United States Heading towards a Depression?

Corwin: Read the document before going off. In the last lines of the vignette it describes the loan and also states the loan was assumed at a later time by the operator of Staples.

That statement partially and possibly answers the question you made ...why didn't Bain Capital make the loan...because you can see that the head of Staples assumed the loan....not Staples itself.

Businesses are scrutinized. Investors in Bain had made investments based on the premise of investments in businesses with hoped for big payouts. There could be restrictive covenants about the use of funds. There could be PITA investors, such as me that would question...why did you use my money to give a guy a mortgage??? instead of investing in businesses. WTF are you doing???? Are you an imbecile??? I could do that myself.

Finally if there is a sometimes used adage in business such as "never use your own money" there is another adage that says...."cash is king". There are endless situations wherein he who has the cash wins!!!!! That is part of Warren Buffet's essential philosophy in buying long term and buying when prices are right rather than the leveraged buyout philosophy that Bain Capital utilized.

Finally if I was looking at this situation and assessing the situation with Albertian...I might conclude that poor Mr Albertian has sort of become our corporate "slave" and will have to do a great job for us if we save his butt. He obviously made an incredible mistake with his former employer. He not only abused the incredible perk the other guy gave him...by quitting and "poaching" employees from that guy......he'll never in a million years be able to use that guy as a reference.

Such is the case. Albertian, who, like everyone else, created his own linked in profile years later....still won't mention who his former employer was before Staples. Can you blame Albertian? That former employer has to think of Albertian as the least trustworthy employee ever.

All in all simply trying to use this vignette as an effort to humanize Romney or paint him as a noble saint takes none of the tawdry elements of business in consideration.


BTW: I love business and competition. But business isn't sainthood and sainthood isn't business. They both have their places.

Also btw: from everything I've read about Romney and its not insignificant I gather the following:

He is a great husband, father, grandfather and son. He is deeply dedicated to his church. He was a focused mature student, a great business analyst at Bain Consulting...a star. Hugely successful in the business of investing in businesses. By that measure like every other investor or investor group he had both numerous failures and numerous successes. The successes far outweighed the failures. He is a strong business guy with very strong focused analytical skills that made him accomplished at both businesses with the name Bain.

He and Obama are both acknowledged smart guys. Obama, after all was editor of the Harvard Business Review. In the world of school smarts that is one of the singular amazing positions, essentially labeling one as the "smartest or most accomplished" from among lots of other super smart driven people. They are both smart guys and have distinguished themselves in situations with other "stars".

Romney, as you pointed out earlier though is the candidate of Fortune 500 companies. Along with a long established disconnect outside of family, close business associates at the highest levels, he is not a guy who has a history of connecting with people or showing compassion in any way. Probably that is why these little vignettes have been published...to try and humanize a guy with little or no history in any capacity for doing so.

Stories have come out to try and do so and humanize a guy who needs it to connect with voters. The story about Albertian is nothing of that sort. It represents the sordid side of business, at the least.....stepping in to take care of a guy who was essentially acting like a scum bag toward his own former employer...to do your bidding. Its not saintly. Its business.

Obama doesn't need these stupid vignettes to try and connect him to regular folks. He and Romney both graduated from the pinnacle of academic achievement. Romney immediately went into a business that solely serves the biggest of corporate clients and charges enormous fees. They pay their people well. It enabled Romney to have the cash to make that loan. Pretty astounding.

Obama, after achieving the position of editor of the Harvard Law Review...a position that opens the door to the most prestigious law firms in the nation paying the highest legal salaries, and similarly serving the largest and highest paying of corporate clients....didn't take that path.

Obama chose to become a community organizer for relatively low pay. He was helping people with little income and no advantages in the monetary world. Whereas Romney could easily fork over a $250,000 loan when he needed to ...so as to help his business's investment....Obama and his wife took years to pay off their student loans. Romney evidently never had student loans.

Obama connects to people who need assistance. Romney needs the assistance of little stupid vignettes to try and show millions of Americans that he has a heart outside of his family. Obama with the door open to join high paying corporate America made the choice to help people who need assistance.

Therein lies a difference.

 

[video=youtube;nFJDXMxXgZo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFJDXMxXgZo&feature=related[/video]

 

They already have... Its called taxes.

 

Out of curiosity , just how many taxes does the average business has to pay ? Let's say an IT company .

I know you guys have state taxes that are high as hell and federal taxes which are a complete mystery to me . How hard is it to keep up with all the tax changes ?

 

It goes beyond the state/federal taxes.. Keep in mind we pay local property taxes, which is 5 figures plus. We have personal property tax, again imposed locally. Then, aside from SALES tax, where we are exempt in many areas, primarily HOSTING, we still pay a USE tax for our own and or customer machinery that we purchase wholesale.

This does not even take into account the various taxes and fees we pay for our employees. One in particular that comes to mind is that PAYROLL tax that Obama decided to eliminate for employees. Guess who continued to pay it, plus the employee's portion? That's right, the small business.

And let us not forget that many small business owners get taxed twice, personally as well as a business....

When we say WE built it? We're not just talking about our businesses, we're talking about those roads and schools too. Its our tax revenue that we generate that pays for those services and pays the salaries of those road builders and teachers!

 

Man it sounds almost like it doesn't pay to be honest businessman in the U.S. also taking the payroll tax from the worker and putting it on the owner sounds like one of the worst ideas possible . It discourages hiring and encourages tax evasion and outsourcing .

It's funny how Hussein asks for more time after he lied about helping the US outsource less . The US is bleeding money trough the gaping wound called run amok outsourcing while the democrats give each other pats on the back .

 

That is not the half of it. This guy in the video predicted the 2008 crisis. Look what he says about the future:

[video=youtube;GU3LKlKOzUg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU3LKlKOzUg[/video]​

 

Thank you. I recognize, of course, that what you wrote is not an endorsement of Romney - just a recognition by you that while you feel Romney can be a Good Guy, you still think Obama is better qualified to be President.

 

The crisis was long coming for anyone that knows economics . When you buy more then you sell you will go bankrupt . It's a simple rule of trade .

 

For those of you that haven't seen it.

RNC Video Bio on Mitt Romney, His Family, and Life

[video=youtube;jH-aoJ7BNIM]http://youtu.be/jH-aoJ7BNIM[/video]

 

I was one of those ignorant ones. No more.

The Times put this out:↓↓

​

 

Almost no one cares about money until they dry up . Don't blame yourself , blame those morons that create so much stupidity that entire nations ignore the simple rules of economy .

Interesting graph I know that every man would like to have the financial comfort to save his woman from the stress of a daily job . Kids grow much better with the love and attention of a mother that's a known fact . I wonder how much of the feminists movement was backed by business owners who wanted a larger workforce ? Would that be a plausible idea ?

 

Romney has a proven track record of fixing things that are BROKEN. Has proven experience in creating / growing a business.

Why not give him the chance and get the failure OUT?!

 

Democrats hate that.

Interesting Charlie rose interview yesterday:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12545
It's 30 minutes but it's an important interview and must-see for anyone concerned about the USA.

Rose interviews Bob Woodward. Woodward makes a very carefully built point that the Obama presidency is a failure of leadership. At one point he discusses how Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid's Chief of Staff yelled at Obama - IN THE OVAL OFFICE - about Obama's lack of planning and poor leadership.

What I found very interesting is how valuable Vice President Joe Biden has been. It seems Obama has no relationships with anyone in Congress - as Woodward explains, sometime even Reid and Pelosi refused to return Obama's calls! Any good that was done by the Obama administration was really done by VP Joe Biden - he had been in the Senate for, oh, forever and knows everybody. In one case Woodward explains how Obama was stalled in negotiations for weeks, but Biden got it done with just one phone call. I will admit my respect for Biden has increased.

 

Selectively loving the rich... ;-)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/u...e-reliant-on-big-money-contributors.html?_r=1

 

Did anyone notice the announcement from the Fed yesterday? It seems to have gotten lost in all the hullabaloo over the middle eastern idiots.

Bernanke announced yesterday that, instead of doing a new QE(what are we on, QE3? QE4), he is going to do QE(X). Basically, he is going to print 40 billion dollars a month and buy US treasuries with it until the jobs market turns around. Yay!!!

In response, another credit agency immediately downgraded us.

 

We were told 40 billion worth of the 'junk' bonds every month. I figured that meant they're giving it to the banks.

 

I'd say that is fairly accurate, unless you or I can borrow from the fed.

 

How do junk bonds stay on the market? I thought they were written off in 2009. How much more is still on the books? Are these new credit defaults or still passing around the old?

 

Not sure what you are talking about, but writing off government debt is what lowers the rating of your debt to "junk" status. On our books, there is 16 trillion dollars worth of debt. Nobody has defaulted on it.

We are simply printing the money we borrow from ourselves to pay our bills and the interest on the debt. That said, our credit rating remains pretty damn high for a variety of reasons. At some point in the near future, if we stay on this course that will change, and our bonds will become junk. Worthless.

The only bright side I can see out of all this is that, by devaluing our currency, we are making Chinese made goods more expensive for American markets. Considering they have been keeping their currency artificially low for a very long time, it seems just.