Ep. 1771 - The Worst People Imaginable are Building the Future
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What is the Curley Effect and how does it relate to political power?
Unless you're about 100 years old or so, or you've spent a lot of time in the state of Massachusetts, there's a good chance you've never heard of something called the Curley Effect. It's named after James Michael Curley, who served four terms as mayor of Boston from 1914 to 1950. He also served in the House of Representatives, and he was governor of Massachusetts for one term as well. So for a half century, he was a very well-known figure in Boston. They called him the Rascal King, and he was quite popular with Boston's poor, particularly the Irish population. The funny thing about James Michael Curley, though, is that despite the fact that he kept getting elected to high office, he wasn't actually a good politician.
Wasn't even close. He committed numerous crimes, including mail fraud. He served part of his term as a mayor in a prison cell. And under his watch, by every objective metric, the city of Boston declined dramatically. The population stagnated, even as other major cities grew exponentially. Manufacturing jobs left the city. Boston's finances collapsed to the point of near bankruptcy. So how did James Michael Curley hold on to power for so long, despite doing such a horrible job? It doesn't seem logical. So a couple of economists at Harvard decided to look into it. And what they found was that by dramatically raising taxes and using taxpayer funds to hire poor Irishmen for fake government jobs, James Michael Curley had driven wealthy people out of the city.
The rich people decided to get out of town before the city of Boston would steal any more of their money. And as a result of this mass exodus, the share of low-income residents living in Boston, the core demographic supporting James Michael Curley, grew substantially. The economists called this tactic the Curley effect. The idea is that if you want to retain your grip on power, even though you're doing a horrible job, then your best course of action is to drive all of your political opponents out of town. There's no reason not to shower your preferred demographic group with all kinds of welfare, fake jobs, special status and so on. You can simply loot the city's treasury for decades on end before the city finally goes bankrupt.
Every worthwhile person will leave, but your voters will remain. And that's all that you care about. And that is the curly effect. It's also a very accurate way to describe bankruptcy. how Democrats plan to govern every major city in this country for the next 50 years, how they've already been governing them for the last 50 years. It's not an exaggeration to say that for large portions of this country, the future is going to be built by leftists, particularly women and foreigners in many cases, who deliberately seek to drive away everyone who's competent, sane and productive. And or at least that's their plan if they aren't stopped. And if you doubt that, take a look at this video from Seattle Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson.
She's asked about the impact of Washington state's new 10 percent tax on millionaires, as well as Seattle's aggressive new taxes. There are other forms of taxes. And watch how she responds.
I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown. And if, you know, the ones that leave like, bye.
This is a 40 something year old woman who didn't hold a real job throughout her entire adult life. She admits that her parents pay her bills and now she's elated by the fact that she's driving away the most productive people in her city. I mean, at a visceral level, it's one of the most revolting videos you'll ever see. And the reason Katie Wilson doesn't care if the millionaires leave is that for every millionaire who flees Seattle, she's gaining one net vote in the next election. The more the city decays and the more the productive residents flee, the more job security she has. Of course, disastrous for the city in the long run, but she doesn't care about that. She only cares about her own political future, and this is good for her own political future.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the Curley Effect and how does it relate to political power?
0:00–6:00
2
How did James Michael Curley maintain power despite failure?
6:00–11:59
3
What are the implications of the Curley Effect on modern governance?
11:59–12:40
4
How are current political leaders mimicking the Curley Effect?
12:40–21:17
5
What is the impact of incompetent leadership on major cities?
21:17–32:32
6
How do tech companies reflect the Curley Effect in their hiring practices?
32:32–36:04
Speakers
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