Romney Proposes Leveraged Buyout of California

ORANGE COUNTY, CA: Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney flipped burgers on a grill at a fundraising luncheon for his campaign in Laguna Beach today, priced at fifty thousand dollars per French fry with burger prices going to the highest bidder over one hundred thousand, cheese another twenty-five G’s.

After he missed the grill the third time – the burgers splatting on concrete immediately showed up on You Tube – he gave the spatula over to one of his traveling chefs and took a moment to lay out his bold plan to remedy California’s ailing economy and state debt.

“When I’m president I would solve California’s financial problems. There are many under-utilized assets on the books of this great state. Check it out…um, yeah. They have to be put into play and made to work for Californins.”

He continued, strangely striking a bored Abercrombie-Fitch pose having his oxford shirt unbuttoned at the collar and one below, “I’ve learned a lot in the business world at Bain Capital. Currently the state’s debt is about a trillion dollars – maybe not that high, but it’s a good round number we all can remember. That’s a lot, but you have to look at the state’s assets and what they’re worth and can you get them working for you.”

He straightened his posture, trying to get more comfortable, always trying to get more comfortable, “My homes in Tahoe, Malibu and LaJolla are worth about fifty million. I’ve been talking with Jamie Diamond at Citi Group. With my homes put up as collateral, he’ll lend me the trillion to erase California’s debt. The lending ratio between the state’s debt and my houses is about twenty thousand to one. Just the kind of lending flexibility I would look for when I ran Bain Capital!

The state will be debt free and able to go about its business – like way cool! Um…yeah. And for taking on this burden I only want fifty-one percent of its stock. We are going to set up an IPO as part of the deal to attract investors. Anyone could then own a piece of California!

First thing we’re going to do is make the state run more efficiently, like a business. I will outsource fire and police protection and school teachers to illegal immigrants. They are willing to work for a fraction of these guys. And don’t require retirement packages.

Many Civil Service jobs can be eliminated and conducted by Malaysians via Skype conference calls. Great technology. We’ll save billions in this alone.

We’re going to monetize real estate holdings. Yosemite, Sequoia, Redwood, Death Valley: these are all wonderful parks but they are worth a lot to developers who want to build tracks of vacation homes nestled around country clubs.

We are going to chop off Napa County – the legendary wine making region – and sell it to their competitors Australia or Chile…whoever bids highest. The winery owners may not like this, but sacrifices have to be made for the good of the bottom line. I’ll be fifty-one percent shareholder in the state and my vote on the board will make it happen.

Then we can bundle the original state debt into smaller increments and offer it to investors. In essence a credit default swap, which, thank God, are still not regulated. How would a credit-default swap work? Sell shares of the debt to investors as the “The Gold Rush Fund”. Everyone wants a piece of California.

And since sin is practically synonymous with California we can generate tons of cash flow by taxing pot, gay sex and surfing…and Linsay Lohan drug treatments! Annex Tijuana – for sure Mexico would not be a problem if we wanted to take it – which would add tourist dollars and we could maximize Hollywood by merging it with Bollywood in India and outsourcing the actors.

You might ask how is all this going to be paid for? Well, have you seen the stockpile of state pension funds? This is simply an untapped asset that we in the business world would definitely never let go to waste. We’re going to re-invest them to enlarge Disney World to include the city of Los Angeles. It will become the Mickey Mouse Kingdom with its own airport. Many people look on LA as a huge amusement park anyway, we might as well get some revenue out of it by charging admission. We’re certainly going to get a good ROI.

Finally, after we get on the track to profitability, we’re going to take it public with an IPO. We’ll start at ten dollars a share with a trillion available as common stock. The potential is ten trillion dollars – forty-nine percent will go directly to the state. We expect this to go over well because when we take over Silicon Valley, which is home to FaceBook and Twitter, these social marketing internet things are going to reach millions of people and make them think it would be hip and cool to buy some shares. We can’t lose.

Of course the IPO will be handled by one of my off shore companies in the Caymans, so the Feds will be left in the dark. If this works out the way I would like, with the profits we can possibly target other debt loaded states with the same plan…and then maybe Greece. With all of this revenue streaming in, America’s going to get back on top again and become the place to invest in.”

He lapsed back to his Abercrombie-Fitch pose, “Does this plan kill, or what! Um, yeah…”