The Obama administration has spent millions of dollars attacking Mitt Romney’s largely successful career running Bain Capital, a private equity firm which bought up nearly insolvent businesses, restructured them and then sold them off at a handsome profit. This is a curious line of attack given that Barrack Obama is the first American president to engage in a form of equity socialism. As I describe at length in my book, Never Allow A Crisis To Go To Waste, Obama used well over $400 billion to nationalize General Motors and Chrysler, quasi-natiomalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and invest in a wide variety of wind and solar businesses, often owned by campaign contributors.
This interesting point of comparison between the two candidates running for President begs the question of whether Barack Obama’s equity socialism was as successful making money for the taxpayer as Mitt Romney’s private equity was in making millions for himself and his clients?
Out of an “investment” of over $60 billion dollars in nationalizing General Motors and Chrysler, the Obama administration has lost roughly $35 billion, not counting the additional several billion dollars lost in illegal tax waivers the Obama IRS has provided “Government Motors” over the next decade.
The Obama administration has lost $317 billion taking over and bailing out the government created mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with no prospect the companies will survive without further taxpayer losses.
Finally, the ranks of government subsidized “green energy” companies entering bankruptcy has increased from Solyndra ($528 million loss) to Abound Solar ($400 million loss), Evergreen Solar ($5.3 million loss), SpectraWatt ($500,000 loss), Solar Trust ($2.1 billion lost) and several others losing over $4 billion.
If Bain Capital had lost upwards of $50 billion of its investors’ money like the Obama administration lost taxpayer money in deals that largely benefited cronies, Mitt Romney would be under criminal indictment and facing dozens of shareholder lawsuits. Because Barack Obama is the President of the United States, however, the only justice he will face is at the polls in November.
