Here's what happens when the more "safe" and "electable" Mitt Romney's former vulture capital firm Bain takes over a steel company that had been in business since 1888.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they’d been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 (258 pounds) a month.
What’s more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company’s underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.
Kansas City's Worldwide Grinding Systems steel mill had been in business since 1888, and many of those who worked there had been on the job for over 40 years. That was before Mitt Romney's Bain Capital acquired the company and drove it into the ground for profit. A predatory process of elimination wherein Bain's mismanagement left taxpayers on the hook for the employee's pensions.
In other words -- Romney's Bain profited from a federal bailout.
Mitt Romney has been a vocal opponent of federal bailouts, particularly the bailout of Detroit which he infamously wrote a column for in the New York Times wherein he assured the world that a bailout of Detroit would lead to ruin.
The simplest explanation at this point for Romney's opposition to bailouts is not that he has an ideological conflict with the idea. It's that he simply believes Wall Street firms should be the ones who swoop in and scoop up companies as their share prices bottom out. Never mind the consequences to the employees.
(via ThinkProgress)