Ben Siscovick

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. Co-founder/President - Spaxel (

[LakeShowYo @LakeShowYo]

WE JUST WITNESSED ONE OF THE GREATEST MOMENTS IN NBA HISTORY

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

Absolute cinema

[ESPN @espn]

OmG.

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

@DangeRussWilson @NFLonCBS @CBSSports @NFL @ciara Love you Russ 🙏

[Fox News Politics @foxnewspolitics]

A Brooklyn landlord says he's trapped in a legal battle with a '9-year-squatter' over unpaid rent — and it's already drained his daughter's college fund. Thomas Diana estimates he's owed up to $325,000 while New York courts keep adjourning the case. The saga now stretches into its 10th year after another delay this April.

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

@DanBochman Sure. Now layer in growth rate and TAM…

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

@BG2Pod Yes pls! Really miss BG2…offered the most thoughtful and sophisticated private / public markets perspective out there. BGGB would be killer.

[Moses Kagan @moseskagan]

What every voter and apparently, the NY Times Editorial Board, should know about housing policy:

1. Rents reflect the balance of supply of apartments and demand for those apartments in a given area. That’s it; there’s no magic. If you want lower rents, you can hope for a recession that destroys jobs and, therefore, demand. Or you can add supply.

2. There is no amount of money that any big city government could feasibly spend that would add materially to supply. This is because, depending on the location, new apartments cost $250,000-1,000,000 to develop… building even a few hundred of those starts to stress any city budget, and many big cities need tens or hundreds of thousands.

3. On the other hand, investors (including pension funds and endowments, insurance companies, rich families, etc.) can collectively **easily** provide enough capital to build as much housing as we need **so long as they are confident they can get a reasonable return**.

To get those investors to fund the creation of the housing our society needs, we must do two things:

1. Dramatically reduce the time & complexity associated with securing governmental permission to develop housing. This means reviewing and simplifying the overlapping regulations that constrain housing production: zoning codes, building codes, parking, ADA, etc. But it also means changing the cultures within the relevant governmental agencies from “default no” to “how can we help you?”.

2. Provide certainty around on-going regulation of apartment operations.

The way investors get a return from building rentals is as follows: They hire managers to lease the apartments, collect the rents, pay operating expenses and any mortgage payments, and then send the investors the cashflow that remains.

But governments all over the country have been restricting the manner in which apartment buildings can be operated in all kinds of ways.

For example: Cities have been making it harder to screen tenants, while also making it much harder to evict tenants who don’t pay. You can see why both of those measures are politically popular. After all, who doesn’t want people to get second chances? And who wants anyone to get evicted? But, as a manager, the combination of those two regulations makes it much harder to predict, with any certainty, that the rent will get paid… and that makes it very difficult to get investors to provide capital to create more housing.

Another example: Rent control. Again, I understand why renters love rent control and why politicians want to give it to them. But, if, as has been the case in NY, LA and San Francisco, city governments hold annual rent increases below the rate of growth in the operating expenses of the buildings, the cashflow payable to the investors shrinks… making them much less likely to invest capital in building more apartments.

In conclusion: For ~every other good or service in the economy, we allow the market to function, and the result is that we have a surplus of choice at all price points (think of food or clothes or cars), which is spectacular for the consumer. If we want a surplus of choice at all price points in housing, we need to get comfortable with the idea of allowing the market to provide it.

And that means allowing investors to build rental apartments *and* allowing them to operate those apartments in a manner consistent with making a reasonable profit.

Remember: Every developer of rentals is either a landlord-in-waiting or hoping to sell to one.

[Bill Maher @billmaher]

People say the left and the right can’t agree on anything these days. But there is this one thing:

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

Thank you @billmaher for the extraordinary moral clarity

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

@bradlander On every level this is offensively obnoxious, inaccurate, and stupid.

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

Outrageous😂

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

Worth a watch

[Amit Segal @AmitSegal]

Ask 100 people to name the primary accusation leveled against Israel, and “genocide” would likely top the list, with “settler violence” a close second. Much like the first, it is a shame that an issue of such weight is so often defined by mistruths and exaggerations.

Before proceeding, it is important to state clearly: settler violence does exist, it is a serious problem, and it must be dealt with accordingly. However, as with much in the region, the reality and the narrative are simply miles apart.

Let’s begin with the data. The most often cited number comes from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which recorded 2,047 incidents of violence against Israelis and 6,285 against Palestinians between April 2023 and January 2026. A closer examination of these numbers reveals that the majority of the latter do not actually involve violence, and many don’t even include settlers.

Of the 6,285 alleged incidents against Palestinians, 1,704 occurred in Jerusalem, not in settlements. Another 1,361 relate either to Jewish visits to the Temple Mount or to clashes there between security forces and rioting Muslim worshipers. Neither settlers nor violence feature in these instances. Yet, in the UN’s ledger, a Jewish visit to Judaism’s holiest site is automatically classified as settler violence.

Of the remaining 3,220 reported incidents in Judea and Samaria, many consist of generalized complaints—such as “trespassing” during tours or hikes—involving no assault or damage to persons or property. Another 96 cases relate to state projects, like road and infrastructure construction, which involve neither violence nor settlers. 2,039 of the complaints allege property damage or assault without bodily harm; while unacceptable, this hardly aligns with the violent image frequently depicted in the media.

Beyond these questionable classifications, there is a fundamental problem with how data on these incidents is collected. This was highlighted in a 2024 defamation case involving the left-wing NGO B’Tselem. According to the testimony of a B’Tselem field researcher with 20 years of experience, the organization operates under a protocol where Palestinian accounts are not independently verified beyond a site visit and discussions with additional “eyewitnesses” (who may or may not have actually seen the event). In the specific episode at the center of the case, the “facts” published by B’Tselem were directly refuted by the victim’s medical files and contemporaneous IDF reports.

In this regard, B’Tselem is not unique. Most NGOs and UN agencies claiming to perform fact-finding in the Arab-Israeli conflict operate similarly. They frequently base their publications on hearsay and second-hand accounts without properly verifying the allegations. (Even if they intended to, these NGOs generally lack the tools, expertise, and access required for rigorous verification.)

Israel Police data shows that between 2014 and 2024, approximately 1,356 complaints of “Jewish violence” in Judea and Samaria were filed. Only about 40 percent (roughly 537 cases) met the threshold to open an investigation. Furthermore, a substantial share of these cases involved property offenses, vehicle theft, drug possession, and other criminal incidents entirely unrelated to nationalist violence.

A clear example of a false complaint generating headlines occurred in February 2026 regarding a fire in a sheep pen. The media widely reported that “settlers burned a sheep pen, killing dozens of animals,” and politicians leveraged these reports to make serious accusations that were amplified internationally. Within a day, Israel Police released its findings: the fire was actually caused by an illegal electrical connection installed by the owner himself.

Similarly, in 2024, the central investigator for Judea and Samaria testified that in the South Hebron Hills, roughly 90 out of 191 cases filed since the start of the October 7 war (nearly 50 percent) were found to be false complaints. In the Jordan Valley, a comparable half of all complaints proved to be false.

Ultimately, we cannot address a problem if we are fighting a narrative instead of reality.

To read the rest of today's newsletter click the link below.
https://t.co/aMPpOos35y

[Jay Martin 🏠 🏢🏚️🌇 @jaymart222]

Since you asked where the money is going Assemblymember I’ll tell you.

30% of it is going back to the city to pay for every pet project your colleagues can dream up and still demand more money for.

20%-30% of it is going to insurance companies to pay liability premiums because you and your colleagues refuse to address New York’s absurd liability laws. Also because the laws you support have made the buildings worthless. Not rhetorically. Actually worthless. Insurance companies are pulling out of the market all together leaving the remaining carriers to demand high premiums.

5% is going to the city for water which was increased by 9% last year alone.

10% is going to other utilities like fuel which skyrocketed this year because of the coldest winter in a decade and the war in Iran.

8% to labor costs which have also increased substantially in the last five years.

8-10% is just to keep the building running properly. Not improve it. Run it. Most buildings don’t have violations and open holes in ceilings. That’s where that money goes every time someone overflows a toilet, breaks a door, a window, a mirror, strips a faucet, etc.

20% not even factored by the RGB is any mortgage on the building. And you may say well borrowing is a choice. Not if the rents don’t cover repair costs. Taking a loan is literally the only way to pay for repairs even when there is an offsetting subsidy because those programs require the work be done in advance.

By the RGBs own math without accounting for interest and lending which is a quarter of all costs a property only has 10 cents of every dollar left over after collecting rent.

In reality because of interest and lending it’s closer to 3-5 cents.

5 cents profit.

If the government was forced to operate on those margins our republic would have ended decades ago.

[Ben Siscovick @bsiscovick]

https://t.co/ibYD1CgBco

[Kane 謝凱堯 @kane]

I couldn’t help but notice that Senator Sanders chose to use electric lights.

Millions of lighting jobs — GONE: lamplighters, linkboys, wick-trimmers, candle-snuffers, tallow chandlers, wax chandlers, spermaceti refiners, whale oil renderers, harpooners, whaling coopers, gas mantle makers, gas fitters, gas-meter readers, kerosene lamp makers, lamp shade fitters, gasolier makers, lamp-chimney sweeps, lamp-chimney glassblowers, oil-lamp fillers, dairymen’s lamp-boys, mine candlemen, miners’ tallow-dip makers, pit-lamp keepers, theater limelight operators, theater gasmen, Drummond-light operators, calcium oxide cylinder suppliers, Argand-lamp lighthouse keepers, wick-spinners, wick-weavers, rushlight makers, beeswax taper makers, candle moulders, candle dippers, bayberry wax gatherers, taper-stand makers, hand-lantern makers, bull’s-eye lantern makers, ships’ lamp trimmers, railway lamp-men, signal-lamp lighters, lantern-bearing watchmen, night-soil men, knockers-up, match girls, white phosphorus match dippers, match-box makers, fusee makers, vesta makers, flint-and-steel makers, tinderbox makers, lamp-cleaning charwomen.

[Batya Ungar-Sargon @bungarsargon]

The Democratic Socialists endorsing a billionaire is just 🤌

My column:
https://t.co/TnyTAaG715

[Swann Marcus @SwannMarcus89]

I swear to Christ the Democratic Party’s message at this point is “all of the most progressive places are unaffordable shitholes where nobody can afford an apartment, therefore you should vote for us”