Emperor Mitt?

Perhaps you've heard about the Sensata plant in Freeport, Ill.? Its workers were required to train their Chinese replacements: yes, the manufacturing operation is being relocated to China. Sensata is owned by Bain Capital, the company that Romney founded, the company that pays the majority of his oversized income.

And Romney is going to "get tough with China?"

Right.

Mitt makes it abundantly clear, whenever the subject comes up, that he doesn't manage Bain Capital anymore. He retired from it--either in 1999, when he says he did, or in 2002, when the signed documents say he did. He was the sole owner and CEO. When he retired, Bain Capital didn't hire a new CEO. A management committee manages it, following the business model of its sometime CEO, who still gets the bulk of his income from Bain-related investments, although they're in a "blind trust," wink, wink.

So, about that Sensata plant: it makes high tech automotive parts, and has been highly profitable in Illinois. The plant netted $355 million in 2011, a 16% increase over 2010, part of $1.8 billion in profits to the company that year. Nevertheless, it will be closed down by the end of the year, and its equipment is being shipped to China, which is providing a subsidized new site. A pretty good deal: except for the 170 employees, and the country, since the high tech manufacturing will now be in China, instead. Sensata's owners will profit from the move; they'll deduct the cost of moving from their taxes (a deduction Obama would like to close), and they'll probably be able to defer US taxes on their profits in China--and pay the employees there much less, too.

Is it significant that Romney, with Bain Capital, was an innovator in this kind of operation? It's called off-shoring, and it has cost millions of American jobs. Is this how he's going to "grow American jobs?" Is this how he "knows" how to manage the economy?

The laid off employees of the Freeport plant are camping out in front of the plant and are calling it Bainport. They even have a website with a petition at bainport.com and they've invited Romney to show up, and/or stop the plant's closure. I expect it'll be a long wait.

This really is what Romney's plan for the economy looks like: profits for management, tax breaks for owners, and unemployment for workers. It's part of the monopolization of wealth and power intended by Romney's backers: the .001%, which closely parallels the monopoly of wealth and power held by Roman Senators as the Roman Empire trundled towards its last hurrah. In the fifth century, workers had to become serfs or slaves in order to survive. What will happen to America's workers if Mitt becomes Emperor?

Job Destroyers I

The US Chamber says Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown and John Tester are anti-employer, so, it will spend millions against their reelection.

Maybe Brown and Tester are pro-employee, i.e. for most of the people who vote, most of the people who live paycheck to paycheck. There's many, especially now, when wages have been stagnant for 30 years (yes, you read that right; since 1980, when Reagan brought the counter-revolution to the White House).

Sherrod Brown is reputed to be progressive; John Tester says he's a small Montana farmer, and I expect that neither claim he's a businessman. Oh yes, we want Senators who represent employers, says the Chamber.

Why can't employers see that they're killing their golden egg? If no one pays Americans enough for them to afford the "American Lifestyle," then it will go away; has gone away. Henry Ford's brilliant idea to pay workers enough so they could buy his cars, that's gone away even for Ford. CEOs cut jobs and get bonuses for doing so. Now, can't afford means can't afford to buy the goods businesses sell, not piling more on your credit card.

Actually, people did just that on Black Friday, apparently, but that can't go on: wages actually went down last month, and escalating personal debt is what got us into the Great Recession. Let me emphasize: it was personal debt as in mortgages, and the scams run by banks, not public debt. It's true, as conservatives argue, there were policies encouraging banks to lend to lower income people, who were necessarily higher risk. But the reasons for the policy were to promote equality, not a bad reason. However, the banks, in response, invented the sub-prime mortgage, and its very creation built into itself the logic for the financial implosion. Sub primes were inherently unstable, with low sucker introductory payments, and then balloons, or variable interest rates that suddenly escalated. They were also being tendered to people who likely couldn't make the payments unless everything went right.

Nevertheless, "the one percent" saw sub primes as a grand new market to exploit--until they needed Uncle to bail them out. Our equivalent of the Roman Senators of the fifth century, were grabbing more and more of the nation's wealth, with outsourcing and offshoring (destroying jobs, not creating them), so, it was less likely for the sub-primers that things would go right. Inevitably, the unstable market finally collapsed, and all its derivatives with it.

Republicans speak of the 1% as "job creators;" most are the opposite. Mitt Romney is a good example: while running Bain Capital, he oversaw corporate takeovers that stripped down companies, sold off parts, and jettisoned chunks of the workforce. He got rich by destroying jobs! Republicans are the true heirs of Goebbels: if you say black is white often enough people begin to believe it.

Yet, Democrats, said Cornel West last night, are "milquetoasts." Will our Roman Senators prevail with either party?

Comments welcomed.