Mitt Romney recently encouraged young people to “take risks” to deal with a tough job market, even if it meant borrowing money from their parents. He said he took risks to pay for college by selling stock given to him by his father. He gave another example of how the owner of the sandwich chain Jimmy John took risks and got started by borrowing $20,000 from his father. Mr Romney agreed that the cost of going to college had gone up and therefore young people may need to borrow perhaps $50,000 from parents but he was confident that most young college going students had the courage to take such risks.
Romney said that such risk taking was also a powerful and positive formative force for the rest of life for American youngsters facing a difficult and uncertain economic future. “I lead by example” said Romney who just last month risked a sale of 10%, or 2.1 million shares, of his holdings in several mining and heavy metal companies around the world. “I saw an opportunity to buy a large tract of farmland in Brazil, and needed 90 million in cash to put down. Hunger is only going to increase, the peasants who live there can’t afford the legal fight, and the government is being very, very cooperative. The market was not offering stellar pricing for my stock, but I knew that it’s only by being willing to take risks that we can succeed, or even survive! I thought, what the hell, I am going to just do it!” said Romney. He went on to urge American youth to follow his example: “To the 35% of you living beneath the poverty line I say the next time the family stomachs are growling while sitting down to a thin oatmeal dinner, consider selling some of your equity (I suggest energy stocks) and using the money to put some chicken on the table.”
