Wealthy venture capitalist Tom Perkins says the 1% in America are treated like Jews in Nazi German

[question everything]

Thomas Perkins is a hyper-wealthy venture capitalist. Beyond his enormous success in business, he may be best known as the man who was profiled by “60 Minutes” for owning The Maltese Falcon, one of the largest privately owned sailing yachts in the world (he’s since sold it). He’s the former husband of Danielle Steel, one of the most successful authors ever, and he owns many mansions all over the world. All in all, it’s pretty good to be Tom Perkins.

Or so you would think! Yet according to a letter to the editor he wrote to the Wall Street Journal, the reality of being Tom Perkins isn’t so much defined by extravagant wealth, luxury, comfort, and power, but rather a growing sense of fear and dread. It’s so bad, Perkins says, that being a member of the American 1% today is actually comparable to being a Jew in Nazi Germany.

Seriously. He wrote this.

Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its “one percent,” namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the “rich.”

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these “techno geeks” can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a “snob” despite the millions she has spent on our city’s homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?

More..

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/25/wealthy_venture_capitalist_tom_perkins_says_the_1_in_america_are_treated_like_jews_in_nazi_germany/

[yourout]

1. Oh please.......spare me your sob story you POS.

[2pooped2pop]

2. If only

I'm ready to round em up, throw em in their choice of luxury compound where they can stay because they are too afraid of what the public will do to them if they stick their fucking heads out.

Not what the Jewish people got, but good enough. for now

[world wide wally]

3. It's not actually the 1% that is hated so much, it is the way they are treated in terms of minuscule

taxes, an infrastructure designed to fit their needs at the cost of common people, the unwillingness of politicians to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, the willingness of countries to go to war to protect their interests, kangaroo courts that protect their interests and on and on an on.
Shit, we all wish we had a million dollars.

It is only when a whiner like Tom Perkins or Donald Trump comes along complaining about how unfair life is to them that they are hated on a personal level.

[kestrel91316]

4. Did I miss the part where all their assets and property was seized,

they were forced to move into rat-infested ghettos, then shipped off to death camps and gassed?

[question everything]

5. Good one!

Will be interesting to read comments submitted to the WSJ.

[Chan790]

6. They frequently mistake the mass social rejection of their entitlement as persecution. n/t

[nil desperandum]

7. No kidding

Right, a guy who has the freedom to travel the world and buy whatever he wants whenever he wants is somehow trying to compare having the best life available in modern times to having the worst life available in the late 30's and early 40's of the last century because some have suggested he might not be paying his fair share...what a crock.

It is interesting to hear all of the so-called intelligent businessmen trying to sell their snake oil. If you and I own a business together and I have control of 80% of the profits of the business when it's time to make a capital investment we don't split the cost of the investment 50/50....but these idiots would try and have you believe we should pay the tax burden that way. If you own 80% of the wealth of the nation, or more, you are responsible for 80% of the tax burden as well...this isn't rocket science.

All the trickle down economic nonsense today is based on a unique scenario that worked to a degree thirty years ago under conditions that no longer exist. Prior to free trade agreements with 3rd world nations like China and Mexico manufacturing jobs were a reliable decent income that kept the middle class and working class people closer to the upper 5th. With the advent of free trade agreements with nations that can't buy anything we produce it is not difficult to see why manufacturing work left the country and it's people like Mr. Perkins who benefit the most from those agreements. I would argue that people who promote legislation that destroys the manufacturing base of a nation to make a few bucks are traitors of the most insidious nature. Mr. Perkins wants all the benefit of a life of luxury afforded him from the efforts of others, but none of the responsibility that comes with it.

There is a special place for Mr. Perkins in the afterlife, I hope he is well prepared for it.

[question everything]

11. What bothered me was, I went to the comments section of the WSJ

and NO ONE - well I did not read all of them - had any comment about that "comparison." They all agreed, though, with the notion that the rich get persecuted, attacking Obama for "class warfare."

[kestrel91316]

15. WSJ probably deletes comments unfavorable to big biz.

[kestrel91316]

14. [phone] 000. Welcome to DU!!

[flamingdem]

8. Frickin' idiot

A republican perhaps?

[question everything]

9. Not only that, he also sits on the board of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp

At least, the venture capital that he founded immediately issued a statement that he no longer is associated with them.

[Xyzse]

10. Ok, I have to get off this thread before I cuss up a storm.

[kwolf68]

12. Well there is more evidence

that wealth and brains don't necessarily correlate.

[Behind the Aegis]

13. Things like this sometimes make me laugh.

There is such hatred for Jews from all sectors, but when it comes to another group being "discriminated against", suddenly they are "the new Jews." Well, the "old Jews" are still getting the shit end of the stick. So, on some level, they recognize this, but refuse to openly acknowledge it.

[stevenleser]

16. He apologized, but still, total asshattery. nt