Some people point to Bain Capital, a vulture capital firm whose model is to strip a company’s assets, leverage whatever can be leveraged, suck out the cash and leave the business to die, as proof that Mitt Romney is heartless.  As if heartlessness is a bad thing.

Another way to look at Bain is that Romney seized upon a perfectly lawful means (despite the HuffPo’s snarky  suggestion to the contrary) of putting nonproductive businesses out of their misery while making good money off it, as proof that Mitt Romney is a smart businessman. As if being a smart businessman is a good thing.

Seizing opportunity wherever it can be found is as American as apple pie.  Until recently, societal norms prevented most Americans from harming others in the process.  We chose not to hurt people for our own financial gain because it was the wrong thing to do.  Ah, the good old days, when the wrong thing to do mattered.

The  New York Times has an editorial about the SEC’s implementation of a law enacted last April that will open up vast new profitable areas for lawyers:

Just what grandpa needed. Soon retirees and other investors will be barraged with advertisements for private stock offerings — via mail, cold calling, television, radio, billboards, the Internet and so on.

Such advertising, which used to be banned under federal securities law, will make it easier for hedge funds, venture capitalists, start-ups and other nonpublic companies to find investors. It will also make it easier for hucksters and rip-off artists to lure people into unsuitable investments and outright frauds because private offerings are not subject to disclosure requirements and other investor protections that apply to publicly held companies.

Every time a legal marketing cheerleader argues that people aren’t misled by deceptive lawyer advertising, I chuckle. Because people, even lawyers, don’t fall for the Nigerian lottery scam. Same with the nice folks who contend that nanny government is inherently bad, and there is no need for rules to distinguish truth from lies to protect grandpa from his own ignorant, stupidity or greed.  Or, that the stupid deserve to be ripped off, as part of some natural order.

For those who think Bain Capital reflects Romney’s mean spirit, the SEC’s failure to include safeguards for the vulnerable, like grandpa, falls squarely on the administration of the empathetic Obama administration.  What Congress did can be explained as an effort to stimulate business, bringing capital out from under the mattress so that innovators, start-ups, new blood, will create the next miracle that will shake us from our financial doldrums.  A good thing.

At the same time, grandpa can’t even buy laundry detergent without getting scammed, so the likelihood that he has the capacity to perform due diligence, or even grasp what he’s buying, is slim to none.  Remember, that’s your inheritance he’s going to lose.  And when grandpa is eating cat food, you’re going to feel bad and send him over a pot roast once a month.

But the good news is that this offers opportunity for lawyers. Biglaw will polish up its white collar credentials by snatching up former prosecutors whose credentials impress hedgefund managers even though they’ve never defended anyone in their lives. There’s a thin line between risk and scam, and when an investment heads south, you can be sure that the losers will cry fraud.

Then there are the civil litigators trying to clawback grandpa’s pension before it all ends up on a sloop in the Grand Caymans, far from the maddening crowd.

Neither, however, add any value to society.  Whether lawyers are sucking money from the accused fraudsters, or copping a third out of whatever can be recovered for grandpa, it’s just skimming off the top of a circular money flow.  No durable good was created. No new technology was discovered. At least not by a lawyer.  We just wait for the problems to happen and swoop in to take our cut.

Granted, they will need us, and we may work hard on their behalf, and it’s better than grandpa pulling out the old Navy Colt and blowing some hedgefund manager away.  But we’re the janitors cleaning up the mess.

And if there is money to be made, there are desperate lawyers ready to make it. Websites will be changed to claim that some kid who graduated law school last week has vast experienced in such matters. And how deeply he cares, and reflected by the rave reviews on Avvo posted by his mother and two best friends.  But hey, he needs money and there’s money to be made out there, so why shouldn’t it flow to him?

It’s weird how many perceive themselves and their politics as a step below Mother Teresa, rather than just another vulture waiting for the next dead carcass in the road.  We can rationalize away doing the right thing for no better reason than it’s the right thing when it’s inconsistent with self-interest. Our team is brilliant and honest, and the other team is disingenuous and destructive.  And besides, if we don’t do it, someone else will and they will win the prize and leave us as roadkill. 

But as long as we frame our position in uplifting, positive rhetoric, it’s all good.  After all, the vulture will survive as others starve to death because there was nothing left to eat.