From time to time, the voice of reason drives away the nonsense. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin is one of those voices.
Speaking at the Citadel Securities Future of Global Markets conference in New York City last week, Griffin explained Why the increasing crime and high taxes in Chicago were the deciding factors in his decision to move his company’s headquarters to Miami.
For those working in the political sphere driven by partisan allegiances and ideological narratives, “reality” is often something that must be avoided at all costs, or at least shadowed. In the corporate sector, people who avoid reality routinely go out of business.
In many ways, America’s crime-ridden inner cities have been abandoned by both political parties. But guess what? Those inner cities are not empty. Humans live in them – long-suffering and long-forgotten humans who, at best, are moving around the political chess board like disposable pawns.
None of this is an academic exercise for me. I grew up in extreme poverty; I was frequently homeless, and regularly lived in housing projects where I was in the minority as a white man. Years ago, Simon & Schuster was kind enough to publish my memoir titled “Rolling Pennies in the Dark.” The opening words of that book are: “Getting a knife really hurts.”
I have long advocated for disadvantaged residents of our major inner cities, usually to no avail. These men, women and children have little or no voice in the decisions and policies that have made their lives hell. Rather, it is the leaders of their cities and states who make these decisions and often implement punitive policies.
Thanks to President Trump, and also rhetorical quarrel Now the dispute between him and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is getting a lot of attention in Chicago. But guess what? The Windy City was terrible long before that feud.
As Chicago Tribune informed Several years ago, over the past 60 years, more than 40,000 men, women and children were murdered in the city, while hundreds of thousands were injured. Although not many people know about that shocking statistic, it can be assumed that Ken Griffin was aware of it. Why? Because Chicago had served as Citadel’s headquarters for more than three decades when they decided to leave it forever.
Explaining his reasoning for moving his world-renowned hedge fund to Miami, Griffin Said In part: “Chicago, you know, unfortunately, over the last six or seven years, has been mired in a series of problems, having been our headquarters for years. It’s not hard to tell people to leave Chicago for New York or Miami.”
Note to mayors, politicians and activists with far-left socialist leanings: If you bail out the billionaires and the job creators, your “free is for me” policy initiative will collapse. To take money from the rich and give it to them for free you have to have a big tax base. No tax base, no money.
And it shouldn’t be a stretch for far left politicians to understand that if their mega-corporations feel that the tax burden being placed on them is unsustainable, while at the same time their workers feel increasingly unsafe in your city or state, both will move elsewhere to survive.
Griffin chose to do the right thing, and he took the Citadel with him – everything. to the detriment of chicago and its endangered inhabitants. He didn’t want to leave. This decision was imposed on him due to circumstances beyond his control.
Griffin became one of the most successful and respected business leaders in the world for a reason. He has a deep understanding of the relationships between corporations and their host cities and states. Perhaps the leaders of some of our most economically distressed and crime-ridden cities should think about contacting them before they face an exodus of companies and residents in search of safer and more welcoming environments.
Crime and unsustainable tax rates could be reversed, and cities saved. But to get there, you first have to admit your mistakes. First of all bad policies should be eliminated. Unfortunately, many politicians would rather revisit bad policies than admit they were wrong.
Douglas McKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.
