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Meet the Planet's Current Biggest Asshole Next To His Former Boss Romney: Edward Conard.
Last edited Sat May 5, 2012, 09:59 AM - Edit history (1)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-purpose-of-spectacular-wealth--according-to-a-spectacularly-wealthy-guy.html?page=1I think guys like this are the reason they invented guillotines.
Unlike his former colleagues, Conard wants to have an open conversation about wealth. He has spent the last four years writing a book that he hopes will forever change the way we view the superrich’s role in our society. “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong,” to be published in hardcover next month by Portfolio, aggressively argues that the enormous and growing income inequality in the United States is not a sign that the system is rigged. On the contrary, Conard writes, it is a sign that our economy is working. And if we had a little more of it, then everyone, particularly the 99 percent, would be better off. This could be the most hated book of the year.
Oh . . . . it gets better. And by "better", I mean much . . . MUCH more shameless . . .
The financial crisis, he writes, was not the result of corrupt bankers selling dodgy financial products. It was a simple, old-fashioned run on the banks, which, he says, were just doing their job. There are a huge number of people in our economy who want ready access to their savings — pension-fund managers, insurance companies and you and me with our bank accounts. And because economic growth comes from long-term investments in things like housing, factories and research, the central role of banks, Conard says, is to turn the short-term assets of nervous savers into risky long-term loans that help the economy grow.
snip
Conard concedes that the banks made some mistakes, but the important thing now, he says, is to provide them even stronger government support. He advocates creating a new government program that guarantees to bail out the banks if they ever face another run. As for exotic derivatives, Conard doesn’t see a problem. He argues that collateralized-debt obligations, credit-default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and other (now deemed toxic) financial products were fundamentally sound. They were new tools that served a market need for the world’s most sophisticated investors, who bought them in droves. And they didn’t cause the panic anyway, he says; the withdrawals did.
snip
Conard concedes that the banks made some mistakes, but the important thing now, he says, is to provide them even stronger government support. He advocates creating a new government program that guarantees to bail out the banks if they ever face another run. As for exotic derivatives, Conard doesn’t see a problem. He argues that collateralized-debt obligations, credit-default swaps, mortgage-backed securities and other (now deemed toxic) financial products were fundamentally sound. They were new tools that served a market need for the world’s most sophisticated investors, who bought them in droves. And they didn’t cause the panic anyway, he says; the withdrawals did.
Seriously, the more you read what this guy's about, the more dumbfounded you become that anyone can truly be this big of an asshole, as if a stratospheric bar has now been set.
A central problem with the U.S. economy, he told me, is finding a way to get more people to look for solutions despite these terrible odds of success. Conard’s solution is simple. Society benefits if the successful risk takers get a lot of money. For proof, he looks to the market. At a nearby table we saw three young people with plaid shirts and floppy hair. For all we know, they may have been plotting the next generation’s Twitter, but Conard felt sure they were merely lounging on the sidelines. “What are they doing, sitting here, having a coffee at 2:30?” he asked. “I’m sure those guys are college-educated.” Conard, who occasionally flashed a mean streak during our talks, started calling the group “art-history majors,” his derisive term for pretty much anyone who was lucky enough to be born with the talent and opportunity to join the risk-taking, innovation-hunting mechanism but who chose instead a less competitive life. In Conard’s mind, this includes, surprisingly, people like lawyers, who opt for stable professions that don’t maximize their wealth-creating potential. He said the only way to persuade these “art-history majors” to join the fiercely competitive economic mechanism is to tempt them with extraordinary payoffs.
"It’s not like the current payoff is motivating everybody to take risks,” he said. “We need twice as many people. When I look around, I see a world of unrealized opportunities for improvements, an abundance of talented people able to take the risks necessary to make improvements but a shortage of people and investors willing to take those risks. That doesn’t indicate to me that risk takers, as a whole, are overpaid. Quite the opposite.” The wealth concentrated at the top should be twice as large, he said. That way, the art-history majors would feel compelled to try to join them.
"It’s not like the current payoff is motivating everybody to take risks,” he said. “We need twice as many people. When I look around, I see a world of unrealized opportunities for improvements, an abundance of talented people able to take the risks necessary to make improvements but a shortage of people and investors willing to take those risks. That doesn’t indicate to me that risk takers, as a whole, are overpaid. Quite the opposite.” The wealth concentrated at the top should be twice as large, he said. That way, the art-history majors would feel compelled to try to join them.
Eddie . . . in my world, I would put a double secret probation tax on your insular sanctimonious ass for your idiocy.
You would never have made it to where you are at all if it weren't for public wealth and governmental services. You think all of this money is made out of a vacuum, as if we, us know-nothing peons are merely meant to just spend, fill your pockets and shut the hell up while doing so?
A run on banks didn't put millions out of work, profiteering did.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs aren't outsourced because of risk taking, it's because of GREED.
You're "extremely productive" class doesn't think that "life is unfair" . . . it's just that they think it shouldn't be fair for anyone except Y'ALL.
My God . . . THIS is what America worships? THIS is who we give all the money to and it STILL isn't enough for them??
Yeah, give the future of America to THESE guys and watch it drown in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Typical.
Why are the wealthy greedheads suddenly trying to justify their ill gotten gains?
Twinge of guilt, perhaps? 
Here's another thing I can't stand hearing about when anyone defends the wealthy:
The idea that society benefits when investors compete successfully is pretty widely accepted. Dean Baker, a prominent progressive economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says that most economists believe society often benefits from investments by the wealthy. Baker estimates the ratio is 5 to 1, meaning that for every dollar an investor earns, the public receives the equivalent of $5 of value. The Google founder Sergey Brin might be very rich, but the world is far richer than he is because of Google.
The whole "Where would you and the rest of the world BE if it weren't for people such as Steven Jobs, Bill Gates or Sergey Brin?" argument.
Here's the fallacy with that: For every Steven Jobs who DID innovate a product, employed others and theoretically deserved his wealth, there are a hundred to two hundred more super-wealthy people that DIDN'T invent anything, WEREN'T responsible for their company's success, GOT lazier as they made more money, EMPLOYED parasite business tactics such as leveraged buyouts, corporate raiding, one-sided mergers and job offshoring while voting themselves lottery bonuses and salaries no matter how good a job they did. Oh, and they fired workers because profits just weren't high enough last quarter. These parasites are on the boards of corporations across the country and in our governmental offices. Some of them come FROM the government and go back TO it, like a rotating door of vampire fascists.
"Productivity", "can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong", "austerity for thee not for me", and all that.
A Steven Jobs doesn't excuse a Mitt Romney or a Lee Raymond or a Jack Welch or an Al Dunlap. It also doesn't define the "law unto themselves" business practices they frequently are allowed to get away with.
