Staples to close 30 U.S. stores, dealing another blow to Mitt Romney's job creation claims

[ProSense]

Staples to close 30 U.S. stores, dealing another blow to Mitt Romney's job creation claims

by Laura Clawson

Mitt Romney probably won't be bragging quite so much between now and the election about all those jobs he supposedly created at Staples. In an inconveniently timed move for Romney's presidential campaign, the office-supply chain announced it would be closing 30 American stores and downsizing 30 more. How will that affect jobs? We don't know, because Staples is doing its best for Romney on that front:

Staples spokesman Kirk Saville would not comment as to whether any job reductions are in the works when the company lowers its store count by a net total of 30.

One analyst suggests that Staples might allow cuts to happen through natural attrition in a high-turnover workforce. But let's be serious. If you're closing 30 stores to cut costs, you're cutting jobs. Jobs held by people who are just barely getting by to begin with.

Of course, Mitt Romney was never responsible for creating the 90,000 jobs at Staples he has frequently claimed to have created. And his own convention speech laid out what was wrong with the jobs model at Staples, where sales associates make an average of just under $9 an hour:

(W)hen you lost that job that paid $22.50 an hour with benefits, you took two jobs at 9 bucks an hour and fewer benefits. (...)

But driving home late from that second job, or standing there watching the gas pump hit 50 dollars and still going, when the realtor told you that to sell your house you’d have to take a big loss, in those moments you knew that this just wasn’t right.

Mitt Romney didn't create those $9 an hour jobs he knows just aren't right, but he wanted us to believe he did. For a while, those jobs were pretty much the basis for his entire presidential campaign. Now some of them—we don't know how many—are going away. Kind of like Mitt's political career.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/26/1136614/-Staples-to-close-30-U-S-stores-dealing-another-blow-to-Mitt-Romney-s-job-creation-claims

Frankly, outside of preying on vulnerable business, Mitt's business acumen sucks. He's a vulture capitalist, not someone in the business of creating jobs.

How one firm got Mitt Romney to invest in its Chinese factories
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021418540

Romney Campaign spends same as Obama Campaign for HALF the staff.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021408243

[gopiscrap]

1. Hope that gets blasted all over the MSM

doubt that it will though

[Raven]

2. Staples? Is that the store that put all the little

mom & pop stationary stores out of business? Lots of bodies in their wake.

[progressivebydesign]

3. Corporate America fucked over America.

People like Bain created this robo-chains and placed them every 10 miles in America, taking out the local stores. THen they keep building and expanding and building to kill off the competition. But they can't sustain having the stores ever fucking 10 miles, so they start closing them down and firing people, leaving big gaping holes in the shopping centers. And had they not created this stupid big box monstrosities, the local stores would have been still thriving.

The Corporate America retail environment is like a direct model of the Bain Way. Destroy the competition, take the money for the investors, fire the people, leave town.

[genxlib]

4. I always thought

I always thought that Staples needed to be connected to the 47% comment.

the vast majority of those Staples jobs that Romney "created" would result in wages too low to require income taxes.

In my mind, that would have been the death blow. To link his own employees to his derision would have shown America what a fraud he is. He literally rises to the top on the backs of people that he considers parasites.

[applegrove]

5. Guess it was not so forward looking to be in the stationary business

what with paperless offices and powerpoint presentations that require no supplies.