Chicago wealth redistribution: Holy cow!
My friends, formerly progressive, who supported Vallas — the ones who have stayed in Chicago, at least until now — are resigned, defeated and depressed over Brandon Johnson’s election victory.
Me, not so much.
Heck, my endorsed candidate won. And on perfect “Lori black supremacy” cue, Johnson got away with playing the race card at the end of the election saying the choice is between black labor and white wealth.
My man!
But before we descend into our new Brandon Johnson Marxist free-for-all, I do have a few serious observations to make today.
The first is how Mr. Johnson will get at all that white money before it evaporates. Because the results of this election will send thousands of businesses and people fleeing.
Johnson has a limited time to fill his plate at the equity buffet before closing time.
If I were him, I’d do an all out grab.
And fast.
Real estate values are plummeting across the North Side. Now real estate agents are seeing sellers willing to write mortgages for potential buyers in Lincoln Park where the seller will essentially finance anyone himself by providing a mortgage at a low rate of interest just to get the place off his accounts.
In one case, this after dropping the price by something approaching Brandon’s estimated million dollar CTU pension payout on the house.
In another instance, a North Side real estate investor trying to unload a condo, is considering donating it to charity, just to get it off their books and take the tax write-off.
You can’t make this stuff up anymore.
So as prices decline as they are doing, real estate receipts are going to drop.
Recommendation: Move fast Brandon on that real estate money. And think about it like the Dead Sea. It’s evaporating by the day.
And you just took a magnifying glass to it by winning.
Next up: Corporate taxes.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Every business owner, accountant, CFO or any business leader who runs a P&L today is waking up to the election news thinking about Chicago like California and New York — how can I minimize or avoid “nexus” in Chicago by making sure that I don't have a concentration of critical staff in the city to trigger future taxes.
These might include progressive payroll tax increases, added city gross receipts or corporate income taxes, commuter taxes (employer paid, most likely), higher cloud taxes, protection/policing taxes in shopping districts, etc.
Recommendation: Move even faster Brandon as companies de-risk themselves of Chicago, sir.
Between cratering real estate values that lower the assessable base (commercial and residential) and businesses voting with their wallets out of fear, I might suggest Mayor Johnson immediately implement a formal Department of Racial Wealth Redistribution.
They/them/their hired for this job should focus on studying flash mob, five-finger discount techniques from Burberry and Walgreens last year.
Because them/their shelves won’t be stocked a year from now!
