- Jun 5, 2008
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This is what I feel is a very important topic, and I've seen so little press coverage of. I haven't seen any threads on this here recently, except for that weird one talking about his wife devaluing him.
I would like this thread NOT to turn into a flame war, but some knowledgeable people parse through the information we know and try to figure out the truth. As long as the flaming keeps going on, no one will figure anything out!
Romney's seemingly accepted net worth of $250 million is based on a number of assumptions and exclusions, and also seems artificially low compared to others in private equity from his time period
There have been some proposed explanations for this, such as he missed out on the biggest gains by pursuing a political career being the most widely accepted. For the purposes of this discussion let's not treat this as FACT, but rather analyze the possibilities.
I feel it's important to understand because I think there is a big social stigma around Billionaires and the 250 million number seems carefully positioned to me. First off it's an easy number to remember, and it leaves the average person with the impression, "Wow that guy was really successful!" and that he's generally loaded. Were Romney perceived as a Billionaire I think he may have a much more negative perception, someone who is too entwined in the financial system that he may not be fit for office. Bear in mind there has never been a Billionaire president.
For a good read about this subject read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...128882-0c20-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html
Granted I acknowledge there is a strong liberal bias there, so again let's not take everything as fact.
I've seen articles indicating Romney also has an unknown amount of wealth in offshore bank accounts. I'm not sure how much truth there is to this or what we can glean from it.
The main thing that got me interested in all this was Romney's income from his tax Returns I felt a natural incongruity from the amount of capital gains and his net worth. I'm also working on the assumption that Romney knew he would be running for president, and planned his investments to keep his annual income rather low, or at least not go overboard with it.
The analysis in the article seems to indicate that the magnitude of his gains seem more in line with a $300-500 million dollar nest egg, which I feel seems more plausible. What do you think about this?
There's also $100 million or more that's excluded for his kid's trust funds or something to that affect, and a question of how much wealth his children have.
There's also the fact that Bain capital has never gone public. How much of Bain does Romney still own? Is it possible that they have intentionally not gone public because of Romney's presidential aspirations? Seems possible to me. Assuming he still owns a significant portion of Bain, I imagine his wealth could double if they went public. I almost expect if Romney does win, a few years after serving his term we'll hear something like "Haha I'm a Billionaire! Suckers!"
I would like this thread NOT to turn into a flame war, but some knowledgeable people parse through the information we know and try to figure out the truth. As long as the flaming keeps going on, no one will figure anything out!
Romney's seemingly accepted net worth of $250 million is based on a number of assumptions and exclusions, and also seems artificially low compared to others in private equity from his time period
There have been some proposed explanations for this, such as he missed out on the biggest gains by pursuing a political career being the most widely accepted. For the purposes of this discussion let's not treat this as FACT, but rather analyze the possibilities.
I feel it's important to understand because I think there is a big social stigma around Billionaires and the 250 million number seems carefully positioned to me. First off it's an easy number to remember, and it leaves the average person with the impression, "Wow that guy was really successful!" and that he's generally loaded. Were Romney perceived as a Billionaire I think he may have a much more negative perception, someone who is too entwined in the financial system that he may not be fit for office. Bear in mind there has never been a Billionaire president.
For a good read about this subject read here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...128882-0c20-11e2-a310-2363842b7057_story.html
Granted I acknowledge there is a strong liberal bias there, so again let's not take everything as fact.
I've seen articles indicating Romney also has an unknown amount of wealth in offshore bank accounts. I'm not sure how much truth there is to this or what we can glean from it.
The main thing that got me interested in all this was Romney's income from his tax Returns I felt a natural incongruity from the amount of capital gains and his net worth. I'm also working on the assumption that Romney knew he would be running for president, and planned his investments to keep his annual income rather low, or at least not go overboard with it.
The analysis in the article seems to indicate that the magnitude of his gains seem more in line with a $300-500 million dollar nest egg, which I feel seems more plausible. What do you think about this?
There's also $100 million or more that's excluded for his kid's trust funds or something to that affect, and a question of how much wealth his children have.
There's also the fact that Bain capital has never gone public. How much of Bain does Romney still own? Is it possible that they have intentionally not gone public because of Romney's presidential aspirations? Seems possible to me. Assuming he still owns a significant portion of Bain, I imagine his wealth could double if they went public. I almost expect if Romney does win, a few years after serving his term we'll hear something like "Haha I'm a Billionaire! Suckers!"
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