UK: How Bain Capital will shape the presidential race

PJ:  Making money is an important part of any business.  Business expansion and secure employment is only possible for profitable companies.  But when 'profit' is the only goal,  individuals, communities and entire countries can face serious and severe economic consequences.  In 2010, former ebay CEO Meg Whitman ran for the Governor's office in the State of California.  She ran on a platform of business accumen which she said would translate into great economic security in that state.  She touted her ability to  'create' jobs.  Today, Ms. Whitman, now CEO of Hewlett Packard has announced a major move to improve the profitability of the company.  Her plan?  To layoff about 27,000 workers:  http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE84M1DX20120524  

The Economist

Politics and private equity

Bringing the Bain

May 22nd 2012, 20:48 by W.W. | IOWA CITY

ON "MEET THE PRESS" this past Sunday, Cory Booker, the superhero mayor of Newark, compared Barack Obama's ads criticising the behaviour of Bain Capital under Mitt Romney to a Republican plan for new ads attacking Mr Obama for his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright. “This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides”, Mr Booker said. “It’s nauseating to the American public."
Later in the day, back at his Newark office, a chastened Mr Booker sang a hymn to Mr Obama's leadership, kinda-sorta backtracked by saying he suspects that Mr Romney has not been entirely forthcoming about his business record, all while re-emphasising his "frustration" with negative campaigning. This guy has a future in politics. Naturally, the Romney campaign has already made a spot starring Mr Booker and his nausea.
Yesterday in Chicago, Mr Obama tried to turn this teacup tempest to his advantage by hitting Mr Romney again. It will be useful to read Mr Obama's remarks closely, as this line of attack promises to be a leading theme of his campaign:

My view of private equity is that it is, it is set up to maximize profits and that is a healthy part of the free market, of course. That’s part of the role of a lot of business people. That is not unique to private equity. My representatives have said repeatedly and I will say today, I think there are folks who do good work in that area and there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries. But understand their priority is to maximize profits, and that is not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers.

Mr Obama seems to be saying that there is nothing wrong with making a priority of profit-seeking, except that this sometimes hurts "communities or businesses or workers".

And the reason this is relevant to the campaign is that because my opponent, Governor Romney, the main calling card for why he should be president is his business experience. He is not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts, he is saying, “I am a business guy and I know how to fix it,” and this is his business.

And when you are president as opposed to the head of a private-equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how are we paying for their retraining. Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters, so that they can attract new businesses. Your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody is paying their fair share, that allows us then to invest in science and technology and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow.

And so if your main argument for how to grow the economy is, “I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,” then you are missing what this job is about.

 For the rest of this article:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/05/politics-and-private-equity