Drew Cohen

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@GovKathyHochul Don’t businesses pay taxes to NY for the privilege of operating here? What do you recommend instead?

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

This is such an interesting perspective. Can’t say I disagree with the sentiment.

[Lee Kuan Yimby @LeeKuanYimby]

This speech from Zohran Mamdani on America’s 250th changed my politics.

I’ve never seen a more pompous individual whose life has been void of any sacrifice or hard work confidently lecture as if people like him hold the key to human prosperity.

Here’s a guy who had never held a job until he found the angle to satisfy his thirst for attention through politics at age 30, sit behind George Washington’s desk and give us a lecture on what is supposed to be a day of celebration.

Instead of celebrating what this country built, prosperity and human rights that spread across the globe from basically nothing, he turns the moment into a lecture about how America is this flawed project desperately in need of topdown change from useless academics and politicians who’ve never built anything of value for anybody.

As I get older, I have started wrestling with my own ridiculous and undeserved comforts, and the massive sacrifices of generations that made them possible. We should be expressing sheer gratitude for the families who crossed this country in covered wagons chasing a future, for the young men who died in muddy fields and frozen trenches defending it. At some point we let the children forget about this, and it's going to be a tragedy.

Our ancestors didn’t sacrifice so we could sit around demanding more redistribution while building nothing of value ourselves and living in opulence kings couldn't have dreamed of. They built something exceptional through risk, and relentless work.

Watching someone like Mamdani use the 250th as an opportunity to lecture us about what’s wrong with America, it just flips a switch for me. I’m done with the ingratitude.

We need to defend America from those that leech off it's greatness and attempt to redefine it.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor Please focus our tax dollars on keeping citizen safe.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@RepAOC Just stop. Stay in your lane, respectfully.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor See? You can do it. Celebrate the spoils of capitalism and its benefits to NYC. Don’t need to criticize Amex for being a profitable, capitalist venture. Bravo.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor Raise people up without tearing people down. Wall Street is a driving force of tax revenue in NYC. Bankers pay enormous tax bills and support the infrastructure. They aren’t villains in NY’s story. A bigger villain is overspending, right?

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor Why is there never talk of making NYC better? Only talk of making it more affordable. Affordability is important but Yugo made cars more affordable and they were terrible. Instead of bringing this City down, why not lift it and its residents up, by improving quality of life?

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor “We will make congestion permanent and make travel slower for everyone in a car”.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor First you’re a lifelong Knicks fan and now you’re an America fan. Not buying it, respectfully. Happy Fourth to those who truly celebrate.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

Imagine your family worked for a generation to save enough money to buy a brownstone occupied with rent stabilized tenants on the Upper West Side. The family financed the purchase with a mortgage from a bank based on the premise that rents and cash flow would at least keep pace with inflation so you could pay interest and principal on the mortgage and hopefully have some cash flow left as a return on your investment.

While you had rent stabilized tenants, you were led to believe that the NYC Rent Guidelines Board would be required to adjudicate rental increases each year by taking a measure of the inflation of costs to own and operate a building and setting rental increases appropriately.

You believed the RGB would do its job as the board is comprised of two representatives each for landlords and tenants and five independent representatives that represent the general public.

Now, a new mayor @NYCMayor Mamdani is elected on the promise of freezing rents. There are about two million rent stabilized renters that benefit if rents are frozen so by promising frozen rents the new candidate for mayor buys votes and wins the election.

The new mayor achieves his objective by stacking the RGB with directors who do not follow their obligations and simply vote for a rent freeze as a preordained conclusion as evidenced by the statements of an RGB director who resigned in protest for this very reason.

Meanwhile, inflation in NYC is rampant in utilities, real estate taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance, etc. and now your rents are frozen. Real estate is a high operating leverage business which means that frozen rents and inflating expenses will cause property cash flows to plummet and your after debt service cash flow to go negative.

I expect therefore there will be hundreds if not thousands of small NYC property owners who are now or will shortly be underwater on their mortgages, and without any cash flow to maintain their assets.

If you remember the images of the South Bronx burning in the mid 1970s, you can viscerally understand what is happening to small NYC real estate owners.

While the rent freeze appears to be short-term good news (long term it will lead to poorly maintained apartments) for 2 million NYC renters, it is bad news for the 2 million or more renters in the 1 million market rate apartments in the City because a landlord-hostile market is not likely to add meaningfully more supply and market rents will likely continue to escalate at a high rate.

All of this seems quite unfair and wrong unless I missing something?

Why am I wrong?

For disclosure: I do not own any NYC rental apartments.

[Yossi Farro @FarroYossi]

Tonight, the Knicks won the NBA Finals.

And tonight is also 6/13-a number that holds deep significance in Judaism, representing the 613 mitzvahs of the Torah.

But it gets even better.

Red Holzman, the legendary Jewish coach who led the Knicks to their first two NBA championships, finished his coaching career with exactly 613 wins as Knicks head coach.

When the Knicks retired his number, they chose 613.

The same number as the mitzvahs.
The same number as tonight’s date.

Faith. History. Legacy.

Amazing how sometimes everything comes full circle.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor And the impact on cars and parking…we will simply ignore that.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor @NYCSanitation Kindly keep your distance.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor Bravo for acknowledging this action and the federally designated terrorist organization. Please acknowledge our federally designated democratic allies too!

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@NYCMayor What’s the source for your view that WU’s intent is to “jack up” fees and “squeeze families”? Vilifying businesses & employees without support is what leads to the unfounded hatred/anger that puts hard-working employees of WU at risk. (You began by saying WU is a useful service)

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@Acyn @AOC Fictionalization of American History? Didn’t you recently state that the American Revolution was a fight against billionaires? Ironically, it was actually a fight against unfair taxation. Interesting.

[Music Theatre International @mtishows]

Are you ready to soar? How to Train Your Dragon JR. is now available for licensing! License today: https://t.co/AIA16In6Z2

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@William40102062 @alucard8791 “Some day this war’s gonna end”

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

Kind of amazing!

[Wonder of Science @wonderofscience]

These two photographs are separated by only 66 years.

[Drew Cohen @DrewFromNY]

@GovKathyHochul “And spending proposals are up, up, up” keeping NYC unaffordable for working class people.