Romney:"Corporations are people"

[TJ in Oregon]

Corporations, at least the large ones, are property of their shareholder, who are in fact real people. The majority of shareholders in most publically traded corporations are institutional investors, often unions (eg. the California Public Employees Retirement System or "CalPERS" is the largest) or individual retirement funds. When a corporation earns money, this money is either distributed among the shareholders (a dividend) or kept for further investment within a corporation, which in turn raises the value of the investment and helps the pensioners.

Now, this is a bit idealized and there are a few flaws. Of course some of the investors are undoubtedly wealthy individuals (who are still people), though get less sympathy from the public. The other main issue is that of corporate executives milking profits often via the stock option instead of truly operating on behalf of the shareholders. The government has also created a complicated web of anti-investment restrictions to exacerbate the problem.