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Mitt Romney and the Most Objectionable Objective Of All

The Obama re-election campaign believes it's found Mitt Romney's fatal flaw:

A memo from deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, titled “Romney’s Economic Record: Profit at Any Cost,” charges that the former Massachusetts governor’s “objective in business was never job creation.” Rather, Ms. Cutter writes, Mr. Romney’s primary goal was to make investors millions of dollars.

I'll agree.  Romney's (and Bain's) objective was indeed never job creation.  Why should it have been?  The objective in business is to maximize shareholder value.  Yes, in so doing, if one's successful, one usually winds up creating a bunch of jobs (as Romney often did).  But even though his pirvate equity stint measures far better than Barack Obama's White House tenure on the yard stick of job creation (and, in fairness, Romney has himself cited this measure as an indication of his Presidency-relevant experience), why on earth should we expect that job creation was his overarching objective?

He was successful in leading an organization that specialized in turning around and/or, when necessary, efficiently liquidating distressed enterprises.  That was his job.  While his record wasn't perfect, it was highly impressive.

Romney's now applying for a different job - one in which job creation (more accurately, setting policies that don't inhibit job creation) is far more central, and a far more appropriate measure of one's success.  Romney's leadership expertise and his real-world business acumen that enables him to understand the dynamics of private enterprise are the practical skills he developed and showcased at Bain.  While his business activities did, on net, create jobs, that's not the takeaway from Bain.  The takeaway is that Romney showed himself to be highly adept at the job with which he was tasked - one that required leadership skills, financial dexterity, wide-ranging business insight, and the ability to solve seemingly intractable problems with measures that would undoubtedly make at least some people unhappy.  That's a solid and uniquely desirable component of a post-Obama Presidential CV.  The fact that this part of Romney's backstory did also happen to throw off more job creation than Obama's entire Presidency is notable mainly for what it says about the incumbent.

A morsel of free investing advice: if you ever have an opportunity to invest in a private equity firm that declares job creation to be among its objectives, keep your wallet velcroed tight.

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Mitt Romney and the Most Objectionable Objective Of All

The Obama re-election campaign believes it's found Mitt Romney's fatal flaw:

A memo from deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, titled “Romney’s Economic Record: Profit at Any Cost,” charges that the former Massachusetts governor’s “objective in business was never job creation.” Rather, Ms. Cutter writes, Mr. Romney’s primary goal was to make investors millions of dollars.

I'll agree.  Romney's (and Bain's) objective was indeed never job creation.  Why should it have been?  The objective in business is to maximize shareholder value.  Yes, in so doing, if one's successful, one usually winds up creating a bunch of jobs (as Romney often did).  But even though his pirvate equity stint measures far better than Barack Obama's White House tenure on the yard stick of job creation (and, in fairness, Romney has himself cited this measure as an indication of his Presidency-relevant experience), why on earth should we expect that job creation was his overarching objective?

He was successful in leading an organization that specialized in turning around and/or, when necessary, efficiently liquidating distressed enterprises.  That was his job.  While his record wasn't perfect, it was highly impressive.

Romney's now applying for a different job - one in which job creation (more accurately, setting policies that don't inhibit job creation) is far more central, and a far more appropriate measure of one's success.  Romney's leadership expertise and his real-world business acumen that enables him to understand the dynamics of private enterprise are the practical skills he developed and showcased at Bain.  While his business activities did, on net, create jobs, that's not the takeaway from Bain.  The takeaway is that Romney showed himself to be highly adept at the job with which he was tasked - one that required leadership skills, financial dexterity, wide-ranging business insight, and the ability to solve seemingly intractable problems with measures that would undoubtedly make at least some people unhappy.  That's a solid and uniquely desirable component of a post-Obama Presidential CV.  The fact that this part of Romney's backstory did also happen to throw off more job creation than Obama's entire Presidency is notable mainly for what it says about the incumbent.

A morsel of free investing advice: if you ever have an opportunity to invest in a private equity firm that declares job creation to be among its objectives, keep your wallet velcroed tight.