“Mitt Romney’s history at Bain Capital is not going to help his image as a job creator. Now, we want to disclose that NBC Universal and Bain Capital are each a part owner of the Weather Channel. Bain Capital’s main business model is buying companies like American Pad and Paper and restructuring [industry code for ‘slash and burn’] them. In many instances, Bain turned a profit by strip mining these companies. American, AMPAD is what it’s known, the stock was driven down [on purpose by Romney, I explain a little further in the article] and the company went bankrupt. They fired hundreds of workers along the way.”-Ed Shultz, MSNBC

MSNBC is admitting that a company affiliated with NBC, Bain Capital co-founded by Mitt Romney, has been destroying jobs, not creating jobs as Romney claims.

In 1984 Romney co-founded Bain Capital, which grew out of Bain & Company. The soul purpose of the company is to buy out other companies, then gut them and sell them off piece by piece. Of course this means jobs are destroyed.

Interestingly, back in October, MSNBC’s Ed Shultz actually downplayed Romney’s connection to Bain Capital. He and some of his guests, stated that a photo published in the Boston Globe was fake: “…it’s probablly a joke photo.”

Now Ed Shultz is backpedaling. He, along with other MSNBC anchors and reporters, are revealing that Bain Capital has been behind many of the job loses in this country since the late 1980s!

The New York Times reported that Romney left Bain Capital in 1999, but, as part of his ‘retirement package’ is making money off their continued slashing and burning of U.S. jobs. According to the article, Romney, 13 years after leaving Bain Capital, is still making millions of dollars off his retirement package!

Anybody remember KB Toys? I do. I was an employee of the Chubbuck, Idaho, Pine Ridge Mall at the time they closed down the KB Toys store in that mall. By 2004 KB Toys went bankrupt and 3,400 people lost their jobs! Guess what, one of Bain Capital’s affiliated companies was behind that!!!

Oh, and what about Romney’s connection to Massachusetts? Romney ‘retired’ from Bain Capital in 1999. The Bain Capital partnership took over KB Toys in 2000. KB Toys is headquartered in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Romney became governor of Massachusetts in 2002. In 2003 the Bain Capital partnership started shutting down KB Toys stores. Mmmm, connection?

Here are some more examples of deals that resulted in job losses at the hands of Romney’s Bain Capital (and affiliated companies like Holson Burnes Group): Clear Channel Communications, 2,500 job cuts.

Photo album factory in South Carolina, 150 jobs lost.

Sensata Technologies, a European company with U.S. operations, several hundred U.S. employees lost their jobs.

American Pad & Paper, or AMPAD, lost 185 jobs.

The case of AMPAD reveals how Romney’s Bain Capital works. They buy up companies in the same market, then they whittle them down until there is only one or two in the market, who then become big money makers by default. AMPAD’s competitor was Staples. Romney touts Staples as a good example of his management skills, but what the Boston Globe found out (and reported in a 2007 article) is that Romney simply bought out competitors and shut them down until Staples was just about the only game left in town.

Now how about the KB Toys deal? KB Toys and Toys “R” Us were the top toy stores in the United States. A company connected to Bain Capital buys out KB Toys and shuts them down. What about Toys “R” Us? Yes there’s a Bain Capital connection. In 2005, one year after the KB Toys bankruptcy, Toys “R” Us was taken over by KKR Group, Vornado Realty Trust and Bain Capital for $6.6 billion! In 2009 Toys “R” Us takes over what is left of KB Toys; website, trademarks, and intellectual property rights. Mmmm, you seeing the pattern?

This goes against the principle of the free hand of capitalist competition. The jobs lost because companies went out of business were not actually due to any ‘poor’ performance of the employees, or lack of sales, but because the ‘investors’ Romney & Co wanted it that way!

Also, Bain Capital works the same way the rest of Corporate America does, they don’t use their own money to take over companies, they take out huge loans from the too big to fail banks that got taxpayer bailouts!

One report said Romney’s “investments” have resulted in at least 12,000 U.S. jobs lost! It’s probably more than that, the way Bain Capital and affiliated companies shut down businesses does not result in net jobs gained, but net jobs lost! Anybody remember Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie Wall Street?