How is what Bain Capital does free market capitalism? Aren't companies supposed to succeed or fail on their own? Private equity firms i.e. leveraged buyouts are interlopers first and foremost with their own and their investors interests well in front of the company and its employees. Management fees are taken up front so that the buyout artists assume the smallest risk. Of the top ten companies Bain interfered with, 4 went into bankruptcy. How does that compare with the average bankruptcy rate for companies that Bain did not sully with its greedy mitts?

Didn't we actually hear the two words "Creative Destruction" in the last debate? Wow. Joseph Schumpeter and the Austrian economists of the 1940s ride again! We'll all get course credits for Economics class. Plenty to chew on for the politicos in 2012: (1) Mitt lecturing us on why shuttering struggling businesses is beneficial in the long run. Versus (2) Michelle Bachman pointing out that Schumpeter derived his thought from Karl Marx! I just hope Rick Perry can keep up with the class. Fasten your seat belt. Entertainment can be turbulent at times.

Paint me any color. Red, blue, or green if you prefer as in money. Our current political atmosphere has an adversarial edge to it. For instance, the current Democrat "tax the millionaires"and all will be well policy. Social politicians inflame everyone with the idea that the American dream of being "rich" is not only evil, but successful people who start at the bottom, claw their way through endless terrorized hours and years of making a company a profitable success are evil too and we should rock their boats with special taxes to take it all away. That, my friends, is stupid and if you believe those who tell you destroying the American dream is the answer you should move to a communist country where they also believe making a profit and getting rich deserves death or imprisonment. The Christian religion is now also evil to our secular, liberal politicians and judges. "Happy Holiday" is mandatory and Merry Christmas is punishable by termination if you say it at a school, store or any public government office. So, take their money, their religion, "level the playing field" by confiscation and America the beautiful will become "America the moderately attractive". Is that level enough for you?

Profox, I appreciate your view. However, the man in question, Mitt Romney, never started at the bottom. While his fellow countrymen of his age where fighting in Vietnam, Mitt was studying at Harvard Law and Harvard Business School and living in his Belmont mansion on the hill. No Democrat is arguing that being rich is evil. It isn't. But 10 years into the Bush Tax Credit has done serious damage to our country and now the question is who pays to repair the damage. The rich benefited the most from the tax cut or the middle class who only saw a minimal tax cut. Obviously, we all must pay, and each according to his/her means.

Thanks for the polite note. However, I must say that I don't feel anyone should hold his privileged background as a reason eschewing his candidacy. I too feel that Mr. Bush did neither the country nor its citizens a good service by many of his policies. He too was born to privilege. If poverty or middle class was a prime determinant for choosing a president when FDR was alive, we would have suffered incalculable loss in his absence. Admittedly, I am rabid in my disdain for the way the last 3 years have been conducted in both legislative branches of the Congress. Despite my political preference, I would welcome the return of that reprobate, Bill Clinton to the Presidency. He knew how to govern. I cannot understand why Mr. Obama is so inept and unsuccessful in leading his party and reaching out to those Republicans who have the country's best interest at heart and would most certainly compromise on the important issues.

Pleasure to finally read an article in the globe that doesn't lionize the hoity toity private equity & VC "biz."

Steven, Friendly's problems were NOT predominately its debt load, the real estate sale leaseback, or the price of dairy. It was senior management and their poor restaurant operations; founder Presley Blake fought these clowns for many years. To blame the private equity function is economically nonsensical; it's just one of many financial tools available to US commerce and industry. Anyone who ate at both the original and the "new" store usually could diagnose Friendly's problems -- menu confusion, increasing price-points, declining food quality, slow/poor service, cleanliness issues, etc. Over the years since the transition (mid/late-1980's), there was no improvement in the fundamentals. To begin a "noisy debate about the social value of private equity" is silly and overwrought. What, then, about the "social value" of stock markets, grocery stores, or commercial lines of credit? If Democrats wish to make this a political argument, go right ahead. American's aren't stupid. They know that private equity has its place in the free market. Besides, it's PRIVATE, so politics should have no say and no control over it. When will liberals and their Hezbollah cousins, progressives, begin questioning the social value of my 401(k) account?

One question that must be asked of Mitt Romney, is what if a firm isn't failing and yet the management lays off thousands profits workers and send their jobs to INDIA, in effort to simply replace US workers who are earning $3,200 a month with foreign workers who will earn $400 a month, and this this firm received a $3 billion US Tarp bailout a couple of years earlier? Is this still "free market" capitalism? and "creative destruction"? This is what our own State Street Corp is doing right now in Boston, Kansas City. Mo, and Irvine Ca to thousands of American citizens, under the direction of the CEO Jay Hooley and his Operations man Alan Greene. If this is the kind of business behavior in Massachusetts that is condoned by Mitt Romney, or anyone else for that matter who exists in the Political spectrum in our State and our Country, we are in BIG TROUBLE as Americans, and our children will be in even bigger trouble in years to come....