Bill Perkins
Bill Perkins, a venture capitalist, took out a costly full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Tuesday to vent -- accusing President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke of being 'new communists.' The ad -- in the form of a cartoon -- shows the trio planting a flag in the style of the Iwo Jima Memorial near Washington, a tribute to U.S. soldiers during World War Two. But the flag wielded by Bush, Bernanke and Paulson bears the hammer and sickle communist symbol, emblazoned with the words "big insurance," "Detroit auto" and "Wall St banks." Private enterprise and capitalism are marked on tombstones behind the three men, and a plaque overhead proclaims "The New Communist." "They are raising the new flag," said Bill Perkins, the Houston-based venture capitalist who paid for the ad. "We've become a socialist-communist country in the form of trickle-down communism."