By Bill O'Reilly

Earlier this week the far-left magazine, "Mother Jones," possibly one of Fidel Castro's favorite publications, put out another old video of Mitt Romney.

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MITT ROMNEY: Bain Capital is an investment partnership, which was formed to invest in start up companies and ongoing companies, then to take an active hand in managing them and hopefully five to eight years later to harvest them at a significant profit. We had the consulting resources and management skills and management resources to become actively involved in the companies we invested in to help them realize their potential values.

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O'REILLY: Now even though "Mother Jones" is appalled, that's what capitalism is. You grow companies, you make them more profitable. Then if you are lucky, you sell them for lots of money. That's the free marketplace. That's capitalism. Yes, sometimes the free market system is brutal but it does provide vast opportunity for those willing to work hard and take chances.

Capitalism has made the USA the most powerful nation on earth. It's the primary reason that millions of people all over the world are desperate to come here. But apparently some who support President Obama don't much like capitalism.

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ROBERT REICH, FMR. SEC OF LABOR: When Mitt Romney was talking about harvesting and maximizing profits, what he was really talking about is a technique of squeezing payrolls. I mean payrolls are about 70 percent of the cost structure of most companies. And the easiest way of harvesting products -- that is, profits -- over the relatively short-term is to squeeze payrolls to get rid of people, to cut benefits to even cut wages.

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O'REILLY: That man Dr. Robert Reich is a socialist. Always has been. I've known him for years. He doesn't like the fact that some American companies maximize profits by limiting compensation to workers and controlling their hiring. But you don't have to work for them.

Reich wants guaranteed wages, salaries, tenure, all the things that happen in socialistic countries. The question is does President Obama embrace that point of view, does he believe the same things that Dr. Reich and "Mother Jones" magazine believe? The answer to that question is maybe, possibly. But since President Obama is far too smart to define himself as a socialist sympathizer, we have no hard data on which to base a definitive opinion.

The President certainly wants to control economic outcomes. That's what income redistribution is. And that's a solid, socialist tenet. But so far Mr. Obama has not seized assets. He has, however, taken over the medical care industry but Congress gave him the authority to do that. He didn't do it by executive fiat.

Now I know many of you are going to write to me screaming, screaming in print that Barack Obama is a raving socialist. You might be right but you'll never prove it. The President does want to regulate corporate activity to some extent but after the mortgage investment con that led to the terrible recession we need some federal oversight on financial gangsters.

The huge mistake Mr. Obama is making is that he wants to run the entire U.S. economy from Washington. That has gotten him into big economic trouble.

Blaming the continuing economic mess on President Bush is hollow and cynical. It is the President's policies now that are driving economic results. 45 months is more than enough time to reignite the powerful American economic engine... more than enough time. You can't solve all the problems in that time. But you can certainly gain some economic momentum. That has not happened.

Here are the facts. Median income for American households down about $5,000 in five years, very bad. Health insurance premiums up 18 percent in three years and going higher under Obamacare, awful situation. Gas prices up 106 percent since Mr. Obama took office, a complete disaster. National debt up $5.4 trillion under the President and going higher, a catastrophe. and while salaries for workers are flat or down, corporate profits are up, signaling more economic imbalance in America.

Now, it used to be that economic steps like those would doom, doom an incumbent president. That's not happening this year. Barack Obama is not even conceding that his policies haven't worked. He is essentially saying they will work if you give me four more years. And millions of Americans seem to be on board with that as the President's poll numbers are higher than most expected.

The Rasmussen Daily Tracking poll today has Mr. Obama up by one percent, 47 percent - 46 percent over Mitt Romney. In the 11 swing states that will decide the election, Rasmussen has the race tied 46 percent - 46 percent, three percent remain undecided in the swing states.

Now, that's much closer than most of the other polling which "Talking Points" exposed earlier this week as being heavily weighted to the Democratic side. We here are putting our trust in Rasmussen this year because that outfit was the most accurate polling center in 2008.

American society is changing rapidly with social media now dominating the lives of many citizens and bitter partisanship on both sides backed by billions of dollars. Just today we learned that our pal George Soros is ponying up close to $2 million to help the President. That kind of money talks and what it says will not be complimentary to Mitt Romney. The Governor has the economic stats on his side. But it's clear that he and Paul Ryan still have not convinced the casual voter that they can improve the economy.

Mr. Romney's moment will come next Wednesday in Denver when he confronts Mr. Obama in the first debate. For the Governor it is really the only debate. He must win or he will not recover.

He has to show that he cares about the folks and that his expertise can return the nation to prosperity while more of Barack Obama would be a disaster. It's quite a challenge for Romney and the media is heavily rooting for his opponent.

But the folks are generally fair and they will be watching. Whether it's live-time or after the fact on the net and the folks will make up their own minds. So, the Governor does have a chance as the drama builds.

And that's "The Memo."

— You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com.