Romney's offshore investments

“We could hardly get Mitt to come back and negotiate the terms of his departure because he was working so hard on the Olympics,’’ said Conard, who, through a shell corporation last year, contributed $1 million to a super PAC supporting Romney’s presidential bid.

According to the reports, there are "dozens" of documents filed with the SEC between 1999 and 2001, the period when Bain got really good at offshoring and sticking it to workers, with Romney's name and/or signature as CEO and sole stockholder.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/politics/when-did-romney-step-back-from-bain-its-complicated.html?hp

Now he can claim he signed them without reading them, or he signed a blank sheet of paper, or he just signed anything they put in front of him, but the fact remains, he had the position, he signed for it, and so the buck stops at him, and the buck is turning out to be counterfeit. He might not have paid much attention (on the other hand he might, and won't admit it because it's politically explosive), but it was still on his shift.

Indeed, no evidence has yet emerged that Mr. Romney exercised his powers at Bain after February 1999 or directed the funds’ investments after he left, although his campaign has declined to say if he attended any meetings or had any other contact with Bain during the period.

For the Romney camp to dismiss that he would have anything to do with Bain because he was in Salt Lake City, that would seem to run counter to the relationship that Romney has as CEO of the management company, and the duties he has to the limited partner investors,’’ said Fleischer, an Obama supporter. “If they are saying he had completely left, that is inconsistent with the legal duties he has toward the investors. You can’t be an absentee CEO, legally.’’

Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who is a Romney supporter, countered in an interview that questions about Romney’s responsibility to investors after 1999 are “garbage.’’ Pitt said he saw no conflict in Romney’s public statements and SEC filings.

“He wasn’t performing in that role, nobody concerned about it was thinking he was performing in that role,’’ said Pitt, “but he did owe an obligation to comply with the federal securities laws.’’

Mattel Toys, troubled firm partly owned by Bain, signs on as Olympics Sponsor, 9/25/1999

A toy company pays the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Committee (SLOC) a million dollar licensing fee for the rights to produce and sell stuffed animal likenesses of the Olympic mascots.

The SLOC makes an honest mil, and children everywhere smile.

But when the CEO of the licencor is the CEO and owner of a company with an ownership stake in the licencee, and when both of those CEOs are named Mitt Romney, you know there is a bigger story there, and you know that things are about to get interesting.

September 25, 1999
By Jerry Springer
Desert News Staff Writer
Mattel To Bring Mascots to Life
Toymaker signs on as Licensee for 2002 Games

On Friday the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, announced that Mattel, the renowned maker of such toys as Barbie, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Chatty Kathy, and Hot Wheels, has signed on as a Games Licensee. The deal guarantees SLOC more than $1 million in advance payments from sales royalties.

"There is no better company than Mattel to help us bring the Olympic Mascots to life for children of all ages." Said SLOC President Mitt Romney.

Romney said SLOC was immediately drawn to Mattel because of the company's worldwide reputation and an existing distribution network rivaled by no other toymaker. "To have a toymaker of Mattel's stature is a great benefit" Romney said. "They are a premier manufacturer."

http://news.google.com/...

Short Version:
1997 Bain and others acquire principal stake in The Learning Company (TLC)
1998/12 Mattel Toys announces $3.8 billion purchase of TLC
1999/02 Romney leaves Bain for the Olympics
1999/05 Mattel/TLC Merger is completed
1999-2000 Mattel bleeds money
1999/09 Mattel signs on as sponsor for the Olympics
2000/02 Mattel CEO resigns over TLC debacle
2000/04 Mattel walks away from the near worthless wreckage of the The Learning Company
2001-2002 A whole bunch of cool Mitt Romney commemorative Olympic pins are released to the adoring public.

From the end of your link...

Quote:

Indeed, no evidence has yet emerged that Mr. Romney exercised his powers at Bain after February 1999 or directed the funds’ investments after he left, although his campaign has declined to say if he attended any meetings or had any other contact with Bain during the period.

Yeah, desperate times call for desperate measures.

16 Jul 2012 11:27 AM
Romney, Republicans And Responsibility

It has always seemed to me that a core principle of Anglo-American conservatism has always been personal responsibility. We are all human and we all screw up all the time - but taking responsibility for both good and bad decisions is a prerequisite for democratic accountability in a free society. George W Bush famously summarized the GOP's current view of such accountability and responsibility by saying that in eight years, he had only one accountability moment - and that was the 2004 election. The authorization of a war on empirically false grounds, the resort to illegal torture, the tens of thousands of civilian deaths from the Iraq occupation: none of this was or is Bush's responsibility, just as the massive job losses that continued in Obama's first year on office are naturally all Obama's fault, as is the debt.

This flight from responsibility is also, alas, baked deep in the one percent, and marks them as very Bain-romneydifferent from their wealthy predecessors in the American elite for much of the last century. The bankers whose recklessness preciptated our current recession see no reason to take responsibility for the misery their gambling and greed bestowed on so many others. Indeed, they shamelessly lobby to remove any constraints on their reckless ways, continue to gamble with glee (see JP Morgan), and continue to hand themselves bonuses and salaries out of any proportion to the benefits they bring to society as a whole.

And the financial elite is mirrored by the political elite. Those directly involved with or openly supportive of war crimes under Bush and Cheney - far from being held accountable - were given op-ed columns at the Washington Post and sinecures at AEI. A vice-president who openly boasted of torturing prisoners holds a fundraiser for the current nominee. No one in the cabinet responsible for Abu Ghraib resigned. The Republican refuse to take any responsibility for the massive debt we accumulated since 2000 and have, indeed, tried to shift the entire responsibility onto Obama's shoulders. Mitt Romney wants to take credit for all the successes at Bain while he was CEO, but also refuses to take responsibility for the actions of his own company which was still employing him and paying him a six figure salary. In fact even to ask a simple question as to whether he was CEO and therefore whether his testimony in 2002 was perjurious is to provoke Romney into a harrumph that included the words "disgusting".

The reason America's elite finds itself under so much criticism is not that they are elites. It is that they have become self-serving, accountability-free elites. Romney's pique that he could even be challenged to take responsibility for a company of which he was legally CEO is a perfect symbol of this abdication of responsibility. Think of the contrast with his father - a man who actually ran an industrial business well, who expressed solidarity with the civil rights movement when so many didn't, released twelve years of tax returns to prove he wasn't gaming anything, and invited reporters in for a Sunday service at his local LDS church.

George Romney clearly felt that with great wealth comes great responsibility and accountability. Mitt is fine with the wealth part; just not the responsibility and accountability. Which is a pretty good summary of what has gone wrong with American conservatism today.

The geniuses at Team Obama are showing their complete ignorance of private enterprise, the law, and the one well vetted part of Mitt Romney’s career — his tenure at Bain Capital.

It is well established that Mitt Romney left Bain to go salvage the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. It is also well established that his name remained on some SEC documents. This stems from winding down his partnership interest in Bain Capital. It is a quirk in the law. It has been well vetted. Even FactCheck.org and the Washington Post are unpersuaded by Team Obama’s hyperbole.

Really? A felon? Hey! Let’s accuse Barack Obama of being a foreign born Muslim! There’s about the same validity to both. Meet the Bainers — they are the members of Team Obama demanding proof from Mitt Romney that he is a liar or a felon. Next they’ll ask when he stopped beating his wife.

The Bainers will not take any answer that does not show Romney to be a liar or felon in the same way Birthers will take no answer other than one that shows Barack Obama is not an American citizen. In fact, pointing this out on twitter today I was barraged from both sides that Obama has still never shown his real birth certificate and Mitt Romney has still not shown his tax returns.

That, in fact, is what this is all about. It’s just another attempt to get Mitt Romney to release his tax returns. Guy Benson has a pretty exhaustive look at this nonsense.

The Bainers will become as insufferable as the Birthers. The only difference is that the Bainers’ insufferable stupidity is at the heart of the Obama campaign while the Romney campaign has worked hard to not be tied to Birthers.

It is also well established that his name remained on some SEC documents.

"Romney now is either the first sole shareholder, chairman, CEO and president of a company in history to claim that he had nothing whatsoever to do with managing that company or he is responsible for the worst practices of Bain."

The Obama campaign is hitting this so hard to take a series of associations and embed them so deeply into voters’ consciousness that they become inseparable from the mention of the phrase ‘Bain Capital’. Those are ‘joke’, ‘liar’, ‘felon’, ‘retroactively retired’, ‘SEC filings’, ‘Caymans’, ‘whiner’, ‘buck stops here’, ‘hiding something’.

You can spin these out forever. But beyond all the specific accusations, they’re painting a picture that makes Romney look ridiculous, like a joke. They’re making Romney look stupid and powerless on the front where he believes he’s one of the standouts of his generation. And that’s plain lethal for a presidential candidate.

But how does it come into play? Simple. Mitt Romney has two claims on the presidency: successful governor of major state and captain of industry. He’s largely written off the first by disavowing a genuine and perhaps far-reaching accomplishment: health care reform. Which leaves him with Bain Capital.

The play here is to make this swirl of awfulness the first thing people think of when that phrase gets uttered.

Documents: Romney didn't manage Bain funds

Documents: Romney didn't manage Bain funds

Well there you go. Actual documentation proving this. Are we done now?

Doubt it. Too tasty a lying bone to just be discarded. But, evidence is evidence, so I will wait for evidence to disprove this.

McGentrix wrote:

Documents: Romney didn't manage Bain funds

...he just kept control of the company in case he needed to do so.

"Mitt Romney either misled the American people or misrepresented himself to the SEC. Romney has said he had no authority or responsibility for managing Bain since 1999, but that has been proven false. Regardless of whether he was on the management committee for this particular deal, he remained President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board and he was legally responsible for every investment and decision made by Bain."

McGentrix wrote:

Documents: Romney didn't manage Bain funds

Well there you go. Actual documentation proving this. Are we done now?

Doubt it. Too tasty a lying bone to just be discarded. But, evidence is evidence, so I will wait for evidence to disprove this.

You seem to be incapable of admitting the foundational fact in this case: Romney didn't have to manage the day-to-day aspects of the business to still be on the hook for decisions they make. I mean, do you really not get that? Or are you being purposefully obtuse?

Cycloptichorn