Newsmax
Sunday, 13 May 2012 10:15 PM
By Andra Varin and John Bachman
Mitt Romney understands how the economy works and he is ready to focus on long-term growth by encouraging private investment in innovation, author Ed Conard told Newsmax TV.
Conard, a former partner in Romney’s Bain Capital, is the author of “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong.” In the book, he argues that the Obama administration has discouraged risk-taking, with the result that the economic recovery is stuck at a snail’s pace.
He told Newsmax TV the Obama administration has discouraged investment by trying to penalize the wealthy and successful.
“They threatened all the successful risk-takers with much higher taxes,” he said.
Romney, on the other hand, is an experienced businessman who knows how to look at the big picture, said Conard. He praised Romney’s leadership skills at Bain.
“He made tough decisions when he had to make tough decisions. And he always made them with the highest level of integrity, which was aiming at what is the most valuable in the long run,” Conard said.
He said liberals still see the economy as it was back in the 1950s, not as it is now. And the current reality, he says, is that people with big ideas need investors with deep pockets.
“The people who need to take risks are the most talented people in the economy,” he said. “People who have a lot of equity have to start underwriting risk with that equity.”
He said conservatives, unlike liberals, understand the importance of equity. “We don’t want to take that equity, redistribute and consume it.”
Conard said he believes Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the most qualified candidate to fix the economy for the long term.
“At the broadest level, Mitt recognizes that risk taking, innovation and the equity that underwrites it are critical to the long-term growth and success of our country,” he told Newmax TV.
“He would do everything he could to get the economy to grow at the fastest rate in the long run.”
Conrad said he had witnessed Romney’s skills in action at Bain.
“He is an extraordinary executive. He has a deep understanding of business. He has a deep understanding of the economy,” Conard said. “He had one objective, and that was to dig down and find the truth.”
He added that the former Massachusetts governor has a proven track record of getting the best people to work for him.
“He surrounded himself with the most capable people. He challenged us to challenge him and to challenge each other,” Conard said.
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Conrad-Bain-Capital-Romney/2012/05/11/id/438838