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  ECONOMY   AlterNet / By Bruce Wilson  25 COMMENTS Where Did Paul Ryan Find Inspiration for 'Reforming' Social Security? A Brutal Military Dictatorship, Naturally The basis for Ryan's big plan was hatched under the radical right-wing Chilean torture regime of 1973 military coup leader Augusto Pinochet.

We begin today with new scrutiny Republican candidate Mitt Romney is facing about his record at the private equity firm Bain Capital. The latest controversy surrounding Bain concerns how Romney helped found the company with investments from Central American elites linked to death squads in El Salvador. After initially struggling to find investors, Romney traveled to Miami in 1983 to win pledges of $9 million, 40% of Bain's start up money. Some investors had extensive ties to the death squads responsible for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador beginning during the 1980's. The investors include the Salaverria family, whose former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, has previously accused of directly funding the Salvadorian paramilitaries. In his memoir, former Bain executive Harry Strachan writes, "Romney pushed aside his own misgivings about the investors to accept their backing." Strachan writes, "These Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital." For more, we're joined by Ryan Grim, Bureau Chief for The Huffington Post . He's connecting the dots in the latest story headlined, "Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads". Ryan, welcome to Democracy Now! If you could carefully laid out the story, and set the stage in El Salvador in the early 1980's, what was happening there, the carnage.