In an all too familiar tale, during its heydays, when Mitt Romney and his posse rode into town on behalf of Bain Capital, someone’s dream was going to get crushed, usually a lot of someones. Hopes and aspirations are swiftly snuffed out.
“I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad man. I don’t fault him for the fact that some companies win and some companies lose. That’s a fact of life,” Randy Johnson, laid off by Mitt in 1994, said at the 2012 Democratic National Convention last night. “What I fault him for is making money without a moral compass.”
David Foster, a steelworker, describes the pattern. Mitt’s Bain bought the company he worked for, loaded it with debt, forcing it into bankruptcy, then fired hundreds of workers. Mitt and his Bain cohorts made out like, well, bandits.
Cindy Hewitt talked about Romney walking away with $249 million after shutting down the plant where she worked.
After workers are laid off, a few are rehired at much lower pay, without benefits or pensions. Then plants are eventually shuttered.