Raymond Niles

Economist, professor, writer, Wall Streeter, and Objectivist. Living large in the Big Apple!

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

It looks like Mayor Mamdani really does want to cause apartment building bankruptcies, and then take them over. See NY Post: “Mamdani pledges ‘aggressive’ crackdown on bad landlords, says NYC will work to ‘transfer ownership’ to tenants,” Link:
https://t.co/Mq9CZ2lTHz

I only just published my article, “Mayor Mamdani Discovers the Bankruptcy of Rent Control” yesterday.
https://t.co/OUFIIv8A9J

The NY Post article contains a lot of disturbing details. One property owner describes Mamdani’s new housing policy as being squeezed at both ends. Mamdani is mandating a $40/hour (!) minimum wage on city-subsidized projects (and most new rental development requires these subsidies because of the burden of rent regulation), while rents will be frozen, yet costs will freely rise with inflation.

It will be interesting if tenants really take over the properties. They will get a rude awakening when they face the real-life pressure of rising costs. I live in a co-op building, which is a form of tenant-owned housing, common in NYC. (It emerged as an escape hatch from rent control. Co-ops are rare in other cities, where most owned apartments are condos.) When the city raised property taxes, the minimum wage, or imposed other costs, we had to raise the maintenance charges we paid in order to keep our building afloat. We felt all the cost increases.

The rental tenants won’t like it when they begin having to pay the costs, instead of just soaking the landlords.

Real-world costs of operating a business (yes, housing is a business) must be paid. Either the tenants pay, the owners pay, or the taxpayers will pay.

Soaking the landlords is unsustainable socialist class warfare utopianism.

It will end poorly.

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Mamdani’s rent-freeze exemptions accidentally reveal the truth about rent control.

If price controls worked, why exempt anything?

Because everyone knows incentives matter.

New piece:

https://t.co/mQyNOI2h0p

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Another way to put it: cronyism is what happens when political power becomes a prize worth capturing.

The real problem is not that we have failed to find the right politicians.

The problem is that the power to grant favors exists at all.

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Cronyism is not mainly a problem of corruption.

It is a problem of institutional design.

As long as government has the power to hand out subsidies, protections, exemptions, and punishments, private interests will compete to influence that power.

The solution is not better favoritism.

It is separation of state and economics.

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@TheAtlasSociety @RichardSalsman3 Yes, it's time we end cronyism once and for all, *constitutionally*. I explain how in my new article, "How to End Cronyism":
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@CatoInstitute End cronyism once and for all. I explain how in my article, "How to End Cronyism."
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@pmarca Yes, I agree. And there is a way to end cronyism and unleash the full prosperity potential of capitalism. I explain it here:
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@CatoInstitute @johanknorberg Yes, Orban in Hungary and Trump in America provide strong evidence that cronyism must be stopped. And there is a way to do it. I explain how we can have true capitalism and end cronyism:
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@yvonnalynn @MetamateDaz Good point. And there is a way to end cronyism, and unleash the full potential of laissez-faire capitalism. I discuss it in my recent piece, "How to End Cronyism."
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@CatoInstitute And there is a solution to cronyism: separating government from economy. It's been done before, with respect to religion. Let's apply the same principle to the economy:
https://t.co/QTwmkJvCJY

[Cato Institute @CatoInstitute]

It’s fashionable for populists on the left and right to denounce GDP growth as mindless elitism. Yet the US and other countries enjoy longer lives, better health, less poverty, and more happiness because of growth – not despite it. If anything, in fact, GDP underestimates how much things have improved, says Cato’s @scottlincicome.

https://t.co/gZssDfI0ln

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Full argument here:
https://t.co/CDoUOY3lXx

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

When I teach introductory economics to undergraduates, every textbook holds up "perfect competition" as a normative ideal. While useful in education, as a policy norm is worse than imperfect, especially when used to justify antitrust prosectution.
https://t.co/UpK7tsVxA9

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

@elonmusk Agreed, "Refuting Malthus, Marx, & Mamdani in Three Charts... and a Bonus"
https://t.co/qXJyexZDgu

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Embarrassing that Vance stumped for Orban, who is Putin's stooge. But then we know whose stooge Trump is. Trump needs to go next!

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

These three charts refute Malthus, Marx, and Mamdani. These three critics – two from the past and one who is the current mayor of New York City – believe that capitalism could only have one result: widespread poverty and misery.
https://t.co/qXJyexZDgu

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Today, similar policies are being proposed again. I walk through the history and economics here.
https://t.co/uoyrShtnL0

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

The last time New York raised taxes like this, it lost 820,000 residents.

That’s not a theory—it’s what happened in the 1970s.

Businesses left. The tax base shrank. The city nearly went bankrupt. Now we may be headed there again. I wrote about it here:

https://t.co/l9uMvotHbI

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

This is exactly the dynamic the Laffer Curve describes.

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

Businesses and people relocated. The tax base shrank.

By 1975, the city was effectively bankrupt.

[Raymond Niles @rayniles]

The result?

Over 820,000 residents left in a single decade.