Carl from Chicago

Business executive interested in history, economics, taxation and energy policy.

Blues Brothers Return?

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One time I had an out-of-town visitor and he asked me “What is unique about Chicago?” My response was – “Have you ever seen the movie the Blues Brothers?” He said no, and I asked random bar patrons as they passed by how many times they’d seen the movie, and the answers ranged from 3 to 10+ times each.

I was out for dinner near Division street on Saturday night and we saw these guys in their Blues Brothers mobile, with the Jake / Elwood license plates, to boot (but not the megaphone on the roof).

Then on Sunday when I was walking through the Loop I saw piles of police cars wrecked and stacked up and blocked off with police tape (for a movie set, I am assuming). These cars definitely reminded me of what remained after the famous Blues Brothers chase through downtown Chicago.

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How To Be A Terrible Journalist – Chicago Magazine

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From time to time Dan and I just agree to “give up” on certain types of blog posts because they are repetitive. One of those types of posts involve journalists missing the entire point and purpose of what they are writing about.

Chicago gun article

And yet this article from Chicago Magazine was such an egregious offender that it caused me to need to write a post on it.

The article starts with the traditional journalistic chestnut – the protagonist. In this case, it is how Mr. Patton, the corporate counsel of the city of Chicago, can adjust the gun control laws as little as possible to meet the terms of the latest court decision that gives citizens access to firearms. In the end, the counsel for the city of Chicago “doesn’t anticipate” any further legal challenges to the gun laws, a comment that the reporter accepts at face value. And finally, the article ends with this:

“We’re committed to achieving the greatest extent of gun control that’s lawfully possible while still complying with the Second Amendment,” he says. “It’s something we can do in the city’s overall effort (against) gun violence. It’s a plague, and we’re doing everything we can to fight it.”

And with that final quote from the protagonist, the “article” is ended.

Note how this article likely sailed through “fact checking”, because the corporate counsel really did say all those things, and the events listed did occur in that chronological row. However, the FACTS ARE WRONG.

Even the most cursory analysis of the situation on gun control by this “journalist” would have turned up salient facts that were completely relevant to the situation. The NRA does intend to aggressively fight and issue lawsuits against the City of Chicago and all other municipalities that limit second amendment rights, and this could be found everywhere on the internet or by spending even 5 seconds calling the NRA, which the writer didn’t bother to do.

More subtle than that obvious issue, is the fact that Chicago, which has among the strictest handgun laws in the country, is among the leaders in carnage caused by handguns, indicating plainly that these laws do not work in terms of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and only work to deter law-abiding citizens from the ability to protect themselves from these criminals.

I won’t even bother to link to the latest articles showing shootings in Chicago which spike every weekend; they are everywhere and available to everyone, even this “journalist”.

While Chicago is a notorious hotbed of handgun violence, all the states around us have embraced concealed carry and limited restrictions on citizens, without the “wild west” shootouts promised by detractors. Chicago citizens travel every day into Indiana and now Wisconsin without fear of regular citizens harming them, while they would be scared to venture into their own neighborhoods “protected” by these city laws supposedly limiting gun violence.

The ideas that guns can be banned from a small corner of the populace is just irresponsible and ludicrous given that there are hundreds of millions of them across the US and that the tide of the second amendment has passed through almost every state of the union except for Illinois which ought to be a salient fact.

Cross posted at LITGM

We’re Barely Capitalists (Part II)

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Recently I wrote a post titled “We’re Barely Capitalists” talking about the “crony capitalism” that lies in our midst. Since I live in the city of Chicago examples abound as far as the eye can see.

Let’s say, for example that you want to open up a bar in the City of Chicago. You find an architecturally interesting building in a “hot” location in River North, for instance, such as an antique store. Then you just turn it into a gigantic Wal-Mart sized bar, right?

The City of Chicago officially has been limiting the number of liquor licenses and tavern licenses that are allowed, particularly in residential areas. Per this article in USA Today:

Opening or buying a tavern in Chicago can be complicated, says Mike Costanzo, a real estate broker with Jameson Commercial. Aldermen can seek liquor license moratoriums in areas as small as two blocks, and buyers are required to purchase the corporate entity that owns an existing tavern and license, he says. “Getting a new tavern license issued in a residential neighborhood is brutal,” Costanzo says. “It’s virtually impossible.”

River North today is heavily populated with condos and apartments; there are thousands of residents packed in an area that is overrun with bars, taverns and restaurants that serve lots of booze (I realize that the city differentiates but walking around late at night they are all virtually the same). So if you or I just went over and tried to use one of the supposedly diminishing liquor licenses on an antique store, we’d be laughed right out of the room. And yet that didn’t slow down this company (which also owns bars in Lincoln Park and Wrigleyville) from getting clearance…

And how do you get something like that cleared up with the city? By employing someone like the guy whose license plate on his Mercedes says it all – “CLOUT”. These sorts of connections are like property rights, and you have to partner or utilize contacts from someone in order to get anything done. I find it amazingly brazen that someone would get out of a Mercedes with plates like this and do business, but hey, this is Chicago.

The use of formal and informal intermediaries to accomplish business goals through a bureaucratic maze is the essence of “crony capitalism”, on display before our eyes.

Cross posted at LITGM