I hope this win signals (to both parties) that voters are receptive and will get engaged when a clear message is presented about cost of living and quality of life issues. Some of which are taken for granted in most other western countries.
I’m no political wonk, and I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices.
I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message but he was mostly stymied on policy goals. Specifically Obamacare as an example ended up being watered down
Only speaking for myself (also not a political wonk): I do not expect Mamdani to be able to enact all of his policies. Not because of money but because of political opposition from the powerful.
I felt the same about Bernie and Medicare for all. We have the money to do it, but the powerful will not let it happen.
However: that doesn’t mean we should elect politicians that won’t even try to make these things happen. It’s important to have a North Star to shoot for, to move the Overton window of what’s worth discussing and to keep an eye on what political machinations block it from happening. I will never vote for a politician who pre-compromises with an imagined opposition, because that tells me they have a different North Star than I do in the first place.
Absolutely, elect enough Mamdani’s and the powerful will not be able to stop the changes. It’s the expectation that a single Mamdani or Sanders can fix much that has lead to extreme apathy from much of the electorate.
There are plenty of examples in the world to turn to to learn what happens when you get a critical Mamdani-Sanders mass. They tend to be rather unpleasant examples which are usually done away with using a variety on the "true socialism has never been tried" claim. No, Mamdani will not be able to turn New York into Caracas just yet. Let's all hope that nobody will be able to accomplish this.
There's no reason we should pay 2x what everyone else does, and live 10 years less (for healthcare).
We could accept a good deal of socialism into our system and see only benefits; there are a number of things which should not be profit-motive driven at all.
Obama was hated by San Franciscan progressives because he came in with all of these promises and then backtracked on almost all of them. He basically turned into a Bush-lite, and he even maintained every single one of Bush's policies as well as deadlines. For example, he talked a lot about abortion and then immediately said it wasn't a priority for him once he got into office. He never closed Guantanamo and in both elections said he didn't support gay marriage.
ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time. Income inequality skyrocketed under him as well. Anyone who wasn't rich enough to afford some sort of asset like stocks or real estate was left behind and is now suffering.
I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.
I'll throw in extending parental coverage to 26. I have a sibling with type 1 diabetes and it's impossible for me to describe the positive impact those two provisions have had on their life.
Just because a piece of a legislation includes painful compromises doesn't mean we should ignore its huge wins.
That has in part become the issue in modern politics, any compromise no matter how minor is seen as a loss.
Neither sides most ardent supporters was willing to accept anything that looked like a compromise and so you end up with things as they are now, with someone where compromise shouldn’t happen because there is no practical compromise.
US politics has collapsed down to the scorpion and the frog.
> That has in part become the issue in modern politics, any compromise no matter how minor is seen as a loss.
Because to those who are now getting hit with huge insurance bills as a direct effect of that compromise, and may have to go without insurance at all, it is a loss.
And nothing has been done to address the underlying reasons and bad incentives that have led to this outcome. Which is also a failure.
>Because to those who are now getting hit with huge insurance bills as a direct effect of that compromise, and may have to go without insurance at all, it is a loss.
Because the Republicans slashed the premium tax credits to pay for tax cuts for rich people.
The fact Republicans wouldn't repeal ACA but would repeal the tax credits just shows both sides prefer it to be broken. Democrats could shove through enough votes to repeal ACA to make health insurance cheaper for lower-risk groups without tax credits; Republicans could re-instate tax credits. Instead we are stuck in this bastardized half-socialized model that gets the worst of all worlds.
Politics in the USA has basically gridlocked to it being much cheaper to shit on the other guy than to fix things. In two party system you can actually win by only making the other guy look worse, which only requires breaking things in a way that can be pointed at the other guy, somehow we are stuck in this local minima.
This is nonsense. You have Democrats working to get more healthcare to more people, via increased taxation, and you are blaming them for Republicans holding them back.
It's both of their faults. Blaming one party or the other is what got us into this this hole and what keeps making it deeper.
The ACA was passed in 2014. Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) have had since then to get off their butts and do something to fix the serious flaws it came with. Flaws that made insurance too unaffordable for millions of people so they had to risk it and go uninsured.
Years Pres Senate House SC
2013-2015 D D(+8) R(+33) R(+1)
2015-2017 D R(+10) R(+59) -(+0)
2017-2019 R R(+4) R(+47) R(+1)
2019-2021 R R(+8) D(+35) R(+1)
2021-2023 D D(+0.5) D(+9) R(+3)
2023-2025 D D(+2) R(+9) R(+3)
2025-2027 R R(+8) R(+4) R(+3)
When exactly were the democrats supposed to "fix" the ACA without compromising?
Dems haven't had solid control of all three legislative bodies since it passed, and Republicans have vocally made it their priority to oppose the ACA in any way possible, and are unwilling to give an inch. Even the hair thin margin post-2020 was unusable for this due to the handful of DINOs that all needed to vote in lockstep.
Meanwhile, R's had unilateral control of the government for four straight years, and they voted to make everyone's lives worse, as you're complaining about. They said over and over they were going to repeal it, like you suggest, and then turned around and made it obvious that was a blatant lie. Because despite its flaws, even the gutted ACA is still wildly popular and a vast improvement over the previous status quo. (It turns out keeping workers healthy is critical for the economy)
This is not a symmetric problem. It really is one party making it worse.
> When exactly were the democrats supposed to "fix" the ACA without compromising?
The Democrats did have full control when they first passed the ACA and they ended up getting in their own way.
But I never said that the Democrats were supposed to fix it on their own. I said both parties are to blame.
It shouldn't require one team have full control for something to happen. That's the real issue. They refuse to work together, and somehow this gets them more support (votes). Both sides. Total shit show.
> The Democrats did have full control when they first passed the ACA and they ended up getting in their own way.
They didn’t. They had to heavily compromise with an Independent.
> After the Finance Committee vote on October 15, negotiations turned to moderate Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid focused on satisfying centrists. The holdouts came down to Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucused with Democrats, and conservative Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. Lieberman's demand that the bill not include a public option[161][175] was met,[176]
> But I never said that the Democrats were supposed to fix it on their own. I said both parties are to blame.
This doesn’t make any sense, because 99% of Dems have tried to increase access to healthcare, and 99.9% of Repubs have tried to reduce access to healthcare. The sole exception being when McCain provided his vote to not repeal ACA.
> The fact Republicans wouldn't repeal ACA but would repeal the tax credits just shows both sides prefer it to be broken.
It really doesn't. All it shows is that team R is following it's usual playbook of "The government is broken - elect me, and I'll make sure of it."
> Democrats could shove through enough votes to repeal ACA to make health insurance cheaper for lower-risk groups without tax credits
The only true part of that statement is that they could get enough votes to repeal it without replacement. But it wouldn't make anything cheaper.
The only way insurance would get cheaper is if it went back to not covering pre-existing conditions, which is contrary to the whole point of insurance.
It's wild that you're blaming the dems for... Not repealing without replacement, and pushing us straight into a completely broken shitshow?
> lower-risk groups
Oh, I understand now. You're are explicitly unhappy that the dems aren't agreeing to your plan to massively hike rates for anyone with a pre-exisiting condition, or literally any complication that would get them discriminated against prior to the ACA.
Sorry, that's a shitty thing for you to be fighting for, and they are in the right to not do it.
ACA without subsidies is a regressive tax due to the price differential cap from young to old. It's a wealth transfer from younger/poorer people to older/wealthier people still on private insurance. Health risks track most closely with being older and thus on average wealthier.
It's just the people that have tricked you, have used statistical correlation and cover of pre-existing condition to hide the fact what they're actually doing is robbing from the poorer to subsidize the richer.
It's a wealth transfer from healthy people to sick people. That's the whole point of health insurance.
Older people are sicker and older people are wealthier, but older sicker people on ACA plans are not wealthier than the median.
It's a sleight of hand to collate the two (old-rich and old-sick), but sure, if this is such a large concern, the solution is adding means testing, not just leaving sick people with care they can't afford.
Due to the way ACA works (disallows pre-existing condition discrimination) it's young-average[for age] vs old-overage[for age] with a cap on the ratio. Which functions as a regressive wealth transfer when the premium subsidies get gutted.
And now the US is having the longest govt shutdown ever, millions of people losing their food stamps, millions of people potentially seeing their Healthcare costs skyrocket, and neither side seems willing to compromise, with the GOP blaming the democrats for the shutdown, which really is not productive.
The original plan was for single-payer, but the Blue Dog democrats fucked it up, because they didn't want to lose their seats, so they pushed for a compromise solution.
They then all lost their seats to tea-party and proto-maga types who were screeching about FEMA internment camps and death panels killing grandma.
Had the ACA gone further and actually provided a single payer system, I'd consider the block on denials based on preexisting conditions a win.
As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.
That bastardizes the whole point of private insurance. I don't want to pay more for my car insurance because the person next door bought a Porsche and the insurance company isn't legally allowed to consider the cost of repairing a Porsche.
Don't get me wrong, morally I don't want to see anyone denied health insurance. I also don't want this half-in half-out program where its no longer really private health insurance nor is it a centralized single payer system.
Health insurance that can discriminate against people based on pre-existing conditions rapidly becomes health insurance you can’t use. Sure, it’ll be cheaper for a few years. Then, with non-negligible probability, you’ll develop a serious condition. At that point the cost becomes anywhere between “high” and “infinite”. If the point is just “private insurance is dumb”, sure, I mostly agree.
It isn't insurance if the provider can't consider risk factors for the policy though.
If we don't want people's health to be dependent on insurance that's fine, but we should replace it with a system that isn't based on risk at all rather than bastardizing something that still sort of looks like risk-based insurance.
> It isn't insurance if the provider can't consider risk factors for the policy though.
Insurers are welcome to consider risk factors... for populations in aggregate.
It turns their actuarial models into population-subset models instead of individual models.
Which is easily the most "fair" (to individuals) option.
Allowing insurers to consider individual risk factors (preexisting conditions, genetics, etc.) would make the advertising data mining industry seem quaint. And I don't think any American wants to live in that world.
So we can talk about whether insurers should be able to offer lifestyle incentives (yes!), preventative care incentives (yes!), and be backed by catastrophic reinsurers (like mortgages, maybe)... but enrolling people blindly is one of the best things ACA did.
(Unless one happens to be young, rich, family-less, healthy, and have no moral compunction about fucking others over for ones own benefit)
Also, important unremarked benefit of ACA -- capping maximum insurer "administration" costs.
Firsthand from inside the industry as it was implemented, I can tell you that drove efficiency improvements inside insurers, as they couldn't bill for broken, slow, manual processes in additional premiums.
Granted, it caused other problems (attempts to self-deal and harvest profits through quasi-related provider / pharmacy entities or Medicare Advantage), but it did focus insurers on being efficient facilitators.
Where do you draw the line on individual vs population subset risk levels?
The insurer must decide what subset (s) of the population a person fits into, preexisting conditions are a factor that would almost certainly weigh heavily on the risk factor for that subset.
Are you proposing that it is irrelevant with regards to an individual's risk if they have diabetes, for example? Or are you simply arguing that we aren't comfortable with the costs it would require for an individual with diabetes to get health insurance if that factor is considered?
I fall into the latter personally and would prefer a real solution to health care that isn't some form of insurance. As long as it is insurance, though, the former seems impractical.
Insurance is a simple business: collect enough money so that in the long run you earn more than you pay out.
American health insurance generally does this in two broad ways. (1) Insure a large enough population group that averages hold and you can price based on actuarial/statistical probabilities. (2) Negotiate deals with provider groups so that they get something they want and you can bound their prices.
Neither of those things are contingent on knowing anything about individuals.
Insurers will generally pick {more randomly-selected customers} over {knowing more about each customer} any day of the week.
Maybe I'm misreading you, but you seem to want insurance that's accurately priced to exactly your circumstances and health (say, how custom high value property insurance is sold).
That doesn't solve insurer's concentrated tail risk problem though, and it means you're fucked if you ever develop a complicated condition, like cancer.
I have multiple actuaries in my family that work primarily in the insurance industry. I can assure you they are tasked with determining individual risk rather than risk of an entire pool of people with no regard for the individual.
It's also quite convenient that the contributor group (youngest adults with very little time spent to acquire wealth) are basically subsidizing the richest groups (older adults but still young enough to be on private health care).
It's effectively a regressive tax, transfer from the poorer to the richer, due to the way ACA caps the price spread.
Your neighbor buying a Porsche was a choice they made. Nobody chooses to have a pre-existing condition. We're also talking about a luxury vs simple survival. I am not sure how you can compare them.
What insurers in some countries do is charge higher premiums for people who engage in high-risk behaviors, like smoking, drinking, or extreme sports. Those are all choices so it seems fair to charge a sin tax for them. Higher premiums would discourage risky behavior and improve the health of the country as a whole.
Are you sure about that? Plenty of medical conditions are the result, at least in part, of decisions a person makes.
A person with lung cancer seeking health care could very well have smokes for decades. A person with type 2 diabetes may very well have eaten poorly for decades. Obviously those aren't always directly linked to life choices, but they often can be.
Nobody _intentionally_ signs up for a pre-existing condition.
Whether a past action caused a condition, sure, but where do you draw the line? If you become disabled in a car accident, despite knowing full well that accidents can happen, should you be denied insurance in future because you did something risky? What if you were a smoker for the decades when cigarette companies suppressed the research about how bad it was?
Also, how would you even prove that a condition was self-inflicted? My old dog had lung cancer despite (to my knowledge) never smoking (and nor did anyone else in the household). I lost a close family member to liver cancer despite being a lifelong teetotaller, but how would anyone even prove that? The moment you start means-testing people, you're adding a whole lot of extra cost to taxpayers and stress for patients.
Denying healthcare to the most vulnerable members of society is simply cruel. It is kicking them when they're down. Having the condition is punishment enough. We can do better than that.
That's simple though. For insurance the line is drawn at how expensive it will likely be for a private company to insure you over the course of your policy.
It doesn't matter if someone intended for a decision to lead to higher risk, the only question at the point of signing an insurance policy is how risky that private company views the policy.
The whole insurance debate often feels misplaced. Many people simply don't want healthcare to depend on an insurance system. And I get that, I also would rather people be able to get the care they need regardless of their individual risk.
As long as we have anything claiming to be insurance that simply isn't how the system works. If the game is insurance the insurer should be able to consider individual risk. If we don't want that, build a system that isn't dependent on an insurance scheme at all.
How do you address adverse selection then? There's no private insurance where you don't address adverse selection. Either you force everyone to have coverage: ie car insurance in US or universal health insurance systems or you force them to get insured in groups (US employer based insurance), or you accept outrageously expensive rates for it.
Healthcare already being expensive doesn't make it amenable to that last option unlike insuring your laptop where you might be okay paying 2-5x the expected loss for peace of mind. Criticizing the method of addressing adverse selection is fine, but not the existence of it. You need something. There's no such thing as completely free market of health insurance. Any economist can easily explain this to you.
Not private insurance. We all pay into it obviously, but our individual rates in an insurance market are based on individual risk. My rate is only impacted by others in a relative sense, if I'm more risky than someone else I pay more.
With preexisting conditions off the table, my rates may go up only because someone else is a higher risk and the insurance company can't charge them for it.
I said this in another post, but morally I don't want others to be denied health care. I don't want health insurance at all in that case because insurance implies that you pay more for riskier coverage.
The purpose of insurance is to mitigate the risk of a very costly but unlikely outcome by paying a smaller amount over time, thereby spreading that risk among those of similar risk.
Not being able to consider individual risk means that insurance makes no sense for those with a low risk profiles, because they’re in the same cohort as those who will _definitely_ file claims.
Cohorts are based off of your employer, because we, inexplicably, tied health insurance to your employer. If you work for a very young and hip company then no, your cohort might not file claims.
There's levels of broken-ness to healthcare in the US. Even if you allow health insurance to discriminate based on health conditions, it will still be broken in other ways.
That's one way, true. I've mostly been considering the ACA here and those getting coverage that can't get it through an employer.
Employer health insurance rates fan still get wonky for small businesses though. It probably can't happen today, but I was at a small business where everyone's rates went up shortly after one person was diagnosed with cancer and another one or two with diabetes.
That is an example of it not really being individual insurance though. The insurance company is just lumping the employees together and setting rates based on the relative risk of the whole group, not dissimilar from getting an individual policy where the rates are based on a group of one.
How do you propose we address adverse selection in insurance markets then? That's the part you're overlooking and making you go "Huh?". It's clear to everyone else.
>As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.
That's what social insurance/welfare systems do throughout the developed world -- make sure everyone's covered at some minimal level even if it wouldn't be profitable when evaluated individually; it's just using insurance companies as an arm of the state to pull it off.
If, as it seems, your only objection is to labeling it "insurance", that's not a substantive objection to the merit of the policy, only how it's marketed.
What you're describing isn't insurance. There's nothing wrong with that and maybe (probably) its better than what the US has today, but if it claims to be insurance than it must be allowing the insurer to consider the risk of each policy it writes.
It's an analogy. They are not comparing the worth of a human being to a car. They're saying that someone else's high risk should not increase your premium.
I stongly disagree with the premise that someone else's high risk should not increase your premium. How do you control your insurer? How do you know who's in their pool?
Why should your premium be tied to someone else's risk? There will always be some level of connection, the insurer has to stay in business, but that's very different.
Without preexisting conditions your premiums go up only because they can't charge the higher risk individual for that risk. That is no longer insurance at least at the individual level - you're effectively being asked to vouch for, and pay for, someone you never met.
> you're effectively being asked to vouch for, and pay for, someone you never met.
That is the basic premise of insurance. Collectivized risk. That you disagree with a specific detail in the implementation and that part, and that part only is vouching for someone else is undermining your point, not reinforcing it.
Everyone in the developed world has injected government heavily into healthcare, because its the lynchpin of a healthy and efficient workforce. That's the real solution.
No, it isn't. You'd have to define "developed world" here to make your argument more clear, but more importantly you'd have to define insurance in general if the government is stepping in to control those markets.
If we just want healthcare to be covered for the entire population that's fine, but don't call it insurance.
Yes, either we have a risk-based insurance system or we have a single-payer system that isn't insurance at all. Being stuck in the middle is worse than both extremes in this case.
I'm not sure if it's in contention, but efficiency is also important. Life isn't an optimization for health care. At the middle class and below, people are already spending most their earnings on essentials.
Maybe you can alter healthcare so people are paying through the nose (either through highly regulated private entities coupled with incentives/mandates, or through taxes) but more people are covered, and so now they are less able to afford housing, good education, healthy foods, child care, and other stuff. Then they are not necessarily better off.
Absolutely. We have this bad habit of hating policies and politicians that make things 10% as good at they tried to do, but shrugging and ignoring politicians and policies that actively make our lives worse. Perfect is ideal. Better than we started with is still better.
The real problem is not politicians per se, its lobbyists. If you want blame the shortcomings of the ACA on anyone blame the insurance lobby. We need to get rid of lobbyists and put in term limits. period. It doesnt matter what party you support neither of them are looking out for your best interests. We should vote for people based on their individual beliefs and policies and not have to worry about what they are going to do in office because they get threatened by their party to vote this way or that way and hold the line ebcause if they dont they will primary you. If we have term limites, getting primaried doesnt matter as much anymore. It shouldnt be a career to be in DC. It should be a public service. The sooner we all realize this and quit picking a tribe the sooner things will get better.
In my circles of news and friends, plenty of people are actively hating against politicians and policies that make our lives worse, or who spout dangerous rhetoric (and do nothing else but that).
Usually it's just Trump, but my local congressman gets a lot of hate too.
Sometimes it is just "orange man bad" but cmon building an opulent ballroom and remodeling a bathroom in marble and having a grand old Halloween party while millions of Americans have no idea how they're gonna have their next meal is some Marie Antoinette shit. Sure that's not really a "policy" per se but it sure makes it look like he doesn't give a shit about policies that actually help the American people.
This is a bit of an aside, but why isn't medical tourism more popular in the US? If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars, as a rainy day fund, you could get close to the very best possible care for even serious conditions from countries that have highly developed medical tourism sectors.
Granted, I acknowledge, that the US will likely still provide better care at the absolute high end, and asking most people to save that much can be quite a tall order, but from what I gather, a lot of people either bankrupt themselves, and end up paying much more than that and/or receive substandard care for conditions where treatment regime is established like treatable forms of cancer or congestive heart failure.
I remember Trump blasting Obama about Medicare, and proposing to 'open up' the system, introducing competition to drive prices down instead (which is the real problem of the US system, socially subsidizing it is just a bandaid fix imo). I guess not much has come off that.
The sort of people who can set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars are also the sort of people who probably have good health insurance through their job. Generally, the US's healthcare problems _mostly_ impact low to middle income people, and they usually can't just magic up 30k or so.
100%. I have known a couple of people that did some form of "medical tourism", mostly for expensive dental work. In both cases they did some form of tech contract work as a sole proprietorship and bought their own health insurance (not through a partner). The overlap of people who can save up thousands of dollars for treatment abroad and have poor health insurance is probably not too large.
There are a lot of misunderstandings in this post. I'll try to explain a few of them, which maybe can help realign your whole understanding.
For starters, American insurance has a "maximum out-of-pocket" amount, which means the maximum you can possibly pay for healthcare costs. My plan, from just a regular unknown company doing boring things, has a maximum out of pocket of $5k for an individual. So there's no scenario where I'd ever benefit from spending "a couple tens of thousands of dollars" because even if I spend the whole year in an ICU bed at a cost of millions of dollars to the hospital, I only pay $5,000.
Also, "a lot of people either bankrupt themselves, and end up paying much more than that" doesn't make sense. Declaring bankruptcy means you don't pay the debt, you wouldn't pay a lot AND declare bankruptcy. You'd see the amount was too much to pay, declare bankruptcy, and have the debt wiped out.
Keep in mind that millions of Americans have essentially no assets that aren't protected in a bankruptcy (car, home and retirement accounts are generally safe). It's not like millionaires are going bankrupt from medical costs, it's people who had nothing to begin with declaring bankruptcy when they got hurt while uninsured and going back to zero (instead of negative).
The real problem of the US system isn't the subsidies for the poor, it's the opaque, convoluted billing system between insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers, and providers. Billions of dollars are siphoned out of the system as profit to insurers and hundreds of millions are wasted on salaries for the bureaucracy of managing the billing system.
> Declaring bankruptcy means you don't pay the debt, you wouldn't pay a lot AND declare bankruptcy. You'd see the amount was too much to pay, declare bankruptcy, and have the debt wiped out.
Bankruptcy isn't a magic get out of debt button. First you have to prove your inability to pay, which generally means not having much in the way of assets. So you probably have to spend a significant amount of money on the debt before bankruptcy is even an option. Then once you have successfully declared bankruptcy it means, aside from a few classes of protected assets (e.x. your primary residence if your sufficiently lucky to be a homeowner) your creditors get to divy up what you have left amongst themselves. THEN the debt is wiped away. It's a last resort that keeps every penny you earn for the rest of your life from going to creditors, not a way to walk away with your assets and lifestyle intact.
They can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions anymore, but insurers still have hundreds of other ways to avoid paying.
There's no silver lining in the U.S. healthcare system -- it's built to exhaust, confuse, and bankrupt patients. And it's only gotten worse in recent years. (Will only get worse with the addition of more AI.)
Joe Lieberman, a supposed Democrat, killed any real chance for reform we had in our generation. He then left Congress and quickly died -- his legacy is the broken healthcare system we have today, totally rigged against the very patients it's supposed to serve.
Joe Lieberman and basically every Republican ever, for decades.
And the Republicans on the Supreme Court that hobbled what the Democrats managed to narrowly get through the political process.
But sure, direct all the anger for that towards Democrats, that will result in better Healthcare any day now. I hear Trump has concepts of a plan that he's been working on for over a decade that he'll let us know about in just 2 weeks.
I'm so tired of "this plan wasn't perfect, it failed. Democrats suck".
And meanwhile the republican plan was to do nothing or actively make things worse than ignoring the problem. Why are some people seemingly hardwired to just blame democrats for any or everything? Because the plans they have don't immediately benefit them, the middle class person who was never down on their luck?
Even then, I fail to think of any policy that legitmately benefits the middle class either. Did abortion bans improve your quality of life? Do immigration raids help your 401k? Did that cut to EV credits get you better public transit?
> Murc’s Law is typically phrased as: "the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics".[5] [6] It reflects a perceived journalistic double standard, where Democrats are held responsible for political outcomes regardless of context, whereas Republican obstruction or extremism is treated as a given. This framing, critics argue, absolves Republicans of responsibility and creates an unbalanced political narrative.
Like half this sub-thread is driving me insane. The deep hatred of Democrats (for decades) from the left is very frustrating to me. They may not be as left-wing as those people might like but they're in fact not nearly as bad as the Republicans.
No, what made it unaffordable was scrapping the penalty on not having health insurance. If you force health insurance to cover everyone then you also need to force everyone to have health insurance to keep the system balanced. One way to do that is have everyone automatically covered in a public system: rejected. Another way is to tell people they don’t have to sign up for health insurance but they do have to pay into the system.
Obama care was not a Democratic win it was another Republican win in a long list of Republican wins, where the dems tried to work with the republicans in good faith and implemented their policies for them. Sadly they realised to late that you should never work with right wing fascists because if you give those people your hand they will take the whole arm.
No that is a huge failure. That is perhaps the biggest failure of Obamacare.
That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise. And sure enough, life expectancy in the US immediately stalled after the law's implementation: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni.... Exactly what economics would predict would happen.
And what if you, despite being healthy, get diagnosed with cancer right one your employer fails, thus becoming uninsurable? This type of thing happened to people.
It’s nice the above can no longer happen. You could, at the same time, still allow insurers to charge a premium to smokers and obese and for other lifestyle risks within one’s control. They are not mutually exclusive.
The entire system of linking health insurance to one's current employer is bad. I should just be able to buy it with money I earn from doing anything that pays me, just like I do with my car insurance or any other type of insurance.
The obese and smokers actually cost less because they die early vs healthy people who live a long life and need a lot of care when they're aged.
"Smoking was associated with a moderate decrease in healthcare costs, and a marked decrease in pension costs due to increased mortality." https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678
The UK did a study and they found that from the three biggest healthcare risks; obesity, smoking, and alcohol, they realize a net savings of £22.8 billion (£342/$474 per person) per year. This is due primarily to people with health risks not living as long (healthcare for the elderly is exceptionally expensive), as well as reduced spending on pensions, etc..
This is despite no-one paying (directly) for health care.
Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have (both under your control, like choosing to drive, international travel, and not under your control, like genetic predisposition to heart disease) to ensure your premium can be accurately calculated?
Blaming people for their illnesses is something we have historically gotten wrong a lot, and regardless, it’s pretty inhuman as a society to leave people to suffer and die because they can’t afford healthcare.
> Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have
To be fair, there are insurance policies (at least in the UK) which give you discounts if you drive "safely"[0] or health insurance that rewards you for "being active"[1].
[1] https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/ "you earn Vitality points by getting active or attending your health check-ups [...] rewards, including a reduced excess and lower renewal premiums"
Example 1 is car insurance, not health insurance, so not really apples to apples. Being able to drive is not the same as being able to access healthcare.
Example 2 is private healthcare insurance, which does exist in the UK, but only about 10-15% of the population have it, and it's mostly about getting access to healthcare provision faster. These private providers can of course do what they like, same as in the US, with the caveat that everybody is entitled to free, comprehensive healthcare through the NHS if they don't have private healthcare insurance.
However, folks that can afford to sometimes like to skip the queue.
It's worth noting I suppose that the UK has significantly more in the way of 'sin taxes' than the US. For example, tax on cigarettes is 16.5% of the retail price plus £6.69 ($8.73) on a packet of 20, meaning on average cigarettes retail for around £15 (~$20). This compares to the US average of somewhere around $3 tax and retail of around $10 (varying based on state).
It's more complicated to calculate for alcohol, but again, the UK taxes alcohol more heavily than the US.
This additional tax revenue helps to fund the treatment of those who use those substances (although to be clear, it doesn't cover it fully).
I would be very surprised if taxes on tobacco did not cover the increased costs to the State from tobacco users. When I last looked at it tobacco users were dying early before they imposed huge costs on the State during their old age years and this produced an enormous saving to the State. This was ~20 years ago and we might be much better at keeping people alive and this has changed the calculus.
However, net cost to the state when you factor in inability to work, etc is estimated at twice the tax revenue.
Your point that smokers die younger and so cost the state less is a contentious topic with lots of debate. One thing that is clear is that tobacco firms are actively pushing that narrative, which, given the industry’s history with regards to data and studies like this makes me instantly suspicious: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB995230746855683470
> it’s pretty inhuman as a society to leave people to suffer and die because they can’t afford healthcare.
this is mostly about drawing a line between the tradeoffs of costs and the benefits of increased lifespan and better quality of life. almost no-one actually believes all of societies resources should be committed to healthcare to achieve some small marginal health gain. claiming people are inhuman because they want to draw the line differently is messed up.
That’s a fair point. But whether a person lives or dies should not be a function of their income.
The NHS for example today doesn’t spend infinite resources on any individual. In some cases, the decision is that the cost of treatment is not justified by the benefit.
Whether someone is a smoker is a factor in that decision: how much longer they may live, their expected quality of life. Also their lifestyle is taken into consideration when determining the order of a transplant list, etc.
But the decision is never made based on their ability to pay.
I remember being denied coverage after aging out of my parent's healthcare plan. The cited reason was "pre-existing conditions", which were allergies and a congenital cleft lip and palate (I had a number of corrective procedures as a kid). I was a healthy and relatively normal young adult.
Life expectancy flatlining could be any number of things. Correlation != causation
Look at this Ubermensch that will never have a stroke, develop cancer, or any number of debilitating conditions. Must be nice!
It is the basic duty of every human to do their best to make sure every other living human is afforded a life of simple human dignity. Full stop. We have the resources. Let's just do it.
Sadly we do not have, and will never have, the resources to help everyone, even to a baseline of human dignity. Surely we can't give people unlimited talk therapy, MRIs, and cancer treatment for free. But some people sorely need these things.
Preventative/propylactic care is orders of magnitude cheaper than treatment once a disease has manifested. It makes sense to me to punish people for not doing this care, thereby choosing to impose more strain on an already overburdened system.
Note that GP only mentioned things we have control over -- exercise, weight, not smoking. Of course I agree that it would be cruel to disadvantage pre-existing conditions.
That's the point of insurance. It's the idea that everyone pools together money and when something bad happens to one person, its finances are mitigated by the input of others. Some will benefit more and others benefit not at all. But no one can predict who is on what end.
Yes, if everyone gets cancer at the same time then Health Care is boned. But then again, so is society. So why worry about that worst case scenario?
>Note that GP only mentioned things we have control over -- exercise, weight, not smoking.
We couldn't pass laws to help control what companies put in food, and failed to subsidize healthier food options. I wish you the best of luck with healthcare trying to pull off that endeavor with punishments for obesity. I'm guessing it wouldn't be poolitically popular.
> Sadly we do not have, and will never have, the resources to help everyone, even to a baseline of human dignity.
This is really a matter of choice. There is a level of treatment that most people could have with far less friction. We just have decided to organize our economy otherwise.
Broadly, we need to stop seeing our economy as a zero sum game. It's dehumanizing. So what if there are a few bad actors that abuse the situation? Most don't. If everyone is doing something harmful, eg smoking, then we need strong public education, etc.
Does every other country have a boarder that "allows" millions of people in every year? These EU countries are tightening hard on immigration as they have found that it crushes their social nets. Not to mention keeping defense spending adequate relative to allies.
Immigrants are easily exploitable labor. They aren't sucking up our resources. If anything, we're sucking up their resources.
I live in Texas. Look around me. Who's building these 500,000 dollar homes? Not fatass white people. And who is buying them? Not the people building them.
Several million people migrate to EU countries from outside the EU every year, yes. The number will be lower than a million for most individual EU countries, but then the individual countries also have smaller populations than the US.
> That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise.
Do you live a healthier lifestyle than every single other person in your insurance plan or are you just a hypocrite who’s decided the line is acceptable when it includes you, but not one inch beyond that?
I heard this somewhere and its true of every politician:
you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.
ACA is NOT a failure. It did address some really critical pain points but left others. There is no bill that can address every single pain point in a system that is as complex as the US healthcare.
> Because San Francisco progressivism doesn’t win on a national stage.
If the message that Democrats take from this is NY progressivism wins on a national stage, we'll certainly lose the next presidential election, and maybe even fail to gain a majority in either the House or Senate during the midterms.
Mamdani is a disciplined New York progressive. He’s left of the median voter. But the Mamdani that won the D primary was also left of the median NYC voter.
One can take a shallow policy lesson from this election. Or a deeper political lesson in the value of pragmatism and respect for the voter (versus the holier than thou crap that has polluted the far left).
So an n of 1 that has yet to take office and prove that he will live up to the label?
The day after election day 2016 I recall trying to reassure myself that another candidate who won had to be more disciplined when governing than when campaigning. That the rhetoric his campaign put out was only because his supporters were to the right of him. How sad I was to find out that wasn't true. Hope I'm not let down again.
> Mamdani is a disciplined New York progressive. He’s left of the median voter. But the Mamdani that won the D primary was also left of the median NYC voter.
I hope you are right, that he is more like Obama than Trump. Time will tell.
Personally, I haven't seen any evidence to support that hypothesis. If you have, I'd love to feel more assured you are right so please share.
Frankly, the Democrats have done nothing but pander to people who hate them, who will never vote for them, and fucking LOVE their opposition for years now. If there is one thing to take away from the Trump campaigns, it's that pandering to an imaginary moderate is not nearly as effective as being really exciting to your base. All ceding ground to the opposition does is lead to disillusionment and apathy amongst the people who might vote for you. You win over no one with morally bankrupt, least common denominator bullshit.
What you are advocating for is the same bullshit that cost the Democrats the election in 2016, and in 2024. We've tried it your way and it is nothing but a losing strategy. People want progress, people want change. If a candidate can't at least have balls to lie about wanting that too, then they are unfit to win an election.
In that case, the base of the Democrats, as you seem to define it, is destined to be a permanent minority in national elections.
And maybe you are right. I'd love to see America move to 4 or more major parties. With the far-left and far-right of each separated out into their own parties. Would even settle for 3 parties.
They're really not a permanent minority, though. Obama's campaign promises (not to be confused with his actual politics once in office) demonstrate that positive, progressive change is a perfectly popular political position.
And frankly, that's all besides the point: The reason exciting candidates do so well (Trump, Obama) is because voter turnout in the US is abysmal. It's gotten better (because the Fascists are excited for Trump, and everyone else is at least a bit energized by "oh god we can't have the fascists win"), but it's still very true that if you could convince at a quarter of the nonvoters (half of the half that might vote for you) to show up to the polls, you'd have a blowout victory the likes of which haven't been seen since the Bill Clinton campaigns.
The Democrats have been playing a strategy that tries to win over the rational fringe of the Republican party, but it's becoming increasingly obvious to apparently everyone but the DNC that those people don't exist. The kind of person who can be convinced to vote for Trump (ESPECIALLY TWICE) are not the kinds of people the Democrats will ever win over without royally pissing off most of their voter base.
> Obama's campaign promises (not to be confused with his actual politics once in office) demonstrate that positive, progressive change is a perfectly popular political position.
But as you said, Obama didn’t govern the way he was perceived to have campaigned. And up and down this thread people express their disillusionment with him. Including you.
So I’m not sure how Obama campaigning to the left of how he governed makes the case that without Democrats moving to the center they can successfully turn out the number of supporters needs to win national elections. Unless we keep electing people then throwing them out next cycle because they didn’t govern like they campaigned (which is which I think we’re going to see for the foreseeable future)
Also this was almost 20 years ago. The country has gotten significantly more polarized since then. I’d make the case that since Obama the democratic part has failed to move to the center, but instead clung to identify politics. And in the case of presidential elections anointed the nominees rather than give citizens a real chance to choose them.
Hope I’m wrong, since Democrats don’t seem to be moving to the center and I also don’t want federal governments like this one. But I’m not convinced I am.
> pandering to an imaginary moderate is not nearly as effective as being really exciting to your base
The takeaway should be there is no one size fits all.
Under Biden, donors pushed climate and identity politics that don’t work outside far-left Democrat strongholds. Then Kamala clumsily tried finding a centre in a multidimensional policy space which may not have a definable centre.
Mamdani won New York. But “moderates,” i.e. politicians who spoke to economic populism and don’t get distracted by the base, kept Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey. If we want to control national politics, we have to concede that West Virginia and Arizona voters don’t care about the same things as folks in Manhattan and San Francisco. That’s okay. We can embrace that diversity. But it also means we have to respect it and cut out the name calling because a promising candidate on the other side of the country doesn’t embrace your pet issue or identity language.
(Obama campaigned for Mamdani and Spannberger and Prop 50.)
> If we want to control national politics, we have to concede that West Virginia and Arizona voters don’t care about the same things as folks in Manhattan and San Francisco. That’s okay. We can embrace that diversity. But it also means we have to respect it and cut out the name calling because a promising candidate on the other side of the country doesn’t embrace your pet issue or identity language.
> Times are changing. The pendulum swing back from MAGA is going to be interesting
The pendelum swings in multiple dimensions. MAGA went mainstream in a way the Tea Party and conservativism did not by abandoning policy purity in favour of, first, messaging, and later, idolatry.
The preserved component between MAGA's messaging and Mamdani's rise is populism and, to a lesser degree, divisive politics. Where MAGA failed and Mamdani may deliver is in pragmatism (and not being corrupt).
There is an opportunity to unify "abundance" policies with inclusive progressivism or villanisation of wealth. (I'm not convinced you can do both. If you want to pursue growth and cost of living, you need to turn the capital spigots. Accumulated capital facilitates that. If you want to tackle inequality and billionaires, you'll need to temporarily destabilise those capital structures. You'll also, presumably, be increasing the lower and middle classes' purchasing power, which limits how much public spending you can do without spiking inflation.)
San Francisco progressives can influence national politics. But anyone insisting on copy-paste purism is a godsend to MAGA.
“…the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time.”
That’s such a fraught statement, because the _opposite_ is claimed by supporters of the ACA after the repeal of the mandatory rule.
I’m old enough to remember the failed attempts for healthcare reforms under President Bill Clinton. The ACA felt like a miracle. It wasn’t what everyone wanted, but it was a start with principles. It has only been legislatively weakened over time, rather than improved.
Whatever alternative, employers should not be where we look for our healthcare. Can’t understand why anyone would trust their employer or expect good outcomes in the post-lifelong employment age.
>I’m old enough to remember the failed attempts for healthcare reforms under President Bill Clinton. The ACA felt like a miracle. It wasn’t what everyone wanted, but it was a start with principles. It has only been legislatively weakened over time, rather than improved.
I am also old enough to remember. And the health insurance companies spent heavily on lobbying and advertising ("death panels" and "healthcare rationing" and all sorts of other crap). It was sad.
Fast forward to the ACA and as I recall, insurers were spending USD1 million/day on lobbying efforts to block it.
I didn't think the ACA was a "miracle" though. Back then I used the analogy that it was like RFC 5386[0] ('Better Than Nothing Security'), as it wasn't single-payer and didn't even have a public option (thanks for nothing, Joe Lieberman -- I hope you're roasty-toasty in hell), but it was better than nothing.
I even have an ACA plan which costs me an enormous amount, but again, it's better than nothing.
I always called him a Bush-lite too, such a disappointment. Did everything I disliked about Bush and nothing about the things he said he'd do. If anything some of the things he did were worse, like executing a US Citizen with a drone without trial or crime to get a man that wasn't even there.
I hope Mamdani turns out to be as good as Obama was.
What was so impressive about Obama was his incredible leadership skills and ability to get elected president DESPITE his racial and ethnic background. That the things the far left saw which drove them to support him were not the ones that led him to be such a good leader for the country.
In 2008, I spent most of the year backpacking through Europe before starting college in the fall. So I truly don't remember much of Obama's first campaign or the tone of it at the time. But there is very little evidence in my mind that Mamdani has any of Obama's abilities. Hopefully either I'm missing something again, or he'll rise to the occasion despite the lack of evidence to suggest it.
"He never closed Guantanamo" is missing a lot of context. See [0] for more context around Congress blocking his efforts[1].
(While searching for a decent article, I found [2] which has the hilarious-in-retrospect quote: "It just doesn't happen in, you know, traditional American justice that someone is essentially arrested and disappeared with no access to attorney" - oh the sweet innocence of 2017.)
[1] Which, to be fair, were hamstrung by his refusal to override the Republicans - a sensible approach (at the time) because a) the right wing would have gone mad (see: literally anything Obama did) and b) it opens the door for ruling by Presidential fiat which, sadly, was kicked wide open by Trump-1 and the entire wall removed by Trump-2 with the help of SCOTUS. On the whole, though, Obama wasn't as good as promised, definitely.
> ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time.
This is absolute, unequivocal bullshit. I get that you aren't under 26, that you don't need subsidies, never were denied coverage for having had the audacity to get sick years before, and that you've never had to pay for expensive care, so you probably don't know what you're talking about in the first place, but suggesting it was a "failure" is absurd. The idea that actual coverage was less affordable after the ACA passed is such spectacular nonsense I don't even know where to start.
Sometimes it's ok to NOT have big, strident opinions on things you know you don't even slightly understand, and to ask questions or approach things with curiosity, instead.
I kinda feel Obama is more of a Trojan horse. It was not he tried and failed to get what he campaigned for implemented, it was more like he did a U turn after he got elected. e.g. he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical".
I hope the same doesn't happen with Zohran. If he was going to fail after all, I wish that will at least be after he had fought as hard as he can.
> he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical"
ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress.
This line of argument reminds of the folks who complained about Sinema and Manchin. You know what we’d have with a few more Sinemas and Manchins in the party right now? A majority.
The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.
Manchin and Sinema shouldn't be mentioned together in the same sentence.
Manchin was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona. Manchin was also, while not perfect, more honest in much of his opposition than Sinema was, and sometimes he was actually right.
> Manchun was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona
Sure. My point is both are preferable to a MAGA enabler. If you lose perspective and start aiming for perfection at the expense of the good enough, you lose power.
Maybe, maybe not. The problem with being fine not 'losing power' but without actually doing anything that your constituents need while facing an uncompromising opposition that is trying to destroy the way of life of your constituents is that you end up losing most of the battles while losing any active support. When people only vote for you because they are afraid of the opposition and not because they think you are going to help them, then your motivations are not in line with the people who voted for you, especially if you can't even provide an effective resistance against the opposition when they blatantly do illegal things.
At least with a MAGA enabler things can get bad enough that people might realize what they have to lose.
In a country as conservative as yours, if you're culturally in line with the 'coastal elites' (forgive my use of this term), you can't expect a stable majority by being uncompromising.
Because of Manchin and Sinema, the people broadly saw the Democratic Party as ineffective and unwilling to actually try to enact their policies.
This is a part (far from all, but a real part) of why they turned to someone who claimed to be willing to get things done—even if he had to break rules to do it.
I'm not going to say that I wish those seats had been filled by Republicans, instead, because I don't know how much worse that would have made things. It's very possible that we still would've gotten 2 Trump terms even so.
But I don't think it's fair to paint them as unquestionably better, when the second-order effects are real, and, while impossible to measure, potentially devastating.
That was always my impression of him. It was easy to feel like he was breaking ranks, but realistically he seemed to vote exactly how his electorate wanted him to.
I think people had rose colored glasses about Obama because he was, by far, the most charismatic President we've had in modern times. His speeches still give me goose bumps, even when I disagree with what he's saying! That man has the gift of gab. Him also being intelligent further, sadly, makes him an outlier in modern times.
But many of the things he did were dubious and ACA is a perfect example of this. It's little more than an subsidy for private insurance companies whose profits dramatically increased relatively shortly after adapting to it. Universal healthcare doesn't have to be adversarial towards private insurance, but it should not directly drive increases in profits because, especially once its mandated + subsidized, profits need to be controlled as the government is effectively guaranteeing them.
Medical loss ratios (insurers must pay a minimum percent of premium revenue on medical costs) are obviously insufficient since they do nothing to motivate lower costs. On the contrary, it directly incentivizes maximizing costs which is exactly what's happened. For one specific datum medicare administrative costs are around 2% - private insurance administrative costs start around 12%.
---
Basically there is no way this was even remotely close to the most socially motivated (I don't see radical as a desirable adjective) package he could get have gotten passed. And now with the country so divided, it's unlikely we'll be getting anything better anytime in the foreseeable future, because whichever side tries to pass it will simply be opposed by the other, regardless of merit. Hopefully Mamdani isn't a complete failure, because more parties in power is perhaps one way to break the divides in society.
The ACA was, I believe, a
highly intentional better-done-than-perfect effort, fully cognizant of the historical cycles of political will around major healthcare policy in America. If you review in depth the efforts in the 90s under Clinton, and earlier under Johnson, I think the approach was well considered. A more ambitious policy proposal ending in failure very well may have have put the topic to bed for another twenty years. The loss of the “public option” did sting, though.
It is that, but it also could have been much better than it was if the Democrats had not made so many concessions trying to win Republican votes, before finally giving up and pushing it through without bipartisan support.
> there is no way this was even remotely close to the most socially motivated (I don't see radical as a desirable adjective) package he could get have gotten passed
What are you basing this on? Again, Pelosi lost her House because of ACA. Republicans shut down the government multiple times trying to repeal it. They narrowly missed, but because the compromise was powerful. Had Pelosi and Obama pushed harder on ACA, chances are high it would have never passed.
I’m not saying it was perfectly calibrated. But the problems you’re mentioning would have meant battling entire new categories of powerful interest groups. That's what, in part, sank HillaryCare.
> Obama ... was, by far, the most charismatic President we've had in modern times
Watching old Obama speeches, I find him mostly run-of-the-mill. Trump, whether or not you like him, is far more charismatic - his success is built on his charisma. Also, look up Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan speeches, by maybe that isn't what you mean by 'modern times'.
I don't like Trump, and I rank his emission of word-shaped noises somewhere between picking random items from autocomplete suggestions, and my pre-ChatGPT experiments with GPT-3 models.
Charisma is a different axis to all of that.
A lot of people, for reasons I cannot even empathise with, demonstrably like him. One could even describe their response as "idolising" him. (Where does one draw the line between "a cult of personality" and "apotheosis" anyway?)
I work with a small university psychology department, and one of our recently-retired faculty made a several-decade study of charisma, particularly among political leaders.
Her primary theory is that it is built out of a combination of formidable and approachable traits/behaviors. Naturally, there is a fair amount of personal variability in what we perceive as "formidable" and "approachable", so what seems charismatic will vary from person to person; it's not fully objective.
But her theory is that this is why you can have people who are, objectively, more repugnant still read as charismatic, and people who are very pleasant read as less charismatic: the latter may be very approachable, but they don't have enough formidability to synthesize that into charisma, while the former add just enough approachability that they can.
Compared to Trump, Bush was more charismatic. Apart from the inability to reliably form coherent sentences or speak with any intellect showing, Trump is so consistent in spleens and weird mannerisms, literally every person exposed to it can imitate it recognizably as parody. He's a caricature.
People talk about Trump because he/his team excels at distraction through outrage. He's not charismatic, he's dopaminergic.
Dude, I am European. I only watch what's been forced onto me. But yes, I've listened to a few long form interviews as a challenge to myself. Not all of it, because it's unbearable deflective and unorganized, honestly. The longer he speaks the worse it gets.
I mean, even his supporters are constantly trying to "decipher" his messaging. He is constantly failing to recite basic facts correctly, and I don't mean the general lies, but you know stuff like basic geography/history knowledge and stuff. He doesn't come off as primary education pilled.
But sure, it's all fake news. He'll make the US great again and all. Any day now.
I wonder if you would challenge yourself the same with Mamdani or Obama, or somewhat unrelated: Hunter Biden.....
Also Trump is a great comparison to Obama. Obama spoke very well, but did little to nothing, people hated him.
Trump is nearly opposite, he doesn't speak as well clearly. But his actions are stronger, and thats what the voters want. They don't want a smoother talker that tells you what you want to hear and does nothing.
> Trump, whether or not you like him, is far more charismatic
Really? Maybe a decade ago, but now? He cannot keep a coherent thought for more than a few seconds, so every speech is a fucking rambling mess. Even subtitles cannot help make sense of it most of the time.
> - his success is built on his charisma
Bullshitter sales people can be very charming at times, I will give you that.
With 20/20 hindsight I'd say that's the wrong lesson. The actual lesson is that if you're struggling to get 40% of the legislature to make obvious improvements to your country, you should use your majority for even more radical things. If they'd used that same majority to pack the supreme court, pass a nationwide anti-gerrymandering law, break up hundreds of large corporations, and so on, we might have averted a ton of disaster. At the time perhaps it was hard to see, but in retrospect what we saw in the period 2008-2010 were early warning signs of how the flaws in our system of government were going to send us on a downward spiral.
It wasn't hard to see at the time. People just thought the West Wing was how politics should work. That somehow all the players come to play good, fair ball. Many of us were out here caucusing against Obama and Gore and Biden because they represented an obvious losing strategy in the long term.
> ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress.
People aren’t excited by half measures that let health insurance companies generate tons of money and CONTINUOUSLY raise premiums. People still go bankrupt receiving cancer care here.
The person who gets free healthcare and cuts overall costs by destroying health insurance middle man will be massively popular and, once the effects are borne out, win congress in a landslide.
Perhaps Obama couldn't have made it happen, but he didn't try. He could have made a speech about "how we will do because not because it's easy, but because it's possible because every other western nation has this same basic thing." But here we are with a crappy compromise.
> once the effects are borne out, win congress in a landslide.
There is a deep, foundational information problem that would need to be overcome for this to ever actually happen. Medicare, for example, is viewed incredibly favorably, but tons of people don’t even know it’s a government program! This survey found only 58% of people over 65 recognized that: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/medicare/medica...
We are in an information twilight zone where perception of policy outcomes is basically entirely dependent on choice of news sources.
The solution is simple. Expand Medicare. But you need to do it slowly or it will implode.
For ten years, every year, drop the eligibility age by 1 year. Then for the next ten years, every year, drop the eligibility age by 2 years. Maybe keep going at 2 years every year from there, but it should probably be adjusted over time as the effects of rising enrollment show the acheivable enrollment rate.
In the meantime, start covering all kids with Medicaid from birth to X, adding 6 months every year for the first 10 years, then 1 year per year until it overlaps with most people getting enough social security credits to be eligible for Medicare. At that point, you can probably just make Medicaid available for everyone, if you don't have 40 social security credits by age 35, you probably qualify for Medicaid under current rules. Again, it'd be helpful for Congress to supervise and adjust as needed.
A lot of Americans don't even realize that Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing -- even in 2017 it was 1/3. I believe the skew is even worse today.
Only because American discourse and thinking is so utterly poisoned by the absolute bullshit that is “American exceptionalism”.
In terms of almost any possible quality of life metric you can think of Europe is ahead of the US.
That combined with just a breathtaking level of ignorance of what Europe is actually like in any meaningful sense. You saw this a lot in this NYC election where they were trying to paint Mamdani as an actual communist because well over half of the country has no idea what “democratic socialism” means let alone communism.
Yeah, but this only strengthens the parents point that "It works in europe" is not a good rallying cry in the states. It's also too easy for opponents to counter and point to random europeans who complain about their own system and win cheap debate points on that front. It might be better to just lean into the exceptionalism and say, "We're America, we're richer, we can make a better system." Or something along those lines.
Counterpoint: The country really needs to learn how to have a grown up conversation and not allow the dumbest people in the room with the least generous interpretation of everything possible who were never going to vote for you anyways to constantly set the agenda.
Sensible voices are a rare thing in this climate and it’s incredibly easy to stand out as one if you stop playing by a set of rules that were intentionally designed to make you fail in the first place.
Honestly I think the American exceptionalism shit is a cancer on the society and I find it incredibly hard to distinguish from the "Deutschland über alles" nonsense that the Germans went through. It’s just a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world. It’s like a story a small child might believe but it really doesn’t stand up to even the most gentle of scrutiny.
Just to be clear we are currently in a thread talking about someone who won against all odds and stupid amounts of money by not sticking to the supposed “centrist script”.
Also we aren’t talking about your personal preferences here in terms of quality of life but about hard data. The numbers aren’t even close. The one you listed as your personal favorite comes last in those categories.
I’m not trying to be rude but it sure seems like you’ve taken your preference of living in a rural area vs living in a city and then tried to build an argument around that.
Just to be clearer, Mamdani's whole platflorm was alluding to "making the best city in the world more affordable". If that's not appealing to New Yorkers's feeling of exceptionalism I don't know what is. Stop conflating positivity with hollow centerism, you're buttering Maga's bread.
>Honestly I think the American exceptionalism shit is a cancer on the society and I find it incredibly hard to distinguish from the "Deutschland über alles" nonsense that the Germans went through.
I think it would be wise for us to remember that it is/was not only Americans that believed in American exceptionalism, but immigrants that were actually trying to come to the States among other possible options who believed in it-- prior to this administration that is. You would have to admit it would be a ridiculous thing for them to do if they couldn't distinguish it from "Deutschland über alles".
>>You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.
This was the Republican president Ronald Reagan speaking. The world has caught up obviously since then in this regard as well, but prior to this administration it would not be a stretch to say this was true of America more than any other nation.
More about accepting that they are never going to vote for you to begin with and that you’re very literally wasting both your time and killing the support you do have in trying to reach them. They are entirely unrecruitable.
How many genuinely ex-MAGA people do you know? I think for most people that number is at absolute best a very low single digit number.
There are a whole bunch of people out there who are entirely disenfranchised who just can’t be bothered to vote however who could be inspired to do so and this thread is very literally about someone who went with that strategy and won.
I’m simply making the argument that you should spend your time there instead and keep your integrity in the process. People actually want something to believe in and a concept of fairness, affordability, justice and anti-corruption is an incredibly wide tent already. Stick with that.
The majority of Americans live pay check to pay check back in the real world. It’s the only country I’ve seen outside of a war zone where people are regularly trying to crowdfund money for basic things like food, education, justice or medical care. The story you’re telling yourself is entirely divorced from reality.
I remember the parent of an ex of mine who was from NY tell me how lucky they were to have such incredible insurance and medical coverage when his wife got cancer because he only had to pay the first $100k/yr out of pocket and then the rest was “free”. It was repeatedly stressed to me what a rare thing this was and most people would be in such a worse position.
Anyways, long story short… They hit that limit by February and then spent the rest of the year getting denied by their insurance company until the day she died. But at least she was treated at “the best cancer hospital in the world”.
> But at least she was treated at “the best cancer hospital in the world”.
Last time I checked, Australia had better cancer survival rates than the US, higher quality of life, greater expected life span, and a hybrid medicare / private insurance system that covered almost the entire population such that very few faced medical bills outside the reach of their income (or lack thereof).
I had a stent inserted to clear a clot that travelled to my heart from a knee injury - free (surgery, two and half days in hospital, follow up recovery and lifestyle advice appoints).
The ambulance cost more as I was between St John's Ambulance covers at the time, that was $500 which I was happy to pay (myself, my father, and multiple family members have all worked as volunteer ambulance drivers and paramedics over the years).
"Average Cancer Survival Rates by Country:
United States: 68% (overall), UK: 63% (overall), Canada: 67% (overall), Australia: 70% (overall), and France: 65% (overall). " -google
You're not wrong, but this thread makes it sound like the US is completely backwards when it's off by 1-2% and higher than other "socialist" countries.
Yes, that was the sad joke unfortunately. The hospital was genuinely world renowned but what good does that do you if you can’t afford to use it. You die… hence the difference in survival rates.
Judging people by the content of their character and their opinions, and not their superficial characteristics is an American value. Is that an alien concept to people who supposedly enjoy such a high quality of life?
What on earth are you talking about? I’m asking why you’re scared of losing magic internet points and need to hide behind throwaway accounts and you’re here talking about the inner fortitude of the American character.
For what it’s worth, not that you asked but this year in particular has really only cemented my view of the general US citizen as a very scared individual who is terrified to stand up for anything.
What you’re doing right now is actually great example of that under what could only be described as the lowest stakes scenario possible.
You could probably learn something from the “cheese eating surrender monkey” French who you’re all to happy to compare yourselves against but at least they are willing to fight for what they have.
> Laughable statement, considering Europeans give a leg and a arm to live in America.
No we don't.
Sure, most of us used to like the USA a decade ago, but even back then it would have to be a right weirdo (everywhere has them) to think that highly of the USA.
If anything, I'm thinking of a healthcare cost comparison a while back, which said that for the cost of a single hip replacement in the USA, someone could fly from the USA to Spain, get it done privately, spend a year just living normally in Spain while recovering, break the other hip and get that replaced too, and still come out ahead.
(I never fact-checked that meme, what with me living in the UK at the time where the NHS supplies everything free at point of use unless you opt for private care that very few bother with; I'm now in Germany whose system is basically what the UK left fears is dangerously American and the US right fears is dangerously like the UK's NHS).
Or some of the stuff we hear about Americans considering the 2nd amendment to be a "god given right". No thanks: safety isn't where I can get armed up, it's where I don't need to.
But now? Trump's reelection has coincided with a lot of people changing from thinking of the place as "ally sharing our values" to just "a necessary partner", a downgrade to significantly less than you describe.
> Perhaps Obama couldn't have made it happen, but he didn't try.
They barely passed ACA after over a year of negotiating with the Republicans and removing lots off provisions from it. How do you expect someone to just come along and pass an even more radical reform?
> ACA was the most radical package that could have passed
And they only passed it by bypassing the fillibuster and using the budget reconciliation process.
But arguably, if they were more aggressive and offered bigger benefits, they'd get more support. The GOP has been extremely aggressive, generally. People don't vote for those hesitant and afraid of conflict.
> You know what we’d have with a few more Sinemas and Manchins in the party right now? A majority.
True, and it's also true if the Dems had a few more Sanderses and Warrens - and then they'd have a solid majority rather than one that caved like Manchin. But they'd need a bunch more to pass a healthcare bill without reconciliation.
The fact that people are still saying things like what the post you're replying to is saying really makes it so clear how Democrats have to face endless false propaganda from the left and the right while Republicans generally don't have the same problem.
I think there's an argument to be made that many of the allegedly "radical" Democratic policies fall into an uncanny valley of wonkiness, where they're enough of a reach to get people riled up emotionally but not enough to have the kind of punchy, obvious benefits that would get people to be supporting on a similarly gut-level basis. Arguments about whether the minimum wage should be $X or $X+2 seem like accounting tournaments. There's no appetite for saying stuff like "we will seize $100 billion from the wealthiest individuals and give it to everyone else as cash payments".
The other problem is that the Democrats don't seem to realize that incremental change doesn't really work when the system of government is messed up like it is. Every little small-ball policy the Dems try to push through can just be undone later by administrative gimmicks as long as we have the level of ambiguity we do about executive power. Beyond that, they can be rolled back by countervailing legislation because the Republicans are focused on gaming the system. "Substantive" radical policies like universal healthcare are unlikely to be achievable without first enacting "procedural" radical policies like anti-gerrymandering rules or abolishing the senate.
> There's no appetite for saying stuff like "we will seize $100 billion from the wealthiest individuals and give it to everyone else as cash payments".
Indeed. Because anyone who is numerate enough to do the division quickly realizes that this works out to about $300 per person, and stops being excited about the Wowie Big Number.
Radically changing healthcare works out great in people's heads, but then they immediately whine about their Ozempic no longer being covered like in socialized healthcare countries which don't use expensive cutting edge drugs as a first resort. No matter how competent the government is, which ours isn't, any radical change (besides just throwing more money at the problem) will make things worse before they are better and voters are the most fickle bunch there is.
Semaglutide isn’t exactly cutting edge, it’s 16 years since it was invented. GLP-1 drugs go back to the 90s. They are undeniably trendy but it’s odd to consider them cutting edge.
Semaglutide was approved in 2017. By cutting edge, I suppose I mean covered by patent. Luckily for Canada, Novo Nordisk forgot to pay their for its renewal.
I was just pointing to an example of why healthcare reform is politically difficult. One relevant to the ACA was ending discrimination based on preexisting conditions, which caused a majority of people's premiums to go up to subsidize those who are chronically ill. Morally, most people agree it's the right thing to do, but it was politically disastrous since one person gets one vote.
FWIW, semaglutide is available in Australia via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (part of the socialized healthcare system), when prescribed for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Which means it is cheap, because the government bulk-buys it at a negotiated price.
There are plenty of treatments that aren’t subsidized, but it’s not as restricted as it might be perceived. There’s very little whining about things not being covered, because most things are.
> FWIW, semaglutide is available in Australia via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (part of the socialized healthcare system), when prescribed for treatment of type 2 diabetes
Compare the "restriction" section of Ozempic vs metformin. Ozempic is absolutely not allowed to be prescribed as a first resort against type 2 diabetes. Contrast that with a lot of American private insurance, particularly at good employers, where restrictions are much looser. This performative generosity for common treatments, especially trendy ones, is why most people view their private insurance positively, much higher than the state of healthcare in the country.
> The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.
For your resume, sure.
Sometimes reform only works when you fully commit and if half the country isn't on board, it's not better to pass some mutilated and watered down version.
Yes, but it does not provide health care, it provides a subsidy to the health insurance companies (I.e., throwing even more money at lucrative companies that profit by denying coverage). It is sad that it is the best our government can do for us.
That seems like a difficult one to provide evidence for. A major problem in the US seems to be that they've got this impenetrable thicket of legislation around healthcare, insurance and employment that makes it impossible for people to make rational decisions.
Just not having that legislation, letting employment & insurance decouple and a sane market for healthcare develop might easily be better than the ACA.
> Just not having that legislation, letting employment & insurance decouple and a sane market for healthcare develop might easily be better than the ACA.
Maybe? But what is the mechanism by which employment gets decoupled from health insurance? That would require a different law, I suppose?
But that wasn't what I suggested: I said having the ACA is better than not having it, not that having the ACA is better than other possible alternative laws. I can think of quite a lot of alternative healthcare reform laws that would be significantly better than the ACA.
And I think it's reasonably safe to say that in "ACA vs. nothing else", ACA wins, if we judge by the millions of people who will lose healthcare coverage if the ACA were to be repealed and not replaced with anything new.
> But that wasn't what I suggested: I said having the ACA is better than not having it, not that having the ACA is better than other possible alternative laws.
It seems to be the only way to interpret what you suggested. How could it end up in a situation where there aren't other alternative laws? There are automatically laws governing what people do - laws exist. The conversation is entirely about which laws are best. In this case, I'm arguing that generic rules (not specifically tailored to healthcare) are probably better, since a generic market seems to outperforms the US healthcare system.
> And I think it's reasonably safe to say that in "ACA vs. nothing else", ACA wins
Well I can't control what you think but I can point out that it is a hard stance to provide evidence for. Healthcare is fundamentally less important than really urgent and essential services like food production or utilities and they manage to get great coverage with relatively limited fuss. The reports I've heard are that people find the situation in healthcare to be quite substandard.
I honestly don't understand why good healthcare should develop under free rational conditions. Why shouldn't a hospital charge your everything while you are in critical condition? I mean, it's a voluntary deal, take it or leave it, right?
You could ask the same question most things. Food and water for example - both more urgent and more necessary than most medical care. The costs are still low.
For food and water, if you were caught in a tough place, I suppose I could charge you for everything. But most people aren't refugees in a hostile land, so they have the time to drive around.
For a medical emergency it does make sense for a doctor to ask if you would like to voluntarily consider an interesting bargain.
I'm not really arguing against the ACA in particular, just the general sentiment.
I do, however, think the passage and defense of the ACA has completely stopped any kind of healthcare reform movements from Democrats and completely turned Republicans against the idea.
The ACA was more or less the GOP's healthcare reform plan[0]. They fought so hard against it because they didn't want the Democrats to get credit for it. The ongoing animosity toward it from Republicans is ridiculous, and Democrats are even further from being able to pass any more healthcare reforms than they were when the ACA was passed. The all-too-brief excitement for Medicare For All is somewhat emblematic of that.
[0] To be fair, it did go further than previous GOP proposals. They did include individual/employer mandates and a marketplace, but not stuff like the Medicaid expansion and higher taxes on high earners to help pay for it.
Maybe I wasn't clear. Let me try again. Many of the policies behind the ACA had long been championed by Republicans, or even originated in conservative circles. For example:
1. The individual mandate was something the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) originally came up with back in the 80s, and was presented as an alternative to Clinton's healthcare plans in the 90s.
2. The state-based exchange system was something already present in some red states like Utah, and the concept is very similar to Republican proposals (again) back in the 90s. (This shouldn't be surprising: conservatives tend to prefer that states administer programs like these. Not a criticism; just noting a tendency.)
3. Much of the ACA's framework is similar to Republican Governor Mitt Romney's healthcare reform in Massachusetts from 2006.
Sure, there are parts of the ACA that Republicans genuinely didn't support (e.g. Medicaid expansion, high-income-earner tax increases, requiring insurers to cover contraception). But big, fundamental parts of it were similar to or exactly like conservative healthcare reform plans that had been proposed over the past couple decades.
The only reason I can see to explain why Republicans so vehemently fought and voted against the ACA (and have subsequently repeatedly tried -- and failed -- to repeal it) is because they didn't want Democrats to get credit for enacting it, and once it became "blue policy", it was automatically capital-B Bad to them.
It's also telling that Republicans have failed so miserably at repealing it (though they have done it damage). That's because they have no alternative... because the ACA is more or less what they wanted in the first place.
Actually come to think of it a very similar pole reversal happened in Canada with the "Trudeau/Liberal Carbon Tax" -- a program originally proposed by the British Columbia Conservative Party, first implemented in Alberta by a Conservative Party and proposed federally by Stephen Harper of the Federal Conservatives.
Yup, that's a huge reason why I think all of this is just petty bullshit from the GOP. Granted, even though Romney is a Republican, that doesn't mean that every other Republican has to agree with him.
While Romney has said a lot of mixed stuff over the years about the ACA, starting with pledging to repeal it during his 2012 presidential campaign, his more recent rhetoric has softened by orders of magnitude, voting against some of the repeal efforts, voting in favor of some modifications, expressing the need for a replacement plan before repealing it, and acknowledging that repealing it would cause millions of people to lose coverage. I don't agree with his position overall, but I think he's been a fairly "reasonable Republican" about it, including his belief that this sort of legislation belongs at the state level and not the federal level.
But there are plenty of Republicans in the House and Senate (more in the House, I suppose) that just seem rabidly, irrationally anti-ACA. Even while chanting "repeal and replace", they seem to forget the "replace" part of it.
Republican voters seem irrational as well: while opposition to it has softened since the Obama years, it's still pretty high (~70% or so), but you get weird effects. Like if you refer to it as "the ACA" instead of "Obamacare", Republicans don't hate it as much. Or if you don't mention "Obamacare"/"ACA" at all, and instead take a bunch of parts of the law and ask if they support them individually (like "do you support requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions?"), you see less opposition, and even see a majority of Republican voters supporting some of its provisions.
No, for everyone. Some voters like politicians who pass zero legislation while holding firm to their values. Occasionally they get rewarded. Most often, they’re branded–correctly–ineffective. (And, I’d argue, unfit to lead. If you’re using millions of Americans as human shields to pass an ideologically-pure package, that’s immoral and belongs with Twitter celebrities, not leaders.)
By that logic, we can never pass anything, ever. And that more or less is represented with congredd Grdidlock for the past 20 years. Is that a better outcome?
I see it as Sprint vs. Waterfall. Except Waterfall takes 8-10 years in policy to do and no one is in office long enough to finish the task. So we gotta pass in a lot of smaller tickets until we get there.
This attitude is why Trump is president. Yeah we have a terrible leader, but we could have had a mediocre leader and I guess that is somehow worse in people's minds.
The ACA was essentially the Republican plan for healthcare reform. They just went scorched earth on it because they were pissy that he got the credit for their plan. That's also why they haven't been able to come up with a coherent replacement.
Obama had a plan early on to be inspired by Lincoln's cabinet of rivals and to try to unite the parties. Because of that he didn't push nearly as hard on the right wing of his party early on like Lieberman, who were the holdouts who pushed for the lack of a public option to have true universal healthcare.
Republicans in Congress never wanted or proposed anything like ACA. It is weird half truth because Massachusetts, one the more liberal states, with Democratic supermajorities in both houses, passed something similar while Mitt Romney was Governor. It was the brainchild of Jonathan Gruber, MIT Economist and Democratic consultant who worked on the ACA for Obama. You can go back and read the GOP platforms of the time, there is nothing like the ACA proposed.
The 1993 HEART Act was very much like the ACA, built around the individual mandate to purchase private health insurance, primarily through your employer. Romneycare was massaged out of this.
From what I understand, the HEART act wasn't really backed by Republicans, it had only 20 or so R's on it and was actually more of a ploy to prevent other more substantive bills from passing. It was designed to obstruct not to pass, later Dole supported a more restricted bill and HEART was never even debated. The vast majority of R's didn't support it, it was basically a political maneuver.
It was straight up co-sponsored by very nearly a majority of Senate Republicans (18 out of 42 at the time). It's hard to say a "vast majority of R's didn't support it". Though recently Republicans have been trying to distance themselves from it because it doesn't make their reaction to the ACA look great. There's a lot of rewriting of history.
Yes it didn't get debated, but the formal debate stage of a bill is pretty late in the process these days. It's been theater at best for at least a century. The actual debating happens at the stage the HEART Act got to.
It got dropped because the Republicans won congress in the midterms and didn't actually want to change anything about health care; the HEART act was just what they came up with as a proposal if they were to be forced.
It got dropped because the Republicans won congress in the midterms and didn't actually want to change anything about health care;
Right? So Republicans did not support it, or want it. It was just part of the Clinton Plan politics and negotiation. When Clinton failed, HEART totally disappeared.
recently Republicans have been trying to distance themselves from it
Of the 18 Republicans who co-sponsored it, none are still in politics, 14 of the 18 are now dead. Republicans today have literally nothing to do with it. It is getting silly to say a Republican today has any connection or responsibility for this proposal that never even came close to a vote, and not one current Republican has any connection to.
> Right? So Republicans did not support it, or want it. It was just part of the Clinton Plan politics and negotiation. When Clinton failed, HEART totally disappeared.
The ideal Republican plan was to have no healthcare reform. When faced with the proposition that no reform would cease to be tolerated, this was absolutely the Republican plan for health care reform, broadly supported by Republican leadership.
> Of the 18 Republicans who co-sponsored it, none are still in politics, 14 of the 18 are now dead. Republicans today have literally nothing to do with it. It is getting silly to say a Republican today has any connection or responsibility for this proposal that never even came close to a vote, and not one current Republican has any connection to.
They still mostly existed in politics at the passing of the ACA and the initial push back from the Republicans. Both the HEART Act and the ACA existed within the US's Sixth Political System.
Good point! But HEART was just a tactical response to the Clinton plan. Never a part of the party platform, not something candidates ran on, and it disappeared as support for the Clinton plan died. When Republicans won the presidency back in 2000, and held the house, and briefly the Senate, they didn't make any attempt to bring back HEART. It was never the Republican plan for health care. It is also somewhat of a mischaracterization to call it a mandate for health insurance, it was much more narrowly focused covering catastrophic events.
Some side notes. It was introduced by Lincoln Chafee, who then switched to the democratic party. Heritage itself disowned it. The author later wrote, "I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years, and make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court." There was also never any intent to have a punitive mandate, just a tax credit would be lost if for people who didn't buy insurance - more carrot than stick.
> Good point! But HEART was just a tactical response to the Clinton plan. Never a part of the party platform, not something candidates ran on, and it disappeared as support for the Clinton plan died. When Republicans won the presidency back in 2000, and held the house, and briefly the Senate, they didn't make any attempt to bring back HEART. It was never the Republican plan for health care.
It was the republican plan for healthcare reform. They didn't want to reform healthcare, but when forced to, this was their plan. And it had been for years; the Heritage Foundation had been kicking the plan around since about 1989.
> It is also somewhat of a mischaracterization to call it a mandate for health insurance, it was much more narrowly focused covering catastrophic events.
That's not my read. Can you point to where in the draft text of the act that makes you say that?
> Some side notes. It was introduced by Lincoln Chafee, who then switched to the democratic party.
It was introduced by John Chafee, lifelong Republican.
And it was co-sponsored by Bob Dole (Senate Minority leader before becoming Majority leader the next year, and who would become the Presidential nominee in 1996), and had the support of Newt Gingrich, the Republican Leader of the House, and frankly the leader of the Republican party at the time.
It had broad Republican support including by Republican leadership.
> Heritage itself disowned it. The author later wrote, "I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years, and make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court."
Yeah, over night any Republican caught supporting the ACA would be metaphorically tarred and feathered by the party. That didn't mean that they didn't previously literally write the basis for the ACA, only that they were trying not to get blamed for it.
> There was also never any intent to have a punitive mandate, just a tax credit would be lost if for people who didn't buy insurance - more carrot than stick.
It literally called for a tax to enforce the individual mandate. Honestly more of a tax than the ACA which simply withheld tax refunds and at the time was still grey area as to whether or not that actually counted as a true tax.
> SEC. 1501. REQUIREMENT OF COVERAGE.
>
> (a) In General.--Effective January 1, 2005, each individual who is
> a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States shall be
> covered under--
> (1) a qualified health plan, or
> (2) an equivalent health care program (as defined in
> section 1601(7)).
> (b) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply in the case of an
> individual who is opposed for religious reasons to health plan
> coverage, including an individual who declines health plan coverage due
> to a reliance on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone.
...
> ``SEC. 5000A. FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALS WITH RESPECT TO HEALTH INSURANCE.
> ``(a) General Rule.--There is hereby imposed a tax on the failure
> of any individual to comply with the requirements of section 1501 of
> the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993.
You are right in a deep way (as you often are on this site). Wins Against Replacement isn't something most people can comprehend. If you look at baseball, you'll see that a lot of what they're doing with what they think is advanced moneyball would seem like normal statistical techniques to anyone. But then you realize that what is trivial in an HFT firm is kind of black magic to anyone else. Even WAR is beyond the comprehension of the average person.
The average person wants someone who "totally dunked on the other guy, dude" and then loses the election but "never sold out, man". Part of the wisdom of supporting Rosa Parks and not just the first Black woman who was in that position is about being good at winning so your cause advances.
Our lives in America are so good that winning or advancing your cause doesn't really move the needle as much as "making a stand, dude" is. Given that life is really good and change isn't immediately to acute suffering, almost all politics for the average person is about posturing and signaling.
From closer to home, people are annoyed in San Francisco that the state speed camera laws are not permanent and the fines are not humongous for someone going 100 mph over the limit. Most people fantasize about things happening as God placing down edict from upon high, rather than the thing that can happen on the political frontier.
This line of thinking died the moment that the parties began another realignment with 2024. We are in the beginnings of the 7th party system.
Curtis Sliwa was significantly to the left of both Eric Adams and Cuomo on a whole host of issues, which is one of the many reasons why Trump refused to endorse Silwa (they hate each other). If we didn't have a Sinema or Manchin, we might have liberal republicans like a Silwa who would be objectively better if you're a liberal.
I genuinely can't believe, still, that I have to spell this out for people.
Obama did not do a U-turn. It is the worst naivete to think that what happened was "he had big ideas and he changed his mind." He had to bring up big ideas to get elected, and then he got elected the first Black president and some of you seem entirely too dense to actually grasp what that means. President. Not King.
Subject to all of those checks and balances you hear about and then some.
You people act as if he could wave a wand and just sweep away everyone and everything who was against his big ideas, when the opposite was at play.
There are plenty of instances in which Obama, despite campaigning on a platform of change from Bush-era policies, continued or even furthered those policies. A good example which is relevant here involves government surveillance:
Snowden has also spoken about this at length, saying he expected a change when Obama was elected due to his campaigning against the PATRIOT Act, but there was no change. This is only one of many policies in which Obama changed his stance after he became President.
Other people have mentioned mass surveillance and other ways that Obama expanded the law enforcement power of the federal government, but I'll add another thing.
Based on Rahm Emanuel's advice, the Obama administration did not focus political capital on the federal judiciary. Not only did Obama fail to get RBG to retire when she could be confidently replaced by a liberal, he didn't take judicial placements in the lower courts as seriously as he should have. The courts are substantial part of how we got here.
Yes, Obama was not a king. But there was stuff he absolutely could have done, especially during his first two years when he had the trifecta, that he didn't take seriously.
> Not only did Obama fail to get RBG to retire when she could be confidently replaced by a liberal, he didn't take judicial placements in the lower courts as seriously as he should have. The courts are substantial part of how we got here.
I imagine there was a lot of complacency based on the (erroneous) assumption that Hillary Clinton would be his successor.
It does appear that RBG wanted to be replaced by a Clinton appointee and the Obama administration didn't push terribly hard to snap her out of this. This was, of course, outrageous foolish politicking and contributed to the mess we are in.
RBG was a 75 year old cancer survivor in 2008. She should have stepped down in 2010 and the Obama administration should have put public pressure on her to do so.
It is of course RBG's fault at the base of it. Obama couldn't fire her or whatever.
But by all accounts Obama did not push her very hard or treat this as a priority. He shouldn't have just asked nicely and then gone away once she said no. They could have built a public media narrative around pressuring her to retire.
It's quite possible Obama considered that and decided he would get the sort of response you would get telling your teenage daughter not to date the bad boy. Sometimes pressuring people backfires.
Consider the framing today: "Trump is doing all these terrible things, making all of these drastic changes, exploiting the system to his will."
The Dems can no longer use the excuse that the president is handcuffed. Trump 2.0 is showing us what the president can do. The dems consistently use that excuse to prevent popular policies from being enacted. Obama even had a ~6mo super majority where he could have codified abortion rights. But instead they keep it around as an outstanding issue because it is a good fundraising issue.
I don't want my President to act like a dictator even if they're on "my side." Some things are more important than policy.
Obama understood this and respected the office. Trump took a fat dump on the office and I'm not sure if our country's values will ever recover from this race to the bottom.
At a bare minimum, he signed into law the NDAA of 2012, which authorized the government to ignore people's civil liberties in cases where they were suspected of terrorism. On that basis I do not personally agree that he respected the office.
This is apologetic liberal tactic to keep the status quo. US president is still the most powerful political position on the planet. They can do stuff you know.
Obama is not some good hearted hero who had his hands tied. He ran on pretty progressive campaign because it polled well and when he came to office he just did what his sponsors wanted - keep status quo.
It was keeping the money in pockets of billionaires and corporations while talking about promise of potential change by the most charismatic president ever.
>It was keeping the money in pockets of billionaires and corporations while talking about promise of potential change by the most charismatic president ever.
Are you talking about Obama or Trump?
> US president is still the most powerful political position on the planet. They can do stuff you know.
And this is why people don't trust republicans. They are all "checks and balances" and "Constitution" until the dictatorship they want is upon them.
Biden try to forgive student loans. The courts blocked him. They clearly cannot just "do stuff you know". Not without risk of impeachment for executive overreach.
To be clear Trump is also about keeping status quo. He is just much more blatantly corrupted so he will sell to highest bidder instead of honoring past allies/deals.
These limits of power were always Obamas excuse when he was supposed to push for something inconvinient. That was the narrative to not try too hard. When you start to look at what hes done… the small things, the mundane and the stuff he had clearly power over. It's not good. Biden was very different in that aspect.
It is astoundingly naive to think that the forces in America make it such that "whoever is the president has unlimited power, whether they're an old rich white billionaire or a relatively young black guy on the Dem side."
We'll never know because RBG chose not to retire when Dems could have done anything, and every Dem after that just politely waited for GOP to take advantage of them. It's still happening with folks like Jeffries today being utterly willing to capitulate on policy if it means the institution is respected.
>Trump 2.0 is showing us what the president can do.
If a Democrat did any of the hundreds of actions performed this year, they'd be blocked by the SCOTUS, and then impeached by the House because they ignored the SCOTUS. And probably Convicted by Senate.
A democrat has not been able to do something as bold as blasting through the courts since FDR (and for that time, the term "democrat" may not even be the correct word to use), and that was under a depression with very popular support from the people. Imagine if congress flipped and fought as hard against SS as they did against the ACA. The Silent and Boomer generations would be in shambles decades later.
There was a government option in the original ACA. Dems couldn’t get the votes to overcome the filibuster in the senate to pass it. It had nothing to do Obama u turning. It was an amazing feat to get it passed in congress and get 60 votes in the senate.
The u-turn came long before that acronym existed, as I remember it. The Dems had been trying to build consensus for some kind of single payer plan for almost twenty years by that point, and practically the first thing Obama said after being elected was that as a show of good faith he would take single payer was off the table.
Maybe today the ACA is thought of as progressive, especially in the sense that the right wants it to end and the left doesn't; but in its time I think it was rightly understood as the Democrats caving to a massive transfer from the public to the private sector. I recall the private insurers' stock prices all going up 10-20% that week.
Obama was pretty timid. Especially at the beginning of his presidency he assumed that his fellow democrats like Lieberman and Baucus were rational and wanted the best for the country and not just being pawns for the insurance industry. I bet if he had pounded the table, he would have way more success. Heck, LBJ made senators cry to get things done.
Hindsight is 20/20. I recall Obama later saying he wished he was more radical because he only realised too late that the holdouts to ACA were never going to vote for it. Essentially, they negotiated in bad faith but Obama only realised this after they’d made all the requested changes and still couldn’t get the votes.
My ex worked at Congress at the time and even stupid me realized quickly that Obama was being played. I remember having fights with her when I told her that Obama is naive. Maybe they don’t see what’s going on when they are on the inside.
I can totally believe that. I mean, look at the shock that Democrats have had to Trump doing all the authoritarian things he said he'd do!
I saw a similar thing in the UK where the newly-minted Labour government thought they could combat ReformUK on asylum policy. Luckily, I think they're slowly starting to realise that, no matter how hard they tack, ReformUK will always promise something more insane and unworkable.
I can't help but think of the American left as Charlie Brown and the right as Lucy holding the football. Once you realize the left is always willing to cede real power to win a moral victory over itself, it's just too easy to push that button and keep pushing it until the resistance eats itself.
They'll find something on Zohran, or else he'll make some compromise that makes the left turn on him. It's just a matter of time.
The Affordable Care Act wasn't a complete solution - and I don't get the feeling universal health care was necessarily achievable - but it is the reason that I have health care and mental health services today. So I consider it to be a meaningful - if incremental - improvement. I imagine there are quite a few people aside from myself who are happy to have it.
I feel Obama was trying to appease the Republicans as well, he appointed many of them who back stabbed him shortly after. Maybe he was trying to no be too radical just because he was black and knew how racist a part of America was and it turned out it was right, Trump mainly got elected because "Democrats" put a black person in the White House. In retrospect, yeah, maybe he should have been more radical.
Why would someone do that? Especially for presidency which is the final stage of their career? They're not beholden to or reliant on anyone no more so shouldn't have to be swayed by any adverse interests.
They run from the left in order to get elected, that is the sham. They tell people things that people want to believe that they know they can't deliver in order to get elected.
Then they govern from the centre right status quo which aligns more with their actual beliefs.
A presidency lasts 8 years of your life, best case scenario. And the presidential salary will not make you rich. So, if your only goal is a good life, you have to use your presidency to get people to make you rich afterwards, which means favors for the wealthy.
Not too radical to be good and effective, too radical to break through current political constraints. You have to confront the reality of what can actually be achieved within the system you’re working in.
Proper Obamacare wasn't implemented because healthcare industry interests held up legislation until the midterms at which point the Republicans took over congress.
> [Obama] called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical".
He "called for" a bill that would pass (barely, as it required a filibuster-proof majority that will never happen again in our lives), and it did. It's absolutely infuriating to me the extent to which the American electorate fails to understand basic civics. Presidents take all sorts of legislative positions, but they don't run congress and never have.
And so the cycle continues. Presidential candidate says "I thinks Foo is good", electorate takes that as a promise to deliver Foo. Foo fails to appear, electorate gets mad and votes for the other guy promising to deliver Bar.
Never mind that MetaFoo actually passed, Bar is impossible, and the Barite party wants to enact hungarian notation via martial law. Electorate is still pissed off about Foo, somehow.
Interestingly, the ACA can trace its roots to the Republican counter proposal to Hillarycare written by the Heritage Foundation of recent Project 2025 fame.
Pretty sure both parties already know this. They both just don't want that to be a topic of conversation to control the window of what can / cannot be discussed in terms of what benefits the parties.
These people are not dumb. They are just very very interested in self-dealing.
"I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices."
Zohran has the largest, youngest, mandate in
NYC in a very long time.
The key is thats it's NYC and the place has an energy all it's own, and Zohran has that, and understands that NYC is always broke falling down, rich, and building up.
Think about it, this guy just stood up, and Gotham said Hey!, you!, YES!
NYC is pumped and ready to out work, out think, and out party, the entrenched, but tired and old, establishment.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way(and cheer)
You seem to be conflating the margin between the winner and the next candidate with an overwhelming majority of people all feeling the same way. The former is a mandate, the latter is just being the least disliked.
And remember, the day after the election last year people thought Trump had gotten a majority of the popular vote. But then, once absentee ballots were counted he fell just shy of it. This morning there was still 9% of the vote uncounted in NYC, so it’s not unlikely here also Mamdani will have a plurality rather than majority.
You are confusing a 2-way race with a 3-way race. Mamdani could've won with a lot less than 50% (since there was no ranked choice - and even if it was, I doubt any Sliwa voter would have given Cuomo any 2nd place votes).
The fact that he cleared 50% in a 3-way race is itself a mandate.
> The fact that he cleared 50% in a 3-way race is itself a mandate.
Most people would not agree with this.
To put it another way, he is leading a city where a majority or close to a majority did not support his candidacy. A mandate is when a large majority of the people you are leading supported your rise to leadership and you are no leading with their approval.
>To put it another way, he is leading a city where a majority or close to a majority did not support his candidacy. A mandate is when a large majority of the people you are leading supported your rise to leadership and you are no leading with their approval.
No. A majority supported his candidacy. In case you're confused about that, a "majority" is more than 50%. Mamdani received more than 50% of the vote despite something like 40-60 million dollars in attack ads making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims and outright lies about him, his policies and his background.
His victory with a majority is not in question, is it? How, exactly do elections work here? The person with the most votes wins. Full stop. Are you making some sort of claim that such is not the case. If so, where's your proof?
I'd also note that Mamdani's margin of victory (~8.5%) is right in line (with a few exceptions) with margins going back decades.[2]
Mamdani was, by far, the best candidate in the race. HIs opponents being a handsy, disgraced serial sexual harasser, a bribe taking incumbent who oversaw the most corrupt mayoral administration in decades and a media clown whose claim to fame was that he used to ride the subways at night with his gang and beat up random strangers.
As such, who should we have voted for in your opinion?
Actually, if you don't actually live in NYC, we don't care what your opinion might be. We don't tell you how to vote in your local elections, so mind your own damn business!
All that said, are you claiming that Mamdani should not be allowed to become mayor? Do you claim that his election somehow illegitimate?
Shall we, as some have suggested, strip Mamdani of his citizenship and deport him[0][1] as well?
People should also remember Democrats won contested Governor ships as well. This wasn't just a Mamdani election/victory night, though the far left want to make it look that way.
I have some confrontational views about this, but in good faith I’d like to invite some discussion with it (not an American).
TLDR: You will see more Mamdanis in other cities. This is a treasure trove for MAGA. Expect at least 12 years of secure nationwide wins for whoever is championing that platform
> I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message
This is the gist of the PR campaign, voters fell for. It goes in line with him getting away with being “grassrootsy” when in fact he got tremendous funding from the typical NGOs (Open Society etc) and is a son of a Professor who was/is basically paid to tell American and African Top 5% why white people are bad.
His win also shows the effect migration has on elections. Immigration inherently is a deal where incumbent residents define the terms, and when the other party returns the favor by electing anti-incumbents into office some incumbents will have profound buyer’s remorse.
Fertile soil for the right.
Mamdani’s success also puts a spotlight on foundational problems of the democrats.
After all Mamdani is charismatic, yes, but more importantly he appealed on the issues. His policies will be abysmally failing to resolve the problems he criticized, yes - but that is unimportant to the voter. Important is that he believably criticized them.
How is it, that these well-established circles of the democrats, these well oiled machines, where in states like CA or NY (or most US cities) mayorships, senatorships, congressional seats, and governorships are basically handed out by the DNC, fail to win on those issues? It’s not like making life affordable is not a core branding of the party.
Well, it appears that the DNC gerrymandered itself to death. The dissolution of political contest from the public into internal primaries has stymied the platform’s vitality to a point where it can be easily hijacked by radicals.
Expect many more Mamdani-esque wins locally. Which will mean many wore wins for MAGA nationally.
>How is it, that these well-established circles of the democrats, these well oiled machines, where in states like CA or NY (or most US cities) mayorships, senatorships, congressional seats, and governorships are basically handed out by the DNC, fail to win on those issues?
You should know this better than the US, but our "democrats" are center right for the rest of the world. The goal is to sound progressive but then act in neoliberal ways to appeal to donors, after the attention isn't on them. I call these "Establshment Democrats", more concerned with keeping the status quo and being a PR machine to the people than actually making policy that benefit the people.
That's why Mamdami can cut through by saying the things that Establshment Dems hated. And early on in his campaign when he gained momentum you can see the resistance against him by the Establishment, up to Cuomo decided to run independent after the primaries. I can't speak for the common person, but those actions speak a lot louder than any words Mamdami said.
There is a rift in the US Left, but I think it's one Estblashiment Dems had coming for a while now. If absolutely nothing else, the rampant destruction of the country by the Trump admin has absolutely activated people in ways not seen since 9/11. And when people are active, words aren't enough anymore. They want action, to not see military roaming their streets and kidnapping US citizens. They want to see actual ways to fix the economy as these trade wars sap at their wealth.
The collorary here is that the MAGA movement is also causing a rift in the US Right. There's definitely Esablishment Republicans that do not like this situation either. And there's the fact that all this is propped on one obsese, Dementia-ridden, 79 year old man. If/when he passes, there's going to be a huge power vacuum, and none of the headrunners are ready to fill that.
If anything, the split on the Right will be worse than the split of the Left, when it eventually happens. At least the Left is having new blood to try and push that rift from the bottom up compared to the house of cards that is Trump and everyone who tried bundling under him.
>You should know this better than the US, but our "democrats" are center right for the rest of the world. The goal is to sound progressive but then act in neoliberal ways
You won't know this, but us living in the Czech Republic know that your "democrats" are left of center left. And for a lot of other countries that exist in the real world.
Is this proof that the "democrats" are indeed extreme left? If not, in what percentage does or does not? Do the politics of all these countries affect the "democrat" alignment in any way?
See? That is a non-argument, and it signals more about the person using it than the "democrats".
>Is this proof that the "democrats" are indeed extreme left? If not, in what percentage does or does not?
I'm not a geopolitical scientist, but I'm sure if we compose North American, South America, Europe, and Asia's countries and apply a spectrum on major policy points, you can in fact make an nigh- objective statement here.
But if you want a better lens, sure. The US is center right compared to the EU spectrum, which already congregates 20 other countries to compare to. It's likely center left libertarian when compared to many Asian countries.
I don't think the rest of my analysis is impacted by these lines drawn in the sand since the rest talks about policy and not hard definitions of spectrums.
No? The policy is to freeze the rent in rent-controlled units for his entire term, which is as long as he can. The long-term solution is of course to build more units.
The freeze will have the same effect that rent control has always had, for the past decades in NY and elsewhere: make the situation worse. It being "temporary for his entire term" just means that the negative consequences will be "temporary for his entire term"; is that supposed to be a selling point?
It will have the same effect it always had if we proceed to do the same thing. i.e. fail to build more affordable housing.
How about this time we actually do it and stop blaming glue for not being a welding mold? Rent controls aren't supposed to be long term. Mamdami realizing that is already a good sign. So I'll see if he can get housing projects off the ground next.
The NYC Rent Guidelines Board is already tasked with keeping rents lower for rent stabilized tenants, except with long term sustainability in mind. A pledge to put your thumb on the scale to freeze rent for 4 years is a clear sign of prioritizing short term political optics. The clever part about this is even if tenants suffer, he can just blame any negative effects on "greedy landlords."
It is worse for anybody looking for an appartment. Of course the person already living in one isn't worse off, but that has never been the issue that rent control creates. It disincentivises repairs and new constructions.
Obamacare being what it was is 1,000,000% Obama’s failure - he’ll tell you this same thing over coffee too. Just outmost disaster through and through how it was implemented.
Zohran can easily fund which is why every single GOP Senator and Congresman went publicly against him. Can’t have people get any crazy ideas that they could actually have nice things. WTF does Congresman from a some shithole county in Alabama give a fuck about who Mayor of NYC is? but GOP is a well-oiled machine so it was all-hands-on-deck to prevent these ideas from infecting the nation…
even though this seems like a victory, starting in about 10 minutes the entire GOP message for 2026 is going to be “Zohran is Democratic Party now” and it just might work
exactly this - the GOP is sooooooooooo good at this that there isn’t single GOP politician who didn’t publicly go off against Zohran… can’t have these crazy ideas that people can have nice things :)
I don't think so. Americans want populism, doesn't really matter who provides. If you can focus the people's hate away from minorities and unto billionaires before it is too late, you might just save your democracy.
Oh, yeah, Obama being aloof was why the white men who questioned his citizenship openly - who are now entirely complicit in or supportive of an unaccountable gestapo randomly kidnapping people from the streets wth no ID or due process based on their skin tone - weren't "charmed" by him.
Obama took a mea culpa on parts of implementation, namely the federal marketplace website (they weren’t expected as many states to opt out of the marketplace) and the “keep your plan” narrative.
It was a compromise law that was in alignment with Bush era mainstream conservatives. The fatal flaw of Obama and Biden is they underestimated the power of the nutcase wing of the Republican Party. (Along with the institutional GOP folks)
that isn’t the fatal flaw. the fatal flaw is campaigning and staking your entire political career on something and the delivering something sooooo subpar.
the sad thing is, history will remember him as first black President and that’s really about it. and most of us cried watching that speech from lincoln park.
our current president is causing most of us to cry daily but will be remembered as one of the most influential presidents in the history of this country… sad, very sad, but all true
presidents don't pass legislation, and the original Obamacare was too radical even for all the Dem senators, not to mention needing some GOPs to get 60 votes
Maybe, if Obama had been as ruthless as Trump and used blatant lies and targeted attacks on senators to make them so fearful of re-election that they would play along, he might have gotten it passed, though probably not even then. Plus, as much as I wish we'd had the original Obamacare, I'd rather have a watered down version with balance of powers, than a tyrannical president who cowers the legislative branch into submission.
> original Obamacare was too radical even for all the Dem senators
This statement alone is the craziest thing about our country (I don't disagree...). However, if you make something a centerpiece of your entire political life and then you do not deliver you have effectively failed. I am sure if Obama had a do-over he would either get this done right or punt and focus his tenure on something he could have actually delivered...
I understand your point. I’m pretty sure Obama thought he could at least get it through the Dem Congress; it is a sad statement on our country’s political elite that even the Dems couldn’t agree to it. But I disagree that he made it the centerpiece of his entire political career. I also think it was a monumental positive step forward even if not the change I wanted. He has no control over what future Congresses might do to it.
You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list:
1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good.
2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egregious, illegal shit.
3) Mamdani. Millennial candidate. No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young, his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field.
Gee, who should I choose? [[said all of NYC today]]
It was pretty pathetic when, during one of the mayoral debates this year, most of the candidates including Cuomo said the first country they would visit as mayor would be Israel. Thankfully, younger generations aren’t falling for it anymore.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies—in the final sense—a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities.
It is: two electric power plants, each serving a town of sixty thousand population.
It is: two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is: some fifty miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people.
This—I repeat—is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
President Eisenhower. Not mayor. President Eisenhower’s portfolio properly contains these things. Mayors should not be travelling to foreign countries on official business outside a very narrow remit. Humanitarian activism isn’t one of them.
Jewish or not Jewish, receptivity was always joint about circumstances and interest. Based on that, refugees or people in special circumstances will be either accepted or rejected. Also, any group of entities can get into these special circumstances depending on what is happening in that time.
As a Brit who has been exposed to the blanket coverage of this on social media: Mamdani is going to be like Sadiq Khan. Popular with people in the city, while those outside run endless weird fantasy "news" scare stories because he's a Muslim.
The thing that annoys me the most is that by scapegoating Khan they avoid fixing the problems that are the responsibility of others. Like knife crime - the tories cut 1/3 of the police force, crime went up in London but also in the rest of the country but the papers are all lets slag Kahn for it which is jolly fun I guess but doesn't stop the stabbings and phone snatchings in a way that the central government which controls the laws and budgets could do.
I'm a Londoner who voted for Khan. There's a difference in that contrary to all the scapegoat stuff in the right wing press, Khan has had largely sensible middle of of the road policies. And where he has deviated from the average, on air pollution, it's been stuff I'm in favour of - I have desire to get sick/die from that.
Mamdani seems like a nice guy but some of his policies seem a bit bonkers - state owned retail outlets and the like.
Isn't it proposing running like five grocery stores to test? That's not bonkers or radical. Or even expensive. It seems like the type of experiment HN would love.
It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper.
Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.
Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor.
Which means the solution is giving poor people money.
But that is not a winning political position, so we have all these nonsense proposals.
> Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.
For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.
I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down.
The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.
> In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.
I'm kind of curious what is different about the US environment that makes this the case. Most large European cities have supermarkets (national chains) all over the place. To the point that it gets a bit silly; I've got about five Tescos in easy walking distance, which have the same prices as other Tescos (one is a Tesco Metro, which is slightly more expensive).
In the U.S., the answer usually comes back to racism. In the post-WWII era, a lot of mostly-white people moved to the suburbs. This pulled a lot of tax base and business away and also lead to a lot of neighborhoods being partitioned by highways so the suburban office workers could commute faster. In some areas, that combined with politics problems lead to riots in the 60s which further damaged many neighborhoods. All of that lead businesses not to invest or to pull out of less profitable neighborhoods. People who could afford cars would accelerate the shift by driving to the higher-end markets, so this can produce a negative feedback loop over decades, especially when businesses aren’t jumping to put money into remodeling or upgrading those locations.
Every time I’ve been in Europe I keep asking why we can’t have those markets, too. Trying to minimize time spent out of our cars and avoid contact with our neighbors has had a really big price.
It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?
>It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?
That's true. There are a couple of Costcos, but since I don't own a car (like most New Yorkers) it's not all that useful.
And supermarkets in NYC (in car-centric places some NYC supermarkets are smaller than gas station convenience stores) are definitely more expensive than supermarkets outside NYC.
What's more, the "food deserts" that Mamdani's proposal is trying to address don't have any supermarkets and folks are forced to take the bus or the subway to shop for groceries. I'd also note that most subway stations do not have elevators, making it much more difficult to shop for any length of time, especially for older, less mobile folks.
What else should Kroger do with their $2.6B net income from $147B of revenue? Buybacks are just a more tax efficient form of distributing profits compared to dividends, which is the reason people invest in stable businesses that are not going to experience growth.
I mean, this line hints at at least one alternative they've in fact done a little in the past.
> Kroger said it would repurchase $7.5 billion of its shares after a more than two-year pause, with $5 billion of that to be repurchased in an accelerated fashion — the same sum that Kroger estimated Wednesday it has spent to lowering prices over the past 21 years.
Aldi is a limited service grocer that doesn't have to deal with employee unions and costly departments like meat/deli/bakery/etc.
That is the underlying story, is that fewer Americans can afford the full service grocer (or maybe don't want to patronize due to smaller household sizes and less cooking). Also, Aldi has successfully fended off unions, which are mostly a thing legacy grocers like Albertsons and Kroger have to deal with.
Please show me where any plan like that is published. And specifically which neighborhoods that every white person will pay more taxes. The actuarials say I should live another 25 years or so. I'll wait.
Or are you referring to the proposed 2% increase in income taxes for folks making over USD$1,000,000/annum, which has exactly zero to do with location (other than NYC as a whole)?
Such an increase, while suggested by Mamdani, is not within the purview of the mayor of NYC to implement. Rather, any tax increase must be passed by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor. The most NYC's mayor can do is ask the state.
Are you that uninformed? Do you even live in NY State?
The property tax system is unbalanced because assessment levels are
artificially capped, so homeowners in expensive neighborhoods pay less than
their fair share.
Why is raising caps on property taxes in richer neighborhoods, regardless of ethnicity a bad thing? Why should a home worth $500,000 be taxed almost the same as a home worth $2,500,000?
As for "richer and whiter" neighborhoods, the median income for "white" folks is ~$108,000 and everyone else is 35-51% less[0]. As such, given the income breakdowns, "whiter" neighborhoods are richer neighborhoods.
Or are you arguing that more expensive properties should have a lower tax rate because more "white" people live there?
What's more you (and the NY Post, that racist rag) take a single word and completely ignore the actual intent of the proposal, which like pretty much every other tax, isn't set by the mayor, but by the state legislature and the governor.
Thanks for repeating white supremacist talking points. If I need more, I know where to find them.
It's a pilot of 5 publicly funded grocery stores in food deserts. I don't know if food deserts exist in London, but they're pretty bad in the US. Like, you cannot buy a vegetable for miles. It's a sensible policy to eliminate food deserts just from a public health perspective.
It doesn't seem like _that_ bonkers an idea? It'd be a trial, and, well, if they can't compete, they can't compete. And if they _can_ compete, then they will drive down prices.
People probably thought the UK's state-owned bank was a bit bonkers at the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank) but it _worked_; it forced private banks to expand access and to modernise. And then eventually it couldn't compete. But it's hard to consider it as anything other than a success.
(This is all assuming that NYC supermarkets have a competition problem in the first place, though. Never been to NYC, so wouldn't know.)
> Free buses and free child care are not remotely common policies in the US. Ditto for govt-run grocery stores.
While not common, free buses do exist throughout the US and Europe.
Free childcare is uncommon. IDK where that actually exists.
Government run stores is actually very common. Many states run the liquor stores. A few cities have government run grocery stores.
Freezing the rent on rent controlled buildings isn't common but rent control itself it quite uncommon. It's probably the easiest for Mamdani to accomplish.
Free childcare for low income families is extremely common, even in the United States. Subsidizing childcare is even more common. And it's not that expensive, because spending tends to get offset by increased tax income and reduced consumption of other wellfare benefits (from parents who choose to re-enter the workforce).
As for universal free childcare, I'm aware of it's existence in a number of places in Germany (Berlin, in particular), driven by having been an extremely popular public benefit in East Germany.
Free childcare is an extremely business-friendly proposal (increases the workforce, reduces the need for costly parental leave). I'd say I don't know why it's not more popular with right wing neoliberals, but I know why (they're more anti-government than pro-economy).
Rent control is increasing popular and common in liberal areas (which NYC is)
> In September 2024, a series of investigations into Adams's administration emerged. Adams was indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. Adams pleaded not guilty to the charges. He alleged that the charges were retaliation for opposing the Biden administration's handling of the migrant crisis. In February 2025, the Department of Justice in the Donald Trump administration instructed federal prosecutors to drop charges against Adams. Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case against Adams on April 2, 2025
I disagree with this. I mean, it's as straightforward for me as you wrote it. But,
1. It hasn't worked like this when they elected Trump for the second time. Back then Kamala should have been the only valid candidate, according to this thinking.
2. Mamdani got 1,036,051 votes and Cuomo got 854,995. This is not exactly "all of NYC" as you imply.
It’ll be interesting to see the headlines the onions writing by summer 2026.
For all I dislike him, Trump essentially squandered the political capital he had on things that are shiny, motivated by ego, and created clickbaity headlines that single out small subsets of the American populous. He could have done far far worse and less reversible things to America. We’re now at the start of the end of his presidency, with focus first turning to midterms and then his replacement.
I don’t expect Mamdani to do much better with his political capital.
I don’t know a ton about Mamdani but he doesn’t seem narcissistic.
I agree with most of his goals but have serious doubts about the viability of the methods. We’ll see.
My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls, which almost always lead to perverse incentives. The economy finds a way to sneak in an effective price increase via other means. Either that or you create a landed gentry of sorts, or a “landed rentry” for rent control. You get a class of beneficiaries locked into place and nobody else can get in.
I do like seeing different ideas get tried. I like experiments, and I think we should have more of them. The endless tape loop of 1980s-1990s Reagan/Clinton politics is clearly not addressing some glaring problems.
> My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls,
DeBlasio froze rent for rent-stabilized units for 3 years straight. Literally everything Mamdani campaigned on is entirely possible and funding straightforward.
While not a narcissist, I can’t tell how much he actually see this election as a stepping stone to higher office. Maybe even following in the footsteps of a one term senator…
And I do think he’s adherent to a fairly narrowly defined set of left wing principles and ideologies.
Like you, I agree there’s no harm in trying new things because there’s always what to learn. But I don’t exactly expect them to go well. Hope I’m wrong though and if nothing else it’s becoming incredibly clear we need a new generation of leaders in this country. To end this loop, like you said.
Plenty of red states have government run liquor stores. And army bases have government run grocery stores along with government run everything else. I don't see the problem here. Progressive version presumably would be free groceries for everyone.
When I lived in Pennsylvania, the state-run liquor stores had a monopoly on selling wine and liquor. This survived Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
Mamdani’s proposed grocery stores aren’t a monopoly. Whether they’re a good idea remains to be seen, but they’d be competing against privately owned grocery stores. As I understand them, they’re mostly intended for areas without a local grocery store (food deserts), which seems like a reasonable thing to explore.
Hi, that's not why people go to Delaware for those kind of purchases. It's the lack of tax.
The actual MSRP from PA wine and liquor stores is very competitive, since it's one of the largest single buyers of alcohol. Selection could be better though.
Note that they don't have to be a monopoly to cause a problem. Usually the way things go is these state-run grocery stores get subsidies. The goal is to provide food in food deserts, not to be profitable. Over time the subsidy inevitably grows meaning higher taxes for non-gov grocery stores. This leads to a cycle where the state-run stores pushes out the corp-run stores with the thinnest margins.
Ultimately only the bougie grocery stores remain in rich neighborhoods and now you have to really hope that you can continue funding those state-run stores or you just made the food desert problem a whole lot worse.
Highly disagree. The commissary on most military bases are awesome. Spent most of my life going there with my parents. Not sure where you heard they were bad. Never got that impression from any military serving people, like ever.
Now imagine how the commissary would turn out if instead of being placed in a spot where any commercial business would love to exploit (center of military base where every family has employment, a process for permanently kicking out people who engage in major crime, and private competition controlled unless you go through a security checkpoint) -- instead you put them in many of the places I witnessed food deserts in major US cities that had underemployment, elevated crime, outsiders afraid to enter during the day and ~never enter at night, bars on every window, and every other establishment has you slide your cash in a rotating tray adjacent to a bulletproof window.
I feel like the commissary these days is really far behind private grocers. Yeah, 15 or 25 years ago they were awesome, but now it just resembles a poorly stocked (and much smaller) Walmart. Regional grocers have gotten really good in my lifetime. Used to go to the commissary regularly to save money and have a good selection, but those days are just long past. Same deal with base liquor stores, they are merely "OK", but again your regional private option is just so much nicer in the 2020s.
You suggested that this is good because it is similar to a thing, and many people pointed out that thing you compared it to is bad. That is not goalpost shifting, that is you demonstrating that this is in fact bad.
> They’re hardly mainstream if everyone hates them.
I think maybe you and I have different definitions for the word "mainstream". To me it has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with what is normal and everyday.
The prices are usually higher than private stores, the merchandising is worse, the selection is usually bad, and they're generally just a miserable shopping experience. Compare them to a nice wine and liquor store in states where those are allowed and the difference is quite apparent. They also never have staff that know anything about the products which is just a shitty DMV like experience.
Other than merchandising (why is that important?) nothing you describe is an issue with the Idaho liquor stores.
Prices are pretty in line with market rates. The selection is really pretty good. The shopping experience is the same as any other store (what makes a shopping experience "miserable?")
> Compare them to a nice wine
In Idaho, wine is allowed to be sold in grocery stores and specialty shops. The liquor stores are for hard beverages.
> They also never have staff that know anything about the products
Staff seems just fine with the products. But again, don't see why that's important in general.
> just a shitty DMV like experience.
I don't really know what you mean by this. You go in, find the booze you like, pay for it at the register, or ask a clerk a question if you have one (Do you have a lot of questions purchasing alcohol? Every time?) If you want a more expensive experience you can go to a wine shop in Idaho and let someone blow smoke up your ass about the notes.
Look, Idaho might just be particularly good at running a booze shop, but I doubt it. It may be that because Idaho only has liquor stores for hard alcoholic beverages it's made for a better experience all around. It certainly doesn't suffer from selection, knowledge, or experience problems. I think the only issue you might take is that it's just sorted shelves of alcohol with little flashy theming.
That's because liquor stores originated from an earlier incarnation of the culture wars. That was a long time ago, and I don't think anyone seriously believes in that justification now, but the inertia remains.
> I think that's a pretty good reason for them to exist even today.
Only if you think the government should be telling people what to buy and what not to buy. I personally find that highly objectionable, particularly given the outsized power of primary voters in most places.
But why? Liquor is the cause for a very high portion of police, insurance (property and health), and other costs that can’t be translated into dollars.
Why shouldn’t society recoup some of those costs from the users? And why should society subsidize those costs?
It’s interesting that it was politically acceptable to charge tobacco users more for health insurance, but not politically acceptable to charge alcohol users more for health insurance.
Sorry, I don't agree with that. The context of profit is money which shareholders are entitled to after accounting for the costs of their business. None of those things apply to government.
Also, New Hampshire does not have sales tax on certain goods and services. Hotel rooms and car rentals, for example, do have sales tax. And apparently, alcohol sold at the state alcohol stores.
>Sorry, I don't agree with that. The context of profit is money which shareholders are entitled to after accounting for the costs of their business. None of those things apply to government.
I have to disagree. In a very real sense, the residents of a political entity are the stakeholders within that political boundary and, at least in a democratic (small 'd') society, those stakeholders are, in fact, the owner/shareholders of that political entity.
That's neither very profound nor much of an intellectual stretch. Although, apparently you disagree. Why is that?
> I have to disagree. In a very real sense, the residents of a political entity are the stakeholders within that political boundary and, at least in a democratic (small 'd') society, those stakeholders are, in fact, the owner/shareholders of that political entity.
That still doesn’t mean it makes sense to categorize government income as “profit” (for the purposes of this discussion trying to discern whether or not NH taxes alcohol).
Governments and businesses have (or are supposed to have) different priorities, and are (theoretically) structured so that in exchange for the government being given a monopoly on violence for those who don’t pay, the government (ideally) is working towards providing services that benefit all of society, for the long term.
The New Hampshire government’s website linked above even states:
> $146m Annual Contribution To The General Fund
What difference does it make if the tax is not separated out like alcohol taxes in most other states? The bottom line is New Hampshire could be selling alcohol for less, but it chooses not to in order to use the extra money to fund government services. That is a tax.
>What difference does it make if the tax is not separated out like alcohol taxes in most other states? The bottom line is New Hampshire could be selling alcohol for less, but it chooses not to in order to use the extra money to fund government services. That is a tax.
Is people drinking alcohol a loss for society? Because the thing is, society needs to continue to produce children in order to continue existing. It's called a social lubricant for a reason, and while it is exceeding obvious that alcohol abuse is a problem, that's exactly why the state runs the liquor stores. To limit products available and limit hours to ideally prevent the worst of abuses. So the unanswerable question is, how many children is alcohol ultimately responsible for? If it were successfully banned (using magic) would civilization survive past the end of the incoming generation? Given alcohol's ubiquity on all corners of the globe, I don't think that's decided or even decidable.
As we're only considering children being born, the health effects of alcohol while pregnant are known, (aka fetal alcohol syndrome) but since they're known, they can be dismissed if we assume pregnant mothers aren't drinking. The other thing we can discount is the long term health effects of alcohol consumption. Yes there are health ramifications, but as long as people are able to create healthy babies, what happens later on in life is less relevant to the question of making babies, which civilization needs in order to continue.
>how many children is alcohol ultimately responsible for?
If this is alluding to unplanned pregnancies, that is almost unheard of nowadays due to access to IUDs/morning after pill/abortion.
Whether or not alcohol, or specifically hard alcohol, plays a material role in establishing relationships that otherwise would not happen is difficult to discern, but I don't see why an alcohol tax (or even just higher liquor taxes) would dissuade people. It only takes a few drinks to become "buzzed", so any tax would only be material to heavy drinkers.
I don't see how a government run liquor store limits abuse, and most seem to offer the same products as any other store (does it really make a difference above a certain proof?). And many states limit hours that alcohol is sold without having government run stores.
I was referring to alcohol as a social lubricant leading to relationships leading to children. If we look to Asia, and at South Korea and Japan's issues with existentially low birth rates, the question flips. From "would an alcohol tax possibly dissuade people from hooking up" to "what can the government do to help more babies be born", and under that framing, subsidizing alcohol to everyone of baby making age starts to look almost reasonable.
As far state run liquor stores dissuading alcoholism, Scandinavian countries state-run their liquor stores for that expressed reason. Their hours are intentionally bad, the products expensive and small. No 1.75 L handles of 80 proof vodka to be found. It's mostly effective, but it's also not New England where if you just drive for an hour or two, you can hit multiple states and jurisdictions with different blue laws, limiting the effectiveness of state run stores.
What state run stores, ostensibly force, is better adherence with the law. The corner shop where you've gone to for twenty years and are friends with the owner, is totally just gonna give you beer Sunday morning when it's illegal to do so, but record it in the system on Monday. A bit harder to do in a state run store with more oversight. Also, it's harder to import prohibited kinds of alcohol with said. oversight vs a privately run store. As with any law though, it's not 100% effective, but that's not a reason to not have a law.
I have fond memories of the Navy commissary my parents did most of our food shopping at when I was growing up. Huge variety of reasonably priced goods.
I was in the Navy and I loved the on-base grocery store. A big part of it was that I was overseas and it felt like home, but also the prices were great, it was clean, and had a decent selection.
I would say that state-run liquor stores and subsidized city-run grocery stores such as what Mamdani proposes are not at all comparable. The former is a giant cash cow - a profit center while the latter is an entitlement program i.e a mandatory budget expense. To give an idea of the amount of money involved in state-run liquor stores, consider the state of New Hampshire's report from last year:
>"In FY2024, total income before transfers was $144.7 million with the total net profit transfer of $140.0 million. Of the $140.0 million, the Liquor Commission transferred $122.0 million to the General Fund"[1]
Why does a government ran entity need to be a huge money maker?
NYC has a $6B cop budget. They even have subs. Yet nobody worries about that. A grocery store could be ran at a deficit. More than likely it will be neutral or will turn a slight profit.
>"More than likely it will be neutral or will turn a slight profit."
Based on what exactly, just your opinion? Obviously you know nothing about the grocery business which is a notoriously low-margin business, between 1-3%. The only way that large grocers like Krogers and Albertsons are profitable is purely based on volume. You also realize that groceries are perishable items right? You also realize these are labor and energy inensive operations right? And that there's tons of competition? And of course shrinkage. There is zero chance that it would operate at a profit or break even. By the way it's been tried before look up Baldwin, Florida or Erie, Kansas for examples of city-run grocery failures. There are others as well.
Lastly, nothing about any of this in any way comparable to NYPD as a budgetary item. Comparing retail food to public safety is just really bizarre.
Government runs a lot of businesses alongside private estates. Postal is the biggest example. Why is this super unusual? I don't know if it's middle of the road, but I don't think it's socialism.
Progressive ideas would be price controls on groceries to curb inflation, or seizing the means of production by making a major stake in a major food chain.
(side note: I think it's hilarious that Trump is doing this with Intel and potentially Tiktok and few have labeled it as such).
Communism only happens after a revolution overthrowing the current government and replacing the entire economy with the state overseeing it. Note the word entire.
Socialism is when you have the public own entire industries. For example, how the oil industry in Norway is owned by the state.
Having the government do something or own a business is neither communism nor socialism. It's simply a state owned thing. It's not, for example, socialist for the government to have a parks department.
A city ran store is not the city owning the means of production. There will still be private stores throughout NYC. The areas where these stores are being targeted are where those private stores have chosen not to deploy.
I disagree that it's even socialism as NYC isn't outlawing or using the emoluments clause to take control of private stores. It isn't ceasing the means of production in any sense.
The Mamdani plan is to put in stores where no stores exist. That's just a city ran store. Something that used to be pretty common in the US.
I think you mean "eminent domain" – the emoluments clause prohibits government officials from accepting gifts, payments, or titles from foreign states.
Stores exist there. They have some foodstuffs even. They have bars on all the window and your money is handed through a rotating tray under a bulletproof glass with tiny holes in it so you can talk to the cashier (who also has a shotgun resting under their cash register).
That is because that is the viable model in those areas to actually run a store without having your staff egregiously injured/assaulted and not have everything not nailed down stolen.
This ends up getting reflected also in higher prices of foods in those areas, to reflect the cost and lower supply of those willing to take those measures. So people will call it a 'food desert' -- not because you can't get food there (though it mostly sucks and is shelf stable stuff) but because nothing there resembling a walk-around middle-class grocery store exists.
Failing to take those measures, or taking the measures and not raising prices enough to cover the costs, will likely end up in the state losing money, that is, they will be forced to seize the capital of private citizens to fund the state's commercial offerings.
Interestingly "no government" also appears to be exactly what is happening in the US with what some people might describe as end stage Capitalist society.
I remember hearing that Cuomo called to get an endorsement from Trump. I'm not sure how much of that went through, but it would explain why it seemed like Cuomo completely ate Silwa's votes. 7% even for NYC is absolutely below par for Republicans.
> Mamdani. Millennial candidate. No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young, his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field.
Look, Mamdani ran a good campaign, and if I was an NYC voter (I am not) I'd probably vote for him out of the options provided.
However, this just is not true. Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor "middle of the road". Especially not on education and dealing with the homeless and public transit. And lots of his dumb comments were from like 2 years ago, not 12 - he was not "young" when he said them.
> And lots of his dumb comments were from like 2 years ago, not 12 - he was not "young" when he said them.
If you're talking about the "globalize the intifada" comment, he actually never even said that, but a whole lot of people (you among them, it seems like?) have been brainwashed into thinking he did through political maneuvering.
The root of that whole drummed up controversy was him refusing to blanket condemn the phrase when media people (never attributing it as something he himself had said) kept asking him to.
And he was always very clear what his reasons for that were, which were extremely reasonable to anyone who isn't a kneejerk ultra zionist.
It's so depressing that the entire Mamdani debate has become mired in Israeli politics. You can completely ignore that issue, and still have plenty of questionable stuff to talk about. He has repeatedly talked about defunding the police. Literally, not figuratively, and not that long ago [1a-c].
He said he wanted to close down Rikers Island, right in the middle of the debates [2]. He said that prisons are unnecessary [3]. He said he wants to empty jails [4-6]. His comments on crime and policing, in general, are quite extreme. I could set literally every other topic to the side, and this would be a voting issue for me.
These are his words. I'm not taking them out of context or reinterpreting them. About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now". Yeah, OK. I guess we'll find out...
>Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor "middle of the road"
It seems like common sense to hear "cityfolk pay taxes, buses are paid for by taxpayers. Therefore, bus rides should be free for cityfolk". There's a lot more to it, but most voters are not going to read the 50 page proposal that Mamdami would need to submit to the govenor to get the wheels rolling.
I think that's enough for it to fall under "common sense". Policy you can explain in 3 sentences or less. Homeless people need help, not to be arrested. Invest in an organization who makes sure that these people get help so they don't stay on the streets.
(I can't find his education policy on a quick skim of the website and plan).
Perhaps I misread the tone of the comment I replied to, but I have seen lots of "Everybody supports X" when X won with barely half of the votes, and less than half the voting-aged population voted.
>his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road.
Rent control isn't middle of the road, it's 100% socialist. Same thing with city run grocery stores. He also wants to defund the police while replacing them with community outreach people, as well as raising the minimum wage to $30 in 5 years which is absolutely wild. None of this is middle of the road in any way, shape, or form.
The minimum wage not being indexed to inflation has been theft for decades. It would take a minimum wage of almost $60/hr to maintain purchasing power from 50-60 years ago.
Edit: If the system of “we make asset prices go up while labor prices are inflated away” gets to the point where a living wage is unobtainable (we are here), we can change the system. The name is irrelevant, it’s fundamentally “what are you optimizing for?”
This happens eventually (wage increases) due to global structural demographic working age population compression, the argument is really time horizon if we help people live better lives with dignity now vs years from now as labor supply declines.
I misspoke by not including more detail. $66/hr to match homebuying purchasing power of Boomers in the 70s. You can get away with less per hour as a living wage assuming reasonable rent, and in NYC, that is likely $30/hr (which we will get to as older voters continue to age out, and younger voters age into the electorate, and are engaged to push wages higher [exit polls show ~75% of New Yorkers 18-29 voted for Mamdani]).
> With the FBC cost data we can estimate a living wage that would allow workers to support their families. Table 1 shows that the living wage in 2025 is already above $30 an hour in Manhattan ($33.89), Queens ($31.31), and Staten Island ($30.68). While Brooklyn and The Bronx do not exceed this threshold, the costs facing these families will almost certainly continue to rise between today and 2030. These figures make it clear that discussions of a $30 minimum wage in New York City are not superfluous—they reflect the very real needs of working people throughout the city.
> Someone Calculated What The Minimum Wage Should Be Today Compared To The '70s In Order To Afford A Home
> Now, Chris's video isn't to suggest that minimum wage, at any point in its history, allowed people to buy homes outright. Rather, he told BuzzFeed, he wanted to highlight the ways in which "wages have decoupled from cost of living, housing prices, and broader economic growth over the last few decades."
> "The original purpose of the minimum wage was to ensure that even low-wage workers could participate meaningfully in the economy. Not just survive, but live with dignity," he said.
That's more of an issue with housing prices drastically outpacing inflation because of dense housing construction being illegal in most of the country.
Please prove this assertion. Show your math. I can pickup a loaf of bread for $1.42 in a state with a $15/hr minimum wage, as of this comment. What does a $30 minimum wage make it? $2? $2.50? The horror. $900? I am doing my best to be polite and charitable.
Yes I was being sarcastic. But in CA when a typical wage went to $20 for Walmart or fast food, everything skyrocketed. At my grocery store you can get a bag of Fritos for $6 now, which should be no more than $2. If we triple the $20 (making it $60) we'll be paying $18 for a bag of Fritos. So yeah, I was joking a bit on the bread loaf, but we would be in an era of paying $600 for your grocery trip for 4 days of eating.
I sense your frustration and I think they were probably being a bit sarcastic... I won't speculate on a loaf of bread, but I would speculate that everything from a loaf of bread to a home increases in price substantially if minimum wage were raised to $60. As wages increase, prices tend to follow, since workers across the spectrum demand higher pay.
I'm not against raising minimum wage, but economics is a very complex thing and changes like that need to be approached carefully.
The minimum wage should easily be 11-13 by any inflation metric you use for the last 40 years, and doubling that for a high cost of living place is reasonable.
Lots of states have state-run liquor stores, even super conservative ones.
Anyone who has shopped a state run vs regular liquor store knows how much worse the gov version is unless your goal is higher prices, worse service, and worse selection.
The reason state-run liquor stores make some sense is that we don't want to optimize alcohol sales. Neither on price nor volume. This is unlike groceries.
The same reason state run monopoly on gambling makes sense but state run monopoly on car manufacturing doesn't.
As far as I know, “defunding the police” wasn’t a campaign promise, let alone a “core” one. It indeed was the opinion he had in the past (and you can argue about whether he still thinks that privately), but there are also many statements from the last several months that he’s explicitly _not_ running on that.
What a weird take. Isn't it better that he says it before the election? I think you just have it out for him, and no matter what he does you will find a way it's wrong.
Please explain how city run grocery stores are middle of the road politics. Perhaps they’re middle of the road when your road is all the way to the left.
I see it as a middle of the road statement to say that government should work for its constituents, and help ensure that they get basic nessesities like shelter, food, schooling and health care (yes, I know that this is already controversial).
Using the market is well and fine, but if it for some reason does not work it's the government's job to find a solution which works. Think about how things are handled in emergencies. The neutral thing is to find a solution, not be married to some ideological ball and chain saying that THAT particular necessity must be solved in one particular way no matter what.
When that is said I don't live in NYC, idk how the food desert situation is there. But I have heard enough stories from credible sources that I would be surprised if it's all made up.
The problem with the idea that it is the government's job to ensure "necessities" is that the list of what is a "necessity" only ever gets larger – it never shrinks.
I think if you go to Scandinavia or the UK you will find the opposite. Housing is an example of a field where the government was much more active pre the 80s. Idk if the US has had the same development, but it is certainly not a global truth that it only goes one way.
The expectation certainly has changed. Do you not remember Thatcher?
Housing as mentioned above. There was also a time the railway was a obvious public responsibility. Similarly for airlines (Scandinavian Airlines, British Airways). Telephone companies(British Telecom, Telenor), mail (Royal Mail), gas (Gas Act 1948), iron and steel (Iron and Steel Act 1967), and electric production ( Electricity Act 1947).
If anything it is rather opposite, the moment something is privatised it's hard to get it under public control again. But even if you don't agree with that it should certainly be clear that removing something from the public sector is both possible and has happened to a large degree.
There isn't a market failure in groceries in NYC. There's a huge number and diversity of stores, and profit margins are as low as anywhere else in the world. Also, of course, see the sibling comment who is complaining about grocery stores while using Amazon Fresh. There's a competitive delivery market.
Of all of his policies, I actually don't really care if he wants to try to put some grocery stores in grocery deserts. It probably won't work, but whatever.
The market failure in NY is due to the local government, so clearly the local government stepping in to offer a replacement is the solution. On an unrelated note, I have a bridge to sell you.
Really depends on where you are in the city; I used to shop at Whole Foods on the UWS and it was lovely, and when visiting this past summer my friend and I visited both the Bowery Whole Foods and the Wegmans near Astor Place and zero complaints with either of them.
But TBH I don't think the grocery deserts he's looking to service are going to be anywhere near where the average HN user lives.
Last I checked, if you wanted to buy more than a 12 pack of beer in the state of Pennsylvania, it had to be from a state run store. Is Pennsylvania socialist?
I'd agree, but I would also point out that a state monopoly is a much more extreme policy than a few state run stores. And considering the discussion was about where these policies sit on the ideological spectrum, an example of a more conservative state with a policy further to the left does suggest that maybe this is in fact "middle of the road".
In this regard, yes it is; the biggest reasons they keep it around are the jobs it provides and the money the state makes off of it. In return, residents get low prices but less choice, and in some areas, poor access. Most people hate it.
Only in the last decade or so has some competition been allowed.
I live in PA and can literally walk to a private beer distributor from my house and walk out with something larger than a 12 pack. There are no state owned beer distributors as far as I’m aware.
Most (not all) Liquor / Wine sales are somewhat monopolized by the state but it’s a remnant from prohibition and nobody except the people getting their palms greased by the system likes it.
Fair correction, I apparently merged the laws about beer and liquor/wine in my mind. Beer in quantities larger than 12 packs comes from distributors which are regulated more than bottle shops but aren't state run, while it's liquor and wine that needed to come from state shops.
No worries. It’s been in flux over the past decade. A few of the major grocery chains pushed to change the laws so they could sell beer and wine under a certain ABV. It has to be in a dedicated area and they can only sell during certain hours.
The state shops themselves aren’t all that horrible IMO but they’re nothing to write home about either. That being said It’s pretty hard to screw up liquor sales when you’re the only game in town.
Also, several states have state-run beer and/or liquor stores. It's not some wild unheard of experiment. We've gotten so used to the acceptable political spectrum spanning from "far right" to "extreme right" that we forget what left even means.
I'm almost 50 and the last president we ever saw that was even remotely towards the left was in office when I was born.
Whether or not public grocery stores are a good idea, the comparison to state-run liquor stores doesn't really make sense; the justification for state control of liquor sales is entirely different (arguably even kind of the opposite) as the justifications presented for public grocery stores.
Yeah, pretty terrible outcome from prohibition designed to curtail alcohol consumption. It’s pretty the worst example to go for if you’re trying to convince people that state stores are good.
I lived in a state when the state-run liquor stores were closed and it transitioned to the private sector. It was a massive improvement, a big win.
The weirdest part of the transition was the fear mongering about consequences. This despite the reality that most states don’t have state-run liquor stores.
I’ve never lived in a state where state-run liquor stores weren’t worse than what you had in states without them.
I mean, yes...but having lived in multiple states with various forms of state monopoly on alcohol sales: state-run liquor stores suck. Citing them as an argument in favor of state-run anything is sort of making the case for the other side.
The original claim was that his policies are middle of the road. Based on the very few US cities with govt-run grocery stores, it's pretty clear that the policy is not middle of the road. It is an outlier.
3% of fast food jobs. Honestly that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff. Fastfood prices have increased a lot in recent years as well, but it's unclear how much if any is due to minimum wage increase.
> While menu prices did increase, costs rose by an average of just 1.5% –equivalent to about 6 cents on a $4 hamburger, down from the 15-cent increase reported in the September study.
Prices are not related to costs. That's just a lie to folks use to justify price increase to the market. Prices never decline when costs do unless the consumer is wise enough to know like in the case for gasoline.
Have you seen how fries are made at McDonald’s? There’s nearly zero labor involved. It’s nearly automated. You’re paying that price cause that’s what the market will bear and McDonald’s needs to see profits go up.
Price distortions are bad because the market might not react correctly to it. But if there are too many restrictions to build housing anyway, you might as well ease the pain for social harmony.
It's not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing? Presumably the kids can learn from the parents, get connected, etc.
Also, Mamdani's policies are incredibly controversial, that's why it's such big news. Lots of people predicting that Mamdani's criminal policies, economic policies, and lack of experienced staffers will lead the city to dark days.
> not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing?
Aristocracies are more stable but less efficient. That creates an incentive for corruption when growth inevitably stalls. Which leads to catastrophic instability.
There is minimal incentive for corruption in a hereditary aristocracy. Status is determined by birthright rather than accumulation of money. And if you are a lord and do need money, you have the power to tax it legally anyway. So what incentive is there to make or take a bribe? It won't change who your parents are.
> Status is determined by birthright rather than accumulation of money. And if you are a lord and do need money, you have the power to tax it legally anyway
Lords being unconcerned with—and constrained by—wealth characterises all (EDIT: none of the) non-market societies that I know of. In part because basic economics constrains the society as a whole, even if they’re ignorant of its principles.
"illegal, bad, or dishonest behaviour, especially by people in positions of power"[1]
"Corruption is the dishonest, fraudulent, or criminal use of entrusted authority or power for personal gain or other unlawful or unethical benefits."[2]
Every single aristocracy absolutely fits those definitions. The norm in every aristocracy is to disregard the law in favor of what benefits those in power and to apply the law unequally depending on the desires of rulers.
Based on what I saw in the debates, I'm sure there are lots of people in NYC more capable than anyone on the ballet.
But yes, someone with connections is going to be more operationally effective than someone without them. If the leader isn't themselves well connected, they should at least have close advisors who do.
> It's not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing?
Because they're undemocratic.
Concentrating political capital within a family means raises barriers to entry. People with new -- possibly better -- ideas don't get a meaningful chance to see those ideas implemented.
These sorts of setups destroy the idea that politics and elections can be a meritocracy, but instead are determined by birthright. You end up with aristocracies populated by the extended family, friends, and business partners of the family in power.
You also get stagnation. You're less likely to see other points of view represented in the political process, and that affects outcomes.
It's a tradeoff between new ideas and operational effectiveness. Yes, there are benefits to rotating out a dynasty, but there are also benefits to keeping one.
A dynasty is only undemocratic if people aren't voting for them. If they are winning elections, it's still a democracy.
His policies around being soft on crime (do you know what NYC was like in the 90's? It's not some distant history), the free bus fare, the city owned grocery stores, the rent control, are all policies that many feel threaten the economic viability and safety of the city.
If you don't think any of those policies are contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
>(do you know what NYC was like in the 90's? It's not some distant history)
I do. And today is light years better than it was in the 90s. In fact, there were crack dealers on my corner in the 90s. They're not there any more. Or on 95th street and Amsterdam.
And there aren't any hookers on 90th street and Broadway or 58th and Sixth like there were in the 80s.
And I didn't know Verdi Park was called "Verdi Park" back then either. I just thought they called it "needle park" because it was kind of shaped like a needle. Silly me.
Or the side streets between 38th and 42nd streets from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway literally covered in hundreds/thousands of used condoms every morning
And the 80s were much, much worse than the 90s. And don't even get me started on the 1970s, when there were street gangs every few blocks.
Oh, and back then (not much change AFAICT), the cops were just the biggest and best-armed gang.
Oh, I'm sorry haven't you lived in NYC for nearly 60 years too?
Soft on crime because Mamdani wants to send non-cops to help people having mental episodes? Soft on crime because he wants to enforce the law and close Rikers?
Free buses? Really? that's not exactly going to break the bank. And even so, the MTA needs to approve that -- and the MTA is controlled by the Governor, not the Mayor.
Five grocery stores in areas which aren't served by private ones? How exactly is that going to threaten[0] (perhaps USD$10 million to acquire space and set them all up, then presumably it can cover its costs from, you know, selling groceries -- or even USD$2.5 million in subsidies) the economic viability of NYC which has a budget of USD$116 Billion[1]?
Crime is down at levels not seen since the early 1960s (before I was born -- that's relevant because I've lived in, with the exception of a year here, six months, three months elsewhere, etc. in NYC my whole life) and crime is at its lowest in all that time.
Free buses are a few tens of millions and a few grocery stores are chump change[2] in NYC.
>If you don't think any of those policies are contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
I take issue with that characterization. How long have you lived in NYC?
You mean the 1990s which brought us "broken windows" policing and the frequent use of racist stop-and-frisk? When I visited Queens 15 years ago, what worried me most was the chance of interacting with cops on a power-trip.
The 1990s when NYPD cops Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss shot Amadou Diallo? When NYPD cop Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broom handle? When NYPD cop Francis X. Livoti choked Anthony Baez for accidentally hitting a police car with a football?
If you don't think the history of being hard on crime is contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
And isn't it funny how the people who complain the most about free public transport have a large overlap with the people who didn't want congestion charges but instead wanted free access to city streets for their multi-ton private vehicles?
How could city owned grocery stores threaten the economic viability and safety of NYC? The only way that makes sense to me is if the economics of NYC depended on having a working class which is always on the edge of food insecurity. Were that the case, the economics structure of NYC must change, yes?
Since homeless shelters threaten the economic viability of hotels and rental companies, and libraries threaten the economic viability of bookstores, I suppose we should get rid of those too.
I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about.
There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisting they aren't controversial?
The platform page points out how the status quo was recently broken: "Eric Adams has taken every opportunity to squeeze tenants, with his hand-picked appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board jacking up rents on stabilized apartments by 12.6% (and counting)–the most since a Republican ran City Hall."
Sure sounds like Adams made a controversial change to the status quo to me.
The position is "As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants".
I read that as want to return to status quo ante Adams.
>There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisting they aren't controversial?
You mean like the rent freeze[0] in 2020/2021 (and apparently in 2014-2016[1], although I don't recall that and am too lazy to check my old leases) on the very same apartments that Mamdani is proposing the same?
>I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about.
Really? Funny that. As a resident of NYC, I reviewed the policies proposed by Mamdani and none of them seem all that controversial (or even all that much in the way of veering from the status quo). I will say that the whole public grocery stores seems a little over the top, but market forces haven't eliminated food deserts in many lower income neighborhoods. As such, why is it bad to try such a thing?
GP called Mamdani's policy proposals "incredibly controversial." I haven't seen even one such policy. As such, I asked for an example of such a "controversial" policy to help me understand where GP was coming from and provided a comprehensive list of Mamdani's policy proposals as an aid to identifying such policies.
I explicitly asked for specific proposals so we could discuss why (or why not) they might be "controversial."
I really don't get the doom and gloom on this, NYC now has a mayor that might inadvertently fuck over the city trying to do right by working class folks instead of a mayor who does it as a matter of course. Forget policy disagreements, just the fact that we have a successful politician any side of the isle that is not currently gargling the balls of rich people and actually has some principles is so refreshing.
You are demand better of your government than "the blatant corruption you've learned to live with."
I'm against any and all political dynasties. They fly in the face of what representative government should be about. We have many people qualified to become political leaders but they never get the chance due to how the system operates.
I'm not sure NYC knows what it is getting into with this guy, but yeah, the alternatives were lousy. Sliwa? The whole Guardian Angels thing was one hell of a marketing job, I'll say that. Does anyone really believe a bunch of former gang thugs with some martial arts training accomplished very much?
The Cuomo family is corrupt to the core. Terrible for NY State.
Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed?
Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT).
"The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."
> Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls
Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development.
“In a 2022 paper, the political scientists Anselm Hager, Hanno Hilbig, and Robert Vief used the introduction of a 2019 rent-control law in Berlin to study how access to rent-controlled apartments influenced local attitudes toward housing development. The fact that the new law included an arbitrary cutoff date (it applied only to buildings constructed before January 1, 2014) allowed the authors to create a natural experiment, comparing otherwise-similar tenants in otherwise-similar buildings.
Heading into the experiment, the authors hypothesized that having access to a rent-controlled apartment would keep tenants in their existing units longer and therefore make them more resistant to neighborhood change. Instead, they found the opposite: Residents who lived in rent-controlled apartments were 37 percent more likely to support new local-housing construction than those living in noncontrolled units” [1].
Mamdani will learn that you need to be friends with the people your voters hate to get things done.
Developers are the single most important players in lowering housing costs, but they are part of the "landlord" contingent in voters minds.
If he doesn't learn that, the city is going to be in bad shape. Impossible to get an apartment unless you want to get an illegal sublet at regular old $4500/mo prices.
The market isn't going to function ideally in a place like New York.
In other cities, a significant market-based response to high rents and housing demand is to increase supply with another ring of suburbs. Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale?
Uncapping rents might trigger some refurbishment of idle or marginal space by dangling enough money in front of landlords, but you're not going to pull another 500,000 units out of your rear that way.
We can acknowledge that NYC housing is a finite and desirable resource, but we can also say that we don't want to turn it completely into an auction for the highest bidder. Rent control helps encourage diverse and vibrant communities, part of what makes the city compelling in the first place.
> Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale?
I get the challenge of existing property/buildings other states, etc - but it always seems weird to me that you can have single story buildings less than one mile from Manhattan in Hoboken, etc. (as the crow flies, I get transit, etc).
Feels like the big problem is we can't change anything easily anymore.
Hoboken has the fourth-highest population density of any municipality in the US. Although it is mostly low-rise in character, there aren't many single-story buildings there at all.
A good chunk of Hoboken was originally swampland; you can't exactly put in skyscrapers there. And even if you could, the other infrastructure (roads, water mains, sewers, trains, parking) absolutely could not support that level of development. You would basically need to bulldoze the entire town and build much wider roads etc... which would then cut into how much land could be devoted to housing.
Edit to add: genuinely baffled by the downvote. I lived in Hoboken for 7 years, and regardless of any personal opinions on the pros and cons, the town indisputably has infrastructure problems at its current density level: frequent water main breaks, flooding, over-crowded trains, buses that are too full to take on passengers, sink-holes, constant traffic jams at the few exits to town, double-parking / obstructed bike lanes, waiting lists for municipal garages (one of which is literally falling apart). The density level is objectively quite high relative to the US [1] and it's quite simply factually incorrect to list Hoboken as an example of insufficiently-dense housing in the US.
I did not downvote, but I think your comment is a good example of the "Yes We Can't" feeling that I mentioned in it being too hard to change things.
Manhattan wasn't exactly easy land to build on either.
Manhattan also has an inherent economy of scale that Hoboken lacks; Hoboken is barely over 1 square mile of land.
Meanwhile the lower-rise neighborhoods of Manhattan have roughly the same population density and building height as Hoboken. So why are you calling out Hoboken? What single-story buildings are you even talking about there, and why are you ignoring the presence of single-story buildings in Manhattan? They're rare but they absolutely do exist -- I just ate lunch in a single-story Manhattan building literally yesterday.
Left wing type policies can be very effective at producing housing in places like China where the government just says we are going to have 10,000 flats here and here and maybe contracts the construction to developers but deals with all the regulatory and permitting issues. Even in capitalist places like Singapore and Hong Kong a lot of the housing was built like that.
You build up. Which is expensive, so developers will want assurances and no "20% affordable units" bs.
There also is always going to be pain. NYC has incredible global draw, so demand runs deep. It might be that you can never build your way under $2k/mo apartments there.
A huge chunk of the plan is converting unused office space into housing in Manhattan, mostly in neighborhoods that were already mostly commercial, so there's relatively little NIMBY pushback.
It's easier than most people give it credit for. A lot of the complaints are from attempts to loosen the building code. There's savings of many millions on the table per refit if they manage to pass those, but they're not as needed as people say. For instance you lay down a raised floor to run utilities, and you can push sewer away from the core for relatively cheap and without shared bath/kitchen.
That being said, a return to allowing boarding house style housing would also not be the worst thing in the world for some buildings, and would probably do a lot to reduce homelessness. Hell, if I were still in my early 20s I'd be into the idea of a room to rent with shared bath/kitchen to save some money even not necessarily requiring the reduced in unit amenities.
> unless you want dorms with communal bathrooms and kitchens.
I personally wouldn't want to live in a space like that (maybe when I was younger), but I'm not convinced this sort of thing is so bad. Some people might like it, if it would cost less than a more traditional home.
Others whose housing situation is marginal, or who are homeless, might find it much preferable to the alternative. That's not an ideal reason for doing it, but perfect is the enemy of the good.
> Others whose housing situation is marginal, or who are homeless, might find it much preferable to the alternative
I lived in an illegally-sublet room with no window when I first moved to New York. I worked on Wall Street, and could afford something better. But I preferred to save money versus having a window I would look out of given my work (on the weekdays) and party (on the weekends) schedule.
Communal bathrooms are fine. Communal kitchens are fine; I know plenty of New Yorkers who might occasionally use their hot plate. (This changed post Covid, for what it's worth.)
This has the same energy as "but if you tax the billionaires they'll just leave!"
I say the same thing to that: good. If you don't want to participate in society (or in this case, your job) out of political beliefs, lets get in talent that will.
>Impossible to get an apartment unless you want to get an illegal sublet at regular old $4500/mo prices.
That's already the situation, and that was with a mayor who was openly bailed out by Trump. About as hand rubbing as you can get.
I think that's why these "radical" solutions stick. When you've hit rock bottom, you don't want the status quo.
This is another example of a little radicalism is a dangerous thing. You don't need to be friends with landlords if you're prepared to simply seize all their property.
I'm not sure if he can do that. I feel like eminent domain needs to be performed by a governor or federal. People need to remember that a Mayor isn't a "president of city that can do whatever he wants".
I'm pretty radical myself and I also just don't think it's necessary. There's more than enough unusued buildings to rebuild upon or renovate than a need to seize property. Even a place as dence as NYC still has a lot of land to utilize.
"The 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units, effectively giving a reprieve to about 2 million stabilized tenants, was at the center of his campaign"
I'm not directly familiar with Berlin. But this story about shortages is the expected outcome:
BERLIN, March 20 (Reuters) - Germany, lagging in its building goals to alleviate a housing shortage, needs to construct 320,000 new apartments each year by 2030, a study on Thursday showed.
> 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units
Out of 3.7mm [1].
> not directly familiar with Berlin
Not comparable. Berlin froze rents “on more than 1.5 million” apartments in 2020 [2] out of about 2mm. 25% versus 75%.
Also, Berlin’s politicians didn’t propose a construction agenda. Mamdani has. (“New York City voters on Tuesday delivered a strong message in support of building more housing, passing three proposals that pitted City Hall against the City Council in an effort to rewrite decades-old development rules” [4].)
Increasing supply brings down prices. But a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes.
A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
> Increasing supply brings down prices. But a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes.
>
> A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
Builders build rent stabilized housing ("affordable apartments") in tandem with market rate unsubsidized units. There is an enormous backlog of development proposals that the city council has been sitting on for a while now. Vacancy rates in NYC are 1.4%. anything under 5% is defined as a critical housing shortage.
New housing is in such extreme demand that people pay $5k/mo for a shoebox.
I think the builder builds if you pay them. I don't think they care about what the rent will be because they just build stuff.
So, just pay them, and figure it out later.
The alternative is what we're currently doing, and have been doing for the past few decades: nothing. This does not work. Our current housing situation is simply not sustainable.
awesome stuff! loved this comment cause it is the kind of thing US political party (one in particular) teaches its faithful followers that is rooted in some crazy ideology without a shred of any evidence to back it up (especially since here we are talking about NEW YORK CITY not some shithole in the South). Goodspeed mate, wild stuff!!
>a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes.
A builder isn't a land owner. They make contracts, negotiate a price, and build to that price. They're dealing with a government, so there's more money in the bank to spend if the government is truly focused on solving an issue.
A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
>A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
Okay, cool. I honestly don't want an atchitect who can't think 5 years on advance (when these rent control proposals are scheduled to end, should they be enacted). That short term quarterly thinking is precisely why we have been unable to build housing.
First - a rent freeze directly transfers inflation costs to the property owners. It is a tax by another name.
Second - there is no similar freeze on property taxes - or the expected inflation in maintenance costs, insurance, and so on. Again - a tax on property owners by another name.
Third - starting with a rent freeze is an indicator of a property owner unfriendly administration. Any builder would have to calculate this into their expected returns on capital investment.
It's not property-owner-unfriendly, it's landlord-unfriendly.
Which is just fine in my book.
Builders do not have to "calculate" any of this into their "expected returns", because new construction will not be subject to rent freezes or even stabilization. You're selectively ignoring a key part of what the GP said in order to further your incorrect argument, and that's not cool.
As for your first and second points... tough shit for the landlords. That's a cost of doing business. Taxes, even implicit ones like this, change all the time. And a landlord owning a rent-stabilized unit should already know that there are limits on what kind of rent increases they can push through, and that those limits could change at any time, even to zero.
> tough shit for the landlords. That's a cost of doing business
If Mamdani does this, not only is he fucked, but he might take down the national progressive movement with himself.
"Tough shit" is a good Twitter reaction. It's terrible policy. Berlin did that, and it backfired in the most predictable way possible.
New York needs more housing. New York City's public finances simply do not permit a massive public housing construction binge, and Albany can't fund a socialist mayor's public works with upstate tax dollars. That means that housing must be privately developed. New York City, just today, transferred power away from City Council and to Gracie Mansion to help facilitate new housing. That means the impediment is local opposition. The literature shows that opposition gets dampened when folks aren't afraid of gentrification; rent freezes do that.
If Mamdani takes the easy route and "tought shits" the landlords, his housing policy grinds to a halt. Market rents, covering 75% of New York apartments, will spike. The experiment will be over. He doesn't strike me as an idiot, which is why I don't suspect he'll do this.
>If Mamdani does this, not only is he fucked, but he might take down the national progressive movement with himself.
Like Obama with ACA? He fully thought he'd be a one term president over trying to push it in. Sometimes the best thing for a city is not what's best for reelection. And I very much don't want a candidate who's only minmaxing around what will get him re-elected.
I think we need to have more faith in the people. As gen Z says, "let him cook". We're thinking too Establishment here in a time where we clearly need a different strategy. Establishment had nearly 2 decades to resolve this and it only got worse instead. Why not try a new plan while observing what went wrong before and adjusting?
Or at least be able to scrutinize when the people who want to ruin his 2028 campaign (should he rerun) are the same that tried these same tactics this year. If these tactics were effective, Mamdami wouldn't have gotten in.
>You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
Fair enough.
>> You are ignorant of both
>You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
Would "the facts don't support your assertions in either case." be more acceptable? Or is noting a lack of knowledge in any way unacceptable?
I'm not trying to be snarky here. I just want to make sure I don't run afoul of the guidelines and make more work for you and the other already over-worked moderators.
It's good that you're committed to observing the guidelines, thanks.
It should be easy enough to reply without ugly personal abuse or swipes like "ignorant".
If someone's comment indicates a lack of important knowledge about the topic, you can just politely point out the missing information, the way you might in a respectful conversation with a friend over dinner or a beer. That's what we're aiming for on HN.
Berlin reverted the rent freeze later because it was deemed unconstitutional. Many people had to pay back the money they "saved". Without entering in the other discussion the Berlin case was not a success.
That article says the main benefit of rent control (besides popularity) is an increase in YIMBY sentiment, but it seems it still has the downsides detractors dislike about it.
It doesn't do much to convince me it isn't a populist campaign promise.
>Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development
He's not actually pitching any new price controls. He's proposing a temporary rent freeze on rent stabilized (rent control is tiny in comparison and unaffected by this) apartments that are already subject to limits on rent increases.
How do I know this? I live in a a rent stabilized apartment. The rent for which, even though increases are "limited" (usually somewhere around 3-5%) has more than doubled since I moved in.
So no. Mamdani isn't suggesting making any changes to the law as it has existed for at least 50 years, rather he's suggesting stopping rent increases while fast-tracking new housing, which would likely stabilize the housing market.
As an aside, which most folks don't understand, is that the vacancy rate in NYC is ~1.5%. Healthy housing markets have vacancy rates of 4-6%. Like many places in the US (and elsewhere), NYC has a housing shortage. But in NYC, that shortage is much more severe than almost anywhere else in the US.
Rent control is always initially popular with the people who are already in apartments. But it is longer term effects on supply and quality that are corrosive.
"Austin rents have fallen for nearly two years. Here’s why.
Austin rents have tumbled for 19 straight months, data from Zillow show. The typical asking rent in the capital city sat at $1,645 as of December, according to Zillow — above where rents stood prior to the pandemic but below where they peaked amid the region’s red-hot growth.
Surrounding suburbs like Round Rock, Pflugerville and Georgetown, which saw rents grow by double-digit percentages amid the region’s pandemic boom, also have seen declining rents. Rents aren’t falling as quickly as they rose during the pandemic run-up in costs, but there are few places in the Austin region where rents didn’t fall sometime in the last year.
The chief reason behind Austin’s falling rents, real estate experts and housing advocates said, is a massive apartment building boom unmatched by any other major city in Texas or in the rest of the country. Apartment builders in the Austin area kicked into overdrive during the pandemic, resulting in tens of thousands of new apartments hitting the market."
I'm all for building more housing, but in places that already have an affordability problem, removing rent control before building more housing would just displace people overnight.
I live in SF and wish we would build as much and as quickly as Austin has been building. But, if we could do that, we shouldn't consider eliminating rent control until after those units are on the market.
It's kind of incredible how the obvious and true solution to rents being too high is to BUILD MORE HOUSES and yet somehow people manage to convince themselves that in fact, the real solution to rents being to high is to artificially cap their prices. Incredible stupidity.
There's two vectors here and people seem to not realize that, isolated from the short term suffering going on right now.
Rental control is short term relief. Obviously, using short term solutions long term is bad. This shouldn't be an enigma.
Building housing is long term. We cannot build new houses in a year. At least, not that I know of. But new houses in 4 years does not help the citizens knocked onto the streets in those times.
You need to relive those people while also securing the future. That's why rent control fails without a proper housing reform.
You can't be mad at a pipe bursting that you used duct tape to cover. But maybe that duct tape buys you time to find a plumber, who needs time to find the right size pipes. So duct tape is still really useful, just not the end all be all.
Extra supply is helping, but I would argue back-to-office and layoffs are the primary culprit.
You're not competing with 4+ techbros to an apartment in downtown Austin anymore.
Anecdotally, the local tech meetups are WAY off in participation since about June. About 1/3 of the people who used to regularly attend have completely left the city.
"“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”"
So you know, take what he says with a grain of salt, as with all economists, who pretend to be rigorous when in fact they are anything but.
But economists don't disagree about the effects of price controls. These are easy to observe and model. These concepts are also taught to Economics undergraduates all over the world - often in their first Microeconomics class. They are not controversial.
I feel like economists (as the Krugman quote above seems to illustrate) don't consider the real world. Price controls aren't necessary when there's abundance. When housing supply meets (or slightly exceeds) demand, landlords don't jack up rents every year and displace tenants. When it doesn't, and can't, what do we do to keep people from losing their homes?
(And don't give me the usual drivel about how people who are renting should be expected to assume they'll be kicked out all the time. Compassion, please. These are humans we're talking about.)
Housing is an inelastic supply which takes long to catch up to demand. Using price controls to combat market excess shouldn't be controversial. But price controls cannot work if underlying policy issues which prevent supply to increase (zoning, permitting, excessive standards) aren't resolved.
> Compassion, please. These are humans we're talking about.
I think that's the core issue with detractors. Rent control is relief, and those who are not in danger only see the forest and miss the trees burned in the process.
If you only think about humans as a spreadsheet, rent control makes no sense. "You gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette" kind of deal. Even some otherwise economically progressive people I know seem to miss this, but I suppose being able to comment on the internet carries a bit of security to begin with.
The gold faith interpretation lies in the idea that rent control is political poison. It's unpopular to undo rent control, so it's never undone. And I get that. But
1. I see that as sign of a weak politician. Yeah, sometimes we need higher taxes. No one "likes" taxes but we need them.
2. In some ways, trying to undo rent control means the problem isn't solved yet. There's less resistance against rent control once you see housing prices start to fall naturally.
Isn't the obvious solution to build more houses (apartments, flats, whatever)? Like, isn't it incredibly obvious that there is actually a simple solution to this problem - build more so that there is an abundance of choice? How people come to the conclusion that in a densely populated and highly desirable area, the solution isn't building more capacity but rather to artificially cap prices?
It's like a database server running out of memory and the proposed solution isn't to increase memory, but rather just reject new entries into the DB because it's full.
And also it does not work like this in cities. Housing is worthless to your city if the house is 1 hour outside the city. NYC can't alleviate housing costs by building more homes in Timbuktu.
Mamdami is mayor of NYC, not Timbuktu. He doesn't exactly have much control of where to enact his policy.
>Housing is worthless to your city if the house is 1 hour outside the city
I live in LA suburb so I'm confused by this. The commute sucks downtown but an hour commute these isn't a dealbreaker.
Its also my perception that NYC's transit system isn't completely crap like LA. That should enable you to build farther out from the core city if needed.
Well LA is not really a city, it's, like, 5 cities pretending to be one.
And what I mean is: the solution to not enough housing is to build denser housing, not just more housing. That's why LA is also broken: they didn't do that. They just built further out. Which didn't alleviate housing costs, because if you work in downtown, you have to buy a house in downtown-ish, and the supply there hasn't been fixed, because we built more housing somewhere else. Which is why LA housing costs are also mega fucked.
But NYC has another problem: it's already pretty dense. Building more housing where it matters won't be easy - which is why we see proposals from mamdani to convert some commerical space to housing.
Well I certainly agree LA is too big for its own good. I would have preferred denser housing as well, even if I myself wouldn't want to live downtown.
I don't know how feasible it is, but hearing that Mamdami is willing to convert abandoned post COVID businesses to dense housing is a good idea in my eyes. That would simply be too radical an idea before COVID forced the US to perform a mass WFH experiment.
>Which didn't alleviate housing costs, because if you work in downtown, you have to buy a house in downtown-ish, and the supply there hasn't been fixed, because we built more housing somewhere else. Which is why LA housing costs are also mega fucked.
I'm talking more in idealism, but to first go absurd: if we could teleport to work it wouldn't matter where we build houses.
That's the theory I go off of when I say "I assume NYC doesn't have crap public transit". I can commute downtown in 40 minutes with no traffic, but using buses and railway would take me 2.5 hours, one way. And missing a stop stalls you for an hour. Not even to mention the hours they run. That is unacceptable in an 8 hour workday.
LA's mistake (outside of NIMBY zoning laws) was thinking that you can outfreeway public transit. And I think we can safely say that has failed.the idea of suburbs can work if we had proper, modern railing that ran every 10-20 minutes and get downtown in 20 more. But I don't think anyone in tune with California needs to be reminded of how that project is going.
I mean your analogy makes it very clear that usually if a server is temporarily running OOM you might use temporary means to mitigate. You might use mitigations while you are waiting for new memory to arrive.
But what do you want to do if upgrading memory just isn't really possible quickly? What is point not to apply mitigations?
All variants of rent control etc. have been tried in Europe and have miserably failed. Quite the opposite, rents have been rising even more, and new construction has been reduced due to new politically induced risks.
Examples: Berlin, Barcelona
But as Barcelona shows, there is a feedback loop benefiting leftist populist politicians:
Higher rents, lower housing supply -> people frustrated -> leftist populists get more votes -> more stupid regulation -> even higher rents, even lower housing supply -> people more frustrated -> ...
Berlin never really had rent control. It's been a few months before the law was abolished for constitutional technicalities. Everybody knew this was a possibility, so you can't make any conclusions about it. Bringing it up is pure propaganda. Nothing failed economically!
We have a federal law which in theory could slow down price progression, but it is rarely applied. It also doesn't govern newly build apartments, so criticism usually falls short there too...
Lax zoning regulations, relatively cheap labor, low cost of materials, and depreciating home values incentivize building new real estate. That is what separates Tokyo from New York City.
I don't think it's any of that. Or at least those sre all second order efdects.
It's a much more conformist, homogenized culture so there's less resistance in implementing policy on general.
Also, housing isn't an "asset" the way it is in the US. You simply don't place as much value on your house over there, so there's less resistance to renovating or outright demolishing houses every few decades. Americans would instead see money going down the drain.
There's also (relatively) strong renter protections, including effectively frozen rent.
Yes, it's possible to increase rent, but only if the surrounding areas prices have increased, and even then the renter has to agree or it otherwise goes to court and the court tends to not side with landlords.
> and depreciating home values incentivize building new real estate
Yes and no. Most housing in Tokyo is apartment complexes and/or condos, which do not depreciate very much (and in fact in the past few years have appreciated by ~30%). Standalone houses depreciate, but the land appreciates. That leads to new construction for those properties, which often then turn into apartment complexes.
Basically, it's a matter of mostly becoming more dense over time, while also restricting price increases of rents.
Have you lived in one of those rent controlled “paradises”? In Europe, yes, there are sizeable populations living in subsidized housing, and often there are restrictions on rent increases, but new tenants pay way higher prices and have to compete for every available unit with dozens of other potential tenants.
New tenants frantically overbidding each other, while old tenants pay pennies compared to today’s market prices, mmm, what a life.
“it can work” in some way of course. People are surprisingly adaptable to living in semi-dysfunctional environments.
But it reality the only thing that truly works is building a lot of housing.
> new tenants pay way higher prices and have to compete for every available unit with dozens of other potential tenants.
Rent control isn't the cause of that, though, it's lack of housing supply to meet demand. If there was no rent control, competition would be just as fierce, and prices still high.
The housing situation in Vienna has benefited significantly from massive population decline. As much as the population has grown in recent years, it is only now approaching the population it had a century ago.
Some genuinely lovely so-called “rust-belt” cities in the US have enjoyed a cheap housing renaissance on the back of historical population decline that is driving population increase now.
Fascinating, yet rents have increased faster than inflation even as rent control has waned in NYC.
The problem with citing studies from 1992 is that you’re missing the last 25 years of war inflation hidden through various schemes of quantitative easing and capitalization. We’ve made capital so easy to get everything is fungible and inflates as everyone from families to foreign rich people looking to exfiltrate cash from their country pumps dollars into real estate.
My parents recently passed and we sold their house in Queens for a ridiculous sum - representing a 8% CAGR. Most of that increase in value has been since 2000, and that’s driven by a surplus of capital looking for a return.
The underlying cause of runaway asset price inflation is ZIRP and QE. Renters experience it as rent increases outpacing wage increases - this is socially destructive. But neither Mamdani (DSA) or Democrats or Republicans are willing to touch Federal Reserve QE.
Senator Schumer (D-NY) famously said in 2012 to Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve Chair): 'Get To Work Mr. Chairman' - encouraging him to start Quantitative Easing 3 (QE3) - a program to digitally print $40billion and eventually $85billion per month of "money" and injecting it into the financial system.
You can also build affordable housing directly. We powered the post war period with a huge supply of starter homes.
Other countries have also directly attacked homelessness by simply building enough public housing such that anyone who wants a roof over their head can have one regardless of their ability to pay for it.
We don't mandate car manufacturers to build affordable cars (although they are free to). People with lower income rely (or should rely) on the used car market. Those cars are naturally affordable.
Car manufacturers build high margin cars for people with the money, people with the money leave a trail of used cars in their wake, people without money for a new car buy those used ones.
That's a totally sensible and functional market. No mandates or compelled charity needed.
We don't have "used apartments". Your metaphor falls apart here. And land is limited and government controlled. So GM can't just roll up and produce new houses out of an assembly line.
Land is limited, meanwhile we've built cars for a century and maybe the last 40 yeses worth of cars are street compliant. The only thing comoarable for cars is showing what abundance can do for a market. Less people care about a 2026 Camaro being affordable if you can buy a used '05 camaro for $3000 (which is probably still and absurd price, but hey. That's less than two months of rent in CA)
You don't have to mandate anything of landlords. Public housing is a thing.
There are very successful examples.
And on the car side, there's plenty of very cheap new options. I can literally lease a new EV for ~$100/month. Who's voluntarily building starter homes anymore? We built fleets of those in the 50s, without the song and dance that they were luxury and required time to turn into starter homes. If anything in a lot of places, the starter homes of the 50s are the relatively expensive housing of today.
At this point we need both. If full time minimum wage can't afford an entry level studio apartments, then we're already in trouble.
For reference, that's $2100 or so of monthly take home pay for NYC's 16.50 minimum wage. Old wisdom would mean that this should make for $700 rental prices. But I'm sure few Gen Z are expecting rent to be 30% of income.
Generally speaking, legal requirements for elevated wages are another form of price fixing. The results of this price fixing are that fewer people will have jobs, the poorest people will be disenfranchised because it is not profitable to pay them a full salary, and the cost of everything in the city may very well be elevated due to more people willing/able to pay for the limited housing and other necessities. If you really want to help poor people, find a way to help them be more productive, and stop damaging the industries that get people the things they need.
"It has been almost one year since California implemented a $20 minimum wage for quick-service restaurant workers, and industry experts have been debating the long-term effects the wage jump would have on the industry’s job market.
As it turns out, thus far, the 33.3% wage increase for fast-food workers in California has resulted in almost 16,000 job losses — a decline of 2.8% — across the limited-service food industry from September 2023 (when AB 1228 was signed into law) until September 2024, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Since the law went into effect in April, California’s limited-service restaurant industry has seen an employment rate decline of 2.5%."
I think that's a horrible analysis, in a time where all job sectors except healthcare is hiring less. A 2.5% decline sounds pretty good when compared to the rest of the job market. Especially in a high turnover market like fast food.
That article doesn't even attempt to analyze why those jobs were lost, and just parrots the "minimum wage is evil" talking points of a conservative think tank. Hard to take it seriously.
Yeah, clearly minimum wage increases is why every other sector is also hiring less and laying off more. I'd love to see that -2.5% statitic compared to the tech industry this year in the US (and industry where you'd scoff at the idea of working for $20/hr.
That’s not a very robust assessment. And even there, the 2.5% reduction is a nothingburger. A busy fast food has like 50 employees working 15-25 hours on average. That works out to a loss of 2-3 people. These stores have been doing that type of efficiency moves since day 1.
My cousins operate fast food stores, none in California. They are doing the same thing. Starbucks let the genie out of the bottle ~15 years ago with the app. Legacy fast food like McDonalds use apps to reduce labor with the incentives of high prices for counter sales and the perception of easier ordering.
Do those case studies include the case for expropriating landlords that don’t keep their buildings to code?
Massive building sprees don’t bring prices down, they bring favelisation.
If the effect of this policies is that housing prices tumble, and there’s potentially more housing stock on the market for people to buy (and no incentive for buying to let since rent freezes makes it unprofitable), this seems like a good effect
That quote seems to ignore reality. If we look at San Francisco, where units built before 1980 are not subject to rent control, we find that building new housing has nothing to do with fears that rent control will be extended.
I agree that rents for uncontrolled apartments are high, but if we eliminated rent control for the rest, that wouldn't really fix anything. The formerly-rent-controlled apartments would cost just as much as the post-1979 housing stock.
The only thing that will fix our housing cost problem is a truly radical amount of new construction. Developers would love to build here, but the cost to build here is ridiculously high for policy reasons that have nothing to do with actually building.
If we could build enough housing to satisfy demand, then we might be ok eliminating rent control. Rent control is a response to housing scarcity, not the cause. You'd think economists would understand basic supply and demand.
About the only thing I do agree with is that rent control reduces the quality of available housing. Landlords are less incentivized to fix problems and maintain their buildings when they can't make market rate from their tenants.
> "a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing"
To address quality first, most economists would agree that landlords are incentivized to invest the bare minimum into their property that they can; this is not so much a function of income from rent. If a tenant feels generous and starts paying more for rent, the landlord will not invest more into their unit. So I find the inverse of that to be an assumption that doesn't completely add up.
Saying rent control will affect quantity is completely beside the point. Rent controls are meant to ease the financial burden on the people currently renting in NYC, not a hypothetical newcomer looking for an apartment. Housing is already a huge pain to find for lower-income new yorkers so the threat of a more scarcity doesn't really change the equation for a lot of people.
I’m not sure your understand that almost none of his price control “wants” are likely to be enacted. City government is pretty moderate and Mamdani isn’t a dictator
1992 is a long time gone and economists aren’t always right. I don’t know how much worse the housing stock could get so maybe it’s time to try something different.
Also quoting Krugman, from today, who no longer writes for the NYT:
"Which party is out of touch, again?
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York, in the face of hysterical opposition from the big money, has grabbed many of the headlines, which I understand — it’s an amazing story. And I wonder what the right-wing tech bros are thinking: If Wall Street couldn’t buy New York, can they really buy America?
I’m seeing some commentators argue that Mamdani will be a problem for Democrats, allowing Republicans to paint them as extremists who are out of touch with America. But Republicans would do that anyway. For what it’s worth, Mamdani may be on the left, but all indications are that he’s a pragmatist who will get along fine with the rest of his party.
Meanwhile, you know which party is out of touch and riddled with extremists? The G.O.P.
If you look at recent Republican campaigns and positioning, it’s striking how much energy they’re putting into issues that just don’t matter much to ordinary Americans. Republicans may be obsessed with trans athletes, but most people aren’t. Polls and yesterday’s elections suggest that rants about the menace of illegal aliens have a lot less traction with the public than G.O.P. apparatchiks imagine — and that Americans don’t like the spectacle of masked ICE agents grabbing people off the street.
And if we’re talking about extremists within the party, well, Democrats have people like Mamdani, a mild-mannered guy who says he’s a socialist but really isn’t. The Republican Party, by contrast, has been largely taken over by outright fascists, and is facing a major outbreak of old-fashioned antisemitism."
Sadly many conservative leaning types simply think "nothing is wrong, this is capitalism. Just get a better job and make more money". While also railing against worker protections and wage increases that would be ensure better jobs.
In other words: they don't care, as long as it doesn't hurt them. The core mentality of NIMBYism.
Something is observably wrong. The ratio of rent to income has drastically changed against workers - this is destructive to society.
But the cause is deeper than rent price controls, minimum wage and worker protections.
After the 2008 financial crisis, western central banks digitally printed trillions of dollars (Quantitative Easing) to refloat our financial system. The collapse of 2008 was itself the result of perverse incentives leading to banks stuffed with bad mortgages due to speculative housing manias after the collapse of the Dotcom bubble and 9/11.
The response of flooding the financial system with trillions of printed money after 2008 for years was a political choice - supported by Democrats, Republicans and President Obama.
Wealth inequality is the result. It cannot be fixed at a local level through local policies. It cannot be fixed by Congress through policy or tax tweaks. It is a problem with the financial plumbing itself.
I don't disagree with anything you said here. But sadly we all have to play with the cards we dealt. Mamdami can't force the Central Bank to QT anymore than Trump wants to QE us into hyperinflation. And I'm not sure if either would fix what's already broken.
The scales and old ways of life are broken. I don't think anyone is interested in throwing it out and starting new, so we need to rebalance with the scale we have. That means readjusting tax brackets, worker wages and hours, and likely bringing down asset prices. Throwing more money into the system clearly broke stuff, so let's at least redistribute what we have if we can't easily take out the money
Bringing down asset prices is what is necessary for younger workers to have a chance. As it is - young people will be perpetual wage slaves and never build capital (e.g. home equity, retirement funds) like previous generations. The fear, anger and despondency evident in people who are delaying family formation, delaying medical treatment, hiding their true self while others boast of yachts, and gulfstreams and Aman resorts on instagram, and question whether someone's identity is worthy - all of it is profoundly sad.
But lowering asset prices is a nearly politically impossible lift.
Left-wing populists will promise to deliver. But will ultimately fail. Populism ultimately is a rejection of elites. Elites who are currently failing the public. But you musn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
My objection is that left-wing populism with its rejection of economic elites, rejection of capitalism and the big-tent embrace of "all" is isomorphic to right wing populism with its rejection of science (antivax), embrace of nationalism and focus on homogeneity. Economists have good ideas. Capitalism is what built the water system that nourishes NYC. A movement embracing "all" will find itself eventually fractured by vote-bank politics as tribal affiliations will dominate in the end.
I am personally focused on thinking about how rewire the financial plumbing over succumbing to either left or right wing populist movements.
Anyway - Mamdani is a forceful, and commanding speaker. His victory speech last night was truly an American original. I think he's trying to point the vector towards a better life for more people and that is a good thing.
As if Cuomo was some economic genius. Look at all his campaign material - they were abject brain dead character smears and racism. If he was truly just trying to win by any means to supposedly save New Yorkers from economic disaster, he was a Machiavellian of the highest degree.
He used Orthodox Jewish communities with top down leaders as a core machine style voting bloc. The whole community turns out and did what the head guy says, just like the old Tammany Hall. I’m sure plenty of people “moved” from their upstate town back to Brooklyn. Usually the old style conservative Catholics vote for him too. (Oddly enough as his divorce and “living in sin” was scandalous)
The issue is that the machine stuff only works when nobody is amped up. And his broader audience is both dying off and angry at the Trump nonsense. The population is shifting, and south asian, Middle Eastern and other, less traditionally powerful blocs are voting now and Zohran activated them. That’s why the dog whistles were so important - he needed to get more republicans and Archie bunker types to turn out.
It’s kind of sad, Cuomo with the right people restraining him is a force. But his enemy is himself.
> The population is shifting, and south asian, Middle Eastern and other, less traditionally powerful blocs are voting now and Zohran activated them
I voted for Zohran, but it’s worth noting that the demographic story isn’t all that clear: current counts show him losing to Cuomo in the Eastern Queens neighborhoods where those groups are significantly represented. Mamdani’s core voting base is “classic” NYC liberal: West side Manhattan, Northern Brooklyn, and Western Queens. That’s a relatively pasty set of areas, at least by NYC standards :-)
(The story with the Orthodox is also more nuanced: many of the sects like him, at least among the candidates. They like him because he’s made the right political noises around educational freedom re: yeshivas, and they absolutely despise Cuomo for his handling of COVID.)
The literal alternative, which is actually happening right now and not some textbook hypothetical is supply not keeping up anyway and landlords charging however much they want pretty much unbridled, not to mention major companies snapping up real estate and leveraging it as investment collateral rather than treating them and managing them as, you know, housing.
We need a change. We don't need to do rent freezes in a vacuum. Coupled with the right policy supports they can definitely work, and Mamdani's proposed freezes are limited in scope. He is freezing rents only for select controlled units, last I checked.
Before you go spreading the bs propaganda, consider what your fellow citizens actually need to survive and whether or not you want to be viewed as being on the side of a few billionaires or on the side of the vast population that is increasingly becoming impoverished.
1. New york city has rent control on 1 million units already
2. New york city has laws making it so you can only increase rent by a small fraction of the investment for renovation taking a large amount of units off the market as its economically infeasible
3. Nyc has a very strict zoning and regulation system that is reducing housing supply
When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it.
What's next, "these people are technically not in poverty, they're income challenged"
>When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it.
It's not "defining a new term."
In New York City, "Rent Control" is the official name of a specific program/set of laws and "Rent Stabilization" is the official name of a different specific program/set of laws.[0]
And since we're talking about New York City housing laws/policies and that Mamdani is proposing a rent freeze for units in one of those two programs, being specific about it isn't semantics at all.
The all-encompassing term that you thought you were using a gotcha on is "rent regulation."
Please! Put some knowledge on, your ignorance is showing. Sheesh!
They are both price controls on rent.
The eligibility criteria are different, and the terms by which rent may increase are different, but they seem pretty close to the same thing to me.
Two of these things are orthogonal to freezes on rent controlled units, so I don't understand your point here.
I agree that 3. Is a problem. I'm not convinced mamadani is against reconsidering zoning and regulation to increase supply. Nothing I've heard suggest he would be.
Over 50% of rented units in New York are regulated somehow. 34% “rent stabilised pre-74”, 8% “rent stabilized post-73”, 1% rent controlled, 7% public housing, 2% other
The underlying cause of impoverishment where inflation of housing, healthcare, and education is outpacing income is an expansionist monetary policy. ZIRP (Zero interest policy) along with QE (quantitative easing) pushed ever increasing amounts of printed money into the system. No one is touching the root cause. Not Mamdani, not Democrats and not Republicans.
"Jon Stewart Busts Fed Chair Ben Bernanke On 'Printing Money'
December 8, 201010:39 AM ET
By
Frank James
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is so busted.
Comedy Central host Jon Stewart added his voice to others who caught the central banker contradicting himself over whether or not the Fed is "printing money" through its actions to bolster the economy.
On 60 Minutes this week, when asked by reporter Scott Pelley about the Fed's $600 billion purchase of Treasury bonds that is meant to lower interest rates further, the Fed chair said:
BERNANKE: Well, this fear of inflation, I think is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way. One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. ...
Twenty-one months earlier on the same program and to the same reporter, Bernanke said something quite different:
Asked if it's tax money the Fed is spending, Bernanke said, "It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing."
"You've been printing money?" Pelley asked.
"Well, effectively," Bernanke said. "And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low. When the economy begins to recover, that will be the time that we need to unwind those programs, raise interest rates, reduce the money supply, and make sure that we have a recovery that does not involve inflation." "
Making it about "sides" is exactly why politics is as toxic as it is today.
Is it inconceivable that one could look at the candidates and, without being a billionaire, decide that Mamdani is not a candidate they want to bet their chips on?
Politics is all about sides. To think it isn't is delusional.
It's uncomfortable to take sides, but that's what politics is. It's finding out what you believe is important (e.g. helping average people make ends meet, even if it require regulation, or eliminating regulation), you will end up taking sides whether you like it or not.
I think it's incredibly naive not to consider who our choices benefit. If your choices benefit people who already have massive amounts of wealth, you should acknowledge that and be aware of that and accept the consequences of that, and vice versa. Obviously in many cases it is complicated--your choices may benefit several different classes of people and undermine others. If anything the problem with politics is that many people make choices without considering what "sides" will benefit, letting ads, propaganda, and persuasion convince them instead. This leads people to actively vote against their own interests without even realizing it.
Doesn't this also apply in reverse? How many supporters of Mamdani acknowledge the groups that this choice will potentially harm? I am instead seeing people usually get defensive and downplay the potential harm on the more controversial issues. I also haven't seen anyone acknowledge that if the risk goes awry, it could end up causing even more harm to exactly those the policies were supposed to help.
If the goal is to vote for one's self interest, isn't it assuming a lot that this will always be aligned with one side? Sometimes self-interest means supporting one side on one issue, and a different side on a different issue. The act of taking a side is in of itself a form of compromise. I see nothing wrong with that, but that's not what people usually mean when they talk of sides.
Actually demand has being going down and rents have been trending down as a result. The main reason is less immigration and international students. I recall years ago every open house I would go to ended up selling above market value for cash from someone from overseas who "invests" their money on the back of locals trying to buy a house to live in for their family. The billionaires were not the ones to blame for this.
I don't doubt that immigration has probably marginally impacted the market, that doesn't change the fact that rent in NYC is still increasing YoY and is way too expensive.
And yes, the people extracting exorbitant rent cost are in fact the ones to blame. I don't understand people who seem to occupy a fairytale land in which they feel the need to defend billionaires as though they owe some fealty to them.
Zohran is exactly the kind of change candidate that the San Francisco machine with Grow SF would actively seek to squash.
But Zohran's not alone, today's election was a massive swing back in almost every single race. School boards, city councils, state houses and senates, all swung radically left.
It should be ringing alarm bells that the SF / YC / startup community that used to champion utilitarian, meritocratic QoL improvements as a mission, is now so deeply forked from the base that sprung today's results. Politicians like Zohran won't be bought off by Palantir money. So, what's Peter Thiel and Gary to do? Where is Marc Benioff going to park his money? Reid Hoffman, Dustin Moskovitz, Michael Moritz, Reed Hastings, Eric Schmidt, Laurene Jobs, Ben Horowitz - all of these people aren't doing the normal pay for play donations, they are interested in shaping the party in their image. Well, Zohran doesn't look like you.
> Zohran is exactly the kind of change candidate that the San Francisco machine with Grow SF would actively seek to squash.
GrowSF is a conservative group with a right-wing policy platform trying to pretend it's progressive, so I'm not sure why that would be surprising.
The SF tech millionaires/billionaires are not progressive. They may have claimed to be in the past, but that was either opportunism, or they lost it as they made more money and saw people like Trump and Musk gain power.
The 2010's was the moment of SV emerging as a political donor cornerstone combined with Obama's peak, when up until that point, tech had been relatively hands off (80s through to 2010's). It was then that QE and low interest rates become part of VC strategy, and so SV got comfy with its image as supporting mainstream liberal candidates and policies. They all threw money behind the Dem machine (Obama, Hillary, Biden) until they realized they weren't actually getting any decision making power for their purchases, so the ones who felt some amount of urgency switched to Trump by showing up to speak at rallies or inaugurations.
Grow SF really only exists to go after city council members or school board members who get into twitter fights with a certain someone.
From a non-american perspective it seems to me that in the US the problem of homelessness often gets mistaken for a problem with the homeless, maybe changing that narrative is a starting point?
With drugs in the mix things get complicated. Many cities tried giving these people free homes/rooms but because drug laws were strictly enforced there the homeless chose to stay on the streets. You’re not going to get rid of the fentanyl and meth addicted homeless unless you do it by force.
well Prop 50 to redraw California's district lines passed by a nearly 30% margin and counting right now. That's an absolute spanking leading up to 26 midterms.
The story tonight isn't about Trump at all though, it's about millennial DSA types beating the establishment Democratic institution - in NYC, Detroit, Mississippi. In 24 everyone was astonished at the lack of response - "what is DNC going to do about losing to Trump, twice?". This is the beginning of what will be the eventual answer.
Also it doesn't need to be said, but the mobilization of 1M+ votes for Zohran's campaign today renders the fringes meaningless. He's now automatically in the conversation for the Presidential primary for 2028.
Pretty much a clean sweep for the dems today including a trashing on prop 50. In general I think only something on the fringes can draw away people attracted to the fringes.
You don't need to get them back, you just need to motivate the more normal voters and demoralize the weird ones.
There seem to be people who voted for Trump as an anti establishment candidate. Now, they're obviously completely unmoored from reality, but perhaps they'd like another anti establishment candidate?
A lot of Trump voters hold completely incoherent views. They're only in it for the populism bit, doesn't matter if it's left-wing or right-wing. This is why democrats lost the last election, and how they could win the next.
The Democrats lost the last election because they put too much effort into catering to the right and completely lost their own base. The only thing Kamala Harris had to do was take a stance against genocide - which should be a no-brainer, instead she only doubled down and started talking about guns and bringing neocons into the fold. Now she's getting dragged on Twitter for her effusive eulogizing of Dick Cheney. Does anyone think that if Zohran or Kamala died tomorrow, that anyone on the right, even up to the White House, would return the same courtesy?
And out of the current crop of Democratic candidates as far as I can tell all but AOC take AIPAC money, and the left has soured on her, so we might as well cede 2028 right now.
You're seriously claiming that Trump, or his administration, would act with class and offer condolences if an opponent were killed or died? He couldn't even be bothered to say anything about the Hortmans being murdered by a MAGA lunatic [0].
He and his shitty son both publicly mocked Paul Pelosi multiple times after another MAGA nutjob attacked him with a hammer. [1][2]
Nobody wants to hear this because it departs from the 'billionaire bad' trope. But Thiel has been remarkably consistent in his criticism of housing being the center of all of the Millenial economic woes.
Sure, Thiel is identifying some of the same problems, but the solutions he's proposing are basically the opposite of the ones Mamdani is. Unsurprisingly, he's proposing solutions that benefit billionaires rather than everyone else (e.g. just les us build whatever wherever we want, of course we'll build cheap housing that brings property houses down! Who could ever imagine we'll build luxury mansions that keep property prices high?).
How many times must it be explained that building luxury mansions still brings property prices down. Nobody ever voluntarily builds crappy low income housing. That’s never how development works. You let people build the new fancy buildings they want to build with all the margins and high prices. Then, when a bunch of rich people move in, that’s people that are no longer chasing all the other apartments. Eventually, way down the road, these swanky apartments will be tomorrow’s old and crappy ones in the neighborhood that’s not hip anymore, and low income people can rent them. This is how things actually work, and it’s fine.
What is NOT fine is when you have banks and private equity bullshit chasing homes purely as an asset to flip. That’s the thing we need to curtail, because it’s just money laundering at the expense of the American homeowner.
> Then, when a bunch of rich people move in, that’s people that are no longer chasing all the other apartments.
Maybe? Seems to me that there's a certain level of wealth where this no longer is true. Housing has (unfortunately in my eyes) become one of those black boxes that you put money in and money comes out; it's an investment. But what you're telling me goes contrary to what I know about the housing market: no, actually, houses depreciate in value because they'll have to ask poor people to buy / rent the place at some point. Can I go buy a mansion built in 1930 for a bargain price?
(I do agree about the private equity part, just the first bit doesn't pass a sniff test from me)
Oh, understood, the housing will "trickle down", right?
How many times do we need to learn that trickle down economics doesn't work? Making the rich richer and happier will never "trickle down" to the poor, it will stop at the rich.
With land, this is particularly obvious. There is a finite amount of land. The more of it is occupied with luxury mansions, the less land will be available for high-density housing. Building 1 new luxury mansion removes land from the pool that could house dozens if not hundreds of people. And rich people don't move in from cheaper housing to more expensive, they just keep both, or they buy the new mansion as a vacation home.
Property is an investment, and there are huge vested interests in keeping property values going up - and not just from rich people, but virtually everyone who owns their own home. You have to fight a lot of these interests to force prices to go down. "Just build more" doesn't work, the space in and around a city is limited.
Building a luxury mansion on top of unused and uninhabited marginal land - sure, that can bring prices down. But building a luxury mansion for one family by replacing dilapidated, and therefore cheap, high-density housing which used to house a dozen families brings prices up. And in practice, that is what is happening in cities. Old low-rise multi-family buildings in nice neighborhoods are being modernized and then converted into single-family mansions.
More housing, regardless of type, is directly correlated to cheaper average rents [0]. So Thiel is right in that regard, the red tape for construction and opposition from NIMBYs must be curtailed.
NIMBYs typically oppose especially lower cost housing, so it's not surprising that cutting red tape does help reduce housing prices, or at least slows down the rise.
The question is if it is enough - and I would be quite certain it's just a band aid. Unless you impose the construction of cheap housing, cheap housing will tend to not get built - almost every interest is opposed to it.
Good thing Mamdani is doing both, cutting red tape and constructing new housing, at least that's his plan, we shall see what others in his governance think about it.
I'm noticing that this election result has made a lot of people I know really hopeful. It's apparent that many people are fed up with the status quo so they're pushing towards more experimental candidates.
If anyone here is well-read on his policies and they have specific opinions I'd love to hear what you think.
Do you think Zohran will be successful with his agenda or will he get blocked by pushback from other political forces? I read some commentary that a few of his policy ideas are unfeasible without support from Albany, and I'm not sure how to evaluate that relationship.
Many online figures have become heavily invested on this mayoral election despite living hundreds or thousands of miles away, and I think that speaks to a real hunger for greater political experimentation.
As an aside, how do you evaluate the lessons that you learn or derive from what others are doing? Generalization sure is a tricky thing.
I don’t think I like several of his ideas or think he will get most of them passed. In fact I think a few like “freezing the rent” are actively bad
But I’m happy to finally have a politician who lives in and loves New York and is earnestly trying to my the city better. If he tries and fails, it will be better than our other politicians that have stopped trying
Particularly in comparison to Cuomo who by all accounts doesn’t even seem to like the city he campaigned to run. A tiny bit of joy goes a very long way.
Strong agree. I think his policies are absurd but hope that more invested young people who aren’t career politicians can start trying a platform that isn’t party line and resonates with residents.
I think it’s likely around 75% of his agenda will be blocked. NYC is a big ship to turn. However it will still be better than what Cuomo would have done
> I'm noticing that this election result has made a lot of people I know really hopeful.
Since the 2008, the day after every election of a new president, the coalition that elected them had this sense of hope for a brighter tomorrow. One which disappeared within months.
Except maybe 2016, but the bubble I was in was so preoccupied by shock that maybe I missed it (also, I was deeply engrossed in the work I was doing that fall)
The biggest takeaway to me is how ridiculous it is that the US considers Mamdani somehow "experimental" or even radical.
His campaign revolves around three policies:
1. Universal Child Care
2. Fast and Free Busses
3. Freezing Rent for certain Rent Controlled Units
In any other context these would be policies that basically every citizen, except for a handful of people making buttloads of money off the privatization of childcare, housing, and transportation would support, yet somehow in the USA this is "radical". Somehow a candidate finally proposing positive policies that directly benefit citizens is a radical socialist who needs to be stopped and we all need to vote for the disgraced former governor who resigned after killing seniors during covid and groping his employees. Even here on HN where people are generally well educated you have people arguing. that Mamdani will somehow be the ruin of new york.
Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
"Free buses" is not really a thing even in the most left leaning European countries. Most experts recommend very cheap subsidized public transportation but not free.
> Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
Because that's what the opposition, wrapped in the flag, tells voters to do.
And the voters go along with it not because they are dim, but because they understand that these things would not only benefit them, but benefit other groups of Americans that they despise.
As they say... (often misattributed to John Steinbeck, but at best its really a rough paraphrase of something he wrote) "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
The truly wealthy have long convinced the average "middle class" American that they exist in roughly the same social class (even though this has always been an insane lie) but this illusion is quickly falling away due to current economic circumstances causing untenable concentration of wealth.
Ultimately its the absolute naked greed of the truly wealthy that is causing this realignment (that is likely to end badly for them as well) to happen. They are so dead set against making even the smallest move toward fair taxation that they are creating a situation in which the shrinking middle class have no choice but to see that they are quickly becoming an endangered species whose relative fortunes are moving rapidly down rather than slowly up.
Rent control in particular is an economic basket case policy, the fact that it's popular at election time should have about as much bearing on it making sense as the fact that another "experimental" candidate was considered by voters in 2024 to be "better on immigration"
As for offering free stuff, the problem that - if you look at relative population numbers - NY, CA, etc are already facing is that on the margin people he hopes will pay for it will just move away.
You can’t find another city that even approaches NYC without moving to another country. And moving to London or Paris to escape taxes doesn’t make a lot of sense.
In case of the cities you don't even need to move that far. I know multiple people in Seattle who just moved to nearby towns 105-15 minutes by car, 20-45 by transit) to avoid Seattle specific issues, and some people who move just outside of king county to avoid even more nonsense. Mostly techies, but not exclusively.
It's not like American cities haven't been hollowed out before, NYC included.
It's funny that you mention moving outside the city when Zohran's tax plan is centered on bringing the corporate tax rate in-line with our neighboring state.
I'll also caveat that any parallels you might see in Seattle don't really apply to NYC. Besides the low car ownership rates, wealthy individuals choose to in NYC for it's convenience and culture, which really are unique in the US.
As further evidence to OP’s point: people paint Mamdani as an extremist for discussing rent control but it’s already the law in NYC. It’s not even remotely new. And there were 0% increases (effectively freezes) in 2014-2016 and again during COVID in 2020.
It’s been a truly exhausting election cycle for New Yorkers who have been lectured from all sides by people who don’t even understand how the city works.
Sure, the rich will all leave Effing New York City after Mamdani raises taxes by 2% (matching New Jersey's). Don't be ridiculous. This rhetoric of "they'll just leave" is incredibly damaging, this is how we get to the current situation. It's time everyone paid their fair share.
Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy. It shouldn't even exist. If we want an economy that actually provides goods that people need we should focus on productive components like building more houses and actual shelter rather than using limited housing to extract profit, often without even improving the housing itself.
> are already facing is that on the margin people he hopes will pay for it will just move away.
This myth is promulgated constantly with no evidence to back it up. The tax increases he has proposed are a drop in the pond to the bracket he aims to tax. If those people care so little for the city, so be it, they can leave. I don't need to share communal space with people who want to live as atoms and don't actually care about the place they live beyond how it affects their bottom line. If they actually love NYC for the city it is, they will stay. The increases are not going to be untenable for those people, it all comes down to their priorities, and if they don't want to prioritize NYC, then yes, they should gtfo because they are characterless, tasteless people who only care about themselves and their money.
Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy is a ridiculous statement. People need shelter and like nice shelter. People pay for access to amenities and convenience. _incentivizing building housing in areas where people want to live or where people work is efficient_
You equate "housing" and "rent". In a world where consumers had unlimited access to capital, the free market rate for housing would converge on the interest rate + shared costs (think condo fees, property taxes, etc) -/+ appreciation/depreciation of the housing, because consumers would always have the option of taking a loan to buy the property, then re-selling when they want to move, paying off the loan and receiving back whatever they paid on the principal.
Comparing to the real world, the cost of rent is greater than that, because people are paying a premium for their inaccess to capital. Looking at where I live, the hypothetical value is approximately the condo fees (5.5% interest, 1% property tax, 6-and-change% appreciation), which for a 2b2b apartment around around $600 bucks a month. Rent for an equivalent apartment literally next door is $2700 a month. That suggests that more than 75% of the value of rent is paying for inaccess to capital, i.e., textbook rentseeking.
Nothing you've said has anything to do with rent. It'd be equally possible to build and incentivize building housing and then to enable people to own homes or at least own units within multi family homes.
Rent is a predatory practice established over and above the supply of a basic need (housing) that does nothing more than extract profits for no productive contribution. If anything I'm incentivized to limit housing supply as a landlord in the limit because growing housing supply means competition for me as a landlord.
Right, and it’s a good thing that the people producing housing, legislating housing production, and in control of housing supply aren’t the same.
Why is owning a home important? I do not think that home ownership is what most people want. We have attempted to make this desirable at through state intervention by pitching housing as an investment instead of a durable good.
saying one of the many reasons rent is good “is not about rent” doesn’t mean there’s no clash in the argument.
All moving to an entirely ownership model would do is reduce elasticity of the housing market, which would be disastrous.
> I do not think that home ownership is what most people want.
I think this is a ridiculous statement. I don't know your background, but I grew up in extreme poverty (by Canadian standards). In the welfare complexes I lived in growing up, living in a home you owned seemed like an unattainable dream. The ability to choose between owning a home and renting a home is representative of a degree of economic freedom that is becoming unattainable for many, many people.
There is absolutely merit to the idea that choosing to rent is a good choice for many people, but in most cases the people who would make that choice are inclined to do so because they either desire or require mobility in terms of relocation, and frequently the reason people desire that is the opportunity to pursue better economic opportunities (jobs, investments, etc).
I get what you're saying, I also grew up below the poverty line for all of my childhood. My point was pretty unclear. I don't think that people want to "own a home" in that it's not home ownership that they're after but an asset.
The amount of people I grew up with who viewed having a house as a way to become wealthy was large. Which is silly. (Real housing prices : median income) cannot continue to climb in a society that has decreasing population without some sort of external intervention. Poor people spending the entirety of their money on a house will be the ones left holding the bag, which is part of why it irks me so much.
These are good points—I think you're right to flag rent in itself isn't the issue per se, and this points to the fact that the main crux of housing affordability is a mismatch between supply/demand and prices.
I think the issue with rent is that it just complicates the situation regardless and leads to bad power differentials, and again, I don't know how you prevent slumlords but permit renting.
The way I see it rent takes an inherently unproductive fact of life (occupancy) and makes it a profit mechanism. Now if we had something like old school English land improvement laws or something, you could have a system in which rent and home ownership are forced to be productive, but barring that, I don't see a way of doing it and thus rent mostly just seems to complicate the market and mostly drive up costs and potentially prevent the majority of people from owning.
I agree that elasticity reduction would be bad, but let's build more homes and reduce costs enough to make buying and selling homes not literally the biggest financial undertaking in life and this will be less of an issue. I just find it incredibly difficult to conceive of a scenario in which renting contributes benefits beyond those you could realize simply by solving actual demand and cost issues. If you get lucky and have a good landlord who actually takes care of home management for you, sure, but this is not the reality. I'd maybe accept a renting economy with strong regulations around what landlords must provide, reasonable caps on increases, maybe even required improvements every N years, but barring that, renting mostly just enables parasites to sit on property, scoop up more property, and prevent swaths of people from owning in neighborhoods.
> If we want an economy that actually provides goods that people need we should focus on productive components like building more houses and actual shelter
What if we built some on spec and then charged people who live in them a monthly fee to recoup the cost. That way we could build more houses immediately without having to get all the money together all at once. We could then use the extra money to build even more houses.
So if I build a building full of studios targeted at young people who would have no interest in owning one permanently, or poorer ppl who don't have money or stability to buy, how am I to be compensated/incentivised? I guess it's not being built then!
That has been tried in the US before. Public option sucks unless like in Singapore (or USSR where it sucked only moderately) you force almost everyone into a public option. Otherwise people most capable of moving out, move out; the public option gets worse; rinse, repeat.
> Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
Nobody willingly does this. If you think they are, that should be a strong sign to you that those people and you disagree about what their best interests are, and you should seriously consider the possibility that they are right and you are wrong. You might not be wrong, but jumping to "they are voting against their own interests because they are dumb" as many do is both unhelpful and untrue.
Why look at North Korea when NYC has had rent control forever? It makes landlords neglect maintenance. That’s about it. I don’t know that I totally agree with it, but it’s fine.
Or, you know, current day European social democracies.
You can’t help but laugh at the amount of hysteria about Mamdani. No cost childcare? Free buses? Using existing rent control regulations to keep rent affordable? Oh no
I'm not sure there are many countries that actually have free childcare and free buses. Talk about it, yes. Subsidized to a degree, yes. But pretty much every municipal transport is already heavily subsidized.
There are fundamental differences between Europe and the US. The US is not magically going to become Europe by electing a "left" mayor.
Also this is a city- since when does a mayor set economic policies.
Last I checked free busses, and no cost childcare, still need someone to pay for them.
Rent control, if the rent is low, there won't be any rental property. What's the next step, forcing people to build? The city will build?
I guess we shall see. The sad thing is that people didn't vote because they considered all the ideas and the implications. The other sad thing is that maybe Mamdani was the best candidate.
Childcare, buses and rent control are all under the control of the NYC mayor.
> Last I checked free busses, and no cost childcare, still need someone to pay for them.
Most places have “free” roads and public schools and survive just fine. The point in invoking Europe is to say that having a higher tax burden and getting more public services in return is not some crazy North Korean dystopia. It’s pretty common. If it’s not for you that’s absolutely fine, just don’t move to NYC.
Europe isn't just simply about taxes and services. There are many more layers to the difference between where the US sits and Europe. Hopefully this is obvious.
I believe Europe has plenty of toll roads as well ;)
I find it weird that these priorities are set at a level of a city. I mean NYC is a big city but it is part of a state and a country. There are much better economies of scale and ability to exert control at the levels of government these policies usually exist at.
NYC has a bigger population than the entire country of Ireland. It definitely has the economy of scale to operate public transport and education.
> There are many more layers to the difference between where the US sits and Europe. Hopefully this is obvious.
It is exceedingly obvious. The reason for my comparison wasn’t because I think they are the same place, I was responding to a commenter who said North Korea and Kabul were appropriate comparison points for Mamdani’s plans. My point is simply that immediately invoking North Korea is hysteria.
> NYC has a bigger population than the entire country of Ireland
New York City's economy [1], were it a country, would sit at No. 18 in the world between the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia [2].
The only EU members with economies larger than its are the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France and Germany.
(New York City's budget [3] is bigger than the military budgets of every country on the planet except for America, China and Russia's [4]. On par with the budgets of Ukraine and the Philippines [5].)
Appreciate the data points though but I think a city is ... a city. We don't usually talk about "economy of a city" because it's not that meaningful. If NYC wished to become a country I guess they can go for it.
Nice to see someone young, charismatic, and highly energized breathing life into the decrepit democratic party. Hopefully he can accomplish a ton and repudiate the DNC.
The reality, which kinda sucks and is boring, is that generally people with money understand how money works, and why things like rent control, government grocery stores, and free [expensive service], are financially brutal policies.
This is stuff economists know. Why would rich people know that? How many rich people pay rent or rely on social security? Making profits is not a skill transferrable to the broader economy.
Also, what worked in the past, in different places or different demographics does not mean it will work again today.
There are a massive number of low income people who are completely "lost in the sauce" of finance and economics.
I'm not talking about billionaires vs. everyone else here, I'm talking about the top 30% and how it's chock full of people who "get" the structure, understand the mechanics, and do good for themselves.
Could it be any other way? Are there people that understand how money works and won't apply it for their own case?!
We each do our best for us and our own - it's natural. Capitalism is ensuring the society advances and benefits disproportionally more.
Take Bezos for example: his wealth is about 255B but the company he founded has a market cap of 2.67 trillion - that 2.41T difference is wealth created for other people. Not to talk about the products and services improving the society and our lives every day...
Brutal to who? Wage theft is also brutal, but it's pretty obvious why the folk who "understand how money works" condone it. It's a tad credulous to think the billionaires donated against Mamdani out of a sense of noblesse oblige
> Society is a chain linked web, not a loose cluster.
I wish the people building bunkers, buying New Zealand citizenship, support razing social safety nets for tax cuts, and fetishize civilizational collapse (while simultaneously chipping at its foundations aggressively) realized this.
What about tax cuts for the rich, quantitative easing? Who are they brutal to? Everyone? Where in that chain linked web does it hurt the most when you distribute money to the wealthiest 10%?
Tax cuts for those with lots of money, without cuts to government spending, and therefore giving rise to increased deficits, which sooner or later will wind up as inflation... that's distribution.
Appeal to authority and sweeping generalisation in a cynical dismissal package.
You’re not talking to bilionaires on this site, only a portion of bilionaires know about making money, which has no relation whatsoever to having a good grasp about political philosophy, large-scale economic principles and statesmanship.
It's just they have been in charge for so long, and gotten their ideology implemented for decades, the damage they caused is now so large and felt by so many people deep inside the neocolonial core that we finally see the first cracks in this system.
If these people were aware of the current moment instead of just confused and trapped in their own ideological bubble, they would probably all be wearing MAGA hats, since the authoritarian right is the only way they can realistically hold on to their rotten system in the long run. Curious why that's not a lesson they learned from history, too uncomfortable to think about that part I suppose.
But some are selfish assholes; and if you find yourself agreeing with the selfish asshole rich people when it comes to economics, it might be worth double-checking their claims that a policy is supposedly better for everyone. Much hooplah is made of rising tides lifting all boats, but flooding the valley tends to just drown everyone not in a boat.
Why is that? I think many of us who are educated in history understand the risks of collectivism. It has never worked out anywhere. I see it as basically a marketing cover for oligarchy. The Western world should aspire to better than China. I'm not even a conservative, just read a lot. Humanity has had some pretty hellish experiences with communism and yet we keep "going there."
I dont know what western Europe you live in, but ours is a decadent one where not a single country is meaningfully growing, not a single one has recovered from 2008 in any meaningful way, everything gets more expensive, industry is destroyed and boomer NIMBY keep voting for policies that advantage them because of their demographic dividend vis-a-vis the younger generations.
In France pensioners earn more on average than a 25 yo, there is a crony capitalism based on hyper-regulation where the incumbents keep their place by bribing polticians into adopting policies that benefit large corporations.
Rent and house prices boom, all the while average natality is going lower and lower, and there is an increasing brain drain towards America.
Western Europe is bankrupt: larger and larger deficits financing a lifestyle we can't afford any longer.
Politicians catering to voters used to getting benefits for free and refusing to adjust to common sense policies like increasing retirement age with life expectancy.
Years when essential defense investments were skipped in favor of populist handouts put us at risk from hungry, militaristic psychopaths.
Western Europe had the horrifying example of Eastern Europe who was cold and hungry until we switched to capitalism. Sadly, it looks like it learned nothing from us.
Western Europe would have been collapsing right now if daddy cold capitalist didn't show up with gas and guns to drive away the Russian bear.
Western Europe has been on vacation for 30 years. There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
This is what working in a toxic working culture does to a person. "Because I only have one week of PTO a year and have to be constantly add afraid of being fired, everyone should be!"
Europe has a borderline shrinking economy, and completely missed out on the tech wave of the last 25 years.
So you have all of Europe using American software, running on American or Chinese hardware, all imported rather than home built.
This "foreign dependent" theme repeats again and again as you go through why Europeans need to get off their asses and drop their perceptions towards industry.
And this doesn't even mention the population age crisis.
>There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
The call is inside the house. Puritan ethics will not stop China from overtaking the US.
>Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
You have a dedicated HN work account with 15337 karma.
"there". Where exactly? Norway's law about this was removed years ago, and for many years before that was a "sleeping" rule basically no one got convicted of.
UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy all have laws curtailing speech with egregious application.
- A 64-year-old pensioner man faced charges for antisemitic posts and for calling a politician a "professional idiot."
- Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reported multiple citizens to police for criticisms made on social media. In one case, a journalist published a satirical meme digitally altering a photograph of Faeser holding a sign reading "I hate freedom of speech" — and was prosecuted and given a seven-month suspended sentence.
- In 2017, 19-year-old Chelsea Russell quoted a line from Snap Dogg's song "I'm Trippin'" on Instagram: "Kill a snitch nigga, rob a rich nigga." She was charged with sending a "grossly offensive message." Despite being Black and posting in tribute to a deceased 13-year-old friend, she was convicted, fined £585, and subjected to a curfew and ankle monitoring.
- Lucy Connolly was convicted and sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for posting during anti-immigration riots that she hoped someone burned down a hotel containing asylum seekers. She later deleted the post.
- France has applied existing discrimination laws to criminalize BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists, treating anti-Israel speech as incitement to religious discrimination. The Court of Cassation ruled BDS boycott calls violated French law.
- Senator Miguel Castells wrote an article claiming the government was failing to investigate murders. He was convicted of insulting the government and sentenced to a year in prison. The European Court of Human Rights ruled his right to free speech had been violated, after which Spain's Constitutional Court developed case law providing greater protection to free speech.
- The satirical magazine El Jueves published a comic strip featuring images of the current King and Queen of Spain, which the public prosecutor's office held to be defamatory. A judge agreed to seizure of the publication.
All western countries btw, Norway falls in the North European country
The "where exactly" is the "western europe" from the comment I replied to. Sure, you can't be convicted of blasphemy everywhere there, but the fact that you can be charged with a crime that most sane people assumed hadn't been a thing since the Spanish Inquisition anywhere in Europe is pretty shocking.
Exciting times in New York City, I wish them the best, it probably will become a uphill battle now to do anything without media on every single thing out the wazooo
It seems like there are a lot of people who are desperate for reality to conform to their cynicism, out of fear that they (and their world view) are part of the problem.
For whatever reason, for some it's more gratifying to see others fail to prosper if it confirms their beliefs than it is to watch others succeed and have their beliefs challenged (even if it's to their own detriment).
In many cases, I imagine those who would see themselves as "good" use their world view as a way of absolving themselves of guilt for their actions. If I believe that there was never enough for most to lead dignified lives and that society rewards only self-interest, I don't have to regret taking more than necessary, and I can justify my apathy to the suffering of others. "It is the way of things," I can think to myself, "anything else would be foolish and naive." In this way I can find satisfaction even in inequality, comforted by its inevitability--and my own cleverness in understanding it.
This is exactly it, beautifully put. It's very easy and tempting to hide behind an ideology that makes broad-stroke descriptions about the entire world. "It's just how the world works", "it's simply basic economics" (really, nearly all claims about "basic" anything with no further nuance). But for people who are entrenched in their opinions, I don't think there's a lot of absolution or guilt going on. To the most dedicated believers, the belief had become a part of their identity, so vindicating it is almost integral to their being. Of course they'd want anyone who disagrees to suffer - they don't just view that as an inevitability, but also the morally correct thing, the appropriate punishment to the people for not accepting their obvious truth.
When a parent tells their child not to touch the hot stove, they want the best for the child. When the child does it anyway, the parent hopes that the lesson will be instructive for the future.
I found out his mom directed the movies "Monsoon Wedding" and "Mississipi Masala" with Denzel Washington.
Allegedly she was tapped to direct "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", but her then 14 year old son talked her out of it to do "The Namesake" instead
Voters across the political spectrum feel ignored.
For decades mainstream parties (both centre-left and centre-right) have repeatedly promised change but after getting into power somehow (re-)converged on technocratic, market-friendly "consensus politics".
If you're worried about stagnant wages, job insecurity, crumbling public infrastructure and/or the cost of housing, then you probably don't notice - or care - whether the stock markets are going up.
I’m not a New Yorker or even an American, but it’s interesting just how much coverage this election has gotten in social media.
I think most of his major policies are pretty bad, but I also think the reaction against him has been over the top.
He is going to need cooperation from the state legislature, if he wants to collect the taxes needed to fund his policies, and I’m not sure how successful he will be at that.
A lot of people are rooting both for and against him, so it’s going to be interesting either way.
> He is going to need cooperation from the state legislature, if he wants to collect the taxes needed to fund his policies, and I’m not sure how successful he will be at that.
Why? How much of NYC's budget comes from Albany?
My impression was that NYC had its own budget, paid for by its own taxes.
(de facto realpolitik-wise NYC will continue existing, but my point is to widen your Overton window to realize even NYC's own taxing authority is still under NYS' jurisdiction)
> My impression was that NYC had its own budget, paid for by its own taxes.
If those who claimed they would leave NYC for Florida (etc.) make good on their promises NYC will see a significant drop in tax revenues while the expenditures will skyrocket due to Mamdani's free-stuff policies. They can try to increase taxes which will lead to more net tax payers leaving the city. Of course it remains to be seen whether all those who said they would leave - up to a million people according to the legacy media - end up doing so but if this comes to pass those free buses might not end up happening after all. He'll probably blame it on the exodus and wash his hands clean off his campaign promises.
I love how much Mamdani pisses people off just because he wants to buck the status quo. I don’t think he’ll get everything implemented he wants but I respect the mission.
>I love how much Mamdani pisses people off just because he wants to buck the status quo. I don’t think he’ll get everything implemented he wants but I respect the mission.
Sounds a lot like the justification many people used to vote for another guy.
What to make of that similarity is yet to be seen.
And this isn't r/politics even if the site has started to resemble it more and more. There are many labels which can be stuck on Mamdani, none of them pleasant but since this is not r/politics let's just keep them under wraps just like you should have left yours in the drawer.
Has nothing to do with Trump. It has to do with socialism/communism. That's not how the world actually works. As for London, I have friends who live in the UK and their perspective is that things are anything but okay. Quit virtue signaling about Muslim mayors and look at reality. Mamdani has promised things that aren't economically feasible. He is an anti-Semite. How that benefits anyone escapes me.
Fortunately for NYC voters, the other candidates (and national Republicans generally) seemed happy to traffic in casual Islamophobia. Why we don't treat the two as equally unacceptable is beyond me.
As a muslim, I hope he doesn't eff this up, Obama style. But the fact that he won, although not the blowout as some were expecting, restored a bit of my hope in the common man. Cuomo's attacks may have swayed some of the vote but ultimately failed.
I hope Mamdani succeeds for the sake of New York (California resident here) and hopefully this win inspires other young people around the country to participate in politics.
I predict that NYC will now quickly turn into an absolute shithole of epic proportions to the point that people will have to flee the city. Similar to London.
I wish our country was like this. A city "president" can speak against the President. A city President has the power to work without the will of the President.
Who would have thought that New Yorkers didn’t appreciate out-of-state billionaires playing “Zohran did 9/11” attack ads over and over on TV for months on end. He was the only candidate with a clear plan for the city, and voters rewarded him for it.
A salient factor in this election is Trump. I've been saying for years that overreach on the right creates space, then oxygen, then agency for the (far) left. This election is the natural and logical consequence of maga overreach (and vanilla skanky stupidity) and reminds economic popularism is not wholly owned by the right.
My fear is the US will cycle dumb right to stupid left, which helps absolutely nobody.
It's too early to eval mandarin... that will come ... but this under current has now got first and second derivative postive.
> My fear is the US will cycle dumb right to stupid left, which helps absolutely nobody.
I agree, but having a "stupid left" is a whole lot better than a "dumb right" who is authoritarian and willing to side step everything in their hopes of creating a christo-fascist utopia.
I'm optimistic that he will actually be a positive force in reforming how the city operates. I think he is pragmatic in that he understands that efficiency in government administration is something that progressives have insufficiently prioritized. His policies are more populist than I'd prefer, but I think not the crazy socialist fever dream that Rs portray it as. The scariest thing for me is the prospect of active sabotage from the federal level, although I don't know how much they have held back.
> think not the crazy socialist fever dream that Rs portray
That's because he's a democratic socialist, not a communist like they want people to think. If people really looked into the policies of the DSA they would support it. There is a reason Einstein, Keller, and more were adamant supporters.
The gov't may try to fuck with NYC using ICE or whatever, but honestly I think the fears about federal funding are overblown.
NYC generates like 2+ trillion GDP all on its own. It is the largest metropolitan economy in the world let alone the United States. I don't know how much NYC actually depends on federal money, but if there's any city that has a chance to figure out how to make it through a government funding squeeze, it's NYC.
Honestly I think the only recourse the fed has to put pressure on NYC is the actual gestapo shit they've already been pulling in Chicago.
read the comments. The HN community is ecstatic. It's good to see there are a few who understand basic economics but politically, the folks here at hn are not much different than over at reddit lol
It's funny how in the US, even mayors get tagged as "conservative" or "democratic socialist." I always figured their job was just to keep the city services running.
This is mostly the financial sector generating revenue and shipping/receiving. There's not really a lot of actual production going on since that's what really backs the funny money you referred to as "generating GDP."
Reviewing various western democracies it looks like most mayoral candidates run affiliated with a political party. The exception is Canada where mayoral candidates run an independent campaign.
> The exception is Canada where mayoral candidates run an independent campaign.
That's not universal. The City of Vancouver for example has a party system, though the parties are largely not affiliated with provincial or federal parties. There are exceptions there as well though - the Vancouver Greens are affiliated with both the provincial and federal Green parties.
Maybe it's the exception rather than the norm, but in Canada, municipal, provincial, and federal parties are generally separate. Montreal, for example, is currently led by Projet Montréal, which has no formal ties to any provincial party. Likewise, the current provincial party, the CAQ, has no formal affiliation with any federal party.
Canada here (Ontario really, probably varies by province) - our mayors and city councilors are politicians but they're explicitly forbidden from running as part of a party. Which I honestly think works so well it should be extended to all levels of politics.
Famously, the US founding fathers warned against the dangers of political parties, only to see them spring up in the US anyways. You really need to design your political system carefully so that there is no incentive to form political parties. I don't know if anyone has ever successfully done this. People should be thinking about it more though.
Specifically, I think a political party happens when two politicians make a bargain that they will each vote for some of the other politician's policies. They don't have to call it "the X party" for it to be a de facto political party.
There are some offices which are designated as nonpartisan here in the US too, I think they are typically offices which don't have a lot of scope for this sort of bargaining. If they did have scope for such bargaining, I wouldn't want to rely on the honor system in the long term. I would want to codify it into law somehow. But how? The best way is probably to reduce the incentive for striking bargains somehow? Again, how? Or maybe bargains are just a distraction, and the real problem lies elsewhere? As I said, people should be thinking more.
The warning about factions wasn't to avoid them. It was that with humans factions are inevitable. The argument was to design a government were the power of factions are minimized or pitted against each other.
In Canada's largest city the mayor is firmly and strongly associated with the NDP. "Chow served as the New Democratic Party member of Parliament for Trinity—Spadina from 2006 to 2014."
And yet that was not the central in her run for mayor at all (I live in that city). She campaigned on policy, not on party branding, like every other candidate did.
Some cities have non-partisan mayoral elections. For example, Miami does this under Home Rule charter.
Still, it's often clear who's who. For example, Emilio González prominently displayed a POTUS lapel pin during a debate and bragged about being able to interface with Trump and DeSantis.
There are lots of small towns in the U.S. where mayors and board members' campaigns are not partisan. That is, they don't run as members of a political party. Just candidates who campaign to "keep the city services running." There are no political parties listed on the ballot for these candidates.
LaGuardia was a democratic socialist but had to run as a Republican because of Tammany Hall's undemocratic stranglehold on the Democratic party then. NYC has a history of a lot of really shitty, corrupt mayors and political machinery. Let's hope ZM charts a new course.
You don't make yourself a name by properly managing garbage trucks and street sweeping. It's not just the US either, Australian local councils went headlong into culture wars long ago.
Counterpoint, I read this interesting article recently contrasting two progressive mayors in the USA, Brandon Johnson (~6% approval rating) and Michelle Wu (66% approval rating)
Is it really? Local approval rating is in no correlation with national name recognition. You don't get your name in the national news by just fixing potholes. I guess you have to do it in order to not get voted out, and some ideological mayors fail to do it.
Mamdani offers nothing that will improve affordability. It's the same economic fallacies that have been proven to destroy Affordability over the long run, e.g. rent control.
The actual solution is to repeal the morass of regulatory restrictions on housing that have been put in place since 1960.
Per 1,000 residents, only 2.68 houses were built in San Francisco between 2010 and 2020, compared to 12.66 houses between 1950 and 1960.
For New York, only 2.38 houses were built per 1,000 residents between 2010 and 2020, compared to 8.88 houses between 1950 and 1960.
Regulatory restrictions imposed on housing in San Francisco and New York since 1960:
San Francisco:
- 1960: City Planning Code (Zoning Ordinance) - Established zoning districts with specific regulations on use, density, building types, minimum lot sizes (e.g., 2,500 sq ft for most, 4,000 for R-1-D), and one-for-one parking requirements per dwelling unit, restricting housing types by enforcing low-density controls and increasing development costs through compliance and parking mandates.
- 1970: California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) - State law requiring environmental impact assessments for projects, significantly lengthening permitting times (often adding years due to reviews and litigation) and increasing costs for housing development through extensive studies and potential mitigations.
- 1978: Comprehensive Rezoning and Adoption of RH (Residential House) and RM (Residential Multi-family) Districts - Reduced zoned capacity for housing on the city's West Side, making thousands of multi-family properties non-conforming, restricting allowable densities and types of housing, which limits supply expansion.
- 1979: San Francisco Residential Rent Stabilization Ordinance (Rent Ordinance) - Imposed rent controls on multi-family units built before June 1979, limiting annual rent increases (typically 2% or less), which can increase overall housing costs by reducing incentives for new construction and maintenance, indirectly restricting supply.
- 1979: Condominium Conversion Ordinance - Limited annual conversions of rental units to condominiums (initially 1,000, later 200 for 2-6 unit buildings), preserving rentals under rent control but restricting ownership housing options and potentially increasing costs by limiting market flexibility.
- 1981: Residential Hotel Demolition and Conversion Ordinance - Prohibited demolition or conversion of residential hotel units without one-for-one replacement or in-lieu fees to an affordable housing fund, increasing costs and permitting times for redevelopment projects involving such properties.
- 1985: Office Housing Production Program - Required large office developments (25,000+ sq ft) to provide affordable housing, donate land, or pay fees based on new employees, linking commercial to residential mitigation, which raises costs and can lengthen approvals for mixed projects.
- 1986: Proposition M (Office Development Limit) - Capped annual office space approvals and introduced a competitive "Beauty Contest" process prioritizing affordable housing and neighborhood preservation, lengthening permitting times and increasing costs through required community benefits.
- 1992: Inclusionary Housing Policy - Mandated 10% affordable units in planned unit developments or projects needing conditional use permits outside redevelopment areas, increasing development costs by requiring set-asides.
- 2002: Inclusionary Affordable Housing Ordinance (Planning Code §§ 415, 419) - Required 15% on-site or 20% off-site affordable units (or in-lieu fees) for projects of 10+ units, directly raising building costs and potentially restricting project feasibility.
- 2010: Revisions to Inclusionary Housing Policy - Adjusted post-Palmer decision to favor fees over units, increasing costs for developers not building affordable housing on-site, which can deter middle-income projects.
- 2012: Housing Trust Fund (Proposition C) - Captured revenue for affordable housing but reduced inclusionary obligations by ~20% for some projects while capping others, potentially increasing costs for non-qualifying developments.
- 2013: Condominium Conversion Ordinance Amendment - Allowed ~2,200 TIC units to convert with fees up to $20,000 per unit to an affordable fund, but imposed a 10-year moratorium on further conversions, restricting housing type changes and adding costs.
- 2016: Amendment to Inclusionary Affordable Housing Program - Voter-approved increase from 12% to 25% on-site affordable units, deemed economically infeasible by studies, raising development costs and potentially reducing overall housing production.
- 2016: Amendment to Planning Code for Legalization Program - Required Conditional Use Authorization to remove unauthorized units, adding discretionary reviews that lengthen permitting times and increase costs.
- 2017: Executive Directive 17-02 - Mandated additional coordination and deadlines for approvals, which, while aiming to streamline, can extend permitting times for complex projects due to heightened administrative requirements.
New York City:
- 1961: New York City Zoning Resolution - Overhauled zoning to emphasize low-density districts (60% of residential lots in lowest categories, 12% single-family only), imposed parking and open space requirements, and created manufacturing zones prohibiting residences, restricting housing types, increasing costs via parking mandates, and limiting adaptive reuse.
- 1969: Rent Regulation Laws (State and City Rent Stabilization) - Instituted controls on rents and evictions, making it costly and time-consuming to demolish or redevelop regulated buildings (tenants can demand high buyouts), reducing supply and increasing development costs.
- 1974: Amendments to Rent Regulation Laws - Extended protections to post-1974 buildings under certain conditions, further complicating demolitions and renovations, raising costs by making land assemblage infeasible and limiting new housing supply.
- 1975: State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), Implemented Locally as City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR) in 1976 - Required environmental reviews for discretionary projects, adding extensive analyses, potential litigation, and delays (often years), significantly lengthening permitting times and increasing costs.
- 1977: Ground Floor Use Regulations for High-Density Neighborhoods - Mandated 50% of ground floors on major streets for specific retail/restaurant uses in post-1977 buildings, restricting flexible mixed-use designs and increasing costs for housing in such areas.
- 1980s: Residential Conversion Rules for Obsolete Nonresidential Buildings - Limited conversions to pre-1961 (later extended to 1961-1977) buildings in specific areas, restricting adaptive reuse for housing and adding costs through narrow applicability.
- 1981: Retention of Stricter NYC Building Code (Non-Adoption of State Uniform Code) - Maintained unique, more stringent code requirements, increasing construction costs due to specialized materials and complex enforcement, while potentially delaying permits.
- 1987: Quality Housing Zoning Text Amendments - Imposed contextual requirements in medium/high-density zones (R6-R10), limiting density and design options, making cost-effective projects harder and restricting housing types.
- 1989: Lower Density Contextual Zoning Amendments - Reduced density by nearly 50% in R3-R5 zones, enforcing height, setback, and type limits, decreasing multi-family production and increasing costs in medium-density areas.
- 1989: Attempt to Raise Taxes on Vacant Land - Proposed higher taxes to spur development, but increased holding costs, potentially deterring or raising expenses for housing projects on such land.
- 1991: State Requirement for Residentially-Zoned Vacant Land Tax Classification - Kept lower tax rates for vacant land outside Manhattan, reducing incentives to build and indirectly increasing housing costs through delayed development.
- 1996: Local Law 37 (Third-Party Transfer Law) - Authorized city transfers of tax-delinquent properties, adding complexity to land acquisition for housing, lengthening times and costs especially with condemnation.
- 1999: Sprinkler Requirement Law - Mandated sprinklers in buildings with 4+ units or renovations costing 50%+ of value, directly increasing construction and renovation costs.
- 2002-2013: Bloomberg Administration Neighborhood Rezonings (Including Downzonings and Contextual Rezonings) - Decreased development capacity in some areas and limited potential via contextual rules, restricting types and slowing construction in high-demand neighborhoods.
- 2005: Greenpoint/Williamsburg Rezoning - Retained high retail parking requirements in parts, necessitating large garages in apartment buildings, raising costs and deterring housing.
- 2007: Increase in Minimum Size for 421-a Tax Incentive - Raised threshold from 3 to 4 units for eligibility, making smaller multifamily projects less viable and increasing relative costs.
- 2016: Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) Update - Modernized provisions but failed to boost density significantly, maintaining restrictions on housing types in low-density zones and adding regulatory complexity that can extend permitting.
- 2018: Special Permit for New Hotels in Light Manufacturing Districts - Required permits with union conditions for hotels, deterring construction and limiting reuse of surplus hotels for housing, increasing conversion costs.
- 2019: Amendments to Rent Stabilization Laws - Applied stabilization to some market-rate units under 421-a if rents fall below thresholds, reducing developer incentives for new rentals and increasing costs in middle-income areas.
Left wing candidate wins in extremely Left wing city, against "Cuomo"[0], to become mayor and people are celebrating this like it's some historical achievement.
Everyday I grow more blackpilled about the balance of powers in the US if this is what the left-wing has going for it.
[0] His name alone should be a synonym for how bad of a candidate he was, there's no single label good enough (like sex offender) to cover how bad he was.
I hope this turns out well for New York, but I am doubtful. Rent control is such a colossally bad idea, a rent freeze is going to be a disaster. This is going to further increase the lottery nature of New York City real estate, and reduce investment. His plans are set to drive finance and businesses out of the city in his goal to give away money to everyone, which will bankrupt the city. Socialism has a bad track record for a reason, there has never been an issue of people trying to escape market economies for socialist ones. The city already has a crime problem, defunding police and making the job unbearable wont help that. Grocery stores already run on razor thin margins, even with the logistics expertise and brutal capitalism of the likes of walmart or aldis, how does the famoisly expensive and incompetent nyc government plan on running a grocery store for cheaper (itll be at a massive loss). This isnt even getting into hos antisemitism “the boot of the nypd on your neck was laced by the idf” should have disqualified him, that kind of antisemetic talk was only on /pol/ like 2 years ago.
>This isnt even getting into hos antisemitism “the boot of the nypd on your neck was laced by the idf” should have disqualified him, that kind of antisemitic talk was only on /pol/ like 2 years ago.
Is that antisemitic? It's a fact that American cops are routinely trained by a foreign military with a track record of disregarding human rights. It's a fact that the NYPD has a recent history of police brutality. What's next? Mentioning that the US trained deathsquads in LATAM is Gringophobic?
Also I'm not that sure 4chan is worried about police brutality even if it's a excuse to say antisemitic slurs.
Zohran isn't proposing putting any new units under rent control (really rent stabilization), only temporarily halting raises to rents for existing stabilized units. This will make it harder for the city to attract new buildings to join rent stabilization in the future, but will benefit existing habitants. It won't have any effect on the ability to profitably develop market rate units at all.
Property developer here. I have zero faith that NYC would not put rent control on new units in the future. I will invest nothing in NYC and will tell every other developer I know to avoid it like the plague.
If NYC actually makes it easy to build there's practically infinity investment available. Sure dude, nobody will build >1M condos because you told them not to.
Mamdani has said basically none of the things you claim here. These are all clearly mischaracterizations of what he's actually said aimed and convincing someone like you to think he's a bad choice. In particular Mamdani has been extremely clear that he has no plans to defund the police in any fashion. In fact, he wants to enable NYPD to get back to solving crimes rather than incidents better handled by mental health professionals (e.g. people tweaking, by themselves, all alone, on the subway platform)
How about watch some actual interviews in which Mamdani states what he wants to do rather than only get your information from third parties who clearly want to emphasize particular angles?
It's unfortunate because all you have to do is talk to landlords to figure out what's happening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KbGulTc4TY). Lots of people own buildings, but they're legally prevented from renting them out without taking a loss. The result is you can't bring units back onto the market after they empty, and it becomes harder to find housing.
Austin reduced rent prices by ~20% by building more housing even as the overall city population grew. Other small cities have seen rents decrease through active immigration policing. We know how to fix housing pricing there's just no motivation too, people want expensive, exclusive neighborhoods
Excuse me, in that video the second gentleman inherited a building bought in the late 50's. Meaning he has no mortgage, his costs are tax, unit related maintenance and the legally required renovation costs.
The apartment has stayed "untouched since the tenant passed away". It's clearly is still full of stuff of the deceased! I would understand if there's a big renovation needed (e.g., Asbestos removal, a hard to fix leak, replacing the entire plumbing/electric, etc.) but certainly one would've at least cleared the place oneself if the money is tight.
The non-controlled apartment he shows doesn't seem that different beyond aesthetics, sure the modern lighting and new paint job looks nice but the windows are just single-pane like the mothballed unit. I find it telling that he doesn't mention any specific issue, or that he frames not breaking even on the first month as shocking. I've seen plenty of NYC apartment tours in the internet of random 20 somethings. A lot of them didn't look like they were renovated in this millennium.
Isn't by definition, a landlord a property investor? Is it some tragedy if he has to invest and wait for a return? The building has been in his family for close to 70 years, did they do maintenance and renovations proactively? If he's so strapped for cash and doesn't have the cashflow or credit to repair the building, why doesn't he sell? Even if the price is lower because the rent control, the asset appreciation since the Eisenhower administration must be absurd.
Yes, the actual solution is building like crazy, but is kinda insulting to blame rent control while showing landlords crying woe is me and sealing apartments with the tenant fresh in the morgue, transparently making a bet that rent control will be repealed because they are letting their units to rot.
Socialism works in places with more or less homogenous populations. I always hear Norway/Sweden have universial everything. Yes they do cause taxes are sky high and the culture there is more or less the same.
NYC is not Norway.
People in Norway let babies sleep outside the supermarket when they go shopping. When you have that level of trust in a society, socialism has a fighting chance for sure.
I think the establishment messed up big time here and Mamdami snatched it up.
I think you are cherry picking a few examples that you’ve heard about and inferring so so much into how they work based on generalizations at a country level. Not a very solid base.
Trust only comes from building it. I think you're confusing cause and effect here. Norway has a higher trust society not because of who they are but because of how they treat one another.
let me guess, you are significantly less concerned about the much more blatant rhetoric used to disqualify zohran on his percieved religious association, arent you?
I don't know why people reflexively vote down comments like this one since it is completely reasonable in every way. Just, I guess, leftists who can't accept viewpoints they don't agree with? Like really--read some history books, maybe read up on how bad communism was in Eastern Europe and what led to its total collapse? Let's not go down that road again! There's plenty of examples out there already. I don't even get the hatred for Israel thing particularly, either--WWII was really, really bad for Jews. They deserve a homeland of their own and all these people complaining and calling everyone Nazis need to take a long look in the mirror--the major component of Nazism was ANTISEMITISM! It is morally reprehensible and it's been a struggle since 1948 because that hatred endures.
Maybe it's because you're throwing around terms like "communism" incorrectly while simultaneously telling people they need to read history books.
It's the same term Trump has been using to fear monger around Zoran's candidacy, and doesn't seem to relate to any of his actual policies.
If you can enlighten us about the relationship between 1950s soviet bloc communism in eastern europe and a fairly run-of-the-mill 2020s Bernie-styled democratic socalist platform, I'm all ears.
"But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it's BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel), right, or whether it's the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.
"And what I want to say is that it is critical that the way that we organize, the way that we set up our you know, set up our work and our priorities, that we do not leave any one issue for the other, that we do not meet a moment and only look at what people are ready for, but that we are doing both of these things in tandem, because it is critical for us to both meet people where they're at and to also organize and organize for what is correct and for what is right and to ensure over time we can bring people to that issue."
so yes, it's not 1950s soviet bloc communism. it's more like he has as a target 1917
If you're genuinely open to this conversation - the Soviet Union funded many of the world's labor movements, giving it varying amounts of influence on them. Influence which it sometimes used to spread talking points of its own choice and to its benefit. Democratic Socialists of America was born from a branch of one of these movements. This is more visible looking at DSA's foreign policy platform, where today they use virtually identical talking points to those the Soviet Union distributed to their partners back in the 60s and 70s.
I don't know if a purely organic and independent socialist movement could have existed, but in this world, the movements with the means and resources to get their voices heard are going to be the ones who inherited resources and networks from their predecessors.
Oh this isn't communism. Here are the facts, the Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. They originally participated in the democratic process before they took power. Regardless of the fact that they are going through the steps now, the end goal of the DSA is the abolishment of private property. Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, whatever you want to call it, is a uniquely evil ideology that kills millions as they hate anyone with more money. It has not worked a single time it has been attempted. Every single time it has been tried in any form, Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin/Stalin, etc. millions die.
"Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, whatever you want to call it". Those are 3 very different things. And so you just bucket democratic socialists into "basket of scary things I don't like", and call it a day... I really don't think this is how political discourse should function.
I left nyc a couple months ago after living there for three years. The city has so many issues and something only someone like Mamdani (with good support) could fix.
It’s been said that it’s impossible for a New York City mayor to be uncorrupt. By the nature of getting the position, you must be a corrupt individual. That’s why you see so many past mayors and potentials having such a shameful history.
Mamdani feels like a break from that tradition. I wish the Bay Area could replicate something similar. We suffer from similar issues as NYC but we are constantly getting conservative leaning officials who refuse to get law enforcement to do their job. Breed was a center politician (right leaning in any other western country), and now we have a center right mayor. I’ve not really noticed much improvement in the bay - even with the current mayor’s constant posting on TikTok. I just see him blocking housing development and congratulating developers on building more empty office space in a city that desperately needs more housing.
Not a surprise if you’ve lived here for a while. The Bay Area is incredibly conservative for all its performative wokeism.
The Bay Area is far wealthier and much more economically relevant than NYC. NYC has a very large low income population. NYC doesn't have nearly as strong of an economy, financial services and trading firms are increasingly leaving. Whereas the Bay Area, particularly the peninsula, is home to the companies shaping the future like OpenAI and Nvidia along with a huge number of quality startups.
>The Bay Area is far wealthier and much more economically relevant than NYC.
Not so much. The NY Metro Area has the highest GDP of any metro area in the US[0]. The San Francisco Bay Metro area ranks fourth, behind NYC, Los Angeles and Chicago.
But don't feel too bad about it. It could have happened to any Metro area.
It's not the overall metro area GDP itself but rather per capita, the people in the Bay Area are simply much wealthier and higher income. This is also true in the Puget Sound region, but not to the same extent. This difference in population is why they don't have an interest in a Zohran of sorts. State run grocery stores and public transit are really not a concern to most people as their lifestyle is much different.
The Bay Area companies have been driving the economy forward for several decades now, it's been economically dominant since the mid 1990s. Consider more 'recent' companies like Google, Facebook, and older companies like PayPal and eBay. We already had the dotcom bubble pop, but that was more akin to a bump in the road.
Polling has had prop 50 passing for a long time now. Betting markets had it passing at 96% before today. Now it's already up to 99% after the blue wave being evident in other states
I have some thoughts on this. Mamdani is a very charismatic person, and is in touch with a large segment of modern Democrat voters. It's the sort of stuff that can carry him to the White House as VP. He won more then 50% of the vote with a large turnout. As far as mandates go it's a pretty good one.
Now for the other stuff. He is a pretty extreme socialist. He wants to raise taxes on rich guys, businesses. Make buses free, rent controls, defunding the police, city run stores and more. These are great vote winners and terrible ideas. All of that has been tried and failed many times. As a political belief system socialism is a disaster. Thatcher pointed out that no other political experiment has been run as long and has so completely failed as socialism. I think his ideas represents all of the worst excesses of the Democrat party.
Then there's the man personally. My impression of him is he's basically a spoiled rich kid who's never had to work a day in his life. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to be ambitious, but it does put into question his credentials as a genuine socialist. It's easy to hold popular opinions when they won't affect your lifestyle in any way.
Finally there's the ugly stuff. He has used the term "globalise the intifada". For any of his apologists who will claim that phrase has any peaceful connotations, imagine a populist saying "globalise National Socialism". Would you be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt? NYC is perhaps the most important city in the world. I'm worried for it.
>My impression of him is he's basically a spoiled rich kid who's never worked a day in his life. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to be ambitious, but it does put into question his credentials as a genuine socialist. It's easy to hold popular opinions when they won't affect your lifestyle in any way.
Being a basically a edgy candidate from a Green EU party doesn't require a vow of poverty, nor an actual take-the-means-of-production Socialist for that matter. He's the son of a college professor and a filmmaker with award winning movies and docs with shitty box offices. Clearly extremely comfortable, but straight humble compared to "my daddy made me campaign manager" Cuomo.
I'm sure his proposals aren't optimal for his parents home equity.
> He has used the term "globalise the intifada"
He never said it. It just the ol' reliable "Mr Candidate, do you condemn the phrase 'I love kicking puppies'? No, saying that’s not the language that you use is not valid for some reason." I recommend to expand your news diet.
It’s not entirely about this election but it feels like this uptick in right wing extremism might burn out far sooner than the regular 10-20 year political cycle we usually see.
While I don't 100% agree with his policies, I cannot be more excited for someone completely opposite of the corrupt establishment Republicans and Democrats.
I was sold when he was willing to back down on some of his own views publicly, admitting publicly that he was wrong on some things. That kind of admission and honesty is so refreshing.
Complete opposite of Trump, MAGA, and constant lies. Kudos NYC! Time for a new era.
Also, he deserves credit for not backing down. A major push calling you a pro-9/11 jihadist? Release an ad speaking Arabic two days before the election.
I'm happy he won. It's symbolic of voter dissatisfaction. Someone's got to take billionaires on and it might as well be a 34 year old mayor of NYC. Why not?
It's honestly staggering how much older Trump is than this guy. 45 years!
Agreed. Really hoping that a conservative candidate with a pulse can run in a city with a campaign that targets younger voters. I think that a socially aware fiscally conservative YIMBY would have a real chance in a lot of cities.
The fact that Zohran won should be a wake up call to both parties, but I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just glad that it seems like people actually care, even if I think it will end up poorly. An overall win.
I lived in a world without billionaires - Eastern Europe pre-1990.
It wasn't a world without powerful people though: party nomenklatura and their friends ruled us with an iron fist. Not billionaires in numbers but in lifestyle, power and ruthlessness.
Together with actual billionaires, we also lost all the products and services their work created in process of making them billionaires, so we were all cold and hungry.
I learned then to cherish societies where one could become billionaires: it meant there was enough economic freedom so that the tiny insignificant me could carve a honest, dignified living for me and my own without begging politician mercy for handouts.
Republicans have completely given up on cities and without being able to even field a worthy candidate it’s the sign of a dying party longer term. You simply have to have some influence in cities. But they had none after a 20 year run where they remade NYC after decades of failure. Bloomberg went independent but he got in as a Republican after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).
But what happened? Why can’t they field a competitive candidate in cities like NYC or SF or LA or Chicago after failed admin after failed admin? Why have they given up?
You need to control cities to have any future. They need to recommit to fighting for them.
>after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).
Successful? Try again.
Rudy Guiliani was the most hated man in NYC on September 10, 2001.
I'm not really sure why that changed, he was a horror. Anti-democratic (small 'd') anti-freedom of expression and spent most of his time being a boot stomping on the faces of hard working New Yorkers.
The Republican party in NY has gone off the deep end into identity and grievance politics, whereas the Northeast typically elects pragmatic R's when they do (Bloomberg, Charlie Baker, Mitt Romney)
It seems like the strategy is to control state legislatures through extensive gerrymandering, then use state sovereignty to control the cities from without. Blue cities in otherwise red states are not able to experiment with local policies anymore, much to everyone’s detriment.
That’s not even the point though. You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power and you’ve yielded the important structures and financial capitals. That’s not a long term strategy.
And it’s not that difficult to win these things, especially when you look at how objectively poor the oppositions performance has been in them. Historically they’ve been contested.
They don't behave like a political party any more. It's not just the business of politics as usual and a generational shift, it's something different. I've been trying to coin a term for this internal takeover - I think nihilocracy, or nihilocratic populism, is the best I've come up with.
The party as a whole is uninterested in governing beyond seeking revenge and satisfying the charismatic eschatological movement that drives them. The leaders don't believe what they preach, they don't have policy goals besides "destroy what we hate", they don't have any conventional engagement with government beyond using it towards their own ends.
"Long term strategy" is a joke in this context. They're angry, they mobilize their supporters by promising revenge on a world that seems to be defying traditional structures and changing too fast. As with many reactionary movements aligned more by being "against" than "for", there's been little thought for what happens after the enemy has been defeated, and it's likely they'll continue seeking out new enemies until the movement dies from infighting or is ousted from power.
I see the supporter being nihilistic and purely out for revenge. I don’t see that with people in positions of power. They’re looking to line their pockets and they’ll take advantage of a vengeful constituency. True of both major parties. That’s why they focus on social issues and then pass legislation (or lack thereof) that allows them to all get rich.
Yep, I agree. I see the rank and file as being largely nihilistic but the leadership as being either pure ideologues or completely cynical. Either way, the stated values aren't the real ones, but they differ in whether they're working towards other goals or pure self-aggrandizement.
> You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power
That's when you use the power of the purse to contractually bind private businesses, non-profits, universities, etc, to your preferred values. Capital beats cultural power (or so goes the current gamble)
Edit: do I need to insert hyperlinks for the strong-arm tactics this administration has tried to force contractual counter-parties to adopts it's anti-DEI culture-war posture via a clause?
Those are just tactics though. So long as the cities are uncontested there’s no real long term plan. Just being somewhat competitive in them or having a presence.
As someone not in the US that doesn't pay a whole heap of attention, is it just me or did he run mostly uncontested? Running against a republican and a disgraced politician?
No clue what mamdani is like, but it seems like NYC had little to no choice...which is a bit disappointing.
It's unusual that Cuomo ran as an independent trying to "spoil"-- but NYC has such a large number of Democrats (like many US cities) that the more competitive and important election is typically the primary election (which determines who is running for each party). NYC has had a history of sometimes going other directions (as Cuomo's relatively high vote shows; having elected Michael Bloomberg many times, for example).
Mamdani won the primary for the democrats over Cuomo, but Cuomo decided to try and do an independent run to further challenge him.
Unfortunately that's kind of the reality for NYC. Since Bloomberg left it's been a one party city and ranked choice voting is implemented in the primary but not the general election. That means Democrats can feel comfortable voting for the most radical candidate in the primary without fear they might flop in the general election. Until we get ranked choice in the general election moderates and non-democrats don't really have a voice. This is especially true if multiple candidates run against the democratic nominee like in this election.
Ranked choice is such a stupid system. It's gameable and complicated and confusing to most people.
Approval voting has all the benefits ranked choice claims to have, but without the complexity - it's trivial for people to understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
Prior to the citywide election there are primary elections where the major parties pick their candidates. Normally the winner of the democratic primary would only have the republican candidate as a serious opponent. Republican candidates have won 4 of the last 9 mayoral elections, and the most recent republican mayor won an additional election after becoming independent. This was the first election since 1985 with 3 major candidates on election day; and a fourth, the current incumbent mayor, dropped out only a few weeks earlier.
This is not the case. His main opponent was Cuomo who was the Democrat "establishment" candidate. Zohran narrowly defeated Cuomo in the primary. Typically that's it but Cuomo took the unconventional strategy of running independently in the general with the backing of establishment Democrats.
Typically, the Republican candidate would have no chance in a city like NYC. This was the case here as well, but Cuomo calculated that with the backing of establishment Democrats AND the backing of Republicans/conservatives, he'd be able to defeat Mamdani. The Republican candidate did not agree to drop out, however. In the end it didn't matter though because Zohran Mamdani won by a larger margin than Cuomo and the Republican combined
In a typical election, the main election is the primary (which happened back in June). The Democrat nominee is pretty much guaranteed to win so the general is almost a formality. This general election was actually more contested than is typical
tl;dr: his main opponent was establishment democrats
To a reasonable person, yes, this should have been the case, but politics in America is far from reasonable.
The entire establishment marshaled what forces it could to stop mamdani's momentum. Couple this with the fact that there are (unfortunately) many people out there who would rather elect accused sex offenders than risk the chance that somebody marginally aligned with a word and ideology they don't actually understand (socialism) would be elected, or more likely, and worse, people are just racist and/or islamophobic and would sooner elect a man who would grope their daughter than a man who, god forbid, has a different religion than them.
I mean, if you call "running uncontested" going up against the current mayor, former governor, the editorial board of the NYT and WAPO, billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the Speaker of the House, the Senate and House leadership of the Democratic party, not to mention the entire rightwing media apparatus, and the President of the United States himself, yeah he ran uncontested.
New York is always deep blue, so what is the significance of a Democrat winning this time?
What is perhaps more telling is that the Democrats are putting up such a far-left candidate to the extent that even Obama can't endorse Zohran Mamdani's self-described 'democratic socialist' platform.
Republicans (or a former republican running as an independent) have won 5 of the last 9 NYC Mayoral elections. Mamdani will be the third democratic mayor elected since the 80s.
Silwa pretty much screwed coumo, would of been a tight race if he dropped. Curious to see what happens to NYC if some of the socialist ideas actually get implemented.
I think AOC will likely challenge Schumer for his seat now that mandami won.
More like Cuomo screwed Sliwa, if Cuomo wanted to run against the Democratic candidate, he should have ran as a Republican. He already lost the primary and took his sour grapes to the general.
Need to see how stocks will react tomorrow!! Nyc mayor mamdani ! Crash at Louisville airport and judgement on trump tariffs !! 1 billion Bitcoin liquidation!
I hope this win signals (to both parties) that voters are receptive and will get engaged when a clear message is presented about cost of living and quality of life issues. Some of which are taken for granted in most other western countries.
I’m no political wonk, and I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices.
I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message but he was mostly stymied on policy goals. Specifically Obamacare as an example ended up being watered down
Only speaking for myself (also not a political wonk): I do not expect Mamdani to be able to enact all of his policies. Not because of money but because of political opposition from the powerful.
I felt the same about Bernie and Medicare for all. We have the money to do it, but the powerful will not let it happen.
However: that doesn’t mean we should elect politicians that won’t even try to make these things happen. It’s important to have a North Star to shoot for, to move the Overton window of what’s worth discussing and to keep an eye on what political machinations block it from happening. I will never vote for a politician who pre-compromises with an imagined opposition, because that tells me they have a different North Star than I do in the first place.
Absolutely, elect enough Mamdani’s and the powerful will not be able to stop the changes. It’s the expectation that a single Mamdani or Sanders can fix much that has lead to extreme apathy from much of the electorate.
There are plenty of examples in the world to turn to to learn what happens when you get a critical Mamdani-Sanders mass. They tend to be rather unpleasant examples which are usually done away with using a variety on the "true socialism has never been tried" claim. No, Mamdani will not be able to turn New York into Caracas just yet. Let's all hope that nobody will be able to accomplish this.
There's no reason we should pay 2x what everyone else does, and live 10 years less (for healthcare).
We could accept a good deal of socialism into our system and see only benefits; there are a number of things which should not be profit-motive driven at all.
US healthcare costs are nothing to do with socialism or capitalism.
The reason is two-fold: US is subsidizing the rest of the world's medical research, and US healthcare bureaucracy is among the worst in the world.
> political opposition from the powerful
Mamdani is one of the powerful now.
Obama was hated by San Franciscan progressives because he came in with all of these promises and then backtracked on almost all of them. He basically turned into a Bush-lite, and he even maintained every single one of Bush's policies as well as deadlines. For example, he talked a lot about abortion and then immediately said it wasn't a priority for him once he got into office. He never closed Guantanamo and in both elections said he didn't support gay marriage.
ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time. Income inequality skyrocketed under him as well. Anyone who wasn't rich enough to afford some sort of asset like stocks or real estate was left behind and is now suffering.
I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.
I'll throw in extending parental coverage to 26. I have a sibling with type 1 diabetes and it's impossible for me to describe the positive impact those two provisions have had on their life.
Just because a piece of a legislation includes painful compromises doesn't mean we should ignore its huge wins.
That has in part become the issue in modern politics, any compromise no matter how minor is seen as a loss.
Neither sides most ardent supporters was willing to accept anything that looked like a compromise and so you end up with things as they are now, with someone where compromise shouldn’t happen because there is no practical compromise.
US politics has collapsed down to the scorpion and the frog.
> That has in part become the issue in modern politics, any compromise no matter how minor is seen as a loss.
Because to those who are now getting hit with huge insurance bills as a direct effect of that compromise, and may have to go without insurance at all, it is a loss.
And nothing has been done to address the underlying reasons and bad incentives that have led to this outcome. Which is also a failure.
>Because to those who are now getting hit with huge insurance bills as a direct effect of that compromise, and may have to go without insurance at all, it is a loss.
Because the Republicans slashed the premium tax credits to pay for tax cuts for rich people.
The fact Republicans wouldn't repeal ACA but would repeal the tax credits just shows both sides prefer it to be broken. Democrats could shove through enough votes to repeal ACA to make health insurance cheaper for lower-risk groups without tax credits; Republicans could re-instate tax credits. Instead we are stuck in this bastardized half-socialized model that gets the worst of all worlds.
Politics in the USA has basically gridlocked to it being much cheaper to shit on the other guy than to fix things. In two party system you can actually win by only making the other guy look worse, which only requires breaking things in a way that can be pointed at the other guy, somehow we are stuck in this local minima.
This is nonsense. You have Democrats working to get more healthcare to more people, via increased taxation, and you are blaming them for Republicans holding them back.
It's both of their faults. Blaming one party or the other is what got us into this this hole and what keeps making it deeper.
The ACA was passed in 2014. Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) have had since then to get off their butts and do something to fix the serious flaws it came with. Flaws that made insurance too unaffordable for millions of people so they had to risk it and go uninsured.
Dems haven't had solid control of all three legislative bodies since it passed, and Republicans have vocally made it their priority to oppose the ACA in any way possible, and are unwilling to give an inch. Even the hair thin margin post-2020 was unusable for this due to the handful of DINOs that all needed to vote in lockstep.
Meanwhile, R's had unilateral control of the government for four straight years, and they voted to make everyone's lives worse, as you're complaining about. They said over and over they were going to repeal it, like you suggest, and then turned around and made it obvious that was a blatant lie. Because despite its flaws, even the gutted ACA is still wildly popular and a vast improvement over the previous status quo. (It turns out keeping workers healthy is critical for the economy)
This is not a symmetric problem. It really is one party making it worse.
> When exactly were the democrats supposed to "fix" the ACA without compromising?
The Democrats did have full control when they first passed the ACA and they ended up getting in their own way.
But I never said that the Democrats were supposed to fix it on their own. I said both parties are to blame.
It shouldn't require one team have full control for something to happen. That's the real issue. They refuse to work together, and somehow this gets them more support (votes). Both sides. Total shit show.
> The Democrats did have full control when they first passed the ACA and they ended up getting in their own way.
They didn’t. They had to heavily compromise with an Independent.
> After the Finance Committee vote on October 15, negotiations turned to moderate Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid focused on satisfying centrists. The holdouts came down to Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucused with Democrats, and conservative Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. Lieberman's demand that the bill not include a public option[161][175] was met,[176]
> But I never said that the Democrats were supposed to fix it on their own. I said both parties are to blame.
This doesn’t make any sense, because 99% of Dems have tried to increase access to healthcare, and 99.9% of Repubs have tried to reduce access to healthcare. The sole exception being when McCain provided his vote to not repeal ACA.
> The fact Republicans wouldn't repeal ACA but would repeal the tax credits just shows both sides prefer it to be broken.
It really doesn't. All it shows is that team R is following it's usual playbook of "The government is broken - elect me, and I'll make sure of it."
> Democrats could shove through enough votes to repeal ACA to make health insurance cheaper for lower-risk groups without tax credits
The only true part of that statement is that they could get enough votes to repeal it without replacement. But it wouldn't make anything cheaper.
The only way insurance would get cheaper is if it went back to not covering pre-existing conditions, which is contrary to the whole point of insurance.
It's wild that you're blaming the dems for... Not repealing without replacement, and pushing us straight into a completely broken shitshow?
> lower-risk groups
Oh, I understand now. You're are explicitly unhappy that the dems aren't agreeing to your plan to massively hike rates for anyone with a pre-exisiting condition, or literally any complication that would get them discriminated against prior to the ACA.
Sorry, that's a shitty thing for you to be fighting for, and they are in the right to not do it.
ACA without subsidies is a regressive tax due to the price differential cap from young to old. It's a wealth transfer from younger/poorer people to older/wealthier people still on private insurance. Health risks track most closely with being older and thus on average wealthier.
It's just the people that have tricked you, have used statistical correlation and cover of pre-existing condition to hide the fact what they're actually doing is robbing from the poorer to subsidize the richer.
It's a wealth transfer from healthy people to sick people. That's the whole point of health insurance.
Older people are sicker and older people are wealthier, but older sicker people on ACA plans are not wealthier than the median.
It's a sleight of hand to collate the two (old-rich and old-sick), but sure, if this is such a large concern, the solution is adding means testing, not just leaving sick people with care they can't afford.
Due to the way ACA works (disallows pre-existing condition discrimination) it's young-average[for age] vs old-overage[for age] with a cap on the ratio. Which functions as a regressive wealth transfer when the premium subsidies get gutted.
And now the US is having the longest govt shutdown ever, millions of people losing their food stamps, millions of people potentially seeing their Healthcare costs skyrocket, and neither side seems willing to compromise, with the GOP blaming the democrats for the shutdown, which really is not productive.
The original plan was for single-payer, but the Blue Dog democrats fucked it up, because they didn't want to lose their seats, so they pushed for a compromise solution.
They then all lost their seats to tea-party and proto-maga types who were screeching about FEMA internment camps and death panels killing grandma.
Had the ACA gone further and actually provided a single payer system, I'd consider the block on denials based on preexisting conditions a win.
As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.
That bastardizes the whole point of private insurance. I don't want to pay more for my car insurance because the person next door bought a Porsche and the insurance company isn't legally allowed to consider the cost of repairing a Porsche.
Don't get me wrong, morally I don't want to see anyone denied health insurance. I also don't want this half-in half-out program where its no longer really private health insurance nor is it a centralized single payer system.
Health insurance that can discriminate against people based on pre-existing conditions rapidly becomes health insurance you can’t use. Sure, it’ll be cheaper for a few years. Then, with non-negligible probability, you’ll develop a serious condition. At that point the cost becomes anywhere between “high” and “infinite”. If the point is just “private insurance is dumb”, sure, I mostly agree.
It isn't insurance if the provider can't consider risk factors for the policy though.
If we don't want people's health to be dependent on insurance that's fine, but we should replace it with a system that isn't based on risk at all rather than bastardizing something that still sort of looks like risk-based insurance.
> It isn't insurance if the provider can't consider risk factors for the policy though.
Insurers are welcome to consider risk factors... for populations in aggregate.
It turns their actuarial models into population-subset models instead of individual models.
Which is easily the most "fair" (to individuals) option.
Allowing insurers to consider individual risk factors (preexisting conditions, genetics, etc.) would make the advertising data mining industry seem quaint. And I don't think any American wants to live in that world.
So we can talk about whether insurers should be able to offer lifestyle incentives (yes!), preventative care incentives (yes!), and be backed by catastrophic reinsurers (like mortgages, maybe)... but enrolling people blindly is one of the best things ACA did.
(Unless one happens to be young, rich, family-less, healthy, and have no moral compunction about fucking others over for ones own benefit)
Also, important unremarked benefit of ACA -- capping maximum insurer "administration" costs.
Firsthand from inside the industry as it was implemented, I can tell you that drove efficiency improvements inside insurers, as they couldn't bill for broken, slow, manual processes in additional premiums.
Granted, it caused other problems (attempts to self-deal and harvest profits through quasi-related provider / pharmacy entities or Medicare Advantage), but it did focus insurers on being efficient facilitators.
Where do you draw the line on individual vs population subset risk levels?
The insurer must decide what subset (s) of the population a person fits into, preexisting conditions are a factor that would almost certainly weigh heavily on the risk factor for that subset.
Are you proposing that it is irrelevant with regards to an individual's risk if they have diabetes, for example? Or are you simply arguing that we aren't comfortable with the costs it would require for an individual with diabetes to get health insurance if that factor is considered?
I fall into the latter personally and would prefer a real solution to health care that isn't some form of insurance. As long as it is insurance, though, the former seems impractical.
Insurance is a simple business: collect enough money so that in the long run you earn more than you pay out.
American health insurance generally does this in two broad ways. (1) Insure a large enough population group that averages hold and you can price based on actuarial/statistical probabilities. (2) Negotiate deals with provider groups so that they get something they want and you can bound their prices.
Neither of those things are contingent on knowing anything about individuals.
Insurers will generally pick {more randomly-selected customers} over {knowing more about each customer} any day of the week.
Maybe I'm misreading you, but you seem to want insurance that's accurately priced to exactly your circumstances and health (say, how custom high value property insurance is sold).
That doesn't solve insurer's concentrated tail risk problem though, and it means you're fucked if you ever develop a complicated condition, like cancer.
I have multiple actuaries in my family that work primarily in the insurance industry. I can assure you they are tasked with determining individual risk rather than risk of an entire pool of people with no regard for the individual.
It's also quite convenient that the contributor group (youngest adults with very little time spent to acquire wealth) are basically subsidizing the richest groups (older adults but still young enough to be on private health care).
It's effectively a regressive tax, transfer from the poorer to the richer, due to the way ACA caps the price spread.
Your neighbor buying a Porsche was a choice they made. Nobody chooses to have a pre-existing condition. We're also talking about a luxury vs simple survival. I am not sure how you can compare them.
What insurers in some countries do is charge higher premiums for people who engage in high-risk behaviors, like smoking, drinking, or extreme sports. Those are all choices so it seems fair to charge a sin tax for them. Higher premiums would discourage risky behavior and improve the health of the country as a whole.
> Nobody chooses to have a pre-existing condition
Are you sure about that? Plenty of medical conditions are the result, at least in part, of decisions a person makes.
A person with lung cancer seeking health care could very well have smokes for decades. A person with type 2 diabetes may very well have eaten poorly for decades. Obviously those aren't always directly linked to life choices, but they often can be.
Nobody _intentionally_ signs up for a pre-existing condition.
Whether a past action caused a condition, sure, but where do you draw the line? If you become disabled in a car accident, despite knowing full well that accidents can happen, should you be denied insurance in future because you did something risky? What if you were a smoker for the decades when cigarette companies suppressed the research about how bad it was?
Also, how would you even prove that a condition was self-inflicted? My old dog had lung cancer despite (to my knowledge) never smoking (and nor did anyone else in the household). I lost a close family member to liver cancer despite being a lifelong teetotaller, but how would anyone even prove that? The moment you start means-testing people, you're adding a whole lot of extra cost to taxpayers and stress for patients.
Denying healthcare to the most vulnerable members of society is simply cruel. It is kicking them when they're down. Having the condition is punishment enough. We can do better than that.
That's simple though. For insurance the line is drawn at how expensive it will likely be for a private company to insure you over the course of your policy.
It doesn't matter if someone intended for a decision to lead to higher risk, the only question at the point of signing an insurance policy is how risky that private company views the policy.
The whole insurance debate often feels misplaced. Many people simply don't want healthcare to depend on an insurance system. And I get that, I also would rather people be able to get the care they need regardless of their individual risk.
As long as we have anything claiming to be insurance that simply isn't how the system works. If the game is insurance the insurer should be able to consider individual risk. If we don't want that, build a system that isn't dependent on an insurance scheme at all.
How do you address adverse selection then? There's no private insurance where you don't address adverse selection. Either you force everyone to have coverage: ie car insurance in US or universal health insurance systems or you force them to get insured in groups (US employer based insurance), or you accept outrageously expensive rates for it.
Healthcare already being expensive doesn't make it amenable to that last option unlike insuring your laptop where you might be okay paying 2-5x the expected loss for peace of mind. Criticizing the method of addressing adverse selection is fine, but not the existence of it. You need something. There's no such thing as completely free market of health insurance. Any economist can easily explain this to you.
> All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.
Literally the purpose of insurance
Not private insurance. We all pay into it obviously, but our individual rates in an insurance market are based on individual risk. My rate is only impacted by others in a relative sense, if I'm more risky than someone else I pay more.
With preexisting conditions off the table, my rates may go up only because someone else is a higher risk and the insurance company can't charge them for it.
I said this in another post, but morally I don't want others to be denied health care. I don't want health insurance at all in that case because insurance implies that you pay more for riskier coverage.
Huh?
The purpose of insurance is to mitigate the risk of a very costly but unlikely outcome by paying a smaller amount over time, thereby spreading that risk among those of similar risk.
Not being able to consider individual risk means that insurance makes no sense for those with a low risk profiles, because they’re in the same cohort as those who will _definitely_ file claims.
Cohorts are based off of your employer, because we, inexplicably, tied health insurance to your employer. If you work for a very young and hip company then no, your cohort might not file claims.
There's levels of broken-ness to healthcare in the US. Even if you allow health insurance to discriminate based on health conditions, it will still be broken in other ways.
That's one way, true. I've mostly been considering the ACA here and those getting coverage that can't get it through an employer.
Employer health insurance rates fan still get wonky for small businesses though. It probably can't happen today, but I was at a small business where everyone's rates went up shortly after one person was diagnosed with cancer and another one or two with diabetes.
That is an example of it not really being individual insurance though. The insurance company is just lumping the employees together and setting rates based on the relative risk of the whole group, not dissimilar from getting an individual policy where the rates are based on a group of one.
How do you propose we address adverse selection in insurance markets then? That's the part you're overlooking and making you go "Huh?". It's clear to everyone else.
Blame Joe Lieberman for that one.
>As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.
That's what social insurance/welfare systems do throughout the developed world -- make sure everyone's covered at some minimal level even if it wouldn't be profitable when evaluated individually; it's just using insurance companies as an arm of the state to pull it off.
If, as it seems, your only objection is to labeling it "insurance", that's not a substantive objection to the merit of the policy, only how it's marketed.
What you're describing isn't insurance. There's nothing wrong with that and maybe (probably) its better than what the US has today, but if it claims to be insurance than it must be allowing the insurer to consider the risk of each policy it writes.
I don’t see where I was disputing that point.
Wonderful point of view to consider people as akin to cars.
It's an analogy. They are not comparing the worth of a human being to a car. They're saying that someone else's high risk should not increase your premium.
I stongly disagree with the premise that someone else's high risk should not increase your premium. How do you control your insurer? How do you know who's in their pool?
Why should your premium be tied to someone else's risk? There will always be some level of connection, the insurer has to stay in business, but that's very different.
Without preexisting conditions your premiums go up only because they can't charge the higher risk individual for that risk. That is no longer insurance at least at the individual level - you're effectively being asked to vouch for, and pay for, someone you never met.
> you're effectively being asked to vouch for, and pay for, someone you never met.
That is the basic premise of insurance. Collectivized risk. That you disagree with a specific detail in the implementation and that part, and that part only is vouching for someone else is undermining your point, not reinforcing it.
Everyone in the developed world has injected government heavily into healthcare, because its the lynchpin of a healthy and efficient workforce. That's the real solution.
No, it isn't. You'd have to define "developed world" here to make your argument more clear, but more importantly you'd have to define insurance in general if the government is stepping in to control those markets.
If we just want healthcare to be covered for the entire population that's fine, but don't call it insurance.
>Had the ACA gone further and actually provided a single payer system, I'd consider the block on denials based on preexisting conditions a win.
Your other option was to continue as things were, with fewer people getting less healthcare. Would that have been more of a win?
Yes, either we have a risk-based insurance system or we have a single-payer system that isn't insurance at all. Being stuck in the middle is worse than both extremes in this case.
How is it worse when more people have received access to more healthcare? Or is that also in contention?
Is your only metric for success the number of people technically covered by a healthcare program? That seems easily gamed and doomed to fail.
I'm not sure if it's in contention, but efficiency is also important. Life isn't an optimization for health care. At the middle class and below, people are already spending most their earnings on essentials.
Maybe you can alter healthcare so people are paying through the nose (either through highly regulated private entities coupled with incentives/mandates, or through taxes) but more people are covered, and so now they are less able to afford housing, good education, healthy foods, child care, and other stuff. Then they are not necessarily better off.
Absolutely. We have this bad habit of hating policies and politicians that make things 10% as good at they tried to do, but shrugging and ignoring politicians and policies that actively make our lives worse. Perfect is ideal. Better than we started with is still better.
The real problem is not politicians per se, its lobbyists. If you want blame the shortcomings of the ACA on anyone blame the insurance lobby. We need to get rid of lobbyists and put in term limits. period. It doesnt matter what party you support neither of them are looking out for your best interests. We should vote for people based on their individual beliefs and policies and not have to worry about what they are going to do in office because they get threatened by their party to vote this way or that way and hold the line ebcause if they dont they will primary you. If we have term limites, getting primaried doesnt matter as much anymore. It shouldnt be a career to be in DC. It should be a public service. The sooner we all realize this and quit picking a tribe the sooner things will get better.
In my circles of news and friends, plenty of people are actively hating against politicians and policies that make our lives worse, or who spout dangerous rhetoric (and do nothing else but that).
Usually it's just Trump, but my local congressman gets a lot of hate too.
Sometimes it is just "orange man bad" but cmon building an opulent ballroom and remodeling a bathroom in marble and having a grand old Halloween party while millions of Americans have no idea how they're gonna have their next meal is some Marie Antoinette shit. Sure that's not really a "policy" per se but it sure makes it look like he doesn't give a shit about policies that actually help the American people.
How easy people take for granted the status quo and forget that it could be and once was much worse.
You see it all the time in the fight for everything.
Writing as a conservative, the marketplace is also a huge win. I have an employer-subsidized plan I got through healthcare.gov.
This is a bit of an aside, but why isn't medical tourism more popular in the US? If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars, as a rainy day fund, you could get close to the very best possible care for even serious conditions from countries that have highly developed medical tourism sectors.
Granted, I acknowledge, that the US will likely still provide better care at the absolute high end, and asking most people to save that much can be quite a tall order, but from what I gather, a lot of people either bankrupt themselves, and end up paying much more than that and/or receive substandard care for conditions where treatment regime is established like treatable forms of cancer or congestive heart failure.
I remember Trump blasting Obama about Medicare, and proposing to 'open up' the system, introducing competition to drive prices down instead (which is the real problem of the US system, socially subsidizing it is just a bandaid fix imo). I guess not much has come off that.
The sort of people who can set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars are also the sort of people who probably have good health insurance through their job. Generally, the US's healthcare problems _mostly_ impact low to middle income people, and they usually can't just magic up 30k or so.
100%. I have known a couple of people that did some form of "medical tourism", mostly for expensive dental work. In both cases they did some form of tech contract work as a sole proprietorship and bought their own health insurance (not through a partner). The overlap of people who can save up thousands of dollars for treatment abroad and have poor health insurance is probably not too large.
I know it's popular with the US transgender community, looking for gender reassignment surgery.
Cost of travel to Thailand < savings on medical procedures (with equivalent or better outcomes)
> If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars
Non-starter for the vast majority of Americans.
There are a lot of misunderstandings in this post. I'll try to explain a few of them, which maybe can help realign your whole understanding.
For starters, American insurance has a "maximum out-of-pocket" amount, which means the maximum you can possibly pay for healthcare costs. My plan, from just a regular unknown company doing boring things, has a maximum out of pocket of $5k for an individual. So there's no scenario where I'd ever benefit from spending "a couple tens of thousands of dollars" because even if I spend the whole year in an ICU bed at a cost of millions of dollars to the hospital, I only pay $5,000.
Also, "a lot of people either bankrupt themselves, and end up paying much more than that" doesn't make sense. Declaring bankruptcy means you don't pay the debt, you wouldn't pay a lot AND declare bankruptcy. You'd see the amount was too much to pay, declare bankruptcy, and have the debt wiped out.
Keep in mind that millions of Americans have essentially no assets that aren't protected in a bankruptcy (car, home and retirement accounts are generally safe). It's not like millionaires are going bankrupt from medical costs, it's people who had nothing to begin with declaring bankruptcy when they got hurt while uninsured and going back to zero (instead of negative).
The real problem of the US system isn't the subsidies for the poor, it's the opaque, convoluted billing system between insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers, and providers. Billions of dollars are siphoned out of the system as profit to insurers and hundreds of millions are wasted on salaries for the bureaucracy of managing the billing system.
> Declaring bankruptcy means you don't pay the debt, you wouldn't pay a lot AND declare bankruptcy. You'd see the amount was too much to pay, declare bankruptcy, and have the debt wiped out.
Bankruptcy isn't a magic get out of debt button. First you have to prove your inability to pay, which generally means not having much in the way of assets. So you probably have to spend a significant amount of money on the debt before bankruptcy is even an option. Then once you have successfully declared bankruptcy it means, aside from a few classes of protected assets (e.x. your primary residence if your sufficiently lucky to be a homeowner) your creditors get to divy up what you have left amongst themselves. THEN the debt is wiped away. It's a last resort that keeps every penny you earn for the rest of your life from going to creditors, not a way to walk away with your assets and lifestyle intact.
It's fairly popular, especially for elective surgeries.
So why not have just done that?
True (*)
They can't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions anymore, but insurers still have hundreds of other ways to avoid paying.
There's no silver lining in the U.S. healthcare system -- it's built to exhaust, confuse, and bankrupt patients. And it's only gotten worse in recent years. (Will only get worse with the addition of more AI.)
Joe Lieberman, a supposed Democrat, killed any real chance for reform we had in our generation. He then left Congress and quickly died -- his legacy is the broken healthcare system we have today, totally rigged against the very patients it's supposed to serve.
Joe Lieberman and basically every Republican ever, for decades.
And the Republicans on the Supreme Court that hobbled what the Democrats managed to narrowly get through the political process.
But sure, direct all the anger for that towards Democrats, that will result in better Healthcare any day now. I hear Trump has concepts of a plan that he's been working on for over a decade that he'll let us know about in just 2 weeks.
I'm so tired of "this plan wasn't perfect, it failed. Democrats suck".
And meanwhile the republican plan was to do nothing or actively make things worse than ignoring the problem. Why are some people seemingly hardwired to just blame democrats for any or everything? Because the plans they have don't immediately benefit them, the middle class person who was never down on their luck?
Even then, I fail to think of any policy that legitmately benefits the middle class either. Did abortion bans improve your quality of life? Do immigration raids help your 401k? Did that cut to EV credits get you better public transit?
Murc's Law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murc%27s_law
> Murc’s Law is typically phrased as: "the widespread assumption that only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics".[5] [6] It reflects a perceived journalistic double standard, where Democrats are held responsible for political outcomes regardless of context, whereas Republican obstruction or extremism is treated as a given. This framing, critics argue, absolves Republicans of responsibility and creates an unbalanced political narrative.
>Murc's Law
Which, somehow is a weird outcome of the "Two Santas Theory[0]. I'm not sure why folks actually buy into it, but they apparently do.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski#The_Two_Santa_Cl...
Like half this sub-thread is driving me insane. The deep hatred of Democrats (for decades) from the left is very frustrating to me. They may not be as left-wing as those people might like but they're in fact not nearly as bad as the Republicans.
Isn't it the same thing that made it unaffordable?
No, what made it unaffordable was scrapping the penalty on not having health insurance. If you force health insurance to cover everyone then you also need to force everyone to have health insurance to keep the system balanced. One way to do that is have everyone automatically covered in a public system: rejected. Another way is to tell people they don’t have to sign up for health insurance but they do have to pay into the system.
Obama care was not a Democratic win it was another Republican win in a long list of Republican wins, where the dems tried to work with the republicans in good faith and implemented their policies for them. Sadly they realised to late that you should never work with right wing fascists because if you give those people your hand they will take the whole arm.
No that is a huge failure. That is perhaps the biggest failure of Obamacare.
That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise. And sure enough, life expectancy in the US immediately stalled after the law's implementation: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni.... Exactly what economics would predict would happen.
And what if you, despite being healthy, get diagnosed with cancer right one your employer fails, thus becoming uninsurable? This type of thing happened to people.
It’s nice the above can no longer happen. You could, at the same time, still allow insurers to charge a premium to smokers and obese and for other lifestyle risks within one’s control. They are not mutually exclusive.
The entire system of linking health insurance to one's current employer is bad. I should just be able to buy it with money I earn from doing anything that pays me, just like I do with my car insurance or any other type of insurance.
That decline is mostly because of Covid pandemic, no? And it looks like the life expectancy picked back up after 2022.
Similar laws existed in EU countries long before US, and EU countries also saw a decline in life expectancy during those years: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/deu/ger...
The obese and smokers actually cost less because they die early vs healthy people who live a long life and need a lot of care when they're aged.
"Smoking was associated with a moderate decrease in healthcare costs, and a marked decrease in pension costs due to increased mortality." https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/6/e001678
The UK did a study and they found that from the three biggest healthcare risks; obesity, smoking, and alcohol, they realize a net savings of £22.8 billion (£342/$474 per person) per year. This is due primarily to people with health risks not living as long (healthcare for the elderly is exceptionally expensive), as well as reduced spending on pensions, etc..
US policies wouldn’t affect the life expectancy in the UK, which has broadly the same trend: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/gbr/uni...
This is despite no-one paying (directly) for health care.
Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have (both under your control, like choosing to drive, international travel, and not under your control, like genetic predisposition to heart disease) to ensure your premium can be accurately calculated?
Blaming people for their illnesses is something we have historically gotten wrong a lot, and regardless, it’s pretty inhuman as a society to leave people to suffer and die because they can’t afford healthcare.
> Would you be willing to submit to invasive investigations into how you live to identify any risk factors you have
To be fair, there are insurance policies (at least in the UK) which give you discounts if you drive "safely"[0] or health insurance that rewards you for "being active"[1].
[0] https://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/car-insurance/how-bl...
[1] https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/ "you earn Vitality points by getting active or attending your health check-ups [...] rewards, including a reduced excess and lower renewal premiums"
Example 1 is car insurance, not health insurance, so not really apples to apples. Being able to drive is not the same as being able to access healthcare.
Example 2 is private healthcare insurance, which does exist in the UK, but only about 10-15% of the population have it, and it's mostly about getting access to healthcare provision faster. These private providers can of course do what they like, same as in the US, with the caveat that everybody is entitled to free, comprehensive healthcare through the NHS if they don't have private healthcare insurance.
However, folks that can afford to sometimes like to skip the queue.
It's worth noting I suppose that the UK has significantly more in the way of 'sin taxes' than the US. For example, tax on cigarettes is 16.5% of the retail price plus £6.69 ($8.73) on a packet of 20, meaning on average cigarettes retail for around £15 (~$20). This compares to the US average of somewhere around $3 tax and retail of around $10 (varying based on state).
It's more complicated to calculate for alcohol, but again, the UK taxes alcohol more heavily than the US.
This additional tax revenue helps to fund the treatment of those who use those substances (although to be clear, it doesn't cover it fully).
I would be very surprised if taxes on tobacco did not cover the increased costs to the State from tobacco users. When I last looked at it tobacco users were dying early before they imposed huge costs on the State during their old age years and this produced an enormous saving to the State. This was ~20 years ago and we might be much better at keeping people alive and this has changed the calculus.
So it seems that the literal cost of treating smoking related illnesses is indeed fully covered (multiple times) by the tax revenue generated.
https://fullfact.org/health/farage-smoking-revenue-nhs/
However, net cost to the state when you factor in inability to work, etc is estimated at twice the tax revenue.
Your point that smokers die younger and so cost the state less is a contentious topic with lots of debate. One thing that is clear is that tobacco firms are actively pushing that narrative, which, given the industry’s history with regards to data and studies like this makes me instantly suspicious: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB995230746855683470
> it’s pretty inhuman as a society to leave people to suffer and die because they can’t afford healthcare.
this is mostly about drawing a line between the tradeoffs of costs and the benefits of increased lifespan and better quality of life. almost no-one actually believes all of societies resources should be committed to healthcare to achieve some small marginal health gain. claiming people are inhuman because they want to draw the line differently is messed up.
That’s a fair point. But whether a person lives or dies should not be a function of their income.
The NHS for example today doesn’t spend infinite resources on any individual. In some cases, the decision is that the cost of treatment is not justified by the benefit.
Whether someone is a smoker is a factor in that decision: how much longer they may live, their expected quality of life. Also their lifestyle is taken into consideration when determining the order of a transplant list, etc.
But the decision is never made based on their ability to pay.
I remember being denied coverage after aging out of my parent's healthcare plan. The cited reason was "pre-existing conditions", which were allergies and a congenital cleft lip and palate (I had a number of corrective procedures as a kid). I was a healthy and relatively normal young adult.
Life expectancy flatlining could be any number of things. Correlation != causation
Look at this Ubermensch that will never have a stroke, develop cancer, or any number of debilitating conditions. Must be nice!
It is the basic duty of every human to do their best to make sure every other living human is afforded a life of simple human dignity. Full stop. We have the resources. Let's just do it.
Sadly we do not have, and will never have, the resources to help everyone, even to a baseline of human dignity. Surely we can't give people unlimited talk therapy, MRIs, and cancer treatment for free. But some people sorely need these things.
Preventative/propylactic care is orders of magnitude cheaper than treatment once a disease has manifested. It makes sense to me to punish people for not doing this care, thereby choosing to impose more strain on an already overburdened system.
Note that GP only mentioned things we have control over -- exercise, weight, not smoking. Of course I agree that it would be cruel to disadvantage pre-existing conditions.
That's the point of insurance. It's the idea that everyone pools together money and when something bad happens to one person, its finances are mitigated by the input of others. Some will benefit more and others benefit not at all. But no one can predict who is on what end.
Yes, if everyone gets cancer at the same time then Health Care is boned. But then again, so is society. So why worry about that worst case scenario?
>Note that GP only mentioned things we have control over -- exercise, weight, not smoking.
We couldn't pass laws to help control what companies put in food, and failed to subsidize healthier food options. I wish you the best of luck with healthcare trying to pull off that endeavor with punishments for obesity. I'm guessing it wouldn't be poolitically popular.
> Sadly we do not have, and will never have, the resources to help everyone, even to a baseline of human dignity.
This is really a matter of choice. There is a level of treatment that most people could have with far less friction. We just have decided to organize our economy otherwise.
Broadly, we need to stop seeing our economy as a zero sum game. It's dehumanizing. So what if there are a few bad actors that abuse the situation? Most don't. If everyone is doing something harmful, eg smoking, then we need strong public education, etc.
Since when do we not have the resources? Nearly every developed country on earth manages it ok.
Does every other country have a boarder that "allows" millions of people in every year? These EU countries are tightening hard on immigration as they have found that it crushes their social nets. Not to mention keeping defense spending adequate relative to allies.
If this was so easy, what is the plan?
Immigrants are easily exploitable labor. They aren't sucking up our resources. If anything, we're sucking up their resources.
I live in Texas. Look around me. Who's building these 500,000 dollar homes? Not fatass white people. And who is buying them? Not the people building them.
Several million people migrate to EU countries from outside the EU every year, yes. The number will be lower than a million for most individual EU countries, but then the individual countries also have smaller populations than the US.
Oh boy, here we go.
How about if that is diabetes, or something else that does not depend on lifestyle choices?
You're kidding right? Look up how many people have type 2 diabetes, greater than 90%
Assuming they mean type 1 yields a better dialogue.
That's the point of insurance.
> That means I, as someone with healthy lifestyle habits, has to pay largely the same premium as someone who smokes, is obese, and doesn't exercise.
Do you live a healthier lifestyle than every single other person in your insurance plan or are you just a hypocrite who’s decided the line is acceptable when it includes you, but not one inch beyond that?
Yes, everyone on insurance should be young and healthy. Fuck those sick people /s
I heard this somewhere and its true of every politician:
you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.
ACA is NOT a failure. It did address some really critical pain points but left others. There is no bill that can address every single pain point in a system that is as complex as the US healthcare.
> Obama was hated by San Franciscan progressives because
Because San Francisco progressivism doesn’t win on a national stage.
> Because San Francisco progressivism doesn’t win on a national stage.
If the message that Democrats take from this is NY progressivism wins on a national stage, we'll certainly lose the next presidential election, and maybe even fail to gain a majority in either the House or Senate during the midterms.
That's my biggest fear.
> That's my biggest fear
Mamdani is a disciplined New York progressive. He’s left of the median voter. But the Mamdani that won the D primary was also left of the median NYC voter.
One can take a shallow policy lesson from this election. Or a deeper political lesson in the value of pragmatism and respect for the voter (versus the holier than thou crap that has polluted the far left).
>Mamdani is a disciplined New York progressive.
Also, who are these current or former elected officials that fit the description "disciplined New York progressive" you refer to?
I'm truly not sure.
> who are these current or former elected officials that fit the description "disciplined New York progressive" you refer to?
The guy named in the comment.
So an n of 1 that has yet to take office and prove that he will live up to the label?
The day after election day 2016 I recall trying to reassure myself that another candidate who won had to be more disciplined when governing than when campaigning. That the rhetoric his campaign put out was only because his supporters were to the right of him. How sad I was to find out that wasn't true. Hope I'm not let down again.
> Mamdani is a disciplined New York progressive. He’s left of the median voter. But the Mamdani that won the D primary was also left of the median NYC voter.
I hope you are right, that he is more like Obama than Trump. Time will tell.
Personally, I haven't seen any evidence to support that hypothesis. If you have, I'd love to feel more assured you are right so please share.
Frankly, the Democrats have done nothing but pander to people who hate them, who will never vote for them, and fucking LOVE their opposition for years now. If there is one thing to take away from the Trump campaigns, it's that pandering to an imaginary moderate is not nearly as effective as being really exciting to your base. All ceding ground to the opposition does is lead to disillusionment and apathy amongst the people who might vote for you. You win over no one with morally bankrupt, least common denominator bullshit.
What you are advocating for is the same bullshit that cost the Democrats the election in 2016, and in 2024. We've tried it your way and it is nothing but a losing strategy. People want progress, people want change. If a candidate can't at least have balls to lie about wanting that too, then they are unfit to win an election.
In that case, the base of the Democrats, as you seem to define it, is destined to be a permanent minority in national elections.
And maybe you are right. I'd love to see America move to 4 or more major parties. With the far-left and far-right of each separated out into their own parties. Would even settle for 3 parties.
They're really not a permanent minority, though. Obama's campaign promises (not to be confused with his actual politics once in office) demonstrate that positive, progressive change is a perfectly popular political position.
And frankly, that's all besides the point: The reason exciting candidates do so well (Trump, Obama) is because voter turnout in the US is abysmal. It's gotten better (because the Fascists are excited for Trump, and everyone else is at least a bit energized by "oh god we can't have the fascists win"), but it's still very true that if you could convince at a quarter of the nonvoters (half of the half that might vote for you) to show up to the polls, you'd have a blowout victory the likes of which haven't been seen since the Bill Clinton campaigns.
The Democrats have been playing a strategy that tries to win over the rational fringe of the Republican party, but it's becoming increasingly obvious to apparently everyone but the DNC that those people don't exist. The kind of person who can be convinced to vote for Trump (ESPECIALLY TWICE) are not the kinds of people the Democrats will ever win over without royally pissing off most of their voter base.
> Obama's campaign promises (not to be confused with his actual politics once in office) demonstrate that positive, progressive change is a perfectly popular political position.
But as you said, Obama didn’t govern the way he was perceived to have campaigned. And up and down this thread people express their disillusionment with him. Including you.
So I’m not sure how Obama campaigning to the left of how he governed makes the case that without Democrats moving to the center they can successfully turn out the number of supporters needs to win national elections. Unless we keep electing people then throwing them out next cycle because they didn’t govern like they campaigned (which is which I think we’re going to see for the foreseeable future)
Also this was almost 20 years ago. The country has gotten significantly more polarized since then. I’d make the case that since Obama the democratic part has failed to move to the center, but instead clung to identify politics. And in the case of presidential elections anointed the nominees rather than give citizens a real chance to choose them.
Hope I’m wrong, since Democrats don’t seem to be moving to the center and I also don’t want federal governments like this one. But I’m not convinced I am.
> pandering to an imaginary moderate is not nearly as effective as being really exciting to your base
The takeaway should be there is no one size fits all.
Under Biden, donors pushed climate and identity politics that don’t work outside far-left Democrat strongholds. Then Kamala clumsily tried finding a centre in a multidimensional policy space which may not have a definable centre.
Mamdani won New York. But “moderates,” i.e. politicians who spoke to economic populism and don’t get distracted by the base, kept Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey. If we want to control national politics, we have to concede that West Virginia and Arizona voters don’t care about the same things as folks in Manhattan and San Francisco. That’s okay. We can embrace that diversity. But it also means we have to respect it and cut out the name calling because a promising candidate on the other side of the country doesn’t embrace your pet issue or identity language.
(Obama campaigned for Mamdani and Spannberger and Prop 50.)
> If we want to control national politics, we have to concede that West Virginia and Arizona voters don’t care about the same things as folks in Manhattan and San Francisco. That’s okay. We can embrace that diversity. But it also means we have to respect it and cut out the name calling because a promising candidate on the other side of the country doesn’t embrace your pet issue or identity language.
Very well put, I hope others see this as well.
Times are changing. The pendulum swing back from MAGA is going to be interesting.
Hopefully we don't add too much energy to the pendulum because eventually it will swing back again
> Times are changing. The pendulum swing back from MAGA is going to be interesting
The pendelum swings in multiple dimensions. MAGA went mainstream in a way the Tea Party and conservativism did not by abandoning policy purity in favour of, first, messaging, and later, idolatry.
The preserved component between MAGA's messaging and Mamdani's rise is populism and, to a lesser degree, divisive politics. Where MAGA failed and Mamdani may deliver is in pragmatism (and not being corrupt).
There is an opportunity to unify "abundance" policies with inclusive progressivism or villanisation of wealth. (I'm not convinced you can do both. If you want to pursue growth and cost of living, you need to turn the capital spigots. Accumulated capital facilitates that. If you want to tackle inequality and billionaires, you'll need to temporarily destabilise those capital structures. You'll also, presumably, be increasing the lower and middle classes' purchasing power, which limits how much public spending you can do without spiking inflation.)
San Francisco progressives can influence national politics. But anyone insisting on copy-paste purism is a godsend to MAGA.
Main reason why MAGA will fail even harder is that you now see that there is basically nothing holding this movement together apart from Trump.
Next step in MAGA is the open inheritance war between the original 2016 spirit and the 2024 donor class.
“…the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time.”
That’s such a fraught statement, because the _opposite_ is claimed by supporters of the ACA after the repeal of the mandatory rule.
I’m old enough to remember the failed attempts for healthcare reforms under President Bill Clinton. The ACA felt like a miracle. It wasn’t what everyone wanted, but it was a start with principles. It has only been legislatively weakened over time, rather than improved.
Whatever alternative, employers should not be where we look for our healthcare. Can’t understand why anyone would trust their employer or expect good outcomes in the post-lifelong employment age.
>I’m old enough to remember the failed attempts for healthcare reforms under President Bill Clinton. The ACA felt like a miracle. It wasn’t what everyone wanted, but it was a start with principles. It has only been legislatively weakened over time, rather than improved.
I am also old enough to remember. And the health insurance companies spent heavily on lobbying and advertising ("death panels" and "healthcare rationing" and all sorts of other crap). It was sad.
Fast forward to the ACA and as I recall, insurers were spending USD1 million/day on lobbying efforts to block it.
I didn't think the ACA was a "miracle" though. Back then I used the analogy that it was like RFC 5386[0] ('Better Than Nothing Security'), as it wasn't single-payer and didn't even have a public option (thanks for nothing, Joe Lieberman -- I hope you're roasty-toasty in hell), but it was better than nothing.
I even have an ACA plan which costs me an enormous amount, but again, it's better than nothing.
[0] https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5386
>ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time.
Compared to what? Is it really better to just be uninsured and go bankrupt over an ambulance ride?
This point alone makes your entire post suspect, even though parts of it are indeed true (it's a real shame guantanomo was not closed down).
Unaffordability doesn't need a comparison - if you can't afford something it doesn't matter what the alternative is.
So your solution to something that every other cointry believes is a universl right is just "let people die on the streets"? Seems pretty uncouth.
Let's not forget, Edward Kennedy passing away really through a monkey in the political calculus early days for Obama.
I always called him a Bush-lite too, such a disappointment. Did everything I disliked about Bush and nothing about the things he said he'd do. If anything some of the things he did were worse, like executing a US Citizen with a drone without trial or crime to get a man that wasn't even there.
most importantly he made this 100 yard dash immediately after winning the primary, not when met with congressional objections as president elect.
I hope Mamdani turns out to be as good as Obama was.
What was so impressive about Obama was his incredible leadership skills and ability to get elected president DESPITE his racial and ethnic background. That the things the far left saw which drove them to support him were not the ones that led him to be such a good leader for the country.
In 2008, I spent most of the year backpacking through Europe before starting college in the fall. So I truly don't remember much of Obama's first campaign or the tone of it at the time. But there is very little evidence in my mind that Mamdani has any of Obama's abilities. Hopefully either I'm missing something again, or he'll rise to the occasion despite the lack of evidence to suggest it.
He also bailed out Wall St.
> ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time
Isn't it because Republicans spent a busy decade destroying it?
"He never closed Guantanamo" is missing a lot of context. See [0] for more context around Congress blocking his efforts[1].
(While searching for a decent article, I found [2] which has the hilarious-in-retrospect quote: "It just doesn't happen in, you know, traditional American justice that someone is essentially arrested and disappeared with no access to attorney" - oh the sweet innocence of 2017.)
[0] https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/obama-congress-guanta...
[1] Which, to be fair, were hamstrung by his refusal to override the Republicans - a sensible approach (at the time) because a) the right wing would have gone mad (see: literally anything Obama did) and b) it opens the door for ruling by Presidential fiat which, sadly, was kicked wide open by Trump-1 and the entire wall removed by Trump-2 with the help of SCOTUS. On the whole, though, Obama wasn't as good as promised, definitely.
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/obama-failed-close-guantan...
> ACA is a failure and the only thing it did was make it mandatory and unaffordable at the same time.
This is absolute, unequivocal bullshit. I get that you aren't under 26, that you don't need subsidies, never were denied coverage for having had the audacity to get sick years before, and that you've never had to pay for expensive care, so you probably don't know what you're talking about in the first place, but suggesting it was a "failure" is absurd. The idea that actual coverage was less affordable after the ACA passed is such spectacular nonsense I don't even know where to start.
Sometimes it's ok to NOT have big, strident opinions on things you know you don't even slightly understand, and to ask questions or approach things with curiosity, instead.
I kinda feel Obama is more of a Trojan horse. It was not he tried and failed to get what he campaigned for implemented, it was more like he did a U turn after he got elected. e.g. he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical".
I hope the same doesn't happen with Zohran. If he was going to fail after all, I wish that will at least be after he had fought as hard as he can.
> he called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical"
ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress.
This line of argument reminds of the folks who complained about Sinema and Manchin. You know what we’d have with a few more Sinemas and Manchins in the party right now? A majority.
The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.
Manchin and Sinema shouldn't be mentioned together in the same sentence.
Manchin was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona. Manchin was also, while not perfect, more honest in much of his opposition than Sinema was, and sometimes he was actually right.
> Manchun was genuinely the best Democrats could hope for from West Virginia. Sinema was absolutely not the best Democrats could hope for from Arizona
Sure. My point is both are preferable to a MAGA enabler. If you lose perspective and start aiming for perfection at the expense of the good enough, you lose power.
Maybe, maybe not. The problem with being fine not 'losing power' but without actually doing anything that your constituents need while facing an uncompromising opposition that is trying to destroy the way of life of your constituents is that you end up losing most of the battles while losing any active support. When people only vote for you because they are afraid of the opposition and not because they think you are going to help them, then your motivations are not in line with the people who voted for you, especially if you can't even provide an effective resistance against the opposition when they blatantly do illegal things.
At least with a MAGA enabler things can get bad enough that people might realize what they have to lose.
A former partner of mine* sometimes shared a political cartoon along the lines of this: https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediu...
Never could convince her that her team could do the same in the opposite direction of motion.
* American but also actually a communist, not a Democrat
In a country as conservative as yours, if you're culturally in line with the 'coastal elites' (forgive my use of this term), you can't expect a stable majority by being uncompromising.
Because of Manchin and Sinema, the people broadly saw the Democratic Party as ineffective and unwilling to actually try to enact their policies.
This is a part (far from all, but a real part) of why they turned to someone who claimed to be willing to get things done—even if he had to break rules to do it.
I'm not going to say that I wish those seats had been filled by Republicans, instead, because I don't know how much worse that would have made things. It's very possible that we still would've gotten 2 Trump terms even so.
But I don't think it's fair to paint them as unquestionably better, when the second-order effects are real, and, while impossible to measure, potentially devastating.
Manchin was a stooge who voted how he was paid. He doesn't get a pass for not being as clear a traitor as Sinema.
He voted how his electorate would have wanted him to vote. He probably also hoodwinked some rich people to pay him some bucks while he was at it.
He's about as "shades of gray" as a politician gets.
That was always my impression of him. It was easy to feel like he was breaking ranks, but realistically he seemed to vote exactly how his electorate wanted him to.
He voted in line with Democrats when it mattered, but was enough of a visible pain in the ass to satisfy his constituents.
Without Manchin the Inflation Reduction Act would not have passed. Arguably Biden‘s biggest accomplishment.
I think people had rose colored glasses about Obama because he was, by far, the most charismatic President we've had in modern times. His speeches still give me goose bumps, even when I disagree with what he's saying! That man has the gift of gab. Him also being intelligent further, sadly, makes him an outlier in modern times.
But many of the things he did were dubious and ACA is a perfect example of this. It's little more than an subsidy for private insurance companies whose profits dramatically increased relatively shortly after adapting to it. Universal healthcare doesn't have to be adversarial towards private insurance, but it should not directly drive increases in profits because, especially once its mandated + subsidized, profits need to be controlled as the government is effectively guaranteeing them.
Medical loss ratios (insurers must pay a minimum percent of premium revenue on medical costs) are obviously insufficient since they do nothing to motivate lower costs. On the contrary, it directly incentivizes maximizing costs which is exactly what's happened. For one specific datum medicare administrative costs are around 2% - private insurance administrative costs start around 12%.
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Basically there is no way this was even remotely close to the most socially motivated (I don't see radical as a desirable adjective) package he could get have gotten passed. And now with the country so divided, it's unlikely we'll be getting anything better anytime in the foreseeable future, because whichever side tries to pass it will simply be opposed by the other, regardless of merit. Hopefully Mamdani isn't a complete failure, because more parties in power is perhaps one way to break the divides in society.
The ACA was, I believe, a highly intentional better-done-than-perfect effort, fully cognizant of the historical cycles of political will around major healthcare policy in America. If you review in depth the efforts in the 90s under Clinton, and earlier under Johnson, I think the approach was well considered. A more ambitious policy proposal ending in failure very well may have have put the topic to bed for another twenty years. The loss of the “public option” did sting, though.
Yes, and many states blocking the Medicaid expansion also hurt it.
It is that, but it also could have been much better than it was if the Democrats had not made so many concessions trying to win Republican votes, before finally giving up and pushing it through without bipartisan support.
> there is no way this was even remotely close to the most socially motivated (I don't see radical as a desirable adjective) package he could get have gotten passed
What are you basing this on? Again, Pelosi lost her House because of ACA. Republicans shut down the government multiple times trying to repeal it. They narrowly missed, but because the compromise was powerful. Had Pelosi and Obama pushed harder on ACA, chances are high it would have never passed.
I’m not saying it was perfectly calibrated. But the problems you’re mentioning would have meant battling entire new categories of powerful interest groups. That's what, in part, sank HillaryCare.
> Obama ... was, by far, the most charismatic President we've had in modern times
Watching old Obama speeches, I find him mostly run-of-the-mill. Trump, whether or not you like him, is far more charismatic - his success is built on his charisma. Also, look up Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan speeches, by maybe that isn't what you mean by 'modern times'.
> his success is built on his charisma.
Print out one of his speeches and read them. His success is built on backlash against the shock of seeing a black president.
> Print out one of his speeches and read them.
If the words are bad then it suggests his success comes from elsewhere, possibly charisma (whatever that means).
> His success is built on backlash against the shock of seeing a black president.
Assuming that's true, lots of people could have capitalized from that; why him in particular?
I don't like Trump, and I rank his emission of word-shaped noises somewhere between picking random items from autocomplete suggestions, and my pre-ChatGPT experiments with GPT-3 models.
Charisma is a different axis to all of that.
A lot of people, for reasons I cannot even empathise with, demonstrably like him. One could even describe their response as "idolising" him. (Where does one draw the line between "a cult of personality" and "apotheosis" anyway?)
His success is built on racism. As effective as they can be, people don't generally describe the person who whips up a violent mob as charismatic.
They have called it that since the word was coined in the original ancient Greek, and the skill itself seen as a divine gift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charisma
It's part of why the ancient Greeks thought government came in cycles, with democracy being only a transitory state.
I work with a small university psychology department, and one of our recently-retired faculty made a several-decade study of charisma, particularly among political leaders.
Her primary theory is that it is built out of a combination of formidable and approachable traits/behaviors. Naturally, there is a fair amount of personal variability in what we perceive as "formidable" and "approachable", so what seems charismatic will vary from person to person; it's not fully objective.
But her theory is that this is why you can have people who are, objectively, more repugnant still read as charismatic, and people who are very pleasant read as less charismatic: the latter may be very approachable, but they don't have enough formidability to synthesize that into charisma, while the former add just enough approachability that they can.
Compared to Trump, Bush was more charismatic. Apart from the inability to reliably form coherent sentences or speak with any intellect showing, Trump is so consistent in spleens and weird mannerisms, literally every person exposed to it can imitate it recognizably as parody. He's a caricature.
People talk about Trump because he/his team excels at distraction through outrage. He's not charismatic, he's dopaminergic.
If all you watch are CNBC and reddit sound bites yes, but if you actually sit and watch long enough a interview, it doesn't happen (as much).
Did you watch the 60 minutes interview?
Dude, I am European. I only watch what's been forced onto me. But yes, I've listened to a few long form interviews as a challenge to myself. Not all of it, because it's unbearable deflective and unorganized, honestly. The longer he speaks the worse it gets.
I mean, even his supporters are constantly trying to "decipher" his messaging. He is constantly failing to recite basic facts correctly, and I don't mean the general lies, but you know stuff like basic geography/history knowledge and stuff. He doesn't come off as primary education pilled.
But sure, it's all fake news. He'll make the US great again and all. Any day now.
I wonder if you would challenge yourself the same with Mamdani or Obama, or somewhat unrelated: Hunter Biden.....
Also Trump is a great comparison to Obama. Obama spoke very well, but did little to nothing, people hated him.
Trump is nearly opposite, he doesn't speak as well clearly. But his actions are stronger, and thats what the voters want. They don't want a smoother talker that tells you what you want to hear and does nothing.
So, you agree Obama was very charismatic and Trump is not?
All modern presidents are very charismatic, since FDR this has been required!
Obama is charismatic and one of the best to give a speech.
> Trump, whether or not you like him, is far more charismatic
Really? Maybe a decade ago, but now? He cannot keep a coherent thought for more than a few seconds, so every speech is a fucking rambling mess. Even subtitles cannot help make sense of it most of the time.
> - his success is built on his charisma
Bullshitter sales people can be very charming at times, I will give you that.
With 20/20 hindsight I'd say that's the wrong lesson. The actual lesson is that if you're struggling to get 40% of the legislature to make obvious improvements to your country, you should use your majority for even more radical things. If they'd used that same majority to pack the supreme court, pass a nationwide anti-gerrymandering law, break up hundreds of large corporations, and so on, we might have averted a ton of disaster. At the time perhaps it was hard to see, but in retrospect what we saw in the period 2008-2010 were early warning signs of how the flaws in our system of government were going to send us on a downward spiral.
It wasn't hard to see at the time. People just thought the West Wing was how politics should work. That somehow all the players come to play good, fair ball. Many of us were out here caucusing against Obama and Gore and Biden because they represented an obvious losing strategy in the long term.
> ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress.
People aren’t excited by half measures that let health insurance companies generate tons of money and CONTINUOUSLY raise premiums. People still go bankrupt receiving cancer care here.
The person who gets free healthcare and cuts overall costs by destroying health insurance middle man will be massively popular and, once the effects are borne out, win congress in a landslide.
Perhaps Obama couldn't have made it happen, but he didn't try. He could have made a speech about "how we will do because not because it's easy, but because it's possible because every other western nation has this same basic thing." But here we are with a crappy compromise.
> once the effects are borne out, win congress in a landslide.
There is a deep, foundational information problem that would need to be overcome for this to ever actually happen. Medicare, for example, is viewed incredibly favorably, but tons of people don’t even know it’s a government program! This survey found only 58% of people over 65 recognized that: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/medicare/medica...
We are in an information twilight zone where perception of policy outcomes is basically entirely dependent on choice of news sources.
The solution is simple. Expand Medicare. But you need to do it slowly or it will implode.
For ten years, every year, drop the eligibility age by 1 year. Then for the next ten years, every year, drop the eligibility age by 2 years. Maybe keep going at 2 years every year from there, but it should probably be adjusted over time as the effects of rising enrollment show the acheivable enrollment rate.
In the meantime, start covering all kids with Medicaid from birth to X, adding 6 months every year for the first 10 years, then 1 year per year until it overlaps with most people getting enough social security credits to be eligible for Medicare. At that point, you can probably just make Medicaid available for everyone, if you don't have 40 social security credits by age 35, you probably qualify for Medicaid under current rules. Again, it'd be helpful for Congress to supervise and adjust as needed.
A lot of Americans don't even realize that Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing -- even in 2017 it was 1/3. I believe the skew is even worse today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/upshot/one-third-dont-kno...
“It works in Europe” isn’t a very good American political rallying cry though; Americans generally don’t have the opinion that Europe works very well.
Only because American discourse and thinking is so utterly poisoned by the absolute bullshit that is “American exceptionalism”.
In terms of almost any possible quality of life metric you can think of Europe is ahead of the US.
That combined with just a breathtaking level of ignorance of what Europe is actually like in any meaningful sense. You saw this a lot in this NYC election where they were trying to paint Mamdani as an actual communist because well over half of the country has no idea what “democratic socialism” means let alone communism.
Yeah, but this only strengthens the parents point that "It works in europe" is not a good rallying cry in the states. It's also too easy for opponents to counter and point to random europeans who complain about their own system and win cheap debate points on that front. It might be better to just lean into the exceptionalism and say, "We're America, we're richer, we can make a better system." Or something along those lines.
Counterpoint: The country really needs to learn how to have a grown up conversation and not allow the dumbest people in the room with the least generous interpretation of everything possible who were never going to vote for you anyways to constantly set the agenda.
Sensible voices are a rare thing in this climate and it’s incredibly easy to stand out as one if you stop playing by a set of rules that were intentionally designed to make you fail in the first place.
Honestly I think the American exceptionalism shit is a cancer on the society and I find it incredibly hard to distinguish from the "Deutschland über alles" nonsense that the Germans went through. It’s just a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world. It’s like a story a small child might believe but it really doesn’t stand up to even the most gentle of scrutiny.
The problem is your whole line of thinking is EXACTLY why Democrats lose elections. This is exactly the wrong way to win over voters.
The louder you get with this type of message, the more you will push people farther away.
FWIW I lived in 3 continents including Europe and the densest cities in the world. The best QOL I've had is in deep red voting rural areas.
Just to be clear we are currently in a thread talking about someone who won against all odds and stupid amounts of money by not sticking to the supposed “centrist script”.
Also we aren’t talking about your personal preferences here in terms of quality of life but about hard data. The numbers aren’t even close. The one you listed as your personal favorite comes last in those categories.
I’m not trying to be rude but it sure seems like you’ve taken your preference of living in a rural area vs living in a city and then tried to build an argument around that.
Just to be clearer, Mamdani's whole platflorm was alluding to "making the best city in the world more affordable". If that's not appealing to New Yorkers's feeling of exceptionalism I don't know what is. Stop conflating positivity with hollow centerism, you're buttering Maga's bread.
>Honestly I think the American exceptionalism shit is a cancer on the society and I find it incredibly hard to distinguish from the "Deutschland über alles" nonsense that the Germans went through.
I think it would be wise for us to remember that it is/was not only Americans that believed in American exceptionalism, but immigrants that were actually trying to come to the States among other possible options who believed in it-- prior to this administration that is. You would have to admit it would be a ridiculous thing for them to do if they couldn't distinguish it from "Deutschland über alles".
>>You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.
This was the Republican president Ronald Reagan speaking. The world has caught up obviously since then in this regard as well, but prior to this administration it would not be a stretch to say this was true of America more than any other nation.
what are you suggesting? left politicians need to do more to explain to voters how stupid they are? it's a bold strategy cotton...
More about accepting that they are never going to vote for you to begin with and that you’re very literally wasting both your time and killing the support you do have in trying to reach them. They are entirely unrecruitable.
How many genuinely ex-MAGA people do you know? I think for most people that number is at absolute best a very low single digit number.
There are a whole bunch of people out there who are entirely disenfranchised who just can’t be bothered to vote however who could be inspired to do so and this thread is very literally about someone who went with that strategy and won.
I’m simply making the argument that you should spend your time there instead and keep your integrity in the process. People actually want something to believe in and a concept of fairness, affordability, justice and anti-corruption is an incredibly wide tent already. Stick with that.
Except the McMansions and that every family has at least 3 cars…
The majority of Americans live pay check to pay check back in the real world. It’s the only country I’ve seen outside of a war zone where people are regularly trying to crowdfund money for basic things like food, education, justice or medical care. The story you’re telling yourself is entirely divorced from reality.
I remember the parent of an ex of mine who was from NY tell me how lucky they were to have such incredible insurance and medical coverage when his wife got cancer because he only had to pay the first $100k/yr out of pocket and then the rest was “free”. It was repeatedly stressed to me what a rare thing this was and most people would be in such a worse position.
Anyways, long story short… They hit that limit by February and then spent the rest of the year getting denied by their insurance company until the day she died. But at least she was treated at “the best cancer hospital in the world”.
> But at least she was treated at “the best cancer hospital in the world”.
Last time I checked, Australia had better cancer survival rates than the US, higher quality of life, greater expected life span, and a hybrid medicare / private insurance system that covered almost the entire population such that very few faced medical bills outside the reach of their income (or lack thereof).
I had a stent inserted to clear a clot that travelled to my heart from a knee injury - free (surgery, two and half days in hospital, follow up recovery and lifestyle advice appoints).
The ambulance cost more as I was between St John's Ambulance covers at the time, that was $500 which I was happy to pay (myself, my father, and multiple family members have all worked as volunteer ambulance drivers and paramedics over the years).
"Average Cancer Survival Rates by Country: United States: 68% (overall), UK: 63% (overall), Canada: 67% (overall), Australia: 70% (overall), and France: 65% (overall). " -google
You're not wrong, but this thread makes it sound like the US is completely backwards when it's off by 1-2% and higher than other "socialist" countries.
Yes, that was the sad joke unfortunately. The hospital was genuinely world renowned but what good does that do you if you can’t afford to use it. You die… hence the difference in survival rates.
> In terms of almost any possible quality of life metric you can think of Europe is ahead of the US.
Laughable statement, considering Europeans give a leg and a arm to live in America.
Real land of the free and home of the brave stuff here with a throwaway account to offer such gripping commentary.
Just talk like a normal adult with your normal account and accept that maybe some people think your opinion is bad and you lose an internet point.
Judging people by the content of their character and their opinions, and not their superficial characteristics is an American value. Is that an alien concept to people who supposedly enjoy such a high quality of life?
What on earth are you talking about? I’m asking why you’re scared of losing magic internet points and need to hide behind throwaway accounts and you’re here talking about the inner fortitude of the American character.
For what it’s worth, not that you asked but this year in particular has really only cemented my view of the general US citizen as a very scared individual who is terrified to stand up for anything.
What you’re doing right now is actually great example of that under what could only be described as the lowest stakes scenario possible.
You could probably learn something from the “cheese eating surrender monkey” French who you’re all to happy to compare yourselves against but at least they are willing to fight for what they have.
>and not their superficial characteristics is an American value
Is this satire? Or do you not believe that racism exist in America?
> Laughable statement, considering Europeans give a leg and a arm to live in America.
No we don't.
Sure, most of us used to like the USA a decade ago, but even back then it would have to be a right weirdo (everywhere has them) to think that highly of the USA.
If anything, I'm thinking of a healthcare cost comparison a while back, which said that for the cost of a single hip replacement in the USA, someone could fly from the USA to Spain, get it done privately, spend a year just living normally in Spain while recovering, break the other hip and get that replaced too, and still come out ahead.
(I never fact-checked that meme, what with me living in the UK at the time where the NHS supplies everything free at point of use unless you opt for private care that very few bother with; I'm now in Germany whose system is basically what the UK left fears is dangerously American and the US right fears is dangerously like the UK's NHS).
Or some of the stuff we hear about Americans considering the 2nd amendment to be a "god given right". No thanks: safety isn't where I can get armed up, it's where I don't need to.
But now? Trump's reelection has coincided with a lot of people changing from thinking of the place as "ally sharing our values" to just "a necessary partner", a downgrade to significantly less than you describe.
> Perhaps Obama couldn't have made it happen, but he didn't try.
They barely passed ACA after over a year of negotiating with the Republicans and removing lots off provisions from it. How do you expect someone to just come along and pass an even more radical reform?
> ACA was the most radical package that could have passed
And they only passed it by bypassing the fillibuster and using the budget reconciliation process.
But arguably, if they were more aggressive and offered bigger benefits, they'd get more support. The GOP has been extremely aggressive, generally. People don't vote for those hesitant and afraid of conflict.
> You know what we’d have with a few more Sinemas and Manchins in the party right now? A majority.
True, and it's also true if the Dems had a few more Sanderses and Warrens - and then they'd have a solid majority rather than one that caved like Manchin. But they'd need a bunch more to pass a healthcare bill without reconciliation.
I do think it's worth considering that FDR got elected for 4 terms (granted, congressional control went through various flows).
The push for the ideal might have locked in something generational. Maybe.
The fact that people are still saying things like what the post you're replying to is saying really makes it so clear how Democrats have to face endless false propaganda from the left and the right while Republicans generally don't have the same problem.
No. I think an honest attempt at doing something "radical" economically for the working class can cross the divides we have.
I think there's an argument to be made that many of the allegedly "radical" Democratic policies fall into an uncanny valley of wonkiness, where they're enough of a reach to get people riled up emotionally but not enough to have the kind of punchy, obvious benefits that would get people to be supporting on a similarly gut-level basis. Arguments about whether the minimum wage should be $X or $X+2 seem like accounting tournaments. There's no appetite for saying stuff like "we will seize $100 billion from the wealthiest individuals and give it to everyone else as cash payments".
The other problem is that the Democrats don't seem to realize that incremental change doesn't really work when the system of government is messed up like it is. Every little small-ball policy the Dems try to push through can just be undone later by administrative gimmicks as long as we have the level of ambiguity we do about executive power. Beyond that, they can be rolled back by countervailing legislation because the Republicans are focused on gaming the system. "Substantive" radical policies like universal healthcare are unlikely to be achievable without first enacting "procedural" radical policies like anti-gerrymandering rules or abolishing the senate.
> There's no appetite for saying stuff like "we will seize $100 billion from the wealthiest individuals and give it to everyone else as cash payments".
Indeed. Because anyone who is numerate enough to do the division quickly realizes that this works out to about $300 per person, and stops being excited about the Wowie Big Number.
Still better.
Radically changing healthcare works out great in people's heads, but then they immediately whine about their Ozempic no longer being covered like in socialized healthcare countries which don't use expensive cutting edge drugs as a first resort. No matter how competent the government is, which ours isn't, any radical change (besides just throwing more money at the problem) will make things worse before they are better and voters are the most fickle bunch there is.
Semaglutide isn’t exactly cutting edge, it’s 16 years since it was invented. GLP-1 drugs go back to the 90s. They are undeniably trendy but it’s odd to consider them cutting edge.
Expensive, yes.
Semaglutide was approved in 2017. By cutting edge, I suppose I mean covered by patent. Luckily for Canada, Novo Nordisk forgot to pay their for its renewal.
I was just pointing to an example of why healthcare reform is politically difficult. One relevant to the ACA was ending discrimination based on preexisting conditions, which caused a majority of people's premiums to go up to subsidize those who are chronically ill. Morally, most people agree it's the right thing to do, but it was politically disastrous since one person gets one vote.
FWIW, semaglutide is available in Australia via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (part of the socialized healthcare system), when prescribed for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Which means it is cheap, because the government bulk-buys it at a negotiated price.
There are plenty of treatments that aren’t subsidized, but it’s not as restricted as it might be perceived. There’s very little whining about things not being covered, because most things are.
> FWIW, semaglutide is available in Australia via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (part of the socialized healthcare system), when prescribed for treatment of type 2 diabetes
Compare the "restriction" section of Ozempic vs metformin. Ozempic is absolutely not allowed to be prescribed as a first resort against type 2 diabetes. Contrast that with a lot of American private insurance, particularly at good employers, where restrictions are much looser. This performative generosity for common treatments, especially trendy ones, is why most people view their private insurance positively, much higher than the state of healthcare in the country.
https://m.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/2430X.html
https://m.pbs.gov.au/medicine/item/12075m-12080t.html
> ACA was the most radical package that could have passed, and it still cost Democrats the Congress.
Bad casual reasoning. There is so little evidence that voters care about policies years before they go into effect.
Fox News made damned sure the voters cared.
> The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.
This is the essence of politics.
> The bill that passes is better than the ideal that doesn’t.
For your resume, sure.
Sometimes reform only works when you fully commit and if half the country isn't on board, it's not better to pass some mutilated and watered down version.
No, losing ACA matters. It's a good program that's helping people afford or qualify for life insurance. I was able to get insurance because of it.
Yes, but it does not provide health care, it provides a subsidy to the health insurance companies (I.e., throwing even more money at lucrative companies that profit by denying coverage). It is sad that it is the best our government can do for us.
It is sad, agreed, but having the ACA is better than not having it.
That seems like a difficult one to provide evidence for. A major problem in the US seems to be that they've got this impenetrable thicket of legislation around healthcare, insurance and employment that makes it impossible for people to make rational decisions.
Just not having that legislation, letting employment & insurance decouple and a sane market for healthcare develop might easily be better than the ACA.
> Just not having that legislation, letting employment & insurance decouple and a sane market for healthcare develop might easily be better than the ACA.
Maybe? But what is the mechanism by which employment gets decoupled from health insurance? That would require a different law, I suppose?
But that wasn't what I suggested: I said having the ACA is better than not having it, not that having the ACA is better than other possible alternative laws. I can think of quite a lot of alternative healthcare reform laws that would be significantly better than the ACA.
And I think it's reasonably safe to say that in "ACA vs. nothing else", ACA wins, if we judge by the millions of people who will lose healthcare coverage if the ACA were to be repealed and not replaced with anything new.
> But that wasn't what I suggested: I said having the ACA is better than not having it, not that having the ACA is better than other possible alternative laws.
It seems to be the only way to interpret what you suggested. How could it end up in a situation where there aren't other alternative laws? There are automatically laws governing what people do - laws exist. The conversation is entirely about which laws are best. In this case, I'm arguing that generic rules (not specifically tailored to healthcare) are probably better, since a generic market seems to outperforms the US healthcare system.
> And I think it's reasonably safe to say that in "ACA vs. nothing else", ACA wins
Well I can't control what you think but I can point out that it is a hard stance to provide evidence for. Healthcare is fundamentally less important than really urgent and essential services like food production or utilities and they manage to get great coverage with relatively limited fuss. The reports I've heard are that people find the situation in healthcare to be quite substandard.
I honestly don't understand why good healthcare should develop under free rational conditions. Why shouldn't a hospital charge your everything while you are in critical condition? I mean, it's a voluntary deal, take it or leave it, right?
When people say “no regulations” they almost always mean “except these unspoken base rules I take for granted”.
Unregulated market is an oxymoron. It’s always regulated by someone, warlords being the extreme devolution.
You could ask the same question most things. Food and water for example - both more urgent and more necessary than most medical care. The costs are still low.
For food and water, if you were caught in a tough place, I suppose I could charge you for everything. But most people aren't refugees in a hostile land, so they have the time to drive around.
For a medical emergency it does make sense for a doctor to ask if you would like to voluntarily consider an interesting bargain.
I'm not really arguing against the ACA in particular, just the general sentiment.
I do, however, think the passage and defense of the ACA has completely stopped any kind of healthcare reform movements from Democrats and completely turned Republicans against the idea.
The ACA was more or less the GOP's healthcare reform plan[0]. They fought so hard against it because they didn't want the Democrats to get credit for it. The ongoing animosity toward it from Republicans is ridiculous, and Democrats are even further from being able to pass any more healthcare reforms than they were when the ACA was passed. The all-too-brief excitement for Medicare For All is somewhat emblematic of that.
[0] To be fair, it did go further than previous GOP proposals. They did include individual/employer mandates and a marketplace, but not stuff like the Medicaid expansion and higher taxes on high earners to help pay for it.
That's outrageously false: every Republican voted against ACA, and Republicans for years campaigned on trying to overturn it.
That's... not arguing against anything I said?
Maybe I wasn't clear. Let me try again. Many of the policies behind the ACA had long been championed by Republicans, or even originated in conservative circles. For example:
1. The individual mandate was something the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank) originally came up with back in the 80s, and was presented as an alternative to Clinton's healthcare plans in the 90s.
2. The state-based exchange system was something already present in some red states like Utah, and the concept is very similar to Republican proposals (again) back in the 90s. (This shouldn't be surprising: conservatives tend to prefer that states administer programs like these. Not a criticism; just noting a tendency.)
3. Much of the ACA's framework is similar to Republican Governor Mitt Romney's healthcare reform in Massachusetts from 2006.
Sure, there are parts of the ACA that Republicans genuinely didn't support (e.g. Medicaid expansion, high-income-earner tax increases, requiring insurers to cover contraception). But big, fundamental parts of it were similar to or exactly like conservative healthcare reform plans that had been proposed over the past couple decades.
The only reason I can see to explain why Republicans so vehemently fought and voted against the ACA (and have subsequently repeatedly tried -- and failed -- to repeal it) is because they didn't want Democrats to get credit for enacting it, and once it became "blue policy", it was automatically capital-B Bad to them.
It's also telling that Republicans have failed so miserably at repealing it (though they have done it damage). That's because they have no alternative... because the ACA is more or less what they wanted in the first place.
Yep, it's basically a federal version of Romneycare. [1]
[1] https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2...
Actually come to think of it a very similar pole reversal happened in Canada with the "Trudeau/Liberal Carbon Tax" -- a program originally proposed by the British Columbia Conservative Party, first implemented in Alberta by a Conservative Party and proposed federally by Stephen Harper of the Federal Conservatives.
Yup, that's a huge reason why I think all of this is just petty bullshit from the GOP. Granted, even though Romney is a Republican, that doesn't mean that every other Republican has to agree with him.
While Romney has said a lot of mixed stuff over the years about the ACA, starting with pledging to repeal it during his 2012 presidential campaign, his more recent rhetoric has softened by orders of magnitude, voting against some of the repeal efforts, voting in favor of some modifications, expressing the need for a replacement plan before repealing it, and acknowledging that repealing it would cause millions of people to lose coverage. I don't agree with his position overall, but I think he's been a fairly "reasonable Republican" about it, including his belief that this sort of legislation belongs at the state level and not the federal level.
But there are plenty of Republicans in the House and Senate (more in the House, I suppose) that just seem rabidly, irrationally anti-ACA. Even while chanting "repeal and replace", they seem to forget the "replace" part of it.
Republican voters seem irrational as well: while opposition to it has softened since the Obama years, it's still pretty high (~70% or so), but you get weird effects. Like if you refer to it as "the ACA" instead of "Obamacare", Republicans don't hate it as much. Or if you don't mention "Obamacare"/"ACA" at all, and instead take a bunch of parts of the law and ask if they support them individually (like "do you support requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions?"), you see less opposition, and even see a majority of Republican voters supporting some of its provisions.
> For your resume, sure
No, for everyone. Some voters like politicians who pass zero legislation while holding firm to their values. Occasionally they get rewarded. Most often, they’re branded–correctly–ineffective. (And, I’d argue, unfit to lead. If you’re using millions of Americans as human shields to pass an ideologically-pure package, that’s immoral and belongs with Twitter celebrities, not leaders.)
You didn't mention the effectiveness or positive effects of the hypothetically passed legislation at all.
You're arguing that it's good for a politician's resume.
>and if half the country isn't on board
By that logic, we can never pass anything, ever. And that more or less is represented with congredd Grdidlock for the past 20 years. Is that a better outcome?
I see it as Sprint vs. Waterfall. Except Waterfall takes 8-10 years in policy to do and no one is in office long enough to finish the task. So we gotta pass in a lot of smaller tickets until we get there.
This attitude is why Trump is president. Yeah we have a terrible leader, but we could have had a mediocre leader and I guess that is somehow worse in people's minds.
That doesn't track at all. I'm talking about legislation and, hence, legislatures.
The ACA was essentially the Republican plan for healthcare reform. They just went scorched earth on it because they were pissy that he got the credit for their plan. That's also why they haven't been able to come up with a coherent replacement.
Obama had a plan early on to be inspired by Lincoln's cabinet of rivals and to try to unite the parties. Because of that he didn't push nearly as hard on the right wing of his party early on like Lieberman, who were the holdouts who pushed for the lack of a public option to have true universal healthcare.
Republicans in Congress never wanted or proposed anything like ACA. It is weird half truth because Massachusetts, one the more liberal states, with Democratic supermajorities in both houses, passed something similar while Mitt Romney was Governor. It was the brainchild of Jonathan Gruber, MIT Economist and Democratic consultant who worked on the ACA for Obama. You can go back and read the GOP platforms of the time, there is nothing like the ACA proposed.
The 1993 HEART Act was very much like the ACA, built around the individual mandate to purchase private health insurance, primarily through your employer. Romneycare was massaged out of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Equity_and_Access_Refor...
This was the Republican alternative to the time's Hillarycare proposal, and was authored by the Heritage Foundation of Project 2025 fame.
From what I understand, the HEART act wasn't really backed by Republicans, it had only 20 or so R's on it and was actually more of a ploy to prevent other more substantive bills from passing. It was designed to obstruct not to pass, later Dole supported a more restricted bill and HEART was never even debated. The vast majority of R's didn't support it, it was basically a political maneuver.
It was straight up co-sponsored by very nearly a majority of Senate Republicans (18 out of 42 at the time). It's hard to say a "vast majority of R's didn't support it". Though recently Republicans have been trying to distance themselves from it because it doesn't make their reaction to the ACA look great. There's a lot of rewriting of history.
Yes it didn't get debated, but the formal debate stage of a bill is pretty late in the process these days. It's been theater at best for at least a century. The actual debating happens at the stage the HEART Act got to.
It got dropped because the Republicans won congress in the midterms and didn't actually want to change anything about health care; the HEART act was just what they came up with as a proposal if they were to be forced.
It got dropped because the Republicans won congress in the midterms and didn't actually want to change anything about health care;
Right? So Republicans did not support it, or want it. It was just part of the Clinton Plan politics and negotiation. When Clinton failed, HEART totally disappeared.
recently Republicans have been trying to distance themselves from it
Of the 18 Republicans who co-sponsored it, none are still in politics, 14 of the 18 are now dead. Republicans today have literally nothing to do with it. It is getting silly to say a Republican today has any connection or responsibility for this proposal that never even came close to a vote, and not one current Republican has any connection to.
> Right? So Republicans did not support it, or want it. It was just part of the Clinton Plan politics and negotiation. When Clinton failed, HEART totally disappeared.
The ideal Republican plan was to have no healthcare reform. When faced with the proposition that no reform would cease to be tolerated, this was absolutely the Republican plan for health care reform, broadly supported by Republican leadership.
> Of the 18 Republicans who co-sponsored it, none are still in politics, 14 of the 18 are now dead. Republicans today have literally nothing to do with it. It is getting silly to say a Republican today has any connection or responsibility for this proposal that never even came close to a vote, and not one current Republican has any connection to.
They still mostly existed in politics at the passing of the ACA and the initial push back from the Republicans. Both the HEART Act and the ACA existed within the US's Sixth Political System.
The Last Republican.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt33084850/?ref_=ttpl_rvi_i_1
None of that changes that it wasn’t what they wanted, it was what they were forced to put forward or else accept something even less palatable.
To claim they wanted that bill is entirely deceptive.
They wanted no reform. When they were politically required to put up literally any alternative, this was absolutely their proposal.
Good point! But HEART was just a tactical response to the Clinton plan. Never a part of the party platform, not something candidates ran on, and it disappeared as support for the Clinton plan died. When Republicans won the presidency back in 2000, and held the house, and briefly the Senate, they didn't make any attempt to bring back HEART. It was never the Republican plan for health care. It is also somewhat of a mischaracterization to call it a mandate for health insurance, it was much more narrowly focused covering catastrophic events.
Some side notes. It was introduced by Lincoln Chafee, who then switched to the democratic party. Heritage itself disowned it. The author later wrote, "I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years, and make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court." There was also never any intent to have a punitive mandate, just a tax credit would be lost if for people who didn't buy insurance - more carrot than stick.
> Good point! But HEART was just a tactical response to the Clinton plan. Never a part of the party platform, not something candidates ran on, and it disappeared as support for the Clinton plan died. When Republicans won the presidency back in 2000, and held the house, and briefly the Senate, they didn't make any attempt to bring back HEART. It was never the Republican plan for health care.
It was the republican plan for healthcare reform. They didn't want to reform healthcare, but when forced to, this was their plan. And it had been for years; the Heritage Foundation had been kicking the plan around since about 1989.
> It is also somewhat of a mischaracterization to call it a mandate for health insurance, it was much more narrowly focused covering catastrophic events.
That's not my read. Can you point to where in the draft text of the act that makes you say that?
> Some side notes. It was introduced by Lincoln Chafee, who then switched to the democratic party.
It was introduced by John Chafee, lifelong Republican.
And it was co-sponsored by Bob Dole (Senate Minority leader before becoming Majority leader the next year, and who would become the Presidential nominee in 1996), and had the support of Newt Gingrich, the Republican Leader of the House, and frankly the leader of the Republican party at the time.
It had broad Republican support including by Republican leadership.
> Heritage itself disowned it. The author later wrote, "I headed Heritage's health work for 30 years, and make no mistake: Heritage and I actively oppose the individual mandate, including in an amicus brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court."
Yeah, over night any Republican caught supporting the ACA would be metaphorically tarred and feathered by the party. That didn't mean that they didn't previously literally write the basis for the ACA, only that they were trying not to get blamed for it.
> There was also never any intent to have a punitive mandate, just a tax credit would be lost if for people who didn't buy insurance - more carrot than stick.
It literally called for a tax to enforce the individual mandate. Honestly more of a tax than the ACA which simply withheld tax refunds and at the time was still grey area as to whether or not that actually counted as a true tax.
> SEC. 1501. REQUIREMENT OF COVERAGE.
>
> (a) In General.--Effective January 1, 2005, each individual who is
> a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States shall be
> covered under--
> (1) a qualified health plan, or
> (2) an equivalent health care program (as defined in
> section 1601(7)).
> (b) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply in the case of an
> individual who is opposed for religious reasons to health plan
> coverage, including an individual who declines health plan coverage due
> to a reliance on healing using spiritual means through prayer alone.
...
> ``SEC. 5000A. FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALS WITH RESPECT TO HEALTH INSURANCE.
> ``(a) General Rule.--There is hereby imposed a tax on the failure
> of any individual to comply with the requirements of section 1501 of
> the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993.
You are right in a deep way (as you often are on this site). Wins Against Replacement isn't something most people can comprehend. If you look at baseball, you'll see that a lot of what they're doing with what they think is advanced moneyball would seem like normal statistical techniques to anyone. But then you realize that what is trivial in an HFT firm is kind of black magic to anyone else. Even WAR is beyond the comprehension of the average person.
The average person wants someone who "totally dunked on the other guy, dude" and then loses the election but "never sold out, man". Part of the wisdom of supporting Rosa Parks and not just the first Black woman who was in that position is about being good at winning so your cause advances.
Our lives in America are so good that winning or advancing your cause doesn't really move the needle as much as "making a stand, dude" is. Given that life is really good and change isn't immediately to acute suffering, almost all politics for the average person is about posturing and signaling.
From closer to home, people are annoyed in San Francisco that the state speed camera laws are not permanent and the fines are not humongous for someone going 100 mph over the limit. Most people fantasize about things happening as God placing down edict from upon high, rather than the thing that can happen on the political frontier.
This line of thinking died the moment that the parties began another realignment with 2024. We are in the beginnings of the 7th party system.
Curtis Sliwa was significantly to the left of both Eric Adams and Cuomo on a whole host of issues, which is one of the many reasons why Trump refused to endorse Silwa (they hate each other). If we didn't have a Sinema or Manchin, we might have liberal republicans like a Silwa who would be objectively better if you're a liberal.
I genuinely can't believe, still, that I have to spell this out for people.
Obama did not do a U-turn. It is the worst naivete to think that what happened was "he had big ideas and he changed his mind." He had to bring up big ideas to get elected, and then he got elected the first Black president and some of you seem entirely too dense to actually grasp what that means. President. Not King.
Subject to all of those checks and balances you hear about and then some.
You people act as if he could wave a wand and just sweep away everyone and everything who was against his big ideas, when the opposite was at play.
Please, grow a better sense of politics.
There are plenty of instances in which Obama, despite campaigning on a platform of change from Bush-era policies, continued or even furthered those policies. A good example which is relevant here involves government surveillance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla...
Snowden has also spoken about this at length, saying he expected a change when Obama was elected due to his campaigning against the PATRIOT Act, but there was no change. This is only one of many policies in which Obama changed his stance after he became President.
Other people have mentioned mass surveillance and other ways that Obama expanded the law enforcement power of the federal government, but I'll add another thing.
Based on Rahm Emanuel's advice, the Obama administration did not focus political capital on the federal judiciary. Not only did Obama fail to get RBG to retire when she could be confidently replaced by a liberal, he didn't take judicial placements in the lower courts as seriously as he should have. The courts are substantial part of how we got here.
Yes, Obama was not a king. But there was stuff he absolutely could have done, especially during his first two years when he had the trifecta, that he didn't take seriously.
> Not only did Obama fail to get RBG to retire when she could be confidently replaced by a liberal, he didn't take judicial placements in the lower courts as seriously as he should have. The courts are substantial part of how we got here.
I imagine there was a lot of complacency based on the (erroneous) assumption that Hillary Clinton would be his successor.
It does appear that RBG wanted to be replaced by a Clinton appointee and the Obama administration didn't push terribly hard to snap her out of this. This was, of course, outrageous foolish politicking and contributed to the mess we are in.
RBG was a 75 year old cancer survivor in 2008. She should have stepped down in 2010 and the Obama administration should have put public pressure on her to do so.
Fail to get RBG to retire??!?!?
That's *Obama's* failure? And not RBG's?
You people are NOT SERIOUS.
It is of course RBG's fault at the base of it. Obama couldn't fire her or whatever.
But by all accounts Obama did not push her very hard or treat this as a priority. He shouldn't have just asked nicely and then gone away once she said no. They could have built a public media narrative around pressuring her to retire.
It's quite possible Obama considered that and decided he would get the sort of response you would get telling your teenage daughter not to date the bad boy. Sometimes pressuring people backfires.
Again. Think about all that Notorious RBG merch etc.
Do you people not understand the "anti-feminist" backlash this would have caused?
Y'all are really doing a whole lot of checkers thinking for what is a chess game.
Consider the framing today: "Trump is doing all these terrible things, making all of these drastic changes, exploiting the system to his will."
The Dems can no longer use the excuse that the president is handcuffed. Trump 2.0 is showing us what the president can do. The dems consistently use that excuse to prevent popular policies from being enacted. Obama even had a ~6mo super majority where he could have codified abortion rights. But instead they keep it around as an outstanding issue because it is a good fundraising issue.
I don't want my President to act like a dictator even if they're on "my side." Some things are more important than policy.
Obama understood this and respected the office. Trump took a fat dump on the office and I'm not sure if our country's values will ever recover from this race to the bottom.
> Obama understood this and respected the office
At a bare minimum, he signed into law the NDAA of 2012, which authorized the government to ignore people's civil liberties in cases where they were suspected of terrorism. On that basis I do not personally agree that he respected the office.
This is apologetic liberal tactic to keep the status quo. US president is still the most powerful political position on the planet. They can do stuff you know.
Obama is not some good hearted hero who had his hands tied. He ran on pretty progressive campaign because it polled well and when he came to office he just did what his sponsors wanted - keep status quo.
It was keeping the money in pockets of billionaires and corporations while talking about promise of potential change by the most charismatic president ever.
That's why people don't trust democrats.
>It was keeping the money in pockets of billionaires and corporations while talking about promise of potential change by the most charismatic president ever.
Are you talking about Obama or Trump?
> US president is still the most powerful political position on the planet. They can do stuff you know.
And this is why people don't trust republicans. They are all "checks and balances" and "Constitution" until the dictatorship they want is upon them.
Biden try to forgive student loans. The courts blocked him. They clearly cannot just "do stuff you know". Not without risk of impeachment for executive overreach.
To be clear Trump is also about keeping status quo. He is just much more blatantly corrupted so he will sell to highest bidder instead of honoring past allies/deals.
These limits of power were always Obamas excuse when he was supposed to push for something inconvinient. That was the narrative to not try too hard. When you start to look at what hes done… the small things, the mundane and the stuff he had clearly power over. It's not good. Biden was very different in that aspect.
I believe in the foundational governance principles in the Constitution more than whatever liberal policy liberals say we "desperately need."
I don't want a liberal Trump.
It is astoundingly naive to think that the forces in America make it such that "whoever is the president has unlimited power, whether they're an old rich white billionaire or a relatively young black guy on the Dem side."
Again, I implore you all to grow a bit smarter.
People acting like the supreme court would overturn laws in favor of obama the way they do for trump...
We'll never know because RBG chose not to retire when Dems could have done anything, and every Dem after that just politely waited for GOP to take advantage of them. It's still happening with folks like Jeffries today being utterly willing to capitulate on policy if it means the institution is respected.
>Trump 2.0 is showing us what the president can do.
If a Democrat did any of the hundreds of actions performed this year, they'd be blocked by the SCOTUS, and then impeached by the House because they ignored the SCOTUS. And probably Convicted by Senate.
A democrat has not been able to do something as bold as blasting through the courts since FDR (and for that time, the term "democrat" may not even be the correct word to use), and that was under a depression with very popular support from the people. Imagine if congress flipped and fought as hard against SS as they did against the ACA. The Silent and Boomer generations would be in shambles decades later.
There was a government option in the original ACA. Dems couldn’t get the votes to overcome the filibuster in the senate to pass it. It had nothing to do Obama u turning. It was an amazing feat to get it passed in congress and get 60 votes in the senate.
The u-turn came long before that acronym existed, as I remember it. The Dems had been trying to build consensus for some kind of single payer plan for almost twenty years by that point, and practically the first thing Obama said after being elected was that as a show of good faith he would take single payer was off the table.
Maybe today the ACA is thought of as progressive, especially in the sense that the right wants it to end and the left doesn't; but in its time I think it was rightly understood as the Democrats caving to a massive transfer from the public to the private sector. I recall the private insurers' stock prices all going up 10-20% that week.
Obama was pretty timid. Especially at the beginning of his presidency he assumed that his fellow democrats like Lieberman and Baucus were rational and wanted the best for the country and not just being pawns for the insurance industry. I bet if he had pounded the table, he would have way more success. Heck, LBJ made senators cry to get things done.
Hindsight is 20/20. I recall Obama later saying he wished he was more radical because he only realised too late that the holdouts to ACA were never going to vote for it. Essentially, they negotiated in bad faith but Obama only realised this after they’d made all the requested changes and still couldn’t get the votes.
My ex worked at Congress at the time and even stupid me realized quickly that Obama was being played. I remember having fights with her when I told her that Obama is naive. Maybe they don’t see what’s going on when they are on the inside.
I can totally believe that. I mean, look at the shock that Democrats have had to Trump doing all the authoritarian things he said he'd do!
I saw a similar thing in the UK where the newly-minted Labour government thought they could combat ReformUK on asylum policy. Luckily, I think they're slowly starting to realise that, no matter how hard they tack, ReformUK will always promise something more insane and unworkable.
I can't help but think of the American left as Charlie Brown and the right as Lucy holding the football. Once you realize the left is always willing to cede real power to win a moral victory over itself, it's just too easy to push that button and keep pushing it until the resistance eats itself.
They'll find something on Zohran, or else he'll make some compromise that makes the left turn on him. It's just a matter of time.
The Affordable Care Act wasn't a complete solution - and I don't get the feeling universal health care was necessarily achievable - but it is the reason that I have health care and mental health services today. So I consider it to be a meaningful - if incremental - improvement. I imagine there are quite a few people aside from myself who are happy to have it.
There will be lots of pressure to on Zohran to do the same. But hopefully the cautionary tale that is Obama will be learned from.
I feel Obama was trying to appease the Republicans as well, he appointed many of them who back stabbed him shortly after. Maybe he was trying to no be too radical just because he was black and knew how racist a part of America was and it turned out it was right, Trump mainly got elected because "Democrats" put a black person in the White House. In retrospect, yeah, maybe he should have been more radical.
Run from the Left, govern from the Right. A pretty classic political electoral strategy of centrist liberals.
Why would someone do that? Especially for presidency which is the final stage of their career? They're not beholden to or reliant on anyone no more so shouldn't have to be swayed by any adverse interests.
They run from the left in order to get elected, that is the sham. They tell people things that people want to believe that they know they can't deliver in order to get elected.
Then they govern from the centre right status quo which aligns more with their actual beliefs.
A presidency lasts 8 years of your life, best case scenario. And the presidential salary will not make you rich. So, if your only goal is a good life, you have to use your presidency to get people to make you rich afterwards, which means favors for the wealthy.
Look at Obama's net worth when he left office and now.
Look at Bill Clinton's net worth when he left office and now.
It wasn't the final stage of their career but only the beginning.
Reelection
Yeah, can you believe all those progressive bills he vetoed?
...I mean c'mon now. Congress passed what they could and it cost the Dems greatly. Why are we pretending Obama could have gotten more?
Not too radical to be good and effective, too radical to break through current political constraints. You have to confront the reality of what can actually be achieved within the system you’re working in.
Proper Obamacare wasn't implemented because healthcare industry interests held up legislation until the midterms at which point the Republicans took over congress.
> [Obama] called for universal health care but once he was elected he started saying it was "too radical".
He "called for" a bill that would pass (barely, as it required a filibuster-proof majority that will never happen again in our lives), and it did. It's absolutely infuriating to me the extent to which the American electorate fails to understand basic civics. Presidents take all sorts of legislative positions, but they don't run congress and never have.
And so the cycle continues. Presidential candidate says "I thinks Foo is good", electorate takes that as a promise to deliver Foo. Foo fails to appear, electorate gets mad and votes for the other guy promising to deliver Bar.
Never mind that MetaFoo actually passed, Bar is impossible, and the Barite party wants to enact hungarian notation via martial law. Electorate is still pissed off about Foo, somehow.
Sometimes I think about what we could have had.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act
And 15 years before that was Hillarycare (1993):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_19...
(Fuck you Bill Kristol.)
There's a long, sad, littered history of attempts at universal care in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_...
Bill Kristol has come a long way! He would vote for Mamdani...over Cuomo and Sliwa anyway.
https://www.cmcforum.com/post/bill-kristol-says-he-would-vot...
You can hear him discussing it here:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bill-kristol-fake-news-on-60-mi...
I'm also reminded of the time Jon Stewart got Bill Kristol to admit that a government-run health care system (the VA) was good:
https://youtu.be/rRSZiWwiBuE
Bill Kristol is the same asshole he always was.
Interestingly, the ACA can trace its roots to the Republican counter proposal to Hillarycare written by the Heritage Foundation of recent Project 2025 fame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Equity_and_Access_Refor...
>50% of the TV ad spend in the Virginia governor election was on anti-trans ads, so no, don’t hold your breath.
Pretty sure both parties already know this. They both just don't want that to be a topic of conversation to control the window of what can / cannot be discussed in terms of what benefits the parties.
These people are not dumb. They are just very very interested in self-dealing.
"I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices."
Zohran has the largest, youngest, mandate in NYC in a very long time. The key is thats it's NYC and the place has an energy all it's own, and Zohran has that, and understands that NYC is always broke falling down, rich, and building up. Think about it, this guy just stood up, and Gotham said Hey!, you!, YES! NYC is pumped and ready to out work, out think, and out party, the entrenched, but tired and old, establishment. Lead, follow, or get out of the way(and cheer)
I don't know about age breakdown, but in sheer percent of voters, Mamdani has essentially the same mandate Trump had a year ago.
Make of that what you will.
>I don't know about age breakdown, but in sheer percent of voters, Mamdani has essentially the same mandate Trump had a year ago.
Huh?
Trump v. Harris (2024) [0]
Trump: 49.8%, Harris: 48.3%
Margin: 1.5%
Mamdani v. Cuomo vs. Sliwa (2025) [1]
Mamdani: 50.4%, Cuomo: 41.6%, Sliwa: 7.1%
Margins:
Mamdani v. Cuomo: 9.8%
Mamdan v. Sliwa: 40.7%
how is that even remotely comparable?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_New_York_City_mayoral_ele...
Edit: Fixed formatting.
It’s basic math:
50.4-49.8=0.6
That’s how.
You seem to be conflating the margin between the winner and the next candidate with an overwhelming majority of people all feeling the same way. The former is a mandate, the latter is just being the least disliked.
And remember, the day after the election last year people thought Trump had gotten a majority of the popular vote. But then, once absentee ballots were counted he fell just shy of it. This morning there was still 9% of the vote uncounted in NYC, so it’s not unlikely here also Mamdani will have a plurality rather than majority.
You are confusing a 2-way race with a 3-way race. Mamdani could've won with a lot less than 50% (since there was no ranked choice - and even if it was, I doubt any Sliwa voter would have given Cuomo any 2nd place votes).
The fact that he cleared 50% in a 3-way race is itself a mandate.
> The fact that he cleared 50% in a 3-way race is itself a mandate.
Most people would not agree with this.
To put it another way, he is leading a city where a majority or close to a majority did not support his candidacy. A mandate is when a large majority of the people you are leading supported your rise to leadership and you are no leading with their approval.
>To put it another way, he is leading a city where a majority or close to a majority did not support his candidacy. A mandate is when a large majority of the people you are leading supported your rise to leadership and you are no leading with their approval.
No. A majority supported his candidacy. In case you're confused about that, a "majority" is more than 50%. Mamdani received more than 50% of the vote despite something like 40-60 million dollars in attack ads making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims and outright lies about him, his policies and his background.
His victory with a majority is not in question, is it? How, exactly do elections work here? The person with the most votes wins. Full stop. Are you making some sort of claim that such is not the case. If so, where's your proof?
I'd also note that Mamdani's margin of victory (~8.5%) is right in line (with a few exceptions) with margins going back decades.[2]
Mamdani was, by far, the best candidate in the race. HIs opponents being a handsy, disgraced serial sexual harasser, a bribe taking incumbent who oversaw the most corrupt mayoral administration in decades and a media clown whose claim to fame was that he used to ride the subways at night with his gang and beat up random strangers.
As such, who should we have voted for in your opinion?
Actually, if you don't actually live in NYC, we don't care what your opinion might be. We don't tell you how to vote in your local elections, so mind your own damn business!
All that said, are you claiming that Mamdani should not be allowed to become mayor? Do you claim that his election somehow illegitimate?
Shall we, as some have suggested, strip Mamdani of his citizenship and deport him[0][1] as well?
Will that satisfy you?
[0] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republican-calls-zohr...
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gop-lawmakers-push-strip...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_mayoral_election...
People should also remember Democrats won contested Governor ships as well. This wasn't just a Mamdani election/victory night, though the far left want to make it look that way.
I have some confrontational views about this, but in good faith I’d like to invite some discussion with it (not an American).
TLDR: You will see more Mamdanis in other cities. This is a treasure trove for MAGA. Expect at least 12 years of secure nationwide wins for whoever is championing that platform
> I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message
This is the gist of the PR campaign, voters fell for. It goes in line with him getting away with being “grassrootsy” when in fact he got tremendous funding from the typical NGOs (Open Society etc) and is a son of a Professor who was/is basically paid to tell American and African Top 5% why white people are bad.
His win also shows the effect migration has on elections. Immigration inherently is a deal where incumbent residents define the terms, and when the other party returns the favor by electing anti-incumbents into office some incumbents will have profound buyer’s remorse.
Fertile soil for the right.
Mamdani’s success also puts a spotlight on foundational problems of the democrats.
After all Mamdani is charismatic, yes, but more importantly he appealed on the issues. His policies will be abysmally failing to resolve the problems he criticized, yes - but that is unimportant to the voter. Important is that he believably criticized them.
How is it, that these well-established circles of the democrats, these well oiled machines, where in states like CA or NY (or most US cities) mayorships, senatorships, congressional seats, and governorships are basically handed out by the DNC, fail to win on those issues? It’s not like making life affordable is not a core branding of the party.
Well, it appears that the DNC gerrymandered itself to death. The dissolution of political contest from the public into internal primaries has stymied the platform’s vitality to a point where it can be easily hijacked by radicals.
Expect many more Mamdani-esque wins locally. Which will mean many wore wins for MAGA nationally.
Let's revisit this take after the mid terms. Also, if not this, then what is the solve?
>How is it, that these well-established circles of the democrats, these well oiled machines, where in states like CA or NY (or most US cities) mayorships, senatorships, congressional seats, and governorships are basically handed out by the DNC, fail to win on those issues?
You should know this better than the US, but our "democrats" are center right for the rest of the world. The goal is to sound progressive but then act in neoliberal ways to appeal to donors, after the attention isn't on them. I call these "Establshment Democrats", more concerned with keeping the status quo and being a PR machine to the people than actually making policy that benefit the people.
That's why Mamdami can cut through by saying the things that Establshment Dems hated. And early on in his campaign when he gained momentum you can see the resistance against him by the Establishment, up to Cuomo decided to run independent after the primaries. I can't speak for the common person, but those actions speak a lot louder than any words Mamdami said.
There is a rift in the US Left, but I think it's one Estblashiment Dems had coming for a while now. If absolutely nothing else, the rampant destruction of the country by the Trump admin has absolutely activated people in ways not seen since 9/11. And when people are active, words aren't enough anymore. They want action, to not see military roaming their streets and kidnapping US citizens. They want to see actual ways to fix the economy as these trade wars sap at their wealth.
The collorary here is that the MAGA movement is also causing a rift in the US Right. There's definitely Esablishment Republicans that do not like this situation either. And there's the fact that all this is propped on one obsese, Dementia-ridden, 79 year old man. If/when he passes, there's going to be a huge power vacuum, and none of the headrunners are ready to fill that.
If anything, the split on the Right will be worse than the split of the Left, when it eventually happens. At least the Left is having new blood to try and push that rift from the bottom up compared to the house of cards that is Trump and everyone who tried bundling under him.
>You should know this better than the US, but our "democrats" are center right for the rest of the world. The goal is to sound progressive but then act in neoliberal ways
You won't know this, but us living in the Czech Republic know that your "democrats" are left of center left. And for a lot of other countries that exist in the real world.
Is this proof that the "democrats" are indeed extreme left? If not, in what percentage does or does not? Do the politics of all these countries affect the "democrat" alignment in any way?
See? That is a non-argument, and it signals more about the person using it than the "democrats".
>Is this proof that the "democrats" are indeed extreme left? If not, in what percentage does or does not?
I'm not a geopolitical scientist, but I'm sure if we compose North American, South America, Europe, and Asia's countries and apply a spectrum on major policy points, you can in fact make an nigh- objective statement here.
But if you want a better lens, sure. The US is center right compared to the EU spectrum, which already congregates 20 other countries to compare to. It's likely center left libertarian when compared to many Asian countries.
I don't think the rest of my analysis is impacted by these lines drawn in the sand since the rest talks about policy and not hard definitions of spectrums.
His policy proposals have been repeatedly disproven throughout recent history. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
What has been dis-proven?
Rent freezes are such a bad idea that Mamdani himself implicitly admits as such by insisting they will be temporary with no justification as to why.
No? The policy is to freeze the rent in rent-controlled units for his entire term, which is as long as he can. The long-term solution is of course to build more units.
The freeze will have the same effect that rent control has always had, for the past decades in NY and elsewhere: make the situation worse. It being "temporary for his entire term" just means that the negative consequences will be "temporary for his entire term"; is that supposed to be a selling point?
What was the definition of insanity again?
It will have the same effect it always had if we proceed to do the same thing. i.e. fail to build more affordable housing.
How about this time we actually do it and stop blaming glue for not being a welding mold? Rent controls aren't supposed to be long term. Mamdami realizing that is already a good sign. So I'll see if he can get housing projects off the ground next.
Worse for who? Better for who? I guarantee you the people who live in the rent control apartments aren't thinking they are worse off from it.
The NYC Rent Guidelines Board is already tasked with keeping rents lower for rent stabilized tenants, except with long term sustainability in mind. A pledge to put your thumb on the scale to freeze rent for 4 years is a clear sign of prioritizing short term political optics. The clever part about this is even if tenants suffer, he can just blame any negative effects on "greedy landlords."
It is worse for anybody looking for an appartment. Of course the person already living in one isn't worse off, but that has never been the issue that rent control creates. It disincentivises repairs and new constructions.
NYC has had rent freezes on the rent stabilized apartments before.
Obamacare being what it was is 1,000,000% Obama’s failure - he’ll tell you this same thing over coffee too. Just outmost disaster through and through how it was implemented.
Zohran can easily fund which is why every single GOP Senator and Congresman went publicly against him. Can’t have people get any crazy ideas that they could actually have nice things. WTF does Congresman from a some shithole county in Alabama give a fuck about who Mayor of NYC is? but GOP is a well-oiled machine so it was all-hands-on-deck to prevent these ideas from infecting the nation…
even though this seems like a victory, starting in about 10 minutes the entire GOP message for 2026 is going to be “Zohran is Democratic Party now” and it just might work
Zohran is the Democratic party now? Thank god, it's about time! :P
works in NYC but in swing states “zohran is a commie” will hum along nicely enough…
Why does Ohio care about who's mayor in New York City? Do people realize that a city mayor is one or two levels under a state govenor?
exactly this - the GOP is sooooooooooo good at this that there isn’t single GOP politician who didn’t publicly go off against Zohran… can’t have these crazy ideas that people can have nice things :)
Red and swing states all voted overwhelmingly towards democrats tn though
in 2000? :)
I don't think so. Americans want populism, doesn't really matter who provides. If you can focus the people's hate away from minorities and unto billionaires before it is too late, you might just save your democracy.
And the retort should be "Who cares? New York City Mayors never get another job anyway."
got any tips on what to look for on how obama bumbled obamacare? not too familiar on the subject myself
Edward Kennedy died. Everyone forgets that.
Despite his public persona, I read recently Obama is actually quite aloof and didnt have the patience to charm the politicians in person.
Oh, yeah, Obama being aloof was why the white men who questioned his citizenship openly - who are now entirely complicit in or supportive of an unaccountable gestapo randomly kidnapping people from the streets wth no ID or due process based on their skin tone - weren't "charmed" by him.
Dog whistles are supposed to be subtle.
Obama took a mea culpa on parts of implementation, namely the federal marketplace website (they weren’t expected as many states to opt out of the marketplace) and the “keep your plan” narrative.
It was a compromise law that was in alignment with Bush era mainstream conservatives. The fatal flaw of Obama and Biden is they underestimated the power of the nutcase wing of the Republican Party. (Along with the institutional GOP folks)
that isn’t the fatal flaw. the fatal flaw is campaigning and staking your entire political career on something and the delivering something sooooo subpar.
the sad thing is, history will remember him as first black President and that’s really about it. and most of us cried watching that speech from lincoln park.
our current president is causing most of us to cry daily but will be remembered as one of the most influential presidents in the history of this country… sad, very sad, but all true
presidents don't pass legislation, and the original Obamacare was too radical even for all the Dem senators, not to mention needing some GOPs to get 60 votes
Maybe, if Obama had been as ruthless as Trump and used blatant lies and targeted attacks on senators to make them so fearful of re-election that they would play along, he might have gotten it passed, though probably not even then. Plus, as much as I wish we'd had the original Obamacare, I'd rather have a watered down version with balance of powers, than a tyrannical president who cowers the legislative branch into submission.
> original Obamacare was too radical even for all the Dem senators
This statement alone is the craziest thing about our country (I don't disagree...). However, if you make something a centerpiece of your entire political life and then you do not deliver you have effectively failed. I am sure if Obama had a do-over he would either get this done right or punt and focus his tenure on something he could have actually delivered...
I understand your point. I’m pretty sure Obama thought he could at least get it through the Dem Congress; it is a sad statement on our country’s political elite that even the Dems couldn’t agree to it. But I disagree that he made it the centerpiece of his entire political career. I also think it was a monumental positive step forward even if not the change I wanted. He has no control over what future Congresses might do to it.
if not Obamacare what else is his legacy?
You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list:
1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good.
2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egregious, illegal shit.
3) Mamdani. Millennial candidate. No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young, his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field.
Gee, who should I choose? [[said all of NYC today]]
The fact that I was seeing Sliwa favourably speaks to the candidate quality in this race.
> No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young
Stupid stuff he credibly disavowed.
I’m still blown away that after De Blasio he was the only one, when asked a foreign policy question, who said he’d put city priorities first.
It was pretty pathetic when, during one of the mayoral debates this year, most of the candidates including Cuomo said the first country they would visit as mayor would be Israel. Thankfully, younger generations aren’t falling for it anymore.
It is unfortunate that, after the Spanish Inquisition, Jewish refugees were welcome in Istanbul, but the current receptivity is so much colder.
This is exactly the point where the historic tolerance of the middle east is most direly needed, but common ground in so many contexts is absent.
I hope that we can put ourselves back together. We've seen the consequences this year of its lack.
> where the historic tolerance of the middle east is most direly needed
Sure. Broadly. But there is one correct answer a mayoral candidate could give on such an issue, and it’s the one Mamdani gave.
This is from Eisenhower's "Cross of Iron" speech:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies—in the final sense—a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities.
It is: two electric power plants, each serving a town of sixty thousand population.
It is: two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is: some fifty miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people.
This—I repeat—is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/states-war/humanity-hanging...
President Eisenhower. Not mayor. President Eisenhower’s portfolio properly contains these things. Mayors should not be travelling to foreign countries on official business outside a very narrow remit. Humanitarian activism isn’t one of them.
So let's take a look...
Eric Adams: Lebanon 2024, Israel 2023, Quatar 2022
Bill de Blasio: Israel 2015
What should not happen obviously does.
China found a way around this by manufacturing all their civilian ships to military standards.
Maybe guns or butter is a false dichotomy. Or perhaps the even tougher lesson: a country with an information economy ends up with neither.
Jewish or not Jewish, receptivity was always joint about circumstances and interest. Based on that, refugees or people in special circumstances will be either accepted or rejected. Also, any group of entities can get into these special circumstances depending on what is happening in that time.
As a Brit who has been exposed to the blanket coverage of this on social media: Mamdani is going to be like Sadiq Khan. Popular with people in the city, while those outside run endless weird fantasy "news" scare stories because he's a Muslim.
GBnews has been unrelenting and it's frankly worked to turn non-Londoners against London and Khan.
It's disgusting they're allowed to vilify him so much without any accountability.
as a proud Londoner I'd like to see him held accountable for his own lies and questionable behaviour.
.. such as? Compared to previous mayor Boris Johnson?
Yeah likewise interested as a Londoner.
The thing that annoys me the most is that by scapegoating Khan they avoid fixing the problems that are the responsibility of others. Like knife crime - the tories cut 1/3 of the police force, crime went up in London but also in the rest of the country but the papers are all lets slag Kahn for it which is jolly fun I guess but doesn't stop the stabbings and phone snatchings in a way that the central government which controls the laws and budgets could do.
I'm a Londoner who voted for Khan. There's a difference in that contrary to all the scapegoat stuff in the right wing press, Khan has had largely sensible middle of of the road policies. And where he has deviated from the average, on air pollution, it's been stuff I'm in favour of - I have desire to get sick/die from that.
Mamdani seems like a nice guy but some of his policies seem a bit bonkers - state owned retail outlets and the like.
Isn't it proposing running like five grocery stores to test? That's not bonkers or radical. Or even expensive. It seems like the type of experiment HN would love.
It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper.
Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.
Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor.
Which means the solution is giving poor people money.
But that is not a winning political position, so we have all these nonsense proposals.
> Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.
For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.
I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down.
The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.
> In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.
I'm kind of curious what is different about the US environment that makes this the case. Most large European cities have supermarkets (national chains) all over the place. To the point that it gets a bit silly; I've got about five Tescos in easy walking distance, which have the same prices as other Tescos (one is a Tesco Metro, which is slightly more expensive).
In the U.S., the answer usually comes back to racism. In the post-WWII era, a lot of mostly-white people moved to the suburbs. This pulled a lot of tax base and business away and also lead to a lot of neighborhoods being partitioned by highways so the suburban office workers could commute faster. In some areas, that combined with politics problems lead to riots in the 60s which further damaged many neighborhoods. All of that lead businesses not to invest or to pull out of less profitable neighborhoods. People who could afford cars would accelerate the shift by driving to the higher-end markets, so this can produce a negative feedback loop over decades, especially when businesses aren’t jumping to put money into remodeling or upgrading those locations.
Every time I’ve been in Europe I keep asking why we can’t have those markets, too. Trying to minimize time spent out of our cars and avoid contact with our neighbors has had a really big price.
It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?
>It doesn't look like there _are_ any Walmarts in NYC? Are supermarkets in NYC actually offering the same prices as supermarkets in places where there are Walmarts?
That's true. There are a couple of Costcos, but since I don't own a car (like most New Yorkers) it's not all that useful.
And supermarkets in NYC (in car-centric places some NYC supermarkets are smaller than gas station convenience stores) are definitely more expensive than supermarkets outside NYC.
What's more, the "food deserts" that Mamdani's proposal is trying to address don't have any supermarkets and folks are forced to take the bus or the subway to shop for groceries. I'd also note that most subway stations do not have elevators, making it much more difficult to shop for any length of time, especially for older, less mobile folks.
> Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins.
And yet, plenty to spend billions on share buybacks.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/kroger-albert...
What else should Kroger do with their $2.6B net income from $147B of revenue? Buybacks are just a more tax efficient form of distributing profits compared to dividends, which is the reason people invest in stable businesses that are not going to experience growth.
Otherwise, it would be a charity.
I mean, this line hints at at least one alternative they've in fact done a little in the past.
> Kroger said it would repurchase $7.5 billion of its shares after a more than two-year pause, with $5 billion of that to be repurchased in an accelerated fashion — the same sum that Kroger estimated Wednesday it has spent to lowering prices over the past 21 years.
> It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins.
And yet Aldi's prices in the states are more than 2% below Albertson's. Almost like there actually is more room for improvement?
Aldi is a limited service grocer that doesn't have to deal with employee unions and costly departments like meat/deli/bakery/etc.
That is the underlying story, is that fewer Americans can afford the full service grocer (or maybe don't want to patronize due to smaller household sizes and less cooking). Also, Aldi has successfully fended off unions, which are mostly a thing legacy grocers like Albertsons and Kroger have to deal with.
Part of Mamdani's plan is to increase taxes on white neighborhoods, which could be used to offset cost and make it seem cheaper.
That's a straight up lie.
Please show me where any plan like that is published. And specifically which neighborhoods that every white person will pay more taxes. The actuarials say I should live another 25 years or so. I'll wait.
Or are you referring to the proposed 2% increase in income taxes for folks making over USD$1,000,000/annum, which has exactly zero to do with location (other than NYC as a whole)?
Such an increase, while suggested by Mamdani, is not within the purview of the mayor of NYC to implement. Rather, any tax increase must be passed by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor. The most NYC's mayor can do is ask the state.
Are you that uninformed? Do you even live in NY State?
First bullet point on page 4: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iGn9ws9Ds0x_3kkB1tdM2pxLlbk...
From https://nypost.com/2025/06/27/us-news/socialist-nyc-mayoral-...
If it was just about wealth, why bring race into it?
What you linked says:
Why is raising caps on property taxes in richer neighborhoods, regardless of ethnicity a bad thing? Why should a home worth $500,000 be taxed almost the same as a home worth $2,500,000?As for "richer and whiter" neighborhoods, the median income for "white" folks is ~$108,000 and everyone else is 35-51% less[0]. As such, given the income breakdowns, "whiter" neighborhoods are richer neighborhoods.
Or are you arguing that more expensive properties should have a lower tax rate because more "white" people live there?
What's more you (and the NY Post, that racist rag) take a single word and completely ignore the actual intent of the proposal, which like pretty much every other tax, isn't set by the mayor, but by the state legislature and the governor.
Thanks for repeating white supremacist talking points. If I need more, I know where to find them.
[0] https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/new-york-ny-median-househ...
You realize none of that actually answers my question, right? Why bring race into it at all if it's just about wealth?
Ah maybe.
When a church runs a football nobody blinks an eye, when a city runs 5 grocery stores as a pilot in food deserts...
It's a pilot of 5 publicly funded grocery stores in food deserts. I don't know if food deserts exist in London, but they're pretty bad in the US. Like, you cannot buy a vegetable for miles. It's a sensible policy to eliminate food deserts just from a public health perspective.
It doesn't seem like _that_ bonkers an idea? It'd be a trial, and, well, if they can't compete, they can't compete. And if they _can_ compete, then they will drive down prices.
People probably thought the UK's state-owned bank was a bit bonkers at the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank) but it _worked_; it forced private banks to expand access and to modernise. And then eventually it couldn't compete. But it's hard to consider it as anything other than a success.
(This is all assuming that NYC supermarkets have a competition problem in the first place, though. Never been to NYC, so wouldn't know.)
From a distance it looks like Cuomo is also a generational talent when it comes to being a lazy, unmotivated campaigner.
Not to mention raising and spending money campaign money.
Don't forget:
Eric Adams born 1960
Andrew Cuomo born 1957
Curtis Sliwa born 1954
Mamdani born 1991
On policing, on New York's relationship to Israel, on public transit, the so-called 'mainstream' is actually 'the average view of people over 60'.
The median age in New York City is 36.8 years old[0].
[0]: https://popfactfinder.planning.nyc.gov/explorer/cities/NYC?c...
> his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road
Free buses and free child care are not remotely common policies in the US. Ditto for govt-run grocery stores. And freezing rent for controlled units.
> Free buses and free child care are not remotely common policies in the US. Ditto for govt-run grocery stores.
While not common, free buses do exist throughout the US and Europe.
Free childcare is uncommon. IDK where that actually exists.
Government run stores is actually very common. Many states run the liquor stores. A few cities have government run grocery stores.
Freezing the rent on rent controlled buildings isn't common but rent control itself it quite uncommon. It's probably the easiest for Mamdani to accomplish.
Free childcare for low income families is extremely common, even in the United States. Subsidizing childcare is even more common. And it's not that expensive, because spending tends to get offset by increased tax income and reduced consumption of other wellfare benefits (from parents who choose to re-enter the workforce).
As for universal free childcare, I'm aware of it's existence in a number of places in Germany (Berlin, in particular), driven by having been an extremely popular public benefit in East Germany.
New Mexico is experimenting with free child care. Canada has nationalized its own system and while it isn't free, it is heavily subsidized.
Correct - common sense policies != common policies
Doesn't make them middle of the road, though.
Free childcare is an extremely business-friendly proposal (increases the workforce, reduces the need for costly parental leave). I'd say I don't know why it's not more popular with right wing neoliberals, but I know why (they're more anti-government than pro-economy).
Rent control is increasing popular and common in liberal areas (which NYC is)
From wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Adams
> In September 2024, a series of investigations into Adams's administration emerged. Adams was indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. Adams pleaded not guilty to the charges. He alleged that the charges were retaliation for opposing the Biden administration's handling of the migrant crisis. In February 2025, the Department of Justice in the Donald Trump administration instructed federal prosecutors to drop charges against Adams. Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case against Adams on April 2, 2025
It's kind of astonishing that they couldn't find a non-terrible establishment candidate, really.
Like, they mightn't have won, but surely a boring establishment candidate would at least have beat Cuomo.
I disagree with this. I mean, it's as straightforward for me as you wrote it. But,
1. It hasn't worked like this when they elected Trump for the second time. Back then Kamala should have been the only valid candidate, according to this thinking.
2. Mamdani got 1,036,051 votes and Cuomo got 854,995. This is not exactly "all of NYC" as you imply.
For a time warp from The Onion - June 22, 2021 : De Blasio: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Mayor That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’ https://theonion.com/de-blasio-well-well-well-not-so-easy-to...
I'd also call out October 17, 2025 : Zohran Mamdani Refuses To Share Plan For Making Rich Richer https://theonion.com/zohran-mamdani-refuses-to-share-plan-fo...
It’ll be interesting to see the headlines the onions writing by summer 2026.
For all I dislike him, Trump essentially squandered the political capital he had on things that are shiny, motivated by ego, and created clickbaity headlines that single out small subsets of the American populous. He could have done far far worse and less reversible things to America. We’re now at the start of the end of his presidency, with focus first turning to midterms and then his replacement.
I don’t expect Mamdani to do much better with his political capital.
I don’t know a ton about Mamdani but he doesn’t seem narcissistic.
I agree with most of his goals but have serious doubts about the viability of the methods. We’ll see.
My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls, which almost always lead to perverse incentives. The economy finds a way to sneak in an effective price increase via other means. Either that or you create a landed gentry of sorts, or a “landed rentry” for rent control. You get a class of beneficiaries locked into place and nobody else can get in.
I do like seeing different ideas get tried. I like experiments, and I think we should have more of them. The endless tape loop of 1980s-1990s Reagan/Clinton politics is clearly not addressing some glaring problems.
> My biggest doubts are around the idea of price controls,
DeBlasio froze rent for rent-stabilized units for 3 years straight. Literally everything Mamdani campaigned on is entirely possible and funding straightforward.
Not easy, but emminently doable.
While not a narcissist, I can’t tell how much he actually see this election as a stepping stone to higher office. Maybe even following in the footsteps of a one term senator…
And I do think he’s adherent to a fairly narrowly defined set of left wing principles and ideologies.
Like you, I agree there’s no harm in trying new things because there’s always what to learn. But I don’t exactly expect them to go well. Hope I’m wrong though and if nothing else it’s becoming incredibly clear we need a new generation of leaders in this country. To end this loop, like you said.
Government run grocery stores are middle of the road? What would progressive ideas look like on that spectrum?
Plenty of red states have government run liquor stores. And army bases have government run grocery stores along with government run everything else. I don't see the problem here. Progressive version presumably would be free groceries for everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_grocery_store
When I lived in Pennsylvania, the state-run liquor stores had a monopoly on selling wine and liquor. This survived Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
Mamdani’s proposed grocery stores aren’t a monopoly. Whether they’re a good idea remains to be seen, but they’d be competing against privately owned grocery stores. As I understand them, they’re mostly intended for areas without a local grocery store (food deserts), which seems like a reasonable thing to explore.
And people hate the government run liquor stores so much they drive to Delaware to buy in wine and liquor in bulk, since the stores are expensive.
Hi, that's not why people go to Delaware for those kind of purchases. It's the lack of tax.
The actual MSRP from PA wine and liquor stores is very competitive, since it's one of the largest single buyers of alcohol. Selection could be better though.
Hard agree. I may cross state lines for large purchases like laptops, but the liquor prices aren’t so bad that I’d drive >30min for better deals.
Note that they don't have to be a monopoly to cause a problem. Usually the way things go is these state-run grocery stores get subsidies. The goal is to provide food in food deserts, not to be profitable. Over time the subsidy inevitably grows meaning higher taxes for non-gov grocery stores. This leads to a cycle where the state-run stores pushes out the corp-run stores with the thinnest margins.
Ultimately only the bougie grocery stores remain in rich neighborhoods and now you have to really hope that you can continue funding those state-run stores or you just made the food desert problem a whole lot worse.
State liquor stores are terrible, and I’ve never heard anyone say a nice word about on base grocery stores.
Highly disagree. The commissary on most military bases are awesome. Spent most of my life going there with my parents. Not sure where you heard they were bad. Never got that impression from any military serving people, like ever.
Now imagine how the commissary would turn out if instead of being placed in a spot where any commercial business would love to exploit (center of military base where every family has employment, a process for permanently kicking out people who engage in major crime, and private competition controlled unless you go through a security checkpoint) -- instead you put them in many of the places I witnessed food deserts in major US cities that had underemployment, elevated crime, outsiders afraid to enter during the day and ~never enter at night, bars on every window, and every other establishment has you slide your cash in a rotating tray adjacent to a bulletproof window.
I feel like the commissary these days is really far behind private grocers. Yeah, 15 or 25 years ago they were awesome, but now it just resembles a poorly stocked (and much smaller) Walmart. Regional grocers have gotten really good in my lifetime. Used to go to the commissary regularly to save money and have a good selection, but those days are just long past. Same deal with base liquor stores, they are merely "OK", but again your regional private option is just so much nicer in the 2020s.
That’s just goal post shifting. The point is that government owned direct to consumer stores exist in areas of all political leaning.
You suggested that this is good because it is similar to a thing, and many people pointed out that thing you compared it to is bad. That is not goalpost shifting, that is you demonstrating that this is in fact bad.
I never said anything about good or bad. It was a response to:
> Government run grocery stores are middle of the road?
It’s the goalpost you set. They’re hardly mainstream if everyone hates them.
> They’re hardly mainstream if everyone hates them.
I think maybe you and I have different definitions for the word "mainstream". To me it has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with what is normal and everyday.
I don't hate them. I have one in walking distance from my home. It's a liquor store, what should I hate about it?
The only people I see complaining about them are religious teetotalers.
> what should I hate about it?
The prices are usually higher than private stores, the merchandising is worse, the selection is usually bad, and they're generally just a miserable shopping experience. Compare them to a nice wine and liquor store in states where those are allowed and the difference is quite apparent. They also never have staff that know anything about the products which is just a shitty DMV like experience.
Other than merchandising (why is that important?) nothing you describe is an issue with the Idaho liquor stores.
Prices are pretty in line with market rates. The selection is really pretty good. The shopping experience is the same as any other store (what makes a shopping experience "miserable?")
> Compare them to a nice wine
In Idaho, wine is allowed to be sold in grocery stores and specialty shops. The liquor stores are for hard beverages.
> They also never have staff that know anything about the products
Staff seems just fine with the products. But again, don't see why that's important in general.
> just a shitty DMV like experience.
I don't really know what you mean by this. You go in, find the booze you like, pay for it at the register, or ask a clerk a question if you have one (Do you have a lot of questions purchasing alcohol? Every time?) If you want a more expensive experience you can go to a wine shop in Idaho and let someone blow smoke up your ass about the notes.
Look, Idaho might just be particularly good at running a booze shop, but I doubt it. It may be that because Idaho only has liquor stores for hard alcoholic beverages it's made for a better experience all around. It certainly doesn't suffer from selection, knowledge, or experience problems. I think the only issue you might take is that it's just sorted shelves of alcohol with little flashy theming.
That's because liquor stores originated from an earlier incarnation of the culture wars. That was a long time ago, and I don't think anyone seriously believes in that justification now, but the inertia remains.
They still exist in Idaho (where I live) because the state doesn't believe in advertising alcohol.
I think that's a pretty good reason for them to exist even today. We don't need the market competing to get people to drink more.
> I think that's a pretty good reason for them to exist even today.
Only if you think the government should be telling people what to buy and what not to buy. I personally find that highly objectionable, particularly given the outsized power of primary voters in most places.
I love my state liquor stores.
The staff are treated and paid well, the stores are well stocked and clean, and I pay tax free on some of the lowest prices in the country.
But why? Liquor is the cause for a very high portion of police, insurance (property and health), and other costs that can’t be translated into dollars.
Why shouldn’t society recoup some of those costs from the users? And why should society subsidize those costs?
It’s interesting that it was politically acceptable to charge tobacco users more for health insurance, but not politically acceptable to charge alcohol users more for health insurance.
> And why should society subsidize those costs?
Allowing private business isn't a subsidy.
> Why shouldn’t society recoup some of those costs from the users?
That's what the taxes are for.
The government running liquor stores at no profit is a subsidy.
> That's what the taxes are for.
Taxes are not (should not be) for subsidizing behavior that results in a loss for society.
> The government running liquor stores at no profit is a subsidy.
New Hampshire liquor stores contribute over $150MM to community programs a year. [0]. They had an annual profit of $170MM in FY2023.
[0] https://www.90yearsofcheers.com/where-the-money-goes/
Then your liquor purchases are not tax free. The government’s “profit” is the tax. It’s just built into the price as opposed to being a line item.
That is beyond pedantic. There is no sales tax in New Hampshire. It is tax free.
Sorry, I don't agree with that. The context of profit is money which shareholders are entitled to after accounting for the costs of their business. None of those things apply to government.
Also, New Hampshire does not have sales tax on certain goods and services. Hotel rooms and car rentals, for example, do have sales tax. And apparently, alcohol sold at the state alcohol stores.
https://www.revenue.nh.gov/taxes-glance/meals-rooms-rentals-...
>Sorry, I don't agree with that. The context of profit is money which shareholders are entitled to after accounting for the costs of their business. None of those things apply to government.
I have to disagree. In a very real sense, the residents of a political entity are the stakeholders within that political boundary and, at least in a democratic (small 'd') society, those stakeholders are, in fact, the owner/shareholders of that political entity.
That's neither very profound nor much of an intellectual stretch. Although, apparently you disagree. Why is that?
> I have to disagree. In a very real sense, the residents of a political entity are the stakeholders within that political boundary and, at least in a democratic (small 'd') society, those stakeholders are, in fact, the owner/shareholders of that political entity.
That still doesn’t mean it makes sense to categorize government income as “profit” (for the purposes of this discussion trying to discern whether or not NH taxes alcohol).
Governments and businesses have (or are supposed to have) different priorities, and are (theoretically) structured so that in exchange for the government being given a monopoly on violence for those who don’t pay, the government (ideally) is working towards providing services that benefit all of society, for the long term.
The New Hampshire government’s website linked above even states:
> $146m Annual Contribution To The General Fund
What difference does it make if the tax is not separated out like alcohol taxes in most other states? The bottom line is New Hampshire could be selling alcohol for less, but it chooses not to in order to use the extra money to fund government services. That is a tax.
>What difference does it make if the tax is not separated out like alcohol taxes in most other states? The bottom line is New Hampshire could be selling alcohol for less, but it chooses not to in order to use the extra money to fund government services. That is a tax.
Nope. It's a dividend for the shareholders.
Is people drinking alcohol a loss for society? Because the thing is, society needs to continue to produce children in order to continue existing. It's called a social lubricant for a reason, and while it is exceeding obvious that alcohol abuse is a problem, that's exactly why the state runs the liquor stores. To limit products available and limit hours to ideally prevent the worst of abuses. So the unanswerable question is, how many children is alcohol ultimately responsible for? If it were successfully banned (using magic) would civilization survive past the end of the incoming generation? Given alcohol's ubiquity on all corners of the globe, I don't think that's decided or even decidable.
As we're only considering children being born, the health effects of alcohol while pregnant are known, (aka fetal alcohol syndrome) but since they're known, they can be dismissed if we assume pregnant mothers aren't drinking. The other thing we can discount is the long term health effects of alcohol consumption. Yes there are health ramifications, but as long as people are able to create healthy babies, what happens later on in life is less relevant to the question of making babies, which civilization needs in order to continue.
>how many children is alcohol ultimately responsible for?
If this is alluding to unplanned pregnancies, that is almost unheard of nowadays due to access to IUDs/morning after pill/abortion.
Whether or not alcohol, or specifically hard alcohol, plays a material role in establishing relationships that otherwise would not happen is difficult to discern, but I don't see why an alcohol tax (or even just higher liquor taxes) would dissuade people. It only takes a few drinks to become "buzzed", so any tax would only be material to heavy drinkers.
I don't see how a government run liquor store limits abuse, and most seem to offer the same products as any other store (does it really make a difference above a certain proof?). And many states limit hours that alcohol is sold without having government run stores.
I was referring to alcohol as a social lubricant leading to relationships leading to children. If we look to Asia, and at South Korea and Japan's issues with existentially low birth rates, the question flips. From "would an alcohol tax possibly dissuade people from hooking up" to "what can the government do to help more babies be born", and under that framing, subsidizing alcohol to everyone of baby making age starts to look almost reasonable.
As far state run liquor stores dissuading alcoholism, Scandinavian countries state-run their liquor stores for that expressed reason. Their hours are intentionally bad, the products expensive and small. No 1.75 L handles of 80 proof vodka to be found. It's mostly effective, but it's also not New England where if you just drive for an hour or two, you can hit multiple states and jurisdictions with different blue laws, limiting the effectiveness of state run stores.
What state run stores, ostensibly force, is better adherence with the law. The corner shop where you've gone to for twenty years and are friends with the owner, is totally just gonna give you beer Sunday morning when it's illegal to do so, but record it in the system on Monday. A bit harder to do in a state run store with more oversight. Also, it's harder to import prohibited kinds of alcohol with said. oversight vs a privately run store. As with any law though, it's not 100% effective, but that's not a reason to not have a law.
I have fond memories of the Navy commissary my parents did most of our food shopping at when I was growing up. Huge variety of reasonably priced goods.
I was in the Navy and I loved the on-base grocery store. A big part of it was that I was overseas and it felt like home, but also the prices were great, it was clean, and had a decent selection.
I would say that state-run liquor stores and subsidized city-run grocery stores such as what Mamdani proposes are not at all comparable. The former is a giant cash cow - a profit center while the latter is an entitlement program i.e a mandatory budget expense. To give an idea of the amount of money involved in state-run liquor stores, consider the state of New Hampshire's report from last year:
>"In FY2024, total income before transfers was $144.7 million with the total net profit transfer of $140.0 million. Of the $140.0 million, the Liquor Commission transferred $122.0 million to the General Fund"[1]
[1] https://gov.liquorandwineoutlets.com/wp-content/uploads/2025...
Why does a government ran entity need to be a huge money maker?
NYC has a $6B cop budget. They even have subs. Yet nobody worries about that. A grocery store could be ran at a deficit. More than likely it will be neutral or will turn a slight profit.
>"More than likely it will be neutral or will turn a slight profit."
Based on what exactly, just your opinion? Obviously you know nothing about the grocery business which is a notoriously low-margin business, between 1-3%. The only way that large grocers like Krogers and Albertsons are profitable is purely based on volume. You also realize that groceries are perishable items right? You also realize these are labor and energy inensive operations right? And that there's tons of competition? And of course shrinkage. There is zero chance that it would operate at a profit or break even. By the way it's been tried before look up Baldwin, Florida or Erie, Kansas for examples of city-run grocery failures. There are others as well.
Lastly, nothing about any of this in any way comparable to NYPD as a budgetary item. Comparing retail food to public safety is just really bizarre.
Was going to say our state had government liquor stores until a couple of years ago. The sky remained in place.
Ration books for all?
Free food
Government runs a lot of businesses alongside private estates. Postal is the biggest example. Why is this super unusual? I don't know if it's middle of the road, but I don't think it's socialism.
Progressive ideas would be price controls on groceries to curb inflation, or seizing the means of production by making a major stake in a major food chain.
(side note: I think it's hilarious that Trump is doing this with Intel and potentially Tiktok and few have labeled it as such).
"communism is when government do thing"
Communism is literally when the government owns the means of production. Owning the means of distribution is not far from that at all.
No.
Communism only happens after a revolution overthrowing the current government and replacing the entire economy with the state overseeing it. Note the word entire.
Socialism is when you have the public own entire industries. For example, how the oil industry in Norway is owned by the state.
Having the government do something or own a business is neither communism nor socialism. It's simply a state owned thing. It's not, for example, socialist for the government to have a parks department.
A city ran store is not the city owning the means of production. There will still be private stores throughout NYC. The areas where these stores are being targeted are where those private stores have chosen not to deploy.
Communism isn't "everything I didn't like"
No, that's literally socialism. Communism is something different.
I disagree that it's even socialism as NYC isn't outlawing or using the emoluments clause to take control of private stores. It isn't ceasing the means of production in any sense.
The Mamdani plan is to put in stores where no stores exist. That's just a city ran store. Something that used to be pretty common in the US.
I think you mean "eminent domain" – the emoluments clause prohibits government officials from accepting gifts, payments, or titles from foreign states.
Ah you're correct. Got the legal e terms swapped in my head.
Stores exist there. They have some foodstuffs even. They have bars on all the window and your money is handed through a rotating tray under a bulletproof glass with tiny holes in it so you can talk to the cashier (who also has a shotgun resting under their cash register).
That is because that is the viable model in those areas to actually run a store without having your staff egregiously injured/assaulted and not have everything not nailed down stolen.
This ends up getting reflected also in higher prices of foods in those areas, to reflect the cost and lower supply of those willing to take those measures. So people will call it a 'food desert' -- not because you can't get food there (though it mostly sucks and is shelf stable stuff) but because nothing there resembling a walk-around middle-class grocery store exists.
Failing to take those measures, or taking the measures and not raising prices enough to cover the costs, will likely end up in the state losing money, that is, they will be forced to seize the capital of private citizens to fund the state's commercial offerings.
I dare you to find one bodega in NYC that fits your description.
What you are describing is a payday lending building.
Bro's only experience of New York City is watching The Wire.
There is no government in an end stage Communist society.
Interestingly "no government" also appears to be exactly what is happening in the US with what some people might describe as end stage Capitalist society.
well 40% still voted for Cuomo.
That 40% would have voted for a potato if it'd been wearing a red tie.
Manifestly not - Cuomo ran as an independent, and a Republican did run.
The Republicans in the Whitehouse told them to vote Cuomo
I feel that Sliwa suggested Mamdami over Cuomo.
I remember hearing that Cuomo called to get an endorsement from Trump. I'm not sure how much of that went through, but it would explain why it seemed like Cuomo completely ate Silwa's votes. 7% even for NYC is absolutely below par for Republicans.
> Mamdani. Millennial candidate. No dirt. Other that some stupid stuff he said while he was young, his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field.
Look, Mamdani ran a good campaign, and if I was an NYC voter (I am not) I'd probably vote for him out of the options provided.
However, this just is not true. Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor "middle of the road". Especially not on education and dealing with the homeless and public transit. And lots of his dumb comments were from like 2 years ago, not 12 - he was not "young" when he said them.
> And lots of his dumb comments were from like 2 years ago, not 12 - he was not "young" when he said them.
If you're talking about the "globalize the intifada" comment, he actually never even said that, but a whole lot of people (you among them, it seems like?) have been brainwashed into thinking he did through political maneuvering.
The root of that whole drummed up controversy was him refusing to blanket condemn the phrase when media people (never attributing it as something he himself had said) kept asking him to.
And he was always very clear what his reasons for that were, which were extremely reasonable to anyone who isn't a kneejerk ultra zionist.
Here's him talking about it for those that want to form their own opinion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggV2SeiGrVw
It's so depressing that the entire Mamdani debate has become mired in Israeli politics. You can completely ignore that issue, and still have plenty of questionable stuff to talk about. He has repeatedly talked about defunding the police. Literally, not figuratively, and not that long ago [1a-c].
He said he wanted to close down Rikers Island, right in the middle of the debates [2]. He said that prisons are unnecessary [3]. He said he wants to empty jails [4-6]. His comments on crime and policing, in general, are quite extreme. I could set literally every other topic to the side, and this would be a voting issue for me.
These are his words. I'm not taking them out of context or reinterpreting them. About the only response to this stuff a reasonable person can muster is "he doesn't believe that now". Yeah, OK. I guess we'll find out...
[1a] "NO to fake cuts - defund the police." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1277414510131916801
[1b] more on his historical comments on defunding: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/31/politics/mamdani-defund-p...
[1c] "dismantle" the police (in this case, the Vice squad): https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1336087694636707841
[2] "Yes, we have to close Riker's island" https://www.facebook.com/reel/1380642053476909
[3] prisons unnecessary: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/out-of-touch-ma...
[4] "the goal must be to abolish [prisons]" (plus multiple other variations on that theme) https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1937682021276410317
[5] "The entire carceral system is an unreformable public health hazard. Defund & dismantle." https://x.com/ZohranKMamdani/status/1328828240757215234
[6] "what purpose do [prisons] serve?" https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1945929553274196188
>Many of his policies are neither "common sense" nor "middle of the road"
It seems like common sense to hear "cityfolk pay taxes, buses are paid for by taxpayers. Therefore, bus rides should be free for cityfolk". There's a lot more to it, but most voters are not going to read the 50 page proposal that Mamdami would need to submit to the govenor to get the wheels rolling.
I think that's enough for it to fall under "common sense". Policy you can explain in 3 sentences or less. Homeless people need help, not to be arrested. Invest in an organization who makes sure that these people get help so they don't stay on the streets.
(I can't find his education policy on a quick skim of the website and plan).
> his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road, and are aimed at leveling the playing field.
That's not true at all. He is not even "middle of the road" in the Democratic party.
...Said less than 51% of voters
We can call winners this early. We can’t yet call margins.
Good point; still mathematically less than 60% if you trust AP's estimated remaining vote count.
Does it only count if he gets 60% of the vote?
The "said all of NYC" wasn't the best framing, but the entire post was about Democrats' choices, not everyone's.
Also not sure what value your comment has. Interpret things charitably. Your "gotcha" is not at all that.
Perhaps I misread the tone of the comment I replied to, but I have seen lots of "Everybody supports X" when X won with barely half of the votes, and less than half the voting-aged population voted.
>his policies are relatively common sense and middle of the road.
Rent control isn't middle of the road, it's 100% socialist. Same thing with city run grocery stores. He also wants to defund the police while replacing them with community outreach people, as well as raising the minimum wage to $30 in 5 years which is absolutely wild. None of this is middle of the road in any way, shape, or form.
The minimum wage not being indexed to inflation has been theft for decades. It would take a minimum wage of almost $60/hr to maintain purchasing power from 50-60 years ago.
https://www.epi.org/blog/the-value-of-the-federal-minimum-wa...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/minimum-wage-york-2024-live-1...
https://livingwage.mit.edu/
Edit: If the system of “we make asset prices go up while labor prices are inflated away” gets to the point where a living wage is unobtainable (we are here), we can change the system. The name is irrelevant, it’s fundamentally “what are you optimizing for?”
This happens eventually (wage increases) due to global structural demographic working age population compression, the argument is really time horizon if we help people live better lives with dignity now vs years from now as labor supply declines.
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
You didn’t read your own link. The peak value of minimum wage was $12.12/hr in 1968 after adjusting for inflation.
https://www.epi.org/blog/the-value-of-the-federal-minimum-wa...
You cannot with a straight face claim bringing it to $60 has anything to do with inflation when the value it would need is right in that article.
I misspoke by not including more detail. $66/hr to match homebuying purchasing power of Boomers in the 70s. You can get away with less per hour as a living wage assuming reasonable rent, and in NYC, that is likely $30/hr (which we will get to as older voters continue to age out, and younger voters age into the electorate, and are engaged to push wages higher [exit polls show ~75% of New Yorkers 18-29 voted for Mamdani]).
https://www.epi.org/blog/a-30-by-2030-minimum-wage-in-new-yo...
> With the FBC cost data we can estimate a living wage that would allow workers to support their families. Table 1 shows that the living wage in 2025 is already above $30 an hour in Manhattan ($33.89), Queens ($31.31), and Staten Island ($30.68). While Brooklyn and The Bronx do not exceed this threshold, the costs facing these families will almost certainly continue to rise between today and 2030. These figures make it clear that discussions of a $30 minimum wage in New York City are not superfluous—they reflect the very real needs of working people throughout the city.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/guy-shared-just-high-min...
> Someone Calculated What The Minimum Wage Should Be Today Compared To The '70s In Order To Afford A Home
> Now, Chris's video isn't to suggest that minimum wage, at any point in its history, allowed people to buy homes outright. Rather, he told BuzzFeed, he wanted to highlight the ways in which "wages have decoupled from cost of living, housing prices, and broader economic growth over the last few decades."
> "The original purpose of the minimum wage was to ensure that even low-wage workers could participate meaningfully in the economy. Not just survive, but live with dignity," he said.
That's more of an issue with housing prices drastically outpacing inflation because of dense housing construction being illegal in most of the country.
So if minimum wage was $60 in a year you'll see a bread loaf for $900
Please prove this assertion. Show your math. I can pickup a loaf of bread for $1.42 in a state with a $15/hr minimum wage, as of this comment. What does a $30 minimum wage make it? $2? $2.50? The horror. $900? I am doing my best to be polite and charitable.
Yes I was being sarcastic. But in CA when a typical wage went to $20 for Walmart or fast food, everything skyrocketed. At my grocery store you can get a bag of Fritos for $6 now, which should be no more than $2. If we triple the $20 (making it $60) we'll be paying $18 for a bag of Fritos. So yeah, I was joking a bit on the bread loaf, but we would be in an era of paying $600 for your grocery trip for 4 days of eating.
I sense your frustration and I think they were probably being a bit sarcastic... I won't speculate on a loaf of bread, but I would speculate that everything from a loaf of bread to a home increases in price substantially if minimum wage were raised to $60. As wages increase, prices tend to follow, since workers across the spectrum demand higher pay.
I'm not against raising minimum wage, but economics is a very complex thing and changes like that need to be approached carefully.
The minimum wage should easily be 11-13 by any inflation metric you use for the last 40 years, and doubling that for a high cost of living place is reasonable.
Lots of states have state-run liquor stores, even super conservative ones.
It’s a smaller delta than you think.
11-13 isn’t anywhere near 60.
Anyone who has shopped a state run vs regular liquor store knows how much worse the gov version is unless your goal is higher prices, worse service, and worse selection.
The reason state-run liquor stores make some sense is that we don't want to optimize alcohol sales. Neither on price nor volume. This is unlike groceries. The same reason state run monopoly on gambling makes sense but state run monopoly on car manufacturing doesn't.
He has moderated on the police funding issue, and the rent freeze is for already rent controlled apartments.
>the rent freeze is for already rent controlled apartments.
That's actually not true. The rent freeze is for rent stabilized[0] apartments. Rent control[1] is a different program and is tiny in comparison.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York#Re...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York#Re...
>He has moderated on the police funding issue
So he already backtracked on a core election promise even before he got elected? Doesn’t bode well for his supporters expectations going forward.
Seems like before you’re elected is the perfect time to adjust policy positions. Or, really, any time you’re presented with new facts.
As far as I know, “defunding the police” wasn’t a campaign promise, let alone a “core” one. It indeed was the opinion he had in the past (and you can argue about whether he still thinks that privately), but there are also many statements from the last several months that he’s explicitly _not_ running on that.
Core election promise? It was a comment he made half a decade before running for mayor. Perhaps it's time to update your Kool-aid detectors.
It’s as if people can change their opinions about things as they become better informed.
What a weird take. Isn't it better that he says it before the election? I think you just have it out for him, and no matter what he does you will find a way it's wrong.
When your road is all the way to the right, then yea, none of it is middle of the road.
Please explain how city run grocery stores are middle of the road politics. Perhaps they’re middle of the road when your road is all the way to the left.
I see it as a middle of the road statement to say that government should work for its constituents, and help ensure that they get basic nessesities like shelter, food, schooling and health care (yes, I know that this is already controversial).
Using the market is well and fine, but if it for some reason does not work it's the government's job to find a solution which works. Think about how things are handled in emergencies. The neutral thing is to find a solution, not be married to some ideological ball and chain saying that THAT particular necessity must be solved in one particular way no matter what.
When that is said I don't live in NYC, idk how the food desert situation is there. But I have heard enough stories from credible sources that I would be surprised if it's all made up.
The problem with the idea that it is the government's job to ensure "necessities" is that the list of what is a "necessity" only ever gets larger – it never shrinks.
I think if you go to Scandinavia or the UK you will find the opposite. Housing is an example of a field where the government was much more active pre the 80s. Idk if the US has had the same development, but it is certainly not a global truth that it only goes one way.
Yes when you run out of money the actual interventions invariably shrink, but AFAICT the expectation has not changed.
The expectation certainly has changed. Do you not remember Thatcher?
Housing as mentioned above. There was also a time the railway was a obvious public responsibility. Similarly for airlines (Scandinavian Airlines, British Airways). Telephone companies(British Telecom, Telenor), mail (Royal Mail), gas (Gas Act 1948), iron and steel (Iron and Steel Act 1967), and electric production ( Electricity Act 1947).
If anything it is rather opposite, the moment something is privatised it's hard to get it under public control again. But even if you don't agree with that it should certainly be clear that removing something from the public sector is both possible and has happened to a large degree.
The state should step in and run anything that the private market cannot. I don’t live in NYC, but if there’s a market failure in groceries, do it.
There isn't a market failure in groceries in NYC. There's a huge number and diversity of stores, and profit margins are as low as anywhere else in the world. Also, of course, see the sibling comment who is complaining about grocery stores while using Amazon Fresh. There's a competitive delivery market.
Of all of his policies, I actually don't really care if he wants to try to put some grocery stores in grocery deserts. It probably won't work, but whatever.
There aren’t any food deserts in NYC?
I'm sure there are, just like everywhere else.
Sounds like the government should step in and fix that then.
The market failure in NY is due to the local government, so clearly the local government stepping in to offer a replacement is the solution. On an unrelated note, I have a bridge to sell you.
Couldn’t do worse than the grocery stores in nyc that already exist. Terrible service, horrendous price, bad inventory, etc.
I did all my groceries in nyc via Amazon fresh for the last two years because of this.
Sounds like you have a great option then, no need for the govt to open taxpayer-funded stores.
They said they have _an_ option. They did not say anything about it being "great".
Really depends on where you are in the city; I used to shop at Whole Foods on the UWS and it was lovely, and when visiting this past summer my friend and I visited both the Bowery Whole Foods and the Wegmans near Astor Place and zero complaints with either of them.
But TBH I don't think the grocery deserts he's looking to service are going to be anywhere near where the average HN user lives.
Last I checked, if you wanted to buy more than a 12 pack of beer in the state of Pennsylvania, it had to be from a state run store. Is Pennsylvania socialist?
That's a pretty bad policy PA has, however you want to characterize it.
I'd agree, but I would also point out that a state monopoly is a much more extreme policy than a few state run stores. And considering the discussion was about where these policies sit on the ideological spectrum, an example of a more conservative state with a policy further to the left does suggest that maybe this is in fact "middle of the road".
In this regard, yes it is; the biggest reasons they keep it around are the jobs it provides and the money the state makes off of it. In return, residents get low prices but less choice, and in some areas, poor access. Most people hate it.
Only in the last decade or so has some competition been allowed.
>In this regard, yes it is;
Great, then "socialism" doesn't have to be the scary word that it is made out to be in the US! We have at least 17 socialist states already.[1]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_sta...
I did write:
> Most people hate it.
Not exactly an endorsement. If your pitch is that socialism means more places work like the liquor stores, you'll be creating a lot of capitalists.
I live in PA and can literally walk to a private beer distributor from my house and walk out with something larger than a 12 pack. There are no state owned beer distributors as far as I’m aware.
Most (not all) Liquor / Wine sales are somewhat monopolized by the state but it’s a remnant from prohibition and nobody except the people getting their palms greased by the system likes it.
Fair correction, I apparently merged the laws about beer and liquor/wine in my mind. Beer in quantities larger than 12 packs comes from distributors which are regulated more than bottle shops but aren't state run, while it's liquor and wine that needed to come from state shops.
No worries. It’s been in flux over the past decade. A few of the major grocery chains pushed to change the laws so they could sell beer and wine under a certain ABV. It has to be in a dedicated area and they can only sell during certain hours.
The state shops themselves aren’t all that horrible IMO but they’re nothing to write home about either. That being said It’s pretty hard to screw up liquor sales when you’re the only game in town.
Cities run all sorts of things. What's the big difference between garbage trucks and sewers and a grocery store?
Also, several states have state-run beer and/or liquor stores. It's not some wild unheard of experiment. We've gotten so used to the acceptable political spectrum spanning from "far right" to "extreme right" that we forget what left even means.
I'm almost 50 and the last president we ever saw that was even remotely towards the left was in office when I was born.
Whether or not public grocery stores are a good idea, the comparison to state-run liquor stores doesn't really make sense; the justification for state control of liquor sales is entirely different (arguably even kind of the opposite) as the justifications presented for public grocery stores.
> several states have state-run beer and/or liquor stores
Actually could not believe this, so had to look it up. I find this wild.
Yeah, pretty terrible outcome from prohibition designed to curtail alcohol consumption. It’s pretty the worst example to go for if you’re trying to convince people that state stores are good.
I lived in a state when the state-run liquor stores were closed and it transitioned to the private sector. It was a massive improvement, a big win.
The weirdest part of the transition was the fear mongering about consequences. This despite the reality that most states don’t have state-run liquor stores.
I’ve never lived in a state where state-run liquor stores weren’t worse than what you had in states without them.
I mean, yes...but having lived in multiple states with various forms of state monopoly on alcohol sales: state-run liquor stores suck. Citing them as an argument in favor of state-run anything is sort of making the case for the other side.
The original claim was that his policies are middle of the road. Based on the very few US cities with govt-run grocery stores, it's pretty clear that the policy is not middle of the road. It is an outlier.
The government selling food directly to it’s citizens represents the raised red fist of communism to American conservatives ?
The minimum wage needing to be $30 is just math unless you believe people shouldn't be able to live in America.
$30 min wage sounds doable? CA took fast food min wage up to $20 and it’s been fine.
> CA took fast food min wage up to $20 and it’s been fine.
Reduced employment by 3% but otherwise fine, yeah.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w34033
A nationwide $30 minimum wage would have a significantly higher impact (most places have lower wages than California and $30 is more than $20).
3% of fast food jobs. Honestly that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff. Fastfood prices have increased a lot in recent years as well, but it's unclear how much if any is due to minimum wage increase.
Fast food jobs are where the higher minimum was imposed.
It's fine to argue it's a good tradeoff; I just want advocates to admit there is a tradeoff.
>fine
A medium fries is over $4 before taxes… over $1 more expensive than the rest of the country.
McDonald’s made $14 billion in profit last year. It’s not the labor driving the costs, it’s the profits.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44968997
Same with Chipotle.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45762671
Who pays the profits? Like tariffs, the consumer. You pay for these billions in annual profits.
McDonald's the corporation doesn't sell fries, they rent out real estate and franchise licenses.
What you really need to look at is the cost of labor for a random McDonald's franchisee.
> While menu prices did increase, costs rose by an average of just 1.5% –equivalent to about 6 cents on a $4 hamburger, down from the 15-cent increase reported in the September study.
Study: California's $20 fast-food minimum wage improves pay at small cost to consumers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43806608 - May 2025
https://www.axios.com/local/san-francisco/2025/02/27/uc-berk...
https://irle.berkeley.edu/publications/brief/effects-of-the-...
What was their revenue and what was profit as a percentage of that?
If the profit percentage hasn’t increased, “record profits” is meaningless drivel that just means it kept up with inflation.
I'm ok paying a little more for fries if it means the people making it and serving it to me are paid a living wage.
Regardless, the fries cost what the local market can bear, not what they "want" to charge for them.
Prices are not related to costs. That's just a lie to folks use to justify price increase to the market. Prices never decline when costs do unless the consumer is wise enough to know like in the case for gasoline.
That's probably OK when the poorest workers are making the difference ten times over per hour.
Why would you expect fries to cost the same in California as in much poorer states (most of them)?
In-n-out fries are 2.45 (and a burger is 4$).
Do you know why in n out is so cheap still? It seems like all the other fast food jumped up.
the answer is staring you in the face and you still can't see it. let me give you a hint: it's also the reason arizone ice tea is still $.99
Have you seen how fries are made at McDonald’s? There’s nearly zero labor involved. It’s nearly automated. You’re paying that price cause that’s what the market will bear and McDonald’s needs to see profits go up.
Price distortions are bad because the market might not react correctly to it. But if there are too many restrictions to build housing anyway, you might as well ease the pain for social harmony.
I mean, if 50% of the population vote for something, arguably it is middle of the road.
The lowest I've seen for low end jobs recently in Montana is $25/hr so $30 in NYC seems entirely reasonable.
What part?
(McDonald’s is still $17 an hour in Billings.)
Livingston
> wants to defund the police
Ask Seattle how well that turned out
Why? They didn’t defund their police.
They tried, lots of people left, then backpedaled, and it's still not what it used to be.
Seattle has largely increased police funding, dramatically? For a dept under a consent decree until recently.
The mayor also capped non police crisis response teams to 24 people. Total. For the city. 24.
Seattle has done everything except defund the police, lol
Those are recent measures. They had to increase funding because they decreased it, and shit hit the fan, and they are trying to hire people back.
Seattle upset their police force and made them quit, they then had to pay overtime to fewer remaining officers which increased their spending.
It's not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing? Presumably the kids can learn from the parents, get connected, etc.
Also, Mamdani's policies are incredibly controversial, that's why it's such big news. Lots of people predicting that Mamdani's criminal policies, economic policies, and lack of experienced staffers will lead the city to dark days.
> not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing?
Aristocracies are more stable but less efficient. That creates an incentive for corruption when growth inevitably stalls. Which leads to catastrophic instability.
There is minimal incentive for corruption in a hereditary aristocracy. Status is determined by birthright rather than accumulation of money. And if you are a lord and do need money, you have the power to tax it legally anyway. So what incentive is there to make or take a bribe? It won't change who your parents are.
> Status is determined by birthright rather than accumulation of money. And if you are a lord and do need money, you have the power to tax it legally anyway
Lords being unconcerned with—and constrained by—wealth characterises all (EDIT: none of the) non-market societies that I know of. In part because basic economics constrains the society as a whole, even if they’re ignorant of its principles.
Right. I'm not saying anything about economics not applying, only that the incentive for corruption is absent.
Sorry, I managed to reverse my argument with a typo.
> only that the incentive for corruption is absent
What historic civilisation are you thinking of?
Aristocracy itself is state sanctioned corruption. The law is made to privilege certain people above others instead of serving the common good.
Corruption has a meaning, and it's not "the law is unfair."
"illegal, bad, or dishonest behaviour, especially by people in positions of power"[1]
"Corruption is the dishonest, fraudulent, or criminal use of entrusted authority or power for personal gain or other unlawful or unethical benefits."[2]
Every single aristocracy absolutely fits those definitions. The norm in every aristocracy is to disregard the law in favor of what benefits those in power and to apply the law unequally depending on the desires of rulers.
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/corrupti...
[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/corruption
You want your elected officials to "keep connections" accross generations?
You also think New York can't find someone that's at least as competent as someone in a multigenerational dynasty?
Based on what I saw in the debates, I'm sure there are lots of people in NYC more capable than anyone on the ballet.
But yes, someone with connections is going to be more operationally effective than someone without them. If the leader isn't themselves well connected, they should at least have close advisors who do.
> It's not clear to me why a multigenerational dynasty specifically is a bad thing?
Because they're undemocratic.
Concentrating political capital within a family means raises barriers to entry. People with new -- possibly better -- ideas don't get a meaningful chance to see those ideas implemented.
These sorts of setups destroy the idea that politics and elections can be a meritocracy, but instead are determined by birthright. You end up with aristocracies populated by the extended family, friends, and business partners of the family in power.
You also get stagnation. You're less likely to see other points of view represented in the political process, and that affects outcomes.
It's a tradeoff between new ideas and operational effectiveness. Yes, there are benefits to rotating out a dynasty, but there are also benefits to keeping one.
A dynasty is only undemocratic if people aren't voting for them. If they are winning elections, it's still a democracy.
>Mamdani's policies are incredibly controversial, that's why it's such big news.
Which policies are "incredibly controversial?" And be specific.
Here'a a direct link to his platform for your reference"
https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform
No rush. I'll wait.
His policies around being soft on crime (do you know what NYC was like in the 90's? It's not some distant history), the free bus fare, the city owned grocery stores, the rent control, are all policies that many feel threaten the economic viability and safety of the city.
If you don't think any of those policies are contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
>(do you know what NYC was like in the 90's? It's not some distant history)
I do. And today is light years better than it was in the 90s. In fact, there were crack dealers on my corner in the 90s. They're not there any more. Or on 95th street and Amsterdam.
And there aren't any hookers on 90th street and Broadway or 58th and Sixth like there were in the 80s.
And I didn't know Verdi Park was called "Verdi Park" back then either. I just thought they called it "needle park" because it was kind of shaped like a needle. Silly me.
Or the side streets between 38th and 42nd streets from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway literally covered in hundreds/thousands of used condoms every morning
And the 80s were much, much worse than the 90s. And don't even get me started on the 1970s, when there were street gangs every few blocks.
Oh, and back then (not much change AFAICT), the cops were just the biggest and best-armed gang.
Oh, I'm sorry haven't you lived in NYC for nearly 60 years too?
Soft on crime because Mamdani wants to send non-cops to help people having mental episodes? Soft on crime because he wants to enforce the law and close Rikers?
Free buses? Really? that's not exactly going to break the bank. And even so, the MTA needs to approve that -- and the MTA is controlled by the Governor, not the Mayor.
Five grocery stores in areas which aren't served by private ones? How exactly is that going to threaten[0] (perhaps USD$10 million to acquire space and set them all up, then presumably it can cover its costs from, you know, selling groceries -- or even USD$2.5 million in subsidies) the economic viability of NYC which has a budget of USD$116 Billion[1]?
Crime is down at levels not seen since the early 1960s (before I was born -- that's relevant because I've lived in, with the exception of a year here, six months, three months elsewhere, etc. in NYC my whole life) and crime is at its lowest in all that time. Free buses are a few tens of millions and a few grocery stores are chump change[2] in NYC.
>If you don't think any of those policies are contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
I take issue with that characterization. How long have you lived in NYC?
[0] https://pos.toasttab.com/blog/on-the-line/cost-to-open-a-sup...
[1] https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/06/30/nyc-council-passes-11...
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chump%20change
Edit: Fixed prose/punctuation.
Good point, I agree Mamdani's soft-on-crime policies are bad. Really wouldn't want to go back to the era you're describing.
You mean the 1990s which brought us "broken windows" policing and the frequent use of racist stop-and-frisk? When I visited Queens 15 years ago, what worried me most was the chance of interacting with cops on a power-trip.
The 1990s when NYPD cops Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss shot Amadou Diallo? When NYPD cop Justin Volpe sodomized Abner Louima with a broken broom handle? When NYPD cop Francis X. Livoti choked Anthony Baez for accidentally hitting a police car with a football?
If you don't think the history of being hard on crime is contentious, you are living in a bubble and greatly disconnected from huge portions of the population.
Other places have free public transport (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport). How has that threatened the economic viability and safety of those places?
And isn't it funny how the people who complain the most about free public transport have a large overlap with the people who didn't want congestion charges but instead wanted free access to city streets for their multi-ton private vehicles?
How could city owned grocery stores threaten the economic viability and safety of NYC? The only way that makes sense to me is if the economics of NYC depended on having a working class which is always on the edge of food insecurity. Were that the case, the economics structure of NYC must change, yes?
Since homeless shelters threaten the economic viability of hotels and rental companies, and libraries threaten the economic viability of bookstores, I suppose we should get rid of those too.
I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about.
There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisting they aren't controversial?
There is a lot of daylight between "break from the status quo" and "incredibly controversial". I am not getting much from either of you.
> NYC status quo (like freezing the rent).
The platform page points out how the status quo was recently broken: "Eric Adams has taken every opportunity to squeeze tenants, with his hand-picked appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board jacking up rents on stabilized apartments by 12.6% (and counting)–the most since a Republican ran City Hall."
Sure sounds like Adams made a controversial change to the status quo to me.
The position is "As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants".
I read that as want to return to status quo ante Adams.
>There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisting they aren't controversial?
You mean like the rent freeze[0] in 2020/2021 (and apparently in 2014-2016[1], although I don't recall that and am too lazy to check my old leases) on the very same apartments that Mamdani is proposing the same?
>I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about.
Really? Funny that. As a resident of NYC, I reviewed the policies proposed by Mamdani and none of them seem all that controversial (or even all that much in the way of veering from the status quo). I will say that the whole public grocery stores seems a little over the top, but market forces haven't eliminated food deserts in many lower income neighborhoods. As such, why is it bad to try such a thing?
GP called Mamdani's policy proposals "incredibly controversial." I haven't seen even one such policy. As such, I asked for an example of such a "controversial" policy to help me understand where GP was coming from and provided a comprehensive list of Mamdani's policy proposals as an aid to identifying such policies.
I explicitly asked for specific proposals so we could discuss why (or why not) they might be "controversial."
How is that a bad "attitude"?
[0] https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2025/07/fact-sheet...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819654
Edit: Fixed prose.
I really don't get the doom and gloom on this, NYC now has a mayor that might inadvertently fuck over the city trying to do right by working class folks instead of a mayor who does it as a matter of course. Forget policy disagreements, just the fact that we have a successful politician any side of the isle that is not currently gargling the balls of rich people and actually has some principles is so refreshing.
You are demand better of your government than "the blatant corruption you've learned to live with."
I'm against any and all political dynasties. They fly in the face of what representative government should be about. We have many people qualified to become political leaders but they never get the chance due to how the system operates.
I'm not sure NYC knows what it is getting into with this guy, but yeah, the alternatives were lousy. Sliwa? The whole Guardian Angels thing was one hell of a marketing job, I'll say that. Does anyone really believe a bunch of former gang thugs with some martial arts training accomplished very much?
The Cuomo family is corrupt to the core. Terrible for NY State.
Good luck, NYC. You're gonna need it!
Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed?
https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/apart...
https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform
Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT).
"The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial. In 1992 a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that ''a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'' Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand. Sky-high rents on uncontrolled apartments, because desperate renters have nowhere to go -- and the absence of new apartment construction, despite those high rents, because landlords fear that controls will be extended? Predictable. Bitter relations between tenants and landlords, with an arms race between ever-more ingenious strategies to force tenants out -- what yesterday's article oddly described as ''free-market horror stories'' -- and constantly proliferating regulations designed to block those strategies? Predictable."
https://archive.ph/k4h7J#selection-475.0-475.1011
> Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls
Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development.
“In a 2022 paper, the political scientists Anselm Hager, Hanno Hilbig, and Robert Vief used the introduction of a 2019 rent-control law in Berlin to study how access to rent-controlled apartments influenced local attitudes toward housing development. The fact that the new law included an arbitrary cutoff date (it applied only to buildings constructed before January 1, 2014) allowed the authors to create a natural experiment, comparing otherwise-similar tenants in otherwise-similar buildings.
Heading into the experiment, the authors hypothesized that having access to a rent-controlled apartment would keep tenants in their existing units longer and therefore make them more resistant to neighborhood change. Instead, they found the opposite: Residents who lived in rent-controlled apartments were 37 percent more likely to support new local-housing construction than those living in noncontrolled units” [1].
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/11/mamdani-...
Mamdani will learn that you need to be friends with the people your voters hate to get things done.
Developers are the single most important players in lowering housing costs, but they are part of the "landlord" contingent in voters minds.
If he doesn't learn that, the city is going to be in bad shape. Impossible to get an apartment unless you want to get an illegal sublet at regular old $4500/mo prices.
The market isn't going to function ideally in a place like New York.
In other cities, a significant market-based response to high rents and housing demand is to increase supply with another ring of suburbs. Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale?
Uncapping rents might trigger some refurbishment of idle or marginal space by dangling enough money in front of landlords, but you're not going to pull another 500,000 units out of your rear that way.
We can acknowledge that NYC housing is a finite and desirable resource, but we can also say that we don't want to turn it completely into an auction for the highest bidder. Rent control helps encourage diverse and vibrant communities, part of what makes the city compelling in the first place.
> Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale?
I get the challenge of existing property/buildings other states, etc - but it always seems weird to me that you can have single story buildings less than one mile from Manhattan in Hoboken, etc. (as the crow flies, I get transit, etc).
Feels like the big problem is we can't change anything easily anymore.
Hoboken has the fourth-highest population density of any municipality in the US. Although it is mostly low-rise in character, there aren't many single-story buildings there at all.
A good chunk of Hoboken was originally swampland; you can't exactly put in skyscrapers there. And even if you could, the other infrastructure (roads, water mains, sewers, trains, parking) absolutely could not support that level of development. You would basically need to bulldoze the entire town and build much wider roads etc... which would then cut into how much land could be devoted to housing.
Edit to add: genuinely baffled by the downvote. I lived in Hoboken for 7 years, and regardless of any personal opinions on the pros and cons, the town indisputably has infrastructure problems at its current density level: frequent water main breaks, flooding, over-crowded trains, buses that are too full to take on passengers, sink-holes, constant traffic jams at the few exits to town, double-parking / obstructed bike lanes, waiting lists for municipal garages (one of which is literally falling apart). The density level is objectively quite high relative to the US [1] and it's quite simply factually incorrect to list Hoboken as an example of insufficiently-dense housing in the US.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
I did not downvote, but I think your comment is a good example of the "Yes We Can't" feeling that I mentioned in it being too hard to change things. Manhattan wasn't exactly easy land to build on either.
How so? Manhattan's bedrock is famously well-suited for skyscrapers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Manhattan_Prong
Manhattan also has an inherent economy of scale that Hoboken lacks; Hoboken is barely over 1 square mile of land.
Meanwhile the lower-rise neighborhoods of Manhattan have roughly the same population density and building height as Hoboken. So why are you calling out Hoboken? What single-story buildings are you even talking about there, and why are you ignoring the presence of single-story buildings in Manhattan? They're rare but they absolutely do exist -- I just ate lunch in a single-story Manhattan building literally yesterday.
Left wing type policies can be very effective at producing housing in places like China where the government just says we are going to have 10,000 flats here and here and maybe contracts the construction to developers but deals with all the regulatory and permitting issues. Even in capitalist places like Singapore and Hong Kong a lot of the housing was built like that.
You build up. Which is expensive, so developers will want assurances and no "20% affordable units" bs.
There also is always going to be pain. NYC has incredible global draw, so demand runs deep. It might be that you can never build your way under $2k/mo apartments there.
A huge chunk of the plan is converting unused office space into housing in Manhattan, mostly in neighborhoods that were already mostly commercial, so there's relatively little NIMBY pushback.
It's often cheaper to just demolish and rebuild, which is still very expensive.
Office space is built totally differently than residential space, unless you want dorms with communal bathrooms and kitchens.
It's easier than most people give it credit for. A lot of the complaints are from attempts to loosen the building code. There's savings of many millions on the table per refit if they manage to pass those, but they're not as needed as people say. For instance you lay down a raised floor to run utilities, and you can push sewer away from the core for relatively cheap and without shared bath/kitchen.
That being said, a return to allowing boarding house style housing would also not be the worst thing in the world for some buildings, and would probably do a lot to reduce homelessness. Hell, if I were still in my early 20s I'd be into the idea of a room to rent with shared bath/kitchen to save some money even not necessarily requiring the reduced in unit amenities.
> unless you want dorms with communal bathrooms and kitchens.
I personally wouldn't want to live in a space like that (maybe when I was younger), but I'm not convinced this sort of thing is so bad. Some people might like it, if it would cost less than a more traditional home.
Others whose housing situation is marginal, or who are homeless, might find it much preferable to the alternative. That's not an ideal reason for doing it, but perfect is the enemy of the good.
> Others whose housing situation is marginal, or who are homeless, might find it much preferable to the alternative
I lived in an illegally-sublet room with no window when I first moved to New York. I worked on Wall Street, and could afford something better. But I preferred to save money versus having a window I would look out of given my work (on the weekdays) and party (on the weekends) schedule.
Communal bathrooms are fine. Communal kitchens are fine; I know plenty of New Yorkers who might occasionally use their hot plate. (This changed post Covid, for what it's worth.)
This has the same energy as "but if you tax the billionaires they'll just leave!"
I say the same thing to that: good. If you don't want to participate in society (or in this case, your job) out of political beliefs, lets get in talent that will.
>Impossible to get an apartment unless you want to get an illegal sublet at regular old $4500/mo prices.
That's already the situation, and that was with a mayor who was openly bailed out by Trump. About as hand rubbing as you can get.
I think that's why these "radical" solutions stick. When you've hit rock bottom, you don't want the status quo.
This is another example of a little radicalism is a dangerous thing. You don't need to be friends with landlords if you're prepared to simply seize all their property.
I…don’t think he is prepared to do that.
That’s if he wanted to, which I am yet to be convinced.
Further, I don’t think any City government (including NYC) is prepared to do that! - short of an already-occurring collapse.
I'm not sure if he can do that. I feel like eminent domain needs to be performed by a governor or federal. People need to remember that a Mayor isn't a "president of city that can do whatever he wants".
I'm pretty radical myself and I also just don't think it's necessary. There's more than enough unusued buildings to rebuild upon or renovate than a need to seize property. Even a place as dence as NYC still has a lot of land to utilize.
My understanding is that he is proposing a 4 year freeze on about 1 million units.
https://www.curbed.com/article/zohran-mamdani-housing-rent-f... archive: https://archive.ph/hnK4Q
"The 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units, effectively giving a reprieve to about 2 million stabilized tenants, was at the center of his campaign"
I'm not directly familiar with Berlin. But this story about shortages is the expected outcome:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-must-build-32...
BERLIN, March 20 (Reuters) - Germany, lagging in its building goals to alleviate a housing shortage, needs to construct 320,000 new apartments each year by 2030, a study on Thursday showed.
> 34-year-old democratic socialist’s pledge for a four-year pause on any increases on the city’s 1 million or so stabilized units
Out of 3.7mm [1].
> not directly familiar with Berlin
Not comparable. Berlin froze rents “on more than 1.5 million” apartments in 2020 [2] out of about 2mm. 25% versus 75%.
Also, Berlin’s politicians didn’t propose a construction agenda. Mamdani has. (“New York City voters on Tuesday delivered a strong message in support of building more housing, passing three proposals that pitted City Hall against the City Council in an effort to rewrite decades-old development rules” [4].)
[1] https://www.nyc.gov/content/tenantprotection/pages/fast-fact...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/world/europe/berlin-gentr...
[3] https://www.berlin.de/en/news/8283996-5559700-housing-stock-...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/nyregion/nyc-ballot-measu...
Increasing supply brings down prices. But a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes.
A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
> Increasing supply brings down prices. But a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes. > > A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
Builders build rent stabilized housing ("affordable apartments") in tandem with market rate unsubsidized units. There is an enormous backlog of development proposals that the city council has been sitting on for a while now. Vacancy rates in NYC are 1.4%. anything under 5% is defined as a critical housing shortage.
New housing is in such extreme demand that people pay $5k/mo for a shoebox.
I think the builder builds if you pay them. I don't think they care about what the rent will be because they just build stuff.
So, just pay them, and figure it out later.
The alternative is what we're currently doing, and have been doing for the past few decades: nothing. This does not work. Our current housing situation is simply not sustainable.
awesome stuff! loved this comment cause it is the kind of thing US political party (one in particular) teaches its faithful followers that is rooted in some crazy ideology without a shred of any evidence to back it up (especially since here we are talking about NEW YORK CITY not some shithole in the South). Goodspeed mate, wild stuff!!
>a builder will not build at a loss or an imminent threat to their rental income from expansion of rent freezes.
A builder isn't a land owner. They make contracts, negotiate a price, and build to that price. They're dealing with a government, so there's more money in the bank to spend if the government is truly focused on solving an issue.
A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
>A city with an expanding rent-freeze is not inviting new supply.
Okay, cool. I honestly don't want an atchitect who can't think 5 years on advance (when these rent control proposals are scheduled to end, should they be enacted). That short term quarterly thinking is precisely why we have been unable to build housing.
[flagged]
First - a rent freeze directly transfers inflation costs to the property owners. It is a tax by another name.
Second - there is no similar freeze on property taxes - or the expected inflation in maintenance costs, insurance, and so on. Again - a tax on property owners by another name.
Third - starting with a rent freeze is an indicator of a property owner unfriendly administration. Any builder would have to calculate this into their expected returns on capital investment.
It's not property-owner-unfriendly, it's landlord-unfriendly.
Which is just fine in my book.
Builders do not have to "calculate" any of this into their "expected returns", because new construction will not be subject to rent freezes or even stabilization. You're selectively ignoring a key part of what the GP said in order to further your incorrect argument, and that's not cool.
As for your first and second points... tough shit for the landlords. That's a cost of doing business. Taxes, even implicit ones like this, change all the time. And a landlord owning a rent-stabilized unit should already know that there are limits on what kind of rent increases they can push through, and that those limits could change at any time, even to zero.
> tough shit for the landlords. That's a cost of doing business
If Mamdani does this, not only is he fucked, but he might take down the national progressive movement with himself.
"Tough shit" is a good Twitter reaction. It's terrible policy. Berlin did that, and it backfired in the most predictable way possible.
New York needs more housing. New York City's public finances simply do not permit a massive public housing construction binge, and Albany can't fund a socialist mayor's public works with upstate tax dollars. That means that housing must be privately developed. New York City, just today, transferred power away from City Council and to Gracie Mansion to help facilitate new housing. That means the impediment is local opposition. The literature shows that opposition gets dampened when folks aren't afraid of gentrification; rent freezes do that.
If Mamdani takes the easy route and "tought shits" the landlords, his housing policy grinds to a halt. Market rents, covering 75% of New York apartments, will spike. The experiment will be over. He doesn't strike me as an idiot, which is why I don't suspect he'll do this.
>If Mamdani does this, not only is he fucked, but he might take down the national progressive movement with himself.
Like Obama with ACA? He fully thought he'd be a one term president over trying to push it in. Sometimes the best thing for a city is not what's best for reelection. And I very much don't want a candidate who's only minmaxing around what will get him re-elected.
I think we need to have more faith in the people. As gen Z says, "let him cook". We're thinking too Establishment here in a time where we clearly need a different strategy. Establishment had nearly 2 decades to resolve this and it only got worse instead. Why not try a new plan while observing what went wrong before and adjusting?
Or at least be able to scrutinize when the people who want to ruin his 2028 campaign (should he rerun) are the same that tried these same tactics this year. If these tactics were effective, Mamdami wouldn't have gotten in.
Doesn’t seem like you read the comment you are replying to.
> You are ignorant of both
> You're talking out of your ass
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>> You're talking out of your ass
>You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
Fair enough.
>> You are ignorant of both >You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.
Would "the facts don't support your assertions in either case." be more acceptable? Or is noting a lack of knowledge in any way unacceptable?
I'm not trying to be snarky here. I just want to make sure I don't run afoul of the guidelines and make more work for you and the other already over-worked moderators.
Thanks!
It's good that you're committed to observing the guidelines, thanks.
It should be easy enough to reply without ugly personal abuse or swipes like "ignorant".
If someone's comment indicates a lack of important knowledge about the topic, you can just politely point out the missing information, the way you might in a respectful conversation with a friend over dinner or a beer. That's what we're aiming for on HN.
Berlin reverted the rent freeze later because it was deemed unconstitutional. Many people had to pay back the money they "saved". Without entering in the other discussion the Berlin case was not a success.
That article says the main benefit of rent control (besides popularity) is an increase in YIMBY sentiment, but it seems it still has the downsides detractors dislike about it.
It doesn't do much to convince me it isn't a populist campaign promise.
>Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development
He's not actually pitching any new price controls. He's proposing a temporary rent freeze on rent stabilized (rent control is tiny in comparison and unaffected by this) apartments that are already subject to limits on rent increases.
How do I know this? I live in a a rent stabilized apartment. The rent for which, even though increases are "limited" (usually somewhere around 3-5%) has more than doubled since I moved in.
So no. Mamdani isn't suggesting making any changes to the law as it has existed for at least 50 years, rather he's suggesting stopping rent increases while fast-tracking new housing, which would likely stabilize the housing market.
As an aside, which most folks don't understand, is that the vacancy rate in NYC is ~1.5%. Healthy housing markets have vacancy rates of 4-6%. Like many places in the US (and elsewhere), NYC has a housing shortage. But in NYC, that shortage is much more severe than almost anywhere else in the US.
how many decades have you been in your stabilized apartment ?
The Atlantic had a good article on this and how it isn't the doom and gloom you lay out above:
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/11/mamdani-...
As some of the replies note, it has been rather successful and popular in other cities like Berlin.
Rent control is always initially popular with the people who are already in apartments. But it is longer term effects on supply and quality that are corrosive.
An alternative is Austin:
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-f...
"Austin rents have fallen for nearly two years. Here’s why.
Austin rents have tumbled for 19 straight months, data from Zillow show. The typical asking rent in the capital city sat at $1,645 as of December, according to Zillow — above where rents stood prior to the pandemic but below where they peaked amid the region’s red-hot growth.
Surrounding suburbs like Round Rock, Pflugerville and Georgetown, which saw rents grow by double-digit percentages amid the region’s pandemic boom, also have seen declining rents. Rents aren’t falling as quickly as they rose during the pandemic run-up in costs, but there are few places in the Austin region where rents didn’t fall sometime in the last year.
The chief reason behind Austin’s falling rents, real estate experts and housing advocates said, is a massive apartment building boom unmatched by any other major city in Texas or in the rest of the country. Apartment builders in the Austin area kicked into overdrive during the pandemic, resulting in tens of thousands of new apartments hitting the market."
I'm all for building more housing, but in places that already have an affordability problem, removing rent control before building more housing would just displace people overnight.
I live in SF and wish we would build as much and as quickly as Austin has been building. But, if we could do that, we shouldn't consider eliminating rent control until after those units are on the market.
It's kind of incredible how the obvious and true solution to rents being too high is to BUILD MORE HOUSES and yet somehow people manage to convince themselves that in fact, the real solution to rents being to high is to artificially cap their prices. Incredible stupidity.
There's two vectors here and people seem to not realize that, isolated from the short term suffering going on right now.
Rental control is short term relief. Obviously, using short term solutions long term is bad. This shouldn't be an enigma.
Building housing is long term. We cannot build new houses in a year. At least, not that I know of. But new houses in 4 years does not help the citizens knocked onto the streets in those times.
You need to relive those people while also securing the future. That's why rent control fails without a proper housing reform.
You can't be mad at a pipe bursting that you used duct tape to cover. But maybe that duct tape buys you time to find a plumber, who needs time to find the right size pipes. So duct tape is still really useful, just not the end all be all.
Mamdani is doing both though, in a controlled manner. He voted to oppose NIMBYism as well and has a plan for new construction.
Extra supply is helping, but I would argue back-to-office and layoffs are the primary culprit.
You're not competing with 4+ techbros to an apartment in downtown Austin anymore.
Anecdotally, the local tech meetups are WAY off in participation since about June. About 1/3 of the people who used to regularly attend have completely left the city.
Also quoting Paul Krugman -
"“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”"
So you know, take what he says with a grain of salt, as with all economists, who pretend to be rigorous when in fact they are anything but.
Of course Krugman got that wrong. It is funny.
But economists don't disagree about the effects of price controls. These are easy to observe and model. These concepts are also taught to Economics undergraduates all over the world - often in their first Microeconomics class. They are not controversial.
Here is a Khan Academy video: https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...
Price controls on inelastic demand are absolutely a subject of debate among economists
I feel like economists (as the Krugman quote above seems to illustrate) don't consider the real world. Price controls aren't necessary when there's abundance. When housing supply meets (or slightly exceeds) demand, landlords don't jack up rents every year and displace tenants. When it doesn't, and can't, what do we do to keep people from losing their homes?
(And don't give me the usual drivel about how people who are renting should be expected to assume they'll be kicked out all the time. Compassion, please. These are humans we're talking about.)
Housing is an inelastic supply which takes long to catch up to demand. Using price controls to combat market excess shouldn't be controversial. But price controls cannot work if underlying policy issues which prevent supply to increase (zoning, permitting, excessive standards) aren't resolved.
> Compassion, please. These are humans we're talking about.
I think that's the core issue with detractors. Rent control is relief, and those who are not in danger only see the forest and miss the trees burned in the process.
If you only think about humans as a spreadsheet, rent control makes no sense. "You gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette" kind of deal. Even some otherwise economically progressive people I know seem to miss this, but I suppose being able to comment on the internet carries a bit of security to begin with.
The gold faith interpretation lies in the idea that rent control is political poison. It's unpopular to undo rent control, so it's never undone. And I get that. But
1. I see that as sign of a weak politician. Yeah, sometimes we need higher taxes. No one "likes" taxes but we need them.
2. In some ways, trying to undo rent control means the problem isn't solved yet. There's less resistance against rent control once you see housing prices start to fall naturally.
Isn't the obvious solution to build more houses (apartments, flats, whatever)? Like, isn't it incredibly obvious that there is actually a simple solution to this problem - build more so that there is an abundance of choice? How people come to the conclusion that in a densely populated and highly desirable area, the solution isn't building more capacity but rather to artificially cap prices?
It's like a database server running out of memory and the proposed solution isn't to increase memory, but rather just reject new entries into the DB because it's full.
No, that's the solution 20 years from now.
And also it does not work like this in cities. Housing is worthless to your city if the house is 1 hour outside the city. NYC can't alleviate housing costs by building more homes in Timbuktu.
Mamdami is mayor of NYC, not Timbuktu. He doesn't exactly have much control of where to enact his policy.
>Housing is worthless to your city if the house is 1 hour outside the city
I live in LA suburb so I'm confused by this. The commute sucks downtown but an hour commute these isn't a dealbreaker.
Its also my perception that NYC's transit system isn't completely crap like LA. That should enable you to build farther out from the core city if needed.
Well LA is not really a city, it's, like, 5 cities pretending to be one.
And what I mean is: the solution to not enough housing is to build denser housing, not just more housing. That's why LA is also broken: they didn't do that. They just built further out. Which didn't alleviate housing costs, because if you work in downtown, you have to buy a house in downtown-ish, and the supply there hasn't been fixed, because we built more housing somewhere else. Which is why LA housing costs are also mega fucked.
But NYC has another problem: it's already pretty dense. Building more housing where it matters won't be easy - which is why we see proposals from mamdani to convert some commerical space to housing.
Well I certainly agree LA is too big for its own good. I would have preferred denser housing as well, even if I myself wouldn't want to live downtown.
I don't know how feasible it is, but hearing that Mamdami is willing to convert abandoned post COVID businesses to dense housing is a good idea in my eyes. That would simply be too radical an idea before COVID forced the US to perform a mass WFH experiment.
>Which didn't alleviate housing costs, because if you work in downtown, you have to buy a house in downtown-ish, and the supply there hasn't been fixed, because we built more housing somewhere else. Which is why LA housing costs are also mega fucked.
I'm talking more in idealism, but to first go absurd: if we could teleport to work it wouldn't matter where we build houses.
That's the theory I go off of when I say "I assume NYC doesn't have crap public transit". I can commute downtown in 40 minutes with no traffic, but using buses and railway would take me 2.5 hours, one way. And missing a stop stalls you for an hour. Not even to mention the hours they run. That is unacceptable in an 8 hour workday.
LA's mistake (outside of NIMBY zoning laws) was thinking that you can outfreeway public transit. And I think we can safely say that has failed.the idea of suburbs can work if we had proper, modern railing that ran every 10-20 minutes and get downtown in 20 more. But I don't think anyone in tune with California needs to be reminded of how that project is going.
I mean your analogy makes it very clear that usually if a server is temporarily running OOM you might use temporary means to mitigate. You might use mitigations while you are waiting for new memory to arrive.
But what do you want to do if upgrading memory just isn't really possible quickly? What is point not to apply mitigations?
Krugman is an idiot - I cant believe people still give a shit what he says
Good points.
All variants of rent control etc. have been tried in Europe and have miserably failed. Quite the opposite, rents have been rising even more, and new construction has been reduced due to new politically induced risks.
Examples: Berlin, Barcelona
But as Barcelona shows, there is a feedback loop benefiting leftist populist politicians:
Higher rents, lower housing supply -> people frustrated -> leftist populists get more votes -> more stupid regulation -> even higher rents, even lower housing supply -> people more frustrated -> ...
This can go on for at least two electoral cycles.
Berlin never really had rent control. It's been a few months before the law was abolished for constitutional technicalities. Everybody knew this was a possibility, so you can't make any conclusions about it. Bringing it up is pure propaganda. Nothing failed economically!
We have a federal law which in theory could slow down price progression, but it is rarely applied. It also doesn't govern newly build apartments, so criticism usually falls short there too...
Stockholm too.
But they always think this time it'll be different I guess.
Krugman isn't a good source. Textbook economics is wrong because it's made up. The circular logic exists to serve a narrative.
But tariffs across the entire U.S. economy are cool......
How does he explain Tokyo then ?
Lax zoning regulations, relatively cheap labor, low cost of materials, and depreciating home values incentivize building new real estate. That is what separates Tokyo from New York City.
I don't think it's any of that. Or at least those sre all second order efdects.
It's a much more conformist, homogenized culture so there's less resistance in implementing policy on general.
Also, housing isn't an "asset" the way it is in the US. You simply don't place as much value on your house over there, so there's less resistance to renovating or outright demolishing houses every few decades. Americans would instead see money going down the drain.
There's also (relatively) strong renter protections, including effectively frozen rent.
Yes, it's possible to increase rent, but only if the surrounding areas prices have increased, and even then the renter has to agree or it otherwise goes to court and the court tends to not side with landlords.
> and depreciating home values incentivize building new real estate
Yes and no. Most housing in Tokyo is apartment complexes and/or condos, which do not depreciate very much (and in fact in the past few years have appreciated by ~30%). Standalone houses depreciate, but the land appreciates. That leads to new construction for those properties, which often then turn into apartment complexes.
Basically, it's a matter of mostly becoming more dense over time, while also restricting price increases of rents.
Or any of these:
- Vienna, Austria: About 60% of residents live in city-subsidized or cooperatively owned housing
- Berlin, Germany: Rent control has been mixed, varies by neighborhood, but seen as working
- Singapore: Not rent control in the classic sense, but government-built housing
- Montreal, Canada: Rent control applies mainly to existing tenant
Not all perfect. There are others. It can work.
Have you lived in one of those rent controlled “paradises”? In Europe, yes, there are sizeable populations living in subsidized housing, and often there are restrictions on rent increases, but new tenants pay way higher prices and have to compete for every available unit with dozens of other potential tenants. New tenants frantically overbidding each other, while old tenants pay pennies compared to today’s market prices, mmm, what a life.
“it can work” in some way of course. People are surprisingly adaptable to living in semi-dysfunctional environments. But it reality the only thing that truly works is building a lot of housing.
> new tenants pay way higher prices and have to compete for every available unit with dozens of other potential tenants.
Rent control isn't the cause of that, though, it's lack of housing supply to meet demand. If there was no rent control, competition would be just as fierce, and prices still high.
They are not independent. Rent control discourages housing development.
Not something I've seen in montreal
The housing situation in Vienna has benefited significantly from massive population decline. As much as the population has grown in recent years, it is only now approaching the population it had a century ago.
Some genuinely lovely so-called “rust-belt” cities in the US have enjoyed a cheap housing renaissance on the back of historical population decline that is driving population increase now.
The city with declining population growth, aggressive rezoning to create supply, that still has 30 yr high rents in 2025?
Fascinating, yet rents have increased faster than inflation even as rent control has waned in NYC.
The problem with citing studies from 1992 is that you’re missing the last 25 years of war inflation hidden through various schemes of quantitative easing and capitalization. We’ve made capital so easy to get everything is fungible and inflates as everyone from families to foreign rich people looking to exfiltrate cash from their country pumps dollars into real estate.
My parents recently passed and we sold their house in Queens for a ridiculous sum - representing a 8% CAGR. Most of that increase in value has been since 2000, and that’s driven by a surplus of capital looking for a return.
The underlying cause of runaway asset price inflation is ZIRP and QE. Renters experience it as rent increases outpacing wage increases - this is socially destructive. But neither Mamdani (DSA) or Democrats or Republicans are willing to touch Federal Reserve QE.
Senator Schumer (D-NY) famously said in 2012 to Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve Chair): 'Get To Work Mr. Chairman' - encouraging him to start Quantitative Easing 3 (QE3) - a program to digitally print $40billion and eventually $85billion per month of "money" and injecting it into the financial system.
Democrats want higher wages for workers instead of reducing the cost of living (rent, insurance, etc).
Which is a total exercise in futility.
The way you fix housing is by building new housing, and letting old housing become the affordable housing.
You can also build affordable housing directly. We powered the post war period with a huge supply of starter homes.
Other countries have also directly attacked homelessness by simply building enough public housing such that anyone who wants a roof over their head can have one regardless of their ability to pay for it.
No, it's a pretty bad idea.
We don't mandate car manufacturers to build affordable cars (although they are free to). People with lower income rely (or should rely) on the used car market. Those cars are naturally affordable.
Car manufacturers build high margin cars for people with the money, people with the money leave a trail of used cars in their wake, people without money for a new car buy those used ones.
That's a totally sensible and functional market. No mandates or compelled charity needed.
We don't have "used apartments". Your metaphor falls apart here. And land is limited and government controlled. So GM can't just roll up and produce new houses out of an assembly line.
Land is limited, meanwhile we've built cars for a century and maybe the last 40 yeses worth of cars are street compliant. The only thing comoarable for cars is showing what abundance can do for a market. Less people care about a 2026 Camaro being affordable if you can buy a used '05 camaro for $3000 (which is probably still and absurd price, but hey. That's less than two months of rent in CA)
You don't have to mandate anything of landlords. Public housing is a thing.
There are very successful examples.
And on the car side, there's plenty of very cheap new options. I can literally lease a new EV for ~$100/month. Who's voluntarily building starter homes anymore? We built fleets of those in the 50s, without the song and dance that they were luxury and required time to turn into starter homes. If anything in a lot of places, the starter homes of the 50s are the relatively expensive housing of today.
At this point we need both. If full time minimum wage can't afford an entry level studio apartments, then we're already in trouble.
For reference, that's $2100 or so of monthly take home pay for NYC's 16.50 minimum wage. Old wisdom would mean that this should make for $700 rental prices. But I'm sure few Gen Z are expecting rent to be 30% of income.
Generally speaking, legal requirements for elevated wages are another form of price fixing. The results of this price fixing are that fewer people will have jobs, the poorest people will be disenfranchised because it is not profitable to pay them a full salary, and the cost of everything in the city may very well be elevated due to more people willing/able to pay for the limited housing and other necessities. If you really want to help poor people, find a way to help them be more productive, and stop damaging the industries that get people the things they need.
You can see this in California with its mandated $20/hr fast food minimum wage. Restaurants responded by cutting workers or cutting hours.
https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/california-lost-16-000-res...
"It has been almost one year since California implemented a $20 minimum wage for quick-service restaurant workers, and industry experts have been debating the long-term effects the wage jump would have on the industry’s job market.
As it turns out, thus far, the 33.3% wage increase for fast-food workers in California has resulted in almost 16,000 job losses — a decline of 2.8% — across the limited-service food industry from September 2023 (when AB 1228 was signed into law) until September 2024, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Since the law went into effect in April, California’s limited-service restaurant industry has seen an employment rate decline of 2.5%."
I think that's a horrible analysis, in a time where all job sectors except healthcare is hiring less. A 2.5% decline sounds pretty good when compared to the rest of the job market. Especially in a high turnover market like fast food.
That article doesn't even attempt to analyze why those jobs were lost, and just parrots the "minimum wage is evil" talking points of a conservative think tank. Hard to take it seriously.
Yeah, clearly minimum wage increases is why every other sector is also hiring less and laying off more. I'd love to see that -2.5% statitic compared to the tech industry this year in the US (and industry where you'd scoff at the idea of working for $20/hr.
Does that compare to other similar states over the same time? It hasn’t been a great year for restaurants anywhere afaik.
That’s not a very robust assessment. And even there, the 2.5% reduction is a nothingburger. A busy fast food has like 50 employees working 15-25 hours on average. That works out to a loss of 2-3 people. These stores have been doing that type of efficiency moves since day 1.
My cousins operate fast food stores, none in California. They are doing the same thing. Starbucks let the genie out of the bottle ~15 years ago with the app. Legacy fast food like McDonalds use apps to reduce labor with the incentives of high prices for counter sales and the perception of easier ordering.
Do those case studies include the case for expropriating landlords that don’t keep their buildings to code?
Massive building sprees don’t bring prices down, they bring favelisation.
If the effect of this policies is that housing prices tumble, and there’s potentially more housing stock on the market for people to buy (and no incentive for buying to let since rent freezes makes it unprofitable), this seems like a good effect
> If the effect of this policies is that housing prices tumble
The near-term effect will be a spike in market rates. If Mamdani delivers on new supply, rents should broadly flatten in real terms.
That quote seems to ignore reality. If we look at San Francisco, where units built before 1980 are not subject to rent control, we find that building new housing has nothing to do with fears that rent control will be extended.
I agree that rents for uncontrolled apartments are high, but if we eliminated rent control for the rest, that wouldn't really fix anything. The formerly-rent-controlled apartments would cost just as much as the post-1979 housing stock.
The only thing that will fix our housing cost problem is a truly radical amount of new construction. Developers would love to build here, but the cost to build here is ridiculously high for policy reasons that have nothing to do with actually building.
If we could build enough housing to satisfy demand, then we might be ok eliminating rent control. Rent control is a response to housing scarcity, not the cause. You'd think economists would understand basic supply and demand.
About the only thing I do agree with is that rent control reduces the quality of available housing. Landlords are less incentivized to fix problems and maintain their buildings when they can't make market rate from their tenants.
30% of housing in places like Hong Kong are rent controlled. The other 70% or so are strictly not so there’s plenty of incentive for the free market.
> "a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing"
To address quality first, most economists would agree that landlords are incentivized to invest the bare minimum into their property that they can; this is not so much a function of income from rent. If a tenant feels generous and starts paying more for rent, the landlord will not invest more into their unit. So I find the inverse of that to be an assumption that doesn't completely add up.
Saying rent control will affect quantity is completely beside the point. Rent controls are meant to ease the financial burden on the people currently renting in NYC, not a hypothetical newcomer looking for an apartment. Housing is already a huge pain to find for lower-income new yorkers so the threat of a more scarcity doesn't really change the equation for a lot of people.
Rent stabilization (NYC jargon) already is here and is a mess. He's probably not about to make it worse.
I’m not sure your understand that almost none of his price control “wants” are likely to be enacted. City government is pretty moderate and Mamdani isn’t a dictator
Check argentina for a relative recent example of what happens when you put and then remove rent control.
Spoiler alert, the economy books and the economists are right
1992 is a long time gone and economists aren’t always right. I don’t know how much worse the housing stock could get so maybe it’s time to try something different.
"a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing."
Weirdly you get the same effect without rent control.
Also quoting Krugman, from today, who no longer writes for the NYT:
"Which party is out of touch, again?
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York, in the face of hysterical opposition from the big money, has grabbed many of the headlines, which I understand — it’s an amazing story. And I wonder what the right-wing tech bros are thinking: If Wall Street couldn’t buy New York, can they really buy America?
I’m seeing some commentators argue that Mamdani will be a problem for Democrats, allowing Republicans to paint them as extremists who are out of touch with America. But Republicans would do that anyway. For what it’s worth, Mamdani may be on the left, but all indications are that he’s a pragmatist who will get along fine with the rest of his party.
Meanwhile, you know which party is out of touch and riddled with extremists? The G.O.P.
If you look at recent Republican campaigns and positioning, it’s striking how much energy they’re putting into issues that just don’t matter much to ordinary Americans. Republicans may be obsessed with trans athletes, but most people aren’t. Polls and yesterday’s elections suggest that rants about the menace of illegal aliens have a lot less traction with the public than G.O.P. apparatchiks imagine — and that Americans don’t like the spectacle of masked ICE agents grabbing people off the street.
And if we’re talking about extremists within the party, well, Democrats have people like Mamdani, a mild-mannered guy who says he’s a socialist but really isn’t. The Republican Party, by contrast, has been largely taken over by outright fascists, and is facing a major outbreak of old-fashioned antisemitism."
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/which-party-is-in-trouble...
What's an alternative though. It's easy to be critical and not solve people's problems
Sadly many conservative leaning types simply think "nothing is wrong, this is capitalism. Just get a better job and make more money". While also railing against worker protections and wage increases that would be ensure better jobs.
In other words: they don't care, as long as it doesn't hurt them. The core mentality of NIMBYism.
Something is observably wrong. The ratio of rent to income has drastically changed against workers - this is destructive to society.
But the cause is deeper than rent price controls, minimum wage and worker protections.
After the 2008 financial crisis, western central banks digitally printed trillions of dollars (Quantitative Easing) to refloat our financial system. The collapse of 2008 was itself the result of perverse incentives leading to banks stuffed with bad mortgages due to speculative housing manias after the collapse of the Dotcom bubble and 9/11.
The response of flooding the financial system with trillions of printed money after 2008 for years was a political choice - supported by Democrats, Republicans and President Obama.
Wealth inequality is the result. It cannot be fixed at a local level through local policies. It cannot be fixed by Congress through policy or tax tweaks. It is a problem with the financial plumbing itself.
I don't disagree with anything you said here. But sadly we all have to play with the cards we dealt. Mamdami can't force the Central Bank to QT anymore than Trump wants to QE us into hyperinflation. And I'm not sure if either would fix what's already broken.
The scales and old ways of life are broken. I don't think anyone is interested in throwing it out and starting new, so we need to rebalance with the scale we have. That means readjusting tax brackets, worker wages and hours, and likely bringing down asset prices. Throwing more money into the system clearly broke stuff, so let's at least redistribute what we have if we can't easily take out the money
Bringing down asset prices is what is necessary for younger workers to have a chance. As it is - young people will be perpetual wage slaves and never build capital (e.g. home equity, retirement funds) like previous generations. The fear, anger and despondency evident in people who are delaying family formation, delaying medical treatment, hiding their true self while others boast of yachts, and gulfstreams and Aman resorts on instagram, and question whether someone's identity is worthy - all of it is profoundly sad.
But lowering asset prices is a nearly politically impossible lift.
Left-wing populists will promise to deliver. But will ultimately fail. Populism ultimately is a rejection of elites. Elites who are currently failing the public. But you musn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
My objection is that left-wing populism with its rejection of economic elites, rejection of capitalism and the big-tent embrace of "all" is isomorphic to right wing populism with its rejection of science (antivax), embrace of nationalism and focus on homogeneity. Economists have good ideas. Capitalism is what built the water system that nourishes NYC. A movement embracing "all" will find itself eventually fractured by vote-bank politics as tribal affiliations will dominate in the end.
I am personally focused on thinking about how rewire the financial plumbing over succumbing to either left or right wing populist movements.
Anyway - Mamdani is a forceful, and commanding speaker. His victory speech last night was truly an American original. I think he's trying to point the vector towards a better life for more people and that is a good thing.
As if Cuomo was some economic genius. Look at all his campaign material - they were abject brain dead character smears and racism. If he was truly just trying to win by any means to supposedly save New Yorkers from economic disaster, he was a Machiavellian of the highest degree.
He used Orthodox Jewish communities with top down leaders as a core machine style voting bloc. The whole community turns out and did what the head guy says, just like the old Tammany Hall. I’m sure plenty of people “moved” from their upstate town back to Brooklyn. Usually the old style conservative Catholics vote for him too. (Oddly enough as his divorce and “living in sin” was scandalous)
The issue is that the machine stuff only works when nobody is amped up. And his broader audience is both dying off and angry at the Trump nonsense. The population is shifting, and south asian, Middle Eastern and other, less traditionally powerful blocs are voting now and Zohran activated them. That’s why the dog whistles were so important - he needed to get more republicans and Archie bunker types to turn out.
It’s kind of sad, Cuomo with the right people restraining him is a force. But his enemy is himself.
> The population is shifting, and south asian, Middle Eastern and other, less traditionally powerful blocs are voting now and Zohran activated them
I voted for Zohran, but it’s worth noting that the demographic story isn’t all that clear: current counts show him losing to Cuomo in the Eastern Queens neighborhoods where those groups are significantly represented. Mamdani’s core voting base is “classic” NYC liberal: West side Manhattan, Northern Brooklyn, and Western Queens. That’s a relatively pasty set of areas, at least by NYC standards :-)
(The story with the Orthodox is also more nuanced: many of the sects like him, at least among the candidates. They like him because he’s made the right political noises around educational freedom re: yeshivas, and they absolutely despise Cuomo for his handling of COVID.)
One of the pieces of evidence you provided is a poll about what people thought the effects were and not the actual effects.
Isn't that odd?
> who will be blamed?
20 bucks says Trump.
The literal alternative, which is actually happening right now and not some textbook hypothetical is supply not keeping up anyway and landlords charging however much they want pretty much unbridled, not to mention major companies snapping up real estate and leveraging it as investment collateral rather than treating them and managing them as, you know, housing.
We need a change. We don't need to do rent freezes in a vacuum. Coupled with the right policy supports they can definitely work, and Mamdani's proposed freezes are limited in scope. He is freezing rents only for select controlled units, last I checked.
Before you go spreading the bs propaganda, consider what your fellow citizens actually need to survive and whether or not you want to be viewed as being on the side of a few billionaires or on the side of the vast population that is increasingly becoming impoverished.
1. New york city has rent control on 1 million units already
2. New york city has laws making it so you can only increase rent by a small fraction of the investment for renovation taking a large amount of units off the market as its economically infeasible
3. Nyc has a very strict zoning and regulation system that is reducing housing supply
(from wikipedia)
1. rent control is a specific, technical term which represents about 24k units
2. rent stabilized representing about 1M sets limits on rent increases in exchange for tax breaks for the building
3. corruption
When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it.
What's next, "these people are technically not in poverty, they're income challenged"
>When you have to argue semantics by defining a new term ("it's not rent control, it's rent stabilization") that's a pretty good sign that you've fucked up and you're trying to hide it.
It's not "defining a new term."
In New York City, "Rent Control" is the official name of a specific program/set of laws and "Rent Stabilization" is the official name of a different specific program/set of laws.[0]
And since we're talking about New York City housing laws/policies and that Mamdani is proposing a rent freeze for units in one of those two programs, being specific about it isn't semantics at all.
The all-encompassing term that you thought you were using a gotcha on is "rent regulation."
Please! Put some knowledge on, your ignorance is showing. Sheesh!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_regulation_in_New_York
Edit: Added ">" to identify the section I quoted.
No it doesn't. There are about 25,000 rent-controlled units, less than 1% of units in the City.
You are thinking of rent stabilization, but that's not close to the same thing.
They are both price controls on rent. The eligibility criteria are different, and the terms by which rent may increase are different, but they seem pretty close to the same thing to me.
Two of these things are orthogonal to freezes on rent controlled units, so I don't understand your point here.
I agree that 3. Is a problem. I'm not convinced mamadani is against reconsidering zoning and regulation to increase supply. Nothing I've heard suggest he would be.
> He is freezing rents only for select controlled units
45% of apartments in NYC
Rent-controlled units account for less than 1%. Rent-stabilized units for less than 25%.
Over 50% of rented units in New York are regulated somehow. 34% “rent stabilised pre-74”, 8% “rent stabilized post-73”, 1% rent controlled, 7% public housing, 2% other
The underlying cause of impoverishment where inflation of housing, healthcare, and education is outpacing income is an expansionist monetary policy. ZIRP (Zero interest policy) along with QE (quantitative easing) pushed ever increasing amounts of printed money into the system. No one is touching the root cause. Not Mamdani, not Democrats and not Republicans.
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2010/12/08/13190...
"Jon Stewart Busts Fed Chair Ben Bernanke On 'Printing Money' December 8, 201010:39 AM ET By
Frank James
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is so busted.
Comedy Central host Jon Stewart added his voice to others who caught the central banker contradicting himself over whether or not the Fed is "printing money" through its actions to bolster the economy.
On 60 Minutes this week, when asked by reporter Scott Pelley about the Fed's $600 billion purchase of Treasury bonds that is meant to lower interest rates further, the Fed chair said:
BERNANKE: Well, this fear of inflation, I think is way overstated. We've looked at it very, very carefully. We've analyzed it every which way. One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. ...
Twenty-one months earlier on the same program and to the same reporter, Bernanke said something quite different:
Asked if it's tax money the Fed is spending, Bernanke said, "It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing."
"You've been printing money?" Pelley asked.
"Well, effectively," Bernanke said. "And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low. When the economy begins to recover, that will be the time that we need to unwind those programs, raise interest rates, reduce the money supply, and make sure that we have a recovery that does not involve inflation." "
Making it about "sides" is exactly why politics is as toxic as it is today.
Is it inconceivable that one could look at the candidates and, without being a billionaire, decide that Mamdani is not a candidate they want to bet their chips on?
Politics is all about sides. To think it isn't is delusional.
It's uncomfortable to take sides, but that's what politics is. It's finding out what you believe is important (e.g. helping average people make ends meet, even if it require regulation, or eliminating regulation), you will end up taking sides whether you like it or not.
I think it's incredibly naive not to consider who our choices benefit. If your choices benefit people who already have massive amounts of wealth, you should acknowledge that and be aware of that and accept the consequences of that, and vice versa. Obviously in many cases it is complicated--your choices may benefit several different classes of people and undermine others. If anything the problem with politics is that many people make choices without considering what "sides" will benefit, letting ads, propaganda, and persuasion convince them instead. This leads people to actively vote against their own interests without even realizing it.
Doesn't this also apply in reverse? How many supporters of Mamdani acknowledge the groups that this choice will potentially harm? I am instead seeing people usually get defensive and downplay the potential harm on the more controversial issues. I also haven't seen anyone acknowledge that if the risk goes awry, it could end up causing even more harm to exactly those the policies were supposed to help.
If the goal is to vote for one's self interest, isn't it assuming a lot that this will always be aligned with one side? Sometimes self-interest means supporting one side on one issue, and a different side on a different issue. The act of taking a side is in of itself a form of compromise. I see nothing wrong with that, but that's not what people usually mean when they talk of sides.
Actually demand has being going down and rents have been trending down as a result. The main reason is less immigration and international students. I recall years ago every open house I would go to ended up selling above market value for cash from someone from overseas who "invests" their money on the back of locals trying to buy a house to live in for their family. The billionaires were not the ones to blame for this.
lol, going down according to who? https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york...
I don't doubt that immigration has probably marginally impacted the market, that doesn't change the fact that rent in NYC is still increasing YoY and is way too expensive.
And yes, the people extracting exorbitant rent cost are in fact the ones to blame. I don't understand people who seem to occupy a fairytale land in which they feel the need to defend billionaires as though they owe some fealty to them.
Maybe NYC lags behind other major cities. Check Boston for example.
Zohran is exactly the kind of change candidate that the San Francisco machine with Grow SF would actively seek to squash.
But Zohran's not alone, today's election was a massive swing back in almost every single race. School boards, city councils, state houses and senates, all swung radically left.
It should be ringing alarm bells that the SF / YC / startup community that used to champion utilitarian, meritocratic QoL improvements as a mission, is now so deeply forked from the base that sprung today's results. Politicians like Zohran won't be bought off by Palantir money. So, what's Peter Thiel and Gary to do? Where is Marc Benioff going to park his money? Reid Hoffman, Dustin Moskovitz, Michael Moritz, Reed Hastings, Eric Schmidt, Laurene Jobs, Ben Horowitz - all of these people aren't doing the normal pay for play donations, they are interested in shaping the party in their image. Well, Zohran doesn't look like you.
> Zohran is exactly the kind of change candidate that the San Francisco machine with Grow SF would actively seek to squash.
GrowSF is a conservative group with a right-wing policy platform trying to pretend it's progressive, so I'm not sure why that would be surprising.
The SF tech millionaires/billionaires are not progressive. They may have claimed to be in the past, but that was either opportunism, or they lost it as they made more money and saw people like Trump and Musk gain power.
The 2010's was the moment of SV emerging as a political donor cornerstone combined with Obama's peak, when up until that point, tech had been relatively hands off (80s through to 2010's). It was then that QE and low interest rates become part of VC strategy, and so SV got comfy with its image as supporting mainstream liberal candidates and policies. They all threw money behind the Dem machine (Obama, Hillary, Biden) until they realized they weren't actually getting any decision making power for their purchases, so the ones who felt some amount of urgency switched to Trump by showing up to speak at rallies or inaugurations.
Grow SF really only exists to go after city council members or school board members who get into twitter fights with a certain someone.
You got to have a Zohran that is also going to be tough on crime and homelessness but our political separations don’t allow for that right now.
From a non-american perspective it seems to me that in the US the problem of homelessness often gets mistaken for a problem with the homeless, maybe changing that narrative is a starting point?
With drugs in the mix things get complicated. Many cities tried giving these people free homes/rooms but because drug laws were strictly enforced there the homeless chose to stay on the streets. You’re not going to get rid of the fentanyl and meth addicted homeless unless you do it by force.
That may be so, but how far do you think viral radical left wing populism is going to get you towards regaining people who voted for trump?
well Prop 50 to redraw California's district lines passed by a nearly 30% margin and counting right now. That's an absolute spanking leading up to 26 midterms.
The story tonight isn't about Trump at all though, it's about millennial DSA types beating the establishment Democratic institution - in NYC, Detroit, Mississippi. In 24 everyone was astonished at the lack of response - "what is DNC going to do about losing to Trump, twice?". This is the beginning of what will be the eventual answer.
Also it doesn't need to be said, but the mobilization of 1M+ votes for Zohran's campaign today renders the fringes meaningless. He's now automatically in the conversation for the Presidential primary for 2028.
Zohran is literally never eligible to be President without a constitutional amendment.
Zohran will be the kingmaker is what I infer @dluan is trying to say.
Doesn't matter because it doesn't need to be him. It can be any of the younger American white dudes that are emerging who can co-opt the same message.
> He's now automatically in the conversation for the Presidential primary for 2028.
He was born in Uganda, so that ain't happening.
> He's now automatically in the conversation for the Presidential primary for 2028.
I'm really happy he won, but this will not happen
Err sorry not President, unfortunately.
Pretty much a clean sweep for the dems today including a trashing on prop 50. In general I think only something on the fringes can draw away people attracted to the fringes.
It's already established that they swing for viral radical populism ... so, perhaps less of a challenge than you imply.
You don't need to get them back, you just need to motivate the more normal voters and demoralize the weird ones.
There seem to be people who voted for Trump as an anti establishment candidate. Now, they're obviously completely unmoored from reality, but perhaps they'd like another anti establishment candidate?
A lot of Trump voters hold completely incoherent views. They're only in it for the populism bit, doesn't matter if it's left-wing or right-wing. This is why democrats lost the last election, and how they could win the next.
The Democrats lost the last election because they put too much effort into catering to the right and completely lost their own base. The only thing Kamala Harris had to do was take a stance against genocide - which should be a no-brainer, instead she only doubled down and started talking about guns and bringing neocons into the fold. Now she's getting dragged on Twitter for her effusive eulogizing of Dick Cheney. Does anyone think that if Zohran or Kamala died tomorrow, that anyone on the right, even up to the White House, would return the same courtesy?
And out of the current crop of Democratic candidates as far as I can tell all but AOC take AIPAC money, and the left has soured on her, so we might as well cede 2028 right now.
>Does anyone think that if Zohran or Kamala died tomorrow, that anyone on the right, even up to the White House, would return the same courtesy?
Yes they would, as they have been doing so far.
You should widen your sources of information.
> Yes they would, as they have been doing so far.
Yeah? Where have they been doing that so far?
You're seriously claiming that Trump, or his administration, would act with class and offer condolences if an opponent were killed or died? He couldn't even be bothered to say anything about the Hortmans being murdered by a MAGA lunatic [0].
He and his shitty son both publicly mocked Paul Pelosi multiple times after another MAGA nutjob attacked him with a hammer. [1][2]
> You should widen your sources of information.
You should reevaluate yours, you are in a cult.
[0] https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/trump-condolences-... [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-shares-video-m... [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-jr-mocks-nancy-pe...
Peter Thiel and Mamdani are more alike than you may think.
https://x.com/aphysicist/status/1937879912221667792
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-peter-thiel-warns...
Nobody wants to hear this because it departs from the 'billionaire bad' trope. But Thiel has been remarkably consistent in his criticism of housing being the center of all of the Millenial economic woes.
They may agree on the existence of the problem, but they... don't agree on the solutions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic...
Douthat: I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?
Thiel: Uh ——
Douthat: You’re hesitating.
Thiel: Well, I don’t know. I would — I would ——
Douthat: This is a long hesitation!
Sure, Thiel is identifying some of the same problems, but the solutions he's proposing are basically the opposite of the ones Mamdani is. Unsurprisingly, he's proposing solutions that benefit billionaires rather than everyone else (e.g. just les us build whatever wherever we want, of course we'll build cheap housing that brings property houses down! Who could ever imagine we'll build luxury mansions that keep property prices high?).
How many times must it be explained that building luxury mansions still brings property prices down. Nobody ever voluntarily builds crappy low income housing. That’s never how development works. You let people build the new fancy buildings they want to build with all the margins and high prices. Then, when a bunch of rich people move in, that’s people that are no longer chasing all the other apartments. Eventually, way down the road, these swanky apartments will be tomorrow’s old and crappy ones in the neighborhood that’s not hip anymore, and low income people can rent them. This is how things actually work, and it’s fine.
What is NOT fine is when you have banks and private equity bullshit chasing homes purely as an asset to flip. That’s the thing we need to curtail, because it’s just money laundering at the expense of the American homeowner.
> Then, when a bunch of rich people move in, that’s people that are no longer chasing all the other apartments.
Maybe? Seems to me that there's a certain level of wealth where this no longer is true. Housing has (unfortunately in my eyes) become one of those black boxes that you put money in and money comes out; it's an investment. But what you're telling me goes contrary to what I know about the housing market: no, actually, houses depreciate in value because they'll have to ask poor people to buy / rent the place at some point. Can I go buy a mansion built in 1930 for a bargain price?
(I do agree about the private equity part, just the first bit doesn't pass a sniff test from me)
Oh, understood, the housing will "trickle down", right?
How many times do we need to learn that trickle down economics doesn't work? Making the rich richer and happier will never "trickle down" to the poor, it will stop at the rich.
With land, this is particularly obvious. There is a finite amount of land. The more of it is occupied with luxury mansions, the less land will be available for high-density housing. Building 1 new luxury mansion removes land from the pool that could house dozens if not hundreds of people. And rich people don't move in from cheaper housing to more expensive, they just keep both, or they buy the new mansion as a vacation home.
Property is an investment, and there are huge vested interests in keeping property values going up - and not just from rich people, but virtually everyone who owns their own home. You have to fight a lot of these interests to force prices to go down. "Just build more" doesn't work, the space in and around a city is limited.
Building a luxury mansion on top of unused and uninhabited marginal land - sure, that can bring prices down. But building a luxury mansion for one family by replacing dilapidated, and therefore cheap, high-density housing which used to house a dozen families brings prices up. And in practice, that is what is happening in cities. Old low-rise multi-family buildings in nice neighborhoods are being modernized and then converted into single-family mansions.
More housing, regardless of type, is directly correlated to cheaper average rents [0]. So Thiel is right in that regard, the red tape for construction and opposition from NIMBYs must be curtailed.
[0] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/733977
NIMBYs typically oppose especially lower cost housing, so it's not surprising that cutting red tape does help reduce housing prices, or at least slows down the rise.
The question is if it is enough - and I would be quite certain it's just a band aid. Unless you impose the construction of cheap housing, cheap housing will tend to not get built - almost every interest is opposed to it.
Good thing Mamdani is doing both, cutting red tape and constructing new housing, at least that's his plan, we shall see what others in his governance think about it.
I mean thiels policies are in effect in Austin Texas which is one of the few jurisdictions seeing decreasing rents.
Peter Thiel being pragmatic about housing to avoid the proles from getting uppity in his desired future isn't much of a flex.
I'm noticing that this election result has made a lot of people I know really hopeful. It's apparent that many people are fed up with the status quo so they're pushing towards more experimental candidates.
If anyone here is well-read on his policies and they have specific opinions I'd love to hear what you think.
Do you think Zohran will be successful with his agenda or will he get blocked by pushback from other political forces? I read some commentary that a few of his policy ideas are unfeasible without support from Albany, and I'm not sure how to evaluate that relationship.
Many online figures have become heavily invested on this mayoral election despite living hundreds or thousands of miles away, and I think that speaks to a real hunger for greater political experimentation.
As an aside, how do you evaluate the lessons that you learn or derive from what others are doing? Generalization sure is a tricky thing.
Hi
I don’t think I like several of his ideas or think he will get most of them passed. In fact I think a few like “freezing the rent” are actively bad
But I’m happy to finally have a politician who lives in and loves New York and is earnestly trying to my the city better. If he tries and fails, it will be better than our other politicians that have stopped trying
DeBlasio froze rent (for rent-stabilized apartments just like Zohran is proposing) for 3 straight years. Nothing new here.
Combining it with streamlining city approval process and building more actual city development will actually stabilize the rent across the market.
Particularly in comparison to Cuomo who by all accounts doesn’t even seem to like the city he campaigned to run. A tiny bit of joy goes a very long way.
Strong agree. I think his policies are absurd but hope that more invested young people who aren’t career politicians can start trying a platform that isn’t party line and resonates with residents.
Exactly.
I think it’s likely around 75% of his agenda will be blocked. NYC is a big ship to turn. However it will still be better than what Cuomo would have done
> I'm noticing that this election result has made a lot of people I know really hopeful.
Since the 2008, the day after every election of a new president, the coalition that elected them had this sense of hope for a brighter tomorrow. One which disappeared within months.
Except maybe 2016, but the bubble I was in was so preoccupied by shock that maybe I missed it (also, I was deeply engrossed in the work I was doing that fall)
I think I like the universal childcare and free buses. Don’t like the rent control but places like Hong Kong have been very successful doing it.
The biggest takeaway to me is how ridiculous it is that the US considers Mamdani somehow "experimental" or even radical.
His campaign revolves around three policies:
1. Universal Child Care 2. Fast and Free Busses 3. Freezing Rent for certain Rent Controlled Units
In any other context these would be policies that basically every citizen, except for a handful of people making buttloads of money off the privatization of childcare, housing, and transportation would support, yet somehow in the USA this is "radical". Somehow a candidate finally proposing positive policies that directly benefit citizens is a radical socialist who needs to be stopped and we all need to vote for the disgraced former governor who resigned after killing seniors during covid and groping his employees. Even here on HN where people are generally well educated you have people arguing. that Mamdani will somehow be the ruin of new york.
Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
"Free buses" is not really a thing even in the most left leaning European countries. Most experts recommend very cheap subsidized public transportation but not free.
Well Luxembourg is pretty much less a dense Staten Island, and they do more stuff than buses.
Not without grumbling though. Recently the cost reached 1 billion euro/year and it drove quite some discussion
> Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
Because that's what the opposition, wrapped in the flag, tells voters to do.
And the voters go along with it not because they are dim, but because they understand that these things would not only benefit them, but benefit other groups of Americans that they despise.
> yet somehow in the USA this is "radical"
As they say... (often misattributed to John Steinbeck, but at best its really a rough paraphrase of something he wrote) "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
The truly wealthy have long convinced the average "middle class" American that they exist in roughly the same social class (even though this has always been an insane lie) but this illusion is quickly falling away due to current economic circumstances causing untenable concentration of wealth.
Ultimately its the absolute naked greed of the truly wealthy that is causing this realignment (that is likely to end badly for them as well) to happen. They are so dead set against making even the smallest move toward fair taxation that they are creating a situation in which the shrinking middle class have no choice but to see that they are quickly becoming an endangered species whose relative fortunes are moving rapidly down rather than slowly up.
Rent control in particular is an economic basket case policy, the fact that it's popular at election time should have about as much bearing on it making sense as the fact that another "experimental" candidate was considered by voters in 2024 to be "better on immigration"
As for offering free stuff, the problem that - if you look at relative population numbers - NY, CA, etc are already facing is that on the margin people he hopes will pay for it will just move away.
You can’t find another city that even approaches NYC without moving to another country. And moving to London or Paris to escape taxes doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Example: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-...
In case of the cities you don't even need to move that far. I know multiple people in Seattle who just moved to nearby towns 105-15 minutes by car, 20-45 by transit) to avoid Seattle specific issues, and some people who move just outside of king county to avoid even more nonsense. Mostly techies, but not exclusively.
It's not like American cities haven't been hollowed out before, NYC included.
It's funny that you mention moving outside the city when Zohran's tax plan is centered on bringing the corporate tax rate in-line with our neighboring state.
I'll also caveat that any parallels you might see in Seattle don't really apply to NYC. Besides the low car ownership rates, wealthy individuals choose to in NYC for it's convenience and culture, which really are unique in the US.
As further evidence to OP’s point: people paint Mamdani as an extremist for discussing rent control but it’s already the law in NYC. It’s not even remotely new. And there were 0% increases (effectively freezes) in 2014-2016 and again during COVID in 2020.
It’s been a truly exhausting election cycle for New Yorkers who have been lectured from all sides by people who don’t even understand how the city works.
> Rent control in particular is an economic basket case policy
Switzerland has had rent control for a long time, and seems to have (rather successfully) avoided this economic basket case fate.
Sure, the rich will all leave Effing New York City after Mamdani raises taxes by 2% (matching New Jersey's). Don't be ridiculous. This rhetoric of "they'll just leave" is incredibly damaging, this is how we get to the current situation. It's time everyone paid their fair share.
Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy. It shouldn't even exist. If we want an economy that actually provides goods that people need we should focus on productive components like building more houses and actual shelter rather than using limited housing to extract profit, often without even improving the housing itself.
> are already facing is that on the margin people he hopes will pay for it will just move away.
This myth is promulgated constantly with no evidence to back it up. The tax increases he has proposed are a drop in the pond to the bracket he aims to tax. If those people care so little for the city, so be it, they can leave. I don't need to share communal space with people who want to live as atoms and don't actually care about the place they live beyond how it affects their bottom line. If they actually love NYC for the city it is, they will stay. The increases are not going to be untenable for those people, it all comes down to their priorities, and if they don't want to prioritize NYC, then yes, they should gtfo because they are characterless, tasteless people who only care about themselves and their money.
Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy is a ridiculous statement. People need shelter and like nice shelter. People pay for access to amenities and convenience. _incentivizing building housing in areas where people want to live or where people work is efficient_
You equate "housing" and "rent". In a world where consumers had unlimited access to capital, the free market rate for housing would converge on the interest rate + shared costs (think condo fees, property taxes, etc) -/+ appreciation/depreciation of the housing, because consumers would always have the option of taking a loan to buy the property, then re-selling when they want to move, paying off the loan and receiving back whatever they paid on the principal.
Comparing to the real world, the cost of rent is greater than that, because people are paying a premium for their inaccess to capital. Looking at where I live, the hypothetical value is approximately the condo fees (5.5% interest, 1% property tax, 6-and-change% appreciation), which for a 2b2b apartment around around $600 bucks a month. Rent for an equivalent apartment literally next door is $2700 a month. That suggests that more than 75% of the value of rent is paying for inaccess to capital, i.e., textbook rentseeking.
Nothing you've said has anything to do with rent. It'd be equally possible to build and incentivize building housing and then to enable people to own homes or at least own units within multi family homes.
Rent is a predatory practice established over and above the supply of a basic need (housing) that does nothing more than extract profits for no productive contribution. If anything I'm incentivized to limit housing supply as a landlord in the limit because growing housing supply means competition for me as a landlord.
Right, and it’s a good thing that the people producing housing, legislating housing production, and in control of housing supply aren’t the same.
Why is owning a home important? I do not think that home ownership is what most people want. We have attempted to make this desirable at through state intervention by pitching housing as an investment instead of a durable good.
saying one of the many reasons rent is good “is not about rent” doesn’t mean there’s no clash in the argument.
All moving to an entirely ownership model would do is reduce elasticity of the housing market, which would be disastrous.
> I do not think that home ownership is what most people want.
I think this is a ridiculous statement. I don't know your background, but I grew up in extreme poverty (by Canadian standards). In the welfare complexes I lived in growing up, living in a home you owned seemed like an unattainable dream. The ability to choose between owning a home and renting a home is representative of a degree of economic freedom that is becoming unattainable for many, many people.
There is absolutely merit to the idea that choosing to rent is a good choice for many people, but in most cases the people who would make that choice are inclined to do so because they either desire or require mobility in terms of relocation, and frequently the reason people desire that is the opportunity to pursue better economic opportunities (jobs, investments, etc).
I get what you're saying, I also grew up below the poverty line for all of my childhood. My point was pretty unclear. I don't think that people want to "own a home" in that it's not home ownership that they're after but an asset.
The amount of people I grew up with who viewed having a house as a way to become wealthy was large. Which is silly. (Real housing prices : median income) cannot continue to climb in a society that has decreasing population without some sort of external intervention. Poor people spending the entirety of their money on a house will be the ones left holding the bag, which is part of why it irks me so much.
These are good points—I think you're right to flag rent in itself isn't the issue per se, and this points to the fact that the main crux of housing affordability is a mismatch between supply/demand and prices.
I think the issue with rent is that it just complicates the situation regardless and leads to bad power differentials, and again, I don't know how you prevent slumlords but permit renting.
The way I see it rent takes an inherently unproductive fact of life (occupancy) and makes it a profit mechanism. Now if we had something like old school English land improvement laws or something, you could have a system in which rent and home ownership are forced to be productive, but barring that, I don't see a way of doing it and thus rent mostly just seems to complicate the market and mostly drive up costs and potentially prevent the majority of people from owning.
I agree that elasticity reduction would be bad, but let's build more homes and reduce costs enough to make buying and selling homes not literally the biggest financial undertaking in life and this will be less of an issue. I just find it incredibly difficult to conceive of a scenario in which renting contributes benefits beyond those you could realize simply by solving actual demand and cost issues. If you get lucky and have a good landlord who actually takes care of home management for you, sure, but this is not the reality. I'd maybe accept a renting economy with strong regulations around what landlords must provide, reasonable caps on increases, maybe even required improvements every N years, but barring that, renting mostly just enables parasites to sit on property, scoop up more property, and prevent swaths of people from owning in neighborhoods.
> Right, and it’s a good thing that the people producing housing, legislating housing production, and in control of housing supply aren’t the same.
They very often are, heck, the president himself is a real estate mogul. And most politicians own several homes each.
> I do not think that home ownership is what most people want.
It is, though.
> If we want an economy that actually provides goods that people need we should focus on productive components like building more houses and actual shelter
What if we built some on spec and then charged people who live in them a monthly fee to recoup the cost. That way we could build more houses immediately without having to get all the money together all at once. We could then use the extra money to build even more houses.
> Rent is a nonproductive component in the economy ... we should focus on productive components like building more houses
Through... rent?
So if I build a building full of studios targeted at young people who would have no interest in owning one permanently, or poorer ppl who don't have money or stability to buy, how am I to be compensated/incentivised? I guess it's not being built then!
As for population e.g. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-...
Or, a public developer could construct and operate housing at cost, where rent pays off just enough to service the debt and operations.
That has been tried in the US before. Public option sucks unless like in Singapore (or USSR where it sucked only moderately) you force almost everyone into a public option. Otherwise people most capable of moving out, move out; the public option gets worse; rinse, repeat.
I'd love to read more on the cheap rent controlled units and free buses in Paris or London when you have a second to link them. Thanks!
The experimental part is that he's Brown and Muslim.
> Politics in america is like entering an inverted world in which some weird internal drive actively makes people vote against their own personal interests.
Nobody willingly does this. If you think they are, that should be a strong sign to you that those people and you disagree about what their best interests are, and you should seriously consider the possibility that they are right and you are wrong. You might not be wrong, but jumping to "they are voting against their own interests because they are dumb" as many do is both unhelpful and untrue.
Experiments have already been done. You just need to look at history. Or you can just look at north korea and Kabul .
Why look at North Korea when NYC has had rent control forever? It makes landlords neglect maintenance. That’s about it. I don’t know that I totally agree with it, but it’s fine.
Rent control increase the rent for everyone, lowers the amount of housing stock, and reduces its quality.
Or, you know, current day European social democracies.
You can’t help but laugh at the amount of hysteria about Mamdani. No cost childcare? Free buses? Using existing rent control regulations to keep rent affordable? Oh no
I'm not sure there are many countries that actually have free childcare and free buses. Talk about it, yes. Subsidized to a degree, yes. But pretty much every municipal transport is already heavily subsidized.
There are fundamental differences between Europe and the US. The US is not magically going to become Europe by electing a "left" mayor.
Also this is a city- since when does a mayor set economic policies.
Last I checked free busses, and no cost childcare, still need someone to pay for them.
Rent control, if the rent is low, there won't be any rental property. What's the next step, forcing people to build? The city will build?
I guess we shall see. The sad thing is that people didn't vote because they considered all the ideas and the implications. The other sad thing is that maybe Mamdani was the best candidate.
> since when does a mayor set economic policies.
Childcare, buses and rent control are all under the control of the NYC mayor.
> Last I checked free busses, and no cost childcare, still need someone to pay for them.
Most places have “free” roads and public schools and survive just fine. The point in invoking Europe is to say that having a higher tax burden and getting more public services in return is not some crazy North Korean dystopia. It’s pretty common. If it’s not for you that’s absolutely fine, just don’t move to NYC.
Europe isn't just simply about taxes and services. There are many more layers to the difference between where the US sits and Europe. Hopefully this is obvious.
I believe Europe has plenty of toll roads as well ;)
I find it weird that these priorities are set at a level of a city. I mean NYC is a big city but it is part of a state and a country. There are much better economies of scale and ability to exert control at the levels of government these policies usually exist at.
NYC has a bigger population than the entire country of Ireland. It definitely has the economy of scale to operate public transport and education.
> There are many more layers to the difference between where the US sits and Europe. Hopefully this is obvious.
It is exceedingly obvious. The reason for my comparison wasn’t because I think they are the same place, I was responding to a commenter who said North Korea and Kabul were appropriate comparison points for Mamdani’s plans. My point is simply that immediately invoking North Korea is hysteria.
> NYC has a bigger population than the entire country of Ireland
New York City's economy [1], were it a country, would sit at No. 18 in the world between the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia [2].
The only EU members with economies larger than its are the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France and Germany.
(New York City's budget [3] is bigger than the military budgets of every country on the planet except for America, China and Russia's [4]. On par with the budgets of Ukraine and the Philippines [5].)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_York_City $1.3tn
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
[3] https://council.nyc.gov/press/2025/06/30/2915/ $116bn
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
So it's gonna be the city-state of New York?
I guess we'll watch this experiment unfold.
Appreciate the data points though but I think a city is ... a city. We don't usually talk about "economy of a city" because it's not that meaningful. If NYC wished to become a country I guess they can go for it.
> We don't usually talk about "economy of a city" because it's not that meaningful
You cited “economies of scale and ability to exert control at the levels of government these policies usually exist at.” New York has those.
The point at which it becomes “not meaningful” is well after the point that most countries in the EU turn into rounding errors.
The people who lucked into rent-controlled suites will sublet them for a much higher rent https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160517-this-is-one-ci...
Sure buddy, rent control is literally North Korea. I take it you have skin in this game.
Nice to see someone young, charismatic, and highly energized breathing life into the decrepit democratic party. Hopefully he can accomplish a ton and repudiate the DNC.
The fact that people in here (who are richer than average) disagree with his policies makes his election more hopeful
The reality, which kinda sucks and is boring, is that generally people with money understand how money works, and why things like rent control, government grocery stores, and free [expensive service], are financially brutal policies.
This is stuff economists know. Why would rich people know that? How many rich people pay rent or rely on social security? Making profits is not a skill transferrable to the broader economy.
Also, what worked in the past, in different places or different demographics does not mean it will work again today.
There are a massive number of low income people who are completely "lost in the sauce" of finance and economics.
I'm not talking about billionaires vs. everyone else here, I'm talking about the top 30% and how it's chock full of people who "get" the structure, understand the mechanics, and do good for themselves.
> is that generally people with money understand how money works,
In their favor
Could it be any other way? Are there people that understand how money works and won't apply it for their own case?!
We each do our best for us and our own - it's natural. Capitalism is ensuring the society advances and benefits disproportionally more.
Take Bezos for example: his wealth is about 255B but the company he founded has a market cap of 2.67 trillion - that 2.41T difference is wealth created for other people. Not to talk about the products and services improving the society and our lives every day...
Brutal to who? Wage theft is also brutal, but it's pretty obvious why the folk who "understand how money works" condone it. It's a tad credulous to think the billionaires donated against Mamdani out of a sense of noblesse oblige
Brutal to everyone. Society is a chain linked web, not a loose cluster.
> Society is a chain linked web, not a loose cluster.
I wish the people building bunkers, buying New Zealand citizenship, support razing social safety nets for tax cuts, and fetishize civilizational collapse (while simultaneously chipping at its foundations aggressively) realized this.
What about tax cuts for the rich, quantitative easing? Who are they brutal to? Everyone? Where in that chain linked web does it hurt the most when you distribute money to the wealthiest 10%?
Tax cuts are not distribution, in fact they are the opposite of distribution.
Tax cuts for those with lots of money, without cuts to government spending, and therefore giving rise to increased deficits, which sooner or later will wind up as inflation... that's distribution.
The same people that voted for financially responsible policies like reciprocal tariffs?
The more you think you know, the more close-minded you'll be
Appeal to authority and sweeping generalisation in a cynical dismissal package.
You’re not talking to bilionaires on this site, only a portion of bilionaires know about making money, which has no relation whatsoever to having a good grasp about political philosophy, large-scale economic principles and statesmanship.
People with money understand how to get themselves more money, often at the expense of others. And indeed, they’re very good at that.
I love how they always style themselves experts on economics, as if there is one global economic policy that benefits everyone, equally. How cute.
It's just they have been in charge for so long, and gotten their ideology implemented for decades, the damage they caused is now so large and felt by so many people deep inside the neocolonial core that we finally see the first cracks in this system.
If these people were aware of the current moment instead of just confused and trapped in their own ideological bubble, they would probably all be wearing MAGA hats, since the authoritarian right is the only way they can realistically hold on to their rotten system in the long run. Curious why that's not a lesson they learned from history, too uncomfortable to think about that part I suppose.
You can both be rich and also want a better quality of life for everyone in society. Not every rich person is a selfish asshole...
But some are selfish assholes; and if you find yourself agreeing with the selfish asshole rich people when it comes to economics, it might be worth double-checking their claims that a policy is supposedly better for everyone. Much hooplah is made of rising tides lifting all boats, but flooding the valley tends to just drown everyone not in a boat.
Absolutely. I love it.
Agreed. Thank you for pointing that out.
He is also richer then average.
Why is that? I think many of us who are educated in history understand the risks of collectivism. It has never worked out anywhere. I see it as basically a marketing cover for oligarchy. The Western world should aspire to better than China. I'm not even a conservative, just read a lot. Humanity has had some pretty hellish experiences with communism and yet we keep "going there."
Greetings from western europe. Not so bad and communist around here. They call it social capitalism.
I dont know what western Europe you live in, but ours is a decadent one where not a single country is meaningfully growing, not a single one has recovered from 2008 in any meaningful way, everything gets more expensive, industry is destroyed and boomer NIMBY keep voting for policies that advantage them because of their demographic dividend vis-a-vis the younger generations.
In France pensioners earn more on average than a 25 yo, there is a crony capitalism based on hyper-regulation where the incumbents keep their place by bribing polticians into adopting policies that benefit large corporations.
Rent and house prices boom, all the while average natality is going lower and lower, and there is an increasing brain drain towards America.
Western Europe is bankrupt: larger and larger deficits financing a lifestyle we can't afford any longer.
Politicians catering to voters used to getting benefits for free and refusing to adjust to common sense policies like increasing retirement age with life expectancy.
Years when essential defense investments were skipped in favor of populist handouts put us at risk from hungry, militaristic psychopaths.
Western Europe had the horrifying example of Eastern Europe who was cold and hungry until we switched to capitalism. Sadly, it looks like it learned nothing from us.
Western Europe would have been collapsing right now if daddy cold capitalist didn't show up with gas and guns to drive away the Russian bear.
Western Europe has been on vacation for 30 years. There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
This is what working in a toxic working culture does to a person. "Because I only have one week of PTO a year and have to be constantly add afraid of being fired, everyone should be!"
Europe has a borderline shrinking economy, and completely missed out on the tech wave of the last 25 years.
So you have all of Europe using American software, running on American or Chinese hardware, all imported rather than home built.
This "foreign dependent" theme repeats again and again as you go through why Europeans need to get off their asses and drop their perceptions towards industry.
And this doesn't even mention the population age crisis.
>There is no future where they can stay on the path they have been on. European leaders recognize this, but how the hell do you get a generation raised with an easy life to recognize this?
The call is inside the house. Puritan ethics will not stop China from overtaking the US.
>Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
You have a dedicated HN work account with 15337 karma.
> Germans work 400 hours a year less than Americans, and they celebrate that. Good luck.
Yes, everyone everywhere should endeavor to... checks notes... work the maximum number of hours in a year.
Just don't commit blasphemy, which is literally a crime you can be charged with there.
"there". Where exactly? Norway's law about this was removed years ago, and for many years before that was a "sleeping" rule basically no one got convicted of.
UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy all have laws curtailing speech with egregious application.
- A 64-year-old pensioner man faced charges for antisemitic posts and for calling a politician a "professional idiot."
- Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reported multiple citizens to police for criticisms made on social media. In one case, a journalist published a satirical meme digitally altering a photograph of Faeser holding a sign reading "I hate freedom of speech" — and was prosecuted and given a seven-month suspended sentence.
- In 2017, 19-year-old Chelsea Russell quoted a line from Snap Dogg's song "I'm Trippin'" on Instagram: "Kill a snitch nigga, rob a rich nigga." She was charged with sending a "grossly offensive message." Despite being Black and posting in tribute to a deceased 13-year-old friend, she was convicted, fined £585, and subjected to a curfew and ankle monitoring.
- Lucy Connolly was convicted and sentenced to two years and seven months in prison for posting during anti-immigration riots that she hoped someone burned down a hotel containing asylum seekers. She later deleted the post.
- France has applied existing discrimination laws to criminalize BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) activists, treating anti-Israel speech as incitement to religious discrimination. The Court of Cassation ruled BDS boycott calls violated French law.
- Senator Miguel Castells wrote an article claiming the government was failing to investigate murders. He was convicted of insulting the government and sentenced to a year in prison. The European Court of Human Rights ruled his right to free speech had been violated, after which Spain's Constitutional Court developed case law providing greater protection to free speech.
- The satirical magazine El Jueves published a comic strip featuring images of the current King and Queen of Spain, which the public prosecutor's office held to be defamatory. A judge agreed to seizure of the publication.
All western countries btw, Norway falls in the North European country
Here's a case that was taken all the way up to the ECHR where they upheld a blasphemy conviction of somebody who called Mohammed (who fucked a 9 year old) a pedophile: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/e-s-v-a...
The "where exactly" is the "western europe" from the comment I replied to. Sure, you can't be convicted of blasphemy everywhere there, but the fact that you can be charged with a crime that most sane people assumed hadn't been a thing since the Spanish Inquisition anywhere in Europe is pretty shocking.
Exciting times in New York City, I wish them the best, it probably will become a uphill battle now to do anything without media on every single thing out the wazooo
It will certainly be a lesson in economics, with hopefully some lasting effect. A decade later some will call it vaccination.
I’m a big believer that the people elect the government they deserve. Let’s see how this plays out.
Honest, hardworking people deserve honest, hardworking government.
Who deserves Cuomo, and what did they do to deserve that?
But cuomo didn’t win?
He won in the past until he didn't. He won in the hearts of his supporters (not insignificant in number).
This hoping for a future schadenfreude is kinda nasty. Why wouldn't you want the best for people?
It seems like there are a lot of people who are desperate for reality to conform to their cynicism, out of fear that they (and their world view) are part of the problem.
For whatever reason, for some it's more gratifying to see others fail to prosper if it confirms their beliefs than it is to watch others succeed and have their beliefs challenged (even if it's to their own detriment).
In many cases, I imagine those who would see themselves as "good" use their world view as a way of absolving themselves of guilt for their actions. If I believe that there was never enough for most to lead dignified lives and that society rewards only self-interest, I don't have to regret taking more than necessary, and I can justify my apathy to the suffering of others. "It is the way of things," I can think to myself, "anything else would be foolish and naive." In this way I can find satisfaction even in inequality, comforted by its inevitability--and my own cleverness in understanding it.
This is exactly it, beautifully put. It's very easy and tempting to hide behind an ideology that makes broad-stroke descriptions about the entire world. "It's just how the world works", "it's simply basic economics" (really, nearly all claims about "basic" anything with no further nuance). But for people who are entrenched in their opinions, I don't think there's a lot of absolution or guilt going on. To the most dedicated believers, the belief had become a part of their identity, so vindicating it is almost integral to their being. Of course they'd want anyone who disagrees to suffer - they don't just view that as an inevitability, but also the morally correct thing, the appropriate punishment to the people for not accepting their obvious truth.
When a parent tells their child not to touch the hot stove, they want the best for the child. When the child does it anyway, the parent hopes that the lesson will be instructive for the future.
I found out his mom directed the movies "Monsoon Wedding" and "Mississipi Masala" with Denzel Washington.
Allegedly she was tapped to direct "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", but her then 14 year old son talked her out of it to do "The Namesake" instead
Zohran's father is a famous post-colonial scholar. A college professor in my family has had him as part of curriculum for years.
TIL he is Mira Nair's son!. The namesake has a special place in my heart.
She is known for movies like Monsoon Wedding... but also Kama Sutra.
Yeah this was a surprise. Monsoon wedding is such a good movie.
Voters across the political spectrum feel ignored.
For decades mainstream parties (both centre-left and centre-right) have repeatedly promised change but after getting into power somehow (re-)converged on technocratic, market-friendly "consensus politics".
If you're worried about stagnant wages, job insecurity, crumbling public infrastructure and/or the cost of housing, then you probably don't notice - or care - whether the stock markets are going up.
I’m not a New Yorker or even an American, but it’s interesting just how much coverage this election has gotten in social media.
I think most of his major policies are pretty bad, but I also think the reaction against him has been over the top.
He is going to need cooperation from the state legislature, if he wants to collect the taxes needed to fund his policies, and I’m not sure how successful he will be at that.
A lot of people are rooting both for and against him, so it’s going to be interesting either way.
> He is going to need cooperation from the state legislature, if he wants to collect the taxes needed to fund his policies, and I’m not sure how successful he will be at that.
Why? How much of NYC's budget comes from Albany?
My impression was that NYC had its own budget, paid for by its own taxes.
De jure, even NYC's existence itself is contingent on NYS' permission:
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forrest_Dillon#Dillon's_Rule
(de facto realpolitik-wise NYC will continue existing, but my point is to widen your Overton window to realize even NYC's own taxing authority is still under NYS' jurisdiction)
---
Btw, federal and state funds were each ~1/6 of NYC's revenue in 2021: https://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/understandingthebudget....
> My impression was that NYC had its own budget, paid for by its own taxes.
If those who claimed they would leave NYC for Florida (etc.) make good on their promises NYC will see a significant drop in tax revenues while the expenditures will skyrocket due to Mamdani's free-stuff policies. They can try to increase taxes which will lead to more net tax payers leaving the city. Of course it remains to be seen whether all those who said they would leave - up to a million people according to the legacy media - end up doing so but if this comes to pass those free buses might not end up happening after all. He'll probably blame it on the exodus and wash his hands clean off his campaign promises.
You think 1 million people will leave New York because of free buses and childcare? Am I reading that right?
I love how much Mamdani pisses people off just because he wants to buck the status quo. I don’t think he’ll get everything implemented he wants but I respect the mission.
>I love how much Mamdani pisses people off just because he wants to buck the status quo. I don’t think he’ll get everything implemented he wants but I respect the mission.
Sounds a lot like the justification many people used to vote for another guy.
What to make of that similarity is yet to be seen.
Fair point but Mamdani isn’t a racist thief so far as I can tell?
And this isn't r/politics even if the site has started to resemble it more and more. There are many labels which can be stuck on Mamdani, none of them pleasant but since this is not r/politics let's just keep them under wraps just like you should have left yours in the drawer.
If you’re so anti politics then why don’t you just flag me and not engage with me?
I'm glad he won, and I hope he succeeds, but there are going to be a lot of powerful forces out to sabotage him any way they can.
Let’s go. What a great team, message, and well deserved win.
Didn't work out well in London. Let's hope NYC does better. Doubt it, but we can always hope.
Says who? And more importantly, on what possible basis? For my money Khan is an infinitely better mayor than ‘let the bodies pile high’ Johnson.
Any particular, material achievements you support? Genuinely curious as someone who lives in the UK but far from London
London's fine. Trump and his supporters love to lose their shit over a Muslim mayor though.
Has nothing to do with Trump. It has to do with socialism/communism. That's not how the world actually works. As for London, I have friends who live in the UK and their perspective is that things are anything but okay. Quit virtue signaling about Muslim mayors and look at reality. Mamdani has promised things that aren't economically feasible. He is an anti-Semite. How that benefits anyone escapes me.
> He is an anti-Semite.
Fortunately for NYC voters, the other candidates (and national Republicans generally) seemed happy to traffic in casual Islamophobia. Why we don't treat the two as equally unacceptable is beyond me.
> He is an anti-Semite.
A fat lie, coming from a place of deep islamophobia. He isn't a communist either, no matter how many times you scream it.
As a muslim, I hope he doesn't eff this up, Obama style. But the fact that he won, although not the blowout as some were expecting, restored a bit of my hope in the common man. Cuomo's attacks may have swayed some of the vote but ultimately failed.
I hope Mamdani succeeds for the sake of New York (California resident here) and hopefully this win inspires other young people around the country to participate in politics.
I predict that NYC will now quickly turn into an absolute shithole of epic proportions to the point that people will have to flee the city. Similar to London.
Good grief, NBC runs such shitty junk ads on their front page. What a blight on a once-great brand.
I remember being young and hopeful about elections. Sigh
They're one of the many things tightly controlled by the unseen hands. It's theatre with a crazy advertising budget
I hope this time it's different though, NY
I wish our country was like this. A city "president" can speak against the President. A city President has the power to work without the will of the President.
Well, maybe. Under Trump I’d be less sure of that.
Who would have thought that New Yorkers didn’t appreciate out-of-state billionaires playing “Zohran did 9/11” attack ads over and over on TV for months on end. He was the only candidate with a clear plan for the city, and voters rewarded him for it.
The DSA is finally having a moment - may they grow by the day.
A salient factor in this election is Trump. I've been saying for years that overreach on the right creates space, then oxygen, then agency for the (far) left. This election is the natural and logical consequence of maga overreach (and vanilla skanky stupidity) and reminds economic popularism is not wholly owned by the right.
My fear is the US will cycle dumb right to stupid left, which helps absolutely nobody.
It's too early to eval mandarin... that will come ... but this under current has now got first and second derivative postive.
> My fear is the US will cycle dumb right to stupid left, which helps absolutely nobody.
I agree, but having a "stupid left" is a whole lot better than a "dumb right" who is authoritarian and willing to side step everything in their hopes of creating a christo-fascist utopia.
I'm optimistic that he will actually be a positive force in reforming how the city operates. I think he is pragmatic in that he understands that efficiency in government administration is something that progressives have insufficiently prioritized. His policies are more populist than I'd prefer, but I think not the crazy socialist fever dream that Rs portray it as. The scariest thing for me is the prospect of active sabotage from the federal level, although I don't know how much they have held back.
> think not the crazy socialist fever dream that Rs portray
That's because he's a democratic socialist, not a communist like they want people to think. If people really looked into the policies of the DSA they would support it. There is a reason Einstein, Keller, and more were adamant supporters.
The gov't may try to fuck with NYC using ICE or whatever, but honestly I think the fears about federal funding are overblown.
NYC generates like 2+ trillion GDP all on its own. It is the largest metropolitan economy in the world let alone the United States. I don't know how much NYC actually depends on federal money, but if there's any city that has a chance to figure out how to make it through a government funding squeeze, it's NYC.
Honestly I think the only recourse the fed has to put pressure on NYC is the actual gestapo shit they've already been pulling in Chicago.
NYC will riot french style if ICE moves in en-masse
That won’t be enough to stop ICE.
Why is this on HN.
read the comments. The HN community is ecstatic. It's good to see there are a few who understand basic economics but politically, the folks here at hn are not much different than over at reddit lol
It's funny how in the US, even mayors get tagged as "conservative" or "democratic socialist." I always figured their job was just to keep the city services running.
That mayor runs a city that has the GDP of multiple nations. The scale is different even if the title is the same.
This is mostly the financial sector generating revenue and shipping/receiving. There's not really a lot of actual production going on since that's what really backs the funny money you referred to as "generating GDP."
Aren’t mayors in all countries politicians? In Denmark all mayors are identified with their party association when talked about in the news.
Reviewing various western democracies it looks like most mayoral candidates run affiliated with a political party. The exception is Canada where mayoral candidates run an independent campaign.
On the other extreme is India where even university student coucil candidates are associated with national political parties.
> The exception is Canada where mayoral candidates run an independent campaign.
That's not universal. The City of Vancouver for example has a party system, though the parties are largely not affiliated with provincial or federal parties. There are exceptions there as well though - the Vancouver Greens are affiliated with both the provincial and federal Green parties.
Most of the large city mayoral races in the U.S. are partisan. But I'm not sure how it breaks down by state in the U.S. for small towns.
Maybe it's the exception rather than the norm, but in Canada, municipal, provincial, and federal parties are generally separate. Montreal, for example, is currently led by Projet Montréal, which has no formal ties to any provincial party. Likewise, the current provincial party, the CAQ, has no formal affiliation with any federal party.
Canada here (Ontario really, probably varies by province) - our mayors and city councilors are politicians but they're explicitly forbidden from running as part of a party. Which I honestly think works so well it should be extended to all levels of politics.
Famously, the US founding fathers warned against the dangers of political parties, only to see them spring up in the US anyways. You really need to design your political system carefully so that there is no incentive to form political parties. I don't know if anyone has ever successfully done this. People should be thinking about it more though.
Specifically, I think a political party happens when two politicians make a bargain that they will each vote for some of the other politician's policies. They don't have to call it "the X party" for it to be a de facto political party.
There are some offices which are designated as nonpartisan here in the US too, I think they are typically offices which don't have a lot of scope for this sort of bargaining. If they did have scope for such bargaining, I wouldn't want to rely on the honor system in the long term. I would want to codify it into law somehow. But how? The best way is probably to reduce the incentive for striking bargains somehow? Again, how? Or maybe bargains are just a distraction, and the real problem lies elsewhere? As I said, people should be thinking more.
The warning about factions wasn't to avoid them. It was that with humans factions are inevitable. The argument was to design a government were the power of factions are minimized or pitted against each other.
In Canada's largest city the mayor is firmly and strongly associated with the NDP. "Chow served as the New Democratic Party member of Parliament for Trinity—Spadina from 2006 to 2014."
And yet that was not the central in her run for mayor at all (I live in that city). She campaigned on policy, not on party branding, like every other candidate did.
in may places eg canada they don't have an explicit party affiliation. obviously they still have a political slant.
Well, define politician.
Some cities have non-partisan mayoral elections. For example, Miami does this under Home Rule charter.
Still, it's often clear who's who. For example, Emilio González prominently displayed a POTUS lapel pin during a debate and bragged about being able to interface with Trump and DeSantis.
This mayor represents more people than many state governors
I believe that in California, the political party that mayoral candidates belong to cannot be printed on the ballot next to their names.
There are lots of small towns in the U.S. where mayors and board members' campaigns are not partisan. That is, they don't run as members of a political party. Just candidates who campaign to "keep the city services running." There are no political parties listed on the ballot for these candidates.
LaGuardia was a democratic socialist but had to run as a Republican because of Tammany Hall's undemocratic stranglehold on the Democratic party then. NYC has a history of a lot of really shitty, corrupt mayors and political machinery. Let's hope ZM charts a new course.
You don't make yourself a name by properly managing garbage trucks and street sweeping. It's not just the US either, Australian local councils went headlong into culture wars long ago.
Counterpoint, I read this interesting article recently contrasting two progressive mayors in the USA, Brandon Johnson (~6% approval rating) and Michelle Wu (66% approval rating)
https://cityjournal.substack.com/p/big-city-progressives-kee...
Is it really? Local approval rating is in no correlation with national name recognition. You don't get your name in the national news by just fixing potholes. I guess you have to do it in order to not get voted out, and some ideological mayors fail to do it.
Great! Now time to get to work and see how hard it is to enact his policies.
Mamdani offers nothing that will improve affordability. It's the same economic fallacies that have been proven to destroy Affordability over the long run, e.g. rent control.
The actual solution is to repeal the morass of regulatory restrictions on housing that have been put in place since 1960.
Per 1,000 residents, only 2.68 houses were built in San Francisco between 2010 and 2020, compared to 12.66 houses between 1950 and 1960.
For New York, only 2.38 houses were built per 1,000 residents between 2010 and 2020, compared to 8.88 houses between 1950 and 1960.
Regulatory restrictions imposed on housing in San Francisco and New York since 1960:
San Francisco:
- 1960: City Planning Code (Zoning Ordinance) - Established zoning districts with specific regulations on use, density, building types, minimum lot sizes (e.g., 2,500 sq ft for most, 4,000 for R-1-D), and one-for-one parking requirements per dwelling unit, restricting housing types by enforcing low-density controls and increasing development costs through compliance and parking mandates.
- 1970: California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) - State law requiring environmental impact assessments for projects, significantly lengthening permitting times (often adding years due to reviews and litigation) and increasing costs for housing development through extensive studies and potential mitigations.
- 1978: Comprehensive Rezoning and Adoption of RH (Residential House) and RM (Residential Multi-family) Districts - Reduced zoned capacity for housing on the city's West Side, making thousands of multi-family properties non-conforming, restricting allowable densities and types of housing, which limits supply expansion.
- 1979: San Francisco Residential Rent Stabilization Ordinance (Rent Ordinance) - Imposed rent controls on multi-family units built before June 1979, limiting annual rent increases (typically 2% or less), which can increase overall housing costs by reducing incentives for new construction and maintenance, indirectly restricting supply.
- 1979: Condominium Conversion Ordinance - Limited annual conversions of rental units to condominiums (initially 1,000, later 200 for 2-6 unit buildings), preserving rentals under rent control but restricting ownership housing options and potentially increasing costs by limiting market flexibility.
- 1981: Residential Hotel Demolition and Conversion Ordinance - Prohibited demolition or conversion of residential hotel units without one-for-one replacement or in-lieu fees to an affordable housing fund, increasing costs and permitting times for redevelopment projects involving such properties.
- 1985: Office Housing Production Program - Required large office developments (25,000+ sq ft) to provide affordable housing, donate land, or pay fees based on new employees, linking commercial to residential mitigation, which raises costs and can lengthen approvals for mixed projects.
- 1986: Proposition M (Office Development Limit) - Capped annual office space approvals and introduced a competitive "Beauty Contest" process prioritizing affordable housing and neighborhood preservation, lengthening permitting times and increasing costs through required community benefits.
- 1992: Inclusionary Housing Policy - Mandated 10% affordable units in planned unit developments or projects needing conditional use permits outside redevelopment areas, increasing development costs by requiring set-asides.
- 2002: Inclusionary Affordable Housing Ordinance (Planning Code §§ 415, 419) - Required 15% on-site or 20% off-site affordable units (or in-lieu fees) for projects of 10+ units, directly raising building costs and potentially restricting project feasibility.
- 2010: Revisions to Inclusionary Housing Policy - Adjusted post-Palmer decision to favor fees over units, increasing costs for developers not building affordable housing on-site, which can deter middle-income projects.
- 2012: Housing Trust Fund (Proposition C) - Captured revenue for affordable housing but reduced inclusionary obligations by ~20% for some projects while capping others, potentially increasing costs for non-qualifying developments.
- 2013: Condominium Conversion Ordinance Amendment - Allowed ~2,200 TIC units to convert with fees up to $20,000 per unit to an affordable fund, but imposed a 10-year moratorium on further conversions, restricting housing type changes and adding costs.
- 2016: Amendment to Inclusionary Affordable Housing Program - Voter-approved increase from 12% to 25% on-site affordable units, deemed economically infeasible by studies, raising development costs and potentially reducing overall housing production.
- 2016: Amendment to Planning Code for Legalization Program - Required Conditional Use Authorization to remove unauthorized units, adding discretionary reviews that lengthen permitting times and increase costs.
- 2017: Executive Directive 17-02 - Mandated additional coordination and deadlines for approvals, which, while aiming to streamline, can extend permitting times for complex projects due to heightened administrative requirements.
New York City:
- 1961: New York City Zoning Resolution - Overhauled zoning to emphasize low-density districts (60% of residential lots in lowest categories, 12% single-family only), imposed parking and open space requirements, and created manufacturing zones prohibiting residences, restricting housing types, increasing costs via parking mandates, and limiting adaptive reuse.
- 1969: Rent Regulation Laws (State and City Rent Stabilization) - Instituted controls on rents and evictions, making it costly and time-consuming to demolish or redevelop regulated buildings (tenants can demand high buyouts), reducing supply and increasing development costs.
- 1974: Amendments to Rent Regulation Laws - Extended protections to post-1974 buildings under certain conditions, further complicating demolitions and renovations, raising costs by making land assemblage infeasible and limiting new housing supply.
- 1975: State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), Implemented Locally as City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR) in 1976 - Required environmental reviews for discretionary projects, adding extensive analyses, potential litigation, and delays (often years), significantly lengthening permitting times and increasing costs.
- 1977: Ground Floor Use Regulations for High-Density Neighborhoods - Mandated 50% of ground floors on major streets for specific retail/restaurant uses in post-1977 buildings, restricting flexible mixed-use designs and increasing costs for housing in such areas.
- 1980s: Residential Conversion Rules for Obsolete Nonresidential Buildings - Limited conversions to pre-1961 (later extended to 1961-1977) buildings in specific areas, restricting adaptive reuse for housing and adding costs through narrow applicability.
- 1981: Retention of Stricter NYC Building Code (Non-Adoption of State Uniform Code) - Maintained unique, more stringent code requirements, increasing construction costs due to specialized materials and complex enforcement, while potentially delaying permits.
- 1987: Quality Housing Zoning Text Amendments - Imposed contextual requirements in medium/high-density zones (R6-R10), limiting density and design options, making cost-effective projects harder and restricting housing types.
- 1989: Lower Density Contextual Zoning Amendments - Reduced density by nearly 50% in R3-R5 zones, enforcing height, setback, and type limits, decreasing multi-family production and increasing costs in medium-density areas.
- 1989: Attempt to Raise Taxes on Vacant Land - Proposed higher taxes to spur development, but increased holding costs, potentially deterring or raising expenses for housing projects on such land.
- 1991: State Requirement for Residentially-Zoned Vacant Land Tax Classification - Kept lower tax rates for vacant land outside Manhattan, reducing incentives to build and indirectly increasing housing costs through delayed development.
- 1996: Local Law 37 (Third-Party Transfer Law) - Authorized city transfers of tax-delinquent properties, adding complexity to land acquisition for housing, lengthening times and costs especially with condemnation.
- 1999: Sprinkler Requirement Law - Mandated sprinklers in buildings with 4+ units or renovations costing 50%+ of value, directly increasing construction and renovation costs.
- 2002-2013: Bloomberg Administration Neighborhood Rezonings (Including Downzonings and Contextual Rezonings) - Decreased development capacity in some areas and limited potential via contextual rules, restricting types and slowing construction in high-demand neighborhoods.
- 2005: Greenpoint/Williamsburg Rezoning - Retained high retail parking requirements in parts, necessitating large garages in apartment buildings, raising costs and deterring housing.
- 2007: Increase in Minimum Size for 421-a Tax Incentive - Raised threshold from 3 to 4 units for eligibility, making smaller multifamily projects less viable and increasing relative costs.
- 2016: Zoning for Quality and Affordability (ZQA) Update - Modernized provisions but failed to boost density significantly, maintaining restrictions on housing types in low-density zones and adding regulatory complexity that can extend permitting.
- 2018: Special Permit for New Hotels in Light Manufacturing Districts - Required permits with union conditions for hotels, deterring construction and limiting reuse of surplus hotels for housing, increasing conversion costs.
- 2019: Amendments to Rent Stabilization Laws - Applied stabilization to some market-rate units under 421-a if rents fall below thresholds, reducing developer incentives for new rentals and increasing costs in middle-income areas.
Left wing candidate wins in extremely Left wing city, against "Cuomo"[0], to become mayor and people are celebrating this like it's some historical achievement.
Everyday I grow more blackpilled about the balance of powers in the US if this is what the left-wing has going for it.
[0] His name alone should be a synonym for how bad of a candidate he was, there's no single label good enough (like sex offender) to cover how bad he was.
New York City is only extreme left wing if your baseline is Tucker, Oklahoma
https://www.zinebriboua.com/p/zohran-mamdani-third-worldism-... Zohran Mamdani, Third-Worldism, and the Algerian Revolution
I hope this turns out well for New York, but I am doubtful. Rent control is such a colossally bad idea, a rent freeze is going to be a disaster. This is going to further increase the lottery nature of New York City real estate, and reduce investment. His plans are set to drive finance and businesses out of the city in his goal to give away money to everyone, which will bankrupt the city. Socialism has a bad track record for a reason, there has never been an issue of people trying to escape market economies for socialist ones. The city already has a crime problem, defunding police and making the job unbearable wont help that. Grocery stores already run on razor thin margins, even with the logistics expertise and brutal capitalism of the likes of walmart or aldis, how does the famoisly expensive and incompetent nyc government plan on running a grocery store for cheaper (itll be at a massive loss). This isnt even getting into hos antisemitism “the boot of the nypd on your neck was laced by the idf” should have disqualified him, that kind of antisemetic talk was only on /pol/ like 2 years ago.
>This isnt even getting into hos antisemitism “the boot of the nypd on your neck was laced by the idf” should have disqualified him, that kind of antisemitic talk was only on /pol/ like 2 years ago.
Is that antisemitic? It's a fact that American cops are routinely trained by a foreign military with a track record of disregarding human rights. It's a fact that the NYPD has a recent history of police brutality. What's next? Mentioning that the US trained deathsquads in LATAM is Gringophobic?
Also I'm not that sure 4chan is worried about police brutality even if it's a excuse to say antisemitic slurs.
Zohran isn't proposing putting any new units under rent control (really rent stabilization), only temporarily halting raises to rents for existing stabilized units. This will make it harder for the city to attract new buildings to join rent stabilization in the future, but will benefit existing habitants. It won't have any effect on the ability to profitably develop market rate units at all.
Property developer here. I have zero faith that NYC would not put rent control on new units in the future. I will invest nothing in NYC and will tell every other developer I know to avoid it like the plague.
If NYC actually makes it easy to build there's practically infinity investment available. Sure dude, nobody will build >1M condos because you told them not to.
Mamdani has said basically none of the things you claim here. These are all clearly mischaracterizations of what he's actually said aimed and convincing someone like you to think he's a bad choice. In particular Mamdani has been extremely clear that he has no plans to defund the police in any fashion. In fact, he wants to enable NYPD to get back to solving crimes rather than incidents better handled by mental health professionals (e.g. people tweaking, by themselves, all alone, on the subway platform)
How about watch some actual interviews in which Mamdani states what he wants to do rather than only get your information from third parties who clearly want to emphasize particular angles?
It's unfortunate because all you have to do is talk to landlords to figure out what's happening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KbGulTc4TY). Lots of people own buildings, but they're legally prevented from renting them out without taking a loss. The result is you can't bring units back onto the market after they empty, and it becomes harder to find housing.
Austin reduced rent prices by ~20% by building more housing even as the overall city population grew. Other small cities have seen rents decrease through active immigration policing. We know how to fix housing pricing there's just no motivation too, people want expensive, exclusive neighborhoods
Excuse me, in that video the second gentleman inherited a building bought in the late 50's. Meaning he has no mortgage, his costs are tax, unit related maintenance and the legally required renovation costs.
The apartment has stayed "untouched since the tenant passed away". It's clearly is still full of stuff of the deceased! I would understand if there's a big renovation needed (e.g., Asbestos removal, a hard to fix leak, replacing the entire plumbing/electric, etc.) but certainly one would've at least cleared the place oneself if the money is tight.
The non-controlled apartment he shows doesn't seem that different beyond aesthetics, sure the modern lighting and new paint job looks nice but the windows are just single-pane like the mothballed unit. I find it telling that he doesn't mention any specific issue, or that he frames not breaking even on the first month as shocking. I've seen plenty of NYC apartment tours in the internet of random 20 somethings. A lot of them didn't look like they were renovated in this millennium.
Isn't by definition, a landlord a property investor? Is it some tragedy if he has to invest and wait for a return? The building has been in his family for close to 70 years, did they do maintenance and renovations proactively? If he's so strapped for cash and doesn't have the cashflow or credit to repair the building, why doesn't he sell? Even if the price is lower because the rent control, the asset appreciation since the Eisenhower administration must be absurd.
Yes, the actual solution is building like crazy, but is kinda insulting to blame rent control while showing landlords crying woe is me and sealing apartments with the tenant fresh in the morgue, transparently making a bet that rent control will be repealed because they are letting their units to rot.
Crimes in the city is down in the long term and there's been a Covid spike that also happened around the country regardless of the elected officials.
Perhaps you don't know what you are talking about?
Their profile says they’re from philly so yeah. . .
Socialism works in places with more or less homogenous populations. I always hear Norway/Sweden have universial everything. Yes they do cause taxes are sky high and the culture there is more or less the same.
NYC is not Norway.
People in Norway let babies sleep outside the supermarket when they go shopping. When you have that level of trust in a society, socialism has a fighting chance for sure.
I think the establishment messed up big time here and Mamdami snatched it up.
I think you are cherry picking a few examples that you’ve heard about and inferring so so much into how they work based on generalizations at a country level. Not a very solid base.
Trust only comes from building it. I think you're confusing cause and effect here. Norway has a higher trust society not because of who they are but because of how they treat one another.
let me guess, you are significantly less concerned about the much more blatant rhetoric used to disqualify zohran on his percieved religious association, arent you?
I don't know why people reflexively vote down comments like this one since it is completely reasonable in every way. Just, I guess, leftists who can't accept viewpoints they don't agree with? Like really--read some history books, maybe read up on how bad communism was in Eastern Europe and what led to its total collapse? Let's not go down that road again! There's plenty of examples out there already. I don't even get the hatred for Israel thing particularly, either--WWII was really, really bad for Jews. They deserve a homeland of their own and all these people complaining and calling everyone Nazis need to take a long look in the mirror--the major component of Nazism was ANTISEMITISM! It is morally reprehensible and it's been a struggle since 1948 because that hatred endures.
Maybe it's because you're throwing around terms like "communism" incorrectly while simultaneously telling people they need to read history books.
It's the same term Trump has been using to fear monger around Zoran's candidacy, and doesn't seem to relate to any of his actual policies.
If you can enlighten us about the relationship between 1950s soviet bloc communism in eastern europe and a fairly run-of-the-mill 2020s Bernie-styled democratic socalist platform, I'm all ears.
mamdani, circa 2021
"But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it's BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel), right, or whether it's the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.
"And what I want to say is that it is critical that the way that we organize, the way that we set up our you know, set up our work and our priorities, that we do not leave any one issue for the other, that we do not meet a moment and only look at what people are ready for, but that we are doing both of these things in tandem, because it is critical for us to both meet people where they're at and to also organize and organize for what is correct and for what is right and to ensure over time we can bring people to that issue."
so yes, it's not 1950s soviet bloc communism. it's more like he has as a target 1917
If you're genuinely open to this conversation - the Soviet Union funded many of the world's labor movements, giving it varying amounts of influence on them. Influence which it sometimes used to spread talking points of its own choice and to its benefit. Democratic Socialists of America was born from a branch of one of these movements. This is more visible looking at DSA's foreign policy platform, where today they use virtually identical talking points to those the Soviet Union distributed to their partners back in the 60s and 70s.
I don't know if a purely organic and independent socialist movement could have existed, but in this world, the movements with the means and resources to get their voices heard are going to be the ones who inherited resources and networks from their predecessors.
Oh this isn't communism. Here are the facts, the Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. They originally participated in the democratic process before they took power. Regardless of the fact that they are going through the steps now, the end goal of the DSA is the abolishment of private property. Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, whatever you want to call it, is a uniquely evil ideology that kills millions as they hate anyone with more money. It has not worked a single time it has been attempted. Every single time it has been tried in any form, Mao, Pol Pot, Lenin/Stalin, etc. millions die.
"Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, whatever you want to call it". Those are 3 very different things. And so you just bucket democratic socialists into "basket of scary things I don't like", and call it a day... I really don't think this is how political discourse should function.
> the end goal of the DSA is the abolishment of private property
why confidently post something so obviously wrong...?
Best of luck to the new mayor of NYC!
I left nyc a couple months ago after living there for three years. The city has so many issues and something only someone like Mamdani (with good support) could fix.
It’s been said that it’s impossible for a New York City mayor to be uncorrupt. By the nature of getting the position, you must be a corrupt individual. That’s why you see so many past mayors and potentials having such a shameful history.
Mamdani feels like a break from that tradition. I wish the Bay Area could replicate something similar. We suffer from similar issues as NYC but we are constantly getting conservative leaning officials who refuse to get law enforcement to do their job. Breed was a center politician (right leaning in any other western country), and now we have a center right mayor. I’ve not really noticed much improvement in the bay - even with the current mayor’s constant posting on TikTok. I just see him blocking housing development and congratulating developers on building more empty office space in a city that desperately needs more housing.
Not a surprise if you’ve lived here for a while. The Bay Area is incredibly conservative for all its performative wokeism.
The Bay Area is far wealthier and much more economically relevant than NYC. NYC has a very large low income population. NYC doesn't have nearly as strong of an economy, financial services and trading firms are increasingly leaving. Whereas the Bay Area, particularly the peninsula, is home to the companies shaping the future like OpenAI and Nvidia along with a huge number of quality startups.
>The Bay Area is far wealthier and much more economically relevant than NYC.
Not so much. The NY Metro Area has the highest GDP of any metro area in the US[0]. The San Francisco Bay Metro area ranks fourth, behind NYC, Los Angeles and Chicago.
But don't feel too bad about it. It could have happened to any Metro area.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropol...
It's not the overall metro area GDP itself but rather per capita, the people in the Bay Area are simply much wealthier and higher income. This is also true in the Puget Sound region, but not to the same extent. This difference in population is why they don't have an interest in a Zohran of sorts. State run grocery stores and public transit are really not a concern to most people as their lifestyle is much different.
We may have to revisit this comparison once the AI bubble pops.
The Bay Area companies have been driving the economy forward for several decades now, it's been economically dominant since the mid 1990s. Consider more 'recent' companies like Google, Facebook, and older companies like PayPal and eBay. We already had the dotcom bubble pop, but that was more akin to a bump in the road.
So happy to see this. Nice to see the wins pointing Virginia back to reality coming in, too!
The tide is turning but there’s much work ahead before midterms.
https://apps.npr.org/2025-election-results/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2025-elections/maine-ballot...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/aftab-pureval-wins-ree...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/pennsylvania-supr...
https://thehill.com/homenews/5589670-gop-incumbents-lose-sea...
(California Prop 50 returns aren’t in yet, but I’m hopeful based on turnout as of this comment)
Polling has had prop 50 passing for a long time now. Betting markets had it passing at 96% before today. Now it's already up to 99% after the blue wave being evident in other states
I have some thoughts on this. Mamdani is a very charismatic person, and is in touch with a large segment of modern Democrat voters. It's the sort of stuff that can carry him to the White House as VP. He won more then 50% of the vote with a large turnout. As far as mandates go it's a pretty good one.
Now for the other stuff. He is a pretty extreme socialist. He wants to raise taxes on rich guys, businesses. Make buses free, rent controls, defunding the police, city run stores and more. These are great vote winners and terrible ideas. All of that has been tried and failed many times. As a political belief system socialism is a disaster. Thatcher pointed out that no other political experiment has been run as long and has so completely failed as socialism. I think his ideas represents all of the worst excesses of the Democrat party.
Then there's the man personally. My impression of him is he's basically a spoiled rich kid who's never had to work a day in his life. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to be ambitious, but it does put into question his credentials as a genuine socialist. It's easy to hold popular opinions when they won't affect your lifestyle in any way.
Finally there's the ugly stuff. He has used the term "globalise the intifada". For any of his apologists who will claim that phrase has any peaceful connotations, imagine a populist saying "globalise National Socialism". Would you be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt? NYC is perhaps the most important city in the world. I'm worried for it.
>My impression of him is he's basically a spoiled rich kid who's never worked a day in his life. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to be ambitious, but it does put into question his credentials as a genuine socialist. It's easy to hold popular opinions when they won't affect your lifestyle in any way.
Being a basically a edgy candidate from a Green EU party doesn't require a vow of poverty, nor an actual take-the-means-of-production Socialist for that matter. He's the son of a college professor and a filmmaker with award winning movies and docs with shitty box offices. Clearly extremely comfortable, but straight humble compared to "my daddy made me campaign manager" Cuomo.
I'm sure his proposals aren't optimal for his parents home equity.
> He has used the term "globalise the intifada"
He never said it. It just the ol' reliable "Mr Candidate, do you condemn the phrase 'I love kicking puppies'? No, saying that’s not the language that you use is not valid for some reason." I recommend to expand your news diet.
It’s not entirely about this election but it feels like this uptick in right wing extremism might burn out far sooner than the regular 10-20 year political cycle we usually see.
edit: unsure of how to delete this, I commented on the wrong state's election oops.
We detached/collapsed this comment. You can post the comment you meant to post where it's meant to go :)
Which high speed rail projects are you referring to?
Because their federal funding will be taken away?
While I don't 100% agree with his policies, I cannot be more excited for someone completely opposite of the corrupt establishment Republicans and Democrats.
I was sold when he was willing to back down on some of his own views publicly, admitting publicly that he was wrong on some things. That kind of admission and honesty is so refreshing.
Complete opposite of Trump, MAGA, and constant lies. Kudos NYC! Time for a new era.
> I was sold when he was willing to back down ...
Also, he deserves credit for not backing down. A major push calling you a pro-9/11 jihadist? Release an ad speaking Arabic two days before the election.
There's never been a dumber time in history to claim that Republicans and Democrats are comparable.
I'm happy he won. It's symbolic of voter dissatisfaction. Someone's got to take billionaires on and it might as well be a 34 year old mayor of NYC. Why not?
It's honestly staggering how much older Trump is than this guy. 45 years!
Agreed. Really hoping that a conservative candidate with a pulse can run in a city with a campaign that targets younger voters. I think that a socially aware fiscally conservative YIMBY would have a real chance in a lot of cities.
The fact that Zohran won should be a wake up call to both parties, but I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just glad that it seems like people actually care, even if I think it will end up poorly. An overall win.
> socially aware fiscally conservative YIMBY
.. that's not a conservative, though. Especially not in the culture war era.
Seems a bit reductive, I know people that match the description :)
You're happy to find out dissatisfied people outnumber satisfied ones? Do you think his election is likely to make more people satisfied?
What's the issue with billionaires?
They shouldn’t exist
I lived in a world without billionaires - Eastern Europe pre-1990.
It wasn't a world without powerful people though: party nomenklatura and their friends ruled us with an iron fist. Not billionaires in numbers but in lifestyle, power and ruthlessness.
Together with actual billionaires, we also lost all the products and services their work created in process of making them billionaires, so we were all cold and hungry.
I learned then to cherish societies where one could become billionaires: it meant there was enough economic freedom so that the tiny insignificant me could carve a honest, dignified living for me and my own without begging politician mercy for handouts.
We should have more billionaires.
Too much power for one person
Republicans have completely given up on cities and without being able to even field a worthy candidate it’s the sign of a dying party longer term. You simply have to have some influence in cities. But they had none after a 20 year run where they remade NYC after decades of failure. Bloomberg went independent but he got in as a Republican after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).
But what happened? Why can’t they field a competitive candidate in cities like NYC or SF or LA or Chicago after failed admin after failed admin? Why have they given up?
You need to control cities to have any future. They need to recommit to fighting for them.
>after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).
Successful? Try again.
Rudy Guiliani was the most hated man in NYC on September 10, 2001.
I'm not really sure why that changed, he was a horror. Anti-democratic (small 'd') anti-freedom of expression and spent most of his time being a boot stomping on the faces of hard working New Yorkers.
The Republican party in NY has gone off the deep end into identity and grievance politics, whereas the Northeast typically elects pragmatic R's when they do (Bloomberg, Charlie Baker, Mitt Romney)
> You need to control cities to have any future.
It seems like the strategy is to control state legislatures through extensive gerrymandering, then use state sovereignty to control the cities from without. Blue cities in otherwise red states are not able to experiment with local policies anymore, much to everyone’s detriment.
That’s not even the point though. You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power and you’ve yielded the important structures and financial capitals. That’s not a long term strategy.
And it’s not that difficult to win these things, especially when you look at how objectively poor the oppositions performance has been in them. Historically they’ve been contested.
They don't behave like a political party any more. It's not just the business of politics as usual and a generational shift, it's something different. I've been trying to coin a term for this internal takeover - I think nihilocracy, or nihilocratic populism, is the best I've come up with.
The party as a whole is uninterested in governing beyond seeking revenge and satisfying the charismatic eschatological movement that drives them. The leaders don't believe what they preach, they don't have policy goals besides "destroy what we hate", they don't have any conventional engagement with government beyond using it towards their own ends.
"Long term strategy" is a joke in this context. They're angry, they mobilize their supporters by promising revenge on a world that seems to be defying traditional structures and changing too fast. As with many reactionary movements aligned more by being "against" than "for", there's been little thought for what happens after the enemy has been defeated, and it's likely they'll continue seeking out new enemies until the movement dies from infighting or is ousted from power.
I see the supporter being nihilistic and purely out for revenge. I don’t see that with people in positions of power. They’re looking to line their pockets and they’ll take advantage of a vengeful constituency. True of both major parties. That’s why they focus on social issues and then pass legislation (or lack thereof) that allows them to all get rich.
Yep, I agree. I see the rank and file as being largely nihilistic but the leadership as being either pure ideologues or completely cynical. Either way, the stated values aren't the real ones, but they differ in whether they're working towards other goals or pure self-aggrandizement.
> You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power
That's when you use the power of the purse to contractually bind private businesses, non-profits, universities, etc, to your preferred values. Capital beats cultural power (or so goes the current gamble)
Edit: do I need to insert hyperlinks for the strong-arm tactics this administration has tried to force contractual counter-parties to adopts it's anti-DEI culture-war posture via a clause?
Those are just tactics though. So long as the cities are uncontested there’s no real long term plan. Just being somewhat competitive in them or having a presence.
They are pushing Turning Point USA chapters at thousands of schools in the US.
The current Republican playbook seems to be heavily gerrymander a couple of states to dilute the city population impact. See: Texas
They all gerrymander though. But that’s not the point. The point is fleeing cities is what conquered people do. It wouldn’t even be hard to win them.
You can't beat the Democrats unless you kowtow to the public sector unions, and that would betray the Republican Party's principles.
As someone not in the US that doesn't pay a whole heap of attention, is it just me or did he run mostly uncontested? Running against a republican and a disgraced politician?
No clue what mamdani is like, but it seems like NYC had little to no choice...which is a bit disappointing.
It's unusual that Cuomo ran as an independent trying to "spoil"-- but NYC has such a large number of Democrats (like many US cities) that the more competitive and important election is typically the primary election (which determines who is running for each party). NYC has had a history of sometimes going other directions (as Cuomo's relatively high vote shows; having elected Michael Bloomberg many times, for example).
Mamdani won the primary for the democrats over Cuomo, but Cuomo decided to try and do an independent run to further challenge him.
If there's one thing the USA needs less of, it's political dynasties.
Unfortunately that's kind of the reality for NYC. Since Bloomberg left it's been a one party city and ranked choice voting is implemented in the primary but not the general election. That means Democrats can feel comfortable voting for the most radical candidate in the primary without fear they might flop in the general election. Until we get ranked choice in the general election moderates and non-democrats don't really have a voice. This is especially true if multiple candidates run against the democratic nominee like in this election.
RCV is quickly being outlawed state wide by conservative pushes. I think it was 34 states had banned it last I checked.
Oops, 17!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked-choice_voting_in_the_Un...
Ranked choice is such a stupid system. It's gameable and complicated and confusing to most people.
Approval voting has all the benefits ranked choice claims to have, but without the complexity - it's trivial for people to understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
Prior to the citywide election there are primary elections where the major parties pick their candidates. Normally the winner of the democratic primary would only have the republican candidate as a serious opponent. Republican candidates have won 4 of the last 9 mayoral elections, and the most recent republican mayor won an additional election after becoming independent. This was the first election since 1985 with 3 major candidates on election day; and a fourth, the current incumbent mayor, dropped out only a few weeks earlier.
This is not the case. His main opponent was Cuomo who was the Democrat "establishment" candidate. Zohran narrowly defeated Cuomo in the primary. Typically that's it but Cuomo took the unconventional strategy of running independently in the general with the backing of establishment Democrats.
Typically, the Republican candidate would have no chance in a city like NYC. This was the case here as well, but Cuomo calculated that with the backing of establishment Democrats AND the backing of Republicans/conservatives, he'd be able to defeat Mamdani. The Republican candidate did not agree to drop out, however. In the end it didn't matter though because Zohran Mamdani won by a larger margin than Cuomo and the Republican combined
In a typical election, the main election is the primary (which happened back in June). The Democrat nominee is pretty much guaranteed to win so the general is almost a formality. This general election was actually more contested than is typical
tl;dr: his main opponent was establishment democrats
> Zohran narrowly defeated Cuomo in the primary.
13% is not narrow
Ah, you're right. I forgot it was that stark. Thanks for the correction
To a reasonable person, yes, this should have been the case, but politics in America is far from reasonable.
The entire establishment marshaled what forces it could to stop mamdani's momentum. Couple this with the fact that there are (unfortunately) many people out there who would rather elect accused sex offenders than risk the chance that somebody marginally aligned with a word and ideology they don't actually understand (socialism) would be elected, or more likely, and worse, people are just racist and/or islamophobic and would sooner elect a man who would grope their daughter than a man who, god forbid, has a different religion than them.
I mean, if you call "running uncontested" going up against the current mayor, former governor, the editorial board of the NYT and WAPO, billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the Speaker of the House, the Senate and House leadership of the Democratic party, not to mention the entire rightwing media apparatus, and the President of the United States himself, yeah he ran uncontested.
Ackman, Bloomberg, ...
New York is always deep blue, so what is the significance of a Democrat winning this time?
What is perhaps more telling is that the Democrats are putting up such a far-left candidate to the extent that even Obama can't endorse Zohran Mamdani's self-described 'democratic socialist' platform.
Republicans (or a former republican running as an independent) have won 5 of the last 9 NYC Mayoral elections. Mamdani will be the third democratic mayor elected since the 80s.
> New York is always deep blue, so what is the significance of a Democrat winning this time?
Until the 2010s NY actually had a shockingly long record of electing Republican leaders on both the city and state levels. Despite being "deep blue."
Silwa pretty much screwed coumo, would of been a tight race if he dropped. Curious to see what happens to NYC if some of the socialist ideas actually get implemented.
I think AOC will likely challenge Schumer for his seat now that mandami won.
More like Cuomo screwed Sliwa, if Cuomo wanted to run against the Democratic candidate, he should have ran as a Republican. He already lost the primary and took his sour grapes to the general.
Fair point, either way im not sure how they didnt see this happening. Both were the same more or less with Coumo being more moderate.
With 90% reporting Mamdami's lead is larger then Sliwa + Cuomo. Mandami won, not Cuomo and Sliwa lost.
Yeah, I looked when they called and it was very close. More stating, it was inevitable with those 3.
This will be the third consecutive mayor NYC has elected based on some degree of pandering to identity politics.
By the time the last two left office, the prevailing sentiment about them was "good riddance." Let's see how NYC ends up feeling about this one.
Need to see how stocks will react tomorrow!! Nyc mayor mamdani ! Crash at Louisville airport and judgement on trump tariffs !! 1 billion Bitcoin liquidation!