Leftist Finance 101
“Help me tax the wealthy. Help me redistribute wealth. Help me build affordable housing in white communities if you want desegregation,” de Blasio said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer” show after a caller asked about integrating public schools.
So I wonder – how can you redistribute wealth if you’ve driven away your tax base?
I think the answer is simple for the left: it doesn’t matter how low the standard of living goes as long as the wealth is more equally distributed. “Socialism is the equal sharing of misery,” and de Blasio is determined to bring it about in New York.
De Blasio can’t run for mayor of New York again. But I almost wish he could, to see if the people of that city would re-elect him. As it is, I suppose it’s possible that his successor will be in the same mold or even worse. After all, one of the many things that’s happening there is that a lot of people inclined to vote otherwise are leaving the city.
In related news, many business owners of Minneapolis have had enough.
And there’s no way any of this can be a surprise to the leftist leaders of such cities. It is a choice, the choice the left always makes:
Wonder if AOC would run for NY mayor?
The citizens of NYC would most definitely re-elect DeCommio; that would be a slam dunk.
About 98% of the black and hispanic vote would be his.
About 75% of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn would be his.
State Island would be only 25% his.
Recall that AOC- the Puerto Rican communist – got reelected recently ; that should tell you all you need to know about NYC voters.
Also note that former Mayor Guiliani – the guy who cleaned up NYC – was HATED by all the folks Manhattan and all the movers and shakers in NYC.
The entire world owes an unimaginable debt to Pope Saint John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I harbor a fantasy of AOC receiving the shock of her young life with a ringing defeat on November 3. But, yeah — I know.
His degree is in a nonsense subject (‘metropolitan studies’). If he’s ever worked for a commercial company, it was in a part-time or seasonal job of the sort you have as a student. And he’s shown himself to be someone with little common sense or capacity to learn from experience (or any sort of syntopical reading). He’s a vain, silly, and stupid man.
The thing is that the terms ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’, and ‘Democrat’ delineate a collecting pool of various defective character types (as well as people who exhibit multiple defects). It has some serious students of policy, but, if you’lre talking about people under the age of 70, you have a seven digit population hiding behind Harold Pollack’s skirts. You have sentimentalists who cannot think straight, you have professional-managerial types who despise wage-earners, you have people who haven’t gotten over their high-school social resentments. The resultant of these vectors is manifest in a desire to injure and abuse their objects of disdain. DiBlasio wants to seize this person’s assets, have rude twerps on the school district payroll spew slander at that person’s children, have these other people suffer their neighborhood being over-run by street criminals, &c. He’s a bad man.
The obvious plan with New York, California, Illinois etc is to run them into the ground financially and then have the Democratic federal govt bail them out.
Absolutely true. As I mentioned a few months back, I have a very good friend, whom I have known for over twenty years. He’s very liberal, but not a leftist, and we are close enough with each other that we can talk politics without it ever getting personal, even if the discussion grows rather heated at times.
Several years ago I once asked him candidly:
What if it could be demonstrated conclusively that all of the redistribution programs Democrats and progressives wish to institute actually would make everyone worse off, economically. The poor would be poorer, the middle class would be poorer and the rich would be poorer. But… The rich would take the biggest hit. Thus, inequality would be reduced even though everyone would be poorer. If this was guaranteed to happen…would you still support all of these redistribution plans?
His answer was immediate and certain: Yes, absolutely.
Reducing inequality is the summum bonum for many, many people on the left: from moderate liberals to committed Marxists. This fact is often lost on conservatives, who are inclined to think that liberals could be persuaded to support at least some market oriented social policies if they could be convinced these policies are more likely to benefit the poor financially. Not likely
Have you heard about this? https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/01/democrat-mayors-committee-proposes-removing-or-shaming-washington-dc-memorials/ All of these lefties are totally nuts.
Hello, Ackler. I wonder if your friend’s mental picture of ‘the rich’ is such that he can’t think of any likeable or decent rich people. Is it possible that he was just thinking of the personally unappealing wealthy when he said that? Maybe that was all he knew about ‘the rich’? Not that one needs to personally be acquainted with any ‘rich’ people in order to be able to have an opinion, but if all one thinks of in the category of “rich person” is some of the more unsavory tales of people like Buffett, Leona Helmsley, Trump of course, rather than – maybe the local residential contractor could be in fact “rich”, too, for instance – it might be a more understandable reaction that your friend had.
And if this holds true, I might extend that to others who hold the same view. I’d be interested to see if there is some room for a generous interpretation. Certainly it depends in part on what one understands by the categorization “rich person”. Some liberals who think along these lines might not be entirely dominated by the envy fetish. Maybe there’s a sliding scale.
Philip,
That’s a very interesting question. He comes from a solidly middle class professional background; his dad is a retired social worker, his late mother was a librarian; both professions inclined towards liberalism (as they both were). That said, he is an extremely social person and has a large circle of friends, from all different backgrounds. I am sure he has some friends who are very affluent, but they are likely liberal as well, which means (I’m speculating here), he can rationalize their wealth away because they’re on the “right side”.
I think he conceives of “the rich” largely as the Gates’, Bezos’ and Zuckerberg’s of the world and believes that if we just tax the hell out of those in the 1/100th of 1% at the top (along with slashing the Defense Department by about 90%), we can pay for everything on the Democrats’ wish list…with ease. Ironically, he was a math prodigy. As most everyone on this blog knows, seizing all of the wealth of men like Gates and entirely eliminating the Defense Department, wouldn’t even come close to financing a small portion of what the Bernies, Warrens and AOCs of the country want.
Man, I sure do miss Margaret Thatcher.
“The obvious plan with New York, California, Illinois etc is to run them into the ground financially and then have the Democratic federal govt bail them out.” Griffin
That’s true but only half way to the goal. When the country as a result suffers fiscal collapse, nationalization of everything will be imposed. The Stalinists, (who always take over once the idealist ‘Trotskyites’ usefulness is over), real goal is Venezuela because the poor lack the resources to challenge the tyrannical elite.
Totalitarian ideologies are always about power and control.
“would you still support all of these redistribution plans?” Ackler
A clear case of an inability i.e. willful blindness to connect proposals with consequences.
Once you reject fundamental aspects of human nature and key operative principles that govern the external reality within which we all exist…
expat on September 1, 2020 at 6:44 pm said:
Have you heard about this? https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/01/democrat-mayors-committee-proposes-removing-or-shaming-washington-dc-memorials/ All of these lefties are totally nuts.
* * *
Looks like a good argument for not only NOT converting DC into a state (having its own voting senators and reps), but breaking it up and returning most of it to the adjoining states, putting the unambiguously federal portions under direct control of the Executive (Department of Interior maybe), and firing the mayor and city council.
Ackler: Reducing inequality is the summum bonum for many, many people on the left: from moderate liberals to committed Marxists.
I agree that they always claim this. But when everyone is living in government tenement housing, using a ration card to obtain their monthly allotment of food from the government store, thinking how to spend the monthly take-home pay of $50 just like everyone else, does your friend really picture himself in the same position, all equal and such?
I.Don’t.Think.So.
Hugo Chavez’s daughter is worth $4B.
Your friend, perhaps Minister of Equity for the Eastern District, would naturally be sitting in one of his houses, trying to decide if he’ll get his latest Lamborghini in Candy-Apple-Red or Electric-Blue, and idly wondering if his new pastry chef will get along with the rest of his kitchen staff.
Connecticut is experiencing a bit of a housing boom as NYC’ers are fleeing the city. A small bit of immigration into the state as the other 50% are trying to leave (including my wife and I). I hope it continues into next year when we are ready to put the house up for sale. No problem with the NYC’ers ruining CT as it’s a lost cause already.
Looks like a good argument for not only NOT converting DC into a state (having its own voting senators and reps), but breaking it up and returning most of it to the adjoining states, putting the unambiguously federal portions under direct control of the Executive (Department of Interior maybe), and firing the mayor and city council.
Retrocede it, but deny the State of Maryland or its subsidiaries a general franchise to regulate or police federal property. Ditto in re the NoVa counties across the river. Bowser can learn to function as one of the country’s more inept county executives.
I note the sudden appearance of a book, “In Defense of Looting,” and individuals on TV who are justifying/arguing that theft during these riots i.e. “looting”, as a perfectly reasonable/acceptable way to “redistribute” things to the thieves who “need” them, and/or as a form of “reparations.”