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.
Those are the first two paragraphs of
this lead article in this morning's Washington Post, which is titled the same as this posting.
Also note this:
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.
an this:
Romney campaign officials repeatedly declined requests to comment on Bain’s record of investing in outsourcing firms during the Romney era. Campaign officials have said it is unfair to criticize Romney for investments made by Bain after he left the firm but did not address those made on his watch.
Of course, Romney continued to be paid out of Bain operations after he left, and it was a significant part of his income, so even if he did not make the subsequent decisions, he profited from them. Thus it is fair to raise such issues.
The article notes the Romney very much was the hands-on runner of Bain until he left it in 1999, and that the company began its connections with outsourcing in 1993. Much of the outsourcing involves call centers - you know, call a company's help line and get someone from South Asia, not here on an H1B visa, but still in places like Bangalore India.
In the case of one company, Modus Media, it began major outsourcing operations on behalf of the high tech industry in 1997, and actually noted in a publicity release that its expansion of outsourcing was done in close cooperation with Bain, with three Bain directors sitting on its board.
I'm not going to quote further. Read the article. You will see many notable companies involved in one way or another with Bain and outsourcing. Some of the most important at least started while Romney was in charge, even if, as in the case of of Hyundai the deal was not finalized until shortly after Romney officially "left" Bain to run the Olympics.
But don't forget, he was still getting paid from the profits Bain was making on the outsourcing.
Read the article. Pass it on. Especially to anyone you know whose job has been outsourced.