Mark Thompson

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@UofBasketball The last Gold medal game when Steph iso’d on Wemby

[James Hafner @JamesH30189490]

You say you make the philosophical case. I read the essay. There is no philosophy in it. There is arithmetic, and there is need.

The one premise doing all the work is never argued: that one man's need constitutes a claim on another man's property. It doesn't. Need is not a mortgage on the life of the man who fulfilled his.

You say the tax "asks" billionaires for 5%. A tax does not ask. If it asked, it would be philanthropy. It compels — and your entire moral posture depends on the reader not noticing the difference.

You call it a "social contract." A contract requires consent. A decree written by Congress and imposed on 938 people who never signed it is not a contract. It is force wearing a contract's clothes.

And your proudest boast is your most damning admission: Newsom taxes transactions — you tax OWNERSHIP itself. Stock never sold. Value never realized. Not "we tax what you do," but "we tax what you are."

You welcomed an argument on the merits. Here it is: a man's success is not a public asset, and no number of people needing his property converts it into theirs.

That is the moral test of our time. You are failing it.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@herosnvrdie69 So Taylor Swift is a working class billionaire ?

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@JamesTate121 How stupid can someone be? It’s a volunteer army!

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@waltermasterson No. Public services are not “socialism.” Socialism is government taking property from private citizens. Socialism also excels at denying claims. Capitalism is generally better at providing services than socialism because price signals work better than bureaucracy.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@IanBegley No Traore, I wonder why.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@DefiantLs And he works with Republicans how?

[Jay Martin 🏠 🏢🏚️🌇 @jaymart222]

My brothers and sisters in the labor movement deserve good wages.

And here’s what else is true: New York City is the most expensive place to build in the world. Not the country. The world. Our high rise residential construction costs run 30% above London, 40% above Los Angeles, and more than double Houston, Toronto, and Paris.

That’s not developer profit. It’s government controlled costs: a building code that mandates the most expensive materials and methods, a plumbing code that requires metal piping where every other city allows alternatives, plus property taxes, mandates, and fees stacked on top. That’s why nothing pencils without massive tax breaks, and why the projects that do get built come in undersized.

The exact same math is crushing the buildings your members already live in. In a rent stabilized workforce building in the Bronx, the median rent check is $1,200 a month, and it costs roughly $1,250 a month per unit just to operate a well run building nevermind actually improve it.

You don’t have to be Oppenheimer to realize that math dosen’t work.

Operating costs eat 95 to 100 cents of every rent dollar before a single repair or a penny of debt service. Property taxes alone are the single largest expense. And it’s getting worse: from 2020 to 2024, insurance costs rose 224%, property taxes 118%, and water and sewer 115%.

So when a working family’s rent feels high, that rent isn’t going to some landlord’s yacht. It’s going to the tax bill, the insurance bill, and the water bill. Government is the landlord��s biggest tenant, and it never pays rent, it only collects.

Instead of blaming the people we need to build and maintain housing, maybe we should start blaming the people we don’t need: the ones who do nothing about property taxes, nothing about liability insurance, and keep piling on the mandates and fees that made this the most expensive place to build on Earth.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@NickTimiraos There’s no way leisure and hospitality jobs declined in June.

[Josh Young @JoshYoung]

Socialism: unionize, bankrupt your employer, lose your job, but maintain your "sense of solidarity"

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@SBJ @NetsDaily @TomFriendWriter The WNBA is “a growth priority”? YGBKM.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@awfulannouncing “We have no ethical constraints, so yeah why not.”

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@RepWesleyBellMO “There is a gun violence epidemic in Black communities.” Fixed it for you.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@AndrewKerrNC @FreeBeacon Great journalism

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@ParkSlopeFlngsm Best book on the GFC

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@heif ???? Under the new regime, no one will have the opportunity to lease property profitably!

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@lst156 You know nothing about property maintenance, especially in NYC.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@RidersAlliance @NYCMayor Transit in NYC is eminently affordable.

[Mark Thompson @MT05959]

@DefiantLs Many of us feel the same way about Seth Rogan not having children.

[Bill Wells @MayorBillWells]

Below is the County of San Diego’s Fourth of July celebration.

I have an alternative plan:

1.Acknowledge America and its greatness.
2.Celebrate with fireworks and the American National Anthem.