This is the same guy who got in bed with a pharmaceutical company Valeant that bought up smaller pharmaceutical makers got rid of all of their RND and jacked the prices of all medications so high that no one could afford them. Congress got a hold of them but Valeant is still in operation.
As a left-leaning Canadian I find the description used of Mamdani (democratic socialist) interesting. This is clearly not a political party he is a member of, so what is it? Given the opprobrium heaped on socialists, especially in the U.S. , I wonder why anyone would choose to identify as a socialist. Here in Canada our distinction—social democrat (notice small ‘d’)—is perhaps more accurate. One doesn’t have to be a full-blown, dyed-in-the-wool “socialist” to thoroughly support a more equitable distribution of resources.
What a shame! As Foucault remarked: ”It could all be otherwise.” I guess those doing the conditioning stand to benefit from economic, social & political inequities.
This goes back at least to the late 19th century in the U.S. It got worse after World War I: the freakout over the Russian Revolution was fierce. It resulted in the persecution of leftists in general, especially those from eastern Europe -- and also of African Americans demanding justice. (This helps explain why many decades later FBI director J. Edgar Hoover persecuted Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement as "Communist."
Thing is, you don't have to *identify* as a socialist. All you have to do is support economic justice and you will be accused of being a socialist -- by some Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans. It's actually encouraging that these days some prominent political people (like Mamdani) are identifying as socialist -- and getting elected!!
Well said. Ackman is a destructive Republican. His corruption makes him irrelevant to decent humanity. His money can’t overcome it. What a shock it must be.
The thought of having to give back a pittance of what he's taken from New Yorkers and others. It's a long way to November. Look for him and his cronies to finance Adams, Cuomo, or some other "independent" puppet to run in the generals. We haven't won yet.
This might be the best analysis of the NYC election I've seen yet. Lately I've been singing: "When tyrants tremble, sick with fear / And hear their death-knell ringing / When friends rejoice both far and near / How can I keep from singing?"
Mainstream Democrats are still quaking in fear of another George McGovern or even a Walter Mondale, who end up winning a single state. So they keep nominating so-called centrists like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and keep losing.
My friend Leif Pagrotsky a Swedish Politician and economist, once suggested public transport in Stockholm be free, publicly financed. Here, I am attaching it translated (in 5 seconds by chatgpt) for anyone interested in thinking about how this could be handled.
How Should Stockholmers Pay for Their Public Transport?
The eternal discussion about the payment system in Stockholm’s public transport has flared up again. One moment the subway turnstiles are too slow, the next too fast. Never just right. In addition, ticket prices— as DN (Dagens Nyheter) pointed out in an editorial on April 21— are so complicated that one wonders if the aim is to scare off everyone who doesn’t have a monthly pass.
Public transport in Stockholm County costs just over 13 billion SEK to operate. Of this, Stockholmers pay 7 billion SEK through the county tax. About the same amount is paid by users of the public transport system through fares.
One billion SEK is lost to ticket administration, while the system is perceived as complicated and the services as expensive. We’re wasting a billion that could be used to create more public transport and better service.
Public transport is as obviously necessary for a big city as elevators are in high-rises. I’ve never seen special fees with turnstiles, guards, and inspectors for elevators— their costs are smoothly covered by rent for everyone in the building, even those on the ground floor or those who use the stairs. Anyone proposing otherwise would be laughed at. That’s how it should be in Stockholm too.
Yet development has gone in the opposite direction. A growing portion of the costs is borne by passengers, and a decreasing portion by those who choose other modes of transportation. As recently as the early 1990s, passengers paid 30 percent of the costs, compared to about 50 percent in recent years.
It’s expensive to collect fares. 100 subway stations must be staffed from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., most with several people, 20 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. In addition, there are 53 commuter train stations. Each ticket gate costs 250,000 SEK. Most people buy their tickets at kiosks and shops, costing a few hundred million SEK of ticket revenue in compensation.
Efficiency also suffers. Every bus must spend time at each stop letting passengers board one at a time through a single door to pay under the driver's watchful eye. This wastes valuable time for the bus and driver, while also extending travel time for passengers.
The system has also become extremely complicated and unwelcoming for infrequent riders, such as tourists. For a tourist, paying for a bus ride almost requires special training since you can no longer pay on board. A map and compass are not enough because visitors struggle to find where to buy bus tickets— the opposite of what a tourist city needs.
No matter how you look at it, Stockholmers themselves must pay for their public transport. But much would be gained if we could find a simpler and cheaper system than today’s complicated and expensive one.
The simplest solution would be to completely replace fares with county taxes. Stockholmers’ incomes and living standards would not be affected— the amount they lose in higher taxes would be saved on fare costs. Compared to today, those who use public transport would benefit and others would lose, but the tax increase required would cost individuals less than a monthly pass does today. In theory, this tax increase would also increase work incentives.
Despite this, I consider the tax path politically less feasible— not least due to the inequalities caused by mortgage interest deductions between renters and homeowners. More funding sources are therefore needed if we are to abolish the ticket system.
An alternative to today’s system could look like this, a three-part package solution:
Employer Contribution
Most trips are work commutes— necessary for jobs to be done. The cost of these trips is embedded in employers’ operational costs via wages. Employees then pay the full amount to SL (Stockholm Public Transport), first through the county tax deducted from their salary, and then monthly through a travel card. This is an unnecessarily complicated and expensive detour. Instead, employers in Stockholm County could pay directly via a 0.75% payroll tax. This would cover half the funding— about 3.5 billion SEK. Regionally differentiated payroll taxes have been used in other contexts and proven to work.
Commercial Rent Surcharge
Central locations would become more attractive for workplaces and shops if travel were cheaper. A small tax of 4% on commercial rents within the city center would contribute 1 billion SEK. This might encourage demand in less central areas and ease pressure on the inner city. The real estate market is sensitive, and changes must be made cautiously and gradually. The proposal would slightly raise rents and prices in inner-city shops. A 4% rent increase spread over, say, five years should be compared to the 50% increase that occurred over the past 10 years.
Modest County Tax Increase
A small increase of 0.50 SEK in the county tax would cover the remaining 2.5 billion SEK needed.
The changes I propose would drastically reduce administrative costs while still fully funding public transport. The worst-case scenario is that more people start using public transport— but then we’d have an extra billion to use for more trips and better service.
This is the same guy who got in bed with a pharmaceutical company Valeant that bought up smaller pharmaceutical makers got rid of all of their RND and jacked the prices of all medications so high that no one could afford them. Congress got a hold of them but Valeant is still in operation.
Dems: Who will be first to bunny-hop us into our usual circular firing squad?
As a left-leaning Canadian I find the description used of Mamdani (democratic socialist) interesting. This is clearly not a political party he is a member of, so what is it? Given the opprobrium heaped on socialists, especially in the U.S. , I wonder why anyone would choose to identify as a socialist. Here in Canada our distinction—social democrat (notice small ‘d’)—is perhaps more accurate. One doesn’t have to be a full-blown, dyed-in-the-wool “socialist” to thoroughly support a more equitable distribution of resources.
Americans have been conditioned for decades to equate the word with totalitarianism.
What a shame! As Foucault remarked: ”It could all be otherwise.” I guess those doing the conditioning stand to benefit from economic, social & political inequities.
This goes back at least to the late 19th century in the U.S. It got worse after World War I: the freakout over the Russian Revolution was fierce. It resulted in the persecution of leftists in general, especially those from eastern Europe -- and also of African Americans demanding justice. (This helps explain why many decades later FBI director J. Edgar Hoover persecuted Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement as "Communist."
Thing is, you don't have to *identify* as a socialist. All you have to do is support economic justice and you will be accused of being a socialist -- by some Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans. It's actually encouraging that these days some prominent political people (like Mamdani) are identifying as socialist -- and getting elected!!
P.S. The Democratic Socialists of America is a bona fide organization, but not (AFAIK) a political party.
Thanks Susanna & Nina for your informative responses to my query.
Well said. Ackman is a destructive Republican. His corruption makes him irrelevant to decent humanity. His money can’t overcome it. What a shock it must be.
What ails Ackman?
The thought of having to give back a pittance of what he's taken from New Yorkers and others. It's a long way to November. Look for him and his cronies to finance Adams, Cuomo, or some other "independent" puppet to run in the generals. We haven't won yet.
This might be the best analysis of the NYC election I've seen yet. Lately I've been singing: "When tyrants tremble, sick with fear / And hear their death-knell ringing / When friends rejoice both far and near / How can I keep from singing?"
It's not about minding the socialism, it's about minding the absence of pro-israelism.
that too, for sure
This may be your most focused vituperation yet, Nina. Titanium tipped arrows.
Oh my God love this take on the race and hand-wringing from the hellscape of Los Angeles.
Mainstream Democrats are still quaking in fear of another George McGovern or even a Walter Mondale, who end up winning a single state. So they keep nominating so-called centrists like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris and keep losing.
Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris have something else in common that was most likely a factor: they're both women.
These dudes always claim to be the best and brightest but any time things don’t break quite their way they act like freeloaders and dependents.
My friend Leif Pagrotsky a Swedish Politician and economist, once suggested public transport in Stockholm be free, publicly financed. Here, I am attaching it translated (in 5 seconds by chatgpt) for anyone interested in thinking about how this could be handled.
How Should Stockholmers Pay for Their Public Transport?
The eternal discussion about the payment system in Stockholm’s public transport has flared up again. One moment the subway turnstiles are too slow, the next too fast. Never just right. In addition, ticket prices— as DN (Dagens Nyheter) pointed out in an editorial on April 21— are so complicated that one wonders if the aim is to scare off everyone who doesn’t have a monthly pass.
Public transport in Stockholm County costs just over 13 billion SEK to operate. Of this, Stockholmers pay 7 billion SEK through the county tax. About the same amount is paid by users of the public transport system through fares.
One billion SEK is lost to ticket administration, while the system is perceived as complicated and the services as expensive. We’re wasting a billion that could be used to create more public transport and better service.
Public transport is as obviously necessary for a big city as elevators are in high-rises. I’ve never seen special fees with turnstiles, guards, and inspectors for elevators— their costs are smoothly covered by rent for everyone in the building, even those on the ground floor or those who use the stairs. Anyone proposing otherwise would be laughed at. That’s how it should be in Stockholm too.
Yet development has gone in the opposite direction. A growing portion of the costs is borne by passengers, and a decreasing portion by those who choose other modes of transportation. As recently as the early 1990s, passengers paid 30 percent of the costs, compared to about 50 percent in recent years.
It’s expensive to collect fares. 100 subway stations must be staffed from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m., most with several people, 20 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. In addition, there are 53 commuter train stations. Each ticket gate costs 250,000 SEK. Most people buy their tickets at kiosks and shops, costing a few hundred million SEK of ticket revenue in compensation.
Efficiency also suffers. Every bus must spend time at each stop letting passengers board one at a time through a single door to pay under the driver's watchful eye. This wastes valuable time for the bus and driver, while also extending travel time for passengers.
The system has also become extremely complicated and unwelcoming for infrequent riders, such as tourists. For a tourist, paying for a bus ride almost requires special training since you can no longer pay on board. A map and compass are not enough because visitors struggle to find where to buy bus tickets— the opposite of what a tourist city needs.
No matter how you look at it, Stockholmers themselves must pay for their public transport. But much would be gained if we could find a simpler and cheaper system than today’s complicated and expensive one.
The simplest solution would be to completely replace fares with county taxes. Stockholmers’ incomes and living standards would not be affected— the amount they lose in higher taxes would be saved on fare costs. Compared to today, those who use public transport would benefit and others would lose, but the tax increase required would cost individuals less than a monthly pass does today. In theory, this tax increase would also increase work incentives.
Despite this, I consider the tax path politically less feasible— not least due to the inequalities caused by mortgage interest deductions between renters and homeowners. More funding sources are therefore needed if we are to abolish the ticket system.
An alternative to today’s system could look like this, a three-part package solution:
Employer Contribution
Most trips are work commutes— necessary for jobs to be done. The cost of these trips is embedded in employers’ operational costs via wages. Employees then pay the full amount to SL (Stockholm Public Transport), first through the county tax deducted from their salary, and then monthly through a travel card. This is an unnecessarily complicated and expensive detour. Instead, employers in Stockholm County could pay directly via a 0.75% payroll tax. This would cover half the funding— about 3.5 billion SEK. Regionally differentiated payroll taxes have been used in other contexts and proven to work.
Commercial Rent Surcharge
Central locations would become more attractive for workplaces and shops if travel were cheaper. A small tax of 4% on commercial rents within the city center would contribute 1 billion SEK. This might encourage demand in less central areas and ease pressure on the inner city. The real estate market is sensitive, and changes must be made cautiously and gradually. The proposal would slightly raise rents and prices in inner-city shops. A 4% rent increase spread over, say, five years should be compared to the 50% increase that occurred over the past 10 years.
Modest County Tax Increase
A small increase of 0.50 SEK in the county tax would cover the remaining 2.5 billion SEK needed.
The changes I propose would drastically reduce administrative costs while still fully funding public transport. The worst-case scenario is that more people start using public transport— but then we’d have an extra billion to use for more trips and better service.
— Leif Pagrotsky
People don’t hate billionaires. Billionaires hate people.