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Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

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Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#661

Post by torginus »

xivzgrev wrote: post #415
reenorap wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama was hated by San Franciscan progressives because he came in with all of these promises and then backtracked on almost all of them. He basically turned into a Bush-lite, and he even maintained every single one of Bush's policies as well as deadlines. For example, he talked a lot about abortion and then immediately said it wasn't a priority for him once he got into office. He never closed Guantanamo and in both e…

I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.

This is a bit of an aside, but why isn't medical tourism more popular in the US? If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars, as a rainy day fund, you could get close to the very best possible care for even serious conditions from countries that have highly developed medical tourism sectors.

Granted, I acknowledge, that the US will likely still provide better care at the absolute high end, and asking most people to save that much can be quite a tall order, but from what I gather, a lot of people either bankrupt themselves, and end up paying much more than that and/or receive substandard care for conditions where treatment regime is established like treatable forms of cancer or congestive heart failure.

I remember Trump blasting Obama about Medicare, and proposing to 'open up' the system, introducing competition to drive prices down instead (which is the real problem of the US system, socially subsidizing it is just a bandaid fix imo). I guess not much has come off that.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#662

Post by nobody9999 »

ComplexSystems wrote: post #404
nobody9999 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mamdani's policies are incredibly controversial, that's why it's such big news. Which policies are "incredibly controversial?" And be specific. Here'a a direct link to his platform for your reference" https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform No rush. I'll wait.

I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about. There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisti…

>There are clearly policies on that page that break from the NYC status quo (like freezing the rent). Perhaps you are interested in explaining to us why you think these are economically sound ideas, rather than insisting they aren't controversial?

You mean like the rent freeze[0] in 2020/2021 (and apparently in 2014-2016[1], although I don't recall that and am too lazy to check my old leases) on the very same apartments that Mamdani is proposing the same?

>I don't feel that you're going to get a lot of engagement with this attitude. It doesn't come off like a good-faith effort to have an honest intellectual conversation, which is what this forum is about.

Really? Funny that. As a resident of NYC, I reviewed the policies proposed by Mamdani and none of them seem all that controversial (or even all that much in the way of veering from the status quo). I will say that the whole public grocery stores seems a little over the top, but market forces haven't eliminated food deserts in many lower income neighborhoods. As such, why is it bad to try such a thing?

GP called Mamdani's policy proposals "incredibly controversial." I haven't seen even one such policy. As such, I asked for an example of such a "controversial" policy to help me understand where GP was coming from and provided a comprehensive list of Mamdani's policy proposals as an aid to identifying such policies.

I explicitly asked for specific proposals so we could discuss why (or why not) they might be "controversial."

How is that a bad "attitude"?

[0] https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2025/07/fact-sheet...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819654

Edit: Fixed prose.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#663

Post by nobody9999 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #95
testfoobar wrote: post #52

Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls in markets will be an interesting real-time political experiment. When the inevitable unintended outcomes become to emerge who will be blamed? https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/apart... https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform Quoting Paul Krugman (Nobel prize winner and liberal columnist at the NYT). "The analysi…

> Mamdani's and by extension, his voters', ignorance about the effects of price controls Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development. “In a 2022 paper, the political scientists Anselm Hager, Hanno Hilbig, and Robert Vief used the introduction of a 2019 rent-control law in Berlin to study how access to rent-con…

>Mamdani isn’t pitching widespread price controls, but rent control over a small section of New York housing twinned with abundance-style new development

He's not actually pitching any new price controls. He's proposing a temporary rent freeze on rent stabilized (rent control is tiny in comparison and unaffected by this) apartments that are already subject to limits on rent increases.

How do I know this? I live in a a rent stabilized apartment. The rent for which, even though increases are "limited" (usually somewhere around 3-5%) has more than doubled since I moved in.

So no. Mamdani isn't suggesting making any changes to the law as it has existed for at least 50 years, rather he's suggesting stopping rent increases while fast-tracking new housing, which would likely stabilize the housing market.

As an aside, which most folks don't understand, is that the vacancy rate in NYC is ~1.5%. Healthy housing markets have vacancy rates of 4-6%. Like many places in the US (and elsewhere), NYC has a housing shortage. But in NYC, that shortage is much more severe than almost anywhere else in the US.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#664

Post by ben_w »

abenga wrote: post #571
mmooss wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obama ... was, by far, the most charismatic President we've had in modern times Watching old Obama speeches, I find him mostly run-of-the-mill. Trump, whether or not you like him, is far more charismatic - his success is built on his charisma. Also, look up Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan speeches, by maybe that isn't what you mean by 'modern times'.

> his success is built on his charisma. Print out one of his speeches and read them. His success is built on backlash against the shock of seeing a black president.

I don't like Trump, and I rank his emission of word-shaped noises somewhere between picking random items from autocomplete suggestions, and my pre-ChatGPT experiments with GPT-3 models.

Charisma is a different axis to all of that.

A lot of people, for reasons I cannot even empathise with, demonstrably like him. One could even describe their response as "idolising" him. (Where does one draw the line between "a cult of personality" and "apotheosis" anyway?)

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#665

Post by [deleted] »

Aunche wrote: post #297
jgoodhcg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I think an honest attempt at doing something "radical" economically for the working class can cross the divides we have.

Radically changing healthcare works out great in people's heads, but then they immediately whine about their Ozempic no longer being covered like in socialized healthcare countries which don't use expensive cutting edge drugs as a first resort. No matter how competent the government is, which ours isn't, any radical change (besides just throwing more money at the problem) will make things worse before they are better…

[deleted]

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#666

Post by metalman »

michaelbarton wrote: post #13

I hope this win signals (to both parties) that voters are receptive and will get engaged when a clear message is presented about cost of living and quality of life issues. Some of which are taken for granted in most other western countries. I’m no political wonk, and I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices. I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message…

"I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices."

Zohran has the largest, youngest, mandate in NYC in a very long time. The key is thats it's NYC and the place has an energy all it's own, and Zohran has that, and understands that NYC is always broke falling down, rich, and building up. Think about it, this guy just stood up, and Gotham said Hey!, you!, YES! NYC is pumped and ready to out work, out think, and out party, the entrenched, but tired and old, establishment. Lead, follow, or get out of the way(and cheer)

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#667

Post by jojobas »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #419
jojobas wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't make yourself a name by properly managing garbage trucks and street sweeping. It's not just the US either, Australian local councils went headlong into culture wars long ago.

Counterpoint, I read this interesting article recently contrasting two progressive mayors in the USA, Brandon Johnson (~6% approval rating) and Michelle Wu (66% approval rating) https://cityjournal.substack.com/p/big-city-progressives-kee...

Is it really? Local approval rating is in no correlation with national name recognition. You don't get your name in the national news by just fixing potholes. I guess you have to do it in order to not get voted out, and some ideological mayors fail to do it.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#668

Post by exq »

torginus wrote: post #661
xivzgrev wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you one reason, among many, it wasn't a failure. It made it illegal to deny people health insurance coverage based on pre existing conditions. That was a big step forward in a broken system to restore some humanity to the system.

This is a bit of an aside, but why isn't medical tourism more popular in the US? If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars, as a rainy day fund, you could get close to the very best possible care for even serious conditions from countries that have highly developed medical tourism sectors. Granted, I acknowledge, that the US will likely still provide better care at the absolute high end, and asking…

> If you could set aside a couple tens of thousands of dollars

Non-starter for the vast majority of Americans.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#669

Post by CommanderData »

pjc50 wrote: post #588
octaane wrote: post #73

You guys have it all wrong. There was only one candidate for the dem party, Here's the list: 1) Cuomo. Sexpest who has been accused by many women of some pretty shitty stuff. Also a member of a multi-generational dynasty, which is not good. 2) Mayor Adams. Federally indicted by the Feds. They have a 99% conviction rate. Not because they're corrupt, but because they only go after people who have dome some really egreg…

As a Brit who has been exposed to the blanket coverage of this on social media: Mamdani is going to be like Sadiq Khan. Popular with people in the city, while those outside run endless weird fantasy "news" scare stories because he's a Muslim.

GBnews has been unrelenting and it's frankly worked to turn non-Londoners against London and Khan.

It's disgusting they're allowed to vilify him so much without any accountability.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#670

Post by csomar »

reenorap wrote: post #401
michaelbarton wrote: post #13

I hope this win signals (to both parties) that voters are receptive and will get engaged when a clear message is presented about cost of living and quality of life issues. Some of which are taken for granted in most other western countries. I’m no political wonk, and I’m curious what others with more insight might say about his ability to fund and implement his polices. I’m reminided of Obama and his hopeful message…

Obama was hated by San Franciscan progressives because he came in with all of these promises and then backtracked on almost all of them. He basically turned into a Bush-lite, and he even maintained every single one of Bush's policies as well as deadlines. For example, he talked a lot about abortion and then immediately said it wasn't a priority for him once he got into office. He never closed Guantanamo and in both e…

He also bailed out Wall St.
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