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Tom Perkins Regrets Holocaust Comments, Says "Let The Rich Do What The Rich Do... Get Richer"
Following his WSJ letter comparing the "progressive war on the 1% in America" to fascist Nazi Germany persecution of the Jews and "just as Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930, the descendant 'progressive' radicalism in American thinking is unthinkable now", Tom Perkins appeared on Bloomberg TV to explain himself. His first step was to apologize for the analogy but not the message that "the creative 1% is being threatened." The interview with Emily Chang is fascinating and wends it way from Rolexs, yachts, and underwater airplanes to trailer parks; and from disconnects with reality to implying Krugman's craziness. However, Perkins sums his message up thus:"the solution is less interference, lower taxes and let the rich do what the rich do - that is get richer... and they will bring everyone else along with them when the system is working." It appears the 'system' needs a different final solution.
Clip 1
CHANG: So more than 90 Jews were killed in Kristallnacht, 30,000 people put in concentration camps. What were you going for (inaudible) analogy?
PERKINS: The Jews were only 1 percent of the German population. Most Germans had never met a Jew, and yet Hitler was able to demonize the Jews and Kristallnacht was one of the earlier manifestations, but there had been others before it. And then of course we know about the evil of the Holocaust. I guess my point was that when you start to use hatred against a minority, it can get out of control. I think that was my thought. And now that as the messenger I’ve been thoroughly killed by everybody, at least read the message.
CHANG: You mentioned the word hatred. Do you feel threatened?
PERKINS: I don’t feel personally threatened, but I think that a very important part of American, namely the creative 1 percent, are threatened.
[Jerry Brown]tells me the number-one problem in America is inequality, and that’s probably and possibly true. And I think President Obama’s going to make that point tomorrow night. But the 1 percent are not causing the inequality. They are the job creators. Silicon Valley is – I think Kleiner Perkins itself over the years has created pretty close to a million jobs and we’re still doing it. It’s absurd to demonize the rich for being rich and for doing what the rich do, which is get richer by creating opportunity for others.
CHANG: How do you feel threatened?
PERKINS: I said I didn’t feel personally threatened. I feel however that as a class I think we are beginning to engage in class warfare. I think the rich as a class are threatened through higher taxes, higher regulation and so forth. And so that is my message.
...
I think the 99 percent is struggling and really struggling to get along in America. We have ever-increasing regulation, higher costs I think caused by more government than we need. Small businesses – it’s difficult to form and prosper in a small business these days. It’s difficult to hire. And that in my view is what is hurting and causing – hurting the 99 percent and causing the inequality.
So I think that the solution is less interference, lower taxes. Let the rich do what the rich do, which is get richer. But along the way, they bring everybody else with them when the system is working.
PERKINS: I regret the use of that word. It was a terrible misjudgment. I don’t regret the message at all. In fact --
CHANG: What is the message?
PERKINS: The message is any time the majority starts to demonize a minority, no matter what it is, it’s wrong and dangerous. And no good ever comes from it.
Clip 2
As far as Perkins is concerned Kleiner Perkins disavowal of his Op-Ed is them "throwing him under the bus" and missing the warning that any time a majority
Perkins goes on to note that his partner Kleiner fled Austria and Hitler and would have agreed with him...
CHANG: All right. Well let’s talk a little bit about the solution here. You mentioned your friend Eugene Kleiner, the late Eugene Kleiner, fled Austria, fled Hitler. Do you think he would have agreed with you?
PERKINS: Yes, I think he would have because I – I was not talking about the Nazis. I was talking about the persecution of a minority by the majority. And Kleiner always distrusted those sorts of trends in American politics.
CHANG: You have conservatives out there though like Marc Andreessen calling you leading A-hole in the state.
PERKINS: Yes. It wasn’t a very nice word. And considering that he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, I don’t think he’s entitled to his opinion. If he knew me, perhaps. Paul Krugman called me crazy in today’s New York Times.
CHANG: Paul Krugman also pointed out that rising income inequality can have very negative economic and financial consequences in the sense that if there is – if it leaves us more economically vulnerable and the people who are rich can’t pay for stuff, then everyone suffers.
PERKINS: Well, just what you said is such a contradiction of intermixed ideas. He won the Nobel prize in economics. I can’t argue economics with him, but to demonize the job creators is crazy and to demonize the rich who spend and buy things and stimulate the economy is crazy. I heard on the news hour with – gosh, name escapes me. Anyway, New York Times, and they got into a discussion about the idiocy of Rolex watches and why does any man need a Rolex watch and it’s a symbol of – of terrible values and it’s – et cetera. Well, I think that’s a little silly. This isn’t a Rolex {it's a Richard Mille}. I could buy a six pack of Rolexes for this, but so what?
CHANG: You were called the king of Silicon Valley I believe at one point. How would you describe yourself?
PERKINS: I certainly have enough arrogance to be royal, but I – I’m an old man. I look back upon my career with great happiness. I think I’ve accomplished a lot. If I had to do it again, I don’t know what I’d change. And I’m at peace with myself. And the fact that everybody now hates me is part of the game. And I’m sorry about that, but that isn’t what I meant to do.
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But wasn't Trickle Down economics a play on words like "Quantitative Easing"? Trickle down was really trickle up and out of the country to be invested in cheap outsourced labor countries, even if those countries weren't of the capitalist business model. Their "trickle down" play on words was just a way for them to "piss down our backs and tell us that it's raining".
Oh so now the 1% are the creative people of the population. Create your own meat and dairy and fruits and vegetables for a season you smug prick. I think of the restaurateur I briefly worked for who owned 5 fine dining restaurants. He was very wealthy. In a manager and chefs meeting once he held up a Time or Newsweek magazine that had the dollar sign on the cover virtually top to bottom. He started the meeting by holding up the magazine and pointing to the dollar sign and saying "This is what I serve." I didn't work for him but two more months until I found a new gig. At least we knew what he was about but it was a very quiet meeting after that. We all were waiting for a punch line that never came. So sad. Creative , my ass. My trash man works harder that that smug prick and I hope he can eat that watch some day when he asks to share my last meal with me because I will be eating with my trash man. God these people. They make my skin crawl. Worried about discrimination? Income inequality. God I have heard about that and social justice so much I am sick already. I need a beer. out.
But how many jobs did your trashman create? Granted he worked hard and I respect that. But he's working a job. He's not working for himself. So, he needs people to create jobs.
Amazing how the "productive" can't actually _do_ much of anything, isn't it?
Hell was made for people like him.
Hey, our cup runneth over. Had to mention the holocaust on International Holocaust day (continual psychological warfare) They stuck it on Mozart's birthday. Don't worry, Mozart will have a longer play.
Creative at scheming to manipulate and control news, financial, political and legal systems to facilitate robbing the 99% and ultimately enslaving them. Oh so typical incoherent quasineoliberaltorightwing blather designed to confuse people regarding true intentions of the 1%, which are as despicable as their humanity and ethics are nonexistent.
Silicon Valley creating jobs? What a line of bullshit. Maybe for H-1B's and other assorted foreigners. Not for actual Americans.
Maybe that's because "actual Americans" are too fucking stupid to fill those jobs? Sorry no empathy there buddy. You want to be a paycheck guy then you have to offer what the guy signing the checks wants to buy. I chose to do what I do and get what I put into it without complaining that some Silicon Valley guy doesn't "create a job for me". This country or society for that matter owes you nothing. If some Indian kid has the goods to do what the job call for then good for him. If you or anyone else cannot make yourself more valuable to the guy buying your labor then tough shit. Maybe try another line of work. Or maybe build a better widget and put the guy out of business.
And as it sounds like you've never actually met an Inidan here on an H1B visa, your opinion is effectively worthless.
They're cheap. That's all they've got. They can't think their way through even the simplest problems. But it doesn't matter because the "private" sector companies that import them to fulfill fat government contracts aren't actually required to produce a working product, let alone a quality one, so their total lack of ability doesn't really factor into the equation. Frankly, with the bar being set that low, I don't know why they go all the way to India when there are lots of janitors and fry cooks right here that can produce the same level of code for minimum wage...
When a man such as Perkins becomes so cut of from reality,
he loses his soul to the Devil.
There does seem to be some reasonable concern about the eye of the needle, and the camel thingy.
I was talking about the persecution of a minority by the majority. — Tom Perkins
What about the persecution of the majority by a minority? That is what is really happening in Zionist-controlled America. Americans need to realize what Winston Churchill pointed out long ago, that Communism has been a movement of the left wing of Jewry from its birth. And it is still their instrument, their tool…their goal.
Major Robert H. Williams, who worked in counter-intelligence during WW II, writes from experience:
“Our own government and all governments understood that it was the Bolshevik element among the Jewish people who took over Russia in the October Revolution of 1917. A report by our own American Intelligence Service in 1919, never released in America but published in Paris (Documentation Catholique, issue of March 6, 1920), listed the names of the 25 leading Bolshevik officials, 24 of whom were shown as Jewish, the 25th, Lenin, married to a Jewish. (Some authorities insist that Lenin was half Jewish.) Heading the list of the 24 was, of course, L. Trotsky (Bronstein of New York).”
The Jewish Transcript of Seattle, Washington, of May 29, 1936, flatly stated: “The Communists are Jewish controlled.”
W.L. White in his book, Report on the Poles (1946) estimated that only about 50 percent of the Polish Communist government was Jews (considered a conservative estimate by many at the time). According to Washington Times-Herald Columnist George E. Sokolsky in 1946, it was the knowledge of living next to the Iron Curtain, behind which 20,000,000 Russians had been killed or shipped off to slave labor camps, that was causing the raging anti-Semitism in Poland, worse than anywhere else at any time in history."
The Poles understood Communism.
Reports on Romania and Hungary at the time indicated a similar bitterness, the same as in Poland, “because of their fathomless fear of the radical Jewish element on their governments.”
Writes Williams: “The peoples of Eastern Europe all along have been better informed than we of the racial complexion of Communism. That‘s one reason why they have resisted it so desperately. They knew it would completely devastate their civilization…. It was the Jewish terrorist, Bela Kun, Communist revolutionary leader, who right after the First World War wrote his name across Eastern Europe in the blood of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”
Do Americans understand Zionism, i.e., Communism? The Palestinians do.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. -- George SantayanaDo you really believe such tripe or are just a small minded antisemite?
I suppose you think The Elders of Zion is a factual book and not a nasty, but brilliantly effective, bit of antisemitic propaganda.
Look at historical facts. Wow was the Russian revolution good for Jews - NOT. How many killed and persecuted, denied the ability to get a good education or get a decent job in the old Soviet Union. Why did so many flee as soon as the Soviets let them emigrate?
Read some more history and you will also discovery Poland was not a very fun place to be Jewish before the Russian revolution. Do you know what a pogrom is? Did they start before or after 1917?
Oh and if Jews are running the world I guess that is why they are so popular at the U.N. and winning all resolutions brought against them? Don't you think they could have established the their county with easily defensible borders and all they way to the Jordan River so that might have better access to fresh water?
For such a smart all powerful people they have been pretty dumb about exercisng world domiation for their own benefit. HMMM Guess they all just want to be sneaky.
With 63 companies listed on teh NASDAQ, htere are more Isralie companies then anyother foreign nation. Sure sign of communism there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation Feel free to ignore that fact too.
Why let facts get in the way.
For your edification, here's a scholarly inquiry into the Protocols.
The Protocols of Zion Toolkit.
The strongest arguments that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a forgery, and why they're wrong.
http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html
Jewish Bolsheviks killed over a hundred million Christians in Russia and the wealth of the nation was plundered. Fact. As the Bolsheviks started to be exited out of Russia, of course there would be bad feelings towards such a people. Widely known fact that the Bolsheviks and their Jewish financiers then when on to fund Mao, and again tens of millions were murdered and the nation's wealth again plundered. Now in America, we have the descendants of Trotsky masquerading as the Neocons and again the nation's wealth has been plundered. The mass killlings may or may not follow but to do so will require gun confiscation. And the leading Zionists of the country, Feinstein, Bloomberg, et al, are the ones leading the charge. The pattern continues.
I can confirm the assertion that the majority of the leaders of the communist party of Romania were disproportionately jewish. Their reign of terror (that lasted from 1945 to 1989, with the bulk of the crimes committed until 1960ish) ended in at least several hundred thousand deaths and resulted in the total obliteration of the society in their quest for the "new man". We are still dealing with the consequences of these deaths 25 years after the power play that "ended" communism in the country. Please note besides the hundred of thousands of deaths another hundred thousand or so died in the Basarabia and Bucovina regions of Romania (annexed by the soviet union after the 2nd world war based on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between nazi Germany and USSR) via outright murders or deportation to Siberia and all the Stans in Central Asia).
High Net worth does not equal high IQ. This guy and his 6-pack of Rolexes should just go away and STFU.
He's on the list now.
Sounds like Reagan's campaign speeches in favour of "Voodoo" economics. This guy seems to be a Reagan era "supply sider"..and hasn't had a thought since...No need I guess.
So if we follow this mans line of reasoning in " let the rich do what the rich do - that is get richer" then is it similarly implied let the poor do what the poor do - that is get poorer?
The stated attitude doesn't seem very humble. No humility there that I can see. And no "There but for the grace of god go I" neither.
I upvoted because he is proud rather than faking some shitty false humility as if he should be ashamed of being a name partner of Kleiner Perkins,
Who gives a fuck what you did atomic fuckhead,you're the problem.
So the upper income tax bracket gets raised a few percentage points (not that it will really affect Perkins) and capital gains got raised (and it is still well below labor-derived income) and there is a pogrom on the 1%?
He's a VC guy and smart as a whip. He damn well knows this is nonsense yet he doesn't have to give a damn. He's retired, uberwealthy, and can say whatever he largely pleases.
Funny how Perkins says Kristallnacht was "unthinkable" in the 1930's...
Well, I'm sorry to bust Mr. Perkins revisionist history bubble, but organized, radical Jewry was a HUGE problem in Germany.
Leftist Jews had Germany in a financial stranglehold and were trying hard to turn Germany communist just like they'd done in Russia.
The invevitable backlash by the ethnic Germans was anything but a suprise.
"Leftist Jews had Germany in a financial stranglehold"
Who told you that?
What nonsense.
Who? Names please what positions of power did they hold? Threre are no facts to support such your assertation? Pure BS.
If "they" had such a stranglehold how did Hilter come to power?
Try reading a few historical books. Gee what were the long term economic effects on Germany imposed as part of the WWI settlement?
Look at the occupations of the majority of the jews who were persecuted. Average workers, lawyers, doctors and businessmen, no different then anyother cross section of Germans. Do not believe me? Read the Nazi's own records.
Here's a kosher cookie for you Arthur! Nice hasbara you got there, it would be a pity if someone were to spoil it with facts...oh wait you don't give a shit about data (not to mention the damn data is anti-semitic). Oy vey oy vey...
Reading through the comments here, or, in point of fact, reading them most any day, seems to suggest that Perkins---despite his analogy---is on to something. The 1% are targets simply for being the 1%. Nobody wants to differentiate the good ones from the bad ones, or even to acknowledge that there is any difference.
The man may lack humility, and may choose to use his now accumulated vast wealth in ways that the so-called Libertarians here apparently wish to outlaw (if he ‘stacked’ and ‘prepped’, instead of buying Richard Milles and 1932 Duesenberg SJs, would he be ‘good people’, putting his money to good productive use?), but he gained most of his wealth in ways that differ markedly from how someone like Jamie gained his. Perkins and his partners aggregated funds, then made those funds available to people with great ideas but no capital. They put their own capital at risk obviously in the hope of making gains, but because of it companies came into existence that provided useful goods and services, and created employment for tens of thousands, or even millions. Silicon Valley, and perhaps the entire IT industry, might have either been delayed, or been created in another country at a later date, if not for the VC community of which Perkins was an early member. Anybody on this site employed in high tech? Programming? Biotech? Let’s paraphrase Obama here: You didn’t build that Silicon Valley. To a large extent, however, Tom Perkins did, and those employed in tech, and those who use tech (like to access this website on a device connected to the web) benefitted from what he did.
Sometimes---no, all the time now---many in the crowd here simply want to be angry. In the beginning of Zerohedge the anger was definable, and the targets clear. The accused either broke laws, or violated the spirit of the law. An outside observer coming to ZH for the first time today, however, is hard pressed to know what all the angry people really want, but such an outsider might well conclude that what the angry ones actually want is to be anyone other than who they are.
I'll up vote that. I admit to not knowing the details of Perkins' history but wrote above of the other side of the argument. You are correct about what you write here which is why I was revolted by the whole Occupy thing and the divisive aspect to it.
We must delinate between the criminal class and those that are just wealthy.
There's more at work than just separating ill gotten gains from gains made fairly. For some reason, many people also want wealth to equate somehow to social utility. The Universe doesn’t work that way. A farmer might well provide the ultimate useful service, but the fact that 7 billion people exist today, and the fact that humankind has been farming for some 7000 years, suggests the skill isn’t all that rare. Though it serves no readily useful function, being able to drill three-pointers all night long is rare. Because people are willing to pay to see a man exercise that skill, he can make $20 million a year in the NBA. The shooting guard entertains, Perkins helped create jobs, even if some of those were building Atari Pong consoles. The list of companies KP funded is long, and the success KP and the companies it funded had drew in a critical mass of both brainpower and capital, the result of which is today's Silicon Valley.
You are correct, which means you'll get downvoted. Plus, commenters here don't understand Silicon Valley. Because it's in California they write it (and Perkins) off as some kind of worthless California leftie scum. It's a sad attitude.
You start with a half correct idea and then go full retard... Most people here understand NEITHER private equity nor silicon valley.
However, if they actually understood the intersection of .big.gov, QEasy money, group-thinked and misdirected capital flows, and pure "Greed is Good" vulture capitalism that has facilitated the growth of Silicon Valley over the last two decades (since the growth from its post-WW2 MIC foundations), they would be rightfully pissed, there are much better defenses of private equity than Silicon Valley, where are all the ugliness is also on display.
Here's the details.
He was married romance novelist Danielle Steel.
In 1996, Perkins was convicted in France of involuntary manslaughter arising from a yacht-racing collision, forcing him to pay a $10,000 fine.
Not sure which is worse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Perkins_%28businessman%29
Either way, the next news article I want to read about him is his obit.
F-him and 90 percent of the One Percent (maybe 10 percent are OK, but I doubt it).
Danielle Steel is the best-selling author alive, and the 4th best-selling author of all time. She has made a mint writing books that people like and want to read. She has also given millions to help the homeless in SF.
The fact that Perkins was indicted (much less convicted) in a BOAT ACCIDENT DURING A RACE says more about the idiocy of France's government than anything else.
What is wrong with you? Class envy.
good observation, the anger most definitely has been diffused, mostly into those time-worn grooves of class, race, religion --
those third-rails that history has shown time & time again are the most effective kindling to start wars in which millions of innocent people suffer, while the real behind-the-scenes culprits seems to squirm out of harm's way every single time (and most of the time, increase their wealth, power & prestige through the uncanny ability to capitalize upon the zeitgeist of destruction).
that's the thing about anger though, it's shit for accuracy. envy seems to have a similar efficiency ratio.
with that said, one thing that came to my mind is to wonder how much of Herr Perkins' wealth came from investments that benefitted tremendously from behind-the-scenes MIC funding to install all those lovely backdoors and mousetraps that we're hearing about all of a sudden.
tom perkins must pay the jews compensation.
he must pay and he must suffer the way that only the jews suffered in this terrible spielberg hollow hoax.
he must also pay to have extra nuclear missiles retrofitted to the israeli submarines kindly donated by the guilty germans.
let us never forget that compensation is not a get out of jail card just a yearly ritual.
So whos ass does he(they/1%) kick when they are scared?
Agents of command and control. ie The Government.
Whos ass does that layer kick??
Wow. This new class warfare is scary. Not only is it petty and un-American, it is dangerous. It is emotional. It is ignorant. It ignores the FACT that being rich is not inherently evil. It ignores the FACT that being poor is not virtuous. It ignores the FACT that most rich people start out poor and become rich through hard work, risk, and luck. It ignores the FACT that rich/poor is not a permanent situation. Rich people lose fortunes, and poor people gain them. It is a fluid situation.
Worst of all, this new class warfare is disingenuous. It is hypocritical. Some of you that rail against the 1% in America are the 1% to someone else. Stated differently, if you got rid of the current 1%, then someone else becomes the 1%. Don't you see that?
Why would you care if this man had six Rolex watches? I wouldn't care if he had six hundred. Does it matter to you at all that he and his wife have spent millions helping the homeless in SF? Does that enter your HATE-THE-RICH mindset?
If you hate corruption, then join the club. But I think most of you hide behind hating corruption. You convict without evidence that all rich people are corrupt.
That is pathetic.
We're talking about the 1%, not the about 30% that 'feels' rich. Looking through some of the biographs of these people doesn't really support your stance that most of them started poor unless you're counting the then existent middle-class into the big cup of beeing poor.
I bet you feel rich and wealthy.
I bet you feel class envy.
Well said, ZH used to have commenters than made some sense sometimes. Now it's mindless class hatred, with both flavors of socialism.
Thanks, atomic,
Class hatred and socialism are not a good combination.
Hang in there, friend, and please keep posting.
I agree. $23 trillion is a lot of socialism. It must be nice without the need to critical think. Life is probably much more simple. Hard work, American exceptionalism and unicorns.
Major case of Stockholm Syndrome.
I'll just let people read my above post (non-sarcastic, persuasive, putting forth a thesis) and then read your sarcastic comment here and decide for themselves who is a critical thinker and who isn't.
Your assertion that "most rich people start out poor and become rich through hard work, risk, and luck" is simply false. It may once have been that way in the US but now most wealth is gained through government approved plunder (particularly finance sector) and through the use of government connections to sup at the taxpayer trough and to force smaller competitors out of business (most big business) and to force consumers to buy what they don't want (eg Obamacare, "green" power), not to mention the wealth somehow accumulated by most politicians.
Certainly those who have got rich by providing goods and services in an open market that unconstrained individuals and other businesses wanted to buy should bear no stigma. But the assertion that they are now the majority of the wealthy is risible.
Your assertion that my assertion is simply false is simply bullshit. The majority of wealth is NOT gained through government approved plunder. Not yet, anyway.
Is there corruption? Yes, and I hate it as much as you do. But big business and evil corporations have no control over you. It's the government that is forcing Obamacare. Walmart doesn't steal your income via taxation. Coca Cola isn't patting you down at the airport.
I believe that people like you care about the situation, so I give you the benefit of the doubt when you attack me. I would ask you to listen to the Dennis Prager version of corporations vs. government if you have the guts to challenge your own thinking. It's worth a listen.
Clearly you don't understand the economic dynamics at play over the last 40 years. Wealth inequality has exploded over those years, and it has nothing to do with some people working harder than others or risk/reward. It is also not accidental. This whole economic disaster is the direct result of the financialization of our economy.
$23 trillion of our tax money has been given to these parasites since 2008. Hard work and luck did not factor into this bailout. Risk certainly did. Your heros of economic virtue risked our economic future with our money. They won that bet, you didn't.
Clearly you don't understand anything about what I understand.
Wealth inequality has not exploded over the last 40 years. Standard of living has exploded over that time period, including for the poorest. Never in the history of the world have people been able to live (indeed, thrive) without working. You need to read some history about wealth inequality. The world goes back a little bit further than 40 years.
Now, we do have an economic disaster on our hands....I'll agree with you there. I never said that I agreed with the bailouts in 2008, and I certainly never said that I have heroes of economic virtue. You are attempting to put words in my mouth. Don't do that.
I am one of the very few people on ZH who understands economics, so you should do yourself a favor and read my posts very carefully. I'm also one of the nicest people here, so feel free to respond to me without being an ass.
And by the way, I want to make it clear that I don't even necessarily care about so-called "wealth inequality."
Any time you hear the words "wealth inequality," you know you are dealing with a Leftist. Equality is the religion of the Left.
Of course, that's a utopian idea, equality. People are not equal. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEADS. We're not born equal, we don't have equal skills or minds or ambition or abilities or wants or needs or thoughts or prayers or desires or ideas or anything else. WE ARE NOT EQUAL.
And that's okay.
The promise of America is that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Equality isn't mentioned.
What an arrogance, what an exaggerated self-esteem. A guy that had the sun shining out of his ass his whole life. It's somehow satisfying that even this sun will shut down in the not so distant future, and almost nobody will care.
I think we need to distinguish the creative (value adders or pie creator wealthy) from the parasitic wealthy, who get rich by lying, bribing, and stealing, especially through the financial service industries and banks.
This thread, more than any other lately, shows the visceral hatred of the rich simply for being rich that is the hallmark of both socialists and national socialists alike, of populists and puritans. This thread really points out to me that I"m right to be spending a lot less time on what used to be a great site. Tyler, you need to get your shit together if you want to keep this blog marginally relevant. Or even readable.
Do commenters here seriously not understand the difference between venture funding, investment banking, central banking, and trading? Based on four pages of hillbilly pitchfork-thrusting at "teh rich," I am thiking the answer is no. And the value of your comments is adjusted downward accordingly.
Go fuck yourself Atomic dumbfuck,you obviously like the status quo which means this country is fucked forever.
I don't like the status quo one bit. I like hate the rich redneck populism even less. You imply a false dichotomy where none exists. I believe in liberty, which has barely been mentioned in 4 pages of envious bloodthirst. It is you who is part of the problem.
No dickhead,I'm not the problem.All I want is a fair playing field and people with the big money won't let that happen.I have simple solutions to simple problems but they will never be enacted because I don't have big money.It's obvious that you have no solutions and no vision,just stupid comments.You obviously like the status quo.
If you believe in liberty, then you know there is a real dichotomy between the people who make the laws and the rest of us. If you pirate a video, worth $20, you get a $200,000 fine and jail time. Meanwhile, Corzine and his ilk can steal billions and walk away.
In the Perkins Pantheon we are indeed fortunate to have:
Blankfein The Benefficient
Jamie The Just
Hank The Honorable
Buffet The Blessed...
Dear Brethren - though we, miserable wretches that we are, are not worthy to touch the hem of the garments of these Demigods - let us raise our eyes towards the heavens and humbly beseech their continued favors for our sustenance - and that of our unworthy progeny...
Getting rich is not the same as being productive and not the same as contributing to the society. Let the creative 1%(scientists and artists) do what they do best with or without getting rich and hang the non-productive 1% bankers who does nothing useful for anyone but themselves.
Nobody ever said that rich has to equal productive. It doesn't.
You are suffering from class warfare delusion.
To summarize the trajectory of our crazy Pax Americana age we only need to use four words : LOSS of MORAL HAZARD.
Its the eternal song when things go wrong in a civilization that THINKS its too strong as it has ALL BASES covered.
The examples down memory lane of past civilizations that fell into the same trap are too many and too repetitive to encapsulate here. Suffice it to say : Rome, Charles V Habsburg, Louis XIV to Napoleon, Queen Victoria; now LBJ to Obammy.
My trip down memory lane I called Involuta and its dated 2007. Its all written up so its not a thing I fabricated after the crisis but before it...
To summarize the key moments of Pax Americana's morph from benevolent to malevolent hegemon I would encapsulate this awesome trip I detailed in my own opus as follows :
1° Dec 22 1963 when the MIC took over the reigns of power in USA, brutally and covertly.
WE WERE DEEP INTO MORAL HAZARD NOW AS a civilization...as rule of law had been openly flouted at the top of the Pyramid in the most powerful nation state.
It spawned the false flag invasion of Nam and created the Arms Race of third world dicatators fed on the CIA/KGB supply chain. The war of evil empires had begun and the asymmetric war death machine was launched. It would be a permanent show as the MIC needed PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE to keep its armies happy; just like Caesar's legions.
2° The defIcit spending had an effect on the monetary reserve status and MORAL HAZARD spilled over to the money line bigtime when France insisted that the BW gold standard payments be applied fully to recover its export surpluses.
Now the USA was batshit scared that the greendback would require full gold support. Unacceptable. BW revoke and "our money your problem" became the new norm. Dear Henry saved the day during 1973 crisis by pegging it to the Saudi oil gravy train.
The petrodollar economy was born and the Saud USA Oil patch handshake was now more important than the BW NWO which was scrapped. City of London became the uncontrolled monetary hub for "petrodollar" bonanza games where it was sent to finance the third world fiat pump frenzy in Latin economies and the bubble was now uncontrollabe. Moral Hazard and floating rates inflation had destroyed the premises of the "welfare state".
We needed reset badly as the financial banks lendings were disseminating inflation into the salaried economy. It would be at the expense of monetary moral hazard when the second oil crisis of 1979 heralded peak oil, peak consumerista panic conjugated with "financial and inflationary crash of 1979" fears.
3° Enter Volcker and the big Interest rate hike and the birth of Reaganista-Thatcherist Big bang. Goodbye welfare state, hello supply side mayhem and the FIRE economy. The inflation would be channeled into financial assets, not into middle class salaries. But the USA was not the best at generating economic growth worldwide. Japan was top dog in that game.
To bridle the top economy of the 80s, Reagan promulgated at the Plaza accords the demise of the competitive Yen and the obligation of Japan to curtail its exports via FIRE investments at home to inhibit the MITI juggernaut taking over Asia and First WOrld economies.
Good bye Japan and hello NWO outsourcing by USA based on slave labour arbitrage meme.
Moral hazard had now been ratcheted up after Berlin wall fall, soviet implosion and 1991 boots on ground Iraq war to tame renegade Saddam, spawning "the US towering like a colossus" meme.
Rogue states were now the bogey men and MIC / Monetary hubris/ Deindustrialization frenzy created the global village mirage economy. Ping Pong had changed the Chindian mindset and it was all rosy for the US oligarchs now "kings of the world". Clinton their iconistic hedonistic leader who would revoke G-ST and create the universal banks---TBTF--- now put MORAL HAZARD into the dustbin like Monica's panties.
4° From Caligula to Nero we went and GWB came to claim the crown and teach those sand niggers of Saddam a lesson like the roman legions conquering the world, or Saint Louis fighting his moral crusade. Nemesis rising like in Nam; US armies bogged down in Pak Afghan like Crassus at Carrhes or Varus at Teutoburg. Disaster.
Meanwhile in tinsel town and big Apple, the WS juggernaut was roaring, based on new fangled financial derivatives, firm in its belief that Pompeii was safe from Jovian ire and Vesuvius a dead volcano. Our tree can rise to the skies and we will stay kings of the world until hell freezes over!
We were now so full of hubris that Dot com went viral under the spell of Internet, the new virtual universe, where God and Man never slept and no place on earth was further away than an instant click of the mouse that roared.
Bubble biubble, toil and trouble, but not to those who fabricated Abacus and the subprimes mirage of Jack's beanstalk.
The shadow banking system and its derivatives fed CDO/CDS/SIV Caymanista cauldron dominanted the regulated economy by ten to one!
Wowiee, money now was not a means but an END in itself. Moral Hazard was no longer riding the Nuke in Dr Strangelove's dystopia but the fiat spike in WS's big apple utopia.
Moral Hazard abandonment was now exportable to the bottom segments of US society, as elsewhere like in the PIIGS economies; a world now operating on the instant financial "cut and paste" meme like it were totally compatible to the global village rythm and blues song that won five granny awards. The show must go on !
5° Lehman crash and Nero sings "lets TARP, this sucker's gonna come down! Pump n dump and socialise the debt to save our precious wealth. Our way of life NON NEGOTIABLE."
Amen. Now Moral hazard was global, systemic, hidden into the financial interstices, and all economies of the world were held at ransom by the TBTF cabal. They made out like bandits precisely 'cos the governments and their CB instruments had not the balls to say : Moral hazard will kill us totally and we need to clean out our augean stables of financialista economy that holds us all under its WMD.
Now the new Potus, minority "whipping boy" of the Oligarchy cabal, does what he's told by those who PAID for his election to continue the good work of Nero playing on his lyre while ROME burned.
Moral Hazard abandonment is now a world disease and nothing can stop its Nemesis from coming to town to cut down that beanstalk that is killing the people of this world.
The Ages of MORAL HAZARD disdain always end badly.
We may be reaching the end of that never ending story for what concerns its current episode; the demise of PAx Americana current construct and its most cherished symbol : the GREENBACKED LEGEND OF FREE MARKETS.
PS : This guy Tom Perkins feels that Moral Hazard will NEVER come to the Bay Area where Silicon Valley is free to concoct the next euphoria. Oh Nemesis, the greedy are too greedy to remember dot.com's past legacy!
"the solution is less interference, lower taxes and let the rich do what the rich do - that is get richer... and they will bring everyone else along with them when the system is working."
it's not ever worked like that in my lifetime so I'm not sure why anyone would think it will work like that now.....and the "system" is functioning just as it's been designed to...so he's a lying mother fucker, and he knows it.
Yes let the rich get richer.....um no.
Let the successful get richer, let the losers get poorer.
Just because you are rich, doesn't mean you are entitled....and clearly that’s his thinking.
This is the type of guy who doesn't want government interference until he is losing money, and then suddenly socialism is OK, so long as only he is the one who gets it.
Why does everybody fall for this "rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" rhetoric.
Lets assume that this guys $5 billion was confiscated and redistributed equally to everyone on the planet-that's only 70 cents each. Would this change anything?
However, things are even worse - most people would not even get their 70 cents - we have all the corrupt Government and UN Officials to take care of, all the cronies, bundlers. TARP took care of Wall Street and ignored Main Street. And this time it would be different?
The real problem is that for every Google and Facebook billionaire created, there are, in the US alone, at least 100,000 each month, who come into the workforce, who are unable to find a job. Although the unemployment statistics ignore these people, they are adding to the rolls of people we consider to be poor.
The problem is not so much that the poor are getting poorer, but that the number of poor is increasing at an alarming rate.
"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" is a direct consequence of policies by the US government and the Fed.
Invoking Hitler is a bit over the top. However, Hitler and the Nazis have been used so often in frivolous ways by the left and MSM, that it has lost its shock effect.
"this guys $5 billion was confiscated and redistributed equally to everyone on the planet"
certainly no one is advocating that and that argument is kinda silly, how about the rest of our incomes just increase at the same pace as the rich persons does?
cause the "system" of ever more for them and declining wages in real terms for everyone else results in what we have now and are you trying to imply that it's working? i sure hope not cause in my industry our shop rates have gone no where for 30 years....that is unsustainable UNLESS you want the government to subsidize entire industries......oh wait......i guess that only applies to industries where rich people work....oh and walmart.
Guy is about 50% right and 50% full of Holder. All the majority have gotten from this modern economy is offshoring, outsourcing, student loan debt, hidden inflation in all things needed for actual life (food), increased competition for even lower-skill jobs via our immigration policies and innaction, and a QE-fueled equities market. On balance, a little hate and envy for the gilded class is only natural.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAlTOfl9F2w