Nelly for President?

Sometimes it's easy to see the appeal of Communism, until you remember the fates of the governments who actually tried it.

The appeal in NY.

• In Manhattan, real wages - earnings adjusted for inflation - rose 5.4 percent between the first quarters of 2002 and 2005.
• But in the rest of the city, those wages fell at least 2.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• In terms of wages, Manhattan families are doing better on average than those in the rest of the nation, while families in the four other boroughs are doing worse.
• From 1996 to 2005, the real wages of Manhattan workers grew almost 40 percent, and grew 2.5 percent in Queens and Staten Island. They were flat in the Bronx and fell 1 percent in Brooklyn.
• The number of families in Manhattan earning more than $200,000 a year rose almost 20 percent from 2002 to 2004 alone, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And nationally

• In 2003 the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data.

To quote the modern urban philosopher Nelly,

"Now I'm knockin like Jehovah - let me in now, let me in now.
Bill Gates, Donald Trump let me in now."

And now he owns an NBA team.

Can we cut another brother in?