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raybond
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How One Billionaire’s Idea To Give Rich People More Votes Is Already In The Works


By Igor Volsky on February 14, 2014 at 9:11 a


"How One Billionaire’s Idea To Give Rich People More Votes Is Already In The Works

Asked for an idea that could “change the world” by FORTUNE’s Adam Lashinsky, billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins told an audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Thursday that Americans shouldn’t be able to vote unless they pay taxes and that the wealthy should have more votes.

“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” Perkins said. “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?” Watch the full interview here.

The audience laughed at the idea, though CNN Money notes that the billionaire did not indicate that he was joking. Afterwards, he suggested that he was being purposely controversial, “I intended to be outrageous, and it was,” he said, adding that the comments “make you more angry than my letter to the Wall Street Journal.”

Last month, Perkins used a Holocaust analogy to describe his concerns for the safety of the top 1 percent of income earners, writing, “I would call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the ‘rich.’”

The nation’s growing gap between the rich and poor has become a full-blown crisis, with the top 1 percent of families experienced a 278 percent increase in their real after-tax income from 1979 to 2007, while families in the middle 60 percent saw an increase of less than 40 percent. A large body of research suggests that high inequality leads to lower levels of representative democracy and a higher probability of revolution, as poorer citizens become convinced that the government is only serving and representing the interests of the rich.

Wealthy people’s disproportionate impact on democracy also has the effect of perpetuating income inequality. During the 2012 elections, “the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors — one percent of the one percent — contributed more than 40 percent of all the money spent in the 2012 elections,” compared to 15 percent in 1980. Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser argues that as the rich become richer and secure more political influence, they support policies that make them wealthier at the expense of everyone else. “If the rich can influence political outcomes through lobbying activities or membership in special interest groups, then more inequality could lead to less redistribution rather than more,” he explained in a 2006 paper.


This post has been updated to reflect that FORTUNE’s Adam Lashinsky conducted the Perkins interview.

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Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
glassman
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pretty creepy huh?

this guy doesn't know his Constitution though....


U.S. Constitution › 24th Amendment
24th Amendment
Amendment XXIV
Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.


INSTEAD of these billionaire and their lobbyists giving money to politicians and advertising execs? they should just give it directly to the voters for voting the way they want us to? that would work out Ok... you could auction your votes off on ebay..

this part is the part that the wealthy need to remember:

A large body of research suggests that high inequality leads to lower levels of representative democracy and a higher probability of revolution, as poorer citizens become convinced that the government is only serving and representing the interests of the rich.

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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IWISHIHAD
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They already control the vote prior to us voting.
They have bought and paid for the politicians that have any chance, long before we vote.

Might as well pay us to vote the way they want. But why would they pay us? They already control the system with their wealth.

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glassman
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Obama got 66 million vote and Romney got 61 million

that's 121 million votes, they each spent well over a billion to get them... it's hard to get actaul figure form reliable sources.
they spent *about* 2,000 per vote... according to some sources it was even more than that...

i wasn't really being serious about getting your voting 'receipt' and taking it down to campaign HQ to collect a thousand dollars ... [Big Grin]
i'm pretty sure the losers would refuse to pay, and only a fool would pay in advance...

i think alot of these "lobbyists" pay both sides to insure they have winner... it's been a pretty good investment so far...

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
   

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