Book of the Month

I'm retroactively retiring to a decade ago.

One of the advantages of a business guy like Willard Romney running for President is that despite the rude public dissection of his career, an ordinary member of the rank and file such as myself can learn business methods which would normally be kept in secret files. If Romney loses the election, and because he no longer has any active involvement in any of his businesses, he will most likely write a book and advertise it on Bloomberg---something like, "Business is a Fiscal Cliff---How to walk right up to the edge without going to Jail!". I'm not waiting for Romney's chapter on Retirement. I retroactively retired over the weekend.

I emailed my stock broker to retroactively withdraw the sale order for a thousand shares of Apple Computer I gave him in March, 2002, when Apple shares dropped from $25 to $23 in one day. I expect that my broker will change his records appropriately, will so inform the registrars of Apple common shares, and I look forward to seeing that $600,000 appear on my July statement. I can't wait to show the wife that statement because if she's said it once, she's said it a hundred times, "...if you just hadn't sold that Apple stock when you did, we could be retired by now."  Well, now we are retired and maybe she'll shut up about Apple.

Romney not only retired retroactively, he was able to get the state of Utah, imagine that, to declare, that a $54K tax deduction he took in the year 2000 on the Romneys' Utah estate was the bureaucrats' own mistake---retroactively thinking about it, they should never have accepted such shoddily prepared tax returns because Romney was traveling to Massachusetts on occasion and stayed in his son's basement. Romney had to pay back the $54K---which doesn't seem like good business sense---but as a business guy he simply upped the retroactive price per share of Bain he sold to his partners, thus recouping the $54K---that is, the price per share which he originally could have set  for his partners if he had given up control in 1999, no & no.

And Romney's book may detail the practical business strategy of having excuses at the ready---when there is a cliff crisis---a rationale like---"Actually it was my wife Ann who paid the Taxes on the Utah residence." This technique is old hat to me. Heretofore when my business chums have chided me on the sale of Apple, I told them, "My wife needed a breast reduction operation." That was precipitous.

Speaking of romance, there are many advantages of retroactive retirement in one's personal life---referring to others, of course. A man could go back and change things. He could resist putting on that extra 5 lbs every year and could be turning the heads of younger women---let's see, he would look ten years younger, but the women would be, let's see....gosh this is confusing. And speaking experimentally here, I'm going to stop taking diuretics, ace inhibitors and Cialis. Just the thought of rolling around in a hay loft with all that Apple stock is putting the spring back into my step.

I wonder what Romney would advise us in his book about keeping legal and disclosure recordings all in one file so that they might be compared as you sign off on them instead of all correlated later to one's discomfort.  For example, SEC filings, regulatory testimony at the state Ballot commissions, IPO statements and signatures, and political documents like the Presidential Disclosure Form, in 2011, for his Presidential run in 2012. Though at a cursory glance these documents may seem quite distinct, executed serially---when you put them side by side, later on, they shouldn't actually conflict with one other.  Come to think about it I wonder why a good business guy like Romney didn't already know such things even before he was forced to learn them via the scrutiny of a Presidential campaign.

One thing that is puzzling me is how many times I can retroactively retire in a lifetime. Plus, there is a kind of self-criticism---why didn't I myself come up with the idea of retroactive retirement? I mean, it's such a simple idea. In fact, I would not have had to completely retire.  I have an MBA and I could have just semi-retired and gone into Private Equity part time. Damn! 

But I want to thank Romney and his insider business revelations during the 2012 Presidential run. At least now I won't leave the planet never having known how a real business guy operates.

We can learn a lot from a man like WRM.  Hopefully this fall after he's done as nominee we can make him retroactively retire from politics.

But let me know what good stock tips you find in your wayback machine.

My husband wants to retroactively stop speeding down Lookout Pass so he can give that ticket back to the State of Idaho.

If I were going to retire retroactively though, wouldn't that mean I would have to give back that salary I took for those years?

He's going to be forced to release those tax returns or this issue will never go away. I wonder if he would like to retroactively not run, because he is obviously hiding something.

I enjoyed this Oxy! LOL.

That's funny.  My mom went on a leave of absence (medical) which eventually led to retirement.  Her actual retirement date was retroactive back to the last date she was actually doing work and involved with the business.  She didn't get credited service while she was not actually working for the company.  When I worked for a pro-bono legal firm, anyone who retired during a sabbatical had their service calculated after the last day of work not from when they notified the org they would not be returning.  Pretty standard human resources practice and nothing at all like backdating shares, which is a ridiculous comparison.

Get up on the wrong side of the bed again, Dij?

Just curious -- did your mother get paid $100,000 plus during the interim after her retroactive retirement and her actual last day?  Did your sabbatical pals?

 

i don't think Oxy was making a literal point; there was a little humor here. Sorry you couldn't enjoy it. 

 

My mother got paid disability pay during that time period that she was entitled to contractually until she had to retire, which was retro to the day she stopped actively working.  Sabbatical pals were on unpaid leaves of absence, but they didn't have to repay the value of their health benefits for they maintained during their year of sabbatical which would have been in the value range of 20K annually.

Brilliant, Oxy.

And, this is so funny to watch.  What is it about Mitt that he's so unwilling to answer questions about his financial history that he can't just be straight with us?  Not to give the guy advice but if he just said, "I designed a deal that gave me a few years so that if it turned out nobody wanted to elect me to anything or that I hated politics, I'd be able to go back," most people would say, "sounds reasonable."

Sure, he'd then have to own Bain's record.  But that's what he's running on.  What Romney's doing would be like Obama in 2008 saying, "You're right.  Community organizer isn't a real job."

I suspect it's just a patrician, temperamental refusal to be questioned.  Or that he's hiding something shady.

There must be some wiser and more authentic response to criticism of his company from 1999-2002 than to demand an apology for characterizing it, and in turn refusing to discuss it.

I know!  And people are getting paid to give him advice.  Either there's severe malpractice going on or there's something worse than seeming like an idiot below the surface.  My guess is that  full accounting of the Bain deal and his tax returns would just put the advantages of the ultra-wealthy in too bright a spot light.

Did you see the Gallup poll showing that 20% hold WRM's wealth against him in forming their preferences?  What an odd nominee.

The most precious part of this must-read link is the passage:

In 2002, the Boston Globe quoted Bain employee Marc Wolpow saying, "I reported directly to Mitt Romney ... You can’t be CEO of Bain Capital and say, 'I really don’t know what my guys were doing.'"

No, you go even further, and say, I wasn't really CEO when I told the government I was! 

Apologize to me for suggesting that my saying I wasn't saying I was CEO when I told the SEC I was is dishonest! 

What a transparently dishonest douchebag.

Now say this in a really fast voiceover like at the end of drug commercials:

"This of course bears no moral, ethical, legal, or intellectual relationship to any sort of dishonesty by corporate leadership that led in substantial part to the recent economic crisis."

Am assuming you're aware that quote relates to Romney's part-time leave for a Senate run in 1994, and does not relate to the 1999 - 2002 period. Absolutely no one from Bain indicated Romney had involvement 1999 - 2002.   But facts and honesty are irrelevant I guess when there is mud to be slung.  

Give me a break.  The quote is about the fact that if you're CEO you have to know stuff.  That's inarguable.  Romney was CEO from 1999-2002.  That's inarguable.

Are you trying to say that in 1999, it stopped being true that CEOs have responsibility for their companies?  That's not Believing in America, that's Believing in Indefensible Nonsense.  I thought CEOs were all personally responsible for everything their companies did!  No?

Romney pretending not to be the boss of Bain when three years of statements to the government say otherwise, is lying. 

You tell me which is the lie -- that he was the boss, or that he wasn't.  Whatever you say will be more artful than what he's said, no doubt, but it's irreconcilable. 

The quote is designed to fool people into thinking the name Bain exec was referring to the time period 1999 -2002.  The leave of absence for the Senate run was apparently less of a full separation from the day to day management of the business.  Plenty of people work part-time Senate runs.  It is dishonest and misleading to present that quote as was done in the article without that clarification. 

Everyone involved with Bain has said he had no involvement with business decisions during the 1999 - 2002 time period. He did not deny being an owner; he denied being involved with he management of the company during that time period. Apparently the Obama campaign has no complaints about Romney's corporate behavior prior to 1999 or they'd be using examples of things he is without a doubt accountable for.

I think A-man has made the point, when you are CEO, you are CEO. When you file with the SEC that you are CEO, sole stockholder and Chrm., you are accountable--which is the purpose of the signatures.

Apparently one of the contradictions to Romney's "non-active participation claims" is Romney's own testimony to the Mass Ballot Commission where he used his return to Mass and associated Bain activities as reasons why his residency remained in Mass during the 99-02 period, a ruling which was absolutely necessary in Mass. (7 years contiguous residency) for him to qualify for a Governorship run. I assume the reporting on this to be correct.

As for the Obama campaign vis a vis the period prior to 99-02, the main disclaimers about his active involvement were in reference to "outsourcing". Late last week Mother Jones reported a 1998 Romney investment in---he signed it while he was CEO of Bain--in a Chinese company called Global Tech Appliances, a company specifically designed to shift manufacturing from plants in the U.S. to China.   

I also think that he didn't actually live in Mass but in NH, and if he releases his returns everyone would find out he hasn't been a Mass resident in some time, thus complicating an already complex problem. Lots of people work in Boston and live in NH.

Anyway, until we find out, it is a question out there and give us reason to doubt Mitt Romney's honesty.

Release your taxes Mitt! Hahahahah

Nope, his testimony to the Mass Ballot Commission showed he retired from Bain in 1999 though he attended board meetings of Staples and other firms, not Bain.  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/13/massachusetts-commissions-finding-romney-left-bain-in-99/ Why make up stories?  Run against his record, not lying about his record.

Nope djamo. The Mass. Ballot Commission mission was solely to determine his home/domicile in his run for Governor. The information on his Bain activities was incidental, and was purely derived from statements of 'the respondent', Romney, who was never questioned under oath.

The Commission only sought hard corroboration of facts relating to his domicile, such as membership in country clubs, churches, voter/car registration and such.

Don't lie about it. If you think we should just trust Romney, say it. Then explain why he refuses to release any tax returns prior to 2010.

 

I see.  So when Oxy says something completely and totally false, like Romney lied and said he was working at Bain to establish residency for the Ballot Commission, this is incontrovertible evidence of Romney lying.  When The actual Massachusetts Ballot Commission documents show exactly the opposite, that he had not been working with Bain ​even though working at Bain part-time would have made residency an open and shut case, we should disregard it because it's meaningless.  Hi-larious.  Perhaps some consistency would be nice.

Second, the SEC filings listing him as CEO and owner were true because he remained that title even though he was not involved in day to day decision-making during that time period.  For new investment funds during 1999-2002, Romney was not listed as a manager.

So if you want to argue even being the titular head of Bain without involvement in day to day decision-making makes Romney culpable for their actions during that time period, you are free to do so.  Just try leaving the deception and lies out of it about "proven facts" that Romeny was still running the business 1999-2002.  Let that argument stand on it's own without resorting to slander and lies and false insinuations that he lied to the SEC or committed felonies.  Or at least have the decency not to continue to spread lies that have already been disproven (i.e. a Bain exec said Romney was still actively working during that time period, Romney testified to the Mass ballot commission he was working at Bain).  That's not playing political hardball.  It's lies, pure and simple.  But teh Obama campaign since 2008 doesn't apologize for lies and slander and false insinuations (WHAT'S IN HILLARY'S TAXES?!??!?!??!  Hillary called for Obama's assassination?!?!??!).  They are an extremely slimy political operation so facts are irrelevant.

I just keep focused on the SEC filings of entities Romney not only owned, but was CEO of.  Ownership of an entity is one thing.  Control is another.  State residency can't be established by ownership.  It is a creature of physical presence and *activities* in a state.

Romney is doing what my cousin in the military did when he wanted discounted tuition in either of TX or CA.  He tried to have the argument both ways depending on the audience.  He told TX he was based there and CA he had lived there last before service.

The rule for residency is the latter, so UT told him no.  Romney wants it one way to the SEC and Mass, and another for this electorate.  But only one is true.  CEOs inarguably have control.  Denying any now is the real falsehood.

I think Board meetings at affiliated companies, Staples, and Lifelike, qualifies for "associated Bain activities". But I wonder what your take on Romney's Ballot Commission statements on "transition" is.

Referring to Romney's statement that he was in "transition" during 1999 a lawyer on the Commission asked,

"So from February  through the end of the year you were pretty much full time out in Utah, right?"

Romney: "Well the beginning of the year was a good deal of time back and forth but towards the last half of the year it was pretty much solely in Utah."

Of course, this might or might not refer to "business" activities. Romney suggested that his calendars might shed more light on his whereabouts and goings on, but the calendars have never been brought to light. 

“Bain Capital had already sold its shares or distributed its shares in Staples. And so my involvement with Staples was entirely on a personal basis,” Romney said. “I continued to be involved with the firm. But it was as a fiduciary for Staples, not as a representative of Bain Capital.”  For Life Like, he gave a personal loan to them in addition to the Bain investment suggesting that he had personal interests int he company beyond Bain's dealings.  ​Still Bain-related" activity?  

 

Of course you can continue to slander with no proof, or just ignore any evidence that disproves your predetermined conclusion that Romney is lying despite having zero evidence to support those insinuations.

 

​But bonus points for the "associated Bain activities" language.  Vague enough wording so uninformed people might think you actually have proof he was still working for Bain, but the hedging belies that you know it's factually not true.

As the tour de force protector of the uniformed here at Dagblog you question the integrity of my remarks in hyperbolic terms but take something Romney said about Staples shares at face value. Romney's defense was a half truth. Yes Bain divested itself of its original stake in Staples. But in 1999, Bain's Brookside Capital Partners Fund reported to the SEC holdings of Staples shares worth $11 million, and a year later held stock worth approximately $36 million.

 

The fact that Bain funds/entities continued or held stock in Staples does not mean Romney's work for the Board was as a Bain representative.  They had divested themselves of the original stake of  Bain investments/venture capital worth over $100 million worth of stock.  

If he wasn't involved the day to day management of Bain, why would he know or care how much Bain regular investment funds had invested in Staples whether it was 11 million or 36 million?  It's a silly, irrelevant fact not a "half-truth".  

You're using a Romney defense, not involved, to support a Romney defense, Bain divested Staples. That seems a little retro.

really​ don't understand your argument here, and I know you know more about financial companies and stocks than I do.  So please explain your concerns to me.

As I see it, Bain Venture capital had a huge venture capital investment in Staples which they divested in 1999 work over 100 million dollars.  That was the end of Bain's venture capital relationship with Staples.

A separate associate entity Brookside Capital was an investment fund that at the time owned Staples stock at varying levels.  Did every investment fund with 11 million dollars invested in Staples get a seat at the Board table?  Was Romney's continuing Board duties with Staples attributable to the end of Bain's longstanding venture capital relationship with Staples (which I think is more likely) or due to his removed role from the much tinier investments held by Brookside Capital.  I don't see anything nefarious there.  It seems like a logical answer that he remained involves with Staples personally after Bain ended the venture capital relationship.  Tell me what I'm missing here that is so nefarious or proves he lied?  I just don't see it.

We do seem like ships passing in the night. Broadly speaking, my belief is that Romney wanted it both ways, to take a leave of absence but not cut his ties---and that much of what he has said is cover for indecision."Day by day" can mean following a war you started or feeding the dog. My belief is that he cared about Bain's Fund's investment in Staples, and was still the de facto leader of the firm---something which will not be proven one way or another. In any case, here's my ending. I am leaving our virtual room but because I am walking backwards, you think I'm just coming in, and I say, "Hello, nice to meet you. I hope we were friends".    

Actually, the Romney flack quoted in the Boston Globe even admits that the 9 SEC filings showing Romney as boss when he now says he wasn't "do not square with common sense."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/12/government_docum...

Even his own campaign admits this circle doesn't square.  The SEC filings aren't lies, they're the words of entities in which Romney was the sole shareholder, written before they consummated his departure.

On behalf of Barack Obama, I hereby demand an apology for your calling that a lie.  

In fact, I demand nine apologies, one for every SEC filing showing Romney as the Bain boss when he wasn't, plus a tenth apology just for rounding.  I would also like them made retroactive to before this blog.

Good review of Bain operations under Romney from Bloomberg News, Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses:

...a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses. ....In 1986, in one of its earliest deals, Bain Capital acquired Accuride Corp., a manufacturer of aluminum truck wheels. The purchase was 97.5 percent financed by debt..burdensome for a company that was exposed to aluminum-price volatility and cyclical automotive production........In 1992, Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper by financing 87 percent of the purchase price. In the next three years, Ampad borrowed to make acquisitions, repay existing debt and pay Bain Capital and its investors $60 million in dividends.

As a result, the company’s debt swelled from $11 million in 1993 to $444 million by 1995....Ampad filed for bankruptcy the following year (2000). Senior secured lenders got less than 50 cents on the dollar, unsecured lenders received two- tenths of a cent on the dollar, and several hundred jobs were lost. Bain Capital had reaped capital gains of $107 million on its $5.1 million investment....Bain Capital’s acquisition in 1994 of Dade International, a supplier of in-vitro diagnostic products, was 81 percent financed by debt. ...The company filed for bankruptcy in August 2002, because of its inability to service a $1.5 billion debt load. About 1,700 people lost their jobs while Bain Capital claimed capital gains (net of its losses in the bankruptcy) of roughly $216 million, an eightfold return. ....In the two years following the acquisition in 1993 of GS Industries, a steel mill, for $8 million, Bain Capital increased the company’s debt to $378 million on operating income of less than a 10th of that amount...By the time the company went bankrupt in 2001, it owed $554 million in debt against assets valued at $395 million. Many creditors lost money, and 750 workers lost their jobs.....Bain Capital’s acquisition of Stage Stores, a department- store chain, in 1988 was 96 percent financed by debt (mostly in junk bonds)...Bain sold a large part of its stake in 1997 for a $184 million gain, three years before the company filed for bankruptcy because of its inability to service its $600 million debt....While Bain Capital wasn’t alone in using financial engineering to turbo-charge its returns, it was among the most aggressive under Romney’s leadership. Enriching investors by taking leveraged bets isn’t a qualification for a job requiring long-term vision and concern for public welfare. It is appropriate to point that out to voters.

(Anthony Luzzatto Gardner works at Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity fund based in London, and was director of European affairs in the U.S. National Security Council in 1994-95. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Romney's own version of 'Back to the Future'.  Obviously he's purchased and attempting to fine tune the 'De Lorean time machine vehicle', renaming it the 'Romney Retroactive'.

But, can he successfully program it to 'retroactively modify' the historical data that the Expatrioted Tea Partier cites?

Mitt Romney was CEO of Bain Capital (1991 - c.1999 or 2002) and governor of Massachusetts (2002 - 2006). He had promised to run the Commonwealth state as business.

With an approval rate of just 34% in 2006, the Republican he chose to succeed him lost to a Democrat, why did the voters sour on Romney after just four years?

1. JOB CREATION FELL. Job creation fell from 37th to 47th during Romney's term compared to the previous term. Romney only increased the number of jobs by 1% compared to 5% for the nation

2. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WORKING DECLINED. Between 2002-2006, the number of people working in Mass declined by a net 8,500 people, the only state to lose jobs. The rest of the country added 8 million jobs.

3. LOST MANUFACTURING JOBS. Romney lost 14% of the manufacturing jobs in the state, including 40,000 high paying manufacturing jobs. making up for a number of those losses by enlarging the state government.

4. PEOPLE LEFT MASS TO FIND WORK ELSEWHERE. A net 222,000 people moved out of Mass to seek employment else where, a loss of 3.5% of the work force.

5. WAGES DROPPED. Between 2002-2004, wages dropped 5%. Between 2002-2006, the median hourly wage fell by $10 or 2%.

6. SHIPPED STATE JOBS OVERSEAS. Romney vetoed legislation that would have prohibited sending State jobs overseas and barred state contractors from sending jobs overseas. He then sent 6 State Call Centers overseas.

7. INCREASED DEBT. Romney had the largest increase in debt of any Governor in the country, increasing by more than $2.6 billion. He borrowed money to pay for ordinary operating costs such as highway repair and maintenance.

8. INCREASED GOVERNMENT COST FELL ON MIDDLE CLASS. Romney cut taxes for the wealthy, while increasing hundreds of fees that fall mainly on the middle class. Romney increased the fees on services more than the cost of those services and then transferred the money to other account to pay for his pet projects, all so he could say he didn't raise taxes.

9. REMOVED RESPONSIBILITY FOR KEY LOCAL EDUCATIONAL, AND SAFETY PROGRAMS FROM THE STATE. The Programs continued, state mandates required they do so, but the cost was shifted to localities most of which raised property taxes.

Come to think of it, he governed pretty much as he ran Bain. That's why Romney is NOT running on his record as former governor.

According to Rick Santorum, “if Mitt Romney's an economic heavyweight, we're in trouble, because he was 47th out of 50 in job creation in the state of Massachusetts when he was governor. He may have had some success at making money for himself and his partners at Bain Capital, and I give him a lot of credit for doing so, but that's a very different thing than going out and creating an atmosphere for people to create - that create jobs.” - Rick Santorum (3/18/12).

In 1994, Romney had this to say about blind trusts:"The blind trust is an age old ruse, if you will, which is to say you can always tell a blind trust what it can and cannot do. You give a blind trust rules."

'Only time will tell.'

Lol.  Retroactive retirement.  Self Deportation.  He is good at these two word confuscations.

 

Govenor Romney already told us that if he told us what he would actually do as president, we would probably not vote for him.  Lol.  Isn't that enough of a hint? 

Do we really need to talk about anything else?

Love this, Oxy.  I'll bet the Republicans wish they could do a retroactive fail on Romney.  Any chance they could try a do-over at the convention? 

Newt is rested and ready.

I dunno about the rested part: last week he sounded hot and peeved.wink

Newtmentum!

Hey, if Napoleon can make a comeback, why not Newt?

That's a classic picture, Destor. Very retro. And thanks to you and everyone else for the great comments. My broker has not emailed me back. Well, it's vacation time and he's probably out of the office for a few weeks.

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