Romney, Obama and Bain

Originally Posted by Clyde

It's 100% running from the claim that he was part of the outsourcing decisions. Why else would they even be having this "February 1999 end date" debate?

Stream Intl, Modus Media, and SMTC are 3 businesses that Bain acquired and then chose to outsource many of the jobs. Those 3 were acquired and outsourced in 1999. Mr Romney's Feb 1999 declaration is solely to distance himself from that outsourcing.

LN, I never thought nor have heard anyone else ever say that this date debate was nothing other than linking or distancing from the outsourcing issue.

Regarding the Obama campaign lying, I'd say it's hard to say at this point since there are so many people looking into this and finding discrepancies. Here's a new one:

Romney's Account of His Departure From Bain Undercut By...Romney Testimony | Mother Jones


Trying to clarify this, the lawyer, after referring to this "transition," asked, "So from February through the end of the year you were pretty much full-time out in Utah, right?"

Romney replied: "Well again, the beginning of the year was a good deal of time back and forth, but towards the last half of the year it was pretty much exclusively in Utah."

So when did he actually officially leave? Why didn't he and his advisors handle this properly upfront and just say "here's what I did and when?"


I'm not sure what you're saying with the P&G example.

From what I can tell Bain took over companies that were in trouble. Rolled in new management and did the restructuring thing. This is what VCs do.

These companies were in the electronics industry in the 1990s. The industry climate was (and still is) mostly brutal. What they did is what companies in the entire industry were doing - outsourcing everything not centered around the direct product - especially customer call centers. If you have placed a call to any high tech company in the last decade you probably do not get Bubba in the US at the other end of the phone.

Romney left Bain in 1999. That was a few years before whole sale outsourcing (and often offshoring) took hold. Though the terms are used almost interchangably now the two are different. Outsourcing took hold in the 1990s. Offshoring took hold in mid-2000s. The first wave was not a major hit the US job market. The second was - and is to this day.

Here is a good link....its even a Fact Check link!

FactCheck.org : Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach

BTW,

How attractive is 'offshoring'?

Typical 'total' cost per US-based employee - 58,000 USD
Typical 'total' cost of India-based employee - 12,000 USD

When the comparison is body to body its a 4X difference. Unfortunately this basically caused a panic in most corner offices and the race to the bottom (in terms of costs) started.

Simple outsourcing without offshoring was maybe a 20-40% improvement but when offshoring came in the dynamics radically changed.

Source for numbers above:

http://portal.cbre.eu/workspace/comi...e_of_India.pdf

Last I heard a typical call taker in a call center has a maid taking care of the house during the day also...

Does anyone think Obama is being hypocritical in his constant attacks on Bain although he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds from them?

Originally Posted by cammando

Does anyone think Obama is being hypocritical in his constant attacks on Bain although he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds from them?

I think Obama will become a new synonym for hypocritical.

Originally Posted by cammando

Does anyone think Obama is being hypocritical in his constant attacks on Bain although he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds from them?

Didn't know that but it's pretty funny. Don't you just love politics?

If Bain is the argument the president wants to use, which do you think Americas would choose overall? Bain capitalism or Solyndra crony capitalism?

Originally Posted by Bluegrasscard

If you have placed a call to any high tech company in the last decade you probably do not get Bubba in the US at the other end of the phone.

Now you deal with "Buddah" from India.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Originally Posted by Hatz

Now you deal with "Buddah" from India.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Actually, his name is always Steve. He just sounds like he's from Calcutta.

Originally Posted by All Tell

I think Obama will become a new synonym for hypocritical.

Is there a difference in receiving donations from an employee and from receiving a donation from the company itself?

It was only a matter of time...

Originally Posted by Clyde

Is there a difference in receiving donations from an employee and from receiving a donation from the company itself?

Not when one of Obama's top campaign financiers is a managing director at Bain. Seems pretty cozy to me.

Saw an Obama commercial last night talking about Romney's jobs record. Once of the stats it flashed was something about jobs outsourced by the state of Mass when Romney was governor. Talk about a rat calling a opossum a long nosed (insert bad word here)....