Archive for bankruptcy
Cartoon via Lalo Alcaraz
Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my pal Mark Karlin:
Jon Stewart lacerated the myth of Romney’s alleged expertise as a venture capitalist the other night. (See video here.) Quite simply, under Mitt’s leadership, Bain Capital had a worse investment record than the federal government’s backing of alternative energy companies (e.g., Solyndra).
In fact, Romney’s record at Bain showed him picking firms that went into bankruptcy at three times the rate of the fed record.
Stewart started by quoting part of Romney’s “closing argument” to the American voters:
The government of the United States is not a very good venture capitalist …. [Obama] doesn’t just like picking winners and losers, he likes picking losers. Half of the ones [alternative energy companies that the government has invested in under Obama] have gone bankrupt.
[...]
Whoa! So Romney’s accusation of a 50 percent bankruptcy rate as a result of Department of Energy financial support (in loans and subsidies) to alternative energy firms is at best actually 8 percent. [...]
So that’s 8% failure for government investments in alternative energy firms vs. a 22% bankruptcy record under Mitt Romney’s leadership at Bain. [...]
When Romney’s bankruptcy record, as he ironically promotes himself as a “job creator,” is just about three times the rate of Obama’s as president, it’s clear the “job creator” is really (particularly when combined with his slash and burn labor strategies) a job destroyer. He’s also a liar, and his dissembling is meant to hide one of the greatest myths of the campaign: that private investment is more effective at stimulating the economy, when Romney’s own record as the CEO of Bain Capital shows that it isn’t.
Please read the entire post here.
I’m dizzy. No, no, not from being a ditz, because I’m not a ditz, despite occasional evidence to the contrary. No, I’m dizzy because my head is spinning from trying to keep up with all of Willard’s and Lyin’ Ryan’s constantly shifting policy positions, lies, and “misspeaks” (if that’s even a word).
Here’s today’s edition. Enjoy! And don’t forget your Dramamine!
Paul Ryan spokesman says Ryan “misspoke” on bankruptcies:
Fact Check: Paul Ryan’s Jimmy Carter Comments…
So did he misspeak or purposefully manipulate the data to make it sound worse?
“He obviously misspoke, but it’s still an apples to apples comparison,” Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said. “The point remains: bankruptcies are up dramatically under President Obama compared to the Carter years.”
Yet it’s important to note that bankruptcies are down dramatically under President Obama, compared to the Bush years. [...]
Politicians are known to both misspeak and fudge the data, but not all are as close to the numbers as Ryan, who in Congress studies them himself, instead of leaning on aides to do it for him.
Campaign won’t say if Romney “misspoke” re abortion, but says he doesn’t hold position he claimed last month:
Is Mitt Romney shifting his abortion position again?
It’s fairly well-known that Romney proclaimed himself in favor of abortion rights when he ran for office in Massachusetts, then reversed himself before launching his presidential bid. But recently, the GOP nominee seems to be softening his opposition somewhat. Or is he?
The L.A. Times is reporting this:
A Romney change on climate science.
At the Republican National Convention last week and in at least one stump speech over the weekend, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used climate change as a laugh line ridiculing President Obama’s priorities.
But in comments to the Science Debate website Tuesday as part of an online debate organized by a consortium of scientific organizations, the Republican candidate took another position, similar to the more moderate stance he struck last year, when he conceded that the planet was getting warmer.
Oh noes! Newton Leroy Gingrich Inc. has gone all bankrupt on us! Damn you, Tiffany’s! Damn you… everything else!
In a Chapter 7 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Georgia, The Gingrich Group LLC, doing business as the Center for Health Transformation, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday.
The vast majority of Gingrich’s net worth is tied up in the Gingrich Group. Gingrich is worth overall between $7.1 million and $31 million, according to his financial disclosure. He lists a promissory note from Gingrich Group as being worth between $5 million and $25 million. Gingrich was chairman of the group until May of last year, when he announced he was running for president.
Once Newtie ran for president, the money stopped flowing to the group.
And it has been a source of controversy, as questions were raised — and other campaigns questioned – whether Gingrich acted as a lobbyist on behalf of the group in Georgia.
And just how, again, would Gingrich plan on managing the country’s finances when he can’t manage his own?
From Forbes, a post titled, “Plaintiff In Landmark Anti-Obamacare Lawsuit Bankrupted By Medical Bills-You And I Pick Up Her Tab“:
The thing is, among the debts listed in the bankruptcy filing are $4500 worth of medical bills—obligations that, presumably, would have largely been paid had Mary chosen to purchase health insurance, something she will be required to do come 2014 when the insurance mandate of the healthcare reform law kicks in. [...]
As it turns out, Mary Brown, the named plaintiff in the case that seeks to bring Obamacare to an end, is the poster child for why the mandates in the ACA are so completely necessary.
Here’s the link to the L.A. Times article on the same woman.
Today’s L.A. Times letters to the editor, because our voices matter:
Healthcare foe spreads the pain
Re “Key healthcare law foe went bankrupt — with medical bills,” March 9
How appropriate that Mary Brown, claiming government’s intrusion into personal freedom in a lawsuit over the healthcare law, used a governmental option to stick the taxpayers with all of her debts.
Instead of her boisterous claims of righteousness that she “always pays her medical bills” and “I’m not fighting just for me,” she could have indeed taken the high road and excluded those medical bills from her bankruptcy.
I for one wish she would stop “fighting for me” and accept the healthcare law — so I wouldn’t have to pick up the tab for her medical bills.
Blair Caugherty
Palm Desert
***
And Brown stiffed all of us for more than $4,500 in unpaid medical bills.
Where is the outrage from the Republicans over the complete and total irresponsibility of this person deliberately refusing to pay for medical coverage and expecting all of us to pay for her bills?
Personal responsibility used to be the foundational bulwark of Republicans’ ideology, but their irrational hatred of President Obama has driven them to such extremes that they are increasingly not recognizable as a party that stands for anything other than intolerant social issues and wacky economic theories.
Where are the party’s leaders?
James B. Parsons
Canyon Lake
The Congressional Budget Office has a thing or two to say to the Republicans: Hey GOP, your highway bill would bankrupt the U.S. trust fund for road projects.
Yes, you read that right, bankrupt. So much for their “drill, baby, drill” panacea.
The CBO report released late Monday night finds that the cost of the $260 billion bill would not be offset by the gas tax paid by motorists and increased revenue the government would enjoy from provisions in the bill that would expand domestic oil-and-gas drilling.
It predicts the highway trust fund, which operates off the gas tax, would be $78 billion short after 10 years under the highway bill.
Republicans argue the CBO is not giving enough credit for money raised through domestic oil drilling, a central part of the GOP plan. [...]
The report from CBO could prove critical, since the transportation bill has already come under attack from conservative groups who say it is too expensive.
Full CBO report here.
A few days ago, a California bankruptcy court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional, because it prevents same sex couples from filing a joint petition for bankruptcy.
Michael Hiltzik has a thing or two to say about that in another thoughtful L.A. Times column today, a good read. He points out how real life (in this case, economics) cuts smack into political talking points, specifically regarding same-sex marriage; hence, a strong case against DOMA– and for equal rights– was made in bankruptcy court, not by pundits and/or hypocrites:
What makes the decision by Judge Thomas Donovan significant is that it underscores how real life — in this particular, the march of economics in the real world — often makes the tortured debating points of politicians irrelevant. [...]
No one should be surprised that the Defense of Marriage Act makes a hash of bankruptcy law. Enacted in a burst of bipartisan poltroonery in 1996, DOMA was drafted by the twice-divorced Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and voted in by a huge majority that included such accused or admitted adulterers as Robert Livingston (R-La.) and Gary Condit (D-Ceres). DOMA was signed into law by (wait for it) … Bill Clinton. For these characters to pose as defenders of marriage was tantamount to their waving the American flag while taking payoffs from the government of North Korea. [...]
As for the parties most directly affected by the bankruptcy filing, the creditors, “they simply hope to be paid what they are owed,” Donovan wrote. From their standpoint, the public purpose of bankruptcy law was advanced, not hindered, by allowing the bankruptcy to go forward. Simply stated, Gene Balas and Carlos Morales stand for the right of same-sex couples to be viewed under the law like everyone else. That makes them pioneers.
Do yourself a favor and read the entire piece here.
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