Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race • Hacker News Board

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#811

Post by evanelias » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #716

hakfoo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market isn't going to function ideally in a place like New York. In other cities, a significant market-based response to high rents and housing demand is to increase supply with another ring of suburbs. Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale? Uncapping rents might trigger some refurbishment of idle or marginal space by dangling enough money in front of landlords, bu…

> Is there anywhere within reasonable commute radius left to develop around NYC at scale? I get the challenge of existing property/buildings other states, etc - but it always seems weird to me that you can have single story buildings less than one mile from Manhattan in Hoboken, etc. (as the crow flies, I get transit, etc). Feels like the big problem is we can't change anything easily anymore.

Hoboken has the fourth-highest population density of any municipality in the US. Although it is mostly low-rise in character, there aren't many single-story buildings there at all.

A good chunk of Hoboken was originally swampland; you can't exactly put in skyscrapers there. And even if you could, the other infrastructure (roads, water mains, sewers, trains, parking) absolutely could not support that level of development. You would basically need to bulldoze the entire town and build much wider roads etc... which would then cut into how much land could be devoted to housing.

Edit to add: genuinely baffled by the downvote. I lived in Hoboken for 7 years, and regardless of any personal opinions on the pros and cons, the town indisputably has infrastructure problems at its current density level: frequent water main breaks, flooding, over-crowded trains, buses that are too full to take on passengers, sink-holes, constant traffic jams at the few exits to town, double-parking / obstructed bike lanes, waiting lists for municipal garages (one of which is literally falling apart). The density level is objectively quite high relative to the US [1] and it's quite simply factually incorrect to list Hoboken as an example of insufficiently-dense housing in the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#812

Post by SilasX » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #697

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.

Had the ACA gone further and actually provided a single payer system, I'd consider the block on denials based on preexisting conditions a win. As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk. That bastardizes the whole point of private insurance. I d…

>As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk.

That's what social insurance/welfare systems do throughout the developed world -- make sure everyone's covered at some minimal level even if it wouldn't be profitable when evaluated individually; it's just using insurance companies as an arm of the state to pull it off.

If, as it seems, your only objection is to labeling it "insurance", that's not a substantive objection to the merit of the policy, only how it's marketed.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#813

Post by 56J8XhH7voFRwPR » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:14 PM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #484

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.

Absolutely. We have this bad habit of hating policies and politicians that make things 10% as good at they tried to do, but shrugging and ignoring politicians and policies that actively make our lives worse. Perfect is ideal. Better than we started with is still better.

The real problem is not politicians per se, its lobbyists. If you want blame the shortcomings of the ACA on anyone blame the insurance lobby. We need to get rid of lobbyists and put in term limits. period. It doesnt matter what party you support neither of them are looking out for your best interests. We should vote for people based on their individual beliefs and policies and not have to worry about what they are going to do in office because they get threatened by their party to vote this way or that way and hold the line ebcause if they dont they will primary you. If we have term limites, getting primaried doesnt matter as much anymore. It shouldnt be a career to be in DC. It should be a public service. The sooner we all realize this and quit picking a tribe the sooner things will get better.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#814

Post by loeg » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

surajrmal wrote: post #783

loeg wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CA took fast food min wage up to $20 and it’s been fine. Reduced employment by 3% but otherwise fine, yeah. https://www.nber.org/papers/w34033 A nationwide $30 minimum wage would have a significantly higher impact (most places have lower wages than California and $30 is more than $20).

3% of fast food jobs. Honestly that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff. Fastfood prices have increased a lot in recent years as well, but it's unclear how much if any is due to minimum wage increase.

Fast food jobs are where the higher minimum was imposed.

It's fine to argue it's a good tradeoff; I just want advocates to admit there is a tradeoff.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#815

Post by snovymgodym » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:26 PM UTC

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…

It's fairly popular, especially for elective surgeries.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#816

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

sebastos wrote: post #613

tsimionescu wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Thiel is identifying some of the same problems, but the solutions he's proposing are basically the opposite of the ones Mamdani is. Unsurprisingly, he's proposing solutions that benefit billionaires rather than everyone else (e.g. just les us build whatever wherever we want, of course we'll build cheap housing that brings property houses down! Who could ever imagine we'll build luxury mansions that keep propert…

How many times must it be explained that building luxury mansions still brings property prices down. Nobody ever voluntarily builds crappy low income housing. That’s never how development works. You let people build the new fancy buildings they want to build with all the margins and high prices. Then, when a bunch of rich people move in, that’s people that are no longer chasing all the other apartments. Eventually, w…

Oh, understood, the housing will "trickle down", right?

How many times do we need to learn that trickle down economics doesn't work? Making the rich richer and happier will never "trickle down" to the poor, it will stop at the rich.

With land, this is particularly obvious. There is a finite amount of land. The more of it is occupied with luxury mansions, the less land will be available for high-density housing. Building 1 new luxury mansion removes land from the pool that could house dozens if not hundreds of people. And rich people don't move in from cheaper housing to more expensive, they just keep both, or they buy the new mansion as a vacation home.

Property is an investment, and there are huge vested interests in keeping property values going up - and not just from rich people, but virtually everyone who owns their own home. You have to fight a lot of these interests to force prices to go down. "Just build more" doesn't work, the space in and around a city is limited.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#817

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#818

Post by acdha » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #806

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it proposing running like five grocery stores to test? That's not bonkers or radical. Or even expensive. It seems like the type of experiment HN would love.

It’s an unnecessary experiment that wastes time. Kroger/Costco/Walmart/Albertsons all have 2% profit margins. These are extremely optimized, large scale businesses. No city government is going to do it for cheaper. Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%. Which means the problem in food deserts is the customers are too poor. Which means the solution is giving poor people money. But that is not a winning poli…

> Which means the most prices can be lowered is 2%.

For people who live near one of those stores and can afford to shop competitively. In many urban environments, the competition is smaller shops or places which know you aren’t going to spend an hour driving elsewhere.

I live in DC, and we have a Safeway near us which often charged 2-3 TIMES what Costco charged. Once a second market opened in our neighborhood, just like magic the prices at Safeway came down.

The corner market was basically never competitive on prices because it’s tiny and carries the small sized products which always work out to a higher cost.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#819

Post by Ancapistani » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

NeutralCrane wrote: post #764

_heimdall wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had the ACA gone further and actually provided a single payer system, I'd consider the block on denials based on preexisting conditions a win. As it is we have a system of private "insurance" that can't consider the risk level of those being insured. All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk. That bastardizes the whole point of private insurance. I d…

> All that means is the companies charge everyone else more to subsidize the cost of those who are more at risk. Literally the purpose of insurance

Huh?

The purpose of insurance is to mitigate the risk of a very costly but unlikely outcome by paying a smaller amount over time, thereby spreading that risk among those of similar risk.

Not being able to consider individual risk means that insurance makes no sense for those with a low risk profiles, because they’re in the same cohort as those who will _definitely_ file claims.

Re: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York mayoral race

#820

Post by Tiktaalik » Wed, Nov 05, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

potamic wrote: post #227

Tiktaalik wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run from the Left, govern from the Right. A pretty classic political electoral strategy of centrist liberals.

Why would someone do that? Especially for presidency which is the final stage of their career? They're not beholden to or reliant on anyone no more so shouldn't have to be swayed by any adverse interests.

They run from the left in order to get elected, that is the sham. They tell people things that people want to believe that they know they can't deliver in order to get elected.

Then they govern from the centre right status quo which aligns more with their actual beliefs.