Urban Deserts

"Here is the irony. The Yellow Dog Democrats, who suffer the most under this mismanagement in the cities, end up voting for the same chumps over and over and over again. Is that not insanity?"

Back during the Floyd riots, when criminals burned down part of Minneapolis, they torched over 1,000 businesses. One of the stores they destroyed, was the Target Store in Uptown. That really hurt, as many of the local residents used that store. Who did this destructive protest really hurt? The people. It created another urban desert. And that practice continues today. Welcome to mayhem.

On the news as of late, are stories of more and more stores calling it quits in urban areas. Why? Here is an example. When I worked in manufacturing, we had a metric called "scrap and attrition". That number was baked into the price of a good. Over time, should you operate better than that scrap and attrition number, good on you. However, if you did not, your realized profit was smaller. Sometimes, you operated at a loss. The same is true for a retail store.

If a retail store has a loss percentage of 5% (loss being theft or pilferage), and over time that loss percentage goes up to 10%, the store has a difficult decision to make. Raise prices, eat the loss, or leave. Recently, in some cities (like Chicago and Portland), stores have lost so much money, they are throwing in the towel and leaving. Not just mom and pop stores - big stores like WalMart. And grocery stores. And drug stores.

Last weekend in Chicago, there was another example of feral youth, out at night way too late, destroying property, and harassing innocent people. A couple of folks were shot, and some were beaten. It was like a scene out of a dystopian movie. Since many Soros funded DAs have decided to look the other way to crime (except Donald Trump), the mayhem continues with little if any, arrest and prosecution.

What is happening to many big blue cities is this. Stores are leaving, and cops are resigning. Many cities are way below their authorized policing numbers, because fewer and fewer people want to take this once noble profession on as a career. Too much down side, and too little up side. Even if you risk your life to arrest a punk doing wrong, the DA will let that punk slide. And it becomes deja vu over and over and over again.

Here is the irony. The Yellow Dog Democrats, who suffer the most under this mismanagement in the cities, end up voting for the same chumps over and over and over again. Is that not insanity? Just asking. Meanwhile, the cities have become "no go" zones for those who do not want to get robbed, beaten or carjacked. 

Meanwhile, urban deserts will continue to grow. Why? We get the government we deserve. Just look at Minneapolis as Exhibit "A" for that axiom.