This comes from blue aardvark at Daily Kos, who summarizes:
“Bain invests in a company. Mitt gets personally involved with managing said company. Company profits are significantly based upon Medicare Fraud. Bain & Romney never uncover the fraud in 4 years, Corning uncovers it immediately upon buying Damon. Despite the fraud, Bain triples its investment, and Romney’s share of that profit is a cool half a million.
“Damon laid off workers despite Mitt Romney serving on the board and the strategic planning committee. Despite the failure of the business model to generate new jobs, Bain Capital tripled its investment, and Romney himself made nearly half a million dollars. Rampant fraud was supporting earnings, yet Romney was not able to notice.”
Where did the information come from? “From the delightful gift that is John McCain’s opposition research on Mitt (courtesy of namelessgenxer).”
Here’s the timeline:
- 1988: Damon begins a systemic practice of fraud. The government estimates later that the total cost to taxpayers of this fraud is around $40,000,000
- 1990: Bain Capital (CEO Mitt Romney) buys a minority stake in Damon. Mitt takes a seat on the board of directors
- 1990 to 1993: Mitt serves on the board of directors, earning ~$10,000 per year for doing so. He is on the company’s “Strategic Planning” committee
- 1992: Romney said that [Damon’s then-CEO Robert] Rosen told the board in about 1992 ‘that all current practices at the company were now in conformity with government regulations and that in the past there may have been practices which would not be deemed appropriate.
- 1993: Damon is taken over by Corning, with Mitt Romney voting in favor of the acquisition
- 1993: Corning immediately closes Damon’s Massachusetts plant and lays off 115 workers
- 1993: Corning uncovers the fraud and alerts authorities. The SEC filings made by Damon prior to the acquisition make no mention of any potential earnings write-downs or legal problems
- 1993: Mitt Romney’s share of Bain’s profit from the Damon investment: $473,000
- 1993: Bain’s profit from its investment in Damon: $7,400,000, which represented a tripling of the initial investment
And get this malarkey:
- 1994: Running for Senator, Mitt Romney says:
I’m proud of the small part I played in the growth of Damon,’ Romney said yesterday. ‘It’s something that Ted Kennedy doesn’t have a clue about – creating real jobs in the private sector.
- 2002: While running for governor, Romney claims that he helped uncover the fraud by starting an investigation. This version of events is disputed by Corning and by the Federal Prosecutors. Mitt also says he never alerted the authorities, which no one disputes.
Why is this important? For several reasons, primarily that which is the “business experience” Mitt Romney would like to say he has in “creating jobs” and successfully running businesses. Except that when we scratch the surface, his actual hands-on experience with businesses, via Bain Capital, usually results in stories of laid-off workers, companies shuttered, and Mitt and his buddies at Bain walking away from the flaming wreckage with millions of dollars for themselves.
ABLC reminds us that it’s also important for this very reason:
He also keeps saying that the $716 billion are cuts to Medicare services and benefits.
Both statements are flat-out lies.
As I’ve explained over and over and over, the “cuts” to Medicare come from savings, reductions in waste and fraud, and ending taxpayer subsidies to insurance companies.
So who actually “robbed” Medicare here?
