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Forum Post: The case for income inequality

Posted 11 years ago on May 2, 2012, 8:58 p.m. EST by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA
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This is the enemy.

I know it may be hard for anybody with a shread of decency or sense of justice to get through but I really do recomend reading the whole article in the link below.

By Jacob Goldstein and Dan Kedmey

Ever since the financial crisis started, we’ve heard plenty from the 1 percent. We’ve heard them giving defensive testimony in Congressional hearings or issuing anodyne statements flanked by lawyers and image consultants. They typically repeat platitudes about investment, risk-taking and job creation with the veiled contempt that the nation doesn’t understand their contribution. You get the sense that they’re afraid to say what they really believe. What do the superrich say when the cameras aren’t there? Great Moments in 1% History

With that in mind, I recently met Edward Conard on 57th Street and Madison Avenue, just outside his office at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm he helped build into a multibillion-dollar business by buying, fixing up and selling off companies at a profit. Conard, who retired a few years ago at 51, is not merely a member of the 1 percent. He’s a member of the 0.1 percent. His wealth is most likely in the hundreds of millions; he lives in an Upper East Side town house just off Fifth Avenue; and he is one of the largest donors to his old boss and friend, Mitt Romney.

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/magazine/romneys-former-bain-partner-makes-a-case-for-inequality.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

4 Comments

4 Comments


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[-] 3 points by jrhirsch (4714) from Sun City, CA 11 years ago

"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."

What pure BS. Circular logic too. Withdrawals caused the panic. What caused the withdrawals, the panic.

[-] 3 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

What are his thoughts on multinational corporations not paying any taxes?

[-] 2 points by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA 11 years ago

I dont think he mentioned it in the article but I'm sure he thinks all rich people should pay minimal taxes.

[-] 2 points by gestopomillyy (1695) 11 years ago

a mind deranged by the greed.

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