Sunday, May 27, 2012

Obama vs. Romney: A Basic Error with the Private Equity Debate Point

Obama stated in a recent speech that having a background in private equity [Romney] is basically a disqualifier to be president:

“The main goal of a financial firm like Governor Romney's is not to create jobs. And, by the way, the people who work at these firms will tell you that's not their goal. Their main goal is to create wealth for themselves and their investors. When maximizing short-term gains for your investors rather than building companies that last is your goal, then sometimes it goes the other way. Workers get laid off, benefits disappear, pensions are cut, factories go dark. Now, that may be the job of somebody who's engaged in corporate buyouts. That's fine. But that's not the job of a president.” - Des Moines, Iowa, state fair grounds speech, 05/24/2012

Hmmm.

Upon further review, Obama's minions are simultaneously putting forth a message, and not being corrected by the White House and hence implicitly advocated by the White House,  stating Obama is the real private equity guy with the most common examples pointed to as GM and Chrysler. (1)

That is, that Obama‘s restructuring of GM and Chrysler [abrogating bondholder rights], layoffs and termination of auto worker positions, plant closures, and dealership contract terminations, etc. and the semi-recovery of GM and Chrysler make Mr. Obama the king of private equity based on the sheer size of the GM and Chrysler bail out.


Upon closer examination of the Mr. Obama's debate point and his associated intelligentsia argument:

(1) government bailouts and private equity procedures are mutually exclusive, yet both are equated in the minions message. That is, a notional proposition is put forth as fact with no empirical evidence,


(2) Romney, with a private equity background, with his background held forth as an automatic disqualifier of Romney for the job as president (being Obama‘s implicit and explicit message and definition of disqualifiers),


(3) carrying forward Obama’s very own definition and applying it to those associated with private equity and simultaneously seeking the position of president,


(3a) synthesizing Obama's debate point with the minions argument,


(4) Mr. Obama is defined as the private equity king and hence disqualified by his own background- disqualifier-definition. Ops!


Ah, the evil of it all!


Notes:

(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-private-equity-king/2012/05/23/gJQAFolLkU_story.html

2 comments:

  1. Who is this "minion," anyway? Your flaw is in claiming that this article to which you link has the "implicit" endorsement of someone other than the author. That's just as nonsensical as the King of PE argument that you then proceed to dismember.

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    Replies
    1. “Who is this "minion," anyway? Your flaw is in claiming that this article to which you link has the "implicit" endorsement of someone other than the author. That's just as nonsensical as the King of PE argument that you then proceed to dismember.”

      - Anonymous



      The minion is Matt Miller. Miller and other progressives are making the same argument. The King of Private Equity is Miller’s main argument. Obama’s argument is that a private equity background should be a disqualifier.

      Try rereading Obama’s quote, the blog post and Miller’s column. No flaw exists and no nonsense exists as Miller and his ilk make the argument and Obama made the statement. Synthesizing Obama’s debate point and Miller and his ilk’s argument become the basis for the dismantling of the debate point which is associated with the argument.

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