Politics and Corruption

The Daily News on Mayor de Blasio's wealth:

Mayor de Blasio has few liquid assets and a rather meager retirement account, according to his financial disclosure report, which was released Thursday.

The limited holdings are in contrast to the fortune of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, one of the world’s richest men.

While Bloomberg needed more than 100 pages to list his vast holdings, including nearly a dozen homes around the globe, de Blasio’s form was seven pages.

It shows he has less than $44,000 in an individual retirement account and less than $44,000 in a money market fund. In addition, last year, he sold an annuity valued at between $44,000 and $59,999.

The mayor, 53, also owns two rowhouses in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He refinanced one of the houses, increasing its mortgage to more than $500,000, the form shows. De Blasio’s mother once lived there; he has been renting it out since her death in 2007.

People used to say about Bloomberg that he was so wealthy, we never had to worry about anybody trying to bribe him while a guy like de Blasio might be susceptible to bribery because he's got a lot less.

But what that political hypothesis fails to take into account is that the reason why Bloomberg has so much money is because he was a crook in the first place.

As Balzac said, "Behind every great fortune is a crime."

Nobody goes from $5 billion in wealth to $20 billion, as Bloomberg did in the 12 years he was in office, even as an overwhelming majority of people in this country lost wealth in two bubbles and two recessions, one of which was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, without being a crook.