It has been noted that, during Mitt Romney's tenure at the helm of Bain Capital, 22% of the companies that Bain invested in either went bankrupt or closed their doors.
In Bain's defense, it has also been noted that many of these companies were targets for takeover because they were already ailing, and that a one-fifth failure rate is not surprising or unusual.
This may or may not be true. It is beside the point.
What makes Romney's tenure at Bain an excellent example of class warfare is that Bain extracted massive profits from businesses even as they failed:
"In 1996, Bain invested $27 million as part of a deal with other firms to acquire Dade International, a medical diagnostics equipment firm, from its parent company, Baxter International. Bain ultimately made ten times its money, getting back $230 million. But Dade wound up laying off more than 1600 people and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002, amid crushing debt and rising interest rates. The company, with Bain in charge, had borrowed heavily to do acquisitions, accumulating $1.6 billion in debt by 2000. The company cut benefits for some workers at the acquired firms and laid off others. When it merged with Behring Diagnostics, a German company, Dade shut down three US plants. At the same time, Dade paid out $421 million to Bain Capital's investors and investing partners."
That is the pattern of the New Class War: the investor class which profits intensely from success is insulated (or even profits) from the effects of failure, while supporting political action which will cut and eliminate insulating programs that might aid those who, like Dade's employees, do feel the effects of business failures.
