The mayor of New York has become $2 billion richer while his city has grown $1 billlion poorer

[Hannah Bell]

The kleptocratic mayor of New York


When this type of thing happens in a country in Africa or Central Asia, we call it a "failed state." Their failure, apparently, is a lack of subtlety. Looting your country's grain reserves to build the world's largest tetherball arena makes you a kleptocratic dictator. But if you get stinking rich selling information technology to the banks that have looted your treasury through bailouts, well, you're just Mayor Mike. Of course, the real saving grace for Michael Bloomberg is that, unlike a banana republic strongman, he hasn't kept all the wealth to himself, but generously shared it with a few thousand of his city's 8 million inhabitants...

Consider that Bloomberg is eliminating 2,000 public school teachers to close a budget gap caused by bailouts to Goldman Sachs execs who could each pay a teacher's salary and benefits with the money they spend on their own children's private school and tutoring. (This isn't an exaggeration. Wealthy New Yorkers routinely pay $25,000 to $50,000 on private tutors for the SATs and academic help--on top of $30,000-plus tuitions for private schools...)

LAST MONTH, New York's lame duck Gov. David Paterson dared to suggest a small tax on hedge funds run by the folks who brought you the recession. Parents and teachers might have expected their mayor to back this plan. Not exactly. "I think it's the best thing that ever happened to Connecticut," Bloomberg sneered. "I can't imagine why every hedge fund wouldn't pick up tomorrow and move..."

According to the anti-corruption group Transparency International (TI), the kleptocrat in recent history was Suharto, who embezzled over $15 billion during his three-decade reign in Indonesia. Michael Bloomberg has almost matched that in only nine years as mayor, quadrupling his net worth from $4 billion to $18 billion.


http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/14/kleptocratic-mayor-of-new-york