Bain Still Uses The Romney Model To Loot And Wreck Companies

There's been a lot of talk about how Romney's experience in the private sector has made him especially unfit for any kind of government service. Certainly the Bain experience at Warner Bros. Records proved that to everyone at the company as they slashed and burned, dropped heritage artists, drained the company of capital, destroyed the concept of artist development, and left the whole institution a smoldering wreck. This week Jerry Del Colliano, editor of the Inside Music Media trade publication posted on how Bain continues to rob Clear Channel blind.

There is increasing evidence that Bain Capital in cahoots with Lee Capital Partners continues to pillage what was once a great radio company driving it deep into debt as it collects huge fees and makes unbelievable profits even as employees get sacrificed.

We’ve all known something is fishy but the details I am about to share are staggering.

The situation is getting worse even as I write this which means that you will be shocked and perhaps amazed at how deeply Clear Channel will have to further reduce its work force to keep paying its investment banks.

Bain is not creating jobs. 

It is robbing Clear Channel blind.

And ready to layoff large numbers of people, as you will soon read.

Here’s how bad things are and how Clear Channel employees are going to have to pay the price again-- soon.

...Let me tell you what questions will be answered:

1.  What Clear Channel will lose this year-- a whopping number and nowhere near the $1 billion it used to make.

2.  What owner/investment banks Lee and Bain make in fees every year. Go ahead and guess. You’re too low! I’ve not only got the accurate number but how much they made in fees in the first three months of 2012. Plus, when this sweet arrangement ends. (This is why you’re being laid off at Clear Channel!)

3.  How Lee and Bain came up with the money to do the original Clear Channel acquisition and how they plan on paying for it.

4.  The number of layoffs at Clear Channel since Lee & Bain took over – I’ve been looking for an accurate number and I’ve got it for you.

5.  Why Clear Channel is on the default list-- that’s right, default is expected and only 10% of the money they borrowed is likely to be recovered-- if that. This is incredible!

6.  Why shell-shocked employees don’t want to believe the massive layoffs that are yet to come.  As the Boy Scouts say “be prepared.”

The answers begin here.

And the rest is behind a paywall. But the billionaire sociopaths behind Romney know exactly what's behind that paywall... which is why they're going all out to finance his bid to take over the White House. Rolling Stones names 16 dangerous predators who are looking the use Romney to buy the U.S. government: William "the other brother" Koch ($4 billion), Harold Simmons ($9.8 billion), Bob Perry ($600 million), Jim Davis ($1.8 billion; stop buying New Balanced Shoes), Bill Marriott, Jr. ($1.7 billion), Edward Conrad (over a billion), Frank VanderSloot ($1 billion), Steven Lund ($31.9 million), Julian Robertson, Jr. ($2.5 billion), John Paulson ($12.5 billion), Paul Singer ($1 billion), Robert Mercer (secretive and dangerous predator who made $125 million in 2011 but has managed to hide his net worth), Kenneth Griffin ($3 billion), Francis Rooney III ($1.8 billion), and Steven Webster (billionaire).

Presidential politics has always been a rich man's game. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United that upended decades of limits on campaign donations, financing a presidential race is the exclusive domain of the kind of megadonor whose portfolios make Mitt Romney look middle-class. "I have lots of money, and can give it legally now," Texas billionaire and top GOP moneyman Harold Simmons recently bragged to the Wall Street Journal. "Just never to Democrats."

In past elections, big donors like Simmons gave millions for advocacy groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. By law, such groups were only allowed to run issue ads-- but instead they directly targeted John Kerry, drawing big fines from the Federal Elections Commission. Now, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, the wealthy can legally hand out unlimited sums to groups that openly campaign for a candidate, knowing that their "dark money" donations will be kept entirely secret. The billionaire Koch brothers, for instance, have reportedly pledged $60 million to defeat President Obama this year-- but their off-the-book contributions don't appear in any FEC filings.

Even more money from megadonors is flowing into newly created Super PACs, which, unlike advocacy groups, can spend every cent they raise on direct attacks on an opponent. Under the new rules, the richest men in America are plying candidates with donations far beyond what Congress intended. "They can still give the maximum $2,500 directly to the campaign-- and then turn around and give $25 million to the Super PAC," says Trevor Potter, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center. A single patron can now prop up an entire candidacy, as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson did with a $20 million donation to the Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich.

The undisputed master of Super PAC money is Mitt Romney. In the primary season alone, Romney's rich friends invested $52 million in his Super PAC, Restore Our Future-- a number that's expected to more than double in the coming months. This unprecedented infusion of money from America's monied elites underscores the radical transformation of the Republican Party, which has made defending the interests of 0.0001 percent the basis of its entire platform. "Money buys power," the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman observed recently, "and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties." In short, the political polarization and gridlock in Washington are a direct result of the GOP's capitulation to Big Money.

That capitulation is evident in Romney's campaign. Most of the megadonors backing his candidacy are elderly billionaires: Their median age is 66, and their median wealth is $1 billion. Each is looking for a payoff that will benefit his business interests, and they will all profit from Romney's pledge to eliminate inheritance taxes, extend the Bush tax cuts for the superwealthy-- and then slash the top tax rate by another 20 percent. Romney has firmly joined the ranks of the economic nutcases who spout the lie of trickle-down economics. "Support from billionaires has always been the main thing keeping those charlatans and cranks in business," Krugman noted. "And now the same people effectively own a whole political party."

And as Glenn Greenwald put it on Twitter early this morning, "In a nation of whiny, self-pitying billionaires, the chronic bully Frank VanderSloot may be the most petulant of all." Ken Vogel has a fuller story at Politico on how the billionaires who are trying to buy the White House don't like being criticized for their perfidy. They claim they're being abused for their generosity. And if you use Melaleuca products, you are funding this dangerous anti-democracy predator.

VanderSloot is one of the loudest of the aggrieved mega-donors, announcing that his family’s privacy has been invaded and his health and home products company, Melaleuca, had lost hundreds of customers, and asserting the Obama campaign list and liberal websites have misrepresented his company and political activism.

He’s waged an aggressive response, making a series of appearances on the Fox News Channel in which he called for donations to Romney in protest of the list. He also spoke at a Heritage Foundation event in Washington this week. And he told Politico he intended to make additional donations to the pro-Romney super PAC each time something untruthful was published about him-- a plan he said his wife predicted could yield “several hundred thousand dollars” more in contributions.

The top lawyer for VanderSloot’s company has demanded corrections from media outlets writing about VanderSloot’s political activity. When one blogger emailed back, “I do not appreciate thinly veiled threats,” the lawyer responded, “We have been neither thin nor veiled. … Melaleuca is more than capable and willing to protect its reputation from false and defamatory statements as it sees fit.”

Plus, VanderSloot launched a website where he defends himself against what he calls attacks from “extreme, far left blog sites.”