October Surprise. Romney admitted fraud, etc. under oath---and no one cares.

[No Elephants]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/three-things-we-learned-from-romneys-91-testimony/


Romney testified in the divorce of the founder of Staples 21 years ago. The testimony was sealed until now.

Someone at ABC named Sarah Parnass did a story on three things she learned from the testimony, but without much commentary. I am not going to make jokes about someone's name, but she missed a huge opportunity to offer some analysis.



1. Romney testified as to the connections among all the companies named Bain. He said they were separate legally and in every other way, but shared a name for marketing purposes. (Here No Elephants reminds the court that Romney by this time had a joint legal degree and masters of business from Harvard.)

I cannot say the precise status of the Bain companies 21 years ago, but I bet they were legally "affiliates" under securities laws and/or tax laws. However, given my admission about not knowing the facts, let's assume Romney was correct--totally separate, but the same name used for "marketing."

Let's assume I open up the Ralph Lauren shirt company. I have no affiliation with Ralph Lauren or any other Ralph Lauren company. I just want to call my company Ralph Lauren because I think that will help sell my product, aka "only" for marketing purposes.

How many U.S. laws do you suppose I would break doing that? Aside from trademark violation, it would be a fraud on consumers. That's what we call naming your company like another company to which you have no connection simply because it's good for marketing. Not only is it fraud, but Romney seems clueless about it, reinforcing my impression that, despite his Harvard credential, he ain't that bright. And he certainly ain't that moral.

His moral compass seems to consist only "If I wish to do it, it's fine. In fact, it's more than fine." Sounds mighty like a recent Republican President, who was also the son of a well connected and wealthy Dad.

Does Ms. Parnass offer us any of that analysis? No.

2. Sarah Parnass also tells us that, during the negotiations for Bain Capital to acquire stock of Staples, Romney sat on the board of Staples as well as on the board of Bain. The judge asked Romney if that wasn't a conflict of interest. (duh). Romney said that he resolved that conflict by getting the best price possible for Staples stock--and that would get investors down the road to pay more. (And for that "best possible price" claim, of course, we have only Romney's word.)

Anyone negotiating with himself over price has an unresolvable conflict of interest. It is 100% impossible to negotiated your hardest for both Bain, the buyer, and Staples stockholders, the sellers.

Part of the nature of having a conflict of interest is that the person with the conflict is no position to decide how to resolve that conflict, or even to recognize when that conflict is unresolvable. That is why we insist that the person discluse an unresolvable conflct and recuse themselves from the entire transaction.

So, again, we have someone who is now a Presidential candidate who then seemed totally clueless about the law, despite his law degree, and who seems bereft of personal ethics. Even the bit about other investors is bs. What future investors might pay would also benefit Bain.

3. Ms. Parnass says that Romney always had a Plan B. This was error on her part for which she described was not a plan B, but the exit strategy part of his Plan A--and as recent wars have taught us, having an exit strategy going in is a good idea.

“There’s always – at least in the case of our fund, and I’m sure most funds – there’s always an assessment: If this works, how will we realize our investment? How will we get out,” Romney said.

For many companies, Romney said, the way out was to make it “either wound down or liquidated in some way, broken apart with pieces being sold or liquidated, or perhaps sold at a disadvantageous price.”

Bingo! Vulture capitalism, Gordon Gekko style. While Romney argues over his precise legal jargon relationship was with Bain when Bain "disemployed" people in this particular company or that, here it is: Breaking up the company and putting all its employees out of work was his exit strategy for every single deal he went into.


But, how does Ms. Parnass immediately follow that revelation? With this:

What Does It All Mean?

As Allred said Thursday, the transcripts “don’t mean much” without whatever context Sullivan Stemberg might provide. But they do give a reason to revisit Romney the businessman.

And that literally is the end of Parnass's story. A quote saying the testimony "don't mean much." Bullshit.

The only way she could have made this story more bland and less damaging to Romney was not to have written anything at all about the released testimony.


However, the poor job Ms. Parnass did with this information did not stop rw commenters from complaining about her alleged pro-Obama bias.

How delusional can they possibly be? Or maybe they are just dishonest, trying to keep media in constant fear of offending them.

Speaking of media, kudos to the Boston Globe for taking this to court to get the testimony "unsealed." I wish they had acted sooner, though.

[Enthusiast]

1. Beautiful.

Romney will make a great president, a proponent of vulture capitalism. People really don't understand what is at stake.

[No Elephants]

2. For a Mormon bishop, he seems to have no moral compass.

For a lawyer, he doesn't seem to grok law.

He also seems soul-less to me.

[Enthusiast]

3. Mormonism is a made up religion.

It was created out of whole cloth to serve its creator. He had a vivid imagination I will say that for him. So Mormons as a group have no moral compass, none whatever. It's all a facade.

[No Elephants]

4. Atheists say that about all religions.

Here is what I think, though.

Any religion that keeps things secret and thinks it is okay to conceal and lie in order to protect the religion is very problematic.

For me, that is a cult.

Then again, I suppose atheists would say all religions are cults.

I once had a knock down drag out with a man who wrote about religions. We got down to that, in his opinion, the main difference was time. Over time, if a cult lasts, we consider it a religion.

For me, though, it is about secrecy, hiding, concealing, and lying, most especially as to what are considered the most solemn aspects of the cult--though few cult members would admit to doing any of those things.

[Enthusiast]

5. I'm not a fan or "organized" religion.

I know. It could be said that there isn't any other kind. But there is--the real kind.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. Heh, ironically I was just asking about theology in the other thread. :-)

Of course, to say anything about Mormon bishops one must note that it's a bit like being a member of the Shriners or something. You become an nth degree bishop the more you tithe.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. Hm, well did he admit fraud?

Romney would probably argue that it's legal and get Congress to make it legal if it wasn't (like FISA in 2007 and banking deregulation in 1997).

[No Elephants]

8. Do con men usually admit fraud?