Every month we devote posts to just general political class insanity that is running rampant through the country. The members of the American political class continue to show that they are incapable of operating any level of government in this country.
Even their best efforts are almost always inefficient and ineffective at resolving any problem facing Americans. They spend a great amount of time not trying to improve the lives of their citizens but continually ensuring their reelection and enriching themselves, their families, and their friends in the process, all at taxpayer expense.
Lately it seems like the insanity is getting more frequent and more intense as politicians continue to fail us all. Let’s look at just for of the latest examples of political class insanity:
1)We have often pointed out that American politicians, from the national level down to the small town level, seem to have a much higher percentage of criminal minds than the general population. From insider trading in Washington to bribing and blackmailing contractors for town projects, the corruption seems to never end.
And this reality was again recently illustrated out in LA:
Curren Price is a member of the Los Angeles City Council.
And he was recently arrested on allegations involving financial corruption.
These allegations include a pay-to-play scheme where he voted favorably on city projects that benefited local building developers who had paid over $150,000 to his wife’s consulting business.
These payments led to three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest.
In addition, he allegedly received improper medical coverage of $34,000 for his current wife while he was still married to another woman, all of which led to five charges of embezzlement.
Comically, he is the fourth member of the LA Council to be arrested in the past four years.
Despite the charges, Price refuses to resign from the Council while his case winds through the courts. And the alleged corruption rambles on.
2)We live in dangerous times. We have the Ukrainian/Russian war raging, the Chinese are threatening to invade Taiwan, the Chinese will be stationing military communications equipment and Chinese troops in Cuba, the Middle East continues to rage in hatred, etc.
But a recent development associated with the war in Ukraine is not getting the attention it should:
The Wagner Group is a large military mercenary organization that has been fighting in support of the Russian army in Ukraine.
They are highly trained soldiers for hire and have a worldwide reputation of committing crimes against humanity in any number of countries.
The organization is operated by a tyrant named Yevgeny Prigozhin.
This past week he pulled his troops out of the fight in Ukraine and took over a major Russian military facility in southern Russia, a major surprise and basically committing treason.
Not satisfied with that, his troops headed north and it looked like that they might actually invade Moscow, obviously leading to a civil war which would have worldwide negative ramifications.
If successful, then there was a real chance Prigozhin would come to power, ousting Putin, and having access to Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Fortunately, at least for now, the Wagner troops halted their advance towards Moscow so that the status quo, at least for now, is still intact (not that the status quo is that great).
And how did Biden react to this potential nuclear weapons scenario? He and his corruption and scandal-infested son went off to the Presidential retreat at Camp David for the weekend. No huddling with his military advisors in Washington to closely monitor the Russian situation, no meeting with his State Department experts on how to handle the situation if Putin was overthrown, no reassuring the country that he was in charge and managing this crisis situation. No, just heading to Camp David with his son. Pathetic leadership.
3) Not only does the American political class have a high percentage of self enriching, greedy individuals but given how bad living conditions are in many parts of the country, it seems that most of them have no idea how to fix what, in many cases, they often broke. Financial government ruin, high crime rates, businesses and residents fleeing states and cities because of the ineptness of the local politicians, cities and states across the country have literally been ruined by their politicians.
We have often discussed the reality that a major city and a whole state are likely to go bankrupt in the near future. The bankruptcy disaster is likely to unfold as follows:
State or city politicians continue to raise taxes without reducing excessive and wasteful government spending.
The higher taxes drive residents and businesses out of the city or state which reduces the tax base which in turn reduces the tax revenue stream to the government.
Rather than cut spending to accommodate the smaller tax base and resultant tax stream, they raise taxes to try and cover the shortfall.
This raising of taxes further drives out tax paying residents and businesses, which further reduces the tax base which eventually results in fewer and fewer police, fire, and EMT resources which reduces the quality of life for the remaining residents and businesses.
And the financial death spiral is underway.
It had been our long held view that Chicago and Illinois would be the city and state that go bankrupt first. However, it is now our bet that San Francisco and California will beat Chicago and Illinois to the bankruptcy courts. Both the city and state are steadily losing their tax base, with the conditions in San Francisco getting worse by the hour as residents and businesses continue to leave the city and its dwindling tax base:
AT&T recently announced that it is closing its flagship store in downtown San Francisco.
This follows on the heels of mall developer, Westfield, defaulting on its mall in downtown San Francisco due to “challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic,” all of which is code for there is too much crime, violence, homelessness, and drug addiction conditions around and in the mall itself.
Last month Nordstrom closed its Westfield location because of “unsafe conditions” and a “lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity.”
Whole Foods closed its city location in April, citing excessive and open drug use and criminal activity in the area.
Park Hotels and Resorts recently announced that is was defaulting on its mortgage payments for two downtown Hotels in Union Square in San Francisco.
In 2021, Waklgtreens closed five city locations because of “ongoing organized crime.”
As a side note, according to the Hoover institute, 352 companies have moved their headquarters out of northern California between 2018 and 2021, a trend that probably did not abate in the two following years.
Best Buy publicly stated that it had business concerns because it was losing employees due to retail theft.
The city and immediately surrounding area usually have about 38,000 homeless people living on its street on any one night, up 35% since 2019.
Crime is also rising with an understaffed city police department, currently short more than 500 officers: murder is up 10% to 22 murders so far, robberies are up 15% to 1,150 robberies so far, and car thefts are up 5% to 2,889 thefts.
Last year, the city had 620 fatal drug overdoses, not surprising since drugs are sold and used in broad daylight.
The mayor wants to spend another $683 million to attack the homeless problem even though every effort and every tax dollar spent so far has been unable to change anything.
You can see why we think that San Francisco will be the next big city to go bankrupt. Crime, homelessness, drug addiction and high taxes are driving residents and businesses out of the city, reducing the city tax base and revenue stream. The police force remains under staffed which causes people to fear for their lives so city residents, outsiders, and tourists start avoiding spending time and money on city businesses further reducing the tax revenue stream.
San Francisco used to be one of the most vibrant, amazing, and unique cities in the country. And the local political class has managed it into a state of decline that is unlikely to end any other way than bankruptcy. People want to be free, free to keep as much of their hard earned wages as possible, free to not fear for their lives, and free to enjoy life as much as possible without having to worry about stepping on a used shrug syringe needle on the sidewalk.
That will do it today, another set of political class failures: A Los Angeles Council member fails to not be an alleged criminal, the President fails again at leadership, and San Francisco politicians fail at everything, turning their city into a dystopian location of crime, violence, drug addiction, homelessness, and financial decline and eventually financial ruin as residents, businesses, and tourists flee, taking their wealth, their lives, their businesses and their tax dollars with them.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
