"Never expect God to be helpful. Work on the assumption that he will be as awkward as possible, then things run pretty smoothly." (Thornton, Prayer, 84) #Theology#Episcopal
@ManhattanInst@nyccommonsense Real estate developers do this themselves. They analyze every block. They work hard.
The public should expect the same from the government.
And we should have a public bank to carry the risk.
@RockChartrand The government did this.
Would you like documentation?
Through the military and university system many of the inventions we take for granted came to be.
Almost all public health improvements we’re created for reasons outside of the profit motive.
@RockChartrand Here is what we see.
Better garbage collection.
Faster repair of pot holes.
Less scaffolding.
Enforcement of violations by bullies.
And a mayor who isn’t corrupt and wants government to work for people.
A government for all New Yorkers, including his haters.
@rustyrockets The government already subsidizes several markets in NYC.
New York has a population of 8 million and has plenty of cash to support bodegas.
Some who receive free food from charity will now spend money - because people prefer to make their own choices.
@davidfrum@CHSommers Commerce takes care of itself.
Most “economic development” plans are inefficient boondoggles.
The governments responsibility is to enforce fairness in the marke, develop human capital, carry risk that private corporations won’t and regulate natural monopolies.
Three months ago today, a war began that no one voted for — and the cost has been paid by people who had no say in it.
Thousands of civilians have lost their lives. Thirteen U.S. servicemembers will never come home to their families.
Americans across this country and our city have watched prices rise at the pump and the grocery store, their budgets strained by a conflict launched without a single vote of Congress.
Every life lost abroad and every dollar squeezed from a working family here is part of the same reckless bill, handed to the people who could least afford it by those who will never pay it themselves.
I opposed this war from the first day. I oppose it still. It must end.
@MarkRPellegrino@RickC13Seven If he were doing that, there would actually be stores in the neighborhood. But there is no competition.
Essex Market, Arthur Avenue and Hunts point are all government subsidized.
But you knew that.
Let's understand a few things about what's actually about to happen here if Zohran gets his way -- which he almost certainly will, unless courts intervene.
First and foremost, Cea Weaver and DSA 'organizers' will be unleashed with the full institutional and legal support of the city government to ramp up tenant complaints in targeted buildings. No complaint will be too small. No building will be too small. Everything will be treated as catastrophic. Full-scale demagoguery will ensue, complete with protests, rent strikes, street theater, and harassment of property owners.
Accordingly, the city buildings department will be weaponized to begin writing as many violations as possible in order to bolster the city's effort to justify a seizure. It won't matter how small or large the violations are, the total number will be breathlessly cited as evidence of mismanagement. It will be impossible for landlords to clear these violations in good faith.
The combination of a weaponized buildings department writing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, rent strikes, and constant threats and harassment against landlords by militant activists will make the situation untenable for any property owner to realistically fight back, and the city will seize the property. The landlord will be lucky to walk away without prison or being beaten to death in the street by an angry mob (as Zohran's buddy Hasan Piker referred to landlords -- 'let the streets run red with their capitalist blood').
But that's only the first half of the plan, and everyone needs to pay very close attention to the big picture here, because it's hugely important and has national implications.
The properties will then be turned over to nonprofits. This is no small detail. This is in fact the whole point.
The idea here is to build up Zohran's DSA-connected nonprofits with a multbillion-dollar portfolio of hard assets -- New York City real estate. This portfolio could theoretically reach into the hundreds of billions or even the trillions, depending on how aggressive they get.
Now these highly political nonprofits would become the new land barons of New York, complete with all the political clout, leverage, and reach that goes along with it. It would be a true nightmare scenario.
As it stands now, the nonprofits depend mostly on the largesse of grants, donations, and other third-party resources to stay afloat. They are lavishly funded of course, and many do hold significant assets, but it would all pale in comparison to simply handing them the keys to a New York City real estate empire, courtesy of Zohran Mamdani and the DSA.
The resources at their disposal would be immense. The organizing potential that goes along with those resources will have national implications. Every DSA candidate in every town and city in the country would be trained, funded, and staffed by organizers with ties to the NYC nonprofit empire backed by a trillion dollars in free real estate. And they would be shameless in leveraging those resources for pure political power.
That's the game plan here. That's the whole ball of wax.
Zohran isn't interested in making housing better for anyone. If he was, we'd be talking seriously about solving the NYCHA disaster.
Hell, if he was even remotely sincere about seizing these properties from 'bad landlords' for the 'public good' he'd be focused on turning them over to the city itself, as misguided as that would be.
No, this is about nothing more than consolidating political power for the DSA. Just like everything else these people do. Giving the DSA a massive war chest backed by seized real estate.
Once you understand that they have no interest in fixing anything other than elections, it all makes a lot more sense.
@nyccommonsense I’m astonished at how a group of seemingly well educated persons doesn’t get economics 101.
People like living in NYC for lots of intangible reasons. Big companies want to hire those people.
A person who sells their 238 million dollar apartment will find a buyer.
@JustRaging01 It’s a great idea.
It impacts banks, hedge funds, and speculators who often bump up the value and take it out of reach for people who use loans - middle class people.
Cash buyers can also usually afford the modest bump.