No, Mitt, We Don't Want to Be You

See, now this is why I hate Mitt Romney. 

He represents everything that is wrong with both the public and private sectors of our country. His public sector problems go without saying—he’s a piece of plastic right down to the slicked back haircut and condescending grin. He changes his positions depending on the audience and when he’s called out for his obviously incongruous record he comes up with these reductio ad absurdum responses that never really explain himself and, instead, serve only to condescend to his audience.

How could you possibly think that was my position, you ignoramus? Now, Biff, drive around the limo and don’t forget the Gray Poupon this time.

Nobody in his own party can stand him. Some insist that it’s just the evangelical bigots who can’t get over the Mormon thing.  Others say it’s because he’s really just a Massachusetts liberal. But he’s neither conservative, liberal, nor moderate. People don’t like this guy because he speaks out of both corners of his mouth (and also largely from his ass). People don’t like him because they can’t believe a word he says. They can’t believe a word he says because they don’t even know if HE believes a word he says.

But back to this argument from envy. I’m so sick of hearing this people envy Wall Street, class warfare bullshit. Why are the rich so arrogant to think that everybody wants to be them? I picture Mitt waking up every day, grinning in the mirror after a hearty stretch, puffing out his chest, and saying, “My God, who wouldn’t want to be me?” Well, let me be the first to raise my hand.

While Bain Capital certainly wasn’t the worst of all private equity firms/venture capitalists out there (it doesn't solely specialize in private equity or venture capital), its hands certainly aren’t clean. Mitt Romney’s practice of “creative destruction” came at the cost of laying off workers, outsourcing jobs overseas where there weren’t pesky minimum wage or safe workplace standards, and bloating executive salaries while diminishing the salaries of the people who actually do the work that makes those executives fabulously wealthy.

And this was done at Bain’s greatest success stories. Bain capital fired people to make money…not just to survive…but to make massive sums of money. They destroyed people’s livelihoods not because they were bad workers or committed some egregious error, but so executives at Bain could go out and buy their new yacht or their third house out in Kennebunkport. This isn’t even to speak of the 22 percent  of Bain companies that went bankrupt or had to close its doors. But don’t worry, Bain still made its money and was able to hide some of its profits in offshore tax havens. 

That’s American Capitalism for you—risk and reward—the workers absorb all the risk while the investors run away with all the reward. Capitalism is a great system—WHEN IT’S ACTUALLY CAPITALISM and not when it’s some shadow of capitalism where the plutocrats are able to buy off politicians in order to pass favorable legislation for them and prevent the regulators and watchdogs from doing their jobs.

Points in case: 1. SEC failures to enforce rules which contributed greatly to our current economy and 2. The melee that ensued when politicians realized the CFPB would have teeth when Obama tried to appoint Elizabeth Warren. And all of this so the politicians and the rich can become masters of the universe together while the “regular people” are left to feed off of their crumbs.

So Mitt, no, I don’t envy you. If I have to destroy jobs, hide my profits in tax shelters, line pockets of executives who sit in offices all day and know very little about the people sitting in their trenches, mislead people about my record in order to win their votes, stuff my shirt, and muster my best toothy grin in order to be rich then I don’t want to be wealthy. Your money doesn’t make you any better than any one of the “little people,” and contrary to what you think, we don’t want to be you. We just don’t want to struggle to survive because your money allows you to rig the system.