Romney, Hide-and-Seek Job Creator

Jumping on a weaker-than-expected jobs report, the Etch-a-Sketch candidate is telling crowds, “The reason I’m so animated about defeating Barack Obama is because he’s failed the American people.”

Yet, as he promises voters more wealth, Mitt Romney is still going to great lengths to hide his own.

In 48 accounts from Bain Capital, on financial disclosure forms the GOP candidate-to-be fails to “identify the underlying assets, including his holdings in a company that moved U.S. jobs to China and a California firm once owned by Bain that filed for bankruptcy years ago and laid off more than 1,000 workers.

“Those are known only because Bain publicly disclosed them in government filings and on the Internet. But most of the underlying assets--the specific investments of Bain funds--are not known because Romney is covered by a confidentiality agreement with the company.”

At the brink of the real Presidential campaign, it’s hard to tell if Romney spent his Wall Street time as the job creator he claims to be or as the Danny DeVito character, Larry the Liquidator, in the 1991 movie, “Other People’s Money:”

“The entrepreneur of post-industrial America, playing God with other people's money. The robber barons of old at least left something tangible in their wake--a coal mine, a railroad, banks. This man leaves nothing. He creates nothing. He builds nothing. He runs nothing. And in his wake lies nothing but a blizzard of paper to cover the pain.”

Romney’s physical resemblance to DeVito is minimal, but the vertically challenged actor was coupled with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Twins.” It’s the inner man who counts.

In hiding the source of his wealth, Romney is not alone. Even as Newt Gingrich fades from the primary picture, his health-care think tank files for bankruptcy with estimated liabilities of $1 million to $10 million dollars to creditors.

Republicans from now to November will be promising to make voters rich. It’s just that they won’t be showing them how they themselves did it.