The "who's tougher on China" ad wars continue with this one hitting Romney on his investment in Global Tech, which manufactured appliances under sweatshop conditions:
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TRANSCRIPT:
"These appliances could have been made here in America. But a company called Global Tech maximized profits by paying its workers next to nothing under sweatshop conditions in China. When Mitt Romney led Bain, they saw Global Tech as a good investment even knowing that the firm promoted its practice of exploiting low-wage labor to its investors.
Mitt Romney, tough on China? Since when?"
The ad will run in New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada.
The Boston Globe reported recently on how Romney's firm, Brookside Inc., bragged on the advantages of China's low-wage, low-tax environment:
http://bostonglobe.com/...
WASHINGTON – Less than two weeks before an investment firm controlled by Mitt Romney decided to invest in a China-based home appliance company, the company put out a detailed document to investors promoting itself as a low-wage, low-tax firm that would not be subject to taxes in the United States.
It used “inexpensive labor,” Global-Tech Appliances wrote in a prospectus meant to attract investors on April 8, 1998. Its location in China meant “an overall effective tax rate that may be less than that of US corporations.” It said its current operations would not be subject to “material US taxes because it should not be considered to have significant income effectively connected with a trade or business in the US.”
David Corn of Mother Jones was first on this story back in July:
http://www.motherjones.com/...
Last month, Mitt Romney's campaign got into a dustup with the Washington Post after the newspaper reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm the GOP presidential candidate founded, invested in several US companies that outsourced jobs to China and India. The campaign indignantly demanded a retraction, claiming that these businesses did not send jobs overseas while Romney was running Bain, and the Post stood by its investigation. Yet there is another aspect to the Romney-as-outsourcer controversy. According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success.