Romney's Staples closing 60 stores around the world

Romney is a jobs creator, you know. As a vulture capitalist, surely you can't expect him to be more concerned about jobs for working families over his own wallet. This brings us back to what I wrote about the other week. The skills that made Romney a successful CEO would make him a terrible president. Romney's core focus is not about, nor has it ever been, about creating jobs. Romney's focus has been on making money and lots of it.

Again, he is an awful candidate for president but it wasn't a fluke that he built a fortune of up to $378 million. If chopping jobs could make him a few more dollars, Romney would and has consistently taken the money. As the CEO of Bain Capital, his exclusive focus was money. Period. For a person like Romney that lacks empathy, it was the perfect job.

Anyone who thinks Romney can suddenly change and show compassion or care about jobs is kidding themselves. Running a country where you have to care about everyone and not just the select few is radically different from running a venture capital firm. Ten times out of ten, Romney would chop jobs the way Staples is doing now.

The chain expects the U.S. store closings will result in a charge of about $35 million in the fourth quarter. For fiscal 2012, it anticipates about 30 U.S. store closings. Staples also expects 30 stores will be scaled down and stores being relocated.

In Europe, the store closures are expected to occur before the end of fiscal 2012. The company has also tapped John Wilson to serve as president of Staples Europe. Wilson succeeds Rob Vale, who is retiring.