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The Spectacle Blog
Newt has made another Gingrichian mistake in his latest retort to Romney.
His response to Romney’s request to give back the Freddie Mac money is misguided for the newly minted front-runner. It is not a Conservative position. But is it a Gingrich position? It just might be.
Gingrich’s statement in full:
“If Gov. Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain that I would be glad to then listen to him.”
Surely, Mr. Speaker, you jest?
If Newt is actually attacking the work of Romney and other financiers in streamlining and re-structuring businesses, he’s not carrying any Conservative position; rather, he’s setting up a tent on Occupy Wall Street (OWS) territory: an extreme, anti-capitalist, class-warfare posture that’s inherently un-Republican, un-Conservative, and unserious.
There’s a gargantuan difference between what Governor Romney did as a private-sector agent in business exchanges between corporations, and Newt’s taking money from a boil on the backside of the Federal Government — one of the worst antagonists of the mortgage bubble tragedy: Freddie Mac.
First of all, one worked and profited by bringing companies together in market-based transactions within the parameters of free enterprise.
The other stoked the fires of a conflagration that scorched first the mortgage industry, then the entire economy. By giving strategic advice about how to further metastasize Freddie Mac’s influence into the mortgage industry, market transactions were steamrolled by the nimble “persuasion” known Federal lending practices and regulations. Then, by firing a flaming missive of anti-capitalist antipathy into the heart of the free market (calling into question the actions of Bain Capital and other corporations whose purpose it is to save markets, bolster industries, and feed fledgling enterprises), Newt Gingrich turned his Freddie Mac misfeasance into Conservative malfeasance.
Newt Gingrich’s attacking the re-capitalization and re-structuring of companies and corporations by market-based means should be called out for what it is: reprehensible. When companies are sick or failing or under-performing, they seek out and, if they are lucky, find ways and other companies to help them save themselves and turn a sow’s ear of an idea into a warehouse of silk purses. This is how misguided companies find direction and hungry ideas find paydirt. And it’s what we call a market-based solution. If that sort of market-based ingenuity and self regulation is offensive to Newt, he has some explaining to do, not only to Republicans whose support he seeks but to the Democrats whose party line he’s stolen.
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Robert P. Kirchhoefer
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/12/13/newt-wrong-on-romney-gains-ver
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xtreemvisual | 12.13.11 @ 9:42AM
Great article, "If Gov. Romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain that I would be glad to then listen to him. These guys are really going at it!
Bumr50| 12.13.11 @ 10:39AM
Bain lost American jobs and shipped them overseas by the thousands.
Capitalism or not, it should be hung around Mittens the Inevitable's neck until he drowns.
Jon| 12.14.11 @ 10:44AM
Bain did not lose American jobs, American's lost their own jobs by overspending and reaching into empty pockets to pay their bills. I imagine you have never worked in any type of business situation which clearly explains your poor argument about blaming Bain and Romney for shipping jobs overseas. If you really take a look at it, Bain probably saved more American jobs by restructuring companies and keeping some sort of foundation in place in the US as opposed to letting the company go belly up. Please do some actual research before opening your narrow mind again.
conservativelady| 12.13.11 @ 10:43AM
A sharp,concise, well-written and analyzed article. All Repubs should read this one. Maybe they would stop swooning over this old Washington hack bag and see him for what he is!! (hint: He's not your cute little grandfather!) Can we ever get away from the revenge of the RINOS? John McCain and now...Newt? Do Repubs have a secret desire to self-destruct or are we just the most gullible bunch in the history of this country? Wake up before it is too late!!!
Dai Alanye | 12.13.11 @ 10:52AM
The essential difference? Romney rished his own money while Gingrich "historianized" for taxpayer bucks.
I think we know who ought to give money back.
Ryan| 12.13.11 @ 11:13AM
Here's the problem - was what Romney did simply good business?
Here's my first point, so I don't get slammed for being some sort of lefty - there should be no considerable government regulation outside of maintaining a free marketplace.
That being said, there HAS been a bad run at times of supposed financial saviors of some businesses who do NOT truly rescue a company, but instead return it to a short-term "profitability" and make off with their golden parachutes.
Part of the process involves laying off higher-paid experienced employees and cutting costs drastically. After a while, the company tanks because there are no good employees left.
Case in point: Circuit City.
The OTHER side of the coin is what we saw with many of the bailouts - CEOs who scalp their company for high dollars rather than seeking the true good of the company by hiring good people. How many good companies would we have if the guys at the top concentrated not on their own personal gain, but the overall good of the company?
Newt may at least be partially right, but he was wrong to support Fannie and Freddie in any capacity, even for being paid.
Dan| 12.13.11 @ 12:03PM
The feigned outrage by some at Gingrich's rejoinder is a hoot.
The idea that Gingrich shares in the idea that white collar compensation should be limited is a hoot.
Gingrich simply responded to Romney, sending a fastball back at Romney high and tight. But it was never intended to be a substantive rebuttal. It was all political jousting, the breaking of lances.
Romney, the rich and out-of-touch guy, tried to attack a surging competitor by decrying the amount of money he made. The guy attacked pointed a finger at the source of Romney's vast wealth. Those like Krauthammer who are huffing and puffing that Gingrich's comment reflected a socialist strain in Gingrich's soul are stretching the event by any sense whatsoever.
I understand people trying to push Romney. It's unwise, it's an act of self-delusion, but those people know Romney as a Northeast Republican, and that's exactly the kind of creature they desire as a frontrunner. So to advance his candidacy, and Northeasterners like him, they've resorted to the tried and tested trick of feigning that anything said by his competition is outlandish, wild, hyperbolic, and that we had all better get on board with the guy that a Christy Whittman wants.
We've seen this before.
But before Krauthammer and others lament Newt's rejoinder, perhaps they should give a thought to how the Romney laying off thousands of Americans while he himself was lining his pocket to the tune of tens of millions dollars IS GOING TO BE RECEIVED on the campaign trail.
In a period of soaring unemployment, it isn't going to be viewed well.
JimH| 12.13.11 @ 12:41PM
Issuing tons of junk bonds and saddling the acquired company with debt is not ‘one’s own money’. I’m not sure what Bain did that a liquidation of the failing companies could not have accomplished more cheaply. To some extent though, Bain was responding to a market distorted by government tax policy which favored debt over equity.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.13.11 @ 12:56PM
The term "vulture capitalists" did not come into being accidentally.
Somebody look into Bain, OK?