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VC Tom Perkins' big idea: The rich should get more votes
- sharemywin 13y agodisgusting. Maybe we should just give all the power to the rishest individual and call them supreme emperor. If your going to throw democracy out the window you might as well do it right.
- wiredfool 13y agoPerhaps we could have some sort of contest, like pulling a stock option grant out of a stone or something. That way we'd know that the ruler had the divine right.
- crpatino 13y agoMaybe it's not as bad as it sounds. "You are the richest person? You get to be president for 4 years, but have to pay 50% of your net worth for the privilege. Not twice as rich as the 2nd richest person? Sorry. No reelection for you, pal!"
- nostrademons 13y agoThat might be interesting. I wonder what the market price of being President would be? Would you be mandated to take the position if you were the richest person, or would it be an auction where anyone can bid?
- aaronbrethorst 13y agohttp://www.kqed.org/assets/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-rights-timeline.pdf http://www.kqed.org/assets/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-vot... 1776 - Only land owners can vote. 1789 - "George Washington elected president. Only 6% of the population can vote."
- cschmidt 13y agoAn then they came up with the poll tax to keep the poor from voting. I'm sure Tom Perkins would like that again.
- adolph 13y agoThat might be one way to implement it. Another might be to treat a vote as a transferable property right. In that case the large number of votes left un-cast would represent a lot of money left on the table.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago>Pressed for examples of how the rich were being demonized... Really, CNN? You haven't noticed that for the past few years? Tom may be an idiot and an extremist... but don't play stupid about the war on wealth.
- beat 13y agoIt becomes a "war" when the poor start fighting back.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoUh... they are fighting back. By voting more money away from the minority. How kind of us to vote for someone else to pay the bill. Ain't democracy grand?
- tthomas48 13y agoThose historically low tax rates really show the muscle of the poor.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoWhose historically low tax rates? As long as I've been working it has been well known that when you make more, you eventually jump up to the next tax bracket which has a higher tax rate. [1] A single person making $10K (taxable income) in 2013 paid $1,058 in taxes... or ~10%. A single person making $100K (taxable income) in 2013 paid $21,293 in taxes... or ~21%. If 10 people each made $10K, they collectively made $100K and paid $10,580 in taxes... which is still less than half of what the one person who made $100K on their own paid. [1] http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf Edit: I did just get my taxes done so I might be a little more bitter about the topic than I usually am. But the numbers suck.
- tthomas48 13y agoRight, and when you make $10k per year a hamburger costs $1, and when you make $50k per year a hamburger costs $5, and when you make $100k per year a hamburger costs $10. In the real world everyone pays the same $5 for a hamburger, A single person making $10k has money left over to buy a little less than 5 hamburgers a day. A single person making $100k has enough money left over to buy a little more than 43 hamburgers a day. 10 people who make $10k can still only afford 50 hamburgers a day between them after tax, only a little bit more than the guy making $100k. That's why we have a progressive tax system. We think the guys making $10k should be able to eat and the guy making $100k probably shouldn't eat 8 times as many hamburgers as the guy who makes $10k. C'mon. I know you're aware that the rates for the tax brackets have changed over time. Surely you know that the top tax bracket was well over 50% for most of the 20th century, and is now lower than that.
- tomasien 13y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240119
- rayiner 13y agoIts not an unprecedented idea. After all, when the country was founded, only landowning males got to vote. That said, saying it in 2014 is some variation of the old "democracy is three wolves and lamb voting on what to have for dinner." Its based on the fallacious belief that without civil society, people like Perkins would be at the top of the heap without any non-taxpayers to drag them down. Some people may not pay taxes, but their buy in to the system nonetheless keeps our natural rulers at bay. Those natural rulers are not people like Perkins. Nerds with a talent for running financial models. Our natural rulers are those talented at leading people in the exercise of violence. Warlords, barons and earls of yore. Democracy is a bargain where the people acting collectively protect people like Perkins from the warlords that would otherwise make them their bitches.
- gopher1 13y agoIt's funny that Perkins, who is old enough to remember WW2, should be one to forget this point.
- rayiner 13y agoThe ironic thing about Perkins' comment about WWII is that Hitler's persecution of the jews shows exactly the opposite of what he claims it does: that when the masses turn a blind eye, no amount of wealth or scientific achievement will protect you from men whose talent is war and violence. It was an Atlas Shrugged moment, except it demonstrated that it's the ordinary masses that hold up the firmament of civil society.
- dctoedt 13y ago> Our natural rulers are those talented at leading people in the exercise of violence. Warlords, barons and earls of yore. Democracy is a bargain where the people acting collectively protect people like Perkins from the warlords that would otherwise make them their bitches. > [From the comment below:] Hitler's persecution of the jews shows exactly the opposite of what [Perkins] claims it does: that when the masses turn a blind eye, no amount of wealth or scientific achievement will protect you from men whose talent is war and violence. It was an Atlas Shrugged moment, except it demonstrated that it's the ordinary masses that hold up the firmament of civil society. That is, without a doubt, THE best reason I've ever seen to seek to avoid too much inequality in society. It's not based on a priori political- or religious ideology, or on touchy-feely liberalism, but squarely on face-the-facts pragmatism. It ought to appeal greatly to thinking conservatives.
- themgt 13y agoPeople like this have apparently forgotten that if all else fails, the hoi polloi will start voting with guillotines.
- nickff 13y ago'Give us your money now, or we will give you the guillotine later' is not even a veiled threat, it is outright extortion.
- angrybits 13y agoIt's simply a reference to history, as desperate people do desperate things. After all, what wouldn't you do to feed your kids?
- beat 13y agoThis is a followup to his previous idiocy, when he compared not liking rich people to the Holocaust.
- nostrademons 13y agoI wouldn't be surprised if he is intentionally being provocative, taking an extreme position so that the actual reality of tech workers driving up rents seems more moderate. It's like he's trying to get ahead of the controversy by acting as a lightning rod for criticism, so that rather than it snowballing, everybody gets mad at him and forgets about what they were mad at originally. I've known several old-school Silicon Valley managers that do this frequently - they toss out a strawman that's way more extreme than anything anybody would want to do, which anchors your outrage so that whatever the actual goal is seems perfectly reasonable. It's basic behavioral economics - people do it in negotiations all the time.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoA classic example: When Alec Issigonis designed the Mini in the 1950s, he wanted very small wheels. "Ten-inch (254 mm) wheels were specified, so new tyres had to be developed, the initial contract going to Dunlop. Issigonis went to Dunlop stating that he wanted even smaller, 8 in (203 mm) wheels (even though he had already settled on ten-inch). An agreement was made on the ten-inch size, after Dunlop rejected the eight-inch (203 mm) proposition." [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini#Design_and_development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini#Design_and_development
- badman_ting 13y agoThey do.
- duffdevice 13y agoYeah, I was thinking "Isn't that kind of how it already works?"
- IsaacL 13y agoThere is some logic to this. I think it was Plato who commented that a democracy was doomed once its citizens realised they could vote themselves largesse out of the treasury. Which is pretty much what is happening these days in every modern industrial democracy - government spending constantly increases and any suggestions of cutting spending are met by massive protests. Example: in the UK media right now you will read many stories about the current government's "deep, savage cuts", and all the poor people who are suffering as a result of these cold, uncaring conservatives. But after all these cuts the UK is still running at a deficit. Of course, Plato was an old fool who lived in the days before fiat money. Why raise taxes or cut spending when you can simply borrow more?
- tthomas48 13y agoFunny how people always use this example as the poor voting themselves largess out of the treasury. The rich do this too in the form of ridiculously low taxes relative to the amount of money they have. Just because the number on your tax bill is super large, doesn't mean you have a super-large tax bill relative to the amount of money you have.
- adolph 13y agoSo true and also not a refutation of the parent. In the spirit of an eye for an eye one might observe that an entitlement for an entitlement leaves us all poor. Somehow the means is easier to learn than the consequence.
- nickff 13y ago“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” ― Frédéric Bastiat
- bubbleRefuge 13y agoSeems to me Europe and US in more of an Austerity mode than anything else.
- tthomas48 13y agoNice he's buying into the stupid "people who don't pay income tax in our progressive tax scheme don't pay tax" narrative. I don't like this idea, but it would be interesting if the tax we're talking about is sales tax. Everyone would get some votes and there would be financial incentives for millionaires to actually spend their money and juice the economy so that they could have more votes.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoThere are states that don't have sales tax (and some that don't have state income tax) so they'd get pretty screwed with that deal.
- tthomas48 13y agoClearly it's a thought experiment and you can't actually include real details in this example though. It pretty much falls apart from 1000 different directions.
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoYou would make a great politician then... making plans without any real details. lol (just kidding of course)
- nickff 13y agoWhy would you reward purchasing consumption goods more than investing in long term growth? Sales tax is generally applied to consumer purchases, whereas the wealthy currently allocate much of their money to investing in businesses, which presumably use this cash to finance capital expenditures, or scaling already productive businesses. Should we not give those who invest in the economy, and presumably in job creation preferential treatment over those who purchase yachts, airplanes, race cars, and other consumption goods?
- jack-r-abbit 13y agoNo. Everyone that makes more money than me is evil and I must make it my life's mission to make sure their success is rewarded with a larger share of the tax burden. /s
- beat 13y ago"Just taxes until there is no more 1%". I don't think he quite understands how math works.
- pyalot2 13y agoTom Perkins of "Kristallnacht" fame now suggests that money is a democratic medium. Let's not forget how in Nazi germany the Nazi party and Kristallnacht was sponsored proudly by IG Farben, VW, Bayer, Thyssen, and so forth, and that while the Nazi party in public denounced capitalism and socialism as well as rentiers, the marriage between industry and nazi party was what enabled them in large part in the first place.