Tom Perkins is not the 1% but he is a multi-billionaire. And boy, did he ever step into a heap-load of trouble and controversy for expressing his concerns about OUR TROUBLED AMERICAN FUTURE. The problem was that everyone jumped on the twitter bandwagon without truly reading Tom Perkins Op Ed in the Wall St. Journal. To truly understand what Tom Perkins was saying I advise you to listen to his explanation on Bloomberg West:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/tom-perkins-exclusive-bloomberg-west-01-27-1vKKrgehRYeW7MvypL53ZQ.html
And make your own "educated" opinion. Marc Andreessen called Perkins an ___hole for what he said. Andreessen is also a multi-millionaire making his money in Silicon Valley...with Netscape and many other web related ventures. Paul Krugman, an economist and professor at Princeton, said Perkins was crazy. Every news media picked up on this story and ran with it.
So what was it that Tom Perkins said to cause such an uproar? He made a comparison of Kristallnacht to the persecution of the rich today: “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.’ ” He regrets using the word Kristallnacht but does not regret the message of his letter. His message is that anytime the majority starts to DEMONIZE a minority, no matter what it is, it is wrong and dangerous and no good will ever come of it.
He said he was presenting a warning: the warning is that there is DANGEROUS DRIFT IN OUR AMERICAN POLITICS. Perkins co-founder Kleiner, in Kleiner-Perkins-Caufield and Byers had fled Hitler's Germany and he told Tom what he had learned from his experience "NEVER IMAGINE THAT THE UNIMAGINABLE CAN'T BECOME REAL." Well, Perkins has taken this to heart and as a conservative felt that he needed to sound a warning against the Drift of National politics demonizing the rich.
Tom Perkins warns:
"I feel America faces a very, very, very troubled future---I sometimes feel we have gone past the point of no return."This letter came to pass due to all the upheaval that has been occurring in San Francisco over the techies getting their own buses with WiFi so they can work on their way to work. The 99% (as they call themselves) can't afford to live in San Fran. They went around busting up banks and luxury car dealerships breaking windows in all the cars. So Tom Perkins had a glimpse of the future and was brave enough to say something. And for that Tom Perkins was demonized.
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