Ken's Comments

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's latest idea for the New York housing market will be bad for New York, particularly the needier people within New York.  His housing proposal will make the existing market worse and if the City succeeds in taking over existing housing, as the Mayor proposes, these will turned over to an agency with a horrible track record. But let's take a step back and acknowledge the positives of the Mamdani's plan.  The Mayor proposes changes to land use and zoning rules, as well as building codes to "lower construction costs and reduce delays in housing development."  The plan includes goals to build 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 existing affordable units.  To fund this, the City will invest $22 billion in housing funding over the next five years.*1 Mamdani also proposes to improve enforcement of building codes on existing buildings, to help current residents.  Another positive aspect to his proposal but with uninten...

 Previously we talked about how Democrats drive up costs, but what do they do to make things affordable?  Simple, they give away your tax dollars. Obamacare is a classic example.  Democrats rammed through a boondoggle of a program that has lived up to none of its promises, a key one of which was to reduce the cost of health insurance.  As insurance costs rose and rose, Democrats during the Biden Administration passed a law "temporarily" removing any cap on income levels for subsidies.  This meant that people making as much as $600,000 or more could get federal tax dollars to help pay for their Health Insurance purchased through the marketplace.* The temporary law ended this past December.  Democrats are seeking to extend the removal of the cap on subsidies for 10 more years at a cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars over that time.   That doesn't make health insurance more affordable, it just covers up the rising costs with taxpayer dollars....

 Zohran Mamdani, NY State Assemblyman and candidate for NYC Mayor, has suggested the idea of City run supermarkets.  Specifically, Mr. Mamdani proposes five supermarkets, one in each NY City Borough and all run by the City of New York.  The idea would be to provide low-cost food to underserved New Yorkers. It sounds like a good idea.  I think Mr. Mamdani should do it but in a slightly different way.  I suggest Mr. Mamdani create a non-profit organization.  Mr. Mamdani can then create a business plan describing how the supermarkets would work.  To show his support for the idea, Mr. Mamdani should put his money where his mouth is - pony some of his own cash and money from his family. With seed money, a business plan and the offer of tax-deductions, Mr. Mamdani can then start tapping his friends - including the ones who attended his wedding in Uganda, they are not paupers.  Mr. Mamdani can also reach out to supporters, like the billionaire hedge fund...

I think Amazon going to NY is a good thing for a couple of reasons.  It should be good for NY and it should be good for America if elected officials recognize just what happened here.  Ironically, Jeff Bezos may end up the loser here. Amazon going to NY city is good for the city because it creates jobs.  Before there are the jobs with Amazon, there will be construction jobs building the Amazon location.  Then you can bet there will be other growth around that area creating more construction work.  There will be jobs for people to clean and maintain Amazon's building and any new surrounding buildings.  There will need to be jobs for people filling the vending machines in the Amazon building.  When the Amazon employees get tired of eating out of the machines, they will need restaurants and delis and pizza places.  The jobs story doesn't stop there.  Amazon ships stuff - a lot of stuff.  That means trucks and cars and planes and train...