Newt's Anti-Corporation, Anti-Romney Michael Moore Movie Adventure

By way of Introduction
I was a senior in High School during the 2004 Presidential Election, and I remember seeing Michael Moore's anti-Bush hatchet piece "Fahrenheit 9-11" in the weeks leading up to election day.  I was amazed at the conspiracy theories and the terrible things people said about our President and the things he had done in office.  It made me ask questions about President Bush, about Iraq and Afghanistan, and about September 11th.  So I did some research and found a rebuttal video called "Fahrenhype 9/11." It was made by Ron Silver (Bruno Gianelli for you West Wing fans out there) and Dick Morris.  What Silver and Morris did was basically a film version of a fact-check, tracking down the people Michael Moore interviewed or used footage of and clarifying their statements.  Michael Moore had taken wounded soldiers and broken families words, and used them out of context for political gain.  When you see these people's REAL testimonies and experiences, it's completely different than what the audio and video shows.  Here's a review of the movie that provides some more clarification on the differences between Michael Moore's video, and reality.

My point in this introduction is that film, quotes, and emotional testimony can be twisted and manipulated to create a message.  Everyone does this, Mitt Romney even did it with Barack Obama's quote "if we keep talking about the economy, we are going to lose" which was actually Obama quoting the McCain Campaign (One could make the argument that the tables had turned and at least it's APPLICABLE but that's a whole different argument) But what Newt Gingrich has done that is so despicable is freelanced a Michael Moore-esque video to attack corporations, the basic principles of capitalism, and the facts are MISSING.  The timeline is off, the people interviewed as authorities on the subject are uninformed, and this is a REPUBLICAN USING MICHAEL MOORE TACTICS ON ANOTHER REPUBLICAN. It's vindictive, an attempt at character assassination, and hopefully the party and the voters of South Carolina and Florida will see that.  Newt Gingrich has destroyed any credibility he has left and might actually be the most INCONSISTENT chameleon in the world. People will say Mitt flip flopped on abortion because when he was faced with legislating in favor of abortion, he couldn't DO IT and (like Reagan, Bush, many others) declared himself to be pro-life. You can call him a flip flop on "Romneycare" (if you don't understand the debate) but even with his alleged inconsistencies, he is NOTHING compared to Newt Gingrich, who has no moral compass, is guilty of serial hypocrisy, and shouldn't even be in this race anymore.  He said "if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned on bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years if being, then I would be glad to then listen to him."  Remember when Newt Gingrich took 1.6 million from Fannie and Freddie, who were partially responsible for the housing collapse? And Newt is REALLY going to challenge another candidate on business ethics? I hope that voters in South Carolina also remember that these ads are being funded by a CASINO TYCOON, because as the NY Times says, "Mr. Gingrich apparently considers [gambling] morally superior to investing in companies in the hope of making a profit." I think this is good to start the debate now, because by the time Romney faces Obama in the general election, he will be the candidate of capitalism and free markets facing off against 8+ percent unemployment and WILD deficit spending President Obama, the "Regulations President" that helped made America under-competitive.

Corporations are People. Does Newt Hate Corporations?

One of the first Romney images we see, and we see it over and over, is the clip of Mitt arguing with hecklers saying "corporations are people." By playing this over and over, Newt might confuse people into thinking that HE does not believe that corporations are people.  Is he opposed to the corporate system? What KIND OF REPUBLICAN IS HE? The point that Mitt is trying to make is that corporations are made up of people, people that pay taxes and people that lose/earn money.  There are rich at the top but the more successful the corporations are, the more jobs they create at the bottom and the more opportunity there is for those lower in the corporation to rise. President Obama, Occupy Wall Street, and every movie that has ever featured a corporation has painted them out to be full of greedy men with over sized cigars and terrible pin-stripe suits.  Mr Potter types. And there are many companies/ corporations in which that actually is the case, but it's not the ONLY case.  If Newt Gingrich or basically ANYONE thinks that ALL corporations and big businesses are corrupt and bad for America, they MIGHT want to pick a new place to live because you've clearly given up on what the founding fathers envisioned for America.  To make my point, look at a movie studio.  Actors, camera men, caterers, all the way down to studio janitors are employed by a CORPORATION.  That corporation probably employs thousands of people, some earning minimum wage and some making millions.  But everyone there is a PERSON.  But being the land of opportunity requires RISK that often leads to REWARDS, but there are difficulties and steps along the way.   

But this isn't about Big businesses, it's about Small businesses. 

One thing I hated about this is the way it uses these people's pain and suffering for Newts political gain.  The story of the pregnant woman getting laid off is terrible, and the man who's daughter had leukemia, I felt a lot of sympathy for his situation, but it's wrong to try and turn that on Bain.  It's absolutely disgusting that these people's hardships and pain are being USED.  These people have NO idea what their company executives arranged with Bain, and they don't even know that Romney had nothing to do with their pain. (see fact checks cited below)

One man in a testimonial says "if they'd left us alone we would probably still have jobs. Unimac would still be unimac." If this were factual, the ominous narrators voice would have said it, using graphs and statistics to back it up, but instead they have a man that probably doesn't know what his company's situation was in.  And an important point they leave out is that Bain didn't FORCE themselves upon the company.  The company had a choice, and they sold their company to a firm that specialized in TURNAROUNDS. They knew there would be changes, I just wish they had told this guy.  Then they play a clip of Romney saying "For the economy to grow, there are a lot of people who will suffer as a result of that." What the video clipped is the END of the quote, saying that job creators and businesses can eliminate and minimize that suffering by growing companies and creating more jobs in new fields and enterprises.  Some businesses that suffer need to be slimmed down and people will be cut out of the picture (often to avoid going COMPLETELY under) but when companies return to profitability they need to bring those people back and do their best to keep the money flowing downwards, creating new jobs, and expanding as much as possible. What Mitt Romney stands for is the principle that the more the lowest level of workers prosper, the more the company grows and the more EVERYONE prospers.  Greedy CEOs that don't keep the money flowing downward impede their organizations from growing, which actually stunts their growth in the long run.  Yes, he made a lot of money, and so did the other investors, but that money in turn was used for company pensions, universities, and major philanthropic endeavors. 

That's about as thorough as i want to go as a fact check, because people more intelligent and better resourced than I have already done that.  I'll cite a few good pieces.

-CNN Fortune released a fact check article titled "Gingrich Bain Bomb Fizzles" that clarifies some important time line issues with the video, proving that Bain wasn't at fault in cases that the video tries to make.  It clarifies the KB Toys Timeline issue as well, and Romney's role after he left Bain for the Olympics.

A website called Unified Patriots provided a well-researched description of Bain's actual functions, and it's work with turn-around companies.

"Yes, sometimes Bain tried to turn companies around and couldn’t. Those companies went out of business. But they would have gone out of business earlier if Bain hadn’t invested money in them first."

The New York Times gave a great explanation for the difference between the "bad, greedy corporations" and what private equity firms do.

One of the persistent gripes of the left is that too many CEOs make too much money even as their companies flounder. Private-equity firms target such companies or subsidiaries, replace their management, and try to unlock the underlying value in the enterprise.

Often these private equity firms would REPLACE the corrupt heads of these corporations and slim them down so they could be profitable, instead of going bankrupt and losing more and more jobs. One more great source on Bain and Mitt Romney is an article "Ready for the Real Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital?" posted on the website americaneedsmitt.com. 

Closing Arguments

I went through a bunch of Bain companies and looked up their employment figures.  Now obviously Mitt and Bain are not responsible for 100% of these, but they played a large part in these companies becoming profitable job-creators.  You might make the argument that some of these took place after Mitt left, but if you fact-checked Newt's video you would find that some of those companies went under when Mitt wasn't around, so if he is being taken to task for these companies in the court of public opinion, that same court should also count the positives while he was gone. Now these are just a handful of the 100+ companies Mitt and Bain played a role in shaping/making profitable. The numbers next to them are the numbers of current employees (or current according to the most recent data)

AMC theaters- 21,000 

Bombardier- 6.500

Dominoes pizza- 150,000

Brookstone- 300+ stores in US

Guitar center- 10,000

Toys R Us- 70,000, 13,000 during holidays

staples- 90,000 2281 stores WORLDWIDE

Gome Electrical- 49,000

NXP semiconductors- 28,000

sealy- 4,100 (full time)

Burger King- 38,000

Warner Music- 4,000

Aleris- 6500

Hospital corporation of America- 180,000

Clear Channel communications- 18,000

these all equal

735,100 JOBS created in some part by Bain.  (remember that this is a just a portion of the companies they had a part in building)

Now obviously you can take a percentage of those away with the argument of "Mitt wasn't there" or you can argue Bain's actual role in the creation of those jobs, but either way it's hard to say that Mitt can't claim to have helped create 100 thousand jobs. He's hundreds of thousands ahead of Obama, Newt, and the others.  Mitt has learned how to make companies and corporation more efficient, and he has learned how to make businesses grow. He'll be the first to admit that there were some failures, and Newt Gingrich would like you to believe that those were a majority.  But anyone who knows the private equity business knows that Bain has a reputation as one of the BEST at what they do, with a higher success ration than most other private equity firms, despite their tendency to go for younger riskier companies.  In fact, when Romney left Bain in 1999 to help run the olympics, their success rate was at 88 percent! 

The Democratic National Committee is paying a man named Randy Johnson (not to be confused with legendary Giants pitcher Randy Johnson) to travel around and tell his sad story of being laid off from Smith Corona, an office supply company that specializes in TYPEWRITERS.  As the previously mentioned Unified Patriots article says, a company that specializes in typewriters was going to be PRETTY difficult to save.  If Randy Johnson wants to blame someone he should BLAME THE COMPUTER for putting him out of work.  Theres a lot more to that story but the point is that Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and the democratic national committee have all lined up against the very kind of capitalism we need to get America running again.  There may be real vulture capitalist firms out there, but Bain is NOT one of them. Those who do their research will see that Randy Johnson, these people from Newts video, and the others Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz will march out to testify are a tiny percentage of the Bain pot.   People that understand business PRETTY WELL had these things to say about Governor Romney. (watch video)

So next time you sit in a Brookstone massage chair, buy some of those new Burger King fries (that are actually pretty good) pizza from dominoes, running shoes from sports authority, office supplies from staples, listen to music by Bruno Mars, the Eagles, Jason Derulo, Faith Hill, KC and the Sunshine Band, or any of these artists signed by Warner Music Group, buy toys from Toys R Us, or even a guitar from guitar center, remember that Mitt Romney is partially responsible for those companies and products. His and others like him had a vision of creating accessible, successful businesses that employ entire communities and provide them with products.  Chances are you KNOW someone who has at some point or another worked for one of these companies that Bain either helped build or helped grow, and without Mitt Romney and Bain, WOULD NOT HAVE THE JOB THEY HAVE NOW. THAT is the vision we need governing America, and don't let that vision get clouded by desperate republicans and even more desperate soon to be EX-Presidents.