The (potentially) sobering truth about Willard's offshore investments is that they are nothing but exactly what apologists would tell you: part of a very large investment portfolio, internationally diversified, with large blocks of shares and investments in Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Venture Capital, plus a myriad of fixed-income securities like sovereign bonds from a diverse pallette of countries.
This is hard to swallow for some: Romney is massively wealthy. He isn't Rockefeller wealthy. He isn't J.P. Morgan wealthy, nor Buffet or Gates wealthy. But the man has buckets of money. Some say he has about $200 million.
As I say, the sobering truth is that Willard worked at a huge Private Equity partnership for years. Private Equity investment partnerships, as well as Venture Capital and Hedge Funds are at the nexus of flexible, liquid, international investing. The largest Hedge Funds are some of the most agile investors in the world - and the most sophisticated. These are not huge mutual funds (PIMCO Total Return, at over $200 Billion in assets, is a single fund that is larger than the top 10 Hedge Funds combined) who plod around buying up massive chunks of whatever they can get their hands on (and then bail when it gets hot - see Greece. Better yet, do a web search of PIMCO and Greece and start following the money....but that is a diary for another day), these are nimble hunters of deals. (Nota bene: this isn't praise so much as definition: the private fund industry is dwarfed, by many multiples, by the heavy-handed, slow-going, often blind and stupid mutual fund industry. When things go bad, it is the mutual funds that are running for the gates, causing the very crises they seek to avoid...but that really has to be another diary.)
Bain is all three. Bain is huge in the industry because Bain is a player in PE, VC and Hedge Funds. Willard ran the place. Stands to reason that Willard will have invested in much the same way that his company's funds invested. Really, what are you going to do with all that carried interest?!? That means: Willard's money is in all kinds of investment vehicles: Stocks, Govt. Bonds, Senior Debt of companies, maybe even some other levels of debt, PE,VC and Hedge Fund shares ('shares'=he certainly has money in the same kind of private investment partnerships that he ran), and bank accounts all over the world.
Willards taxes are probably a nightmare. If he released them a hoarde of vultures would descend to pick them, and WIllard, to pieces trying to find a 'smoking gun' or some proof that he has sought to pay as little as possible to the IRS. I'm sure it's all true.
But, I am also sure that in the world of Hedge Funds and Private Equity, this is just the way to spread millions and billions of dollars around. It is, as they say, sensible diversified investing.
Romney is an LBO king of the old school. Remember Reagan and greed is good and all that rubbish? Ever see "Wall Street" or "Pretty WOman"? Romney was one of those.
I don't care if he has millions in Swiss Bank accounts or in the Cayman Islands - his company bought companies, broke them up and sold them down. They outsourced, they participated in the systematic deconstruction of US manufacturing - after the structural crisis of the seventies and early eighties was drawing to a close - Bain helped close that chapter.
Bain is symbolic for what has happened to the US economy in the last 30 years - Bain IS what has happened to the US economy in the last 30 years. Middle class wage stagnation, divide and conquer of the working class, the establishment of a permanent priveledged class. Bain and how Bain invested has supported this development. Staples? Staples is (partly) responsible for the death of independent office supply/stationary stores. Staples is (partially) responsible for the deterioration in the quality of the products those disappearing independent stores used to offer. I have Staples brand binder clips in my desk - you open them and squeeze them once and...they stay bent open. Absolute total shitty quality. But that is the store nearest you, and those are the only binder clips you can get. Capitalism? Efficient outcomes? Bullshit. Staples is a poster child for what is wrong with our economy, and our communities. Thank Bain and their ilk for making it happen.
That is the story. Progressives need to learn how to tell it - and stop trying to find out what color Willards underwear is.