federal bailout from the FDIC to save Bain Capital from bankruptcy in 1993. It’s fair to say we all could be in the “most successful” 1 Percent if we had access to a $10 million gift.
#4 by Larry Bergan on January 12, 2012 - 5:16 pm
Mitt Romney is the envious one; he has 200 million and wants a lot more.
And you can STICK your “one nation under God”. I wouldn’t be jealous of you even if your wife DIDN’T marry you just for the money.
I’m starting to feel sorry for all his kids.
#5 by brewski on January 12, 2012 - 5:22 pm
It is interesting what that article says. It says that Bain Consulting was nearing bankruptcy in 1993 and negotiated partial debt forgiveness from many of its creditors, including the Bank of New England, which is in receivership at the time by the FDIC. So the Bank of New England was being bailed out by the FDIC and Bain Consulting received a partial debt forgiveness from many of its creditors.
I have first hand experience with managing corporate bankruptcies and the events sound pretty typical, not that this is a good thing since a failing company is never a good thing. So to me the real story is not whether Bain Consulting got a partial loan forgiveness or not. The real story is that Bain Consulting was failing in the first place.
Also, what would be interesting to find out who exactly was running Bain Consulting at the time when it got into such deep trouble. Was Romney the one who drove it into the ditch or was he just brought in to manage the rescue?
Either way, interesting story.
#6 by brewski on January 12, 2012 - 7:50 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/matt-lauer-makes-17-million-topping-annual-tv-150858412.html
I love it when one multi-millionaire asks another multi-millionaire what it is like being a multi-millionaire all the time pretending not be a a multi-millionaire.
#7 by brewski on January 12, 2012 - 8:33 pm
Richard,
You are good at telling us “what”. You don’t tell us “why” and “how”.
#8 by Karmen on January 12, 2012 - 8:57 pm
Love the update, Richard. That’s one I hadn’t heard about. Needless to say, Mitt Romney makes me sick. If I were to ever vote for a Republican, I would take any of them over Romney.
Larry, you say you are starting to feel sorry for his kids. You did hear that one of the boys tried to be cute and said that he’d release his tax returns when Obama releases his birth certificate. Nope, I don’t feel sorry for his kids.
#9 by Richard Warnick on January 12, 2012 - 11:09 pm
I’m not an expert on the history of Bain Capital. However, I believe we’ll all be hearing more about this company in the months to come. It’s already clear Willard is not going to be able to back up his claim to have created 100,000 jobs.
Tonight on MSNBC Ed Schultz shed light on the time Bain milked $44 million out of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). They took over a Kansas City steel mill, bankrupted it and looted the pension fund.
This kind of stuff may or may not be “free enterprise,” but it doesn’t look good to average Americans.
#10 by brewski on January 13, 2012 - 6:58 am
This is one area that the US needs some serious legal reform. In pretty much all other countries, pension plan assets are “bankruptcy remote” from a company’s assets. Not so in the US. So this means if a company declares bankruptcy that all its creditors can go after the pension assets. This would be an easy thing to reform via an act of Congress. Would be nice to see anyone from either party propose it.
#11 by brewski on January 13, 2012 - 9:00 am
Another related point is that under personal savings plans such as 401Ks, IRAs, 403b, 457, etc etc that those assets are always owned just by the individual and not the company, so if company goes bankrupt, the retirement assets of each individual are not affected at all. But with a company run pension plan, under current law, they are attachable by the creditors.
#12 by Larry Bergan on January 13, 2012 - 4:49 pm
Karmen:
That’s interesting. I would have thought that Romney would tell his kids and wife to be seen and not heard. Huntsman’s wife and kids had a discussion on C-span, which I’m sure was OK’d by Mr. Huntman and is very unusual as far as I can remember.
I quit the Mormon church when I was too young to make important judgements about anything, but it seemed like more of a business then an organization that helped people; the ridiculous myths were a problem for me also, but I respect the Mormon people and I think their hearts are in the right place. Most of them are nice people like they are portrayed in the Broadway play.
I think the more Mormons learn about Romney’s cash grabs the less they will want to be associated with his campaign. The man is disgusting and his disdain for the 99% is not going to be a comfortable situation for his kids.
#13 by Larry Bergan on January 13, 2012 - 4:54 pm
I will always wonder why a Mormon from out of state had to be brought in to “save the Olympics”. Seems like a setup to me.
#14 by Nathan Erkkila on January 14, 2012 - 12:36 am
I find it hilarious that someone can say that 99% of the people are sore losers when they depend on 50% of those people to win an election.
#15 by Rico on January 14, 2012 - 6:22 am
The fact that “Mitt” believes the that the 99%ers are driven by nothing more than jealousy and envy just demonstrates how self-involved and detached he really is. Although he and the rest of the GOP field are climbing over one another to portray themselves as sympathetic to the plight of the common man, they really have no understanding, or even desire to understand. I’ll bet that without his handlers, Mitt would have no idea how much a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, or a bunch of sun ripened tomatoes costs. I’d make the same wager that none of the others (including Obama) do either. The only GOP candidate that might be able to answer that question correctly is Ron Paul. The only major (and I use that term loosely) candidate that I think could answer that question correctly is Rocky Anderson.