Click here for an article by Greg Palast, an economist and financial investigator turned journalist, at The Nation entitled Mitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza.
Romney and a group of his hedge-fund manager henchmen bought struggling auto-parts manufacturer Delphi during the financial crisis. Realizing that Delphi would have to be bailed out along with GM and Chrysler, this band of merry men paid 67 cents a share for Delphi. They then held the federal government to ransom for a $12.9 billion bailout from U.S. taxpayers, threatening to shut down if they didn't get their demands, a move that would be a death sentence for the car companies. Two years after their bargain-basement acquisition, they took the company public -- at a stock price of $22. (I checked today's price; it's $33.19.) Romney personally made over $15 million on the deal; his partners in crime made about $4 billion.
They did create a lot of jobs, though! When Delphi was purchased, it was an American company with a unionized work force of over 25,000 in 29 American factories. The noble job creators got rid of the union and started creating jobs. Delphi now employs over 100,000 people. Well done, boys!
Just one catch. The article says there are now 4 Delphi factories in the U.S., employing about 5,000 workers. The rest of the factories -- and jobs -- are in China. Delphi is now incorporated in the Isle of Jersey, a tax haven off the coast of France.
Read the article; there's more, including "foggy accounting" used as a justification to slash company commitments to its pension plan.
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