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This week the Obama campaign debuted its attack on Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Mitt Romney founded. Its two-minute ad purports to tell the story of GS Technologies, a Kansas City-based Bain investment that went bankrupt in 2001.
To hear the Obama campaign, this is a tale of greed: GST was a healthy, happy, quality steelmaker until Bain plundered its worth and stripped its 750 workers of their due. "It was like a vampire," laments one former employee in the ad. "They came in and sucked the life out of us."
GST is a tragic tale, though in a different way. The real story of GST is that of a private-equity firm trying to spark some life into a uncompetitive, over-unionized industry. Bain's crime here—if that's what you call it—was giving a dying steel plant an unexpected eight-year lease on life.
When Bain bought the Kansas City mill in 1993, steel was a scene of carnage. Global players were pouring out cheap products, and America's high-cost steel plants couldn't compete. The industry had lost 200,000 jobs in preceding years. In 1992 alone, the six largest U.S. steel mills had lost a combined $3 billion. Armco, the company Bain would buy the plant from, would lose $641 million in 1993.
The Kansas City plant was itself dying. At its 1970 height it employed 4,500; by the late 1980s it was down to 1,000. A year before acquisition, Armco had laid off another 75. Its equipment was old; it faced fierce competition at home and abroad.
B.C. Huselton, a vice president of the business at the time, tells me that in 1990 the Armco CEO held a meeting. "He told us, 'Look, we either try to sell it, or we've got to shut it down.'" Armco had shut down another Kansas City facility, Union Wire Rope, only a few years before. ...
The late 1990s saw a new outpouring of cheap steel from elsewhere around the globe. The Asian financial crisis walloped the mining industry, cutting demand for GST products. The price of GST's electricity and natural gas skyrocketed. The union dug in, refusing to make concessions. By April 1997, it was on strike, shooting bottle rockets at guards. Labor costs spiked, and by 1999 GSI was reporting $53 million in net losses.
In 2001 it would become one of 31 steel companies that went bankrupt from 1993 to 2003. (Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999.) The steel crash was the economic drama du jour, with Congress railing about "dumping." ...
The Obama ad doesn't note that the broader company, GS Industries, employed 3,500 and that the Kansas City plant (with 750 workers) was the only one shuttered. Other plants were bought and operate today. Nor does it mention Bain's other steel investment in the early 1990s, in an Indiana start-up called Steel Dynamics. The firm touts innovative technology and a nonunion workforce. It today reports $6.3 billion in revenue—25 times what it claimed in its 1996 IPO—and employs 6,000.
A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a company—to "suck" the life out of it—does not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy. Bain has surely made its share of mistakes, and one may well have been trying to resuscitate a traditional steel firm in the grip of industry upheaval. The irony, says Mr. Huselton, is that this plant "wouldn't even be in today's news, if it hadn't been the opportunity that came with Bain. Those jobs would have been gone in 1993."
...
Strassel: Vampire Capitalism? Please - WSJ.com
reality: under some circunstances Bain invested. under other circumstances, Bain strip-mined companies. as with most things, the truth is somewhere in between.
and if i were a corporate shareholder or upper management, i'd vote mittens all the way. .. that is, if the US were a corporation. it isn't. and i'm not seeing where a return to bush's economic ideology that regressses to the 'trickle down' nonsense of the 80's, would do any better than bush did.
besides, there are other issues... and mittens sucks on all of them because he now owes the "base".
The ad is purposely misleading - Obama camp knows it - but it is safely so because they know the dimwits it's targeted at will buy the Bain is bad mantra hook, line, and sinker. It's red meat stuff to their morons, but the folks they're really going to need come November are way too smart to fall for the b.s.
mittens needs to get a thicker skin.
but rightwingers love throwing mud. they just get all up in arms when it's tossed back.
so, Obama puts out a misleading ad, and Romney just 'needs thicker skin'. You of course will say the same thing if Romney puts out a misleading ad about Obama... right? That Obama just 'needs thicker skin'?
This week the Obama campaign debuted its attack on Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Mitt Romney founded. Its two-minute ad purports to tell the story of GS Technologies, a Kansas City-based Bain investment that went bankrupt in 2001.
To hear the Obama campaign, this is a tale of greed: GST was a healthy, happy, quality steelmaker until Bain plundered its worth and stripped its 750 workers of their due. "It was like a vampire," laments one former employee in the ad. "They came in and sucked the life out of us."
GST is a tragic tale, though in a different way. The real story of GST is that of a private-equity firm trying to spark some life into a uncompetitive, over-unionized industry. Bain's crime hereif that's what you call itwas giving a dying steel plant an unexpected eight-year lease on life.
When Bain bought the Kansas City mill in 1993, steel was a scene of carnage. Global players were pouring out cheap products, and America's high-cost steel plants couldn't compete. The industry had lost 200,000 jobs in preceding years. In 1992 alone, the six largest U.S. steel mills had lost a combined $3 billion. Armco, the company Bain would buy the plant from, would lose $641 million in 1993.
The Kansas City plant was itself dying. At its 1970 height it employed 4,500; by the late 1980s it was down to 1,000. A year before acquisition, Armco had laid off another 75. Its equipment was old; it faced fierce competition at home and abroad.
B.C. Huselton, a vice president of the business at the time, tells me that in 1990 the Armco CEO held a meeting. "He told us, 'Look, we either try to sell it, or we've got to shut it down.'" Armco had shut down another Kansas City facility, Union Wire Rope, only a few years before. ...
The late 1990s saw a new outpouring of cheap steel from elsewhere around the globe. The Asian financial crisis walloped the mining industry, cutting demand for GST products. The price of GST's electricity and natural gas skyrocketed. The union dug in, refusing to make concessions. By April 1997, it was on strike, shooting bottle rockets at guards. Labor costs spiked, and by 1999 GSI was reporting $53 million in net losses.
In 2001 it would become one of 31 steel companies that went bankrupt from 1993 to 2003. (Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999.) The steel crash was the economic drama du jour, with Congress railing about "dumping." ...
The Obama ad doesn't note that the broader company, GS Industries, employed 3,500 and that the Kansas City plant (with 750 workers) was the only one shuttered. Other plants were bought and operate today. Nor does it mention Bain's other steel investment in the early 1990s, in an Indiana start-up called Steel Dynamics. The firm touts innovative technology and a nonunion workforce. It today reports $6.3 billion in revenue25 times what it claimed in its 1996 IPOand employs 6,000.
A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a companyto "suck" the life out of itdoes not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy. Bain has surely made its share of mistakes, and one may well have been trying to resuscitate a traditional steel firm in the grip of industry upheaval. The irony, says Mr. Huselton, is that this plant "wouldn't even be in today's news, if it hadn't been the opportunity that came with Bain. Those jobs would have been gone in 1993."
...
Strassel: Vampire Capitalism? Please - WSJ.com
reality: under some circunstances Bain invested. under other circumstances, Bain strip-mined companies. as with most things, the truth is somewhere in between.
and if i were a corporate shareholder or upper management, i'd vote mittens all the way. .. that is, if the US were a corporation. it isn't. and i'm not seeing where a return to bush's economic ideology that regressses to the 'trickle down' nonsense of the 80's, would do any better than bush did.
besides, there are other issues... and mittens sucks on all of them because he now owes the "base".
Those "unionized steel companies" helped build this country.
reality: under some circunstances Bain invested. under other circumstances, Bain strip-mined companies. as with most things, the truth is somewhere in between.
and if i were a corporate shareholder or upper management, i'd vote mittens all the way. .. that is, if the US were a corporation. it isn't. and i'm not seeing where a return to bush's economic ideology that regressses to the 'trickle down' nonsense of the 80's, would do any better than bush did.
besides, there are other issues... and mittens sucks on all of them because he now owes the "base".
So you have confidence in the economic ideology of a guy who runs up deficits that have to be measured in scientific notation, got us our first ever credit downgrade and is evidenced as an epic fail in Greece, Spain, France Ireland and Italy.
OK
Blah, blah, blah.
The point is, Bain's Modus opperendi had been established by Romney. Romney was in charge when they acquired GST and began the policy of loading it down with debt to pay themselves big bonuses.
Let's go ahead and concede the point that this steel mill, like the entire American Steel industry, was struggling. It has been since the 1970's, really.
That isn't really the point. The point was they took over a vulnerable company and looted it. And while Bain walked away with a 16 million dollar profit, the Federal GOvernment had to step in and fund their pension plan to the tune of 44 million.
This is really the worst kind of Corporate Welfare.
Can any Repub here tell me if this is true or not. If true, that fucking sucks
Think about what he posted...
This basically says the pension program was underfunded.
Bain had bought into other plants....see the link on Steel Dynamics.
This one was a mess (why they bought it, I'll never know....everyone around here said it was a loser....100 years old...you drove by it and you knew it and was going under anyway).
The misleading point here is that it would be O.K. if not for Romney. That fits Obama's narrative quite well. And it is bogus.
The plant was sucking air and had been for some time. It was going under. Romney gave it a chance and the unions along with others really were not interested in taking the steps necessary to turn it around.
And now, for their obstinance, the union guys get to do TV commercials for Obama.
Can any Repub here tell me if this is true or not. If true, that fucking sucks
Think about what he posted...
This basically says the pension program was underfunded.
Bain had bought into other plants....see the link on Steel Dynamics.
This one was a mess (why they bought it, I'll never know....everyone around here said it was a loser....100 years old...you drove by it and you knew it and was going under anyway).
The misleading point here is that it would be O.K. if not for Romney. That fits Obama's narrative quite well. And it is bogus.
The plant was sucking air and had been for some time. It was going under. Romney gave it a chance and the unions along with others really were not interested in taking the steps necessary to turn it around.
And now, for their obstinance, the union guys get to do TV commercials for Obama.
Bain also invested $100 million in the plant to modernize it to save it.
If Bain was this big bad corporate looter, they wouldn't invest $100 million then try to bring it out of bankruptcy, as Bain did.
This week the Obama campaign debuted its attack on Bain Capital, the private-equity firm Mitt Romney founded. Its two-minute ad purports to tell the story of GS Technologies, a Kansas City-based Bain investment that went bankrupt in 2001.
To hear the Obama campaign, this is a tale of greed: GST was a healthy, happy, quality steelmaker until Bain plundered its worth and stripped its 750 workers of their due. "It was like a vampire," laments one former employee in the ad. "They came in and sucked the life out of us."
GST is a tragic tale, though in a different way. The real story of GST is that of a private-equity firm trying to spark some life into a uncompetitive, over-unionized industry. Bain's crime hereif that's what you call itwas giving a dying steel plant an unexpected eight-year lease on life.
When Bain bought the Kansas City mill in 1993, steel was a scene of carnage. Global players were pouring out cheap products, and America's high-cost steel plants couldn't compete. The industry had lost 200,000 jobs in preceding years. In 1992 alone, the six largest U.S. steel mills had lost a combined $3 billion. Armco, the company Bain would buy the plant from, would lose $641 million in 1993.
The Kansas City plant was itself dying. At its 1970 height it employed 4,500; by the late 1980s it was down to 1,000. A year before acquisition, Armco had laid off another 75. Its equipment was old; it faced fierce competition at home and abroad.
B.C. Huselton, a vice president of the business at the time, tells me that in 1990 the Armco CEO held a meeting. "He told us, 'Look, we either try to sell it, or we've got to shut it down.'" Armco had shut down another Kansas City facility, Union Wire Rope, only a few years before. ...
The late 1990s saw a new outpouring of cheap steel from elsewhere around the globe. The Asian financial crisis walloped the mining industry, cutting demand for GST products. The price of GST's electricity and natural gas skyrocketed. The union dug in, refusing to make concessions. By April 1997, it was on strike, shooting bottle rockets at guards. Labor costs spiked, and by 1999 GSI was reporting $53 million in net losses.
In 2001 it would become one of 31 steel companies that went bankrupt from 1993 to 2003. (Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999.) The steel crash was the economic drama du jour, with Congress railing about "dumping." ...
The Obama ad doesn't note that the broader company, GS Industries, employed 3,500 and that the Kansas City plant (with 750 workers) was the only one shuttered. Other plants were bought and operate today. Nor does it mention Bain's other steel investment in the early 1990s, in an Indiana start-up called Steel Dynamics. The firm touts innovative technology and a nonunion workforce. It today reports $6.3 billion in revenue25 times what it claimed in its 1996 IPOand employs 6,000.
A private-equity firm looking to quickly strip value from a companyto "suck" the life out of itdoes not do so by investing $100 million in modernization and holding on for eight years, through bankruptcy. Bain has surely made its share of mistakes, and one may well have been trying to resuscitate a traditional steel firm in the grip of industry upheaval. The irony, says Mr. Huselton, is that this plant "wouldn't even be in today's news, if it hadn't been the opportunity that came with Bain. Those jobs would have been gone in 1993."
...
Strassel: Vampire Capitalism? Please - WSJ.com
reality: under some circunstances Bain invested. under other circumstances, Bain strip-mined companies. as with most things, the truth is somewhere in between.
and if i were a corporate shareholder or upper management, i'd vote mittens all the way. .. that is, if the US were a corporation. it isn't. and i'm not seeing where a return to bush's economic ideology that regressses to the 'trickle down' nonsense of the 80's, would do any better than bush did.
besides, there are other issues... and mittens sucks on all of them because he now owes the "base".
Those "unionized steel companies" helped build this country.
The ad is purposely misleading - Obama camp knows it - but it is safely so because they know the dimwits it's targeted at will buy the Bain is bad mantra hook, line, and sinker. It's red meat stuff to their morons, but the folks they're really going to need come November are way too smart to fall for the b.s.
mittens needs to get a thicker skin.
but rightwingers love throwing mud. they just get all up in arms when it's tossed back.
so, Obama puts out a misleading ad, and Romney just 'needs thicker skin'. You of course will say the same thing if Romney puts out a misleading ad about Obama... right? That Obama just 'needs thicker skin'?
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet | Reuters
"They looked like a bunch of high school kids to me. A bunch of Wall Street preppies," says Jim Linson, an electronics repairman who worked at the plant for 40 years. "They came in, they were in awe."
Apparently they liked what they saw. Soon after, in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.
It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they'd been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month.
What's more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company's underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet | Reuters
"They looked like a bunch of high school kids to me. A bunch of Wall Street preppies," says Jim Linson, an electronics repairman who worked at the plant for 40 years. "They came in, they were in awe."
Apparently they liked what they saw. Soon after, in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.
It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they'd been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month.
What's more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company's underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet | Reuters
"They looked like a bunch of high school kids to me. A bunch of Wall Street preppies," says Jim Linson, an electronics repairman who worked at the plant for 40 years. "They came in, they were in awe."
Apparently they liked what they saw. Soon after, in October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.
It was a gamble. The old mill, renamed GS Technologies, needed expensive updating, and demand for its products was susceptible to cycles in the mining industry and commodities markets.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they'd been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month.
What's more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company's underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees
Nothing new here....piss for brains.
I live in K.C.
This mill was going under. If nothing else, Bain kept it going for about six years more than it would have gone otherwise.
Read the O.P.
You really are an asswipe.
They also fault Bain for putting inexperienced managers in place and spurning a buyout offer from a competitor. Workers say efforts to cut corners often backfired, driving costs higher.
The Kansas City millworkers, meanwhile, are still fuming, after being left with no health benefits and a reduced pension check.
"Romney cost me lots and lots of sleepless nights and lots and lots of money," said Ed Stanger, who worked at the plant for nearly 30 years.
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet | Reuters
They also fault Bain for putting inexperienced managers in place and spurning a buyout offer from a competitor. Workers say efforts to cut corners often backfired, driving costs higher.The Kansas City millworkers, meanwhile, are still fuming, after being left with no health benefits and a reduced pension check.
"Romney cost me lots and lots of sleepless nights and lots and lots of money," said Ed Stanger, who worked at the plant for nearly 30 years.
Special report: Romney's steel skeleton in the Bain closet | Reuters
