Romney Admits Bain Capital Was Initially Called Pain Capital

Political Satire

Boston, MA--In a shocking and rare display of honesty, the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney corroborated a report from an unidentified source that the initial name of Bain Capital was in fact Pain Capital. What’s more, the alteration didn’t happen overnight. There was no watershed moment.

“There have been myriad great Paynes in the financial sector before,” said Skip Townsend, former Pain and current Bain CFO. “And to my knowledge, they all got by without having to deal with any silliness about their surname.” Townsend saw no reason why the spelling of the name should be a factor either.

Romney, too, couldn’t understand what all the commotion was about. “I really didn’t see a problem with the original name,” he confessed. “To my way of thinking, it had no negative connotations whatsoever.” But even Romney couldn’t ignore the 4,657,688 complaints about the name from former employees of companies bankrupted by Pain. It was then that Romney began to suspect that considerably more than 1% of the people whose lives Pain impacted “didn’t much care for the name.”

“I always believed that other people’s pain was a great thing, a reliable barometer for success,” said Romney with a bemused look. “Because that always meant a splendid bottom line and stockholder happiness.” And with a net worth in excess of $250 million, Romney had clearly compiled a long string of pain-drenched bottom lines.

Nevertheless, after 4,657,688 complaints, Romney chose to flip what had become a flop. “In hindsight, I have to admit I thought it was a bit strange that no company we gutted put the ‘Welcome’ mat out for us,” he said. “And all of us thought those ‘F--k Off’ mats were just jokes.”

Added Romney presidential campaign senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom, “It was a really a wonderful learning experience for the governor. While a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Pain by another name actually gave Bain unprecedented license to wreak havoc on struggling companies.”

“It’s like the bard said,” Fehrnstrom continued with a smile, “All’s well that ends.”

© Daniel Bruce Brown, 2012