Romney VS Obama: The Megathread

[Wamitoria]

Seeing CNN talked about did Obama help with Ohio's Recovery.

Which makes me think. Is Ohio the most important swing state in the election?

Ohio had a heavily Democratic mindset in my area until Obama's recent changes closed mills, mines and other major industry. Much to my annoyance, the counties around me seem to be swinging right this election. Of course, I can't speak for western or northern OH.

Polls seem to show that Ohio is going to go blue this time. And considering the mills, mines, etc. tend to be in the reddest areas, that may be a correlation rather than a causation.

[Geilinor]

<continuing from earlier>

Mitt Romney may be rich now, but he wasn't always that way. He spent his years at Harvard living in a basement apartment with his wife and 5 boys. Bain Capital nearly failed when it first got started, which would have cost Mitt Romney everything. And Romney's dad earned his wealth. He was a refugee from Mexico who came to America, started a car sales company in Detroit and eventually rose to become Governor of the state of Michigan. This is a family and a man who that has experienced significant adversity in the past few years.

I have tracked George W. Romney's career, proving this part of Nasurium's post...

... Romney's dad earned his wealth. He was a refugee from Mexico who came to America, started a car sales company in Detroit and eventually rose to become Governor of the state of Michigan. This is a family and a man who that has experienced significant adversity in the past few years.

To be error heaped upon exaggeration. Now it's time to contine the narrative and demolish the idea that Mitt Romney somehow grew up in a log cabin... that he himself built.

Mitt Romney was born in 1947; as I have stated, George Romney was already a successful lobbyist for the automotive industry by then, and had earned accolades in Washington for his role in helping coordinate that industry's mobilization in support of the war effort. Within a year of Mitt's birth, however, George Romney had a position as executive assistant to George W. Mason, owner of Nash-Kelvinator and the eventual creator of the American Motors Corporation (AMC).

The elder Romney became President and Chairman of the Board of AMC in 1959 when George W. Mason died; during those years, AMC stock went from $7 to $90 a share, making George Romney into a millionaire off his stock options. By the time Mitt reached 7th grade, then, his father was a part of Southeastern Michigan's industrial elite; consequently, in 1959 Mitt was enrolled in the Cranbrook School for Boys.

Part-time MSNBC commentator Michael Eric Dyson loves to rip apart the idea that Mitt Romney had a normal upbringing. Born in Detroit the year before I was (1958), he attended the same high school as Mitt Romney (Detroit's prestigious Cranbrook School) on an academic scholarship for a few years as a youth, and has told firsthand stories of the quality of educational opportunity Cranbrook provided its charges in Mitt Romney's day.

I didn't attend Cranbrook, but I grew up hearing of it; established by the legendary George Booth (of Booth Newspapers fame; he was also James Scripps son-in-law [of Scripps-Howard fame]). An honest-to-God boarding school, Cranbrook has an endowment (yeah, you read that right - endowment; did your high school have one?) that is among the 15 largest such funds held by boarding schools in the entire United States.

Think of it as kind of a Hogwarts for the 1%.

[ig]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Cranbrook_Tower_and_Quadrangle.jpg/800px-Cranbrook_Tower_and_Quadrangle.jpg[/img]

According to Wikipedia:

Cranbrook has many notable alumni, including designer Florence Knoll, Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson, Heisman Trophy winner Pete Dawkins, former Massachusetts governor and Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his future wife Ann Romney (née Davies), columnist Michael Kinsley, Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy, former professional soccer player Alexi Lalas, and actress Selma Blair.

That's the short list (wags will delight to see Ivan Boesky [Class of '55 and inspiration for the fictitious Gordon Gecko of "Wall Street" fame] on the longer list).

In essence, Cranbrook was the place where Michigan's crème de la crème sent (and still send) their children; it provides its charges with a "best of breed" education. It's a far cry from public schools - even the best public schools - and it gives those who attend it every possible advantage over other schools. One-third of Michigan's AP Scholars come out of Cranbrook every year; my SAT's - which were considered insanely great at Grand Blanc High School - would have been just a little over average for Cranbrook kids; more importantly, the cachet of a Cranbrook diploma weighs heavily at college admissions departments all around the country.

Cranbrook doesn't come cheap, even with its endowment; but with a dad as loaded as George W. Romney, Mitt never had to worry about his family's ability to pay the freight. Moreover, when Mitt's dad got elected as Governor of Michigan in his sophomore year, that certainly didn't hurt young Mr. Romney's position at Cranbrook any. Having your dad be rich and Governor goes a long way towards explaining how you can chase down fellow students at the head of a pack of your peers and cut their hair against their will without getting into trouble with the school administration - a consideration poor kids don't often get.

When Mitt graduated in 1965, he got accepted into Stanford. As the spouse of a Stanford grad, I can tell you: The cardinal didn't come cheap in those days, especially for out of State students.

Mitt left Stanford after his freshman year (in 1966); he's never said precisely why, although I suspect it was because he found the University's increasingly radical academic climate distasteful. This is when he spent 30 months in France as a missionary; since Mormon missionaries are expected to pay their own way, and since Mitt had never held a full-time job in his life up until this point, we can only conclude that he was supported by his father, who was still Governor for most of this period (he resigned as Governor to become Richard Nixon's Director of Housing and Urban Development [HUD] in 1969).

Romney came home to attend, not Stanford, but Brigham Young University, where Ann Davies (whom he'd dated at Cranbrook) was a student. He was worried about the possibility that Ann might end up marrying another man (she'd sent him a "Dear John" letter while in France, which he'd replied to with an letter urging her to not break up with him). They married three months after he returned, in 1969; House Minority Leader (and future President) Gerald R. Ford attended their wedding, along with General Motors President Ed Cole and former Ford Motor Company President Semon Knudsen; then-President Nixon sent his congratulations.

The couple had their first son (Taggart) in 1970; their second (Matthew) was born in 1971, just as Mitt graduated from BYU. In all, they spent two months in that basement apartment of theirs in Provo, Utah, with one infant in the crib and another on the way; their next child (Joshua) wouldn't be born until 1975.

Upon Mitt's Graduation, the couple moved to Belmont, Massachusetts so that Mitt could attend Harvard, where he enrolled in both the Business and Law Schools simultaneously. There is no indication that he attended Harvard on a need-based scholarship, so we are left to ask how he managed to pay his expenses. The answer, as stated by Ann Romney on multiple occasions, is that the couple sold stock given to them by Mitt's father, which is certainly an interesting twist on the "poor student" meme. For the record, the couple's Belmont residence was not a basement apartment, but rather a house. He graduated in 1975, suggesting that the couple either used birth control or practiced abstinence for most of their four years in Belmont.

After graduation, Mitt was hired by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 1975; two years later (in 1977), he moved to Bain & Company, where he rapidly rose to the rank of Vice President (by 1978). In 1984, Bill Bain and Mitt Romney created a spin-off company called Bain Capital. Strangely enough, even though Bain and Romney raised $37 million in start-up capital (a quarter of which came from rich Salvadoran investors with ties to ARENA), Mitt Romney was listed as sole shareholder; this was accomplished by making Bain Capital a capital management firm, which meant that Romney's company was essential acting as an agent on behalf of its investors and extracting a management fee as compensation for its expertise. Romney's personal risk in all of this was minimal: None of the initial capital was his (indeed, the whole arrangement essentially guaranteed this), and as part of his initial agreement with Bill Bain to "leave" Bain & Company to start the new firm, he was guaranteed his former position as Vice President at Bain & Company if Bain Capital failed (as were all of the original partners, BTW). Thus armed with a nearly perfect parachute, Romney went forth to make his fortune.

So, getting back to the foregoing quote:

Mitt Romney may be rich now, but he wasn't always that way. He spent his years at Harvard living in a basement apartment with his wife and 5 boys. Bain Capital nearly failed when it first got started, which would have cost Mitt Romney everything.

Mitt Romney was always rich; his father was a successful lobbyist by the time Mitt was born, and by the time Mitt was 12, his father was a millionaire. As a consequence, George W. Romney was able to send Mitt to the best boarding school in Michigan, which happened to be one of the best such schools in the entire United States.

Further, Mitt's father become the Governor of a major Midwestern industrial State by the time he was 15; by the time Mitt reached the age of 17, his father was begin touted as a possible future President of the United States. When Mitt left Michigan for Stanford in 1965 - one of the most prestigious and expensive schools in America, and one paid for entirely by his father's fortune, Mitt was a child of America's industrial and political elite, having already attended the 1964 Republican National Convention behind the scenes in his father's company and having worked summers in Lansing, Michigan, as a political intern.

Unlike his father, George Romney, who worked as a carpenter to raise the money he needed to travel to Scotland as a Mormon missionary in 1926, Mitt Romney's mission work in France was paid for entirely by his father. When he returned to the U.S., he attended BYU; it was here that he and his wife Ann lived in their fabled basement apartment with their 1½ (not 5) children, and where their bills were entirely paid by their parents (Ann's father was the owner of a marine heavy equipment manufacturing firm in Troy, Michigan, and was wealthy in his own right, having amassed enough of a fortune to send Ann to Cranbrook's Kingswood School [which, at that time, was the girls' school at Cranbrook]). Mitt continued to remain politically connected throughout this period, not only because his father was a member of the Nixon Administration, but also because his mother was the GOP's nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan in 1970 (a campaign in which Mitt Romney participated, taking time off from BYU in order to do so).

After leaving BYU, Mitt and Ann lived in a house - not a basement apartment - with 2 boys - not 5. The couple paid their way through school and supported themselves by selling stock gifted to them by Mitt's father, so neither had to raise a finger to work while Mitt attended Harvard, as so many students do. Upon graduation from Harvard, Mitt ended up in the consulting world, where he was soon tapped by one of the prime movers in the industry to start a capital management firm. The firm was a low-risk proposition for Mitt Romney; none of his capital was at stake, and he was assured his old job back if the firm failed. The firm did, in fact, come close to failure; but had it done so, the worst thing Mitt would have suffered would have been a minor dent in his resume.

---

tl&dr: Mitt was always rich and enjoyed privilege all his life as the son of a wealthy and poilitically well-connected man. The stories of his "rough" student days are laughably contrived. He faced little real risk in starting up Bain Capital, and had a cushy parachute waiting if it failed, as did all of Bain Capital's founders.

People who say that Romney ever had financial issues are blatantly lying.

The couple paid their way through school and supported themselves by selling stock gifted to them by Mitt's father

They didn't even "pay their way through school". George Romney gave them the stock. They just had to sell it to friends. He didn't have to work at all until 1977, when he was 30.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

Welp, while you guys keep saying conservatives hold back the economy and progress, I want to ask you somthing. What school of economics do you generally use?

[Wamitoria]

Welp, while you guys keep saying conservatives hold back the economy and progress, I want to ask you somthing. What school of economics do you generally use?

Keynesian economics, and a bit of monetarism.

[Farnhamia]

Welp, while you guys keep saying conservatives hold back the economy and progress, I want to ask you somthing. What school of economics do you generally use?

There's a kindergarten down the road a piece, they give me very good advice.

[Not Safe For Work]

Seeing CNN talked about did Obama help with Ohio's Recovery.

Which makes me think. Is Ohio the most important swing state in the election?

Ohio had a heavily Democratic mindset in my area until Obama's recent changes closed mills, mines and other major industry.

If you're talking about closures like the Warren mill, the cited culprits were instability in steel market prices, and the rising cost of raw materials.

I'm not sure you can really claim Obama is responsible for either.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

Welp, while you guys keep saying conservatives hold back the economy and progress, I want to ask you somthing. What school of economics do you generally use?

Keynesian economics, and a bit of monetarism.

I dont like Keynesian economics. Then again I think capitalism is, well you know awful.

[The Nuclear Fist]

I dont like Keynesian economics. Then again I think capitalism is, well you know awful.

Aren't you a State Capitalist?

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

I dont like Keynesian economics. Then again I think capitalism is, well you know awful.

Aren't you a State Capitalist?

Yes. Far left wing State Capitalist.

[The Nuclear Fist]

Aren't you a State Capitalist?

Yes. Far left wing State Capitalist.

You're certainly not left wing, dear.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

Yes. Far left wing State Capitalist.

You're certainly not left wing, dear.

I have taken the political compass test several times, take a look at it, dear.

[Swith Witherward]

Ohio had a heavily Democratic mindset in my area until Obama's recent changes closed mills, mines and other major industry. Much to my annoyance, the counties around me seem to be swinging right this election. Of course, I can't speak for western or northern OH.

What recent changes?

My observation of the area...

I can offer links: here and here. The local mines employ much of the population in this area of OH. I don't know what the situation was with the mills so anything I say wouldn't be accurate. It occurred over a year ago and spun a massive layoff. The grumbling I hear is along the lines of "While Obama talks of improved economy, three local towns are about to dry up due to his actions." We're mainly Democratic in this area but residents are fuming mad at him.

[Wamitoria]

You're certainly not left wing, dear.

I have taken the political compass test several times, take a look at it, dear.

You're incredibly authoritarian, albeit with left-wing economic views. I'd say syncretic, possessing extreme left and extreme right views.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

I have taken the political compass test several times, take a look at it, dear.

You're incredibly authoritarian, albeit with left-wing economic views. I'd say syncretic, possessing extreme left and extreme right views.

Ah isnt it beatiful? Dont go halfway down the leftist/rightist hall, go all the way down in support.

[Alien Space Bats]

The machinations of the totalitarian state are sprawling, layered, hard to calculate, and hard to keep up. That is why they collapse under their own weight. The GOP certainly has propaganda organs, and is fully willing to lie outright to suit itself, but it lacks the actual skill to keep it up. More importantly, it is hard to do what they are trying to do in a free and open society. They're trying to do what the governments of the Eastern Bloc did without the necessary force to do it.

To their credit, I believe the long-run objective is something more like Mexico under the PRI than a true totalitarian State. Under that model, you can have opposition Parties that simply can't win, and a government that talks like it cares about the people, and local police who do deniable things that everybody can lament when lamentation is needed.

The ideal is to shoot for a combination of Soviet Union and kleptocratic banana republic - Tropico with nuclear weapons and an attitude.

[TaQud]

You're incredibly authoritarian, albeit with left-wing economic views. I'd say syncretic, possessing extreme left and extreme right views.

Ah isnt it beatiful? Dont go halfway down the leftist/rightist hall, go all the way down in support.

What it looks like compared to everyone else's...

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

Ah isnt it beatiful? Dont go halfway down the leftist/rightist hall, go all the way down in support.

What it looks like compared to everyone else's...

So many centrists. Sad. Also why am I not on there?

[Wikkiwallana]

That's fine, but if you have nothing more than that to say, such as why you think neither of them would help or who you think would make the country better, your post is pretty much a waste of everyone's time.

What if he doesn't like either candidate? There are only two choices, neither of which are classical liberal/libertarian. Even Ron Paul wants to control people's lives. America needs a third powerful party, so everyone has a choice they can live with.

Read it again.

Edit: fixed tags

[Alien Space Bats]

Welp, while you guys keep saying conservatives hold back the economy and progress, I want to ask you somthing. What school of economics do you generally use?

I don't follow any partical school. Schools are for philosophers, not scientists.

Consequently, I expect economic theory to be validated through the collection of empirical data and subsequent critical analysis using the scientific method, just like any other science.

[Wikkiwallana]

You're certainly not left wing, dear.

I have taken the political compass test several times, take a look at it, dear.

Then you are lying on some of the questions, or simply don't understand what your beliefs imply, and thus give answers inconsistent with their consequences.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

I have taken the political compass test several times, take a look at it, dear.

Then you are lying on some of the questions, or simply don't understand what your beliefs imply, and thus give answers inconsistent with their consequences.

What? I both understand my questions and dont lie. I belive government should run society. I hate democracy. I hate captialism. I hate money. All consistant with a far left wing, far right wing view.

[TaQud]

What it looks like compared to everyone else's...

So many centrists. Sad. Also why am I not on there?

damn how did I miss you?

[Mavorpen]

Then you are lying on some of the questions, or simply don't understand what your beliefs imply, and thus give answers inconsistent with their consequences.

What? I both understand my questions and dont lie. I belive government should run society. I hate democracy. I hate captialism. I hate money. All consistant with a far left wing, far right wing view.

The part in red is far right. The money thing I have no clue.

[Wamitoria]

What? I both understand my questions and dont lie. I belive government should run society. I hate democracy. I hate captialism. I hate money. All consistant with a far left wing, far right wing view.

The part in red is far right. The money thing I have no clue.

The third is a trait of both the far-left and the far-right.

[The United Soviet Socialist Republic]

What? I both understand my questions and dont lie. I belive government should run society. I hate democracy. I hate captialism. I hate money. All consistant with a far left wing, far right wing view.

The part in red is far right. The money thing I have no clue.

I support protectionism.
I support higher taxes on the rich.
I belive in nationalisation.
I dont belive globalisation is good.
I dont belive in free trade.

The following are pretty left wing to me.