Failing cities like Chicago should heed Ken Griffin’s warning: No tax base, no money |
Every once in a while, a voice of reason cuts through the nonsense. Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, is one of those voices.
While speaking at the Citadel Securities Future of Global Markets conference in New York City last week, Griffin explained why rising crime and high taxes in Chicago were the deciding factors in his decision to relocate his company headquarters to Miami.
For those fueled by partisan loyalties and ideological narratives who operate in the political arena, “reality” is often something to be avoided at all costs, or at least shaded. In the corporate arena, those who avoid reality regularly go out of business.
In far too many ways, America's crime-ridden inner cities have been abandoned by both political parties. But guess what? Those inner cities are not empty. Human beings live in them — long suffering and long-forgotten human beings who, at best, are being moved around a political chess board like disposable pawns.
None of this is an academic exercise for me. I grew up in abject poverty; I was homeless often, and regularly lived in housing projects where I was in the minority as a white person. Years ago, Simon and Schuster was kind enough to........