Goodbye Bloomberg
'If only it were as simple as making the city as attractive as possible for people with money, so wealth rolls down the mountaintop. “Wouldn’t it be great,” Mr. [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg mused, “if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?” The benefits of oligarchy are harder to see when your eyes are inches from a wall as a cop pats you down for the gun you don’t have. Or when you can’t pay bills because your job pays minimum wage and all the “very fortunate people” are driving up the rents on your block.
'“When I walk the streets,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “people whose support I would never expect in a million years — the truck driver — yell out the window, ‘go for four terms!’ ” There’s a strangeness to that self-satisfied anecdote. Why would a mayor be so disconnected from working people that he would never expect — not in a million years — a truck driver’s support? Mr. Bloomberg’s departure may be sad news for Russian billionaires, but it’s the truck drivers we care about, and who are voting for his successor. '