Mitt Romney's record at Bain

Mitt Romney's record at Bain is going to be a big deal in this election and it's a question of how the narrative will take. The Democrats are saying he destroyed companies and people's lives. I scoured the web for info and didn't find much on successful companies. No one writes about that. Let's start with companies that were started or saved while Romney was CEO of Bain.

This is a partial list. I can't find a more complete list, there were over 100 companies, so I'll just go with these. I can't find the employee counts on many of these companies. So I only listed those that I could find.

The argument against Romney:

1. Romney can't provide how many jobs were also lost during this period.

2. These are current employee counts and Romney has been gone from Bain since 1999. So he can hardly be credited with them.

3. Bain was only one investor in many of these and he was just one person among many at Bain.

4. These companies would've probably hired just as many people if Bain hadn't gotten involved.

Because the fact checkers can't verify all the information and some of it happened after he left, the numbers are regarded as "bogus." Usually you don't dismiss something you can't prove is wrong, but that's the determination. Staples very likely wouldn't exist without Bain. While the company seems to be a no brainer now, it wasn't then. Tom Stemberg couldn't get investors. Even Romney dismissed it at first. If Romney doesn't invest in Staples, one assumes Office Depot, which was founded the following year, would've come up with the idea. They might be successful, even though they were beaten by Staples.

Here are the failures, which are very well documented:

They don't add up to the successes, but since the successes don't count Romney is a net -4,325.

1. Three of these companies, GS Industries, DDI Corp, and Dade International, failed after Romney left Bain. Apparently a company with smart management that succeeds after he leaves doesn't relate to Romney, but the ones that fail are.

2. Waters, like many of the companies acquired by Bain, was in trouble. Companies in trouble often shed jobs. Kind of like what GM and Chrysler did. Waters now employs 3,500 people and is very successful. Obama can be credited with the success of GM and Chrysler which later rehired many of the employees let go. It doesn't count for Romney.

3. When a company fails, it's irrelevant that Bain is only one investor and Romney is only one person at Bain. There's no evidence the decision to lay off employees was made by anyone other than management. It's all his fault.

4.The companies listed were all troubled when Bain got involved and were available at a good price because they were in danger of failing. It's likely that most of them would've failed within a year or so if Bain didn't get involved. While we assume businesses like Staples would've succeeded without Romney, we know that these companies which failed after he left would've also succeeded without Romney.

If the Democrats win this argument, Republicans are truly inept.