Who is Bill Perkins, and why he is spending hundreds of thousands on full-page ads in the New York Times decrying the $700-billion bailout?
The latest ad, which ran on page 15 of the Times today, is a cartoon depicting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and President George W. Bush as a trio of bandits attempting to rob a stagecoach carrying the people’s money, under the heading, “The Notorious Bailout Brothers.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll loan it back to you!” reads the caption.
An earlier cartoon, which ran twice in the Times, parodies the iconic photograph of U.S. soldiers raising the American flag at Iwo Jima. But in the drawing, the soldiers are Paulson, Bernanke and Bush, and they are hoisting a flag with a Soviet-style hammer-and-sickle, instead of stars.
With only Perkins’ name and address accompanying the cartoons, some have presumed he is a shill for the Libertarian Party, or perhaps, some crusty, old guy who keeps his money in his mattress.
In fact, he is a 39-year-old Houston energy trader who runs a venture-capital firm, Small Ventures USA, and who supports Barack Obama for president. Besides giving the maximum personal donation to Obama’s campaign, Perkins has raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for him, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
But he disagrees with Obama on this issue about which he feels passionately.
Ad running in The Times
“I was raised not to steal,” he said in an interview. “And the way I see it is, they’re going to steal from every taxpayer in the country to give to rich people like me. That’s socialism - and it’s not even good socialism, where at least you give everyone health care.”
To him, the financial rescue smacks of what he calls “trickle-down communism and the loser is every single taxpayer and the value of the dollar.”
“It’s like somebody coming out of the closet … and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m a socialist. I believe in these communist principles.’”
Perkins, who describes himself as a liberal libertarian, said he decided to publish the ads in the Times after earning $1.2 million in a trade two weeks ago on Goldman Sachs stock. He made the profit, he said, not because he correctly assessed the company’s strengths, but because the stock shot up after the government announced plans to rescue the financial sector.
And that infuriated him.
“The stock did OK because the government came in and said, ‘No one can fail,’” he told the Wall Street Journal.
He decided to put his money where his mouth was, commissioning cartoons from Otabenga Jones & Associates, an art collective that produces artwork from an Afro-centric perspective, and then paying to publish the cartoons as full-page ads in the Times.
He said he plans to put the entire $1.2 million towards ads challenging the bailout unless the House makes the subject moot by approving it - in which case, he will donate the remainder to charity. He said he will continue to support Obama despite this strong disagreement.
“I’m an American citizen, a patriot,” Perkins said. “I want to stick my two cents in there and stir up the pot. Maybe (the bailout) isn’t the right thing to do.”
Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
2 Comments
#1. Bryant Arms 10.03.2008
The financiers are snookering us again. We, the taxpayers, will never see that money once Congress caves in to special interests, (as usual). If we try to get it back by taxing these businesses, then they will take the good parts of their portfolios and flee to other countries. Suckers!
If we use that money to enhance social security, then all of the retirees that lost their retirement funds in the stock market will at least be guaranteed a reasonably comfortable retirement. (The only ones who will still be unhappy are the ones trying to retire to their mansions.)
Finally! Congress has found the money to make social security work.
Let Congress know that if they get fooled by this bailout, then the only thing for voters to do is punish congress the way it was punished for the gulf war.
Bryant Arms
#2. pFlow 01.27.2009
at least SOMEONE is speaking up and asking questions, unlike the pussies in Congress.
Leave a Comment