The 2020 Election, Mamdani, Bad Economic Policies, and More
Main Discussion Topics
New York City Budget Deficit and Taxation
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced plans to "tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations" to close a $12 billion budget deficit
Mamdani blamed former mayor Eric Adams for "gross fiscal mismanagement"
Discussion of how wealthy individuals and corporations already support infrastructure disproportionately
Analysis of incentives for billionaires to leave high-tax states
Mark noted the problem with treating wealthy residents as captive: "They act as if the billionaires will stay there and the corporations will stay there, like they're locked in, and like they can't move and they'll allow themselves to be exploited. That's not gonna happen that that exodus is happening in California where they're proposing a one-time wealth tax on billionaires here in the state of California."
Michael emphasized the predictable failure of the approach: "It's idiotic economic policy, and it's woefully untrust. You're punishing people for their success, so fuck you. That's the first thing. But you're just gonna cause billionaires to leave because if you price them out, you know, New York has some sort of built incentives for people to stay... But there comes the tipping point where they say, no, I'm outta here. Screw this. You're not gonna keep robbing me. They never say, we need to cut spending. It's always, let's tax some more."
Economic Policy and Political Incentives
Discussion of Daily Economy article about economists' policy recommendations and politicians' misuse
Analysis of how politicians ignore qualifications and context when implementing economic policies
Public choice theory and how government employees act in their own interests
Comparison of private sector vs public sector incentives
Michael explained the dynamic: "The idea that government employees don't run on the same incentives as everybody else is just ludicrous. They wanna act in their own interest, they wanna benefit themselves, and that's what they're gonna do. And the way that they are able to do that is by accruing more and more power, keeping themselves in office."
Mark distinguished the different incentive structures: "The incentive for the public sector is to look for the immediate gratification, the gain in the polls or to leverage the next election. And the incentives on the side of the private industry are to create value for long-term gain. And so their desire to satisfy their self-interests are incompatible with each other. And the guy in the public sector, in politics who wants to increase his power, does so at the expense of the private sector."
Alex Pretti Death and Second Amendment Hypocrisy
ICE shooting of Alex Pretti, who was carrying a firearm at a protest
Discussion of conservative hypocrisy on Second Amendment absolutism
Analysis of how right-wing advocates abandoned gun rights principles when applied to someone from the left
Comparison to Black Panthers and historical gun rights debates
Discussion of police training and use of force
Mark noted the inconsistency: "We see this kind of hypocrisy with respect to the left. Whenever the right's in power, when the right's in power, they all seem to be arguing at odds with each other. Here we have the conservatives who have argued consistently over past few decades for Second Amendment Absolutism, and whenever the left was caught doing some shenanigans, whenever people were criticized for bringing firearms to certain events, the right shot back with Second Amendment absolutism, until somebody from the left actually believes in Second Amendment absolutism. And then they circle the wagons around an anti-gun policy."
Michael condemned the tribal rationalization: "The thing is, they come up with all kinds of rationalizations. Like you hear a guy say yes, but he wasn't carrying his ID and the law in Minnesota is you have to carry your id, which is like a misdemeanor that if you just go get your id, I guess $25 fine. It's just stupid and it's just so tribal."
Police Training and Professionalism
Discussion of use of force escalation in the Prety case
Analysis of when firearms should be drawn in confrontations
Critique of ICE officers' handling of the situation
Emphasis on need for better training and emotional control
Mark drew on personal experience: "From the very beginning, Michael, this is an escalation of force from what's necessary from the very beginning. Now, if you're under pressure because people are screaming at you, they're calling you names, and they're blowing whistles, and it's loud and it's irritating to you, and you can't contain that shit around the public, you do not deserve to be in the job. Don't be a law enforcement officer, just don't, you don't have the mental capacity for it."
Michael rejected excuses for unprofessionalism: "I've had this argument with cops in the past where they say, well, when you're in that situation and the adrenaline's pumping and the guy's pissing you off, you get angry and maybe you hit 'em. Maybe? No, you're no, no. Don't, you can't, on one hand claim that you're these superheroes, right, with the best training, and you're there to keep everybody safe. And then on the other hand, say, but when you get mad, it's okay to kick somebody in the teeth. No, I'm sorry. You're supposed to be trained to operate under those circumstances if you can't find another line of work."
Trump's Iran Policy
Trump sending USS Lincoln carrier strike group to Iran
Shift from supporting Iranian protesters to negotiating with the mullahs
Comparison to Venezuela situation where regime change led to another communist government
Discussion of betrayal of Iranian protesters who faced violence believing in US support
Mark drew the parallel to Venezuela: "They allowed the court appointed vice president Rodriguez to come up and take Maduro's place. She was, she is a communist that was under the prior administration, worked in intelligence and was probably responsible for a lot of counterinsurgency and probably imprisoning and murdering a lot of people. So she's a terrible human being. She's now the front person for the Venezuelan government."
Mark expressed concern about the pattern: "Imagine how disheartening this must be to Iranians who took Trump's message seriously to go out in the streets and continue protesting. They go out there, they're murdered to the tune of somewhere in the neighborhood of upwards of potentially 30 or 40,000 human beings being murdered by the regime. But they're doing it anyway because they think the Trump administration is going to protect them somehow. Instead, Trump says he wants a nuclear deal and he's ready to deal with the mullahs."
Michael summarized the reliability problem: "For any of these groups to trust what an American president tells them, or the American government says, you gotta be outta your mind with the amount of times that the American government has let people down. This to me is just more evidence in my favor for why we don't wanna support military interventions, especially not when Trump is at the helm, because he's simply undependable. We do not know what he's gonna do. We don't even know what he's after. I don't even know if he knows what he's after."
Katie Miller and Classical Liberalism
Katie Miller (wife of Stephen Miller) tweeted that classical liberalism is "woke and deeply leftist ideology"
Response to Anthropic co-founder expressing loyalty to "principles of classical liberal democracy"
Discussion of how Trump administration officials don't understand the founding philosophy of America
Mark read Miller's claim: "If this is what they say publicly, this is how their AI model is programmed. So he's gonna program his bigoted, classical liberal democracy ideas into an ai and then you poor benighted folks in the world are gonna use that as a source of reference and you're gonna be twisted and turning in the wind, unable to make out the truth because you'll just be indoctrinated by this horrible ideology."
Michael provided the definition: "Obviously, you know, classical liberalism is individual rights, free markets, civil liberties, constitutional government, you know, that sort of thing. It's literally what the country was founded on. So when the author of this article points out, you know, Stephen Miller claims he's saving Western civilization. He wants to save the west, save the country, but doesn't even know the political philosophy upon which it was founded a little bit disturbing, maybe a lot disturbing."
Federal Immigration Law Enforcement
Trump claims states are required to enforce federal immigration laws
Discussion of 10th Amendment and constitutional limits on federal power
Concept of "commandeering" - federal government cannot make states enforce federal laws
Analysis of federalism and state sovereignty
Mark appreciated the constitutional protection: "This sort of reminds me of the thing that the anarchists want is to be able to shop around for governments. In a way they have that with the Federalist system. If they think a state has a better set of laws, it's more amenable to their worldview, they can actually travel to that place if they have the resources to do that, which is a lot of people have done from California 350,000 people a year go to states that are more amenable to their perspective of the way governments should act."
Michael confirmed the constitutional position: "From what I gather, and this is certainly not an area I've done a deep dive into, but it certainly makes sense to me and from what I've read, everything that I've seen says that no, the state law enforcement does not in fact have to enforce federal immigration law."
Georgia Election Office Raid
FBI agents sent to Fulton County, Georgia to confiscate ballots
Trump continuing investigation of 2020 election
Discussion of using government resources for personal grievances
Analysis of potential violations and intimidation tactics
Michael characterized the action: "More absolute bullshit. The 2020 election was not stolen from this orange pip squeak. It's just the fact that he can't handle loss all over social media. The MAGA Faithful are saying, yeah, we're gonna prove it. What are they gonna do once it's proven? Biden was an illegitimate president, they're not gonna prove anything. They may fabricate it, but they're not gonna prove it. So it's just more of Trump using the United States government to forward his own agenda, retribution. It's all a part of this narcissistic, insecure schmuck."
Political Tribalism
Discussion of Roger Clemens steroid testimony and how parties arbitrarily divided
Analysis of how tribal loyalty overrides principles and evidence
Comparison to current political dynamics
Critique of defending positions based on party rather than principle
Michael recounted the bizarre example: "Roger Clemens, who was accused of steroid use, went to Congress to testify. All the Republicans defended him and all the Democrats opposed him. And I remember watching and I was thinking, what the what? What the hell's happening here? And John McLaughlin from the McLaughlin group says, why did that happen? Because there was zero ideological or political reason for Democrats to oppose Roger Clemens and Republicans to support him. There was just none but somehow they went into their tribes."
Notable Quotes
Mark on Economic Incentives: "The incentive for the public sector is to look for the immediate gratification, the gain in the polls or to leverage the next election. And the incentives on the side of the private industry are to create value for long-term gain."
Michael on Police Accountability: "You can't, on one hand claim that you're these superheroes, right, with the best training, and you're there to keep everybody safe. And then on the other hand, say, but when you get mad, it's okay to kick somebody in the teeth. No, I'm sorry. You're supposed to be trained to operate under those circumstances if you can't find another line of work."
Mark on Constitutional Federalism: "This sort of reminds me of the thing that the anarchists want is to be able to shop around for governments. In a way they have that with the Federalist system."
Michael on Classical Liberalism: "Classical liberalism is individual rights, free markets, civil liberties, constitutional government, you know, that sort of thing. It's literally what the country was founded on."
Mark on Law Enforcement Standards: "If you're gonna sit in a car and somebody questions you, and you yell, I'll snuff you out, kind of thing, you are not, and you should be banned from being a fucking law enforcement officer. You simply don't have the disposition to deal with that stuff."
Referenced Media
Reason Magazine article on Alex Pretti and gun rights
Daily Economy article "Don't Push the Policy Button"
CNBC article on Trump's Iran policy
The Free Press article on New York City budget
Key Themes
Economic policy failures and taxation
Second Amendment hypocrisy and tribalism
Police training and use of force
Constitutional federalism and state sovereignty
Foreign policy inconsistency and betrayal
Individual rights vs collective identity
Political tribalism overriding principles
Capitalist Thought of the Day
"Be an individual. We are all individuals in this world. We must think for ourselves, act for ourselves, and do the best that we can for ourselves to make the most out of our lives. You should be number one in your own life. You should be the most important person to you. You have a right to be happy. You have a right to act in your own best interest. That, of course, doesn't preclude friendship or relationships. It is absolutely in our interest to have productive good quality relationships. But in the end, we are all fundamentally alone. We are individuals, and this is something to be embraced, not fought against." - Michael