Forum Post: Rich Guy: We Should Get More Votes Than Poor
Posted 10 years ago on Feb. 14, 2014, 9:53 p.m. EST by LeoYo
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Rich Guy: We Should Get More Votes Than Poor
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rich-guy-we-should-get-more-votes-poor-n30891
SAN FRANCISCO - Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who compared the plight of the wealthiest Americans to Jews in Nazi Germany, offered up a provocative new idea on what the rich deserve: more votes in public elections for every dollar they pay in taxes.
"If you pay a million dollars, you should get a million votes," Perkins, the retired co-founder of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, told an audience at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club in comments that he later said were meant to be provocative. He also said that only taxpayers should have the right to vote.
Last month, Perkins wrote a much-discussed letter-to-the-editor published in The Wall Street Journal that likened the Nazi party's war on Jews to what he called "the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the 'rich.'"
He later apologized for the analogy, which included a reference to Kristallnacht, the 1938 attack on Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria. He expressed regret again on Thursday for those words, saying, "You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust."
Venture capitalist Tom Perkins, shown in San Francisco in 2011, said: "If you pay a million dollars, you should get a million votes."
But on Thursday night, he doubled down on his comments about the treatment of the nation's wealthiest citizens.
"The extreme progressivity of taxation is a form of persecution," he said. "I think if you've paid 75 percent of your life's earnings to the government, you are being persecuted."
He also discussed editorial attacks on his ex-wife, the best-selling novelist Danielle Steele and posited that if Germany had U.S. gun laws, "there would have never been a Hitler."
Later in the talk, Perkins made it clear he was trying to goad the audience.
"It's going to make you more angry than my letter to The Wall Street Journal," he said, before floating his idea about allocating votes based on taxes. "How's that?" he said when finished, throwing up his hands and looking out at the laughing audience.
— Reuters
Don't they already? Isn't that what K-Street is for? Isn't that why they donate billions to political campaigns... isn't that why Koch and Alec pay for propaganda to grade the tax system in favor of the wealthy? How many more write-offs do they need when they already pay ZERO in taxes through off shore schemes and loopholes? When they pay people to write the laws for them and their firms with loopholes large enough t fit a truck through...
http://werenotbrokemovie.com/
a film about the tax system and why it has been written for the wealthy by the wealthy and carried out by Congress - we have no representation anymore it's all for the one percent already - the mere argument that it is not is a joke and diversion - let's talk instead about why they wealthy already get more votes and live in a different system than the rest of America!!!! Equal rights under the law my ass - Corporations and Rich America are separate and privileged- under current law- it's become legal to have separate rights for the working class (we've been shuffled to the back of the bus) while the one percent rides up front only now they have done it through land and tax gearing...
Real Estate for Ransom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL3n59wC8kk
''I see a government completely out of control, and money is number one. Integrity isn't even on the map.'' (Neil Young). In compliment of your excellent comment and links, I append and recommend :
''The Mobsters of Wall Street'', by Jim Hightower : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37633.htm ;
''Usurious Returns on Phantom Money : The Credit Card Gravy Train'', by Ellen Brown : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37648.htm ;
''How to Ruin an Economy ; Some Simple Ways" - Noam Chomsky (Video) : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37640.htm ;
''The Problem is Civil Obedience'' - Howard Zinn (Video & Transcript) : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36950.htm &
"Economists and the One-Percent - Reality Economics", by Dr. Michael Hudson : http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33292.htm .
fiat lux ...
Does Tom Perkins' logic stop only at voting? If the rich want to vote more, they should fight more. Clearly the richest in society have the most to lose. Therefore winning wars is more important to them. Does Tom Perkins think that the wealthest Americans should also be our soldiers, fighting in combat for us? Perhaps we should have a military comprised solely of the 1%.
I think old rich people are excellent candidates to die on the battlefields. 1.They've already lived a great, long life. 2.once they die, their money can be donated to the 99%. 3.It will keep our society fresh, by quickly weeding out the old rich people from our society. They can be replaced with new leaders and new ideas. It will expedite the cycle of human evolution.
Tom Perkins should not just want to vote more. He should want to fight more. Tom may be old, but he can still drive a military truck in Afghanistan. There are many IED infested roads where Tom can proudly die fighting the taliban. After our hero dies, we can "trickle down" his wealth to the 99%.
It's always ironic how people like this claim to be great business minds, and yet they think that in the political spectrum their lives would be better even higher levels of disenfranchisement of the general population.
A poster suggested this very thing to me back in Feb. of 2012, he put it this way:
[-]1 points by 1sealyon (245) 18 hours ago
Why not ask this question another way.
50% of the people pay no Federal Income Tax. Why do the people that pay nothing have any say in how the tax money is spent?
We have a graduated tax rate why not a graduated ballot box? Everybody gets one vote, and then you get one more for every $1000 that you pay in taxes?
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we discussed it in this thread if you'd like to see how it went:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-dont-we-turn-america-into-a-corporation/
I took this in a different direction here:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/if-we-give-them-a-lower-tax-rate-dont-we-have-a-ri/
Basicly saying if they get tax cuts don't we have a right to ask what they do with all that wealth?
if everyone had equal access to money
they could vote with their dollar
if everyone voted, access to money would be more equally distirbuted, if everyone voted to defeat the footmen of the rich (the GOP) money could be fairly earned through a union job, but most people don't want to be involed no matter that voting is free (right now).
if we create the money , we control its circulation
who is "we", are they a different group than those allowed to vote? don't "we" already do what "we" do?
we is the inclusive group that would include you and me
or
we could be whoever controls the creation of money
banks create money through loans for instance
in the end I think we would form some sort of structure, I don't see how creating a new system is any better than fixing the one we have, we are legion, anything we decide to do will give rise to some sort of system, only fools attempt to keep the ocean from the beach, (and the Dutch)
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then why sugest we make our own money wouldn't that just be "chanaging the system" and once again someone would grap it all, if we don't address the problem why brother? and if we are to address the problem we must rid ourselves of the GOP that should be very easy with 63% of people having some grasp of the problem already, if we spent have the effort on removing the GOP from office as we do dreaming about some new system, things might better instead of worst year by year
OWS could of done something about this, but choose not to....
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some sort of satire
the rich already pay the poor to work
which has a much greater effect on their life than who gets elected
We equate money with freedom and become enslaved to those born to wealth.
I'll work for whoever will give me money
You seem a bright fellow Matt, I'm hiring in Phoenix.
I live in San Diego
what's the jobs ?
Job is in Phoenix, and it's legal work, so does it matter?
I tried to hire someone away from WalMart last night but they were watching so I had to be careful...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/23/travel/asia-pilot-shortage/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Ground crew too.
I know a pilot who fly’s the smaller planes, his family barely gets by they really struggle, I suppose more and more people find it hard to spend the money you have to on flight school for 20 to 30 thousand a year, as jobs continue to pay less and less it seems more and more are going unfilled, maybe the market place isn’t working if it did you’d think there was a shortage of CEOs.
Maybe we need to raise wages to attract people back into the work force, we seem to have plenty of CEOs.
Matt really needs a job though and it does pay better than the average dishwasher.
tempting
Money is freedom if you consider that having resources like food and a shelter are freedoms. Some like to live in the woods. People born to wealth never took away my freedoms. I'm lucky to make enough money. I think wealthy people have too much. It confuses them.
What I don't like his how capitalism destroys the planet. I don't really care about wealth inequality that much. I like my bicycle. No need for a Ferrari.
At least in our current system if a drunk Born Rich Kid hits you on your bicycle in his Ferrari, his freedom most likely won't be impacted much, here's one example:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/young-prince-kills-four-peasants-get-probation-mon/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/06/texas-teenager-affluenza-escapes-jail-second-time
I'll put it another way. money allows for the shifting of the burden of production from one person to another, but isn't one person "freedom" another's "enslavement"? When one becomes free another provides the work, now good policy on the other hand can protect everyone's freedom, to have food and shelter and education and healthcare that's real freedom.
Warren Buffet said "Money is the power to comand the services of others" some consider that freedom, I guess. In our lives money is the method we obtain things like food, so it is understandable how the confusion occurs, and that it is very useful for those born to wealth for the rest of us to think of it that way. Then when someone tries to control the use of money it is like they are restricting freedom in the minds of some, when in fact restricting the ability for some to comand others with thier money is the only shot at a bit of freedom for most.
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I think freedom could be described as having food and shelter (and health care) without having to trade your time for them, then you would be free to trade time for a new TV if you wanted to, that would be freedom I think....
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Don't get caught in the weeds dawg, just repersentive of a luxery item fill in whatever you like, fast car, slow massage, weekend on the beach; point is freedom is working when you want something more than you want a day off, working for food and shelter is just another form of slavery.
Creatures of all types work to provide themselves food and shelter.
If you aren't working at a job to buy them, you are literally working on them, as in fixing your roof, building on a new room for more kids, working your garden and your well, etc etc etc.
Before governments came around this was a typical existence, as it still is for almost every other creature.
Should we be more advanced to find a way around this? At some point, somebody is going to have to build the shelter, maintain the shelter, work the garden and pump the well, and probably also create the clothing.
At any given time we are working. Work itself is not slavery.
Give someone a million dollars and they don't have to do any of it. They can pay someone else to. But that other person is then the one doing the work.
At some point in the cycle, the work has to be done. To call work at it's most basic function as slavery may be a bit dramatic.
Creatures born to weath don't have to work for nothing, maybe that's what's wrong too many of the people in charge have never had to work for thier food.
If you have troble understanding what I mean here's a little flim by one of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xhuSxyHWRw
Speaking of creatures of all kind, did you know that the average human creature works far more today to provide thier food and shelther than 100,000 years ago? All that extra "work" product has been going to the Royal's for many many years.
When basic needs are withelded unless you do my bidding, what better discription than slavery?
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it is odd to hear claims that we live in a consumer society
Socrates said we should appoint philosopher kings to rule. He also said that stupid people should not have the right to vote. The right to vote should be a privilege, just like driving a car. They have been pushing freedom and equality for stupid people because these people are easier to control, manipulate and extort. There should be test to be able to vote. So yes Rich people<COUGH> intelligent people, should be the only ones voting.
Everyone should have a say in determining the conditions to affect them. No degree of intellect grants an individual an inherent right over the fate of others. Voting itself is a non-intellectual endeavor that ascribes a majority, regardless of reason, the right to determine the fate of all. If it were an intellectual endeavor, it wouldn't be voting, it would be reasoning with every reasonable person coming to the same conclusion with nothing being put to a vote. Voting exists because people aren't reasonable but are willing to gamble their fate upon the outcome of a majority will. With the options of yea or nay, it doesn't matter if intellectuals or idiots are making the decisions as it's the same set of decisions being made regardless of the intelligence of the decision makers. The options remain the same for either group and no option can be unacceptable to a voting group by virtue of the fact of the option being put to a vote in the first place. There is nothing that can be voted upon that those in power truly care about. The issues truly important to those in power are simply implemented and never made subject to a popular vote.
I'm sorry. I don't speak crackhead. I would simply urge you to try and explain to me why you have to be 18 to vote. If I took any of the nonsense your spewing to heart then I would have to give the vote to a 10 year old too.
So far your replies have proven that you speak perfect crackhead. Granting voting rights to 18 year olds who aren't considered legally mature enough in their discretion to consume alcohol is a great example of voting being allowed to individuals considered immature and therefore less intelligent in their decision making than others. As legally independent adults, they have the right to participate in the social decisions to affect them and yet are still legally prohibited from enjoying a right afforded to citizens considered more psychologically mature. If voting were about intelligent responsibility, either all voters would be no younger than the legal drinking age or the legal drinking age would be lowered to accommodate all voters. Clearly, voting is not about intelligence, it's about a basic social right to self-determinism for social participation within a group.
As anyone knows, children with genius level IQs are not allowed to vote simply because of their intelligence. Whether geniuses or drop-outs, citizens who are not legally independent are not allowed to vote. Upon becoming 18 and thus legally independent and held to be responsible for their own actions, children, be they geniuses or drop-outs, are entitled to vote as legally independent participants of society who have a right to participate in the decision making process to socially affect them. The right to vote is all about a right of participation that has nothing to do with a level of wealth or intelligence.
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they simple are less aware of their greater environment due to lack of experience
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