America before the romneys of the world took over

Caswell was an amateur compared to the Romneys of the world. Romney was a ruthless, unapologetic mega-profiteer and sadly only one among thousands like him. And to think he was the least frightening of the Republican candidates.

First, when you start off calling people of whom you know nothing "idiots", you've gone a long ways toward discrediting yourself and your arguments.

It so happens I was a business owner. (Retired.) I had lots of people working for me -- some unionized, some not. Yes, there are issues with unions. So what? Does this make those in the management of big businesses fair and just and honest? Obviously you know nothing about the real world. I always had good relations with my employees, union or not, because I treated everyone fairly and equitably. So do many other business owners. Unfortunately, I know a lot of business people who behave just the opposite...and as a rule, the bigger the company, the worse the behavior.

Look as the recent case of Hostess. Yes, the unions bear some responsibility for the company shutting down. But what about the executives? They ran the place. They're the decision-makers. It's their misjudgment and mistakes that took the firm in the direction of unprofitability, to the point that not even firing workers or cutting back on benefits could rescue the company. And not only were they paid many times the wages of the people who actually did the labor, after the bankruptcy their attorneys went to court asking that the company be allowed to hand them bonuses in addition to their very high (and uncut) pay -- allegedly because only in that way could the company have quality people on hand to supervise its liquidation. This would be bizarrely laughable if it weren't so dastardly.

This is the problem with so much business today: the people at the top suffer no loss of income or benefits, and in fact continue to profit even from a failing company, while those below are fired or, at best, forced to cede salary and benefits just to keep a bare job. Since 1981, the income disparity in this country has risen several hundred percent, with the earnings of the lower 98 or 99% remaining essentially flat as a percentage of GDP, while those in the upper echelons have seen their real incomes skyrocket.

Unions were set up to protect workers against the excesses of corporate owners. If you know any history other than the selected kind, there was a time, within the living memory of many people, when some companies hired thugs to shoot striking workers, scabs and private police to beat them up, and they gave their workers precisely what they, the companies, wanted to. Sure, years later unions often got out of hand and, like any large organization, some became corrupt and a problem themselves. But this arrogant and lazy predilection of mindless people to just "blame the unions", as though no one else was responsible for a company's problems, is ridiculous. The situation is far more complex than that, though that fact may not suit your mindset...or, to use your phrase, it never crosses your mind.

Your naive (or just dishonest) claim that businesses just want to compete honestly is laughable. Yes, obviously, they would prefer not to pay a cent more than they absolutely have to -- for anything. But they routinely spend millions in trying to influence the outcome of elections, not just abroad but (especially) in the U.S. Why? Out of idealism? No. Because they want people in office who will give them what they want -- massive corporate and personal tax breaks, favorable trade policies, "incentives" and the like, all on the public dole. You blithely toss around the word "socialism", but you have no objection to corporations and those who run them being showered with government money and favors. The Koch brothers spent something like $400,000,000 to defeat Obama and other Democrats (all wasted). Why not take, say, half of that and help create jobs and industries? Are you really so stupid or disingenuous that you believe they and other billionaires spent all that money purely out of a selfless and idealistic concern for the economy and middle class?

Bain Capital? It's you who needs some education. Bain does not "use their own money" to bail out companies. That is preposterous, and a lie. It uses borrowed money, from the banks. Its own risk is small because before they take over a company they assess its worth carefully and know what they can get back in return -- either from saving the company, or by selling it off. Bain collects at both ends -- they get a fee for coming in as well as a fee when their services end -- and they make all these tens of millions regardless of the outcome of their efforts. Succeed or fail -- or succeed temporarily -- Bain makes money. Bain does not suffer. When Mitt Romney boasted about job creation, he was speaking solely and exclusively about Bain. Sure, he created jobs in his own firm. They created nothing, sold nothing. They provided so-called services to others in trouble, and to accomplish that they routinely laid off workers permanently, cut benefits and salaries to the remaining workers (but not salaries or bonues of executives), and, if necessary, broke the companies up and sold them off, often to foreign firms or countries. Yes, somebody profited. The execs at the "rescued" company. Bain. But not the vast majority of people who depended on such firms for their livelihoods. They're out in the cold, and for them, there are no golden parachutes or bonuses for failing to perform their jobs.

Bain is no different from similar firms. Even Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum, hardly liberals, attacked Bain for its predatory practices last year. Bain never created a single job in the companies it took over, only for itself. And even Romney admitted that Bain often had companies that failed anyway (and was still paid handsomely for its services). Your notion that Bain made all its clients strong and prosperous is false on Romney's own word.

As for GM, Romney was always very loud in opposing the government bailout of the industry. And as usual, he flip-flopped on his position, even lying about what he had previously said. In 2009 he said that the auto companies should go bankrupt. Then, in 2011, he switched and said that companies such as his should have been the ones to provide financing -- knowing full well that no single firm, or even consortium of firms, could have mustered anywhere near enough capital to rescue GM and Chrysler. (Other firms in the same field said such a private bailout would not have been remotely possible financially.) Then, briefly last May, he claimed that Obama had followed his, Romney's, plan in bailing out the industry! Even for him that was one whopper too many, and after a hail of criticism he never repeated that absurd statement. Regardless of Mitt's zig-zagging "expertise", the bailout worked.

There are no easy answers for our economy. Some measure of blame can be assigned to almost anyone for its faults. But while you're busy calling people who don't agree with your one-sided and simplistic screeds "idiots", the fact is that corporations do not believe in shared sacrifice. It's the people at the bottom who always suffer the most, who earn the least, are asked to accept less, while the people in charge -- the ones who created the problems in the first place, or who, as leaders of the company, are at least responsible for them -- who continue earning their high salaries, lose nothing in benefits or income, and still collect bonuses even when they've conspicuously failed at their job -- namely, making their company profitable and successful.

I was lucky: I was an ethical businessman who worked with rather than against the people who worked for me (at any level), and our business thrived. I never fired a single individual or had a serious business dispute. I took less pay when money was tight. I got along fine. Many of my friends were similarly successful in operating the same way. We acted this way not merely out of a sense of fairness but because we all realized that over the long term this was the best and most profitable way to do business -- we profited, as well as those we employed. If the upper echelons of all business behaved in such ways, we'd have few problems. Unfortunately, they don't. Romney may not be the poster boy for selfish -- and self-defeating -- business behavior, but he was part of the problem.

As for saying that Obama a socialist and all that other crap, that only proves you're someone without a clue as to what real socialism is.

If you genuninely believe in untrammeled capitalism, and in the honesty and good faith of every person who wields great economic power, then do away with all the subsidies and tax breaks and supports and all the rest that large businesses and the people who run them so desperately try to keep and expand. Let them truly rise or fall on their own, unaided. Let them receive raises or bonuses only if they perform successfully, not for overseeing failure. Quit firing only the low-level workers and start at the top. In short, let them earn their rewards. Let those who bring their companies to bankruptcy or decline pay in losing their jobs, their benefits, their bonuses. Stop simplistically blaming "the unions" and accusing all the other boogeymen. Then we might see some real growth in this country.

Of course, just blaming unions or high wages or other things lets you off the hook for having to actually think about the entire situation in factual terms. Much easier for you to attack some ideologically convenient targets.

Executive Suite had it right, 59 years ago. It's a lesson all of us, to one degree or another, still need to learn.

WyldeGoose, good effort but likely in vain. For most of the posters preceding yours, ignorance is bliss.

If by "his local stake" you mean Romney's own company, Bain Capital, you'd be right. They made out like bandits, collecting at both ends, regardless of whether the companies they were brought in to "rescue" survived or not. For the people working at the companies they were supposed to help, Bain and similar outfits started by laying off workers, outsourcing jobs and slashing benefits...and with no guarantees any of these steps would in fact save the remnant of the company. And if the company failed or was sold off, Bain profited from that too.

Romney just did what a lot of people have done in recent decades: instead of actually producing anything or expanding wealth, they were concerned first, with themselves; a distant second, with their client corporation; and third and last, essentially not at all with the jobs of the people who worked for these client firms. This is the principle reason why Romney opposed the "bailout" of the auto industry in 2009. He argued that the automakers should be allowed to go broke and then be reorganized by professional takeover companies like his -- all the while knowing full well that there was nowhere near enough private capital available to even begin to restructure those industries. His goal was to get a piece of it for himself and profit while the American automobile industry -- his father's old bailiwick -- was broken up and sold off, at the loss not only of hundreds of thousands of jobs but with the further decimation of the American industrial sector.

The massive income disparity in this nation began under Reagan and his tax policies and has continued for 35 years with few variations, while people's purchasing power has declined and only to so-called "1%" have thrived. Republican leaders press for even more of the same, conning the tea partiers who have blindly elected people opposed to many of their own demands (saving Medicare and Social Security, prosecuting Wall Street for the 2008 crash and so on). This is one reason a demagogic ignoramus like Donald Trump has won the GOP nomination this year: he's called the GOP out on their deceptiveness and ridden the wave of TP discontent over the conventional conservatives who only want to give yet more breaks to the wealthy on the false claim that this will stimulate "job creation". It hasn't. One has only to look at a state such as Kansas to see how such policies have wrecked a state's economy. Not that Trump would seriously disturb this ideology or these policies; his own record is full of bankruptcies, bad deals and frauds and thousands of people swept aside by his ego and incompetence. Still, some people have fallen for his line and think he at least offers the chance of something different for them. The fact that he's monumentally unqualified on every conceivable level doesn't matter to some people.

Anyway, in Executive Suite terms it's the Shaws of the corporate world who have indeed triumphed over the Wallings. Corporations today pursue money, not productivity; greed, not raising all economic boats; they think of immediate gratification and not prospering for tomorrow. This is one reason why the US has been losing its economic edge to shrewder and more ruthless powers who work with the long-term in mind.

And really, calling someone an idiot isn't much of an argument for one's opinions. And by the way, I happen to have benefited from Reagan-Bush style tax policies. But I'm not quite so selfish or stupid not to see how they've undone so much of our economy through their inherent unfairness and delusional economic theories.