September 15, 2013 --

Ken Auletta, in the August 26 New Yorker, has a long essay on the waning days of Michael R. Bloomberg's 12 years as mayor of New York City.

Auletta opens the essay by noting that the mayor's wealth is estimated at $27 billion. Auletta does not point out that the mayor was reputed to have a fortune of $7 billion when he took office. This means, clearly, that Bloomberg just about quadrupled his wealth while he was mayor.

Who among other New Yorkers can make this claim? Auletta briefly suggested that the millions of "working- and middle-class" New Yorkers haven't fared very well during the Bloomberg years. Still, Auletta refrained from musing how a mayor whose income, at merely 1% of his reported assets, would be $270,000,000 per annum, could relate to citizens harassed with $115 fines by the mayor's Parking Violations Bureau.

And so: Billions for the mayor, thousands for us -- he reportedly goes weekly to Bermuda; our meanderings are by city bus.

LPR file photo of Mayor Bloomberg