Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
This kind of dog whistle nonsense from Chance the rapper is egregiously bad. Clearly what chicago needs is more geographic division and racial resentment. That's the path to a brighter future for our city 
Desperation. Self respect lost.
The good news is that most black voters in chicago are intelligent enough to see right through this us vs. them charade. Harold never resorted to "side-ism". He didn't have too. He was a real leader. |
I hope that Chance just doesn't quite follow politics or have time to really think through the politics that get handed to him. Because he's obviously young and hopeful and wants to do good things, but if he's getting corralled into old-school machine politics, he won't have the kind of positive impact I'm sure he would like to have.
Anyway, really, really glad Lightfoot is not buying into the idea that a "Lasalle Street Tax" is constructive. As someone who basically moved to Chicago because of the exchanges here, I would hate to see the exchanges driven out of town. I just have never understood how anyone over the age of 30 could entertain the thought of taxing trades at exchanges unilaterally. If literally every exchange in the world (yes, the world) decided to implement a per-trade tax I actually think that would be a good thing. But it MUST be global, it cannot be done on an individual basis or you just drive all the business from taxed exchanges to untaxed exchanges. Global taxation reduces purely speculative trades which is probably a good thing for the markets. Unilateral taxation just adds an unproductive layer of complexity to trades with no actual benefit.
I always feel weird advocating for exchanges because I am really more of a socialist in the big picture, but I also believe in the value of markets. Just not in unfettered, laissez-faire markets.
At any rate, Preckwinkle ends up looking like the kind of socialist who's into it only because it buys her power and control, while Lightfoot ends up looking like the kind of capitalist who also believes that targeted regulation also creates freer, more efficient markets that ultimately decentralize power - which is something everyone pays lip service too, but few understand how to make it happen.