Jason Mudrick, Go Home to New York City

The New York Post recently ran an article that claims the “Wall Street elites” — who escaped to Florida during the Covid-19 Pandemic — are eager to go back to the Big Apple.  Jason Mudrick – head of Mudrick Capital Management—said that “the main problem with moving to Florida is that you have to live in Florida.”

Jason Mudrick claims that Manhattan has “the smartest, most driven people … the best culture … the best restaurants and the best theaters.”

“Anyone moving to Florida loses out on all that,” Mudrick added.

Perhaps Mudrick’s most ignorant and obnoxious claim is that New York City has the smartest people.  Really?  That is not only patently false, but also the epitome of arrogance.  I would challenge Mudrick’s claim of per capita “smartness” with a small town on the Florida east coast.  It is called Cape Canaveral – home of the Kennedy Space Center.  I bet California’s “silicon valley” might also protest Mudrick’s claim on the IQ crown.

Actually, Jason Mudrick omitted the most unique and characteristic quality of the New York elitist culture – something he exhibits to the extreme — unmitigated arrogance. 

I will concede that if I were as wealthy as Mudrick, New York could be tolerable.  Manhattan has a lot of good (very expensive) restaurants – but so do cities such as Chicago and San Francisco.  New York has the Broadway theater district, but most of those productions play all over the country – often with the original cast (as if that is meaningful).

There are somethings in which New York excels.  Just to name a few, New York has the best chopped chicken liver in the world – in my judgment.  And … hmmmm … that is all I can think of at the moment.  Some point to New York pizza and hot dogs.  I come from Chicago.  A Vienna dog trumps Nathan’s any day of the week.  But that is a debate for another time.  I doubt Mudrick is ever found in a pizza joint or at a hot dog stand.

If you are NOT Park Avenue rich, however, Manhattan is a pretty miserable place to even visit.  It is a very dirty city.  The traffic (pre-Pandemic) is intolerable.  All the trash pickup in the business district is at the street curb – which means at least once a week you are essentially walking through a garbage dump alongside large black plastic bags piled six feet high.  Did I mention the chronic rat problem?

The Manhattan streets are lined with those construction canopies – block after block.  It is not because of new buildings going up, but mostly to protect pedestrians from crumbling facades.

If an average working family wants a nice three-bedroom apartment – fuggedaboudit! The folks on the street always appear to be unhappy or angry – a bit oppressed.  And no wonder.  They must deal with one of the highest crime rates in the nation.  The segregated school system sucks.  That is why folks like Mudrick brag about New York’s wonderful PRIVATE schools.

There is a lot of reasons why New York is an exodus city. The tax burden on the middle class, for one – the money needed to keep guys like Mudrick happy, safe and prosperous in their cultural bubble.

Yes, the Wall Street types, the upper-crust theater community and all those multimillionaire news personalities we see on television may enjoy living in the Big Apple – but that is because they live in an insulated cloistered community of opulence and privilege, with a Scrooge-esque attitude toward the hard-working lower classes.

Their economic isolation is the reason they look down on fly-over America – the reason they cannot relate to or understand the American masses.  It is the reason that the New York elite must establish their own self-esteem by exhibiting a condescending arrogance toward those who reside beyond the walls of their economic bubble. 

Of course, south Florida has its enclave of super-rich.  They have been staking their claims with nine-figure mansions along the coast of Palm Beach – and elsewhere.  Currently, the most notable of them is former President – and former New Yorker – Donald Trump.

But the Post suggests that a lot of the Palm Beachers are pulling up stakes to return to New York.  The Post names a couple – but I doubt it is the sort of exodus the newspaper implies.

Looking at Florida’s population demographics – as well as that of New York City — it appears that a lot of New Yorkers disagree with Mudrick.  They are permanently moving to south Florida in droves.  They are mostly genuinely nice people – as are most of the residents of New York City.  It is just that the snobbish Big Apple elite gives New York’s commoners a bad name.

I wound up in south Florida due to circumstances.  It would not have been my first choice after leaving Chicago.  In fact, I would rather live in another region for several reasons – one of which is that I like a change of seasons.  But I do find Florida offers a lot – including great restaurants, good theater and mostly happy people – friendly.  Crime in Florida is very low.  I have discovered that many people in Florida do not even find it necessary to lock their car and house doors.  All this and low taxes – no state income tax at all.

Jason Mudrick is not an outlier or an anomaly.  He is the personification of that small arrogant privileged New York culture that unfortunately influences most of our national media.  He is part of an elitist ruling-class that disproportionately establishes national norms from a very narrow self-indulgent perspective – because, as Mudrick states, he is among the smartest people in America – as opposed to the hundreds of millions of who reside outside the New York elitist bubble.

If I had the opportunity – the resources – to move somewhere else, I might.  But it would not be to New York City – even if I won the lottery.

So, there ‘tis.