Most TV stations have decided to give Mitt Romney equal time to respond to Barack Obama’s speech from Afghanistan. Before beginning his speech from Lichtenstein where Mr Romney invests some of his wealth tax-free., Mr Romney was introduced by his friend Edward Conard who was Mr Romney’s colleague 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 per cent. He’s a member of the 0.1 per cent. His wealth is in the hundreds of millions; and he is one of the largest donors to his friend, Mitt Romney.
In introducing Mr Romney, Edward Conard noted that he was proud of his friend who not only made a lot of money at Bain Capital but also helped lot of others make large amounts of money because without such rich people there will be no one to invest in companies, shares and properties and thus help the poor who are the major beneficiaries of the investments. Mitt Romney and he himself had made hundreds of millions which was the minimum required for significant investments and therefore in significantly helping the poor. Mr Conard noted that he was so disappointed to find that Mr Obama did not even make one million dollars last year. In his view it was disgraceful that the President of the richest nation on earth was making less money than the Prime Minister of the tiny nation of Singapore.
In his speech Mr Romney noted that he was more concerned with wealth than he was with Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan because if every adult in USA was a millionaire then USA could outsource wars like those that they had to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Young people who were fighting these wars could instead be fighting to make money like he had done and place their money safely in places like Lichtenstein, Canary Islands and Switzerland. Mr Romney noted that he was in the middle of a tour of safe havens with Mr Conrad to ensure that their wealth was well distributed in a number of safe places and he suggested that Cyprus, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Monaco and Seychelles were also safe places to invest any person’s wealth.
