How to destroy an economy, for dummies

 

By Jack Hellner

If anyone wants to see how to send a town into a death spiral, all they should do is look at the history of East St. Louis, Illinois.

Here are some facts about the city:

In 1900, it was a prosperous city. From the internet:

East St. Louis was a wealthy city in 1900 due to rapid industrial growth, earning it the nickname ‘the Pittsburgh of the West’. The city experienced explosive population growth as industries like steel and transportation created thousands of jobs, though it began to decline in later decades.

And here is what has happened over the last 125 years:

The last time East St. Louis had a Republican mayor was in 1949.

Manufacturing has left. 

The population has declined from around 35,000 to 18,000, while the national population has gone from 76 million to 340 million.

The poverty rate is 32.9%; the national rate is 10.6%.

Median household income is around $31,000; the national median is around $84,000.

Median sales price of homes is $48,000; the national median is $415,000.

As home sales prices have collapsed in East St Louis, taxing bodies ratcheted up property taxes. If a person or business has property in East St. Louis assessed at $100,000, their property taxes would be between $4,600 and $6,700, depending on the zip code. This causes the death spiral of the town to cascade.

The children haven’t learned basic math or reading skills,which means it is very tough to succeed:

In East St Louis School District 189, 11% of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 11% tested at or above that level for math. Also, 12% of middle school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 7% tested at or above that level for math.

Yet Democrats in Illinois (and on the national stage) routinely block children from having school choice, snatching away the opportunity to leave failing schools.

Even though they can’t read or do math at grade level, Illinois shows that 85% graduate. Pushing kids through who don’t have skills is nothing to celebrate. It is a tremendous disservice to the children.

Most of the media and other Democrats rarely pay attention to East St. Louis (which has a 95% black population, a group they claim to care about) because this is what happens when the majority of people are dependent on a powerful government (socialism).

I am sure most of these residents get their health care for “free” along with SNAP and many other handouts. While that makes a few things affordable for them, it takes away their incentive to work and financially advance, and it increases prices for those who pay, especially the middle class.

Pushing minimum wages to unaffordable levels for businesses to hire makes things more unaffordable for most of us, and takes away a huge amount of job opportunities for the young and the poor to learn to work and to start moving up the economic ladder. It is very harmful when a powerful government essentially discourages work and gives people “free” stuff to incentivize them to stay dependent on the government.

The Great Society and anti-poverty programs were (ostensibly) meant to provide a safety net, not to end up with generational poverty, which is what has occurred.

It would be as stupid to hire people (Democrats) to run the country, who run their states into the ground and are losing people and businesses, as it would be to buy a house in East St. Louis thinking it would be a good investment.

Will most of the media and other Democrats ever learn from history? It doesn’t appear they will, or even care. They seem to care much more about power than results. They seem to want more people to be dependent on the government because they want their votes.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/12/how_to_destroy_an_economy_for_dummies.html