Criticizing 1% like Kristalnacht

[Marlene Zenker]

This, for me, is a reactive response to his wealth.

It has often occurred to me that the truly rich and powerful often do spend a great deal more of their time suffering from paranoid fears and other psychosis, because deep down they realise that the inequality they represent and propagate, is a betrayal of their own inner-selves. That is why, I think, that many of them go on to found and fund charities to aid the poor - as a salve to their conscience.

The irony, I think, regarding the rich and powerful is that they could have their cake and eat it too. Take the Saudi royals, instead of oppressing their people and being continually paranoid about being assassinated they could easily make the whole Saudi society prosperous and happy and eliminate the well earned source of their paranoia. But these people don't think the same way that regular people do, they are in a competition with the other rich and powerful to have more. They have a sick sense of entitlement and cannot see the forest for the trees.

[David Guyatt]

I agree Marlene. It seems to me that people who amass such huge wealth must do so using cunning and despicable means, and they automatically assume that everyone else will rob them blind (because that's what they would do in their shoes) -- and so take all steps to protect their stash, thus triggering paranoia and worse. It's a negative spiral.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I seem to remember that decades ago Saudi wealth was shared more fairly amongst the people, and none had to work....

[Peter Lemkin]

Tom Perkins: People With More Money Should Get More Votes

The Huffington Post | by Jillian Berman


Posted: 02/14/2014

Tom Perkins is desperately trying to extend his 15 minutes of infamy.
The 82-year-old venture capitalist, who recently made a lot of people angry by comparing progressives to Nazis, told an audience in San Francisco Thursday that people who pay more money in taxes should get more votes. ::::fury::::
"The Tom Perkins system is: You don't get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes," Perkins said during an event hosted by Fortune's Adam Lashinsky. "But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How's that?"
The audience responded to his claim as any sane humans would: with laughter. After all, that's not really how democracy works. And not that Perkins would care, but his proposal wouldn't really be fair given that poor Americans already fork over a larger share of income to Uncle Sam than their richer counterparts, according to a 2013 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Unfortunately, Perkins wasn't joking around, telling the CNNMoney reporter offstage, "I intended to be outrageous, and it was."
Perkins is no stranger to outrage, and it seems like he's starting to kind of like it that way. The Internet freaked out last month after he argued in a letter to the Wall Street Journal that there are parallels between progressive activists' "war on the American one percent" and Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews. Even the firm he co-founded, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was quick to distance itself from his controversial comments.
"This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking," Perkins wrote in the letter. "Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant progressive' radicalism unthinkable now?"
Perkins ultimately kind of apologized for his comments, telling Bloomberg TV that he was sorry he used the word "Kristallnacht" -- a reference to the 1938 attack on Jews in Germany and Austria that was a precursor to the Holocaust. Still, Perkins stood by the gist of his letter, while showing off his super expensive watch.
What's more, other people said out loud in public that they agreed with Perkins' sentiment. Rich guys from real estate mogul Sam Zell to billionaire Wilbur Ross piled on, claiming the one percent is getting picked on unfairly. The WSJ also stuck by Perkins, writing in an editorial that while his Nazi comparison was "unfortunate," "the liberals" lack of tolerance for rich people is verging on dangerous.

[Magda Hassan]

Just proves that you can be lacking in all sorts of human qualities like intelligence, self reflection and compassion and still get to be a billionaire. Never fails to amaze me why these idiots get any interviews at all. Like they have the solution to anything. Most should be embarrassed to be in the same room/planet as him.

[David Guyatt]

Just proves that you can be lacking in all sorts of human qualities like intelligence, self reflection and compassion and still get to be a billionaire. Never fails to amaze me why these idiots get any interviews at all. Like they have the solution to anything. Most should be embarrassed to be in the same room/planet as him.

Yep, it seems to me too, that we have sat by idly and allowed the media to create the illusion that those who's only real mark has been the amassing of wealth have been framed as the true purveyors of human endeavour and civilisation. It's a completely ridiculous and false setting.

[Peter Lemkin]

Well, sadly he is in good [sic] and historic company. The first Supreme Court Chief Justice in the USA, John Jay, famously said, "Those who own America, ought to run it!" These types believe in 'one dollar; one vote'.....which is not democracy....but plutocracy, if anything.

[Magda Hassan]

Well, sadly he is in good [sic] and historic company. The first Supreme Court Justice in the USA, John Jay, famously said, "Those who own America, ought to run it!" These types believe in 'one dollar; one vote'.....which is not democracy....but plutocracy, if anything.

Funny isn't it? You don't see simple poor people advocating this. Just like you only ever see millionaires and billionaires saying that there should be no rise in minum wages.

[Peter Lemkin]

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." - F. Scott Fitzgerald