tbutkovich

Romney is a hypocrite! He talks about faith and conscience. Where was that conscience when he extorted a Delphi Government Ransom Payment. Did he suddenly had an epiphany!

Here's one skeleton looming in Romney's Closet:

Romney Made a Fortune Off of Extorted Delphi Government Ransom Payment!

You wouldn't know it from the way Paul Ryan has been championing retired non-union workers of Delphi Auto, but his potential boss – Mitt Romney – made a mint off of a hedge fund investment that sent most of Delphi's job overseas and hedge fund principals who blackmailed the government into a huge payoff.

Greg Palast has detailed the ugly story on T***hout (reposted from the Nation). It is also the topic of a United Automobile Workers' (UAW) news conference in Toledo, Ohio, today, as exclusively revealed in a BuzzFlash at T***hout piece by Palast, "UAW Charges Romney With Profiteering From Auto Bailout."

Ryan is claiming to be upset that former non-union Delphi workers are not getting full pensions, which is grotesquely ironic considering Romney made a career of pension destruction that was part of his vulture capitalism formula. Remember also that -- which is Palast's point about Delphi -- the Romneys are still earning more than some 20 million a year in their "retirement" based in large part on investments in firms that cannibalize industry and workers.

Romney's likely multi-million dollar profit is hidden in Ann Romney's so-called "blind trust." In 1994, when Romney ran unsuccessfully against Ted Kennedy for the Senate, Mitt declared: “The blind trust is an age-old ruse.”

The profit from the Romney's Delphi fund investment, through a hedge fund, came about as the result of extorting the federal government, according to Palast's account:

Yet without taking billions in taxpayer bailout funds—and slashing worker pensions—the hedge funds’ investment in Delphi would not have been worth a single dollar, according to calculations by GM and the US Treasury.

Altogether, in direct and indirect payouts, the government padded these investors’ profits handsomely. The Treasury allowed GM to give Delphi at least $2.8 billion of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to keep Delphi in business. GM also forgave $2.5 billion in debt owed to it by Delphi, and $2 billion due from Singer and company upon Delphi’s exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The money GM forgave was effectively owed to the Treasury, which had by then become the majority owner of GM as a result of the bailout. Then there was the big one: the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over paying all of Delphi’s retiree pensions. The cost to the taxpayer: $5.6 billion. The bottom line: the hedge funds’ paydays were made possible by a generous donation of $12.9 billion from US taxpayers.

Of course, once the hedge fund Romney was invested in shook the feds down for billions, they went to work on destroying jobs. Where did they ship most of the work. Why, who would have thunk it? China.

Back to Palast:

Rattner [the auto bailout czar] could not believe that Delphi’s management—now effectively under the hedge funders’ control—would “want to be perceived as holding GM hostage at such a precarious economic moment.” One Wall Street Journal analyst suggested that Singer was treating Delphi “like a third world country.” Rattner likened the subsidies demanded by Delphi’s debt holders to “extortion demands by the Barbary pirates.”

Romney has slammed the bailout as a payoff to the auto workers union. But that certainly wasn’t true for the bailout of Delphi. Once the hedge funders, including Singer—a deep-pocketed right-wing donor and activist who serves as chair of the conservative, anti-union Manhattan Institute—took control of the firm, they rid Delphi of every single one of its 25,200 unionized workers.

Of the twenty-nine Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker. Romney’s “job creators” did create jobs—in China, where Delphi now produces the parts used by GM and other major automakers here and abroad. Delphi is now incorporated overseas, leaving the company with 5,000 employees in the United States (versus almost 100,000 abroad).

There's much more if you read the T***hout and BuzzFlash at T***hout articles that Palast has revealed about the Romney Delphi windfall.

It's lamentable and unwarranted for the Delphi pensions not to be honored, but if the hedge fund investors who benefited from mugging DC for taxpayer dollars were less greedy, it might have gone another way. A deal might have been worked out to honor the pensions in questions, as should have happened.

Once again, however, the 1 percent picked the pockets of the 99 percent, and Romney had a bankroll to deposit in his offshore accounts as a result.

JFlorio Loc: Seminole Florida

Conscience didn’t seem to bother him any when he was a Hedge Fund manager.

Radiance3

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Get Romney out of the GOP. He is a t*****r. A disgruntled fellow, his son in Ukraine Burizma was perhaps ousted due to president Trump's prior audit and investigation of the corrupt Burizma Holding company. This affected US foreign policy .

The Dark T***h About Mitt Romney
Willard Has Skeletons In His Closet
Patrick Howley by PATRICK HOWLEY January 27, 2020

Utah GOP senator Willard “Mitt” Romney is standing out among Republicans for his anti-President Trump activism during Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

Romney said that he would be open to hearing what John Bolton has to say as a trial witness, after Bolton allegedly wrote in his unpublished manuscript that Trump wanted to withhold foreign aid from Ukraine. The reasons Trump allegedly wanted to withhold the aid are unclear, and Trump has strongly denied Bolton’s hypothetical claim, which was reported by the New York Times. There is no hard evidence that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine to coerce the government to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged corruption regarding his role in the firing of a prosecutor who was looking into Burisma Holdings, an oil company that Joe’s son H****r B***n sat on the board of

CarryOn

No one can be surprised that "In It For Mitt" v**ed to convict .. it would indeed have been a great surprise had he v**ed to acquit. It has nothing to do with faith or conscience or any other stupid and lame excuse he can think up. He h**es Trump. He is jealous of Trump. He wants to do everything he can to stop Trump from being successful as President. Period. That's all he is about.

tbutkovich

Romney Accused of Personally Profiting as 1000s of Delphi Retirees Lost Pensions
GM, Chrysler tell GOP candidate he’s wrong about China jobs.
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Oct 31, 2012


GOP candidate Romney is now taking fire back from Chrysler and General Motors.

This story has been updated to include a late response by a Romney campaign official.

GOP p**********l candidate Mitt Romney is facing allegations he personally profited from the auto bailout he has repeatedly criticized while his hedge fund allies left thousands of Delphi retirees out in the cold, leaving the federal government to cover the cost of their retirement benefits.

The former Massachusetts governor has also championed the cause of Delphi salaried retirees whose pensions were terminated during its bankruptcy, insisting the deal that helped the giant automotive supplier emerge from Chapter 11 was r****d to favor union employees.

But a new story by The Nation outlined Romney’s investment in the hedge fund, Elliott Management, which was heavily involved in restructuring Delphi Automotive, the bankrupt supplier critical to General Motors. A significant part of the Romney family fortune is managed by Elliott Management, which is operated by Paul Singer, a billionaire who is also one of the largest donors to Romney’s 2012 p**********l campaign.

Separately, both General Motors and Chrysler have fired back at the GOP candidate declaring he has been “inaccurate” in claims that the two makers – both rescued by 2009 government bailouts – have used public funds to t***sfer jobs from the U.S. to China. GM declared the latest Romney ads “politics at its cynical worst.”

The Republican p**********l candidate, who was born in Michigan – where his father once served as governor and had previously run American Motors – has been a strong opponent of the automotive bailouts that began in 2008 under former Pres. George W. Bush and were expanded by his successor, Barack Obama, ultimately to a total of $84 billion. Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney has said he preferred a “managed bankruptcy,” but has recently taken credit for helping GM and Chrysler recover.

Romney has also joined several Republican Congressmen, who have claimed the Delphi bankruptcy process was heavily tilted in favor of the union.

But United Auto Workers Union President Bob King said this week that Mitt Romney and vice p**********l candidate Paul Ryan are the last people who should be championing the cause of Delphi salaried workers whose pensions were terminated during the General Motors and Delphi bankruptcies.

“Despite opposing the auto rescue, Romney personally profited off the deal that cut the pensions of workers at Delphi Automotive, an automotive parts division spun off from GM in 1999,” said King, who cited the report by “The Nation” to support his assertion.

King referred to claims that Elliott Management swooped in to buy – for pennies on the dollar – a controlling interest in Delphi during its bankruptcy. “The Romney campaign has not denied that they made at least $15 million and as much as $115 million off (their) investment in the hedge fund that controlled Delphi after its bankruptcy,” King said.

The exact size of Romney’s capital gain from the t***saction is not clear because he has never released tax returns for 2009 and 2010.

But the article in the left-leaning Nation sticks close to the historic and public record.

Elliott Management was part of a small group of hedge funds that leveraged more than $12 billion in rescue funds from the U.S. Treasury Department and GM, by threatening to withhold components critical to the assembly of GM cars. Steven Rattner, former counselor to the Treasury secretary in the Obama administration during the auto restructuring, likened it to “extortion demands by the Barbary pirates,” King noted.

The group of which Elliott Management was part also managed to trump a bid by Los Angeles-based Platinum Equity, which is led by Tom Gores, a Michigan State University alumnus who grew up in Flint, Michigan, and who was offering capital to help his home state rebuild after the devastating recession.

After failing to gain control of Delphi, Gores went on to purchase the Detroit Pistons, which some observers thought might flee the Motor City for a more economically stable climate.

As part of the deal to bring Delphi out of bankruptcy, the Elliott hedge fund dumped the Delphi pensions on the federal PBGC, which by its own rules had no choice but to trim the benefits of some 20,000 salaried retirees.,

“It was Mitt Romney’s major campaign contributor – not the Obama administration – who forced the termination of all of the Delphi pension plans for both union and salaried workers,” King said.

“GM is paying the portion of the pension of UAW members that is not covered by the PBGC [Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.], because it is honoring an agreement in place since 1999, when Delphi was spun off from GM. We have always supported the salaried Delphi workers receiving their full pensions, and it is unfortunate that Mitt Romney, after dumping their pensions, is further exploiting these workers for his personal gain. Delphi’s major new owners made enough profit in just one year to have fully funded these salaried workers’ pensions and still made $400 million,” King added as he sharpened his attack.

“So while Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation’s most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others. The company Romney founded, Bain Capital, continues to devastate American workers and communities by closing profitable U.S. facilities and shifting work to China to make even more profits,” King said.

GM officials have noted Delphi’s salaried pension fund was fully funded when Delphi was spun off by the automaker in 1999. But the fund was underfunded by 2009 and several former Delphi executives were facing SEC charges for manipulating the company’s legally required financial reports.

Former Delphi CEO J.T. Battenberg was ultimately found guilty of civil infractions of SEC rules after a trial in US District Court in Detroit.

Meanwhile, Romney’s Bain Capital has come under fire for its role in moving jobs from a plant in Freeport, Illinois to China, idling 170 workers.

The Sensata plant in Freeport owned by Bain Capital makes sensors and controls for auto manufacturers and is now slated to shut Nov. 5 – the day before E******n Day – kicking 170 workers to the curb while, says the UAW, sending their jobs overseas to Chinese sweatshops.

King said Sensata has forced workers at the Freeport plant to train replacements from China and even reduced their severance packages. Workers and their supporters have been camping out across from the plant – at “Bainport Encampment” – to bring attention to their cause.

“Mitt Romney has never stood up for American workers, and Bain Capital has put people before profits over and over,” King said. “Romney stands silent but stands to profit as Bain Capital offshores American jobs to China, even though the workers in Freeport make a modest wage of $14 to $17 per hour,” said King, adding that investigators have documented the exploitation of the overwhelmingly young and female workforce at Sensata’s Chinese facilities.

What’s particularly unusual about the events of recent days is that the UAW and two of Detroit’s Big Three automakers have all called attention to claims made by the GOP p**********l candidate.

On Tuesday, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne directly contradicted as “inaccurate” comments repeatedly made by Romney – and used in the candidate’s ads — claiming Jeep production would be moved to China. If anything, the executive said in a letter to Chrysler employees, the company has been investing billions and adding thousands of jobs to expand U.S. Jeep production.

(For more on Marchionne’s comments, Click Here.)

A Romney ad running in Ohio also claimed “GM cut 15,000 American jobs,” suggesting they would be t***sferred to China. But the maker also called that incorrect.

“We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days,” GM spokesman Greg Martin said. “No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.”

As of Thursday morning, the Romney campaign appeared to be continuing the controversial ad campaign in Ohio. As for the role of the Romney trust controlled by Elliott Management, “It was held in a blind trust, which Gov. Romney had no control over,” claimed GOP campaign spokesman Michael Levoff. As with other financial issues involving the candidate, records such as tax returns are not being made available to help confirm such a statement.

Paul A. Eisenstein contributed to this report.

EmilyD

I'm going to call him "Pierre Defecto" from now on....

CarryOn

Sounds good. I think I will, too. Kinda reminds me of "Carlos Danger."

tbutkovich

Romney is not for the American people, as he had no problem destroying jobs for his personal gain.
His actions cost blue collar Americans thousands of jobs.

Amazed at how he pretends to be “Holier Than Thou!” As he criticizes Trump’s behavior in the Ukraine!

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!

EmilyD

woodguru

The ones v****g to acquit sold their souls...so much for the constitution, accountability, and the rule of law.

tbutkovich

Yes, they did! They sold their souls to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Radiance3

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Romney has now confessed at the Senate that he is v****g NO to acquit president Trump because he is RELIGIOUS PERSON.

This guy is selling his soul to the demon. What a hypocrite.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

First off, Romney is a Senator and did not v**e for impeachment.

Second, it's Mitten's Romney, who cares! Obama made him look quite the fool in his debates with Obama. Like I said, who cares! Not a question.

Radiance3

=================
Romney did not v**e to acquit the president.
Mitt Romney is a coward. Imagine in 2012, when the B******i problems were so ripe with massive problems, he was afraid to attack Obama. I used to helping him in his campaign because of the Republican party he is associated with. Asked him to attack Obama on that B******i. He refused to do it. Just passed the problems along. And ignored it.
And now refused to recognize the right from the wrong. Claimed that he is Godly. I wonder what god does he got.

CarryOn

... the one he sees when he looks in the mirror ...