The people who have to justify the empirical evidence that the rich continue to get richer at the expense of the poor and middle class are presented with an intellectual exercise. Do you twist jargon to suggest that the information economy makes the income gap a good thing? Or do you just loosen your silk Charvet, knock back the rest of that Johnny Blue and go full Clive Cussler on these grad school idiots who don't know how good they have it? Today the New York Observer spins a Wall Street apologia that would rivet the most constipated of Dads. White knuckle fealty to New York's economic status quo is rarely this entertaining.
Venture capitalist Scott Sipprelle's lede yanks your polar fleece something fierce: "The 109th mayor of New York had death on his mind as he stepped forward to take the oath of office."
Death of what? Honor? Opportunity? (Subtlety?)
It turns out de Blasio is less reaper than judge, his black robes of Tyranny shielding a prejudice against the noble, data-driven beneficence of his predecessor. No one leaves until a verdict is rendered, and judging by the cadre of masked men affixing silencers to their Russian-made weapons, pressing their cold barrels against the steely faces (Never Show Weakness) of New York City's Tax Base, that verdict is Guilty.
The purpose of the speakers who joined the new mayor on the podium that day was to substantiate the charges. The first, a songwriter, railed against the tragic role the city played in contributing to the nation’s prison population. Heads nodded mechanically in assent, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the city had remarkably accomplished the reverse: a huge reduction in the number of people in prison and on probation and parole. But truth was no more the purpose of this highly scripted proceeding than justice is the point of a North Korean show trial. This was a propaganda event, and there could be no ambiguity about the policy of the new leader.
North Korean show trial! How did we get here? Didn't de Blasio take a bunch of money from the Good Guys? (And didn't that reduction in inmates occur because of a decrease in felony arrests over 20 years? [PDF]) Spirit, take us away from this place!
Bill de Blasio’s triumph reflects a warning shot fired across the balconies of New York’s gilded elite. It also represents a challenge to the future of New York—not just the economic vitality of New York, but the very idea of New York. To understand why, you have to go back to the beginning.
The gilded elite enjoy balconies, this we know. But even more than a warm summer's breeze, they enjoy some historical justification for their behavior, if only to feel a greater sense of purpose.
The earliest Dutch settlement on the island we now call Manhattan did not appear at first to have a promising future...In the early 1600s, the Dutch decided a small fort was needed at the tip of the island. The north side of the settlement was protected by an earthen wall, a location that became Wall Street, itself a designation that came to mean something far bigger. It became a place where the buying and selling of things developed into a transcendent art. It became the place where capitalism’s temple, the New York Stock Exchange, was built.
"Things," chattel, slaves.
The debate over New York’s future boils down to a simple question: Is the concentration of extreme wealth in this city an affront to notions of fairness and social justice because it accentuates a Tale of Two Cities and the distinction between rich and poor? Or would it be a stroke of luck, as the previous mayor believed, if all the billionaires on Earth decided to set up housekeeping in the city?
Or, is it an "affront to notions of fairness and social justice" to equate an annual tax increase of $973 dollars for some of the city's wealthiest residents so that some of its poorest can be educated in the earliest stages of their childhood, to a genocidal dictatorship?
Just for a moment, take away the high concentration of financiers that make New York the preferred place for capital-raising to happen. Assume an end to the trend of several decades that have encouraged well-off commuters to both work and live in New York. Take away the park-view co-ops of Fifth Avenue that sell for tens of millions of dollars. Take away the media glitz of charity fundraisers stacked high with celebrity. Take away the dreams of every kid looking to land his first job in New York because that is where you can get rich beyond your dreams. Take away the throngs of tourists who visit New York because, well, because it is New York. What do you have left?
You're left with...all of the good parts?
