Political Ruminations

Mitt Romney Loves Him Some Outsourcing

Mitt Romney brags to his fellow plutocrats about outsourcing his campaign at the now infamous private fundraiser last May:

“I have a very good team of extraordinarily experienced, highly successful consultants, a couple of people in particular who have done races around the world. I didn't realize it. These guys in the US—the Karl Rove equivalents—they do races all over the world: in Armenia, in Africa, in Israel. I mean, they work for Bibi Netanyahu in his race. So they do these races and they see which ads work, and which processes work best, and we have ideas about what we do over the course of the campaign. I'd tell them to you, but I'd have to shoot you.”

DNC Convention Quotes–Gov. Ted Strickland

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on how little American workers mean to Mitt Romney during a rousing speech at the DNC’s convention last night:

“Now, Mitt Romney, he lives by a different code. To him, American workers are just numbers on a spreadsheet.

To him, all profits are created equal, whether made on our shores or off. That's why companies Romney invested in were dubbed "outsourcing pioneers." Our nation was built by pioneers—pioneers who accepted untold risks in pursuit of freedom, not by pioneers seeking offshore profits at the expense of American workers here at home.”

“Mitt Romney proudly wrote an op-ed entitled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." If he had had his way, devastation would have cascaded from Michigan to Ohio and across the nation. Mitt Romney never saw the point of building something when he could profit from tearing it down. If Mitt was Santa Claus, he'd fire the reindeer and outsource the elves.”

“On what he's saying about the president's policy for welfare to work, he's lying. Simple as that. On his tax returns, he's hiding. You have to wonder, just what is so embarrassing that he's gone to such great lengths to bury the truth? Whatever he's doing to avoid taxes, can it possibly be worse than the Romney-Ryan tax plan that would have sliced Mitt's total tax rate to less than one percent?”

RELATED POSTS:

. VIDEOS: The Best Speeches From the DNC Convention - Tuesday Night, September 4
. Mitt Romney's Bain Capital Still Outsourcing Our Jobs to China

. Mitt Romney’s Offshore Accounts

. Mitt Romney Was an Outsourcing Pioneer

Mitt Romney's Bain Capital Still Outsourcing Our Jobs to China

Mitt Romney’s idea of Labor Day as opposed to yours and mine, is obviously very different. Mr. Romney’s lack of concern for ordinary people is no less than stunning, and that callousness must become common knowledge before we get stuck with Romney-Ryan for four or eight years. That said, I pulled this short excerpt from PoliticusUSA , and I hope that you’ll go read the rest of it (emphasis mine):

Bain Capital is the majority owner in Sensata Technologies in Freeport Illinois that manufactures sensors and controls used in automobiles and aircraft, and for the past 8 months has been dismantled and shipped in pieces to its new location in China. The company required American workers to personally train their Chinese replacements before their jobs are eliminated, and it prompted 170 workers to sign an open letter to Willard Romney petitioning him to prevent their jobs from being outsourced to China. The workers were especially disturbed that a month before the Chinese replacements arrived for training, the company physically removed the American Flag that flew outside the plant because Sensata was afraid of offending the Chinese, and put it back when the foreign workers left. The workers appealed to Romney and Bain Capital to keep their jobs in America, but they were chastised, locked out of buildings, and at one Romney campaign headquarters near Madison Wisconsin, were forcibly removed from the property.

The workers went to Tampa to entreaty Romney personally, and were met by protestors calling them communists and shouting the familiar Republican chant of, “U.S.A., U.S.A.” in an attempt to “make it sound like we were not patriotic” because we wanted to keep good-paying jobs in America. One of the workers said, “it offends 170 people who are having their jobs moved to China to increase the bottom line, because although these products have always been profitable, it’s just not enough,” and that “we need to stop this practice and keep the good paying jobs here; not the lower-paying jobs.” One of the organizers said that while they were in Tampa, they met a lot of people dealing with the same issue of outsourced jobs, or Bain Capital firing workers and hiring them back at very low wages without pensions or healthcare. It is the Bain Capital business model perfected by presidential hopeful Willard Romney, and it has been his standard practice of destroying the American Dream to increase profits.

So, I don’t know about you, but the idea of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in charge of the future of this country gives me nightmares.

Quote of the Day

In Iowa today, Joe Biden nailed Mitt Romney as a job creator, referencing Romney’s experience as an outsourcing pioneer:

“You’ve got to give Mitt Romney credit. He’s a job creator. In Singapore. China. India. He’s been very good at creating jobs. Overseas.”

Watch the video:

Via Bob Cesca

Full Text Transcript of Obama Financial Speech in Durham New Hampshire June 25

Full Text Transcript of President Obama’s Speech in Durham, New Hampshire on June 25, 2012

THE PRESIDENT: Hello, New Hampshire! (Applause.) Hello, Durham! (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. It is great to be back in New Hampshire. (Applause.)

A couple of people I want to acknowledge. First of all, wasn't Scott outstanding? Give Scotty a big round of applause for his introduction. (Applause.) I want to thank Todd Allen, who is the principal here at Oyster River High School. (Applause.) And I want to thank our outstanding Senator from New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen. (Applause.) And I want to thank all of you. (Applause.)

I know it's a little warm in here. (Laughter.) That’s okay. That's okay. It is wonderful to be back. And I just have so many good memories here in New Hampshire, and I see some familiar faces and folks who were with me when people were still figuring out how to pronounce my name. (Laughter.)

Morning Quote: President Obama

During his speech at a rally in Tampa yesterday, President Obama referred to the latest revelations about Mitt Romney’s business career, this time calling attention to the fact that Romney’s private equity company, Bain Capital, was an early bird, a pioneer in outsourcing American jobs:

“We do not need an outsourcing pioneer in the Oval Office, we need a president who will fight for American jobs and fight for American manufacturing!”

Mitt Romney Was an Outsourcing Pioneer

According to a report by the Washington Post, Romney’s company, Bain Capital, was a pioneer in the area of outsourcing:

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. […..]

The Post goes into more detail regarding Bain’s role in outsourcing American jobs, noting that Bain was involved with outsourcing early on:

While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field.

Over the past two decades, American companies have dramatically expanded their overseas operations and supply networks, especially in Asia, while shrinking their workforces at home. McKinsey Global Institute estimated in 2006 that $18.4 billion in global information technology work and $11.4 billion in business-process services have been moved abroad.

While the export of jobs has been disruptive for many workers and communities in the United States, outsourcing has been a powerful economic force. It has often helped lower the prices that American consumers pay for products and created a global supply chain that has made U.S. companies more nimble and profitable.

And naturally, Romney campaign officials have declined to comment (at least until they can decide how to spin it):

Romney campaign officials repeatedly declined requests to comment on Bain’s record of investing in outsourcing firms during the Romney era.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney had the nerve to tell workers at a factory in Ohio last week  “for me it’s all about good jobs for the American people and a bright and prosperous future”.

Koch Brothers - Big Oil Behind Another Americans for Prosperity Anti-Obama Ad

This is the second recent multi-million dollar ad that Americans for Prosperity (the Tea Party Koch Brothers group) has run against President Obama in the service of Big Oil, and Mitt Romney.

Why? Because Big Oil knows that President Obama will again try to end taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil. Romney will let them keep their subsidies.

From The Washington Post, emphasis mine:

Two well-funded Republican groups began running hard-hitting ads against President Obama last week, aiming to spend an estimated $8 million in key battleground states. The spots hit similar themes, attacking Obama on green-energy investments, and even cite similar sources.

Watching these ads is a depressing duty for The Fact Checker, because many of their claims — regarding “billions” of stimulus dollars going overseas — had been debunked two years ago by our colleagues at PolitiFact and Factcheck.org. Yet here the erroneous assertions emerge yet again, without any shame, labeled as “the truth” or “fact.”

The ads are airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia, and in fact, even though I rarely watch television, I happened to catch the latest despicable piece of crap ad over the weekend. I termed the ad "despicable", because of course, the ad is nothing but lies. In fact, they just damn well made stuff up.

Fortunately, the Obama Campaign came out with a response fairly rapidly, and now we need to do our part and get this video seen by everyone we/you/I know! But first, please watch the video, and make a note of the talking points:

Damn our conservative Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling that allowed our elections to become a mockery of democracy.

Morning Quote: President Obama on Insourcing Jobs

“First, if you're a business that wants to outsource jobs, you have that right, but you shouldn't get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home. Give them the tax break.

Second of all, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. So we've said, from now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay and hire here in the United States of America. Give them a bigger tax break.

Third, if you’re an American manufacturer, you should get a bigger tax cut. If you’re a high-tech manufacturer, creating new products, new services, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here in America. If you want to relocate in a community like this one that’s been hard hit when factories left town, you should get help financing a new plant, financing new equipment, training new workers.”

- President Obama talks about tax reform and  insourcing jobs at Master Lock in Wisconsin yesterday.

Watch:

VIDEO: Jon Stewart Takes on Corporate Tax Dodger GE

In for it are GE for its stellar record of paying zero dollars in U.S. taxes at the same time that they outsourced our jobs overseas, President Obama for appointing GEs CEO to head up the jobs panel, and NBC for its lack of coverage on GEs (NBCs parent company, along with Comcast) propensity for tax dodging.

Watch:

Morning Quote: Michael Moore

In an appearance on Rachel Maddow’s show, Michael Moore pointed out that the 400 wealthiest people in this country have more wealth than half of all American families combined, and directed a few very pointed comments at the ultra wealthy elites:

This is what‘s coming for you [referring to the protests in Wisconsin & elsewhere], because the people aren’t going to take it any more.

The people are going to demand justice. They‘re going to demand that your ass is in jail. 

You have taken the money, we want the money back.

You have taken our jobs overseas, we want those jobs back.  Those are a national resource.  Those are not yours to do with as you please.  They affect all of us as a society.

We have a right to those jobs.  We have a right to that money that used to belong to the people of this country. 

A million people evicted from homes, foreclosed this year.  Another million expected this year. How many—I just wonder again, if I can, just address the Wall Streeters and banksters out there—how many more people do you think you can throw out of their homes before they do revolt?  How long do you think this is going to go on?

Exactly how I feel about it. I’ve had enough, and I hope you have too.

You can watch the video here.

RACHEL MADDOW: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is Urging Members to Outsource Jobs

The hypocrisy, the blatant anti-Americanism of the far Right Wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce is enough to make your blood boil. Watch it, and let the rage begin.

 

DSCC AD: Millionaire Pat Toomey is Fighting for Jobs

......in China. Yes, Mr. Toomey believes in free market ideas such as NAFTA, and outsourcing jobs to China.

Not surprising considering who he is. Toomey is not only a former investment banker, he is the former president of the Club for Growth, a super PAC which has been accused of driving all the moderates out of the GOP, and which has been spending millions to defeat RINOs and Democrats this year.

For information on Toomey's positions on the issues, click here.

US Chamber of Commerce Funded by Top Offshoring Companies

You would think that an entity that calls itself the “U.S. Chamber of Commerce” would care about jobs. American jobs. In America, of course.

You would be wrong [emphasis mine].

While it tells the American public it cares about American jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually works to send jobs overseas on behalf of its corporate members, which include some of Asia’s top offshoring companies. Its secretly-funded $75 million political ad campaign attacks the “anti-jobs record” of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL), Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), and others.

As ThinkProgress previously noted, the Chamber has repeatedly sent out issue alerts attacking Democratic efforts to encourage businesses to hire locally rather than outsource to foreign counties. The Chamber has also bitterly fought Democrats for opposing unfettered free trade deals. The Chamber’s anti-American jobs agenda serves not only the profit-seeking of right-wing corporate executives in the United States, but also works to send jobs overseas to the following outsourcing companies, who are some of the dozens of foreign corporations that pay member dues to the Chamber of Commerce’s 501c(6) account, which is used to fund its political ads:

Could any group be less pro-American than one who sends our jobs overseas and penalizes those who work to keep jobs on our own soil? Not in my opinion.