Monday, June 11, 2012

Bain Capital Attacks Show How Little the Left Understands Business

Bain Capital. It's been President Obama's big focus of attacks against Governor Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential Campaign.  The attacks boil down to this: "Bain Capital wasn't in business to create jobs. It was in business to make money."

Anyone with an ounce of a clue hears ideas like that and says "NO DUH!" People don't start businesses so they can provide people with jobs or benefits. Anyone who has ever run a business can tell you that. Unfortunately, this is what your garden variety liberal thinks is the purpose of businesses; to give people jobs.

Now don't get me wrong...creation of jobs is a positive consequence of a successful business. That does happen. It's part of the great symbiosis of Capitalism and the economy. To give a good analogy, I did not go to college to form lasting friendships. I went to college to get a degree so I could get a good job.  That was the purpose of me going to college. However, one additional positive consequence of me going to college was me meeting some of my closest friends. It often happens that way, just like when you open a business and it is successful, you often create jobs. Creating jobs is the frequent consequence of opening a business, but it is not the purpose of opening a business.

So to attack Bain Capital for "not being in business to create jobs" is complete foolishness.  Then again, consider the source.  These attacks came from a man who has never run a business or even had a real job in his life in President Obama. That's where you get hairbrained overly idealistic but unrealistic premises like the one the President is giving now.

As to the fact that Bain Capital "liquidated assets and fired people," well, again, it shows how little liberals understand business and economics. Here's what Bain really does:  Bain Capital comes in to failing businesses and buys them in an attempt to salvage that company. For those of you in Palm Beach County, FL, that means that the company was failing ANYWAY and all the employees were about to lose their jobs ANYWAY, then Bain comes in and attempts to save the business (including some to all of the jobs that would otherwise be lost). 

Ideally, Bain is able to turn around the company. For them that means they buy the company up at a low price, turn it around so that it becomes profitable again, then sells the company at a profit to other investors to continue it forward. When this works, abracadabara, tons and tons of jobs are saved and often more jobs are created as the now successful business continues to grow. When this is unsuccessful, the company closes, and yes, people lose their jobs. But remember, they were going to lose their jobs much sooner if Bain hadn't come in to try to salvage the company.

In short, when Bain succeeds, they genuinely save jobs (not just the phantom "jobs created or saved" statistic the Obama Administration invented) and often create them.  When Bain fails, people at the least had jobs longer than they would have had Bain not entered the equation. Either way, this is a far more sound economic plan than the Obama plan of "Criticize businesses and punish them for success until the economy turns around." For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, that means "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Then again, this is the same President who said "When you’re president...as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how are we paying them for their retraining?” - President Obama

Actually, Mr. President, no...that is not your job. Your job is not to try to create your own definition of "fairness" by redistributing wealth and paying for retraining. That's not the job of the President. Fairness is created by maintaining equal opportunity, not equal results. You know what does a fine job of that? The United States Constitution.

My friends, the Left has shown us once again how little they understand how business works. Considering their misunderstanding of how business works is what has continued this economic mess as to this day in conjuncture with Republicans foolishly using liberal economic theory at the outset (looking at you, T.A.R.P. ).  The Bain Capital attacks are just another example of why we need to defeat Obama. Even if he's a genuine economic fool and not someone with malicious intent, he's still a fool. So let's elect a businessman in 2012 who has a clue of how to fix this problem. (For those of you in Palm Beach County, FL, that'd be "Mitt Romney.")

No comments:

Post a Comment

All posts will be reviewed subject to the Rules for Commenting. Any post that does not abide by these rules will not be posted, entirely at the discretion of the blog editor.

Commenters who repeatedly violate these rules will be permanently banned from commenting, and thus none of their comments, regardless of content, will be posted.