Saturday, September 8, 2012

No liability for lying

Mitt Rmoney (R-safe harbor from lies) has spent much of his life approving statements that may or may not be true but which excuse themselves from liability if they turn out to be true. Here's an example from current Bain dealings:

These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements.
Here's another:
This release includes forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as TI or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import.  Similarly, statements in this release that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements.  All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements.[emphasis added]
A third:
Because such forward looking statements contain risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward
looking statements.
There are many, many more, of course. Bain's various companies are involved in a lot of deals.

Since Mitt never worked under Sarbanes-Oxley (that we know of), he didn't actually sign these statements, but his cavalier attitude toward making shit up shows in practically every statement he ever makes, for example, this piece of pettifoggery:
According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began. When The Boston Globe reported on the rescue at the time of his Senate run against Ted Kennedy, campaign aides spun Romney as the wizard behind a "long-shot miracle," bragging that he had "saved bank depositors all over the country $30 million when he saved Bain & Company."
In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds.
Mitt is a gee-whiz liar to the core. He believes his business and his god entitle him to say whatever he needs to say.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

* To obtain passage of his first stimulus bill, Obama assured us that 90% of the jobs created would be in the private sector; but as he well knew, most of them were to be in the public sector.

* Early in the health care debate, Obama assured us that he had not said that he favored a single payer system; but he was on record as having said exactly that.

* Obama gave primary voters a firm assurance that if he became the nominee of the Democratic party he would (unlike Hillary Clinton) abide by the campaign finance limits of public funding; but as soon as he became the party’s nominee, he reneged on that pledge.

* During the presidential campaign Obama criticized the presence of former lobbyists in the Bush administration and solemnly assured us that he would appoint no lobbyists to his administration; but once elected he proceeded to appoint even more lobbyists than his predecessors.

* Obama criticized the size of George Bush’s deficit and promised to stop deficit spending if elected; but he has already quadrupled the size of the deficit he objected to and recklessly continues new federal spending in the trillions.

* When campaigning Obama criticized bills before the congress that were too long for anyone to be able to read and promised to stop that; but the bills he has been backing throughout his first year are infinitely longer (2000+ pages) than the ones he criticized.

* Candidate Obama promised an end to the corruption of earmarks and pork, but in the bills he has supported this year there have been more and bigger earmarks than ever before.

* Candidate Obama promised us that CIA personnel involved in the interrogation of terrorists would not be prosecuted; but his administration is now doing exactly that.

* Obama assured a joint session of Congress that the health bill he supported (pre-Stupak) would not provide public funding for abortions; but bitter resistance on the part of House Democrats to inclusion of language to that effect soon proved that it did.

* Candidate Obama promised that he would make sure that there was always enough time for the public to read legislation before it was enacted; but he has done exactly the opposite, repeatedly pressing for even faster passage of even longer bills.

* Candidate Obama met fears that he would be a tax and spend liberal by promising, emphatically and repeatedly, that those earning under $200,000 would see no increase in their taxes of any kind; but he now urges passage of a healthcare bill that breaks that pledge in many different ways, and his unrestrained increase in federal spending makes more tax increases inevitable.

* Candidate Obama promised bipartisanship and an end to partisan bickering; but in a display of especially ruthless partisanship his allies have shut Republicans out of all key meetings on his health care initiative, with the unprecedented result that domestic legislation of historic importance garnered not a single Republican vote in the Senate.

* Candidate Obama criticized his opponent’s plan to tax employer paid healthcare benefits, and promised he would not tax them; but the bill he now backs will do just that.

Anonymous said...

Yup..I didn't think you would allow that one Leon.

lovable liberal said...

Prove it, Benito.

Couple of comments off the top of my head, though.

A major problem of unemployment is the significant decrease of public sector jobs. We needed more and longer lasting public sector stimulus.

On single-payer, Obama was probably referring to his Presidential campaign, not his whole life.

He did back out of public financing. Pretty obviously he had to.

Instead of banning the revolving door, he put lots of additional transparency in place. Still not a positive.

Quadrupled the size of the deficit? This is a lie, you're a liar, and I suspect you know it. Obama's budgets have all had lower deficits than Duhbya's last, massive deficit. Even Obama's deficits are mainly due to Bushist policies, and Obama's deficit reduction plan is far faster than any Republican's plan.

Too long to read is something everyone criticizes but no one does anything about. Wingnuts claim Obamacare was unreadable, but nearly all of it had been debated for 18 months, so only the amendments had to be readable, which they were.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with earmarks, though some of them are really bad. Congress has the power of the purse, and it should.

No one in the CIA has gone to jail for torture, and they should. First, though, John Yoo, Duhbya, and Darth.

There still is not public funding of abortion in Obamacare.

Reading, see above...

Nonsense, those of us not in the 2% have seen our taxes go down under Obama. If you can't tell, that means you can't add or subtract.

It was naive on Obama's part to imagine he could be post-partisan in government with the vicious partisans of the GOP. He learned, albeit slowly. The Republicans wouldn't even consider a vote for a Republican idea - because they wanted Obama and country to fail. They remain simply the opposition, having openly dropped the "loyal" part.

Obamacare taxes gold-plated healthcare plans, not ordinary ones, and it doesn't consider health insurance benefits to be taxable income for us.

So, basically, you're mostly full of shit with an occasional true statement to leaven the cow patty pie.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah Nikita, we need more public sector jobs...that's for sure. Isn't the SEIU bankrupting this nation at a fast enough pace for you already?? Dumbass.

lovable liberal said...

A recession is the worst possible time to cut teachers, firefighters, and police. Duh.

You and the fascists you're a sycophant for would rather be king of a small burning pile of rubble than one of many prosperous people in a modern economy.