The Associated Press had an interesting item the other day, noting just how wealthy Mitt Romney really is. Consider this tidbit: "Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you're in Romney territory."
For most working families, this is a level of wealth that's hard to relate to. Romney took in more wealth in a day in 2010 -- without actually having a job -- than most Americans earn in a year. Romney would be in the top 1% based solely on the income he receives in one week.
The next question, of course, is whether this realization has any electoral implications. Marc Fisher considered the question in a good piece today.
As Romney has discovered, some wealthy politicians win acceptance from people who are just scraping by, while others get tagged as hopelessly out of touch.
The most important tool wealthy politicians have relied on to win over the public is pure force of personality -- and that often includes a gift for self-deprecating humor.
Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt both came from big money, yet the presidents' larger-than-life affability and celebrity won them admiration across class lines. Kennedy came to elective politics with a dramatic backstory as a war hero that canceled out most suspicions that he might be a rich dandy.
Romney, however, despite several attempts to reshape his message, remains awkward in his discussions about money.
"Awkward" is an exceedingly polite way of putting it.
Romney recently said making over $374,000 in speaking fees is "not very much" money. It followed Romney suggesting elected office is only for the rich, clumsily talking about his fondness for being able to fire people, demanding that talk of economic justice be limited to "quiet rooms," accusing those who care about income inequality of "envy," daring Rick Perry to accept a $10,000 bet, joking about being "unemployed," arguing that those who slip into poverty are still middle class, and suggesting that Americans should somehow feel sorry for poor banks.
As Jon Chait put it recently, the Republican frontrunner "has come to be defined, through a recurring series of off-the-cuff gaffes, as a callous, out-of-touch rich man."
The problem isn't that Romney is extremely wealthy. It's hard to imagine a significant number of voters saying, "I'm uncomfortable voting for a rich guy."
The problem is how Romney acquired his vast wealth (a vulture-capitalist firm), his frequent gaffes on the subject, and his policy agenda (which includes more tax breaks for the wealthy).
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Yanno, I think Kennedy could have pulled off the "unemployed" bit or even the "pink slip" bit and gotten away with it because he didn't talk "down" to people and he might have added that the people would be the ones deciding both. He probably wouldn't have just let it hang there, either, but then, MSM was VERY different then, too. And yeah, I remember. I'm an ancient windblower.
Kennedy served as a PT boat Captain in WWII and was a "real" person unlike Romney. Kennedy stood miles above Romney as a man. Can anyone picture the Republicans attempting to "Swiftboat" Kennedy for his actions in WWII. Who would you want in your foxhole? President Obama or Romney! or Gingrich! or Santorum! or Paul! or Any Republican! President Obama may not be a veteran but he has proved himself by his actions in difficult times unlike his slick critics.
Republicans are such slimy people that they resort to idiotic rants regarding our President Obama. Such as the claim that he is a Kenyan. Any "real" patriot Republican would stomp those claims down the accusers throat. Where are they? In the outhouse hiding.
Jack Kennedy's wealth - or how his father got rich by running booze during Prohibition supplied by Sam Bronfman in Canada - was never an issue because JFK never came across as a snooty rich guy.
Romney, on the other hand, reminds me of a character in a one panel newspaper comic when I was a kid named 'Senator Fogghorn' who always said something that made everyone in the room squirm. Moreover, as we saw last week, Romney seems to go out of his way to alienate folks such as when he answered a question about the banks asked as he moved along a rope line by shouting, "Cuba! North Korea!" at the fellow who asked the question.
It's hard to make friends when you're dismissive towards everyone you meet.
"..., the Republican frontrunner "has come to be defined, through a recurring series of off-the-cuff gaffes, as a callous, out-of-touch rich man."
There was once upon a time where "being wealthy" especially in America, came with a sense of "noblesse oblige - which interpreted meant that because they were fortunate enough to be wealthy there was a commitment to "giving back" to society!! Mittens unfortunately (along with the rest of them) have either never learned that side of n.o., or he chooses to abandon it; either way, he is arrogant, and his attempts at self deprecating his riches is further proof of exactly how far he is from the masses!!
As a "vulture capitalist" he had to be "ice cold" to go into an organization over-leverage it and then walk away as though it were nothing; now imagine this same mentality done on our economics - oh never mind George W. already did that and WE're (99%) still reeling from it!!
Great blog and good article, but this is really only part of Romney's problem, of course. While his wealth and apparent attitude toward those of less wealth put off many people on the left and in the middle (and why not more on the right I'll never know), his shifting positions on social issues put off many on the right. My brother in law, a staunch Republican who votes solely on social issues, says he will not vote for Romney in either his state's primary or the general election.
So while we hope for Newt to succeed as the anti-Romney, it seems we have a pretty good chance to beat Romney anyway. With more and more of Romney's personality and character being revealed, I am much less worried about him than I was 6 months ago. It seems as though he would have to pick a more socially conservative running mate from the South to have any chance of winning, which will look a lot like Stan & Ollie in terms of polar diametrics. He sure doesn't seem to get along with any of them.
No wonder he thinks he has the right to be king!
Mr 1%
Rarely can a person be described with such a simple term.
Mr Romney can be describered culturally, genetically, financialy, career, lifestyle and politicaly by using the one simple term. Any question you ask about hm returns to 1%. Religion is the only failure in this definition.
Mr 1%
Actually, Romney is much closer to Mr. .001%.
Does anyone remember George Bush (the elder) for marveling at that checkout scanner thingie? Romney wouldn't even know what a grocery store is.
MsJoanne
So he even represents the 1% for the 1% right?
Mr 1%
Why not compare Romney's wealth to those of some state governors, too? Or just rank the governors by reported wealth as being in the 99 percent or the 1 percent? That would also give us some perspective on Romney's "peers."
From around the net:
Teddy got a pass because he came across as genuine.
Calvin Trillin, woefully accurately, described Al Gore as a "man-like object." Florida aside, that, along with "earth tones" and other image make-over attempts, was arguably why he lost. There was never a human connection. Romney has the same problem, and it's just about impossible to fix. And that is why Romney, ultimately, will probably lose.
Instead of talking about envy, or European socialism or heaven knows what else, his theme was "You know, I've been very lucky, and I want every American to have the chance to be as lucky as I was," he might have a chance. But he's too tone-deaf to do it.
Ted Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and FDR spent their political lives advocating and legislating in favor of what we now call "the 99%". Not for nothing was Ted the bete noir of conservative fund raising, used to scare people into sending money to the GOBP. ome version of national health care was Ted's lifetime struggle,
Mr. Romney was an investor, not a businessman or operator of a company. He did not deal with product or service markets, just financial markets. He did not produce & market a product or stable of products, or meet a payroll out of compnay sales. He was a financier, not even a banker in the normal sense.
If you put Romney's financial actions in terms more applicable to the 80's and 90's he would have been called a "Corporate Raider". These financial "wizards" bought companies took them apart, sold what they could at a profit and then left the rest to flail along in business as best they could. Some may have made it but there were many that didn't.
Call them venture capitallists, "vulture" capitalist or Corporate Raiders they didn't buy businesses to create jobs but only to gain financial profit for themselves or in some cases for investors. Is this what we want for our country; a Corporate Raider? It seems to me that all Romney wants to do is to raid the United States for financial gain.
It is the corporate raiders that have hollowed out the middle class in this country.
All in the name of greed for a few to the detriment of the many.
I thought you guys hated corporations. Now you hate the people that raid them? Make up your minds.
Mar
Sorry you are on the wrong side of the argument. Hate and Greed are incorporated into the basic functions of the GOP.
I simply see no need to give special tax breaks for people who produce nothing. Why should we favor people who are good a taking money from others, instead of people who create things or of value to society?
What special tax breaks. You mean the top 10% that pay 68% of all taxes in the country. Those greedy people. Why don't they pay their fair share?
Mark,
First the rich hire the politicians to right the rules that let them loot our economy. Once the have taken all the profit out of the economy they complain that they are paying to much of their ill gotten gains..
LOL That's Rich
If Americans had a problem voting for a "rich man," we would not have had a President for quite a number of years!
No, the problem is with a man who is so rich that he self-insures and has no idea that those Americans who are lucky to have medical insurance get that insurance, most likely, through their employment. Which means that the employer chooses your insurance carrier for you and you do not have the ability to "fire" the provider of that service. Nor can they walk into just any physician's office of their choice; nor hospital; nor can you decide that you need an MRI and just go get one, etc.
So even those Americans who may not know what stockpiling money offshore actually does for a rich man, they sure DO know that they can't "fire" service providers like doctors, dentists, etc. Millions of Americans cannot even "fire" their employer no matter how bad a job it may be because of that little thing called medical insurance that their kids need. I know women who work at low paying crap jobs just to get the medical insurance that their husbands do not get with their construction jobs - that would be non-union jobs, of course!
The American People know a whole lot about what Mr. Romney does not know.
Indeed. Great comment.
I'll go further. I don't even have insurance. After my job went away I set up my own business and have a OK amount of work. As an adult, the pre-existing condition clause won't kick in for me until 2014 (they pre-existing'd me due to a two year old abnormal PAP)...which does nothing for me in 2012 or 2013 unless I find a job with a company who offers insurance benefits. And even then, I believe, that I have a year with a pre-existing clause no matter as I don't have insurance continuity (I had to give up the 6-month catastrophic insurance I was paying more than $300.00 per month for. Every six months I would have had to renew that catastrophic insurance and anything that had happened to me in the prior six month period would have been considered pre-existing for the new six month policy period. Basically, if something becomes wrong with me, it's better I don't know about it, as there is nothing I would be able to do [I wouldn't be able to afford anything after that six month period anyway] and then it would go into my "record" as being sick ensuring I couldn't get any kind of insurance at all.) So...why bother paying that kind of money for pretty much nothing.
I am surviving financially in my own business (stress surviving there) but not if I had to cough up another $600 per month for state offered insurance - and that is $600 in premiums, before actually using any of that insurance. I simply cannot afford it.
As Alan Grayson said, if I get sick, it's best if I just die quickly.
We can debate the success of Reagan's presidency, but NOT his communication skills. Hitting his marks and knowing his lines in all those B movies stood him in good stead when it came to playing the biggest role of his career.
Romney can't even memorize talking points in a debate without stammering and mentally searching for zingers his staff has written for him.
In the 21st Century Teevee isn't everything- it is the ONLY thing.
I've heard it said the avg American would have to live 3 centuries to make what Romney made in a single year.
It's one thing to try to make a business more efficient. It's another to suck it dry and spit out the "dregs" (i.e. employees). Someone who does that over and over and over can't possibly have much empathy for the common man. His pitiful attempts to joke about it reveal he doesn't understand the "real" world the rest of us live in. How could he possibly be a good leader?
The way class stratification is right now, this lack of reluctance is part of the problem.
If Romney died and his wealth were split equally among every person in the country, how much we all would get?
I know of lot of folks aren't interested in business. I am, but I am also a fierce progressive. I have been described in the past as a corporate executive- I did a lot of work in high technology in the late eighties and nineties, and I tell you folks are missing an important distinction about the kind of businessman Romney is. We had a charming name for these kind of guys- we called them the weasels. This is not a left right distinction. It is a moral position that Romney is outside of, but one that does not correlate with political ideology or inclination.. Because of this fact it is important for the Obama campaign to own the distinction, because it could be persuasive to independents and moderate republicans.
It is not simply Romney's attitude about Wealth that is the differentiator. What the Dems need to point out about Romney is a perversion that some in the 1% feel, and others do not. Here's a simple way of getting at the core of it. What do you think motivated Edison, Buffet, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Do you think they were thinking, oh boy I am going to do this because it will make me really really rich?
No.
Bill Moyers had the former head of Citigroup on last night and he was talking about this weird perversion that started happening in the 90s (John Reed interview). People stopped thinking that their purpose was to do a good job for their banking customers, but their purpose was to make themselves and the shareholders wealthy. That's the difference between the Romney wealthy and the Steve Jobs wealthy. I'm not saying that Jobs did not pay attention to the money side- you must if you want to stay in business long. I am saying what he thought he was doing- what motivated him and his coworkers was to deliver insanely cool products to the public. The money was just kind of a biproduct.
That's how I felt about my work in high technology. When I joined virtually no one except geeks knew the company name and basically I felt like I would pay them to work there. The technology and the atmosphere was so cool. But after the internet boom and the endless stock splits many years later I started getting really worried by engineers applicants who who were very very bright and came with amazing CVs but I and most of my mates refused to hire because their primary motivation was to get extremely wealthy. We knew if we got a lot of guys like that in our organization that it would be a slow death.
Listening to Wall street execs talking about the meltdown, it also seems central to what went wrong in Wall Street. Really you should listen to what John Reed has to say in that interview I linked to. What all the wall street firms were doing- what everyone knew they were doing was selling things that had little or no value to their customers. But the culture was changed from the idea that their purpose as an organization was to serve customers to their purpose was to make money for their shareholders. This culture was on full display in the movie Margin Call.
And that is what you will see in Romney's view of economics. In the New York Magazine article "The Romney Economy", @benjwallace writes about how the folks I call weasels showed up at Main Street companies and started jettisoning John Reed's quaint Fezziwig type attitudes about customers. Businesses in the 80s had management that were, from the perspective of the weasels, guilty of what their Havard MBA educations gave a them a fancy term for: the principal-agent problem- The way Romney and his fellow weasels viewed it, managers (agents) were detached from the goals (wealth) of their shareholders (principals). These were resistant to laying off their workers or shuttering plants. The predominant view among the weasels was that America had become timid and complacent. Businesses were conservative about taking on debt. Such companies were low hanging fruit for private equity firms. Bain's job was to generate shareholder value- not value for the customers of the firms they "fixed". If Bain Capital bought one of these quaint companies- shut down inefficient plants, loaded up the business with as much debt as they could sustain, then return to themselves the extracted capital, they had done their job because there view of their job was to make Bain Capital shareholders rich. Whether or not the companies were in optimal competitive shape when they left them was of secondary importance. Whether the company was better at making great products, serving its customers or its loyal employees were even lower priorities on their list.
So Obama needs to put a finer point on democratic values in business. It is not simply that we do not begrudge wealth. We celebrate those who develop great products- they are the champions that any of us can become because that is what America is about. We are all about making insanely great products for the world. If we are motivated primarily to make the greatest amount of money that we can, then it is the road to ruin as Reed plainly showed was at play leading up to the 2008 meltdown. The argument against Romney is not built on the case of whether Bain Capital was in fact a corporate raider. @gary_weiss's Salon article and Josh Kosman's book on private equity firms make the case that Bain Capital was a parasitic raider. Whether they were guilty of the excesses many equity firms commit is does not get at the fundamental moral decay that the weasel mentality represents.
The trouble is that Romney's values are all wrong for delivering what is has always been great about America- That we care about the quality of what we do. We are not in it primarily for the money. Romney is, and he doesn't see anything wrong with that.
John Reed:
As far as weasels are concerned, such scruples are evidence of an agency problem. The manager's concern for whether the product is low or high quality does not represent the shareholder's interest, which is to generate maximum profits. Because the manager cannot prove any causal link between maximum shareholder value and making their products insanely great, CEOs that insisted on product quality over shareholder value were routinely ejected from companies. This was the rationale in fact for John Sculley and the Apple Board's ejection of Steve Jobs from Apple in 1985. After a series of product misteps, Apple was driven to crippling financial losses and Jobs was brought back in. He restored the company because he cared about its products more than anything.
What you are describing is the byproduct of the disconnection of price from COGS and sales of goods and services are priced at "what the market will bear." Quality and service as well as research and development become irrelevant when the sole purpose of management is the profits on a quarterly basis. Many companies do not have a real long term plan that goes out more than 3 to 5 years. The management is looking for a short term tenure with the expectation of getting out when the large bonuses and stock options are paid. They understand that their jobs are always on the line for each quarter. Management looks to meeting Wall Street's expectations because investors and the market does not like to see a company forbear dividends, particularly the institutional investors. The company board of directors is subject to the same pressures.
It resembles the near term long term problem, but this misses the essence. Weasels have no problem talking about time horizons out beyond 5 years so long as the value they are asserting is quantifiable. If it is quantifiable, then the weasel succeeds because stock price rises since the long term value of the company is recognized. For example, say you have an energy company whose manager of research is detecting oil fields. Even though there is no short term profit incentive, a manager motivated by shareholder value would be incented to distort the reports to exaggerate the size of the newly discovered fields. The company reports in its prospectus the increase in proven reserves and the stock price goes up. All others of the manager's peers capable of detecting the distortion have incentive to collude in the deception.
So really, long term short term is an incidental characteristic. The quality oriented manager would produce the most accurate report he could.
Quality oriented managers in research for such a company would also understand that since their goal is providing their customers the best possible energy supplies to the transportation industry, it would be their duty to move the company as quickly as possible out of fossil fuels. However, the most lucrative fuels are those subject to erratic price spikes. This is where energy companies make the lions share of their profits.
I am not saying this reorientation of corporate values is a panacea of course, and Steve Jobs was no saint even though his company was completely oriented towards making insanely great products for their customers. Even with this corporate ethos, such companies can still be horrifyingly brutal to their workers as is the case of Apple iPad/iPhone construction in Chinese factories. It is true, managers in some companies might regard their product not insanely great if to make it affordable the product was morally tainted due to being built by workers suffering under brutal sweatshop conditions. The trouble for such managers making the case to their superiors is that the quality they are asserting does not translate into value the customers perceive/ are willing to pay for. The company may be morally superior but would die in the marketplace. At the end of the day, Steve Jobs didn't believe it was his job to achieve social justice or change the values of his customers so they would appreciate more what he was selling.
There is a mechanism for factoring in social values into the cost of products. So long as all competitors face the same costs, then the additional requirements are simply passed along to the customer. In the current conditions, the suffering of the chinese worker is invisible to the consumer at WalMart and the Apple store. With an active regimen of inspections in offshore companies constructing products for the US/EU marketplace, western governments can assure that such companies conform to a "social floor" of norms that must be achieved for workers. Nonconformance is penalized with higher tariffs.
Both changes are essential for our national economic recovery plans.
Romney is the perfect foil for the Occupy movement. He is moving through social and political circles that pretend Occupy is a small bunch of disgruntled hippies. That will be Romney's (and Republicans) biggest underestimation of public opinion. The "fairness" issue is more visceral than the jobs issue and that makes it a potent political force. "Corporations are people" will haunt Romney throughout this election campaign.
People who discount the Occupy/OWS because "they don't have a coherent message, a clear political goal, blah blah" do so at their peril. "99%" has become burned into people's brains, and the concept isn't going away. The movement has changed the discourse in an amazingly short period of time. Word mention counts in news stories (yes, there are people who do those things) of "debt" have plummeted over the last few months, while "jobs" and "inequality" have rapidly climbed. Just like the proverbial aircraft carrier, I feel the political tide of the last thirty years slowly starting to turn.
Good to see Steve is picking up where he left off on Romney. Sure hope he plans to continue the weekly update of the lies Romney told during the week.
You have to give credit to Newt for one thing, he knows a liar when he sees one ----> Romney.
I think the most important consideration is not how wealthy Romney is, or even how he made his money, but the fact that his business experience does not provide any experience in matters which would make Romney a candidate to choose based upon promoting economic recovery. His skill set is just not what we need in a president.
W has an MBA.
I love these guys - I think Herman Cain is the most recent example - who say "We need to run the government like a business!" But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean government should make a profit? Well, that's called a surplus. We know what happened the last time the G ran a surplus, right before W took office. W said "The G's been overcharging you, and I'm going to give you back your money." What he overlooked is the simple concept that almost every economist (No, not the ones Ron Paul quotes) agrees on: surpluses during prosperity, AKA saving for a rainy day; deficits during downturns, that rainy day is here.
Or does it mean think of yourself as CEO? Almost unlimited power until the Board kicks you out? Mayor Bloomberg of NY has been quoted as saying what a huge adjustment it was for him, a billionaire entrepreneur, to become Mayor and not just be able to say "Do this, do that."
"Run a government like a business?" "My business experience will help turn the economy around?" I don't think so.
So, what happened to the left's storyline? Isn't this proof that the left is full of it? I mean if "the rich" are only Republicans, shouldn't the top ten be filled with Republicans, or at least mostly Republicans?
Roll Call's Top Ten Richest Congressmen
1. Rep. Michael McCaul (R, Texas) – $294.21 Million 2. Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA) – $220.40 Million 3. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass) – $193.07 Million 4. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, W. Vir.) – $81.63 Million 5. Sen. Mark Warner (D, Vir.) – $76.30 Million 6. Rep. Jared Polis (D, Colo) – $65.91 Million 7. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, New Jersey) – $55.07 Million 8. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D, Conn.) – $52.93 Million 9. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif) – $45.39 Million 10. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R, Florida) – $44.39 Million
Actually, even the top spot is a bit deceptive. Most of the money that Republican McCaul has is apparently his wife's. McCaul is married to Linda (Mays) McCaul, the daughter of Clear Channel Communications CEO and founder Lowry Mays. It seems that much of McCaul's wealth comes from the Mays side of the family.
So, what the heck are all these Liberal Democrats doing with all this money, anyway? I thought they were all about "helping the poor"? Shouldn't they be… I don't know… giving all this money away?
http://rightwingnews.com/democrats/top-ten-richest-members-of-congress-only-3-are-republicans/
Nice try. The question isn't one of whether the rich are dems or repubs. What matters most is the policy positions they hold and their ability to relate to and understand all class levels. Add their voting records to this list, and let's it how that stacks up.
Every time Mitt claims he didn't" inherit" he sounds to me he's being too clever by half. I wonder just how was his father's wealth was passed on? I sure there was prudent estate planing by his father George Romney that placed his fortune in Trusts and other financial instruments, that allowed it to be passed on tax-free.So when Mitt says he didn't "inherit" his money is that just a clever way of saying the money passed down to him wasn't subject to an Inheritance tax?
Every time Mitt claims he didn't" inherit" he sounds to me he's being too clever by half. I wonder just how was his father's wealth was passed on? I sure there was prudent estate planing by his father George Romney that placed his fortune in Trusts and other financial instruments, that allowed it to be passed on tax-free.So when Mitt says he didn't "inherit" his money is that just a clever way of saying the money passed down to him wasn't subject to an Inheritance tax?
Also known as the death tax which only taxes the rich who usually beat it anyway
History shows that national recesions start when Republicans hold the Presidency:
MONTH RECESSION STARTED
PRESIDENT IN OFFICE
POLITICAL PARTY
August 1929
Herbert Hoover
Republican
July 1953
Dwight D Eisenhower
Republican
August 1957
Dwight D Eisenhower
Republican
December 1969
Richard Nixon
Republican
November 1973
Richard Nixon
Republican
July 1981
Ronald Reagan
Republican
July 1990
George H W Bush
Republican
March 2001
George W Bush
Republican
December 2007
George W Bush
Republican
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_
recessions_in_the_United_States