It is a fair assumption that many Americans really lack a
comprehensive understanding of the nation’s economy as it relates to
their everyday lives and financial well-being. For most Americans, a
secure living-wage job with benefits, a home, and a decent retirement
plan defines a personal thriving economy, but after Republican
deregulation and investment banker malfeasance during the Bush
administration, only the ultra-wealthy live in a thriving economy.
Indeed, as the world’s economy came crashing down in 2008, the
one-percent of income earners did thrive, and they have since adding to
their personal fortunes at the expense of millions of Americans’ jobs,
homes, and pension funds. In the race for the White House, Willard
Romney promises to recreate the “thriving economy” that cost millions of
Americans their jobs and financial security, and he admitted that in
order to restore the Bush administration’s thriving economy, millions of
Americans are going to suffer. Romney has been secretive about his
economic plans for America, and despite mounting questions regarding
plans to help average Americans, his message, like his wife’s, is “
we’ve given all you people need to know” about a thriving economy.
It is becoming increasingly evident that Romney’s “creative
destruction” model of wealth creation for himself and wealthy investors
does not include a thriving economy for average Americans. During his
storied tenure as head of Bain Capital, he sought out vulnerable
companies, took them over, sent jobs overseas, and leveraged them with
crushing debt they could hardly manage. Prior to companies going
bankrupt, Bain ravaged pension funds, sold off assets that profited
Bain, and lured gullible investors into buying into the “restructured
companies” before they were closed for good. If companies did manage to
remain open, employees lost union representation, living wages,
benefits, and pensions they paid into their entire working lives. The
result was a thriving economy for Romney and Bain, while shareholders,
commercial banks, and employees were left with next-to-nothing if they
were fortunate, and destitute if Willard’s thriving economy was
completely successful.
Romney cannot claim he was unaware of the devastating effects on employees and communities because he said, “
For an economy to thrive, there are a lot of people who will suffer as a result of that,” and that “
it’s
important to find ways to help people move through this process of
losing a job and finding a position in a new type of industry that is
growing.” It is a nice sentiment, but there was nothing then, or
now in Romney’s plan for America that remotely includes helping people
who are not wealthy. In fact, it is no secret he plans to cut education
funding, training programs, push private, for-profit schools, cut higher
education funding, and slash social safety nets that would be crucial
for unemployed workers seeking a job in a new type of industry that is
growing.
While head of Bain, Romney
invested heavily
in new types of industries such as a Chinese manufacturing company that
depended on American outsourcing for its profits, and it contradicts
Romney’s
claim that if president he “
will not let China continue to steal jobs from the United States of America.” It is another nice sound-bite on the campaign trail, but outsourcing jobs is entirely different from China “
stealing jobs from the United States of America.”
In another deal with a new type of industry that is growing, Romney and
Bain invested in a company that acknowledged its strategy was to profit
from American companies that outsourced production overseas. So it is
true that Romney helped workers seeking jobs in a “
new type of industry,”
but the workers were Chinese and not Americans, and as Romney’s
personal economy thrived, Americans languished without jobs, homes,
benefits, or retirement savings. For the
record, these two examples occurred in 1998 before Willard lied and claimed he was retroactively retired from Bain Capital.
Romney promises that his Bain predatory investment experience gives
him an insight in how to turn around the economy with jobs and deficit
reduction.
However, the
massive tax cuts for the richest 1/10
th of 1% of Americans will
increase the deficit
to a degree that will send the economy over the cliff. On Wednesday a
Romney advisor was asked how Willard’s plan would boost economic growth
while balancing the budget and reducing the deficit and his
advisor was clueless,
but said Americans could research his plan to find the answer. The
problem for Americans, and Romney, is that there are no plans, and no
answers regarding deficit reduction or job creation. What Romney has
promised is to “
get government out of the way” of job creators
with deregulation, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and eliminate
Frank-Dodd financial reform that protects consumers from predatory
lenders Bain Capital used to leverage struggling companies with
insurmountable debt.
As far as jobs, Romney promises to slash teacher, construction,
police, firefighter, and other public sector jobs in an effort to
dismantle unions. The result is a workforce making minimum wages that
just might reach Romney’s grand vision of a $19,000 annual middle-class
income that’s $4,000 less than the 2012 federal
poverty threshold.
Corporations and investors will continue enjoying their thriving
economy, and public sector employees will join the ranks of millions of
other Americans living at or near poverty. All the while, the wealthy
will reap rewards with trillions in tax cuts that Draconian cuts to
social safety nets will
never make up for, and the nation’s debt will skyrocket. Americans, and the nation’s economy, will comprehend what Romney meant that “
a lot of people will suffer” with no hope of recouping their jobs, benefits, homes, or retirement inherent in a vibrant middle-class economy.
Romney’s proposals will help the wealthy’s economy thrive, but like
the Bush economy, millions of Americans will suffer and it brings up an
important point. It was the Romney and Bain creative destruction model
that helped send the world’s economy near the brink of collapse in 2008,
and if any American needs to put a face on the Great Recession, they
should look no further than Willard Romney. The disregard for employees,
communities, and America’s economy is characterized by the Romney’s of
the world who measure a thriving economy by their success at acquiring
staggering wealth, and if his tenure at Bain Capital is any indication,
he will pursue a course that enriches the wealthy and leaves the masses
in America competing for jobs in China, South Korea, and India where a
good middle class wage is a dollar-an-hour and the prospect of owning a
home depends on the size of tent one can afford, and if that is
Willard’s idea of a thriving economy, then it make sense why his wife
refers to Americans as “
you people.”
