Bill Perkins, a Houston venture capitalist, paid for this cartoon to appear on a full page in the New York Times for many days after the financial crisis began.
Bill Perkins is one angry taxpayer. He's also a Houston-based venture capitalist who says he made a quick $1.25 million betting on stock market reaction to the government's proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He's using the money to fund a series of full-page cartoons in the New York Times — the fourth runs Oct. 3 — that rail against the bailout and peg President Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke as communists. Perkins, 39, talked to TIME about why he's mad and why he's still going to vote for bailout supporter Barack Obama.
Do you really think George Bush is a communist?
When you make everybody suffer for the benefit of a few, that's my vision of
communism.
Why did you decide to spend $139,000 a piece on these ads? Did you feel
guilty that you had made money betting on the bailout?
I just felt like it was totally unfair that millions and millions of people
were going to be on the hook for enriching people like me. I felt guilt and
outrage and disgust all at the same time.
So you think we should just let the banks fail? You don't think it was
under-regulated, free-market capitalism that got us here?
In a free market, these weak banks wouldn't be around. Pushing home
ownership and low interest rates irrespective of risk is what got us into
this problem. Not everybody can afford a house. Maybe it's worth it to loan
money to people who can't afford to borrow it so they can live in a house. I
don't know. I'm just saying that the consequences of it are that you're
going to have a lot of bad mortgages and inflated real estate prices. And
then they're going to correct and it's going to be a mess. And it's
taxpayers on the hook.
What do you think would be the consequences if the government didn't do the
bailout?
The consequences are the same whether we do the bailout or not. The
difference is who pays for it. We're having a contraction from deflation of
an asset bubble that was overpriced. We're just going through that cycle. With the bailout, you delay it, make it bigger and put it on your
children. It's essentially delaying pain. Without the bailout, this generation pays for it and we know what the bill
is. That money's not coming back.
Why cartoons?
I felt like a bunch of words on a piece of paper — people wouldn't read,
but with a picture, people get it right away.
But it looks like the bailout's going to happen, so did you fail?
I read a quote somewhere that was like, 'Freedom fighters don't always win,
but they're always right.' You can't always win, but they'll be consequences
for the people that voted for and pushed for this.
Speaking of people who voted for it, what about Barack Obama? You're a big
supporter of his, right?
I'm a big Obama supporter, but I think he's just horribly wrong on this
issue. I think it's just part of who he is. He's on the side that government
needs to step in and do something. I disagree strongly.
Are people that know you surprised that you did this?
They know I'm outspoken. People who know me were like, 'There goes Perkins
again. I don't know if he's crazy or a hero.'