Several millioaires in the White House have international investments. All financial investors worth their salt recommend to their clients a diverse inestment portfolio (not having all ones eggs in one basket approach). There is nothing sinister of having small amount of cash equivalent dollars in the safety of Swiss Franks in a troubled world. There are mant Mutual Funds that are used by IRA and 401K middle class investors and pension and endowment funds that have a small percentage of investments in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, as well as other developed and developing nations overseas.

So what exactly does your stupid beef with the Romneys finances come down to? After years of hard and risky and successful work turning around previously failing companies Mitt Romney retired a multi-millionaire. And you haven't got access to all of his money through a confiscatory spendthrift government in the amount you think would be fair. Is that about it?

This just in, after all these attacks on Romney's character, his business accomplishments and ethics, his government service and service to his country ewscuing the failing Olympics (the latter two efforts in 1999 thru 2007 without drawing a salary for his hard work) the NY Times and CBS poll shows Romney up 55% to Obama's 39% suppoirt at better able to handle the problems of the economy. And during that period of attacks by the Obama campaign aided and abetted by the liberal media resulted on Obama's overall favorability rating to LOSE 6% points, from a previous high as late as April of 42% only, to 36% only now. Seems you can't get down in the gutter without getting dirtied up!

Per Wiki...

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Governor_of_Massachusetts

A candidate for the governorship must be a registered elector in the state and have been a resident for at least seven years before taking office.

The Mittster "met" those requirements by claiming he was still employed at Bain. Now he wants us to think he was just kidding...

And I'm not going bother fact checking those figures Fuzzie just put out... Too hard to tell whether they came from the Nyquil bottle or the voices in his head...

What part of Leave of Absence don't you understand, Cab Driver. Mitt Romney was on a leave of absence from his work at Bain Capital, but held the title of CEO still and remained a passive investor in the firm he founded and built. He worked during the run up to the Gubernatorial Election rescuing the Olympics while on his leave of absence. This issue was adjudicated by the voters of Massachusetts that were a lot closer to the position than a quiter in life, quiter in education, liberal blog junkie cab driver out in Salth Lake City. And I was one of the voters and residents of Massachusetts at the time in 1999 thru 2002, so I believe I trump your ignorant nonsense on that score!

Uh, Grandpa, he lived here in Utah during the Olympics... Had a place in Deer Valley, even... Big, expensive place; you should see how exclusive they are...

I know. My mother saw him here, and I believe my mother... And there was a news report about how he got out of his car, started directing traffic during a logjam, and used the F-word at one of the volunteers.

And there you go with that honorarium again; I'm thinking it might be paying you a bit to try to disrupt this site... I can tell when I've breeched your defenses; you resort to namecalling and personal attacks... I warned you about getting into a swearing contest with a cabbie...

Must suck to have a light so dim you have to put out others to get noticed...

Your the one that announced to this blog when I first arrived here that just watch as you chase me off of here with your "superior intellect"! LOL! You believe in that nonsense, but nobody else does. And you peersist in following me about here with you pitiful attempts to refute any argument or data that I present. You've yet to do that, and it's most likely because you haven't got the capability, Cab Driver.

I'm just a John Q. Citizen with a lot more education and life experience than you, Cab Driver. No conspiracy therory necessary to postulate that I am a paid postor here.

Go ahead, put your SAT scores up there, Fuzzie... And that Master's you were claiming suddenly disappeared (I never claimed one, just that I matriculate in one program and left on a sabbatical and financial considerations kept me from returning).

You're a "because I said so" blowhard, a fact that has been obvious to a lot of people here...

The evidence occurs when they bother to take the time to b****slap you with a bit of reality... Note that nobody is coming after me for my modest contributions...

Larry, my advice to you is cancel your cable and stick with broadcast TV for a year or two. Focus on PBS, NBC, and NPR. FOX noise and their lies are causing brain damage, seriously... Do that and learn some manners, and maybe the intelligent and compassionate folks here will accept your apologies after you've figured things out.

Here's a re-post I put up a few days ago elsewhere on the Fast and Furious non-issue that, as one journalist notes, Fox and Fiends have used to whip the right wing into a psychotic frenzy... This is a link to the Fortune story debunking the Fox claims that "Fast and Furious" is somehow "worse than Watergate."

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.

Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.

Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.

Okay, the critical question is who's more reliable? Educated, career ATF and Justice Department employees trained in law enforcement (and handicapped by too-liberal firearms laws in Arizona) or an Alabama hillbilly that Fox presented as an "Internet Reporter" who first started the rumor that the guns were "being walked" as part of a shrewd political move by the Obama Aministration to shore up gun control laws and ultimately confiscate them all so that World Communism could could prevail?

Second question: Who's more reliable, those same career professionals or an ambitious and unprincipled Congressman who used to be a used car alarm salesman and had a number of felony arrests on his record?

That "Internet Journalist" is named Mike Vanderboegh, and the Rachel Maddow show reported how, upon hearing of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Vanderboegh posted on his blogsite a "call" for people to "go break the windows of Democratic Headquarters."

He drew Senator Charles Grassley and Rep. Issa into his web, and the very ATF agent whose incompetence was obvious began leaking more information to Fox and CBS. More sober sorts in the media saw the story for what it was, given Issa's track record.

Cabdriver Philosophical Wisdom: Never attribute to malice that which can successfully be explained by incompetence.

And there's that psycho twist from the right again, in usual form...aren't they the ones that are always slinging the "Guns don't kill people, PEOPLE do" crap? But now it's Guns don't kill people, Executive Priviledge does?

Ha....if it wasn't so absolutely pathetic, it would be positively hilarious!

I guess pick and choose is the order of the day, and I choose to see Romney's last 12 years of tax returns.

Interesting to see the threatening words of the honcos at the ATF of the actions that will be taken against any would be whistle blowers who don't simply contain their internal proglems with policy and practice to the "chain of command" which of course ultimately goes through AG Eric Holder and up to Barrack Obama, the refusers to allow the oversight of Congress on the "Fast and Furious" coverup operation internal to the AG's office and the ATF.

And I noted that the offical videotaped making the threats to the would be whistle blowers in the ATF looked very much like he belonged to the 98% of one of the Democrat's voting interest groups that are estimated will be supporting the President this election.

Mr Longey,

You said, " After years of hard and risky and successful work turning around previously failing companies Mitt Romney retired a multi-millionaire.". The only thing true there is that he is a millionaire. I do not begrudge him for that. But, he made his money by pooling a little of his money with some money from investors to buy companies and leverage them to the hilt. He took the money, paid him and his investors a fee just for the investment, and then let the companies go bankrupt because they couldn't make their loan payments. Romney and his investors made out like "bandits" while the employees of the Companies were left high and dry. And, in some the U.S. taxpayers, that's you and me, had to bail out the guaranteed pensions of these companies. I don't consider that "ethical"; you may, but I don't.

And you know that from what resource? MSNBC? The Huffington Post? The Obama campaign? Give me a break!

Mayor Booker, Gov. Ed Rendel, Gov. (and Obama friend) Patrick Duval of Massachusetts, and ex-President Bill Clinton all Democrats came forth to state that Bain capital was a highly succussful and respected turnaround venture capital private equity firm...and the latter added Romney at Bain had a sterling record of success in improving companies. And they all recommended Obama stop this nonsense attack add campaign, but what else has he got? He certainly can't stand on his record of failiure, can he?

The polls are clear...the American People aren't buy the anti-Bain, anti-Romney arguments, and Obama has slumpted in those polls as to overall aproveability ratings because of his continuing with this gutter politics Chicago style, Brad!

Mr Longey,

Do you deny that under Romney's tenure at Bain, that this did not ever occur?

No where did I intimate that it happened every time. But, for me, maybe not you because we have different belief systems, but for me, 1 time is too many. And all the people you mentioned are "in bed" with Private Equity firms, so I take what they say with a grain of salt..

1 more question. What do you do for a living Mr. Longey?

Mr Longey,

This is from Bloomberg dated July 15th:

What’s clear from a review of the public record during his management of the private-equity firm Bain Capital from 1985 to 1999 is that Romney was fabulously successful in generating high returns for its investors. He did so, in large part, through heavy use of tax-deductible debt, usually to finance outsized dividends for the firm’s partners and investors. When some of the investments went bad, workers and creditors felt most of the pain. Romney privatized the gains and socialized the losses.

Is Bloomberg lying?

85% success rate in improving previously failing companies (often in troubled industries such as Steel, and Paper Products...just two examples of which the Obama campaign have focused on), and just 15% failures. This venture capitalism is risky business. And those investors you thumb your nose at, Brad, included pension funds (state, municipal, and corporate and union employees) and endowment funds Colleges and Universities, medical institutions, and other non-profits) you know? Private Equity Investment is a good thing, not a bad thing. And that is what Messieurs Booker, Randel, Duval, Clinton...and Obama's "Car Czar" Economist Steve Ratner and former supporter Colin Powell (not so hot for Obama this time around, just like the Obanagirl won't say she is for his reelection).

As to your question as to what I do for a living, I'm retired from a career working in both government service (Veterans Affairs and Dept of the Army) and Non-Profit sectors mostly in Vocational Rehabilitation Services...I managed for the Veterans Administration programs that contracted with the private and public sectors to get rehabilitating veterans employed, and job trained, as the Veterans Industries and Veterans Constuction Team in Western Massachusetts, Southeast Massachusetts, Cape Cod and Rhode island. Did some work also in standard Social Services employments for the Dept of the Army between appointments with the VA. Of course, during my educational pursuits and in additional employments (I often worked two jobs) I worked also in industrial production occupations and business inventory control services occupations. In both the public and private sector I was an active union member with contract negotiation and executive board, stewardship and organizing experience.

No, he proved it by providing his permanent address for those years and the amounts of time he spent in the state with trips back from Utah for time with family and to attend board meetings with companies he has investments with. And the executives of Bain Capital including Democrat Party supporters have stated that Romney had NO role in active management, did not attend meetings there, and remained a passuve investor only while the surviving partners negotiated his payouts before retirement of the franchise value he had built into the firm from his roles of founder and CEO for all those years of hard, successful work with a 85% success rato of turnaround companies in troubled industries with previously failing prospects.

Let's put this one up again so Grandpa doesn't miss it... Sarah Grove is probably right when she says Fuzzie wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the ass...

Oh course Fuzzie hollered at her to lay off the insults, which was kind of ironic, given the "What part of leave of absence don't you understand, fool? The truth is staring yoy [sic] in the face sucker" diatribe he unleashed below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkcoNXMI8rM

Massachusetts under Romney: 47th in job creation nationally. 220,000 manufacturing jobs lost....

No wonder he's screaming. I would be, too, if I had to defend that stuff. Question is why he feels obligated to? That's what's staring all of us in the face...

Massachusetts under Romney, went from 51st (counting Washington DC) to 30th in the nation in job creation, and went to 1.2% lower unemployment rate than the national average. And Romney cut the $2.6 billion in deficit left to him by his predecessor who couldn't get the cooperation of the heavily Democrat Party control of the legislature, and finally removed the onerous surtax on the income tax that had been in place since the Dukakis Administation.

The loss of manufacturing jobs is something that the Northeast had been undergoing since the 60s, due to high real estate and energy costs, and high taxes and higer labor costs. The tool and die industry and the textile industries in particular were headed mostly to the Southeast, and of course, during the Clinton years, to China and Mexico. But the changes Romney brought about brought new tech, finance, and warehousing-retail opportunities to the state, and 50,000 plus new job opportunites were added in his term of office, which included the mini-recession caused by the Federal Reserve in 2005-2006 nationally.

Here's some fact-checking from the Annenberg folks. We all know Fuzzie is prone to exaggerate (when he's not trying to pass off outright whoppers; check how bad he looked on Medicaid and Medicare history a few pages down). He's also terrified of Google, doubtless thinks it will infect the software in his tinfoil helmet with some sort of weird and disabling internet virus...

http://factcheck.org/2012/06/romneys-jobs-record-is-best-or-worst/

The Romney ad claims that as governor, “Romney had the best jobs record in a decade" . . . that ignores the national recessions before and after Romney’s time in office. If you look at how Massachusetts stacked up on job creation compared with other states, Romney actually fared worse than his predecessor and successor.

The ad claims Romney “balanced every budget without raising taxes.” Yes — Romney never raised personal income taxes. But — in order to balance the budget, Romney increased government fees by hundreds of millions of dollars.

So how did Massachusetts do compared with other states? As the Obama campaign has repeatedly noted, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states over the entirety of Romney’s four years as governor in terms of job creation. By comparison, Massachusetts ranked 37th in job growth under Swift, and it ranked 10th in Patrick’s first term.

By that measure, Romney had the worst record in a decade.

Now if my only goal were to yank Fuzzbrain's chain (tempting, I know), I'd leave it at that, but here are some WaPo articles (which teapugs repeatedly denounce as liberal, except when it agrees with them) that is equally hard on the Obama campaign.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/is-romneys-massachusetts-record-really-as-bad-as-obama-says/2012/06/13/gJQAjVqSaV_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/why-one-health-insurer-wont-extend-obamacares-benefits/2012/06/12/gJQArQUQXV_blog.html

The point is that Romney struggled to keep up with the pack down the stretch. His state had the 29th highest jobless rate in the nation when he took office, and it rose to 18th highest by the time he left.

True to his word, Romney didn’t approve any general hikes in tax rates, but he did increase fees and close tax loopholes, both of which brought in additional revenue. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimated that the former governor raised an extra $750 million per year through fees and loophole closures.

Democrats held a supermajority during Romney’s tenure, meaning they had a fairly easy time passing legislation -- they could overturn any veto with relative ease. As such, many bills passed despite Romney, not because of the former governor’s supposed negotiating skills.

And I really love this one...

The Romney campaign did not respond to requests for comment on any of these quotes.

Exactly what Romney is promising to do if elected President. Reduce overall tax rates, especially corportate that are the highest in the Induatrial Developed World, and through tax reforms gain income by flattening the rate structure and doing away with loopholes, mostly loopholes that favor the well to do.

As to that 47% figure the Romney detractors like to throw around, that was THE RATE OF GROWTH, fool. Massachusetts was certainly one without the plague of pockets of poverty that other states had, and its citizens were quite better educated than most...so transitioning into technology, health related, and finance opportunities was the not that difficult, especially with the improvements thru education policy initiatives such as the full tuition scholarships to state supported higher education institutions in the state for the top 25% of high school graduates. Hence the ability to go from 51st in "new job opportunities" to 30th in the just less than 4 years Romney was Governor. And Patrick Duval, present Governor of Massachusetts has benefited by the work that Romney did turningaround the states economy and education structure, and the reduction of taxes as prior to Romney's initiatives there Massachusetts was known as TAXachusetts, and business and industry were fleeing the state instead of coming in, as they did with Romney in office.

You lose again, Cab Driver!

Mr Longey,

Where does the average Corporate effective tax rate fall? On average, what do Corporations pay % wise?

I heard taxes are the lowest they have been since Truman or Eisenhower days. Is this true Mr. Longey? You just seem to know everything, so I thought I'd ask the expert

Who are you really, Mr Longey? You seem to know so much detail about Romney and MA..Are you one of Romney's sons? Or surrogates? What is your real agenda Mr. Longey?

After World War II, the US was the only Developed Country still standing with its Industrial and Private Sector economy intact, and thriving. The first major cuts in its corporated tax and the overall citizens income taxes (many of the engines of employment, America's small business pay individual income taxes as S corporations, you know) came under John Kennedy, Democrat. Since our entry into the Global age of competition post World War II, the US has one of highest corporate tax rates in the developed industrial world. It's one of the reasons corporations have expanded overseas, instead of the in US (besides access to cheap labor and to overseas markets for their products). And with a policy that says after their profits are taxed overseas, if they bring their profits there back to the US they will be taxed again by the US government at one of the highest rates in the developed industrial world, those profits get left overseas..and that is where the expansion goes on.

Most Corporations (or indiviudals, including small businesses psaying taxes at the indiviudal rate) do not pay full taxes as per their rates due to the mish mash of carve out deductions and credits that have been layered into our tax code through the years by our legislators. Take two or our largest corportions tied to the Obama Admiminstration, for example. General Electric and General Motors...they've paid no taxes at all in the US. That's why of the 220,000 employees that GM has today after the infusion of $80 billion of TARP borrowed dollars by the Obama administation (without legislative approval, mind you). only 50,000 workers are in the US, and the balace of 170,000, the much greater majority, are overseas!

Get the picture now? And yes, I do know everything! LOL!

Eventualy everything will come out. If it doesn't then the media is not doing its job.

As I said from the beginning, Romney will not win in November.

What part of leave of absence don't you understand, fool? The truth is staring yoy in the face sucker, and you are looking for some thing...anythin...to slime this man with. WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU LIBERAL OBAMA ASS KISSERS? Do you really think your stupid arguments and nit picking mean anything to the voters now that Obama has a record of failure examine?

Goodness, Renee, Fuzzie usually only reserves that language for men... Ah, I see you're from Massachusetts... Might explain things. Might not, however; he could be drunk...

The man slimes himself, of course... Ah, found a good one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkcoNXMI8rM

Hey...Obama lost 6% points in his overall favorability rating, now in the mid-30% after running his lying, nonsense filled attack adds on Romney for the last 3 months.

And after spending unwisely $150 million plus on this negative adds campaign, the number of swing states that he hoped would shrink as being at play in the real campaign after Labor Day actually increased as being in play according to the recent polls. And Romney still is on even terms with him according to the polls nationally. I'd say its looking like all this lying nonsense are Obama's "chickens coming home to roost" to borrow a phrase from his former Pastor he threw under the bus in 2008.

And amazing, is the fact that with high unemployment and a slow growth economy as the primary issues the voters are concerned with, Mr. Obama has failed to meet once with his vaunted Business and Jobs Council in the past 6 months. He has been to busy running for reelection, attending over 106 fund raising events, and playing scores or rounds of golf. And I thought the Chicago boys were supposed to be smart?

Ha ha. Well put, Roy. Probably much too subtle a poke in Little Lying Larry's eye for this crowd to get, though. Which is probably exactly the reason that this network's editors went with it in the first place.

Ha ha ha! This is a crisis? You've got to be kidding me.

The American voters know what the crisis is here its the economy stupid! And the clown from Chicago that is clueless on what to do about it other than further screw it up with his calls for more taxes, and his intent to continue spending like a drunken sailor that have put the consumer and the business sector to the sidelines, as all statistics of the past 3 to 4 months show.

Chicago? Man, get with it... The new party line is "foreigner," Grandpa... Got it? Otherwise they're going to send Sheriff Joe after you...

Sol Lewinski Nationalist Socialist economic theorist Chi Town with the Democrat Party bosses....looks like crony capitalist communist China to me. No wonder Rick Santelli of CNBC is so animated living and working in that enviroment.

You misspelled both his first name and last name, Fuzzie... And even the sainted William F. Buckley, Jr. called him an "organizational genius."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky

The term is "non-socialist" left, gonzo...

And it isn't my "superior intellect" that enables me to make you look foolish (actually, you do that yourself), it's my willingness to do the homework and think the unthinkable. Remember, I used to be a Republican, honest.

That wouldn't be a wise bet to make against you, as the two international corporations most closely linked to the Obama Administration, GE and GM both paid no...zero...nada...in taxes to the US Government in 2010 and 2011. And we know the Romney's paid over $6 million of $45 million of income in those two years. And if you think that $45 million is a lot of money, look what A Rod made for those two years while he has been pretty much a mid to high 200s hitter for the Yankees. LOL!

Yankees are in first place in the AL East, Fuzzie, with the best record in baseball. And the Red Sux are 9 1/2 games back... Of course it's a team game, but A-Rod has three seasons he hit over 50 home runs, and Ortiz only has one...

Hey, did you catch the President thanking the beantowners for Youkilis? Massachusetts is still going to remain a blue state...

Man, what I wouldn't have given to see the look on your face when Johnny Damon went to the Yankees a few years ago...

And you didn't read CD's post very well when you told him that wouldn't be a wise bet. He was agreeing with you, but of course both of you were only talking corporate taxes; there's still the matter of employer contributions to FICA, etc.

Massachusetts always going to be blue state is a given, that's why I got out of there in my retirement. Don't have a lot of hope for Connecticut, but you never know. These people take their economy seriously, and we know what they think of the present situtation there. But last I looked they have NH as a swing state....and I have pretty good idea what direction they will swing in this Nov, Cab Driver.

Even if O'Donnell tried to pull the wool over your eyes with this post, thinking no one in his audience would be smart enough to know the difference? You don't have much of a threashold for lying Dems in office if you'd vote for him for the office of, say, sanitation commissioner, to which he might be quslified as he is so full of lying bull@!$%#!

Or the socialist huggers and ass kissers in the media in general, taxfatcats. GET A JOB, AND STAND ON YOUR OWN TWO FEET. YOU MIGHT JUST START FEELING AND THINKING LIKE A RED BLOODED AMERICAN MAN OR WOMAN!