OK - How to counter this from a Teapublican FB friend.

[woodsprite]

He posted this - I'm not really up on the Solyndra stuff, but I know there has got to be a good counter to it. I'm going to go to start googling...

[XemaSab]

1. Well, here's a start:

http://www.xavier.edu/writing_center/semicolo.html

[Scuba]

3. +1

[calimary]

19. LOL!!!

[Emit]

24. Hahaha!

[rocktivity]

2. Ask him how many business he downsized, outsourced Americans

and pocketed the money from.

You might also point out what happened the LAST time a businessman with scant political experience was president...


rocktivity

[renie408]

4. Why don't you just tell him to go fuck himself and move on?

God, I have spent the past month on Facebook fighting this shit and it is really starting to wear me down.

And if you decide to skip the 'go fuck yourself' option, then I would start by googling the companies on the right that he lists and seeing how much the government lost. I would then find a bunch of examples of companies that the government invested in that are succeeding and see if you can find how many jobs they represent. I would also make a list of companies that Bain invested in that didn't do well, ask him about the Rolling Stones article about Bain getting bailed out with government funds, make fun of the size of his penis and call him an idiot.

Depending on where you fell in that whole 'penis size' argument we had on here last week, you can delete that part if you want.

(but you cannot avoid doing some of your own googling. If you get stuck, then come ask for help. I usually try to only ask here if I am bogged down)

[EC]

5. Solyndra started under Bush

it was Bush administration that guaranteed the money and Obama just followed through...he's getting blamed for a lot of stuff repubs pushed him into, one way or another.

[Blue Belle]

6. Weird how General Motors isn't on this list...

just sayin...

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Obama invested taxpayer money in GM and Chrysler...

...and they still exist because of it.

All the businesses in the Romny list pay minimum wage and offer no benefits to part-time employees.

Probably the loser who concocted this graphic is uninsured and working minimum wage. Sad...

[GeorgeGist]

8. Read Matt Taibbi's new article in Rolling Stone.

It should give your plenty of ideas. Especially the part where the Feds bail out Bain.

[Nevernose]

15. I'll second that

Romney damn near caused Bain to go bankrupt.

[Bigmack]

22. I thought Romney was just a spoiled pretty-boy...

... until I read that Taibbi piece - and another one from the Seattle Weekly.

Now, I think he is a sociopath.

The intentional takeovers, the huge loans, taking his profits, and then leaving the company bankrupt.... putting hardworking Americans out of work, and sound companies out of business.

Amoral.... sociopathological.

He is Ayn Rand... with good hair.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-04-18/news/mitt-romney-american-parasite/

[dogknob]

9. I bet you could show that Big Oil played a role in taking all of the Corps on the Obama list down...

...but complex facts will probably get you nowhere.

That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, however.

[IggleDoer]

10. How many small office supply companies went out of business ...

... when Staples came to their town?

[calimary]

18. Another good point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Well for starters Solyndra started under Junior

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/?mobile=nc

Same for Ener 1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/ener1-energy-company-cliff-stearns_n_1235141.html

And look at this under Romney no less

But just one day later, a solar panel developer “that landed a state loan from Mitt Romney when he was Massachusetts governor” went belly up, the Boston Herald reports, creating an inconvenient storyline for the GOP presidential nominee.
The company, Konarka Technologies, “filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will cease operations, lay off its 85 workers and liquidate”:

“Konarka has been unable to obtain additional financing, and given its current financial condition, it is unable to continue operations,” CEO Howard Berke said in a statement. “This is a tragedy for Konarka’s shareholders and employees and for the development of alternative energy in the United States.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/06/02/494111/romney-solyndra-konarka/

I could go on... but you get the picture... as they say, NUANCE.

[nc4bo]

12. Mitt Romney's Solyndra: Konarka - bankrupt. Not exactly the same but

the pot shouldn't be calling the kettle black (no pun intended).

Businesses fail - period. But when you think about how much money is spent subsidizing Big Oil vs. how little money is invested in green energy technology - even a failed attempt is better than no attempt at all. We actually should be doing much more (stop subsidizing Big Oil is start).

http://theweek.com/article/index/228757/konarka-mitt-romneys-solyndra

[FLyellowdog]

13. Here's how I responded on FB to one of my friends when she posted this.

"Just so you’ll know, most of those Bain companies listed were bought after Romney left Bain (unless he’s lying about when he left, and that’s a distinct possibility). He had nothing to do with them.
Dunkin Donuts -2006
AM-2004
Clear Channel
-2008
Burger King in 2010.
Guitar Center 2007
Burlington Coat 2006
Toys r Us 2005
Warner Music Group 2003
KB Toys 2004 (bankrupt)

From 1984 to 1999, Mr. Romney and his colleagues made fortunes by investing in, acquiring and then selling about 150 companies. This has nothing to do with creating jobs but everything to do with increasing the personal wealth of Romney and his colleagues.

In 1994 Bain purchased Baxter International and renamed it Dade International.
In 2002 Dade filed for bankruptcy, 1700 jobs had been lost in the U.S.
Bain was forced to relinquish its stake in Dade in the On this account, making money by destroying jobs is precisely the kind of “slash and burn” management that Romney stands for. bankruptcy.Romney was charged with "unjust enrichment." The biggest difference in your chart is that Obama didn't profit from any of the bankrupted companies on his side of the list. Romney ALWAYS benefits from bankruptcies of his companies...ALWAYS. It's how he makes his millions.FACTS:
• 1988: Bain put $10 million down to buy Stage Stores, and in the mid-'90s took it public, collecting $184 million from stock offerings. Stage filed for bankruptcy in 2000.
• 1992: Bain bought American Pad & Paper, investing $5 million, and collected $107 million from dividends. The business filed for bankruptcy in 2000.
• 1993: Bain invested $25 million when buying GS Industries, and received $58 million from dividends. GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
• 1994: Bain put $27 million down to buy medical equipment maker Dade Behring. Dade borrowed $230 million to buy some of its shares. Dade went bankrupt in 2002.
• 1997: Bain invested $41 million when buying Details, and collected at least $70 million from stock offerings. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2003."

[FLyellowdog]

14. And some more info...

<snip>
Leveraged buyouts don't only hurt businesses, workers, and the economy generally – they also short-change taxpayers, via a giant loophole in the tax code that enables companies to deduct loan interest from taxes. The provision was originally intended to encourage borrowing to build new factories, not to finance leveraged buyouts. But, according to Notre Dame Professor Brad Badertscher, private equity-owned companies paid a 22 percent tax rate before being bought, and only 10 percent the year after being acquired. That adds up to a savings of $130 billion in taxes since 2000.
<snip>

Read more: http://​www.rollingstone.com/​politics/blogs/​national-affairs/​why-private-equity-firms-li​ke-bain-really-are-the-wor​st-of-capitalism-20120523#​ixzz24AJOhh00

[NashvilleLefty]

16. Talk about cherry-picking!

First of all, those energy companies received loans not investments. And, as previously mentioned, the Solyndra deal was begun under Bush.

Now, how about a list of companies that Bain bankrupted?

[reformist2]

17. Most of those companies were household names before Bain even existed.

Somehow I doubt that Dunkin' Donuts ever needed help from Bain, for example.

As for Staples and Sports Authority, maybe you could give him a course in Big Box 101, how they don't create any jobs at all but just cannibalize the business that hundreds of other companies were already doing just fine.

[Shankapotomus]

20. Konarka

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konarka

Konarka was another solar firm the government invested in that went bankrupt.

"But Konarka also had received 2002 financial support from then-Massachusetts Governor Romney's administration".

Also, as noted above, Solyndra's loan approval process began under the Bush administration. However, emails show that two weeks before Obama took office, the Energy Department panel considering the loan unanimously decided not to proceed.

I find it very suspicious that a loan deal began under the thieving Bush administration was backed off of once it was confirmed Obama would be taking office. My guess is it was a scam started under the Bush administration and was followed through with to make President Obama look bad.

One thing you have to keep in mind is these are private companies receiving these government loans. You can't trust a private company to ever be what it claims it is when a lot of republican government officials are in their pocket. Mitt Romney didn't have to deal with kickbacks and sabotage for political purposes in the private sector. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those companies on that list were just shells set up during the Bush administration, as Solyndra was, to steal money from the government and then, once Obama took office, those deals had the secondary effect of discrediting the Obama administration once they were followed through.

[Motown_Johnny]

21. First, Solyndra was a Bush deal that they spent ~2 years putting together.

Yes, President Obama signed it soon after he was sworn in, as the economy was collapsing. He made the mistake of assuming that maybe the (R)s did something right, that was a mistake.



Second, just Google for Bain Capital investments that went bankrupt.

Third, the guy loses money on his horse and gets a tax write off for it. If he is such a great businessman why is that business losing money (as if we didn't know).


This goes on and on...

Ener 1 basically restructured. It was a Chapter 11 but the company still exists and we are talking about a total of ~$118 million in taxpayer dollars. Hell the Koch brothers coughed up $400 million just to try to elect Rmoney.

[woodsprite]

23. I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!! Crafting an answer now ..... Will post n/t