Romney, Jobs And China -- Let's Connect Dots

Will Mitt Romney create jobs and help our economy, or will he just take us back to the Bush-era, send-jobs-to-China destruction that made him rich? With Romney there is no way to connect what he says with what he means or might do. So we are forced to read tea leaves and look for signs. Should be reading Chinese tea leaves?

The Fire Sale Of Our Economy

Mitt Romney made his huge fortune partly by taking over companies, sending the good-paying American jobs to places like China -- or using the threat to do that to force wage and benefit cuts -- and keeping that money for himself and his business partners. A Washington Post story says that Romney's company not only took advantage of this technique, but actually helped pioneer the technique!

While Romney and those like him became enormously wealthy from this since-Reagan [1] fire-sale of American factories, companies, industries and technologies, our economy suffered terribly. Working people's wages stagnated and people turned to credit cards and borrowing on their homes just to get by [2]. Evenually the economy collapsed.

The Romneys and Wall Street 1%er types did very well from this destruction of our economy and our capacity to earn a living, as they have been doing since the collapse. China has also done very well by this. And they are all trying to keep things that way.

Connecting Dots

Dot: Under Bush we lost 50,000+ factories and 1/3 of our manufacturing jobs. Non-manufacturing was also hit hard with outsourcing of jobs to other countries. Companies then used the threat to move other jobs to force wage and benefit cuts here. "If you don't agree to this we'll just move your job, too."

Dot: Since the "recovery" began the richest 1% received 93% of the economic gains [3]. It's all going to the top -- to the Romneys among us.

Dot: Washington Post: Romney’s Bain Capital invested in companies that moved jobs overseas [4]. Note that Romney's company "pioneered" the practice. They didn't just do it, they "pioneered" it,

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components...

Dot: The Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision allows unlimited secret money to influence our elections. Secret, as in we don't even know what country [5] the money comes from, never mind what companies or billionaires.

Dot: Huge amounts, from the 1%ers, all coordinated: Romney plans posh weekend donor retreat featuring Rove and VP hopefuls [6],

The presumptive Republican nominee and his senior advisers and aides are hosting two days of policy sessions and campaign strategy discussions at the Deer Valley resort for more than 100 top fundraisers and their spouses. Those who raised more than $100,000 are expected to attend. ... Rove’s appearance could raise questions because of laws barring any coordination between super PACs and campaigns. ...

Dot: One source (of many) of this flood of money has been disclosed. Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has already given $10 million [7] to Romney's campaign, promises a "limitless" [8] amount -- $100 million or more [9]. (He has $25 billion, largely thanks to China.) There are also allegations of corruption, bribery [10] and violations of US law [11] in the operation of these Chinese-licensed casinos.

Dot: Adelson's exclusive Chinese-granted casino license is worth billions, and he has used his influence with Republicans in Congress to help China. Adelson influenced Republicans to help China get the Beijing Olympics [12] and then received the license to build casinos in Chinese territory. From the New Yorker, The Brass Ring: A multibillionaire’s relentless quest for global influence [13],

In July, 2001, Adelson met with a Vice-Premier of China, Qian Qichen ... [and] met with the mayor of Beijing, who asked Adelson for help with a matter pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he believed was threatening China’s chance to host the Olympics.

Adelson ... immediately made calls on his cell phone to Republican friends in Congress—including Tom DeLay, then the majority whip—who had received generous support from Adelson. DeLay told him that there was indeed a resolution pending ...opposing China’s Olympic bid, saying, “China’s abominable human rights record violates the spirit of the games and should disqualify Beijing from consideration.” ... Three days later, the International Olympics Committee voted in China’s favor. [Adelson received the casino license soon after, in early 2002 - dj]

[...] In May, 2004, the first gamblers entered the Sands Macao. Its construction costs were two hundred and sixty-five million dollars, and Adelson made back his initial investment in a year. In December, 2004, Adelson took Las Vegas Sands public (according to Forbes, he owns sixty-nine per cent of the stock) and became a multibillionaire, overnight.

Adelson used his influence with the Republicans in Congress to help China get the Olympics, and then got a casino license worth billions to him. What else has he helped or will he help China get?

Dot: McCain: Adelson funding Romney Super PAC with 'foreign money' [14].

Senator and Romney presidential campaign surrogate John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is indirectly injecting millions of dollars in Chinese "foreign money" into Mitt Romney's presidential election effort.

Owing China

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair.

When China offers you a path to make a huge fortune, you start to have a hard time understanding how this can hurt your own country. As I said last week in Why Can't Apple Make Your IPhone In America? [15],

China offers our business leaders an amazing deal – a deal that they can’t refuse. The owners and managers of our companies get really, really rich if they play along with China. Nerver mind if the companies go away later, they’re rich.

... In fact, China has essentially recruited our own business leaders to fight against our own government.

Romney's Bain Capital, and so many others, have made fortunes from offshoring our jobs, factories, industries, technologies and our economy. Fortunes. And now they are applying those China-made fortunes to our election process.

How Much Of Romney's Campaign Money Comes From Or Depends On China?

So we know about one source of secret money funding Romney's campaign, and this source is directly obliged to China for much of his multi-billion fortune, and has influenced our government on China's behalf in the past. But we don't know anything about much of the rest of the money that is being spent on the flood of negative ads and other persuasion and election efforts.

How many of Romney's other funding sources are dependent on China for their fortunes, directly or indirectly? And how much will this lead them to have trouble understanding how shipping jobs and factories and industries to China [16] hurts our country?

The question is out there, and really should be answered before the election. How much of Romney's huge, secret, campaign war chest comes directly or indirectly from China? And beyond China, where else is Romney's campaign money coming from?

[17] [18]