The (Job) Creationism Myth 0
In the Guardian, Aditya Chakrabortty examines the myth of the WEALTH-CREATOR™ (his spelling, not mine), who, he points out, is a wealth extractor–a taker, not a maker. Read it.
Yet the elite’s main ability is in making money for themselves. Just look at Mitt Romney, whose claim to the presidency is that he is part of this blessed group of wealth creators.
Before moving into politics, Romney’s game was private equity: buying up companies, loading them up with debt and stripping out their workers and costs, then selling them. It may have been rough and it may been bloody, but the Republican knows how to run a business and therefore how to steer an economy. Except that a study by the Wall Street Journal found that of 77 firms Romney’s private equity firm Bain Capital invested in between 1984 and 1999 when he ran the company, 22% ended up filing for bankruptcy protection or shut up shop (although some ran into trouble after Bain was no longer involved and others recovered following reorganisation). Another 8% came to so much grief that Bain lost all its money. The bulk of its returns came from a handful of lucky bets.
