Video summary
The discussion centers on Zohran Mamdani's anticipated election as New York City mayor and a critical assessment of his proposed policies, which are characterized by the speakers as fundamentally flawed due to their ideological underpinnings rather than economic viability. The transcript argues that while supporters view free buses and other social programs as benevolent measures for improving lives, these initiatives ignore the underlying mechanics of debt and money printing that already destabilize the economy. Critics assert that Mamdani's approach is driven by a Marxist ideology where he will persist in pushing his agenda regardless of economic consequences such as falling tax revenue or capital flight. The core contention is that attempting to solve housing affordability through regulation, rent freezes, or restricting foreign investment fails because it disrupts the entrepreneurial nature of real estate and discourages necessary maintenance and new construction. A significant portion of the dialogue addresses the historical failure of rent control measures in New York City, citing examples from the 1960s and 70s where such policies led to burned-out buildings rather than affordable housing. The speakers use a vivid analogy involving an arsonist: while society rightly condemns someone who burns down a building for insurance money, they argue that government-imposed rent freezes place property owners in similar desperate positions by making it impossible to cover upkeep costs like plumbing repairs or mortgage payments. When the potential return on investment drops below maintenance expenses, landlords face a choice between operating at a loss or abandoning properties entirely. The transcript highlights that this dynamic has already occurred historically, with arson becoming cheaper than repair for some building owners in areas like the Bronx, illustrating how well-intentioned policies can inadvertently incentivize destruction when market viability is removed. The conversation further explores the economic reality of housing supply and demand, rejecting narratives that suggest new construction cannot increase affordability. The speakers argue that artificially limiting who can live where or capping rents does not lower prices; instead, it drives them up by reducing competition among developers to build more units. They contend that while certain neighborhoods like Manhattan will naturally remain expensive due to finite land supply and high demand from wealthy individuals seeking specific amenities, the solution lies in deregulation rather than restriction. The argument posits that if building lucrative properties were allowed without excessive regulation, a surge in construction would increase inventory and lower rents for everyone, whereas current restrictions effectively tell investors not to invest in the area, exacerbating the housing crisis they claim to want to solve. The disagreement culminates in a clash between ideological goals and practical economic outcomes, with one speaker noting that voters across cultures consistently choose policies that punish the wealthy over those that help the poor, even if the latter are more beneficial overall. The transcript suggests that Mamdani's specific proposals represent a values problem where he attempts to artificially hold unit prices down for specific demographics without addressing the supply constraints of Manhattan. Critics emphasize that following basic economic math reveals that making it impossible for businesses to run profitable operations will cause those businesses to stop running entirely, thereby eliminating affordable housing options rather than creating them. Ultimately, the summary concludes that despite Mamdani's intentions to help New Yorkers born in the city who are being priced out, his methods contradict established economic principles and risk worsening the very issues he seeks to address by driving away investment and stifling development.
Read the full video transcript
Zohran Mamdani is clearly going to be
the next mayor of New York, but he is a
villain. A charming villain, but here's
what his fans are not thinking about.
>> The mayoral debate was yesterday. In the
words of Tom who calls Mamdani his
villain, is he like your super villain
now at this point? Like arch nemesis?
>> the super villain is Marxism itself,
socialism itself. When you look at the
price of gold right now and realize how
rapidly it's going up and the price of
gold is an indication as to how stable
the market thinks your economy is and
it's saying, "Bro, you're in real
trouble." Everything that is wrong with
the economy right now is based on debt,
money printing. Mamdani is going to make
that worse. The buses are never going to
be free, nothing is ever going to be
free, everything is going to be paid for
by somebody, but this all becomes
abstracted. If New York decides that
what they want is free buses, then my
only question is what aren't you going
to do to be able to pay for that? If
what we see is a measurable improvement
in something that we all care about
based on that and you don't see capital
flight because they're like, "Okay,
yeah, this is a thing that we're that's
worth paying for." Great, no problem. I
have exactly zero belief that that's how
this is going to go. I think he's doing
it from an ideological standpoint. I
think no matter what happens
economically, whether he gets the
funding or not, whether tax revenue goes
down or not, he's going to keep pushing
his agenda because he believes from an
ideological standpoint, this is what we
ought to do. The city's too expensive. I
think that housing has become too
expensive essentially ubiquitously
across all of America. I think it is one
of the most catastrophic problems. We
have tried rent freezes before in New
York. In fact, we're doing rent freezes
already in New York. It hasn't solved
the problem. We did rent freezes in the
extreme back in the '60s and '70s and it
led to the burned-out buildings in the
'70s and '80s. People do not understand
that even buildings housing is an
entrepreneurial endeavor. It is somebody
who their product is an apartment
complex. You buy that product cuz you
want to live inside of it. And what ends
up happening is imagine if I told you,
"Hey, you can't charge people You can't
charge them that amount for a pair of
shoes." All of a sudden, the number of
people making shoes goes down because it
has a knock-on consequence to all the
things that they can make those shoes
from. And so, upkeep in a building to
take it back to real estate, when you
put rent freezes, they're like, "Well,
you've now just made it impossible for
me to make money off my building. Maybe
make it break even, which just reduces
somebody's incentive cuz they're like,
"Wait, I'm going to have to work this
hard and I'm going to have nothing to
show for it. Why would I do that?" So,
people aren't going to run businesses
out of charity. What ends up happening
is people go, "Wait a second, if at
those rents, I can't afford to repair
the plumbing, for instance." So, they
don't and they tell you wrap a towel
around it. And so, you end up in a
situation, this is real, you end up
where a quarter of all of the buildings
that burned in the Bronx were due to
arson because it was cheaper to burn the
building and collect the insurance money
than it was to try to upkeep it. When
you start mapping
Marxist beliefs
on somebody who's really trying to make
people the poorest life better, you're
going to be eternally confused because
they they'll do things that are so
obviously well documented that it
doesn't work and they do it anyway. So,
it's like, "Why are they doing that?" If
you map them as resentful people who
want to punish the wealthy, all of a
sudden all of their moves make sense. In
the cross-cultural study, what they
found was if people had the opportunity
to create a tax policy that made the
poorest lives better, but also helped
the wealthy, they won't vote for it. Not
as much as they'll vote for something
that makes the life of the poor worse,
but punishes the wealthy. Across
cultures, the thing that people will
actually vote for is the thing that
hurts the rich. They won't vote for the
thing that helps the poor. And so,
helping the poor would be let the free
market stop putting so many regulations
on housing and let people go in and
build new apartments, build new
buildings and charge whatever rent they
can get away with charging. Now, putting
some restrictions on it like we're not
going to let foreign investors buy
property. Okay, I get that. With every
additional property that a person buys,
just charge them bigger and bigger
taxes. If somebody wants to buy the
third property and you're charging them
50% tax, okay, that's on them. Let them
do their thing. Very simple things like
that would, over let's say the next 5
years, make housing very, very simple. I
don't think that's necessarily a fault
of the policy as opposed to a fault of
the person. Of course it's a fault
policy.
>> I feel like we should be more mad at the
arsonist and not mad at the person whose
rents are lower. You should be mad at
the arsonist because it's illegal. You
should also recognize that the
government put them in that position and
I would bet dollars to donuts if I
described a scenario where let's say
that your mom had bought a house, her
whole life was like, "When I get to 65,
I'm going to retire. I'm going to move
to a really small apartment near my son.
I'm counting on the rent that I'm going
to be able to get from that house and my
upkeep on the house with property taxes
and maintenance and all of that, let's
say is $1,700."
And then the government comes along and
says, "You can't charge more than $1,500
a month for that apartment." Now your
mom's like, "Hold on a second. Now I'm
losing money every month with no hope of
ever making Or you could sell the
building. Who's going to buy the
building when I say, "You can't make
money. You will lose money." And so now
your mom is like, "No one's going to buy
this." So, you just tanked the value of
my real estate because anybody even
considering buying this building is
going to ask, "Can I make money off of
maintaining it, off of the property
taxes?" And if the answer is no, she's
left holding a building that she
literally can't sell. That's what
happens. And now Remember, this is your
mom who for 30 years paid into this
building with a plan for how she was
going to retire and then somebody says
you can't charge what the market is
willing to pay and now your mom's entire
like
plan for the rest of her life is just
over. She can't sell the building and
now she's looking at it going, "I I have
to get the money out of that, otherwise
I'm going to be working until the day
that I die." And this is where people
get put into desperate situations. Now,
I'm not saying that your mom is a good
person if she burns the building down,
but I am saying I get why one day late
at night she's like, "Well, that is an
option." Housing I I think is a
different bucket here. Even the grocery
store thing, I can kind of take that
point and see that a different bucket.
So, you know the way to make housing
more affordable is to make more housing.
You come up with a narrative that we
can't build up, which I totally reject
wholeheartedly. I'm just saying when we
build up, especially in New York City,
you've never seen a high-rise that's
more affordable than the unit that it
replaced.
>> now your beef is I don't want there to
be places like Beverly Hills that poor
people they just can't afford this
neighborhood.
>> That's all of Manhattan. Fine.
So, so you're saying it's fine that they
can't afford it? Yes, of course I'm
saying it's fine they can't afford it.
>> But I thought the problem was of housing
affordability.
>> Yes, of course. You don't have a right
to live in whatever neighborhood you
want to live in. What I'm saying is stop
artificially making it impossible for
people to live somewhere that it's the
government regulation is making it
impossible. For instance, stop freezing
rents. Because if building a business in
Ma- building a building in Manhattan was
lucrative, then a whole bunch of people
would do it. And if a whole bunch of
people were doing it and renovating
these buildings and knocking them down
and building new things with more
tenants, it's going to become more
affordable. Now, if in doing that, the
wealthiest people in America are like,
"Actually, I want to migrate to the
city." Yes, it is very possible that
given that that is just a fixed finite
piece of land, that the wealthiest
people are going to keep pouring in. But
my instinct is that isn't going to be
true.
>> number one city in the in the world,
arguably.
>> Right, but are you trying to regulate
who can and can't come there? I don't
understand. If you are saying no
neighborhood should ever be able to be
out of reach of I don't know if you'd
say anyone, but are you saying every
neighborhood should have low-income
housing? I have not said that, no.
Perfect. Then now you're just into what
you just said a minute ago, which is
there will always be a supply and demand
problem when Manhattan is a finite size.
What I'm saying is the free market is
going to lower the prices, it's not
going to take them up. Regulation is
going to take them up, it's not going to
lower them. So, I'm saying, "Yeah, it's
possible that an area just becomes so
desirable for a whole host of reasons."
Take the Hollywood Hills, for instance.
The Hollywood Hills are always going to
be more expensive because they have a
view and there's just always going to be
a certain type of person that's going to
be willing to pay for that view. So,
limited amount of hills, how many
additional units we try to build on the
Hollywood Hills, we are going to reach a
upper threshold. Yeah, exactly. We ran
out of hills.
But I'm saying if you want to lower it
as much as you can, then you would
deregulate as much as is safe. I'm not
saying you take it to zero. And then if
you're going to put limitations on it,
put limitations of habitation. So, I get
a regulation that says you can only own
a house here if you actually live in it
at least 51% of the time or whatever.
Now you're going to find out when it is
single-family ownership, single-family
dwellings, what becomes the price. And
then if that price is just it's too
high, there's so many people that can
afford the that place and want to live
in that place, well, Manhattan is just
more or less off-limits for anybody
that's making less than whatever,
$350,000 a year. I understand the A to Z
of what that laid out, but the end
results of that policy would be this is
just how much it is, either you got it
or you don't. It's It's like you're at
the bar, it's at the club.
>> going to be the case. You You can't You
can't own
a house on a minimum wage job. It's just
not going to be possible. Now enter
Mondani who's saying there are people
who are quote-unquote residents of New
York who are born in New York who are
now getting priced out of this same
thing because the demand is too high,
because the prices are rising, because
New York is the number one city in the
world, because people are still flooding
in. Yep. They are getting priced. So
what he's saying is I'm going to
artificially hold this amount of units
just so that way I can help those
specific people. And if it worked, I'd
cheer for it. It doesn't work, it goes
the exact opposite direction. It will
make a housing crisis. It will make it
so that nobody wants to invest in the
area. There's rent control units now.
There's people who still want to live in
New York. New York does not have a
vacancy problem. I I guess this is the
fundamental this is a values problem. So
I think we could talk about housing but
>> You have to tell me what what the end
result is that you want to get to. Drew
personally understands how the economics
are working. The reason I'm trying to
argue Mondani's point is because I think
a lot of times when we talk about him on
the show it becomes oh that's a
socialist and we kind of minimize like
what he's trying to Mondani's policy is
full It it is so ignorant to how
economies work that the very thing I'm
screaming for is for people to just
follow the math. If you follow the math
you realize if you make it impossible
for business to run, then business stops
running. Business is how you get
affordable homes in anywhere and he's
breaking that equation. We've run this
scenario before not only here but all
over the world. It doesn't work
sometimes, it literally never works. But
we're doing that now though and I that's
the thing that I think When I'm
literally hear yourself, you're saying
hey New York is totally it's
totally broken and we're we're already
running his policy. That's my
point is e- even now when you have some
small amount of it going on, it hasn't
solved because what it does is it
tells it tells investors don't invest
here.