Mitt Romney Just Loves Story About How A Father Gave His Son a $10,000 Loan to Start a Sandwich Shop – and How That is the American Success Story

So Here is How The Conversation Goes with Real People

The puff pieces about Mitt Romney are starting to appear, the ones that always appear about this time in a campaign where press releases from the campaign are treated as news and published as such.  Here is one such story from the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Romney eventually turned his attention to another fast-food chain that has a long way to go in matching McDonald’s global dominance: Jimmy John’s, the sandwich shop whose founder, Jim Liautaud, a Romney supporter who attended the Chicago event. In recent weeks, Mr. Romney has been regaling campaign audiences with the story about how Mr. Liautaud, a lackluster student, asked his dad for a $10,000 loan and built that into a sandwich shop with 1,500 locations.

We know that $10,000 is a paltry sum to Mr. Romney, in fact he probably carries that around in his wallet, and during the primary campaign he once offered to bet an opponent $10,000.  But what is probably surprising to Mr. Romney and his cadre is that $10,000 is a lot of money to most Americans, and so to clue Mitt and his fellow zillionaires in, here is what a conversation about a loan of that size requested by a child from a parent of a middle class family might be like.

Child:  Uh Dad, I have this great idea and I think I can start a business with it.  Mitt Romney says this is what every young person should do.

Dad:  That’s great, glad to hear you have some initiative.  That Mitt Romney is a smart fellow, made zillions using other people’s money.

Child:  Right, and that’s what I want to do.

Dad:  You want to use Mitt Romney’s money?

Child:  Uh no, I want you to loan me the money, about $10,000 should get me started.

Dad:  That’s a good one, wait, I want to tell your Mom.  She needs a good laugh after seeing the bill for her hospital stay last month.

Child:  No, I mean it, Mitt Romney says that’s the way to get ahead, borrow $10,000 from your parents.

Dad:  Well, we’d be happy to lend that to you, but you know, we still owe $15,000 on the credit card, $20,000 on the car and the bank account shows a balance of $2.87 and we are having to stop paying the electric bill until they threaten to cut us off.  Since my pay was cut last year that second job I got has helped, but that money has gone for medical bills.

Child:  What about my college fund.  I won’t need college now that I have this great idea for a business.

Dad:  Your Mom and I spent that years ago when the roof needed replacing.  We didn’t think you would need the money because we didn’t think you would get into college.

Child:  Can you borrow the money?

Dad:  Well after we stopped paying on those other two credit cards the credit agency has rated us the worst risk ever.  Banks just laughed at us when we wanted to borrow money to pay the dentist.

Child: Then what should I do?

Dad:  Call Mitt, he’s good for $10k, if he can just get it out of that Swiss bank account without an early withdawal penalty.