Bain Capital sends more jobs to China, Romney profits

[Windpower]

This is close to home. Sensata is in Freeport a small town just west of here. 


Bain Capital moves 170 jobs to China where workers earn 99 cents an hour 12 hours a day 7 days a week living 3 to a small room

The American flag was taken down at the plant when Chinese workers came for training


http://www.journalstandard.com/news/x1931758668/Sensata-workers-protest-as-time-runs-out

[embed=425,349]http://youtu.be/grQTuIYnreg[/embed]

[MountainDon]

I don't like to see people lose their jobs, or to see jobs go overseas. I don't like Romney all that much either.  But to quote the article  "Bain Capital was formerly run by Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. "  (emphasis is mine).  I believe it is needless to bash him with this though. Don't see the point at all.

[Ajax]

I don't like to see people lose their jobs, or to see jobs go overseas. I don't like Romney all that much either.  But to quote the article  "Bain Capital was formerly run by Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. "  (emphasis is mine).  I believe it is needless to bash him with this though. Don't see the point at all.

In addition, Mr. Romney's generous retirement agreement ensures that he continues to profit from the deals and decisions that Bain makes. He owns about $8 million worth of Bain funds that hold 51 percent of Sensata's shares. If Sensata saves money by closing the Freeport plant, that could add money to Mr. Romney's trust accounts, now or after the election.

[flyingvan]

Well, just don't complain about profit in any form and a depressed economy.  The focus needs to be an expanding GDP, not who's getting what.  Want fair?  Just go to Haiti---everything's fair there, no one has anything.  If someone gets a little extra, all hell breaks loose.

[Windpower]

Just how does sending a complete factory and 170 jobs to China increase the US GDP ?

[NM_Shooter]

Don't care.

It is hypocritical for any Obama supporter to care as well, considering that Obama has a larger pension, and is also invested in Chinese companies.

So what?

Reference : http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/oct/17/mitt-romney/romney-says-obama-also-has-investments-chinese-com/

[flyingvan]

I think a better question is, why is it cheaper to do business overseas?  When Obama requires employers to provide medical insurance for every employee, who can afford to stay?  When all the red tape and over regulation makes it impossible to business here, who would stay?  When the Occupy crowd tries to send a message that profit and industry are bad things, and corporations are evil, why should they stay? 
Why don't you start your own business and run it however you want to run it?  If you have a passion and a good idea, and can get over all the bureaucratic nonsense, you can hire all the people you want and pay them whatever you want.  Build your own castle, don't just tear down someone else's

[flyingvan]

 I WANT a leader that has experience streamlining things.  If our government were run more like a private business we would be far better off.

[UK4X4]

"If our government were run more like a private business we would be far better off"

I tend to agree

The average Politician's usual major selling point is that he can talk- usual alot

the people in charge of a country should at least have the same skill set as a large corperation -

So he has the nessesary skills to at a minimum balance the books  !

The UK is in the same sorry state - giving away millions to the latest dictator in africa- supporting millions of the EEC's poorest people- by giving them free housing and money.

The two worst cases recently was a Romanian begger in London - free housing -free money and he has no legs- what exactly did he bring to the country !

Oh and the Tali wack job the bleeding hearts stopped us deporting to you friendly chaps for years costing millions.....his wife lives in a 1.2 million pound house paid for by the tax payers..........sorry she should have left when we finally slung his hook( both of them)

mean while Mr Joe average is footing the bill.

Sadly like the US the government is spending more than it earns..............the house of cards ready to fall

when they check the vaults and find only IOU's stacked up

I think my garage will have have a shelter built under it !

[flyingvan]

WP---I realized I didn't answer your question, and I dislike it when people do that to me---sorry, I'll answer now, how moving a company overseas can still grow the GDP.  (It's funny that no one gives Bain credit for creating Sensata in the first place by the way)
I invested in Nokia.  THey build stuff in Finland and sell it in Saudi Arabia, and every dividend I get $10 mailed to me from overseas.  The GDP just grew by $10.  Most of it will be spent domestically, and it will trickle down to anyone that has something I value more than that $10 in my pocket.  Government will take about half of it though, keep most of it for people that run 'programs', and a little bit of that will make it to people who actually need it----far less of it than if I decided for myself who to help with it

[Native_NM]

I thought Romney divested himself from Bain.

[ChuckinVa]

I thought Romney divested himself from Bain.

I think his holdings are in a blind trust. In other words he still has them he just doesn't have control of them.
I get so tired of the premis that wealth is bad and people who are successful are demogogued. I think anyone who has the desire and the work ethic can achieve success. I spoke to an electrical contractor yesterday who was complaining about his crew not wanting to get into a muddy ditch. He said he had several workers from a minority that all he had to do was tell them what needed done and they jumped in and got the work done. They were happy to have the work to feed their families and it didn't matter what he asked them to do they did it. He said he just didn't understand why people don't want to work when there are plenty of people behind them that would gladly have their job. I have a high school education and I have achieved a great deal of sucess, but all my life I have worked hard and done things I didn't necessarily want to do but it was what my employer needed done so I did it. I learned a lot about people along the way and I learned how to grow the business I worked in. I could very easily settled for something less and been fine but I wanted more for my self and my family so I worked long hours (still do) and was able to achieve what I consider success. No one can take that from me because I earned it. Why is that a bad thing in some peoples eyes?

[Tickhill]

Mitt left Bain Capital several years ago, whether he still profits from their operations, I don't know. He has a blind trust that is controlled external of himself.
I am sorry for their loss of jobs and the tax base that helps the community.

We have a saying among programmers (db and equipment plc controls) that if you ever connect up and make one change to a piece of equipment, it is yours the rest of your life. If anything ever goes wrong, whether you had anything to do with it, you get the blame, automatically. That is why we rarely do programming changes on a Friday! Touch it once and its yours.
We also have a saying that if we broke it, who better to fix it. If President Bush and the conservatives broke it, its apparent that the liberals can't fix it, so let's go with the conservatives and attempt to right the ship once again.
At least it is a 50-50 chance, with the current administration it is going to get exponentially worse.
There are no checks and balances with a second term for this man, I will say this, if he does get re-elected, I would like to buy stock in the company that furnishes his pens/ink.

[Windpower]

WP---I realized I didn't answer your question, and I dislike it when people do that to me---sorry, I'll answer now, how moving a company overseas can still grow the GDP.  (It's funny that no one gives Bain credit for creating Sensata in the first place by the way)
I invested in Nokia.  THey build stuff in Finland and sell it in Saudi Arabia, and every dividend I get $10 mailed to me from overseas.  The GDP just grew by $10.  Most of it will be spent domestically, and it will trickle down to anyone that has something I value more than that $10 in my pocket.  Government will take about half of it though, keep most of it for people that run 'programs', and a little bit of that will make it to people who actually need it----far less of it than if I decided for myself who to help with it

"I realized I didn't answer your question, and I dislike it when people do that to me---sorry, I'll answer now"

I think your anecdote about Nokia does not address this issue of 'vulture capitalism' reducing the US GDP at all.

Sensata in Freeport was operating at a profit and had been increasing its sales. Under the current US economy this was clearly a well run company. The closing of the plant and firing of the people that helped create this successful buisiness generated  a quick profit for Bain and reduced the US GDP. This quick profit for Bain will not trickle down into the economy at all. In fact a large part of it will probably go to the Caymans or some other off shore haven.

I fail to see how this is a good or ethical thing.

"(It's funny that no one gives Bain credit for creating Sensata in the first place by the way)"


Because Bain did not create anything --- Sensata was formerly part of Honeywell. Honeywell sold this division to Sensata in 2010

Bain Capital bought controling interest of 51% of Sensata in 2011 and announced it would close Freeport factory and move it to China shortly after.

This turns a nice quick profit for Bain and puts 170 people out of work and reduces the US GDP by some 140 million

I have related my company's experience with Saul Steinberg who tried unsuccesfully to control the company I worked for, Spectra-Physics back in the 80's -- 5 years of poor to no raises and stress of wondering if you had a job.  Although it was much better than if Steinberg had gotten control -- he would have sold the company real estate, patents, and divisions to competitors and walked away with a nice $15 million -- he told this to Herb Dwight the founder and CEO of S-P


Pulitzer Prise winner, Hedrick Smith discusses some these issues and others in his book "Who Stole the American Dream ?" here:
(sorry it is C-span and b not embeddable) about an hour but worth the time IMO


http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Stolet

[Windpower]

Blind trust, yeah right

Here in Romney's own words

[embed=425,349]http://youtu.be/HD_sutOpCws[/embed]

[Windpower]

Justice  Lewis F. Powell


http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/


So did Powell's political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment "right" for corporations to influence ballot questions.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/boston_v_bellotti/

[NM_Shooter]

I get so tired of the premis that wealth is bad and people who are successful are demogogued. <snip> Why is that a bad thing in some peoples eyes?

Chuck, thanks for having a good work ethic.  We need more folks like you.

It is purely hypocritical.  There are way, way too many folks... some represented in this thread, who are perfectly fine with their own financial advances, but are insanely jealous of those who either earn or inherit wealth beyond their own. 

Especially  if the person who is wealthy has political ideals differing from their own. 

The whiners will use products and services from overseas, or from big corporations...Nokia, GM, Monsanto, GE, Pfizer, Apple, Walmart, Samsung, whatever....and then wail about how unfair these corporations are, and how evil the management is.  Or they will pick someone successful and will crucify them for being successful.  Hypocrisy.

Have you ever noticed, that those who do so, seem to focus their attack on those who are identified as conservatives?  For instance, have you ever heard them whine about the billions that Soros has made?  Or the wealth of Pelosi, Reed, Kennedy, Edwards, Kerry etc?  Nope. 

These people who whine also don't have the chops to build their own companies up into wealth.  They are either too lazy or don't have the skill set.  They may have tried and failed.  If so, that just reinforces the fact to themselves that anyone else who succeeded must have been crooked (except successful liberals) because otherwise it would be an admission that they personally don't have what it takes. 

The next time you hear someone gripe about the financial success of others, you can bet on two things:

1)  The person whining is a liberal.
2)  They are bitching about a conservative.

Hypocrisy.  The lifeblood of liberalism. 

[flyingvan]

   Chuck---I'm with you 100%.  I've asked liberal friends the question--If you could make it so the poorest in our country had 10% more, but in the process, the richest had 300% more would you do it?  The answer is always 'No!' because you've increased the income gap.  The false notion that you make the poor richer by making the rich poorer is a fallacy.  Liberals look at overall wealth as a fixed number we all have to greedily grab shares of, and the wealthy grabbed more than their share.  In reality, new wealth is made, created, not stolen.  Trickle down economics works everywhere except the liberal media, who panned it and convinced people that wanted to be convinced that it failed (Reagans policies led to a boom that continued into the Clinton era)
   Here's the easy proof---Why is the GDP higher now than it was when George Washington was president? 

    ALL profit, regardless of the nation or system, is made through capitalism.  The difference is where it's allowed to take place.  In a free society, everyone has the opportunity to take a raw material and turn it into something marketable.  When we, as a society, hunt down and destroy the very people that are best at this, our economy suffers.  When we punish producers to re-distribute it to the non producers, the GDP spirals down and there is less for everybody.

[flyingvan]

Glad you mentioned China.....Liberals would have you believe most of your income goes there.  For every dollar the average American earns, 2.7 cents goes towards products produced in China.  Of that 2.7 cents, most of it stays here in retail mark up, shipping costs, and advertising. 

[Windpower]

Interesting Chart

Note that from 1948 to 1973 or so Wages and productivity tracked very closely

Also note that this time frame was ' virtuous cycle'  that lifted the economy and the wealth of everyone especially the middle class

Ever wonder what happened in the mid 70's until the present -- this is not an accident

Hedrick Smith made some interesting discoveries 

[Windpower]

Quote from Lewis Powells 'memo'

It should be noted that this was written in 1971.  Compare to the above graph
I would agree with his assessment of business and corporations  from looking back the previous 20 years from 1971

"The traditional role of business executives has been to manage, to produce, to sell, to create jobs, to make profits, to improve the standard of living, to be community leaders, to serve on charitable and educational boards, and generally to be good citizens. They have performed these tasks very well indeed."

[NM_Shooter]

Ever wonder what happened in the mid 70's until the present -- this is not an accident

That would be plant automation, brought to you by the microprocessor.

Oh... and BTW, your chart is adjusted for inflation.  That is a graph showing how much more productive we are using automation.  Not how much more oppressed we are.  Find a wage graph that is not adjusted for inflation and post that.

[archimedes]

"Trickle down economics works everywhere except the liberal media, who panned it and convinced people that wanted to be convinced that it failed "

What a bunch of nonsense!

And when did capitalism become a religion?  A a religion so sacrosanct as to be above criticism.  When did we give up our rights to question someones business practices if we feel those business practices are immoral,  unethical and ultimately distructive to the nations economy?

I'm tired of all the conservatives "whining" about how they can't handle anyone questioning their cult like belief in their political ideology.

I have a masters degree in economics,  and have been extremely successful in business.  And I find Willards business practices repugnant.  Does that mean that I don't believe in the free market or capitalism?  Does that mean I'm a socialist for merely questioning if those business practices are ethical,  or moral or whether they should be applied to how our gov't operates?  I think not.

It sounds to me like the conservatives want to squash the conversation before it gets started because they know what a true examination of Willard's businesses practices would reveal. 

I've done a great deal of research into Willard's business background,  and I have the education and business experience to understand what he did to make himself rich.  It's not a pretty picture.  And since he is holding his business experience up as his major qualification for being elected president,  why shouldn't we critically examine that business record?

[Windpower]

Of course it is adjusted for inflation as it should be

BTW microprocessors weren't in general use until way after 1971  call it 1980's

In fact I worked on instruments made in the late 70's that had to use shift registers -- microprocessors didn't exist yet

and are you implying that there were no automation improvements during the 1948 - 1971 time frame, you may note that the productivity curve is very close to a straight line

[NM_Shooter]

BTW microprocessors weren't in general use until way after 1971  call it 1980's

Wages for hourly workers should exactly track inflation.  If they are not contributing to an improvement of a process, and merely reflecting state of the art (at best) they deserve no more.  Accelerated pay should go to innovators and risk takers.  Those folks are typically not hourly workers. 

PLCs of some sort had been implemented in relay type ladder logic for a long time.  Formalized in the 60's, and they exploded in popularity in the 70's with the development of MSI and simple processors. 

Your chart is a tribute to the efficiency of automation, in which hourly personal were not required as much in terms of production.  Nothing else.