Social media rewrote the primary election playbook, with severe costs: Hardcore polarization (algorithms reward extreme views) AI deepfakes & fast-spreading misinformation Loss of local news coverage "Outrage fundraising" burns out voters optimized for clicks, not information

bulk cocaine prices inside entry hubs like Florida have fallen by nearly 50% over the last five years. So whatever DC is doing ain’t working www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say

The president says Operation Southern Spear has virtually ended drug trafficking by sea. Pentagon and DEA analysts have concluded otherwise.

washingtonpost.com

Why are new cars $50k+ in 2026? Where did cheap sedans, SUVs, and minivans go? Automakers chase profit margins, not the lower-middle class. In 2017: 36 models under $25k. In 2026: Just 4. The $20k car is dead. Tariffs, high interest rates, and inflation are the final nails.

A single person in a manhattan 1BR condo paying $20k/yr in property tax generates the same total city tax revenue as a family in a $6.5M brownstone paying $6k/yr, even if the brownstone family earns over $375,000 more in income

NYC property taxes favor multi-million dollar homes so heavily that it creates a massive income gap. A $6.5M brownstone owner paying $6k/yr in property tax would have to earn over $100,000 more in income than a 1BR condo owner paying $10k/yr just for the city to collect the same total tax.

NYC can finally unlock affordable fresh food if Walmart opens local "dark stores" delivery only warehouses in the 5 boroughs. Mayor can offer tax breaks. Cutting delivery distances is key to low-cost produce. 🍏🛒🚛

If the NY Housing Compact had passed, NYC metro could have ~180,000 more homes by 2029. That would have lowered market-rate median rents by ~5% (~$120/month) today. Instead, we chose not to build. And we’re all paying the price

NYC can lower daycare costs today by 30% by ending zoning bans on home daycares, slashing excessive square-footage mandates, safely adjusting staff ratios, and fast-tracking permits with a 90-day "one-stop shop." No subsidies, no new spending, just unleashing supply. Abundance

The Left Is Eating Itself. How purity politics and cancel culture leave progressive power on the table. www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/o...

Opinion | The Left Is Eating Itself (Published 2023)

How purity politics leave progressive power on the table.

nytimes.com

NYC is run by commercial NIMBYs No new jobs in my backyard

How much is NYC City Hall adding to your monthly rent? • Manhattan Market-Rate Rentals: ~25–30% of your rent goes straight to City Hall in property taxes • Rent-Stabilized Apartments: ~30–40%+ goes to city hall, as tax assessments outpace frozen rents • Staten Island Single-Family Homes: just ~5–10%

the next time a politician tells you they’re going to “fix housing,” ask one question: where are the new homes coming from? then ask: what are you doing about the zoning laws and property tax rates in our metro? watch what happens.

arguing about immigrants or billionaires is easy. arguing about socialism or capitalism is easy. arguing about suburban zoning maps, density limits, parking requirements and setback rules? that’s boring. it makes powerful local voters angry. so the housing shortage survives

The migration feedback loop is a geopolitical trap: 1. Migrant surge triggers right-wing nationalist votes. 2. Governments cut foreign aid & pull back globally. 3. Power vacuums & lack of aid destabilize fragile nations.(Iran) 4. Wars & crises breakout, forcing more people to flee. Cycle 🔁 repeats

If NYC allowed any rent-stabilized buildings to be demolished and replaced with 5X the units (while keeping the original affordable ones), nyc could add up to 4 million new homes….

The Odyssey is sold out in IMAX in New York. Would seizing the Lincoln Center IMAX theater, capping tickets at $10, and subsidizing it with tax dollars to save moviegoers money on blockbusters actually be progressive? Is this smart?

Have high home prices and total dependence on expensive cars squeezed our paychecks so hard it changed how we vote and think about taxes?

wouldn't it have been nice if data centers, utilities, and EV owners had partnered up from the start, using millions of plugged-in EVs as a giant battery backup to shave peak demand, cover data centers' extra load, pay EV owners for their help, and actually lower utility bills for everyone?

It’s 2026 and there’s still a few towns with single-family zoning in America. Crazy but true.

we keep saying public goods are “too expensive” because we only look at the price tag. then we stop building subway capacity, schools, power lines, parks and water systems. congestion gets worse. housing gets harder to build. commutes get longer. private investment slows down.

if a private good is scarce, don’t subsidize demand. rents go up. prices go up. competition gets uglier. subsidize new supply. build more apartments. more childcare. more transit. more electricity. you don’t solve a shortage by giving people more money to fight over a shortage.

Want to see how bad NYC property taxes really are? Just ask a single-family homeowner if they'd swap tax rates with a renter, condo owner, or rent-stabilized tenant (rates are 5X-10X higher). Watch them say 'absolutely not', and that’s exactly the problem. 🏠💸

Phil BuildTheFutureNow@philsustainability.bsky.social · 2w ago

NYC renters subsidize millionaire homeowners. Class 2 (rental buildings): ~5x higher tax rate than Class 1 (brownstones). Landlords pass those taxes to renters. single-family homeowners pay much less, a wealth transfer from renters to rich single family homeowners

Retro 2007 aesthetic is so hot right now

nyc can drop rents by making express buses run way faster into outer suburbs and actually upzoning the metro area with nj. expanding the commuter zone gives market rate housing room to get built on cheaper land. more homes, quicker commutes, lower regional prices. Abundance

here’s a question NYC keeps avoiding. what does one rent-stabilized apartment cost when it’s occupied by someone who no longer needs the subsidy? the answer isn’t just lower rent. it’s everything that apartment could have done instead.

Would New York produce more long-term middle-class wealth by reducing the tax burden on Class 2 owner-occupied housing (like condos) instead of devoting an equivalent amount of public money to building additional subsidized rental housing?

What creates more housing and lowers regional rents: spending $20B on direct public affordable housing in NYC, or spending $20B expanding express bus corridors and outer-borough transit into cheaper land?

Why are middle-class New Yorkers in condos, co-ops, and rent-stabilized homes forced to subsidize wealthy single-family homeowners with tens of billions of dollars every year through a broken property tax code?

NYC’s youth male unemployment rate is 16%-24%, how can NYC fix this crisis? Which change should city hall prioritize first? Is it tax rates, lack of workplace skills, rigid labor mandates, paperwork, licensing fees…