John Hopkins

Founder, brand builder and foodie. #cpg #retailtech

[Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @christopherrufo]

EXCLUSIVE: In the past decade, the Los Angeles Metro has reduced fare enforcement by more than 99 percent—and crime has doubled.

We rode the trains for 24 hours to see the nightmare up close. Vagrants, drugs, shootings, robberies, rape. And political leaders who do nothing.

[Adam Grant @AdamMGrant]

An easy way to get unstuck is to get up and take a walk.

We generate more creative ideas during and after walking outdoors—and even on a treadmill facing a blank wall.

Divergent thinking rarely happens when we're tethered to a desk. Moving our bodies frees our minds.

[Vani Hari @thefoodbabe]

Eat this at your own risk. Nick's markets this as a "better for you" treat, but stacking this many gut-disrupting ingredients into a single pint of ice cream is a recipe for digestive disaster.

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

Victimhood has become a moral currency.

We’ve built a culture that ranks people by oppression, then mistakes that ranking for understanding. But people aren’t categories. They’re individuals.

And once you lose that, you stop seeing what actually drives success and better outcomes in the real world and instead promote mediocrity and grievance-mongering.

[John Hopkins @jch393]

@benchslappedtv 🎯

[Michelle Tandler @michelletandler]

I'm digging into New York City financials, and it is NOT looking good.

Between 2019 and 2023, New Yorkers who moved out made $68 billion more than those who moved to New York City.

$14B to Florida, $2 billion to Texas, $23 billion to NY State..

These ppl aren't coming back.

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

Seven clocks are running. None of them negotiable. All of them counting down to the same weeks.

The planting clock. Mid-April is the biological deadline for corn and soybean planting across the US Midwest. Every day that passes without nitrogen becoming affordable and available narrows the window for corn. USDA projects corn falling to 94 million acres from 98.8 million. Soybeans rising to 85 million from 81.2 million. The seeds that go into the ground in the next three weeks determine America’s grain harvest in October. The decision is irreversible.

The USDA clock. March 31. Prospective Plantings. The report that converts farmer intentions into official data. Every acreage number, every corn-soy ratio, every nitrogen-dependent calculation becomes a published fact that traders, governments, and food agencies will use to model global supply for the next twelve months. The number arrives in twelve days.

The FAO clock. April 3. The Food Price Index. The first global reading that captures post-Hormuz commodity prices across cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat, and sugar. The 2022 peak was 159.7 in March 2022 after Ukraine. This reading will incorporate oil above $100, urea at $610, LNG halted, packaging repriced, and freight surcharges of $500 to $1,500 per container. The number that determines whether the UN declares a food emergency arrives in fifteen days.

The pharmaceutical clock. India’s API inventory buffers are two to three months, measured from the war’s onset on February 28. Late May is the depletion window. Methanol at 87.7 percent Hormuz exposure feeds the solvent chain for paracetamol, ibuprofen, metformin, and antibiotics. Once buffers deplete, the shortage becomes a patient access crisis for the 47 percent of US generics that originate in India.

The China crude clock. FGE NexantECA confirmed China is drawing commercial reserves at up to one million barrels per day. The draw sustains refinery operations for four to six weeks from March 19. Mid-April to late April is the exhaustion window. After that, China faces three options: accelerate Russian pipeline imports, reroute at massive premium, or crack open the strategic petroleum reserve. The third option reprices every commodity on the planet.

The helium clock. SK Hynix and Samsung hold two to three months of helium inventory. Late May to early June is the depletion window. South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar. Ras Laffan is offline. If helium buffers deplete before alternative supply arrives, semiconductor fabrication faces rationing. The AI hardware supply chain hits a physical wall measured in months, not quarters.

The insurance clock. Solvency II requires 30 to 60 days of zero incidents before P&I clubs can reinstate war risk coverage. Even after a ceasefire, the insurance normalisation takes six to sixteen months based on the Red Sea precedent of 26 months and counting. The logistics system lags the financial relief rally by the longest duration of any clock in this crisis.

Seven clocks. The shortest expires in twelve days. The longest runs for over a year. The planting window, the USDA report, the FAO index, the drug buffers, the Chinese crude draw, the helium inventory, and the insurance cycle are all counting down simultaneously. None of them pause for diplomacy. None of them respond to presidential directives. None of them read sealed packets.

The calendar is the only actor in this war that has never lost a negotiation.

https://t.co/iFmUcarGdV

[Gary Ruskin @garyruskin]

Ultra-processed foods "should be evaluated not only through a nutritional lens but also as addictive, industrially engineered substances....Public health efforts must shift from individual responsibility to food industry accountability, recognizing UPFs as potent drivers of preventable disease."
Via @MilbankFund
https://t.co/Ig2PG0uhi7

[Jody Baldwin Stone @TheStonesEG]

Everyone in New England should be following @MassFiscal

[Liz Bowman @MsLizBowman]

In New England, less than 3% of energy came from wind, solar, & batteries combined...oil was the #1 source of electricity because they have a shortage of pipeline capacity to bring much lower-cost and much-cleaner natural gas into New England. We have to get the Constitution Pipeline built. That will lower costs, protect lives & grow economic opportunities.
-- @ENERGY @SecretaryWright on @FoxNews

[John Hopkins @jch393]

@hnshah 🎯

[Duncan Burns @DuncanBurnsMA]

🏆 The Beacon Hill Excellence Awards 🏆

Before Maura Healey tells you how great everything is next week, here's a look at the absolute disaster 2025 truly was in Massachusetts - I couldn't cover it all.

@rickygervais was the best person I could think of to deliver the message!

[Lawrence McDonald @Convertbond]

There are close to 400,000 wind mills on Earth.

“All in” total crude oil equivalent for constructing the world’s existing wind turbines: roughly 500–750 million barrels.

Via @grok

[Reza Chowdhury @RezaC1]

GREAT IDEA - LET’S SLAP A WARNING STICKER ON EVERYTHING NEW YORK GOVERNMENT DOES TOO

Here are a few:

⚠️ WARNING: Government housing regulations
Known to restrict supply, inflate construction costs, delay projects for years, and turn “affordable housing” into a permanent shortage.

⚠️ WARNING: Criminal justice reform
Known to increase offenses while reducing accountability.

⚠️ WARNING: Climate change policy
May dramatically raise electricity and housing costs, overload power grids, enrich consultants, and operate as a regressive tax disguised as virtue.

⚠️ WARNING: Government setting prices
Usually follows government breaking markets first.

⚠️ WARNING: Government schools
May cause illiteracy, innumeracy, antisemitism, and emotional fragility when standards are removed.

⚠️ WARNING: DEI bureaucracies
Side effects include lowered expectations, institutional rot, and endless consulting fees.

⚠️ WARNING: Government press conferences
No measurable constituent benefit. Excessive use may cause delusions of progress.

⚠️ WARNING: Non-profit industrial complex
May create permanent dependency, circular funding, and zero outcomes.

⚠️ WARNING: “Task forces” and “studies”
Prolonged exposure linked to inaction, wasted taxpayer money, and political cover.

⚠️ WARNING: Public safety “pilot programs”
Results not guaranteed. Program will be expanded regardless of failure.

⚠️ WARNING: Politicians regulating culture
Often indicates inability to enforce laws, govern competently, or accept responsibility.

[John Hopkins @jch393]

@PamelaHensley22 Makes sense. Raising taxes makes the city more affordable. 🤪🤑

[Reza Chowdhury @RezaC1]

Hey @GovKathyHochul why are you crushing small businesses in New York and inflating the price of very good sold just to prop up your failed congestion taxation scheme during an already acute affordability crisis?

1️⃣ Delivery businesses are getting hammered.

Delivery trucks now face tolls up to $21.60 per trip into the zone below 60th Street and small operators like Lightning Express say every client is feeling it. The tolling burden is now so extreme that they’re charging for every delivery to Manhattan, whether the destination is inside the congestion zone or not.
“It’s just easier to say you know what, if it’s in Manhattan, you get charged with congestion pricing,” said owner Joe Fitzpatrick.
“To say that congestion pricing is working,” he added. “I think that’s a joke.”

2️⃣ Shops inside the zone are raising prices just to survive.

One bodega worker explained how the toll has forced them to hike prices on everyday goods.
“We’ve had to raise our prices, and the customers don’t like it. They argue with us – why are these cookies, which used to be $2.50, now $3.00?” said bodega worker Suhel Ahmed, of 705 Quick Stop.
“But we have to raise the prices to cover the delivery fees from the congestion pricing. The customers don’t like it but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

3️⃣ Longtime business owners are giving up.
After 55 years in business, one owner says he’s at a breaking point.

“I’m paying about $100 a day in fees for deliveries because of congestion pricing,” he said.
“We’re losing business as it is, especially on Mondays and Fridays when a lot of people don’t come to the office to work. We have to raise the prices, and suddenly people stop buying two coffees every day.”
Stavros Dakis said he’s ready “to get the hell out of here.”

4️⃣ Even hardware stores are adding fees they never wanted to charge.

Hardware store owner Steve Ross says congestion pricing is draining $1,000 a month from his margins, forcing him to add a new delivery fee.
“But I never used to charge. That was a big advantage for me, not to charge for deliveries, because a lot of other guys always charged,” said the owner of The Lumber Boys near Herald Square.
“Now I can’t do that anymore. I’m covering my costs but it’s not a good optic, it’s really not.”

[Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) @chigrl]

The Framers understood the distinction between direct and indirect taxation with precision. Article I, Section 9 explicitly requires direct taxes to be apportioned among states according to population.

Property taxes are unambiguously direct taxes - they're assessed on ownership itself, not on transactions or activities. Yet property taxes operate without apportionment, which should render them constitutionally void at the federal level and questionable even when delegated to states.

The 16th Amendment carved out an exception for income taxes specifically, but that exception does not extend to property taxation. The constitutional architecture treats direct taxation as dangerous enough to require strict apportionment rules, yet property taxes bypass this safeguard entirely through state delegation.

More fundamentally, property taxes create a feudal relationship disguised as governance.

Under a true republic, citizens hold allodial title - absolute ownership free from superior claim.

The Fifth Amendment prohibits taking property without just compensation, yet property taxes effectively constitute partial takings every year. If the state claimed 1.5% of your land annually through eminent domain, that would clearly violate the Takings Clause. Property taxes achieve the same result through financial extraction rather than physical seizure. The annual obligation functions as permanent debt secured by your property, except you never borrowed the principal and cannot pay it off. This converts ownership into a rental agreement with the government as landlord.

The economic mechanism reveals the deeper violation. Property taxes create a wedge between productive use and bare ownership. A family farm generating modest income faces the same tax burden as commercial development generating high income on equivalent acreage. This penalizes long term holding and forces continuous monetization of property to service tax obligations. Retirees who paid off mortgages still face monthly tax bills or lose their homes. This is incompatible with the republic ideal of independent citizens free from permanent economic subordination to state authority.

The assessment process compounds the constitutional problem. Property taxes assume the state owns your land and graciously allows you to use it in exchange for annual rent, rather than treating citizens as sovereign owners and the state as a limited agent.

Framersof the republic feared concentrated power and permanent dependencies that would corrupt civic virtue. Property taxes create exactly this corruption by making every property owner a dependent of local government. School districts, municipalities, and counties gain incentive to inflate assessments and resist appeals because their budgets depend on tax revenue. This converts government from servant to creditor with the power to seize collateral. The structural incentives guarantee abuse because the assessor, the beneficiary, and the enforcement mechanism all represent the same entity. No private creditor would be allowed this arrangement, yet we accept it from government.

From an economic sovereignty perspective, property taxes effectively nationalize land while maintaining the fiction of private ownership. The state captures the rental yield through annual taxation while owners bear all maintenance costs, market risks, and liability. If tax rates exceed the property's income generating capacity, ownership becomes a net liability. This explains the abandoned properties in Detroit and other distressed cities. When taxes exceed economic value, rational owners walk away. The state has successfully converted ownership into a burden rather than an asset.

[John Hopkins @jch393]

@theripsnorter 🤣

[Wall Street Mav @WallStreetMav]

Ice Cream has changed. They have started using so many cheap fillers that most brands can no longer legally call it ice cream.

Check your ingredients.

[Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi]

Listen to This Article: The Great Leftist Ignorance Scam

The new left movement in America is taking off mostly with the very wealthy, which isn’t an accident

https://t.co/xblGqt5ksR