4 ms·

Mamdani says he doesn't believe 'that we should have billionaires'

42 points by geox 1y ago

Aurornis 1y ago
This campaign was very good at reciting taglines and aphorisms that resonate with certain parts of the voter base. This is one of them. The reporter asking the question basically teed up a softball and let him hit it, again without delivering anything policy related.
- dangus 1y ago
  And yet, he’s the only candidate who seemed to have any willingness to address concerns of constituents in any significant way. The entire rest of the field was busy kissing Israel’s ring as if anyone in New York struggling to pay rent cares about that. Just because a politician uses simple and catchy language doesn’t mean there isn’t policy substance behind it. Democrats have been losing for years trying to explain complicated macroeconomics to their voting base, Mamdani is one of the young democratic candidates who is a breath of fresh air.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - garbagecoder 1y ago
    If you think no one in NYC cares about Israel… and I mean clearly you do, just in the opposite way. Cuomo was a terrible candidate.
    - dangus 1y ago
      The #1 issue is the economy, by far, between voters of both parties. Foreign policy is #4 on the list out of 10 (Pew Research). I’ll also remind you that this is a mayoral race. The pew research numbers I’m citing are for president of the United States. I am quite aware that Cuomo is a terrible candidate, that doesn’t take away from Mamdani being a very good candidate in terms of his effectiveness at conveying his message and building a coalition. Of course none of us know yet whether he will be a good mayor.
  - yostrovs 1y ago
    Democrats explaining macroeconomics to their voting base?? Never have I seen such a thing. They generally do what Mamdani did: promise things that people want for free or for cheap. With some hate for some groups added for balance.
    - dangus 1y ago
      You mean like cheap eggs and hate for undocumented immigrants and trans people? You say Democrats just want to promise freebies so I’ll give you a fun challenge: find me the last Republican Congress that passed a budget that reduced the growth of the national deficit. I’ll give you a hint there, it’s not the Tax Cut and Jobs Act nor the Big Beautiful Bill. Meanwhile, Medicare for All was estimated by the congressional budget office (nonpartisan) to save money.
    - phs318u 1y ago
      > promise things that people want for free or for cheap. With some hate for some groups added for balance I hate to break it to you but that's the exact same playbook used by the current administration.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    All right, and where is the substance? Yes, there could be some. But where is it? Anybody seen it? Democrats have also been losing on social justice issues while ignoring the actual economic concerns of the poor. Well, is "there shouldn't be billionaires" a social justice slogan, or is it going to actually help the poor in some way? I think it's more a social justice slogan.
    - dangus 1y ago
      Kind of a silly question when the candidate has an entire webpage with details of his plan: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform
      - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
        Uh huh. And where on that is "no billionaires"? I looked but didn't see it. So we're back at "slogan, with no substance".
        dangus 1y ago
        I have no idea why you’re hung up on the slogan. You need substance to justify it? That’s like saying you need substance to back up a slogan like “criminals shouldn’t break into my house.” I think voters understand intuitively why billionaires shouldn’t exist.
ggm 1y ago
This probably will be weaponised against him but as a proposition shorn of political intent, it has some good qualities. At root, he says the number of orders of magnitude in society should be more constrained. Having a span of 10^6 (billions to thousands, so knock of 3 of the 10^9 digits) is too many. I would think thats a defensible propositon. Arguing that some people demand aspirational goals as high as that in order to do what they do begs many questions: Not that their demand is invalid (as demands go, I've never found bargaining very easy, arguing for billions is beyond my comprehension) but I seriously doubt the ability to add that much value is a skill distinct enough that it can command that rate of return, against all other choices. Not "they can't generate the ROI" as much as "others can generate that ROI just as well, it's contestable". Fund managers (for example) vary in costs, and returns, in ways which I think undermine the proposition here. Many people take remarkably "fundamentalist" views of peoples rights to limitless potential. "it's my right to accumulate billions if I want" is very strong in opposition to this, aside from the people who may plausibly earn billions who have an entirely rational reason to disclaim alignment here. We experienced this 6 orders of magnitude down the tree in an australian election around tax concepts called "franking credits" which were proposed to be ended by the labor party. Large number of pensioners voted against it, despite being repeatedly told they had none, and would lose none: The meme of "Labor is coming for your franking credits" was unstoppable. Many people who will fail to become millionaires, will oppose constraint on becoming Billionaires. A parallel but unrelated case: Tax on lottery winnings. Fair or unfair?
- Aurornis 1y ago
  The problem with these constructions is that they’re a Motte and Bailey: As soon as anyone starts pointing out the numerous problems with analyses that assume zero-sum games and no second-order consequences (like business owners restructuring to move their companies to nearly any other country which wont seize their ownership) the person retreats to something like “I just think taxes should be slightly higher” or “Why do you hate feeding the poor” or something.
  - viraptor 1y ago
    How does it apply here? There is no retreat - Mamdani's plan is public and is "taxes should be slightly higher" among other things. Specifically higher corporate tax and top percentage wealth tax for the area.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
[flagged]
- viraptor 1y ago
  You're welcome to raise/discuss specific policies. He's open about them - why would we need to criticise some generic potential ideas?
  - FridayoLeary 1y ago
    I'm just pretty anti socialism. I think his general ideology is a cause for concern.
- dangus 1y ago
  The whole “rich people will pack up and leave” threat is abusive relationship nonsense. Rich people have been threatening to leave higher tax desirable locations for ages and they never do it. Has Trump sold his tower in NYC because he has lower tax rates in Florida? No, of course not. Why is billionaires row in Manhattan instead of Jacksonville Florida? After all, taxes are lower in Jacksonville. Billionaires need New York more than New York needs billionaires.
  - Dracophoenix 1y ago
    David Tepper's short move to Miami in 2016 upset New Jersey's budget. Jeff Bezos permanently relocated to Miami a couple of years ago and while the move hasn't publicly affected the state of Washington in the same way, it's certainly constrained what Olympia can collect with its recently-instated excise tax on stocks holdings. In addition, the consequences aren't just short-term financial losses, but long-term political shifts. During the pandemic, California saw an exodus large enough to lose a seat in the House of Representatives where Texas saw a gain. There is an abusive relationship, but it is one perpetrated by high-tax states against their constituents. Voting with one's feet and dollars is the solution to rid oneself of the abuse.
    - 1y ago
abbycurtis33 1y ago
[flagged]
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  What about supply and demand require unregulated accumulation of wealth?
  - abbycurtis33 1y ago
    There isn't a finite amount of wealth
    - paulryanrogers 1y ago
      There are a finite amount of resources. Wealth has value because it's a measure relative to others. Otherwise if everyone had the same amount of credits/dollars/units then why would anyone exchange their resources or labor for it? So having wealth overly concentrated means some have a disproportionate amount of control over resources that impact everyone.
      - abbycurtis33 1y ago
        There is neither a finite amount of resources nor a direct correlation between resources and wealth.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- lovich 1y ago
  I didn’t read into his comments to see if he had this level of nuance but the idea that billionaires shouldn’t exist is perfectly valid under a model that supports capitalism as they indicate a market failure. Everytime someone or some organization is able to accumulate vast amounts of wealth relative to others, it’s indicative of some barrier to entry into the field that ideally we would ruthlessly innovate away. If he meant “billionaires shouldn’t” exist as in “punish people for success” then that’s just dumb imo
hollerith 1y ago
Does he also think that NYC shouldn't let billionaires leave?
- undersuit 1y ago
  Better the billionaires leave and the city adapts(like building housing on their abandoned property) if you ask me
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Why would their property be abandoned? It won't be abandoned in any legal sense; it will either be sold, retained, or seized.
    - undersuit 1y ago
      Selling it would mean you pay taxes. Retaining it you pay taxes. It's probably not going to be seized if you don't abandon it, it's not like it's a low income neighborhood in the way of a highway.
      - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
        Billionaires didn't get to be billionaires by abandoning $10 million properties to avoid $1 million in taxes.
        undersuit 1y ago
        Then the additional taxes shouldn't be an issue.
- paxys 1y ago
  Regardless of one's stance on Mamdani's politics this entire "how will NYC survive without the billionaires???" talk all over the news and social media has been exhausting. No, NYC isn't standing today because of the grace of a few dozen ultra rich individuals. They can all leave tomorrow, and the city will be perfectly fine. And we all know they won't, because no matter how much they shout otherwise on social media these people love the culture and convenience of liberal cities. The majority of Republican politicans, donors, CEOs and "influencers" wouldn't survive a day in the "middle America" they claim to embody.
billy99k 1y ago
[flagged]
drweevil 1y ago
And he's absolutely right. It can't be a democracy if money speaks and people can't.
missedthecue 1y ago
Wouldn't it make more sense to say that we shouldn't have poor people?
- JojoFatsani 1y ago
  Two very different statements and both could be true
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
potato-peeler 1y ago
I never understood this argument. What does it even mean not having billionaires. These “billionaires” are share holders in their own company. They don’t have liquid cash worth billions. It’s the value of the shares that make them billionaires. Is the politician suggesting they should liquidate their shares? Who will own the company then? Will they keep changing ownership and diluting shares if it reaches billion dollars? This argument doesn’t even make sense. As far as taxes go, these are unrealised gains. Even for Capital gains to trigger, there has to be some kind of transfer/sale. And transfer/sale has a different meaning in tax and legal language.
- RestlessMind 1y ago
  > Even for Capital gains to trigger, there has to be some kind of transfer/sale. The way rich people avoid capital gains tax is to borrow against their stocks. So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society.
  - potato-peeler 1y ago
    Lending against securities is available for general public. Don’t know what your complaint is? > So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society. Why is there an expectation for “someone” to be a guardian of society? Isn’t the govt functioning? I am sorry to say, conversations like these are pretty common in echo chambers.

42 points by geox 1y ago

This campaign was very good at reciting taglines and aphorisms that resonate with certain parts of the voter base. This is one of them. The reporter asking the question basically teed up a softball and let him hit it, again without delivering anything policy related.

dangus 1y ago
And yet, he’s the only candidate who seemed to have any willingness to address concerns of constituents in any significant way. The entire rest of the field was busy kissing Israel’s ring as if anyone in New York struggling to pay rent cares about that. Just because a politician uses simple and catchy language doesn’t mean there isn’t policy substance behind it. Democrats have been losing for years trying to explain complicated macroeconomics to their voting base, Mamdani is one of the young democratic candidates who is a breath of fresh air.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- garbagecoder 1y ago
  If you think no one in NYC cares about Israel… and I mean clearly you do, just in the opposite way. Cuomo was a terrible candidate.
  - dangus 1y ago
    The #1 issue is the economy, by far, between voters of both parties. Foreign policy is #4 on the list out of 10 (Pew Research). I’ll also remind you that this is a mayoral race. The pew research numbers I’m citing are for president of the United States. I am quite aware that Cuomo is a terrible candidate, that doesn’t take away from Mamdani being a very good candidate in terms of his effectiveness at conveying his message and building a coalition. Of course none of us know yet whether he will be a good mayor.
- yostrovs 1y ago
  Democrats explaining macroeconomics to their voting base?? Never have I seen such a thing. They generally do what Mamdani did: promise things that people want for free or for cheap. With some hate for some groups added for balance.
  - dangus 1y ago
    You mean like cheap eggs and hate for undocumented immigrants and trans people? You say Democrats just want to promise freebies so I’ll give you a fun challenge: find me the last Republican Congress that passed a budget that reduced the growth of the national deficit. I’ll give you a hint there, it’s not the Tax Cut and Jobs Act nor the Big Beautiful Bill. Meanwhile, Medicare for All was estimated by the congressional budget office (nonpartisan) to save money.
  - phs318u 1y ago
    > promise things that people want for free or for cheap. With some hate for some groups added for balance I hate to break it to you but that's the exact same playbook used by the current administration.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  All right, and where is the substance? Yes, there could be some. But where is it? Anybody seen it? Democrats have also been losing on social justice issues while ignoring the actual economic concerns of the poor. Well, is "there shouldn't be billionaires" a social justice slogan, or is it going to actually help the poor in some way? I think it's more a social justice slogan.
  - dangus 1y ago
    Kind of a silly question when the candidate has an entire webpage with details of his plan: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform https://www.zohranfornyc.com/platform
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Uh huh. And where on that is "no billionaires"? I looked but didn't see it. So we're back at "slogan, with no substance".
      - dangus 1y ago
        I have no idea why you’re hung up on the slogan. You need substance to justify it? That’s like saying you need substance to back up a slogan like “criminals shouldn’t break into my house.” I think voters understand intuitively why billionaires shouldn’t exist.

ggm 1y ago

This probably will be weaponised against him but as a proposition shorn of political intent, it has some good qualities. At root, he says the number of orders of magnitude in society should be more constrained. Having a span of 10^6 (billions to thousands, so knock of 3 of the 10^9 digits) is too many. I would think thats a defensible propositon. Arguing that some people demand aspirational goals as high as that in order to do what they do begs many questions: Not that their demand is invalid (as demands go, I've never found bargaining very easy, arguing for billions is beyond my comprehension) but I seriously doubt the ability to add that much value is a skill distinct enough that it can command that rate of return, against all other choices. Not "they can't generate the ROI" as much as "others can generate that ROI just as well, it's contestable". Fund managers (for example) vary in costs, and returns, in ways which I think undermine the proposition here. Many people take remarkably "fundamentalist" views of peoples rights to limitless potential. "it's my right to accumulate billions if I want" is very strong in opposition to this, aside from the people who may plausibly earn billions who have an entirely rational reason to disclaim alignment here. We experienced this 6 orders of magnitude down the tree in an australian election around tax concepts called "franking credits" which were proposed to be ended by the labor party. Large number of pensioners voted against it, despite being repeatedly told they had none, and would lose none: The meme of "Labor is coming for your franking credits" was unstoppable. Many people who will fail to become millionaires, will oppose constraint on becoming Billionaires. A parallel but unrelated case: Tax on lottery winnings. Fair or unfair?

Aurornis 1y ago
The problem with these constructions is that they’re a Motte and Bailey: As soon as anyone starts pointing out the numerous problems with analyses that assume zero-sum games and no second-order consequences (like business owners restructuring to move their companies to nearly any other country which wont seize their ownership) the person retreats to something like “I just think taxes should be slightly higher” or “Why do you hate feeding the poor” or something.
- viraptor 1y ago
  How does it apply here? There is no retreat - Mamdani's plan is public and is "taxes should be slightly higher" among other things. Specifically higher corporate tax and top percentage wealth tax for the area.

FridayoLeary 1y ago

[flagged]

viraptor 1y ago
You're welcome to raise/discuss specific policies. He's open about them - why would we need to criticise some generic potential ideas?
- FridayoLeary 1y ago
  I'm just pretty anti socialism. I think his general ideology is a cause for concern.
dangus 1y ago
The whole “rich people will pack up and leave” threat is abusive relationship nonsense. Rich people have been threatening to leave higher tax desirable locations for ages and they never do it. Has Trump sold his tower in NYC because he has lower tax rates in Florida? No, of course not. Why is billionaires row in Manhattan instead of Jacksonville Florida? After all, taxes are lower in Jacksonville. Billionaires need New York more than New York needs billionaires.
- Dracophoenix 1y ago
  David Tepper's short move to Miami in 2016 upset New Jersey's budget. Jeff Bezos permanently relocated to Miami a couple of years ago and while the move hasn't publicly affected the state of Washington in the same way, it's certainly constrained what Olympia can collect with its recently-instated excise tax on stocks holdings. In addition, the consequences aren't just short-term financial losses, but long-term political shifts. During the pandemic, California saw an exodus large enough to lose a seat in the House of Representatives where Texas saw a gain. There is an abusive relationship, but it is one perpetrated by high-tax states against their constituents. Voting with one's feet and dollars is the solution to rid oneself of the abuse.
  - 1y ago

abbycurtis33 1y ago

[flagged]

paulryanrogers 1y ago
What about supply and demand require unregulated accumulation of wealth?
- abbycurtis33 1y ago
  There isn't a finite amount of wealth
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    There are a finite amount of resources. Wealth has value because it's a measure relative to others. Otherwise if everyone had the same amount of credits/dollars/units then why would anyone exchange their resources or labor for it? So having wealth overly concentrated means some have a disproportionate amount of control over resources that impact everyone.
    - abbycurtis33 1y ago
      There is neither a finite amount of resources nor a direct correlation between resources and wealth.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
lovich 1y ago
I didn’t read into his comments to see if he had this level of nuance but the idea that billionaires shouldn’t exist is perfectly valid under a model that supports capitalism as they indicate a market failure. Everytime someone or some organization is able to accumulate vast amounts of wealth relative to others, it’s indicative of some barrier to entry into the field that ideally we would ruthlessly innovate away. If he meant “billionaires shouldn’t” exist as in “punish people for success” then that’s just dumb imo

hollerith 1y ago

Does he also think that NYC shouldn't let billionaires leave?

undersuit 1y ago
Better the billionaires leave and the city adapts(like building housing on their abandoned property) if you ask me
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Why would their property be abandoned? It won't be abandoned in any legal sense; it will either be sold, retained, or seized.
  - undersuit 1y ago
    Selling it would mean you pay taxes. Retaining it you pay taxes. It's probably not going to be seized if you don't abandon it, it's not like it's a low income neighborhood in the way of a highway.
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Billionaires didn't get to be billionaires by abandoning $10 million properties to avoid $1 million in taxes.
      - undersuit 1y ago
        Then the additional taxes shouldn't be an issue.
paxys 1y ago
Regardless of one's stance on Mamdani's politics this entire "how will NYC survive without the billionaires???" talk all over the news and social media has been exhausting. No, NYC isn't standing today because of the grace of a few dozen ultra rich individuals. They can all leave tomorrow, and the city will be perfectly fine. And we all know they won't, because no matter how much they shout otherwise on social media these people love the culture and convenience of liberal cities. The majority of Republican politicans, donors, CEOs and "influencers" wouldn't survive a day in the "middle America" they claim to embody.

billy99k 1y ago

[flagged]

drweevil 1y ago

And he's absolutely right. It can't be a democracy if money speaks and people can't.

missedthecue 1y ago

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that we shouldn't have poor people?

JojoFatsani 1y ago
Two very different statements and both could be true

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

potato-peeler 1y ago

I never understood this argument. What does it even mean not having billionaires. These “billionaires” are share holders in their own company. They don’t have liquid cash worth billions. It’s the value of the shares that make them billionaires. Is the politician suggesting they should liquidate their shares? Who will own the company then? Will they keep changing ownership and diluting shares if it reaches billion dollars? This argument doesn’t even make sense. As far as taxes go, these are unrealised gains. Even for Capital gains to trigger, there has to be some kind of transfer/sale. And transfer/sale has a different meaning in tax and legal language.

RestlessMind 1y ago
> Even for Capital gains to trigger, there has to be some kind of transfer/sale. The way rich people avoid capital gains tax is to borrow against their stocks. So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society.
- potato-peeler 1y ago
  Lending against securities is available for general public. Don’t know what your complaint is? > So they get to enjoy their wealth without paying back to the society. Why is there an expectation for “someone” to be a guardian of society? Isn’t the govt functioning? I am sorry to say, conversations like these are pretty common in echo chambers.