Cross-posted at Alevei.
As I wrote in a recent post, getting your head around the idea of GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as even remotely credible on the topic of calling out "crony capitalism" requires a superhuman tolerance for cognitive dissonance or an extraordinary sense of humor or both.
Specifically, I suggested that the very idea of Rep. Ryan's endorsement of A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity, a new book decrying "crony capitalism" by the University of Chicago economist and self-proclaimed drain on the economy Luigi Zingales, is kind of a ridiculous, hypocritical outrage that really ought to be hilarious but isn't because of what Rep. Ryan's power and influence could potentially mean for actual people who are not Paul Ryan or Luigi Zingales.
As I hope I made clear in that post, this is by no means to suggest that Rep. Ryan is not an expert in crony capitalism. Of course he is. [1]
And of course that's part of what makes him such a perfect match for his running mate, Governor Mitt Romney, whose many gifts in the areas of crony capitalism and astonishing hypocrisy deserve a shout-out of their own, which I offer below.
The campaign, including a Republican primary season that I hope I never have to try to convince any sane person to believe actually happened, has been a long, brutal slog for the governor, and heaven knows things have not been improving for him lately. Over the course of it, one thing that has become increasingly obvious to everyone is that the many gifts and blessings bestowed upon the GOP presidential nominee by his creator do not include a sense of humor. And yet even though that is well known, many Americans still find it remarkable that in the course of deploying one of his favorite general-election campaign tactics -- righteously accusing President Obama of crony capitalism (claims that have earned him four Pinocchios -- reserved for "whoppers" -- from the Washington Post's Fact Checker column) -- Gov. Romney somehow manages to do it every single time with an impressively straight face.
To be fair, though, everyone in the world who is not Kristi Yamaguchi knows perfectly well that Gov. Romney is well acquainted with crony capitalism, so at least theoretically, goes the logic, he should be able to recognize it when he sees it. And, speaking of Kristi Yamaguchi, Wayne Barrett reported in the Daily Beast in May that:
one circle of Romney donors [is] tied to a tainted Olympic contractor who has given more than a million dollars in campaign donations. After being granted immunity by prosecutors, the contractor, Sead Dizdarevic, admitted making $131,000 in cash payments to Romney’s predecessors. The cash was used, at least in part, to subsidize the IOC gifts. Yet it was Romney, not his indicted predecessors, who awarded Dizdarevic the hospitality deal that’s made him the ticket king of the Olympics to this day.
David Simmons also testified in the 2003 federal trial of Romney’s predecessors, in a case that was ultimately dismissed. But unlike Dizdarevic, Simmons pleaded guilty to a federal tax misdemeanor as part of a cooperation agreement that allowed him to avoid a multi-count felony indictment.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the guilty plea was connected to Simmons giving a fake job to John Kim, the son of a critical IOC member, to qualify him for a sham visa, and then submitting fraudulent tax and immigration filings to cover up the alleged conspiracy.
Since that time, Simmons and his family have given more than $317,000 to Romney and affiliated campaigns, and business associates of the family have added nearly $160,000 more. Simmons and his wife, Melinda, donated $32,100 themselves, going back to 2006.
The stories of the many interesting maneuvers that Mitt Romney had no choice but to finesse if he was to succeed in his important mission to make Kristi's Olympic dreams come true are many, various, and complex, so I encourage you to read Barrett's meticulously researched
article in its entirety.
But in the meantime, while we are on the topic of astonishing hypocrisy, there is Gov. Romney's February 2012 op-ed in the Detroit News, in which he called the U.S. auto industry bailout "crony capitalism on a grand scale." As if that bit of evidence of his astounding lack of self-awareness weren't sufficiently spit-take inducing, Mitt "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" Romney really brought his A game when he announced in May 2012 that he is now prepared to "take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back.”
Of course, that probably sounds completely insane to any normal person, so let me explain. What may not be immediately obvious to members of the reality-based community is that opposing the bailout in November 2008 and then calling it "crony capitalism" in February 2012 is absolutely what saved the auto industry and with it approximately one million jobs. [2]
Part of the reason why that explanation will not make sense to most normal people is that the liberal media, as you might expect, is of course withholding the credit that Gov. Romney "will take a lot of," thank you very much. So you will want to approach the Washington Post's May 2012 report, a pitiful lamestream-media attempt to debunk the governor's not-even-joking claim that he is responsible for saving the auto industry, with a healthy skepticism. The Post -- if that is its real name -- would have us believe its outlandish claim that
Many independent analysts have concluded that taking the approach recommended by Romney would not have worked in late 2008, simply because the credit markets were so frozen that a bankruptcy [which Romney advocated] was not a viable option.
And as you might expect, the
Post relies on sources who -- unlike Mitt Romney -- are completely unqualified to speak knowledgeably about the industry, such as
former GM executive Bob Lutz, who
blasted Romney's anti-intervention postion:
What these people always deliberately forget is there was no money. Nobody had any money.
Reuters is similarly complicit in the plot to withhold Romney's rightful credit, reporting in February that Lutz, a Republican, was
"infuriated" by Romney's charge of crony capitalism and had this to say about GOP criticism of the auto bailout:
This is the lie that gets told again and again and again -- government intervention wasn't necessary, that this was creeping socialism, that Obama wants to take over or give a sweetheart deal to the unions.
Lutz also
dismissed Romney's claim that "we didn't need the government and this could have been a privately run bankruptcy with the normal Chapter 11" as "fiction."
[3]
But can you blame Mitt Romney, a man who wouldn't have an elevator in his garage or get to write off $77,000 worth of losses related to a dancing horse if he didn't get pretty much everything he wants in this life, for thinking he can have this auto-bailout thing both ways, too?
So, to summarize: For Mitt Romney, the auto bailout is nothing less than a disaster for the industry and an egregious example of the worst kind of crony capitalism that saved a lot of jobs for which we should all thank Mitt Romney. Everybody clear now? Good.
Notes:
If you did not see my earlier post or did not have time to follow the links, the articles linked below do an outstanding job outlining the credentials that qualify Rep. Ryan as an expert in the field of crony capitalism:
"Paul Ryan And His Family To Benefit From The $45 Billion In Subsidies For Big Oil In His Budget," by Joe Romm (Think Progress)
"Koch brothers have Paul Ryan's back," by Bob King (Politico)
"Ryan Family Financially Benefits from the Health Insurance Industry," by Tara Culp-Ressler (Think Progress)
"Ryan's Shrewd Budget Payday," by Daniel Stone (Daily Beast)
"Paul Ryan Didn't Build That," by Sally Kohn (Salon)
Here's Gov. Romney in
February 2008:
If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Now here he is in
February 2012:
The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.
And finally
May 2012:
My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what the president did. He finally took them through bankruptcy. That was the right course I argued for from the very beginning. It was the UAW [United Auto Workers] and the president that delayed the idea of bankruptcy. I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back.
According to the
Post, the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel had this to say at the end of 2008:
The circumstances in the global credit markets in November and December 2008 were unlike any the financial markets had seen in decades. U.S. domestic credit markets were frozen in the wake of the Lehman bankruptcy, and international sources of funding were extremely limited. Bankruptcy with reorganization of the two auto companies using private DIP [debtor in possession] financing did not appear to be an option by late fall 2008, leaving liquidation of the firms as the more likely course of action absent a government rescue.
The
Post also
reported that President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers projected in December 2008 that
the direct costs of American automakers failing and laying off their workers in the near term would result in a more than 1 percent reduction in real GDP [gross domestic product] growth and about 1.1 million workers losing their jobs, including workers for automotive suppliers and dealers.