“It’s becoming ever more difficult to have this as our global headquarters, a city which has so much violence,” Griffin said. “Chicago is like Afghanistan on a good day. And that’s a problem.” — Speech at Economic Club of Chicago
Billionaire grifter Ken Griffin keeps threatening to leave Chicago. He hates this place. Too many poor folks. Too much public space —you know, public schools, parks, libraries... It’s that word public that gets him. Makes him gag.
To top it off, a Black, gay woman is the mayor. She beat the pants off of his candidate, Bill Daley, in the last election despite Griffin’s million-dollar bankrolling of Daley’s great-white-hope campaign.
He’s also a big patron of the Trump Party to the tune of $46M in the last election cycle, although he claims he’s not sending D.T. any money directly. He spent millions trying to reelect Wisconsin’s union-busting governor, Scott Walker, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Let’s remember that Ken Griffin brought you Bruce Rauner,” Gov. Pritzker said Tuesday. “Ken Griffin was his biggest supporter.”
Griffin also brought us Mayor Rahm Emanuel and was the biggest donor to his campaign.
Oh, and then there’s the violence that big cities are facing throughout the country. Griffin was asked if New York City could serve as an “antidote to the dysfunction” of Chicago.
“You guys need some new medicine, too, because some of the same problems that we have faced are now unfolding in New York,” Griffin said. “The path New York is on is a scary path.”
So he’s scared of NYC and terrified of Chicago. You can only imagine what he thinks of Philly, Detroit, and Cleveland. Maybe he’s better off heading back to Boca, where he’s from, or somewhere else whiteburbia. Maybe move to Arlington Heights with McCaskey’s Bears. Most of the crime there is in the suites, not the streets.
He’s terrified about the possibility of becoming the first white billionaire in city history to be the target of street violence. So he bought a $59 million Chicago condo, the most expensive in the state to keep him safe. I’m sure there are armed security guards at every door. No, I don’t think there’s a moat. But what do I know?
I wonder if he’s ever considered how the huge wealth gap he’s helped create in the city, along with his undermining of public education here has contributed to violence in the city.
But the thing he dislikes most about living here is the taxes. He hates paying them. They go to pay for his least favorite things like public schools and retiree pensions. It was Griffin’s millions that helped defeat the Fair Tax Amendment. This ever though he made $1.8 billion in this city in 2020, during the pandemic and economic collapse no less.
Yet every time I look up, despite years of threats to take his money and run, Griffin is still here. What’s keeping him? Why doesn’t he leave already? Maybe the superprofits here are just that good.
Doesn’t he know that Indiana is right next door? It’s a deep-red and a “low-tax state” for the rich and a high-tax one for the poor. And his friend Mike Pence must be back by now, having survived the lynch mob on January 6th.
So please, Mr. Griffin, stop all your bullshit threats and just GTFO. Indiana wants you. We don’t.
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