My Return to New York Is a Mixed Blessing
15th April 2021
Taki takes a look around.
Uncharacteristically, the golden geese are fleeing south in April, and by that I mean the fat cats are fleeing to Florida and other points south, leaving the muggers, the homeless, the gang members and Taki behind. Tax-heavy high-cost Bagel may be a magnet for criminals but it’s a turn-off for banks and investment houses that are drawn to low-tax states like Florida and Texas. Here are the facts: crime and disorder are way up, homicides have spiked to 46.7 percent and shootings 97 percent. It is the largest increase in at least 60 years. New bail laws turning every criminal suspect loose have emptied the jails. Homelessness has hit a level unseen since the Great Depression. The Bagel has 80,000 homeless, some of them parked outside glitzy Park Avenue abodes like mine.
Taxes are exorbitant and going up even further. Sales taxes are the highest in the nation, as is the cost of living. What do Bagel-dwellers get in return? From what I’ve seen, soaring crime, public spaces occupied by the mentally ill and the homeless and a non-stop campaign by the news media against white supremacists, a species I have yet to encounter in the mean streets of Noo Yawk.