Mitt Romney's past as a Bain Capital job destroyer is once again getting some attention. The more you read, the more you realize how rich this story is—because with businesses in bankruptcy and thousands of layoffs strewn through Romney's history, there are so many terrible, sad stories to be mined.
As Romney tries to paint himself as the kind of businessman who was in the business of creating jobs, it's important to remember that this was what he did:
As head of private equity firm Bain Capital LLC, Romney was the lead deal-maker, buying and selling companies to make money for investors. Whether companies boomed or filed for bankruptcy, the Boston-based firm found profits for Romney, its other executives and investors.
As one of his former colleagues says:
Entrepreneurs and corporate founders “create the bulk of the jobs, not the financiers[.]"
But it's not just that Romney and Bain destroyed jobs. It's also that they did so through lousy management. Like this:
At a steel plant in Kansas City, Missouri, one new supervisor had previously sold mattresses, said Steve Morrow, 59, who worked at the plant for 32 years and represented workers there as president of United Steelworkers Local 13.
Because it's not like anything could go wrong putting a mattress salesman in charge at a steel plant. Isn't that the kind of management you'd like to see applied at FEMA or OSHA?