Before we start, go over to Glibertarians and read my article on the Gold Standard of double-action revolvers – the Smith & Wesson Triple Lock!
Moving on: Chicago is fast running out of other people’s money. Excerpt:
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is dealing with a 12-day-old teachers strike that features a contest between the most radical union in the U.S. and one of the nation’s most radical mayors.
It’s not going to end well for her.
When the strike began she told the teachers “there is no more money.” All that did was whet the appetite for battle by the teachers who are now almost certainly going to get almost all of what they want.
Lightfoot is being hit over the head by reality.
“We spent the last 14 hours bargaining today, and we are not close to where we need to be on the big issues,” said Sybil Madison, deputy mayor for education. “We’re going to return tomorrow and work diligently to close the divide.”
Soon after, Chicago Teachers Union president Jesse Sharkey and vice president Stacy Davis Gates said that the union’s most recent proposal asks for an additional $38 million in funds over the city’s last offer.
“That’s the distance that remains between the two parties,” Sharkey said. “We feel like we need to be able to get there.
Prediction: They won’t get there.
Chicago, like many of our major cities, has been swirling around the fiscal drain for a while now, and it’s looking like things are coming to a head. The productive have been voting with their feet for decades now, leaving the folks with their hands out for Free Shit in place.
Now, consider that demographic fact for a moment. What our major cities have in place is a self-reinforcing feedback loop. They raise taxes and increase Free Shit, which causes the productive to leave and revenues to fall; the pols then raise taxes seeking more revenue and promise the increasingly-impoverished voters more Free Shit, more productive leave, and so on ad infinitum.
The very wealthy, of course, have ways to shield their wealth, or are simply wealthy enough that they don’t give a shit. And in these cities, like in Chicago, many of them like to fancy themselves “compassionate” by supporting Free Shit, so the cycle is reinforced.
Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco – these are how the cycle ends – with a Third-World mix of the very wealthy and very poor, and very little middle class to pay for everything.
Maybe Chicago should find a way to tax random violence. That should solve their fiscal troubles.
