Archive for January 14, 2012
Go Broncos
I admit I’m a fair weather friend but…
go Broncos!
Oy.
I’m waiting for the halo over the stadium.
@10:25 p.m. ET: Denver 7, New England 42.
Oops. God must be busy. Maybe she’s thinking about the Thousands of Horses Abandoned by Owners Last Year:
Thousands of horses are being abandoned or tied up and left to starve, many by desperate owners unable to afford the costs of keeping them. A national crisis has seen Britain’s biggest horse charities under unprecedented pressure from the sheer number of animals needing their help.
Redwings – Britain’s biggest charity for abandoned horses – says the situation has reached breaking point. It has seen the number of cases soar from 160 horses in 2009 to 450 last year. So far this month it has taken in up to 10 a day. The charity, which can house 1,200 animals, is now full.
Final score: Denver 10, Patriots, 42.
@11:28 p.m. ET: The game “was over at halftime.”
Now I watch for days while Denver’s “liberal media” turn Tebow into a saint despite this loss…
On to next season!
Philadelphia Mayor Tells Constituents: “Don’t Act Like Idiots and Assholes”
I can’t say I’m all that familiar with Philadelphia’s Mayor Michael Nutter, but I like any politician who has the guts to cut through the spin and the gobbledygook:
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has some advice for his criminal constituents: don’t “act like idiots and a[ss]holes.”
A Tuesday night shooting in Philadelphia left three teenagers dead and Nutter fuming.
The outspoken mayor lashed out at the city’s youth and their parents as well as the murder suspect — all of whom shared responsibilty for the tragedy, according to Nutter.
“The first way to stop this kind of stuff is for young people to be home when they’re supposed to be home and for adults not to act like idiots and a–holes out in the streets of our city, shooting at kids in a car,” Nutter told Fox 29 on Tuesday.
“If you want to act like an idiot, if you want to be an a–hole, if you want to be a lowlife in this town, we will track you down like the dog that you are,” Nutter added, according to CBS Local News.
Philadelphia parents did not escape Nutter’s tongue-lashing.
“Parents have to know where their children are and what they are doing,” Nutter said, according to CBS Local News. “Their little butts should have either been in bed, getting ready for bed, or doing some homework.
Obviously the issue of inner-city crime is complicated but it’s good to hear this kind of talk now and then because my sense is people really hear it; they take it in and think about it. At least I hope that’s the case.
Anyway, you go Mayor Nutter!
Saturday Morning in Myrtle Beach: Bain Capital Made Millions
What folks in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina are reading this morning regarding Mitt Romney and Bain Capital:
Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
Romney’s Bain Capital made millions off Georgetown Steel as mill morale, finances suffered
Boston-based Bain Capital LLC more than doubled its money on GS Industries Inc. – the former parent company of Georgetown Steel – under Mitt Romney’s leadership in the 1990s, even as the steel manufacturer went on to cut more than 1,750 jobs, shuttered a division that had been around for 100 years and eventually sank into bankruptcy.
Bain Capital spent $24.5 million to acquire GS Industries in 1993, according to an investment prospectus for the company that was obtained by the Los Angeles Times and reviewed by The Sun News. By the end of that decade, Bain Capital estimated its partners had made $58.4 million off its investment in GS Industries, according to the prospectus.
Bain Capital’s partners also earned multi-million dollar dividends from GS Industries and annual management fees of about $900,000. But by the time GS Industries filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001, it owed $553.9 million in debts against assets valued at $395.2 million.
“We were doing well and then Bain Capital bought us and they took everything they could out of the company without making the investments we needed to stay competitive,” said James Sanderson, who has been with the mill since 1974 and served as its union president since 1988. “They ran the company into bankruptcy.”
Bain Capital came to own Georgetown Steel after it provided the financing for a management-led buyout of Armco Worldwide Grinding System of Kansas City, Mo., in 1993. The Armco plant was renamed GS Technologies, which merged with Georgetown Industries in 1995 to become GS Industries Inc. At the time, the combined entities – headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. – had $1 billion in revenue and employed 3,800 people worldwide as the largest producer of carbon wire rods in North America.
Sanderson said Bain Capital replaced longtime managers who had built Georgetown Steel with bean counters looking for ways to cut costs. They demanded increasing financial performance with little idea of how the daily operations were run, he said.
“They were investors, they weren’t steel mill operators,” he said.
Bain Capital propped up short-term earnings, Romney opponents say, so the venture capital firm could borrow money that went toward investors’ dividends – enriching Bain Capital but leaving the companies with unsustainable debt.
More here. It’s a long and comprehensive article.
$45,000 to Hang With President Obama
If I had put up a Tweet of the Day yesterday, or in this case tweets, this would have been it:
One thing I know for sure, none of those 22 supporters live in my world. In my world, $45,000 is a year’s salary, or even two years.
