2012 Tuesday: Obama wants the election to be about a topic he doesn’t understand
In Chicago yesterday, President Obama described the essence of his campaign against Mitt Romney. Asked during a press conference about his campaign ads criticizing Romney’s record at Bain Capital in the 1980s and ’90s, Obama disagreed with fellow Democrats’ advice to focus on other issues:
[T]his is not a distraction. This is what this campaign is going to be about — is what is a strategy for us to move this country forward in a way where everybody can succeed?
Well, now. That’s just completely different from every other presidential campaign in history…
Some commentary has focused on what Obama said just before that: his description of the job of president vs. the job of a private equity CEO. And with good reason. There is plenty to address: from his assertion that the president should be involved in helping individual communities plan their economic development, to the obvious conclusion that the job, as he’s described it, is not one he’s done particularly well given the persistent sluggishness of the job market and the economy more broadly.
But what interested me was his summary of private equity:
Now, I think my view of private equity is that it is set up to maximize profits. And that’s a healthy part of the free market. That’s part of the role of a lot of business people. That’s not unique to private equity. And as I think my representatives have said repeatedly, and I will say today, I think there are folks who do good work in that area. And there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries, but understand that their priority is to maximize profits. And that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers.
Contra Cory Booker, Harold Ford Jr. and Steve Rattner — who are among the Obama supporters who cautioned him against demonizing private equity — the best reason for Obama to avoid the topic is that he sounds wholly uncomfortable on such foreign terrain.
His dissection of the place of profits in an economy supposedly based on free enterprise comes off like the remarks of an anthropologist recently returned from spending a year among some exotic, savage tribe. But profitability is a concept that comes naturally to most Americans because, unlike Obama, most of us have worked for for-profit enterprises.
Instead, Obama says “maximize profits” as if it’s one element among many when it comes to business (it’s just “part of the role of a lot of business people,” with the others ostensibly at liberty to ignore revenues and expenses), as if he grudgingly acknowledges some possibility that profits can co-exist with a healthy economy.
Wrong. Profits are indispensable to a healthy economy.
If a company is not trying to “maximize profits,” it is not a) trying to satisfy the most customers and thereby earn their business; b) recruiting and retaining the work force needed to deliver appealing products or services; or c) creating or freeing up the capital needed to expand its business.
Oh, and because we know Obama puts a premium on higher tax revenues: “Maximized profits” also mean more earnings for government to tax.
This is the story of America’s economic power. We are not the world’s most important economy, and the most prosperous people, because there are business people for whom “maximizing profits” is not “part of their role.” On the contrary. It’s because the profit motive — and, importantly, the greater freedom from government that our enterprises historically have had to pursue it — has ensured we have gotten the most out of our scarce resources.
Profits are not something to be merely tolerated as long as everything turns out OK for everyone else. They are the best motivation known to man to put as many people and resources as possible to productive work.
And creating new industries, with new jobs, is not incidental to free enterprise. Delivering novel products or services is not the only way to make money, but it is a time-tested way to do so.
This also happens to be the story of Bain Capital. Yes, it invested in businesses that couldn’t be turned around — that is, made profitable — and which had to be closed. But it also found great success in other ventures, some of which still employ tens of thousands of Americans.
Obama wants you to think the exceptions are the rule, at least where Romney and Bain are concerned. In doing so, he betrays his lack of familiarity with the very economy he claims to be trying to shepherd.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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440 comments Add your comment
Progressive Humanist
May 22nd, 2012
8:20 pm
Romney’s chances in the general are just north of nil. Only 2-3% separates the candidates nationally, but the electoral map is nearly insurmountable for him. In order to win 270 electoral votes he’ll need to take Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, plus either Colorado, Iowa, or New Hampshire. And Obama won ALL of those states last time and currently leads in almost all of them. Obama only needs to take one or two of those big states to hit 270, and Ohio and Virginia already look to be out of Romney’s reach. If you think this race is close, then you don’t understand how presidential elections work.
md
May 22nd, 2012
8:22 pm
“How to kill Osama Bin Laden”
Everybody including my granny knew how the kill the guy……finding him was the problem. And from what we think we know, Obama never would have found him without the spooks doing the dirty work. The dirty work that Obama would not have ordered by the way.
Sounds like a circle……..
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
8:25 pm
“If you think this race is close, then you don’t understand how presidential elections work.”
If you think that looking at states 6 months before a general election can predict the outcome of an election, you don’t understand how elections work, Progressive Humanist.
md
May 22nd, 2012
8:28 pm
“If you think this race is close, then you don’t understand how presidential elections work.”
Obama is under 50% in many of those States…..historically, folks who are undecided go with the new guy. I wouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch based on any current polls. Especially with the new religious war brewing inside the African American community……no, they won’t vote for Romney, but they very well may decide to sit it out.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
8:28 pm
“How to kill Osama Bin Laden”
An MP5 and good night vision goggles is the best way. Of course, the current Liar-in-Chief has probably never fired a gun in his lifetime, so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know how to kill Bin Laden, Progressive Humanist.
JDW
May 22nd, 2012
8:32 pm
@md…more Republican math for you I see….$90 billion in assets and $172 billion in debts. Just what is 90 less 172? Since bond holders are secondary to most everyone I don’t think much would have been left. Even liquidating at 100 percent on appraised value…sure that would have happened.
DannyX
May 22nd, 2012
8:34 pm
Tiberius, why don’t you just make up a poll with Romney up by 10% in all the swing states?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
8:36 pm
“Tiberius, why don’t you just make up a poll with Romney up by 10% in all the swing states?”
Sorry, but I deal with reality.
You can do the fantasy if you like, DannyX, as it suits you better than me.
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
May 22nd, 2012
8:37 pm
Nobody would hire Emperor Nero to run a lemonade stand – he does not understand the concepts involved in a going concern.
md
May 22nd, 2012
8:40 pm
Might want to do the research on GM….their bondholders were secured……while the UAW pension (which got more shares) was unsecured……….
@@
May 22nd, 2012
8:40 pm
So Obama would have CEOs use their profit for what, if not to create new jobs and industries? Seems to me that’s what benefits communities, businesses and workers.
I guess they could turn it over to the government to create more green firms?
Green Firms Get Fed Cash, Give Execs Bonuses, Fail
President Obama’s Department of Energy helped finance several green energy companies that later fell into bankruptcy — but not before the firms doled out six-figure bonuses and payouts to top executives, a Center for Public Integrity and ABC News investigation found.
Obama’s dreams have us sucking on the exhaust pipe.
schnirt
@@
May 22nd, 2012
8:41 pm
Oops!
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/green-firms-fed-cash-give-execs-bonuses-fail/story?id=15851653
@@
May 22nd, 2012
8:43 pm
Let me rephrase that:
Obama’s successes have us sucking on the exhaust pipe.
Progressive Humanist
May 22nd, 2012
8:44 pm
Very wishful thinking on the part of the Redumblicans here to believe that Romney has much of a chance. Is he going to take all those states I listed above? No way. What are you stooges going to do when Obama wins another term? I guess you’ll just whine for another four more years and come up with more idiotic conspiracy theories to fuel your hatred and ignorance. And in every subsequent election after that there will be fewer and fewer angry dumb white old men but more and more diverse Americans who vote Democratic. You girls are a dying breed, literally.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
8:47 pm
“Is he going to take all those states I listed above? No way.”
That’s the nice thing about America, Progressive Humanist; we have actual elections to decide our leaders, not bone-headed bloggers who tell us what they aren’t thinking, but hoping.
JDW
May 22nd, 2012
8:58 pm
@MD…”Might want to do the research on GM….their bondholders were secured……while the UAW pension (which got more shares) was unsecured……….”
The sad part, outside of you believing your own lies, is that someone might repeat them. GM had $27 billion in unsecured bonds and $6 billion in secured ones.
In fact the bondholders voted to accept the deal or it would have be quashed.
@@
May 22nd, 2012
9:02 pm
Joe Biden laid out what he sees as a distinct difference.
“Making money for investors is not the President’s job,” said the Vice President. “The President has a different job.”
Case in point?
Green Firms Get Fed Cash, Give Execs Bonuses, Fail
HECK! He didn’t even ask if I wanted to invest. Just took my money and lost it with HIS foray into venture capitalism.
Sister Sarah
May 22nd, 2012
9:05 pm
Jealousy, delusion, and obsession abounds on Kyle’s blog, and it starts with Kyle Wingfield. Kyle and his loyal posse of “Wingnuts” (how fitting!) who serial post and have absolutely nothing of substance ever to say, essentially other than the fact that they hate minorities, gays, foreigners and “liberals” (AKA dogwhistle for the three aforementioned. It’s sad really, really sad. I can only imagine all of you occupying the same ledge at the I-75/I-285 interchange the day after election day, totally consumed by your hatred that you just want to end it all. I will be tuned into the evening news checking for you, cheering you on with champagne glass in hand. Make it one for Guinness will ya; time it perfectly!
Progressive Humanist
May 22nd, 2012
9:06 pm
Another remarkably weak comeback from the stooge, Tiberius. I’ll let her embarrass herself on her own from here on out.
Mister.Earl
May 22nd, 2012
9:07 pm
Birther RSVP
As of Tuesday afternoon some 15,000 people and counting had already put their names on Left Action’s online petition asking Bennett to investigate whether Mitt Romney is really a unicorn. (Yes, a unicorn. The petition even has its own domain name: MittRomneyIsAUnicorn.com.) That’s more than 10 times the number of people who asked Bennett to investigate the president in the first place.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
9:09 pm
“and have absolutely nothing of substance ever to say, essentially other than the fact that they hate minorities, gays, foreigners”
Please back up the above nonsense with actual posts using the word “Hate”, Sister Sarah, and we might believe you have something of substance to add to this discussion.
Sister Sarah
May 22nd, 2012
9:12 pm
Wha,,,what’s that yelp?? Oh, that’s a hit dog hollerin’!
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
9:13 pm
“In fact the bondholders voted to accept the deal or it would have be quashed.”
Let’s review how this works, JDW:
The government steps in an clears out every potential private suitor GM might have had.
The government comes in a produces a plan whereby bondholders get pennies on the dollar, or nothing – after the unions get their share which they never paid for.
The bondholders get to vote to approve the only deal in town due to government interference.
The only difference between this and the Mob is that you don;t get to elect mob members.
Mister.Earl
May 22nd, 2012
9:14 pm
The President Of The United States
President Obama said of Romney, “his main calling card for why he thinks he should be President is his business expertise … And when you’re President, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot.”
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
9:14 pm
“Another remarkably weak comeback from the stooge, Tiberius.”
And yet you do not refute it, Progressive Humanist.
Go figure . . .
@@
May 22nd, 2012
9:16 pm
“Wingnuts” (how fitting!) who serial post and have absolutely nothing of substance ever to say, essentially other than the fact that they hate minorities, gays, foreigners
zzzzzzzzzzzz
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 22nd, 2012
9:19 pm
I can only imagine all of you occupying the same ledge at the I-75/I-285 interchange the day after election day, totally consumed by your hatred that you just want to end it all. I will be tuned into the evening news checking for you, cheering you on with champagne glass in hand.
Aahhh, spoken with the true spirit of Baghdad Bob.
You may want to start looking for a spider hole to hide in, lunatic.
Rafe Hollister
May 22nd, 2012
9:22 pm
Sister Sarah
If we are unfortunate enough to have to face suffering through another four years of the Oblamer malaise, I will not be on a ledge over 75/285, I assure you. I will be at a gold dealer, cashing out what is left of my Obama money for something real.
JDW
May 22nd, 2012
9:32 pm
@Tiberius…I think your view of reality is a bit warped. It went more like this:
GM can no longer acquire the capital to function.
Bankruptcy is obvious but Chapter 11 Debtor in Possession funding cannot be raised and there are NO SUITORS that have adequate capital available to continue operations.
Unless the Government steps in with funding Chapter 7 is the only real alternative. With about twice the debt as the listed value of the assets, assets that will bring far less at a fire sale bondholders are staring a big fat zero in the eye.
The Government does step in and both bondholders and workers pensions receive something rather than nothing.
Today most still have a job, countless other companies survived where they would not have and America still has a competitive presence in the auto business.
The new GM is worth $30+ billion on the market and makes a profit.
However, misguided “conservatives” can’t abide the fact that a Democratic Government led by the hated Obama is responsible and continue to thrash about in denial.
@@
May 22nd, 2012
9:32 pm
Got H8? Left hurls slurs, racist epithets at Cory Booker for being honest about Bain attacks
Mirror, mirror…
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
9:36 pm
“GM can no longer acquire the capital to function.”
True.
“Bankruptcy is obvious but Chapter 11 Debtor in Possession funding cannot be raised and there are NO SUITORS that have adequate capital available to continue operations.”
False. The imminent government take over scared them all away.
Nice try.
Rafe Hollister
May 22nd, 2012
9:41 pm
Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot.”
Yeah, we have an admitted drug user in the White House, that said he embraced the lifestyle. He was obviously never caught, so he got by with it. So many others have paid dearly for experimenting with drugs. They were caught and have criminal records, making it almost impossible for them to get good jobs in this Oblamer economy. If they have a DOD they can not get a security clearance due to past drug use, but ole Barry gets one by proxy because he is the President. He would not otherwise qualify for one. Is that FAIR?
Is being forced to purchase health insurance you can not afford and think you do not need FAIR?
Oblamer is disingenuous and a charlatan.
JDW
May 22nd, 2012
9:41 pm
@Tiberius…name just one suitor that had 50 to100 billion liquid and ready to go in a short timefarme. Take your time you won’t find one. If you will clear the hate from tour brain you will remember Obama waited until the last moment to see if one stepped forward…they did not.
Mister.Earl
May 22nd, 2012
9:43 pm
For all the national chatter about a “post-racial America” following the 2008 election, America seems more obsessed with race than ever, if less honest about it, since Obama strode onto the national stage. If the official milestones of his administration thus far include the passage of the stimulus and the Affordable Care Act, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the endorsement of gay marriage, they have often been upstaged by the red-letter incidents of racial conflict that have steadily rolled out on a parallel track. Just a short list would include: the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Cambridge; the hysterical tea-party rally against health-care reform that showered obscenities on black congressmen entering the Capitol; the ousting of the African-American Department of Agriculture worker Shirley Sherrod after she was libeled as a racist; the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia; the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida; and, this month, the protest of more than 40 percent of West Virginia Democratic-primary voters, who pulled the lever for an obscure white federal-prison inmate rather than endorse a second run for the incumbent president of their own party. Last week brought the pièce de résistance: theTimes revelation of a proposed super-PAC TV commercial that would slime Obama as pretending to be a “metrosexual black Abe Lincoln.”
- Frank Rich, NYMagazine
You libs
May 22nd, 2012
9:44 pm
I’ve seen no sign of Bookman for days now.
Damn conservative media.
Rafe Hollister
May 22nd, 2012
9:46 pm
Oblamer is the first President to decide it is his job to play referee and enforce the Fairness Rules that he writes. Judge Roy Bean did the same thing, but he was not President, just dictator of the land west of the Pecos.
Was it Fair to Mexico for the Oblamer regime to give guns to the cartels to use against the Mexican people and their government?
Mister.Earl
May 22nd, 2012
9:46 pm
Overanalyzing President Obama’s Passing Form
Two days ago, President Obama was snapped by White House photographer Pete Souza on the Chicago Bears’ Soldier Field tossing a football to Lord knows who. It’s a nice shot — Obama looks downright statuesque and seems, at a minimum, not totally unfamiliar around a pigskin. And yet — probably because he is not actually a quarterback — there was also something off about Obama’s throwing form. As part of our never-ending quest to nitpick everything in the world, we asked Chris Brown — who has written about football for the New York Times, Grantland, and his own site, Smart Football, as well as in his new book, The Essential Smart Football — to take an unnecessarily critical look at Obama’s mechanics, and tell us what he’s doing wrong.
“I’ve seen worse,” Brown writes in an e-mail. “His arm and shoulder look like they are at a solid right angle, and he appears to be doing a good job of driving his right arm and elbow back to generate force so that his throwing arm will be pulled through like a whip. But there are big concerns: His front leg is way overextended — his knee is back behind his heel — so he’ll never be able to fully transfer his weight over his knee to be able to properly follow through and really generate force on the ball.”
- Dan Amira
@@
May 22nd, 2012
9:49 pm
Oops! Should’ve warned everyone about the foul language eminating from those Cory H8ers.
Geez!
Martin Williams
May 22nd, 2012
9:50 pm
Kyle, I am praying very hard everday now for Mitt Romney to be our next president because I want to remind you after 3 years of his(Mitt) presidency, the US un-employment will be in DOUBLE degit. You know very well that Obama has created more jobs in 3+ years as president than George W Bush did in 8 years. How many jobs have the tax break for people like you created in the last 10+ years?. Obama should have done away with that tax break concept create jobs. You all think we are stupid. Tell you what, I know tax breaks will never create jobs as the GOP doctrine wants most Americans to believe. Hope Romney wins in November so some preachers that call themselves people of God will preach less about hate. Sure you heard about those two stupid preachers in North Carolina, not surprise a bit, thanks.
bluecoat
May 22nd, 2012
9:51 pm
Elect Romney-Open the flood gates.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
May 22nd, 2012
9:59 pm
Elect Romney. Let America be America again.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Unexpectedly Revised Downward)
May 22nd, 2012
10:07 pm
JDW: name just one suitor that had 50 to100 billion liquid and ready to go in a short timefarme
———————–
Highly profitable GM’s market cap as of today is $34 billion. It would seem Super Capitalist Obozo overpaid.
ragnar danneskjold
May 22nd, 2012
10:10 pm
Dear Kyle, you could have written a 10,000 page essay about the topics Obama does not understand. Be real: if the election is “about” anything other than community organizing, it will necessarily be about a topic Obama does not understand.
@@
May 22nd, 2012
10:12 pm
Martin and AmVet have similar interests. AmVet’s all over the preacher thingy at Bookman’s.
@@
May 22nd, 2012
10:12 pm
schnirt
@@
May 22nd, 2012
10:18 pm
ATLANTA — A herd of 100 sheep are being brought to Chastain Park for several weeks to help save trees.
Atlanta’s progressive community?
Dusty
May 22nd, 2012
10:19 pm
Sniff…………
OH, cry me a river forever more.
The Reds beat the Braves three to four.
There just aint no justice
For the proud and the bestus!
So g’nite, g’nite, one and all.
I’ll dream of a run with every ball.
With the Braves a’smiling and standin’ tall!
Class of '98
May 22nd, 2012
10:50 pm
Kyle, you are a very talented columnist. Keep up the good work.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 22nd, 2012
11:14 pm
“name just one suitor that had 50 to100 billion liquid and ready to go in a short timefarme.”
What part of “they were all scared away” do you NOT understand, JDW?
DAVETV
May 22nd, 2012
11:25 pm
If we really must have a President who is going to use our taxes to invest in or bail out companies, I’d rather it be one who knows how to maximize profits. I’d also like it to be one knows how to trim the fat to make our Government at least break even. The Federal Government spends $120,000+ every SECOND of every day! I consider that a spending problem.
I’d also like a President who didn’t continuously place blame on others. One who didn’t constantly attempt to drive a wedge between parties, sex, religions and race.
I’d like a President who has shown he can work well with others. A President who understands that decades spent teaching a college course does not qualify you for a political appointment. One who does not surround himself with utter morons in order to make himself feel superior.
I’d like a President who has no reason to hide every detail about his life from the day he was born until he took office.
I’d like a President who doesn’t view our Constitution as an impediment to his agenda. One who understands the meaning of enumerated powers.
I’d like to feel confident that my President truly loves and is proud of our Country and it’s history.
I’d like my President not to be a pathological liar.
Do these things seem like too much to ask of our President?
Now that you know my wishes for our President… into what group would all you honest, hardworking, tax-paying citizens lump me?