Caveman: "Mitt will be the "harvestee" on November 6th ....."

New Romney Video: In 1985 he said, "Bain would harvest companies for profits"

By David Corn
Thursday, September 27, 2012

Campaigning for the presidency, Mitt Romney has pointed to his stint as the founder and manager of Bain Capital, a private equity firm, as proof he can rev up the US economy and create jobs at a faster clip than President Barack Obama. Last year, while stumping in Florida, Romney declared, "You'd have a president who has spent his life in business—small business, big business—and who knows something about how jobs are created and how we compete around the world."

His campaign spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, has said that Romney's Bain days afford him more expertise than Obama to "focus on job creation and turn around our nation's faltering economy." Romney has even claimed that during his tenure at Bain, "we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs." In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, Romney smacked Obama for having "almost no experience working in a business" and tied that to the sluggish recovery.

More MoJo coverage of Mitt Romney

• The Mystery of Romney's Exit From Bain
• WATCH: Full Secret Video of Private Romney Fundraiser
• Part One: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters
• Part Two: On Israel, Romney Trashes Two-State Solution
• Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video
• Romney "47 Percent" Fundraiser Host: Hedge Fund Manager Who Likes Sex Parties

But at Bain, Romney's top priority wasn't to boost employment. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, creating jobs "wasn't the aim of Bain or other private-equity firms, which measure success by returns produced for investors." And, the newspaper reported, Romney's 100,000-jobs claim is tough to evaluate.

Mother Jones has obtained a video from 1985 in which Romney, describing Bain's formation, showed how he viewed the firm's mission. He explained that its goal was to identify potential and hidden value in companies, buy significant stakes in these businesses, and then "harvest them at a significant profit" within five to eight years.

The video was included in a CD-ROM created in 1998 to mark the 25th anniversary of Bain & Company, the consulting firm that gave birth to Bain Capital. Here is the full clip, as it appeared on that CD-ROM (the editing occurred within the original).

 

This clip shows the young CEO focusing on businesses as targets for his investors not as job creators or community stakeholders.