Archive for the ‘2012’ tag
Low-wage, part-time Staples jobs are Romney’s go-to example of job creation ‘success’
Low-wage, part-time Staples jobs are Romney’s go-to example of job creation ‘success’
Mitt Romney’s America…
Mitt Romney often champions the success of retail chain Staples as one of his main qualifications for the presidency. Here are some facts about the nearly 90,000 jobs Romney likes to say he helped create at Staples:
- 41 percent are part-time jobs.
- Hourly wages for sales associates are less than $9 an hour.
- Retail salespeople make about $20,670 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is lower than the federal poverty line for a family of four.
- Staples describes its own workforce this way: “Many of our associates, particularly in retail stores, are in entry-level or part-time positions with historically high rates of turnover.”
- Staples has been listed by the National Employment Law Project as one of the 50 largest low-wage employers in the country.
- In 1987, a year after Staples was founded, there were 13,347 office supply stores across the country. Ten years later that number was cut in half, to just 6,178 office supply stores.
- When Staples was founded in 1986, the market share of small and medium-sized sellers of office supplies was 20 percent. By 1998, it had plunged to just four percent.
- The market share of large superstores, meanwhile, shot up from less than one percent to 20 percent during that same period.
Read more about Romney’s job creation record at Staples — including our interview with Staples founder Tom Stemberg — on our website.
Romney did not win the debate
This past week, the media narrative has been that Mitt Romney won the first debate against Barack Obama. Obama did not perform well, but anyone who has watched his previous performances in debates should know, this is how he is in debates.
Anyone saying that Romney won, seriously needs to re-watch the debate. Romney agreed that he wanted to privatize Medicare with a voucher system. Romney agreed that he would not want any raising of taxes, only a complicated system that will somehow shift the tax burden without raising taxes which he will not explain and sounds insane. Romney said he wanted to fire the moderator, and cut Big Bird Loose.
Obama essentially made no news. When you have the lead, no news is good news.
In this “Debate” Obama went in with a clear strategy: lets take a few pitches, see what this guy has, use the information for my later at-bats. Much like baseball, the Presidential Election is a marathon, and this debate was basically one At-Bat.
Yes, Obama could have destroyed Romney if he wanted to. Yes, Jim Leher was one of the worst moderators that has every moderated a presidential debate, and needs to go back into retirement. Yes, the debate format sucked, and did not cover many parts of domestic policy?
How does this add up to a Romney win? Is it because he lied at almost every opportunity, shaded the truth, flip flopped on many current positions, and did it without looking like a total and complete idiot?
Romney did not win the debate. To quote Reverend Al Sharpton on the post debate coverage, “He gave great testimony, but he committed perjury.” Perjury is a crime that always catches up with public officials, and this one will catch up with Romney.
To Look Skinny…
In the Movie Back To School with Rodney Dangerfield, his character Thornton Mellon owns a series of “Tall and Fat” Stores, and his motto is “If you want to look thin, hang out with fat people”
Barak Obama is having a similar time right now, as he cruises to re-election. No left wing challenges and no competent right wing challenger have left him along for the ride. He is winning just by showing up and not sticking his foot so far in his mouth that he chokes on it.
He will never be called to account for punishing his left wing supporters, eroding civil rights, ignoring labor, the environment, and supporting indefinite detention mostly because Mitt Romney is so incompetent that Obama doesn’t really have to try.
I guess all it takes to look competent is to stand on a stage next to Mitt Romney and say, do you want some of this?
So, there is hope that he will accomplish some good for the country in his second term, but I for one am not holding my breath. Instead we will get free trade, neoliberal policies, moderate war hawk international stances, and a continuation of where we are now.
Part of that blame lays at the feet of the Republicans, but really it is the Democrats fault. They won’t push for good policies, just for their own re-election.
But, standing next to Romney, Obama looks like Einstein, Socrates, and George Clooney all rolled into one.
Romney’s even bad at cheating on his taxes
In the Bizzaro wold that we live in, apparently Mitt Romney cheats on his taxes by not taking every deduction due to him so that his tax rate wasn’t super insulting. So he paid more in taxes than he needed to.
Does Romney cheat at golf by giving himself a higher score?
Seniors Boo Paul Ryan
“I had a feeling there would be mixed reactions,” Ryan told the crowd.
http://news.yahoo.com/vp-candidate-ryan-heckled-booed-retiree-event-194856123.html
Also, from the same article, Democrats might have figured out how to explain the concept of social insurance they claim to be in favor of (yet seem to be eager to cut also):
“Given the conversations that have been out there in the political arena lately, I want to emphasize Medicare and Social Security are not handouts,” Obama said. “You’ve paid into these programs your whole life, you’ve earned them.”
Romney Campaign Rewards Failure
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan like to use a lot of tough talk about cutting “entitlements”, debt crushing the country, and rewarding hard work, so wouldn’t they run their campaign based on these principles?
Apparently, not. According to NPR and NRO, in August the Romney Campaign borrowed $20 Million against their future campaign receipts and is over $11 Million in Debt. This seems to go against Romeny’s own stated “Cut, Cap and Balance” program that would allegedly force the USA to “live within its means” and only spend money that it currently has.
By Contrast the Romney campaign according to spokeswoman Andrea Saul raised $66.1 million in August and spent $61.2 million.
To top it off the campaign paid out bonuses to its staff after obtaining the nomination, to the tune of over $200,000 for the awesome performance of the convention.
So, in summary, super slick, smart business consultant Mitt Romney’s campaign organization spends more than it takes in, borrows against the future, and rewards failure.
This is how Mitt Romney would run the country, except the bonuses would be larger and the failures for the American people would be graver than Clint Eastwood yelling at a chair.