Romney Made Millions Outsourcing Jobs

Republican presidential nominee-to-be Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) would like for people to believe he is a "job creator". He and his campaign don't say much about the time he spent as governor of Massachusetts, because during his term that state sank to 47th among all states in new job creation. Instead, he has bragged about the time he spent as head of Bain Capital.

He first bragged that Bain Capital had been responsible for creating 100,000 new jobs. That was a ridiculous assertion and easily disproved -- and the campaign soon backed off that figure, saying "thousands" of jobs were created. That also seemed rather suspect, since it was learned that time after time Bain Capital had taken over companies, sucked them dry of money, laid off all the workers, and let them go bankrupt.

But we may have been wrong about Romney and job creation. According to a recent Washington Post article, there is evidence that Bain Capital did create thousands of jobs. The problem is that those jobs were not in the United States, but in foreign countries. It seems that Bain Capital was a big help in getting American companies to lay off American workers and send their jobs to other countries. Here is some of that article:

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. . .

A Washington Post examination of securities filings shows the extent of Bain’s investment in firms that specialized in helping other companies move or expand operations overseas. While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.

Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field. . .

Romney campaign officials repeatedly declined requests to comment on Bain’s record of investing in outsourcing firms during the Romney era. Campaign officials have said it is unfair to criticize Romney for investments made by Bain after he left the firm but did not address those made on his watch.

The truth is that Romney's Bain Capital was interested in only one thing -- making millions of dollars. And they didn't care if they did it by bankrupting American companies (costing workers many thousands of jobs) or by outsourcing the work of companies (costing workers many more jobs).

Romney has said in his campaign that he will create new jobs and stop the outsourcing of jobs. But his record, both as governor and head of Bain Capital, shows something very different. This is just another "flip" on an issue -- which he will promptly "flop" on if elected.