A report in The Nation details how Mitt Romney and several major GOP donors made, at a minimum, millions of dollars from the bailout of the auto industry.
The entire report is deep and thorough, albeit clearly one-sided, and starts to unravel the mystery of Mitt Romney’s money.
Romney, and his wife Ann, came out of the bailout at least $15.3 million richer after investing in a hedge fund, Elliot Management. Elliot Management bought out debt from Delphi; one of the companies saved by the bailout, and made major profit when the company was saved by taxpayer dollars.
Worse, 25,000 unionized Delphi employees were let go following the bailout, with pensions, healthcare, and life insurance cancelled or depleted. The remaining jobs were shipped overseas, largely to China, and Delphi is now worth billions of dollars.
Now, Romney and his team – should they choose to address the report – could say that cutting all the above board union pay and moving business overseas is what made Delphi profitable in the first place. They would be right.
But what is inexcusable is the strong-arm tactics used by Paul Singer, the director of Elliot Management. Singer manipulated the deck to ensure maximum profit for himself and his cronies, thus costing the taxpayers money and 25,000 workers their livelihood. Their extremely profitable company now resides outside the U.S. to avoid paying taxes, a trend in Romney’s career.
Romney is a cutthroat businessman, and while he may not have been directly involved in this deal, he clearly wanted to keep it a secret as has yet to release tax records from that year, or several other questionable years. Who knows what else is hiding there?
Incredibly, Romney’s gaffes and money problems haven’t hurt him nearly as much as the media portrays – in fact, Romney now holds a seven-point lead. The question, it seems, is whether turning the economy round in Romney’s vision is worth the cost of the above. He has shown time and time again that he’ll do whatever it takes to make money.
And that sounds great – especially in this economy – until it’s your job, your pension, your healthcare and your insurance shipped elsewhere so the 1% can line their pockets, even on America’s demise.
