Business

Former Romney colleague says CEOs also suffered in ’08 collapse [VIDEO]

Jamie Weinstein Senior Writer
Font Size:

Edward Conard, a former Bain Capital partner and a major donor supporting his old colleague Mitt Romney’s presidential prospects, thinks that everything you’ve learned about the financial crisis is wrong — including that the CEOs of the major banks were hopelessly incompetent.

“Well, I think the CEOs have suffered well over a billion dollars of losses, some couple billion dollars,” he told The Daily Caller in an interview about his new book, “Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About the Economy is Wrong.”

“I don’t think anybody recklessly put their bank at risk — and their career and the standing socially that they worked their whole lifetime to create. That they put that at risk for a couple extra dollars, and that they were willing to let the banks go bankrupted, I think this is a far fetched — it’s a far-fetched hypothesis.”

“So I think you could make the case they were incompetent perhaps,” he continued. “But then I think you always have to have this sort of God’s eye view of the world. So what is competent? Who is it that can adjudicate what is competent or not competent? If the guys that are running the most important banks in our country aren’t competent enough, well, then who is competent enough?”

In his book, Conard puts forth an alternative view of what caused the recent financial meltdown and makes the case that “the 1 percent” and Wall Street aren’t the villains some have made them out to be. He also lays out what he believes should be done to get us out of our current morass and prevent a future financial crisis.

“Don’t diminish the incentives for risk-taking,” he told TheDC.

Unlike Romney, Conard openly says that taxes will have to go up — he just doesn’t think they should be targeted toward the rich lest their incentive to invest is diminished.

“Let’s not kid ourselves: We’re spending at 25 percent of GDP and we’re taxing at 15 percent of GDP. There is going to be an enormous increase in taxes,” he said.

“Everyone’s trying to pretend that it’s going to be a lot smaller than it is really going to be. To the extent we want to skew that even more heavily toward the successful risk takers, I worry we’re going to end up with a growth rate that looks a lot more like Europe and Japan’s.”

Check out the full interview to see what Conard thinks about President Barack Obama’s efforts to fix the economy, what he believes caused the financial collapse and much more.

And check back tomorrow to see Conard’s defense of Bain Capital from Obama’s attacks and whether he thinks his former colleague, Mitt Romney, is truly an ideological conservative.

Videography by Sean Rainey and Sarah Hoffman.

Follow Jamie on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel