Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Romney knows how to build assets

The current attempt to frame Mitt Romney as a greedy job-destroyer at Bain Capital is nothing less than unvarnished ignorance.

Firms like Bain are designed to zero in on selecting companies that are perceived to be capable of increased profitability and value by adjusting and restructuring their businesses to improve their operations. Compare it to finding a “fixer upper” on the real estate market and increasing its value for a future sale and profit.

Any way one examines it, the ultimate objective is to use one’s ingenuity, money and hard work to increase the value of an asset that has been invested in for future gain by the investors.

The resulting increase in wealth, if any — since there is always the risk of losing on such investments — is shared by everyone in the form of wages or profits depending on the nature of one’s investment in the enterprise.

To the extent a newly acquired business requires downsizing, or reconfiguring, there may be initially, or even permanently, a net reduction in employed labor. For example, there may be a substitution of technology for labor, thereby cutting back on the need for employees. While this may result in dislocations for some of the employees, it produces a long-run increase in productivity — the amount produced during any given period by each remaining employee on the staff — and an improvement in the competitive posture of the enterprise. Mitt Romney applied his talents to honing the asset strength of such enterprises, and in so doing, participated in wealth building for society.

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