Will Romney do Bain in by attacking China in trade and finances if he becomes president? Or will he protect his retirement portfolio ... which has invested in Chinese companies?
Part of Romney’s rap against China is the stealing of U.S. technology. But Microsoft had accused Bain’s Chinese retailer, Gome Electrical Appliances, of pirating its software. And Global-Tech, a Bain Chinese appliance company, was found to have violated a U.S. patent held by a French company.
Around the time Etch A Sketch left for China, Asimco Technologies bought two auto-parts factories in Michigan, closed them and laid off 500 Americans. Bain saw the “strong fundamentals” of Asimco’s operations and acquired the company. Today, Asimco makes the same camshafts on land donated by the Chinese government. China has designated this area as an export metropolis, showering the companies that move there with a variety of government subsidies.
Romney counts himself among the American heroes who built a business, but what his business built above all was an army of crack Washington lobbyists. For example, the profits Romney collects from Bain are taxed at a low 15 percent, rather than the top rate of 35 percent. Even many Wall Streeters regard this as an outrageous loophole, but private equity lobbyists fight to preserve the deal, which Romney has no plan to change.
The head spins over Bain’s offshore holdings in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and so forth, all tasked with exploiting the U.S. tax code — or put in less neutral terms, tax-dodging. Sadly, too many of our paid-for representatives in Washington cast a blind eye toward such tax games. (The direct subsidies come from China.)
Once stripped of their jobs, the laid-off Americans apply for unemployment and other government benefits to survive. Guess that turns them into the “takers” whom Romney holds in contempt.
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