Matt Taibbi: Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital

[babylonsister]

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital
How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill


By Matt Taibbi
August 29, 2012 7:00 AM ET


Illustration by Robert Grossman


The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected.

The critics couldn't be more wrong. Mitt Romney is no tissue-paper man. He's closer to being a revolutionary, a backward-world version of Che or Trotsky, with tweezed nostrils instead of a beard, a half-Windsor instead of a leather jerkin. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal. Romney has a vision, and he's trying for something big: We've just been too slow to sort out what it is, just as we've been slow to grasp the roots of the radical economic changes that have swept the country in the last generation.

The incredible untold story of the 2012 election so far is that Romney's run has been a shimmering pearl of perfect political hypocrisy, which he's somehow managed to keep hidden, even with thousands of cameras following his every move. And the drama of this rhetorical high-wire act was ratcheted up even further when Romney chose his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – like himself, a self-righteously anal, thin-lipped, Whitest Kids U Know penny pincher who'd be honored to tell Oliver Twist there's no more soup left. By selecting Ryan, Romney, the hard-charging, chameleonic champion of a disgraced-yet-defiant Wall Street, officially succeeded in moving the battle lines in the 2012 presidential race.

lots more...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829

[ailsagirl]

1. So glad this came out when it did

Thanks for posting!

[Lugnut]

2. This is a must-read article.

Mitt Rmoney is Gordon Gecko.

[wiggs]

3. Huge, important article. At convention or after, Dem leaders MUST talk about

what Romney really did for a career and how that does or does not prepare him for the WH. It's important and doesn't need to be handled with caution and care. When P Obama barely makes mention of the 1% paying more in taxes, the gop literally talks for days about how he's attacking capitalism, success, and the upper class.

If he's going to get attacked no matter what, he might as well talk the financial industry taking over our economy, overnight windfall wealth from destroying companies and pensions, hostile takeovers, bubble economies, too big to fail, etc etc and what is really going on.

We're at a big picture crossroads....so the president must fully describe the big picture and what's at stake. It's ironic that the GOP nominee personally and specifically embodies the forces that have deliberately concentrated wealth and power (economic, legislative, judicial, media) into the hands of fewer and fewer people. He will stir up and clarify the debate....IF DEMS CHOOSE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE.