Everything You Need To Know About Bain Capital

And none of it good.  I wrote to The Times in response, and they elected not to publish my response (its loss, and that of their readers).  Accordingly, I share it below:

To the Editor:

If Edward Conrad's unswerving defense of income equality possesses any logic at all, it is the logic of Puritanism and its view of capitalism:  that the accumulation of wealth is a natural and predictable function of a virtuous life, one in which the the right kind of thinking and behavior leads to rewards on earth as well as heaven.

The problem, however, is that Puritanism also recognizes the existence of sin and, therefore, the reality of failure in our endeavors, including those involving money.  This accords with the logic of capitalism that failure should be punished in the marketplace, not bailed out by the taxpayers.  When bailouts divorce capitalists from the prospect of failure, and tax cuts guarantee the accumulation of wealth without marketplace discipline, crony capitalism is the only logical result (along with an essentially privatized government).

It is therefore not surprising to see Conrad constantly make references to taking risks.  Risk-taking and a pile of chips are all that one really needs in the economic casino that we've created over the last three decades.  It is even less surprising that he would advocate government guarantees against any future bank failures.  By doing so, he effectively admits that we are all socialists now, and "Who benefits?" is the only remaining question.

Perhaps saddest of all is his disparagement of talent.  Talent, whether it is the ability to build a better smartphone or paint the Mona Lisa, is the ultimate creator of value.  Joining talent to risk is what prevents the risk from being an otherwise total leap into the void.  And, since talent is seldom concentrated in a single person, it is what ultimately democratizes business.

The traditional American willingness to discipline capitalism with virtue, and harness it to talent, is what has given this nation the economy its people have come to expect.  I might add that it is also the reason behind that nearly 80-year gap between bank runs that so puzzles Mr. Conrad and his fellow travelers.  Perhaps a truly conservative plan would be to return to that tradition, and keep gambling in the casinos, where it belongs.