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Millionaire VC: Riche People Like Me Should Get More Votes

Feb 15, 2014, 00:58 IST

AP

Back in January, retired venture capitalist Tom Perkins wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal comparing the persecution of rich people like him to the persecution of Jews in the Holocaust.

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This upset a lot of people, and Perkins eventually apologized for the analogy.

Now Perkins is back at it.

During an interview at the Common Wealth Club, Fortune's Adam Lashinsky asked Perkins for an idea that would "change the world."

Perkins's answer: the richer you are, the more votes you should get.

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"It should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes."

Esquire did the math one what the electorate would like under Perkins's insane plan: 1% of taxpayers would have as much voting power as the bottom 95% of the country.

Obviously, this is astupid idea.

What might not be so obvious is how it's a horrible idea for people like Perkins.

The rich have it unbelievably good in this country. Meanwhile, there are millions of people who have it really bad.

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One reason the poor people don't band together and violently try to take things from the rich people - the way poor people have done hroughout history - is that there is, theoretically, a way to change things through voting.

Disenfranchise the poor people, and they'll start to get as mad at Perkins's and his mega-wealthy friends as he already imagines they are.

The truth is, Perkins probably knows all this, and he's just trolling us. And we should stop paying attention to him.

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