In Which Sherrod Brown tries to score points from my misery

Well, OK, not my misery exactly; it turned out alright for me, but the legitimate misery of a lot of people I care about.

Most of my vast readership knows that my first job after college was at the American Standard plant in Tiffin, Ohio. It was bought along with the rest of American Standard's bath and kitchen business last year by Bain Capital, and they closed the plant on December 31st. It really sucked for a lot of my friends, to say nothing of my hometown.

To no one's surprise, a whole litany of Democratic politicians used this situation as an occasion for nativist demagoguery. The latest example is this conversation that Sherrod Brown recently had with The Nation, in which he seems to imply that Bain Capital closed the plant specifically because they enjoy throwing people out of work.

That plant closed because it was a poisonous environment to work in. Whether that's due to mismanagement or mis-unionism, I can't say. Personally I suspect both. The fact is, though, that it wasn't producing cost-effective ware or Bain Capital would not have closed it. No organization will stay in business very long if it's bleeding money, whether it's GM or American Standard or whatever, and no one, workers, financiers, or government, can take profits that aren't being produced.