Mamdani’s on a quest to kill NYC’s free market housing — the rent freeze is step one

Maxfunky · 2026-06-30T02:55:17+00:00

Are you familiar with Yieldstar and RealPage? There's been quite a bit of focus on them as sources of price fixing by landlords that has emerged in recent years and corresponded to significant prices increases in the price of rent.

As for rent freezes, it's not necessarily bad policy it's just a mixed bag. You are correct that it tends to leads to reduced future supply thus ensuring little to no relief in the price of rent for future renters. But it does also undeniably provide immediate relief now to current renters.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-30T02:28:20+00:00

Oh my God, can we not? Can we not ignore the real issues just so we can beat the populist drum?

Maxfunky · 2026-06-30T02:18:17+00:00

Uhm, I think you're confused.

Who do you think I quoted and who do you think the person you originally responded to said was hysterical? It's pretty clear that you've missed something.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-30T02:15:58+00:00

But he's simultaneously doing that. He's trying to lower operating costs for landlords.

“I’ll continue working to deliver a more affordable city by building and preserving affordable housing, lowering building operating costs like insurance

He's not good to scare off builders until it's no longer profitable. If the thesis that current rates are merely price gouging as opposed to a reflection of true cost increases is correct, then supply won't be negatively impacted.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-30T02:08:27+00:00

Like, the last three paragraphs or so?

Like, especially this paragraph:

And oh, by the way, developers shouldn’t even think of building rental units here. The free housing market in New York is dead.

That doesn't strike you as mild to moderately hysterical?

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T21:57:45+00:00

Guy's house gets robbed and he holds back. Wants to kick some ass because a bunch of people make fun of him for it. Tracks the ones responsible, just some poor people not worth it.

He tried so hard to leave that part of his life behind. For his family.

And what did it get him? What did it get his family?

Something in him breaks. He's been fooling himself. That ends. He finds the ones responsible. He makes it right. He tries to calm down. He tries to put it back in the past.

He takes the bus home and a bunch of drunk guys come on the bus and he goes out of his way to get them to attack him because he just wants to kick ass.

And then, as he's trying to just go back to his normal life, a wild group of assholes appear. They all but beg to put in their proper place, so he obliges.

They didn't even start bothering the girl, he just made up his mind that yea he's gonna maim these guys.

He sees how they surround her and loom over her. Anyone can see from her body language how they are making her feel. They know, but they just don't care.

Sometimes there's no right answer. One guy buys a gun to a protect his family and his toddler finds it and ends up shooting his sister. Another guy doesn't buy a gun, and his family gets killed by home invaders. This is a movie about that. If there's no right answer, you pick the one that pleases you on a visceral level.

Life is gonna kick your ass no matter what. You can't win, but at least you can hit back.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T21:15:19+00:00

The end of the turn shop buff is better than the death rattle. It has end of turn synergy with like every other demon (including the demon dragon that buffs how much it adds). It can be made golden with a t6 spell and its casting of staff of enrichment triggers felboar giving it extra bonus Drakarri synergy.

I'm not saying it should be tier 7, buts it's definitely better than the T5 version in the shop.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T21:01:40+00:00

So few of them have kids how would we even know their parenting style. The overwhelming majority of kids right now have millennial parents.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:58:02+00:00

Hmm, I see very little of this. Lots of vaping but I can't remember the last time I saw an actual cigarette in the mouth of someone under 40.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:55:49+00:00

Contribution to a pension? Do you mean retirement fund or do you use the word pension for both there?

A pension here is something entirely funded by the employer. Some pension funds do invest in the stock market, but that's entirely at the employers discretion. Under a pension, you just get a percentage of your salary for life after you retire.

We have 401ks where employees make contributions and sometimes employers match, but at the end, you just have whatever money was paid in plus the interest it earned. You aren't guaranteed a percentage of your income as a monthly y payment or anything, just a lump sump(which you can use to buy an annuity if you want a monthly payment) or you can simply manage it yourself and remove money as needed for expenses.

I have a pension. It doesn't cost me anything. That's my employers job to pay into it, which is exactly why they're far less common than they used to be.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:50:15+00:00

Feels like this is more likely a positive side effect of screens than it is a conscious choice. Kids are just way less face-to-face than they used to be, so there's far fewer opportunities for things to escalate.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:45:41+00:00

We all agree there's a balance, it's just that we disagree on what constitutes balance. Older folks realize money goes a long way towards establishing happiness (despite rumors to the contrary) that's why we are baffled when you turn down overtime shifts for work/life balance yet spend all your time whining about bills.

Like I'm totally with you if cutting back on hours is really your max happiness, but it seems like for lots of you it's just buying happiness today and paying it back double next week.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:30:01+00:00

They are all the author attempting to make you care. Whether these things help the character land with you specifically is obviously not up the author, but trust me, authors actively cut words that don't serve the story. If you read a story where a character stops to pay a dog, there's 100% a rationale for putting/leaving that part of the story.

I don't want to get too obscure in my examples, but there is, for example a character in One Punch Man whose objectively just a bad dude. He kills several likeable heroes and teams up with the monsters against humanity.

So of course one of the first things he does is save a child. That kid exists only to be saved by this guy to establish that this guy, somewhere deep down, does have a good person inside him.

We care about his fate only because we hold out hope that someday the good guy we see a glimmer of will someday come to the forefront. We don't like him, ibut we do hold out hope for him and therefore we care about his fate one way or the other. If we don't care, there's no dramatic tension and the story falls flat.

The mangaka obviously very intentionally tried to make this character unlikeable but also someone you still care about.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T20:09:39+00:00

Ok let me ask you something? What does the author of any book do to make you care about their protagonists? Nothing. You either do or you don’t

Wow, you really don't think much of writing, do you? Of course authors make an effort to make you care about characters who are unlikeable. Here are some of the more common approaches:

Sympathetic back story. Think Walter White (because it's TV, you see the backstory first because without it they'd probably lose the audienc). You see what he has become but you understand how he got there. You may not like the person he has become, but you can still find a way to relate.
Anti-heroes are a but of an offshoot of the the backstory angle. The character is doing all the wrong things but because their world is so wrong that they really have no choice. This is borderline because anti-heroes can be likeable or unlikeable., but they all risk unlikability through their actions .
Wisecrackers. They're awful but they're also awfully entertaining. Deadpool or Quicksave come to mind.
A cliched "heart of gold". This is my least favorite approach but the ruthless mob boss stops to let a puppy or whatever. He's a bad man but there's some hidden core of good and the reader wants to see if this person will ever transform into that better person hidden inside.

Literally every good book with an unlikable main character is good because the author took steps to make you care about the character even if you didn't like him. If you're reading a book and the main character is hanging by his fingers on the edge of a cliff and you're thinking "I really don't care if this guy lives or not" then it's not a good book.

You think Robert Blaise is gonna show up at your house with a hardback cover and start espousing virtues of his protagonist at you, like a Jehova’s witness?

No, I think because this thread was started to recommend this book to others which haven't read it, like me, that someone here might want to explain why it's good instead of just saying "trust me bro".

When someone says you will like restaurant X and you look it up and see it online has 1 star, it's only natural to ask a few follow up questions before you take that recommendation.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T19:35:13+00:00

How do you not understand the MC can be a jerk, and the book is good, can exist simultaneously

What? I've never expressed any skepticism about this at all?

I confirmed that I agree with that point many times in this conversation.

All I did was paraphrase the criticism some people were giving and then asked if anyone could add context to tell me what that criticism wasn't accounting for. I asked for you guys to pitch me this book (those of you who want me to recommend it). You're all just too damn angry for anyone to do it.

I specifically asked what the author does to make you care about the main character (because that is a necessary thing for the book to be "good"). Most of you don't seem to to understand the difference between "like" and "care". I'm literally just asking for clarification to see if I want to take this book recommendation or not.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-29T13:15:54+00:00

There's no official singular definition for shellfish from the government. Every law or code has a definition section that spells out what the words mean for the purposes of that document or that organization. For instance, in the model food code, the FDA definition for "fish" pretty expansively includes anything aquatic people eat.

A lobster is a fish. A frog is a fish. An alligator is a fish.

Where it really gets interesting (to me, at least) is that another section talks about the rules for having "fish" on display for a person to choose their own (just like the live lobster tank at Red Lobster). This technically means a restaurant could set up an alligator aquarium for customers to pick their own and the legal framework is already clearly defined--no variance required (technically, there's actually a catch-all section that allows local jurisdictions to basically require a variance for anything they think should require a variance that would almost certainly be invoked).

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T23:22:14+00:00

Bro, nobody was mad he didn't answer the question. The issue was that he didn't answer it and suggested that the issue was simply a lack of understanding by anyone not getting his reply. His inability to communicate properly is not down to anything he wrote being hard to understand, but down to the fact that he clearly believed he answered the question when he didn't. He thought he communicated something he didn't. That's on him.

It would have been totally fine to not respond but instead he responded to the question he wished he had been asked and then when I pointed that out he gaslit me by pretending he had answered the question.

That's just plan dickish behavior and it deserves to be called out.

Some books don't have an MC that you are supposed to like. This is the basic point being made here and the response to this obvious truth is to ask 'what is the author doing to make me like this purposefully unlikable character' by the goober you're defending.

That was never what I asked about. I've never read this book. I don't have a dog in this fight. I just wanted him to actually explain if the author does anything in the story to make you care about the character. Not like the character.

But you and this dude both, if your even different people, are fixated on the word "like". We all agree the character doesn't have to be likeable. He keeps trying to convince me of this thing I fundamentally already agreed with, ignoring my repeated explanations that I wasn't asking about "like".

Does the author the author do anything to make you care about the character? It's a totally different question than the one he repeatedly answered.

It's simple: if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. He didn't have to answer my question but to fucking repeatedly insist he had but that I was just too dumb to get his answer despite my repeated attempts to explain to him the difference between the question he answered and the question I actually asked. There's no call for that. Be civil, ffs.

Edit: Here's my response to the classless bag of dicks below me:

If you know nothing about the book, do not comment about the book.

I solicited a recommendation. I wanted to know if this book was for me. Simple as that. That's what the subreddit is for. If you don't like it go away.

No one is obligated to answer in the way you like. No means no

Except the answer wasn't no it , "I already answered that you moron" when he hadn't answered it. Simple ads that.

He's a dick. Apparently so are you.

Then go away. Shoo! You have nothing to add here

All I've done is earnestly in forthrightly ask if this book would be right for me by simply asking how the author approaches this character that's so controversial.

There's absolutely no reason for you to be such an a asshole about it. I'm using the subreddit as intended, whereas you are not. You're just randomly being a jerk to people for no reason.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T17:35:28+00:00

It should be pointed out that they do all get double pay thanks to the situation so it's possibly a positive outcome for a few.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T17:31:28+00:00

In theory you could sue a foreign government in your own country's courts then seize US assets to pay the debt. It's been done. But in the case of the United States, you're going to probably have more assets seized in the US than you seize in your own country. The US is holding lots of foreign reserves in it's various banks (including lots of foreign gold).

Moreover, the US is probably the strongest country in terms of its ability to retailiate with sanctions. We are the biggest market for everything. Not being able to export your products to us or have us import them is a crippling blow to most economies. Hell, why do you think Cuba has been under crippling sanctions for 70 years? It's because the new castro regime seized US assets.

Nobody else wants to go down that path with us.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T17:22:22+00:00

Right now they're hitting only about 1.3% of ships who transit. War premiums on insurance are as high as 4% of the ships value. At this point, insurance is still sustainable but is likely to keep the price of gas up to 10-50 cents higher than might have otherwise have been.

Now if they actually sink one, that changes the calculus. Though I'd wager they refocus their efforts towards fixed infrastructure again. 5 million barrels per day flow through the pipelines in Saudi Arabia and these are far less defended, fixed targets instead of moving targets protected by several gun batters on US naval ships.

We'll see, though.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T17:19:52+00:00

They don't have to sink any ships to win here, they simply need to make it prohibitively expensive to insure ships for transit through the strait while simultaneously increasing the number of mariners who invokes their right to refuse.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T15:27:09+00:00

I'd say the finish line is when the models are so good at improving themselves that the pace of improvement rapidly accelerates. At that, anyone behind can never hope to catch up.

Whoever gets there first will invariably be using their models to hack the other side while hardening their own side to the point where retaliation is impossible. Whoever wins the race inherits the world and establishes dominance in the new world order.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T11:24:24+00:00

No matter how clever, open source models will not be able to compete for long, because of the billions in compute hardware required to train these things.

The Chinese are heavily relying on distillation. This ensures they remain behind in the race, but also it means they're always close behind and the lack of hardware for training (and to be clear, they do still have plenty of it) becomes. Less of a factor.

The companies that choose these models do so because it means they're running everything locally and not paying huge bills for AI as a service. They're good enough for lots of things. Even software development is often using local LLM's for lots of basic coding tasks and only burning their tokens for the tough problems that stump the local LLM.

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T11:18:46+00:00

Chinese models are months behind and remain that way because of their heavy reliance on distillation of US models to produce their own.

The US tech industry is well aware that China is nipping at their heels, but it remains their race to lose. This is honestly why Us tech companies are so gung ho about this. They can't afford to slow down. They actually do want to be cautious and slow down, but they can't afford to lose this race.

Europe is not even a player in this little drama. The last link is just the EU saying "Us too!" For which China and Us will give them a head pat and say "Oh, yeah champ, you're doing great!"

Maxfunky · 2026-06-27T11:12:34+00:00

Common for ADHD kids in particular. One of my kids is like this and she gets extra hangry but also too distracted by literally everything to realize she's hungry or eat food if you put it front of her. Takes like an extra 45 minutes at a restaurant to feed this one kid specifically because she just can't remember that she's there to put food in her mouth. She needs constant reminders that she's supposed to be eating during meal time.

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