I saw your post when I came back!
The author has confused Bloomberg’s (and other dictators’) practice of rewarding some businesspeople, with the structural factors that are really “pro-business,” such as a simple and reasonable tax code, limited and equally applied regulation, security of life and property, freedom of contract, and so on.
If you want to determine whether a polity is pro-business, look at how long it takes to open a new business, how many licenses or approvals it takes, how much it costs to secure the licenses and approvals, and how many decisions the owner can make for himself vs. having them dicatated to him. Then look at the ongoing “compliance” costs of keeping the business going, in both time and money. New York “pro-business”? Fugeddaboutit.
Well-said. Maybe instead of “pro-business” he should have said “pro-eco-swindlers, government contract fraudsters, and crooked bankers.”