There is a lot of talk these days about the different kinds of capitalism. On the campaign trail, Governor Rick Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have been using the term 'vultures' to criticize front runner Mitt Romney.
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Thanks for your comment, Billtown Biddy. There seem to be more than one kind of bird or creature lurking in the corporate landscape.
One is the corporate vulture, which I think is misunderstood. Vultures clean up what has already been killed. One aspect of venture capital companies is to clean up, restructure those companies that are already dead, or perhaps mostly dead.
Another might be named a predator or a raptor. Raptors, which include hawks, eagles and other birds of prey hunt and kill living creatures. There are companies that do seek out, buy, combine and otherwise kill existing companies.
There are also companies that invest in companies or new ideas. Bain Capital did this to create Staples and Sports Authority. They take their own money and others to do this.
The most insidious, in my opinion is the more recent "innovation" of selling individuals mortgages they could not afford, which have been backed with public money, so if there was a default, everyone else was left holding the bag. And to add insult to injury, these loans were "bundled into securities" and sold worldwide. I'm not sure there is an equivalent in the natural world for this.
Posted by PA Views on 2012-01-18 06:10:09
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Vultures do indeed play an important role in the natural order of things. Vulture capitalists, on the other hand, put living people out of work, take money for themselves from hard-working people, and cause misery and destruction. So maybe we need a contest to come up with a new name for these corporate birds
Posted by billtown biddy on 2012-01-17 10:33:12
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They are cirticizig fromer Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital, characteriziing it as "vulture capitalism." Not only is this a misunderstanding of how venture capital functions in the marketplace, but is also not how vultures, or buzzards function in the natural world.
If the vultures could issue a press release, it might go something like this.
"We regret and reject the characterization that we (buzzards) swoop in and kill anything. On the contrary, we clean up messes created by others (road kill) and creatures that die of natural causes. This is a valuable public service and we don't see any politicians or others lining up to do this work. We do our job and we ask that they do theirs and stop giving us a bad reputation for others misdeeds and misfortunes."
Most folks understand that vultures don't kill anything, they clean up what has already died. Part of the work of venture capitla firms is to do the same in the marketplace, clean up dead companies. The other aspect of venture capital firms is more akin to a farmer who plants seeds, cares for them and then takes his portion of the harvest.
So, in the end, I'm standing with the vultures.
