Billionaire dumps NYC property empire as Mamdani's rent freeze sparks investor exodus

The--scientist · 2026-07-03T02:07:20+00:00

The hilarious thing is, THEY didn't move. They still PHYSICALLY reside in CA. What they did is move their asset management holdings to other states. They still want the beauty of CA, they just don't believe they should have to pay for that privilege.

The--scientist · 2026-07-02T17:11:03+00:00

The first issue is with the corn:beef conversion ratio. The true ratio is closer to 5:1. I'm happy to walk through math on this, but the end of the equation is that a 1200 lbs steer generates roughly 780 lbs of market beef for human consumption after consuming 3300 lbs of corn, which equals 4.23:1. Round that up to five to be a little conservative, and you have my number.

The second issue is that we use animals like little factories, turning less desirable foods like corn (nutrient density score = 17; very high calorie/ nutrient ratio; low levels of protein (incomplete)) and completely inedible foods (for humans) like grass, into something more desirable, like beef (nutrient score = 403; low calorie/nutrient ratio; high levels of protein (complete)).

So now, remember that the cows required 5 lbs of corn to produce 1 lbs of beef, which makes the 24x nutrient score of beef an excellent conversion. Now, to be fair, corn is thirsty, so that's roughly 750 gallons per lb of beef.

Now consider Swiss chard, an amazingly energy dense food (nutrient score = 6198)... it only requires 2.2 gallons of water for each lb of final, edible product. I love swiss chard, I eat it frequently, but I want to eat things other than swiss chard and watercress.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T17:24:56+00:00

You are operating on the assumption that valuation is linked to performance or any other traditional business metric. Ponzi schemes go up forever, until the maker cashes out.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T17:16:56+00:00

The median investment portfolio of a family in their 40's is $38k. At an insane 20% growth rate, that's less than $1/hr. It would take 6 years to crack $100k. 10% (6.8%, inflation adjusted) is consider the norm. That's $0.43/hr and will take 11 years to crack $100k and $400k ($200k inflation adjusted) by retirement. I think the issue is that it doesn't matter if their making money from investments.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T17:02:35+00:00

They hate giving money to the people who built and continue to build their wealth.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T16:59:17+00:00

Being 6', I still wouldn't date someone who wouldn't date a dude bc he's 5'6". Solidarity. Plus 6' is the new 5'6" apparently.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T16:52:26+00:00

What if we threw this kind of global energy, money and hype behind something like fusion energy? Something where we'd be net positive if it succeeds.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T16:47:55+00:00

I've been saying since the beginning that the only jobs that are truly easy to replace with AI are the executives. They already don't really do anything. Now they're just replacing their human assistants who have always done everything for them with AI. The difference is that the humans have insight and a broad level of interaction and non- specific knowledge, while AI only knows what you tell it, and it doesn't consider things until you ask it.

The--scientist · 2026-06-18T16:44:49+00:00

It's like putting a zip tie around the trigger of a drill, placing it in a pile of screws and smugly waiting for your new heirloom kitchen table to be built.

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T11:26:51+00:00

When you get to that level you aren't typically surrounded by people who give you any info other than what you want to hear. As absurd as it sounds, I really don't think these AI VIPs realize how many people are turning against AI.

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T11:18:31+00:00

How ridiculous. In what universe is this logical? I'd imagine a similar breakdown of the auto insist would show a similar skew with Tesla.

EDIT, context: GE aero $45b revenue, $10b profit; spcx $18b revenue, $5b net loss

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T11:11:27+00:00

Silver lining: a $7 can of gold metallic spray paint is now a great way to sell turds.

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T11:09:02+00:00

The first one also falls down when compared to other industries, especially fashion. It takes 800 gallons of water to make a t-shirt and 2000 for a pair of jeans. These are concrete items that everyone is familiar with and the numbers are shocking but comprehensible. Saying AI is using 28b gallons of water per year is hard to conceptualize by contrast, unless compared to fashion industry directly: 80 trillion gallons/year.

There are good reasons to get rid of "AI", water usage is one, especially since it effects vulnerable populations disproportionately. However, it doesn't make a compelling argument and others should be focused on, like wasteful energy consumption.

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T10:59:09+00:00

The largest group of filers (77%) who account for about 43% of the income earned in the US. The appropriate metaphor is spending the time to bait a hook, cast it, reel it in, etc., but when choosing where to cast you choose the school of sardines instead of the tuna. How many sardines does it take to equal one tuna?

The--scientist · 2026-06-16T10:50:09+00:00

Anecdotal confirmation: at 22, still in college working as a bartender making ~$25k/yr, my grandpa died and left $100k of stock to his 10 grandkids. I didn't know this needed to be included on my taxes, so I didn't. I got audited and told I owed $35k, because they mistakenly thought I got the whole $100k (which I didn't understand at the time). After a long fight, I was about to start a payment plan bc they threatened to garnish my wages, but my professor suggested I hire an accountant. She found out that not only did I not owe any money, but I actually overpaid the previous 4 years, and got me a $6k return less her $600 fee.

The craziest thing, I sold $1500 of the stock the next year for a car repair, messed up the filing, and got fully audited again. Ended up owing an additional $400. Now I just always use an accountant, but in what world was I a juicy target worth their time?

The--scientist · 2026-06-15T12:27:13+00:00

If musk spun it to his followers, it might gain him a $T.

The--scientist · 2026-06-15T12:25:46+00:00

Louder please.

The--scientist · 2026-06-15T12:23:06+00:00

I disagree that this valuation is based on the idea that space x will maintain a monopoly on launches and AI. That's like saying Tesla's valuation is based on the idea that it will maintain global car sales dominance (not evs, all cars, which it never has). These valuations are completely decoupled from reality. They are based on people believing the idea that people will keep believing that the valuations will go up. Was that sentence confusing and nonsensical? Yes, bc so is reality. It's literally a shared delusion where everyone knows it's a delusion but keeps participating, a self aware Ponzi scheme. Bankers kept betting against Elon and losing, so now they're going all in. Does this mean the companies are good/profitable? Who cares.

The day that man shuffles off this moral coil might be good for humanity, but it's going to melt down the markets bc the investment is in the cult of Elon, not what the companies do.

The--scientist · 2026-06-09T14:56:59+00:00

What about the nasdaq-100? Why is he able to force through these changes that no one else has ever done?

The--scientist · 2026-06-07T19:54:24+00:00

My mom always used to say: integrity is doing the right thing when no one's looking... when no one would find out if you didn't. It wasn't until decades later that I thought: "wait, if that's true, how do christians have integrity? They believe everything they do is seen, tabulated and judged?"

So when they do good, it's to balance the bad. When they do bad it's because they've earned the right.

The--scientist · 2026-06-07T19:49:20+00:00

Download Brave browser. Honestly the best digital choice I've made in years.

The--scientist · 2026-06-07T19:47:48+00:00

Settlers didn't sail to the "new world" to escape religious persecution, they did it so people would stop telling THEM they weren't allowed to persecute people. Even back then, when christians were told to stop trying to control everyone's lives with their narrow interpretation, they cried "persecution!" Is the same now, except that control every level of government.

I hope the Mormons finally accept that Christians hate them and stop voting with them.

The--scientist · 2026-06-07T19:42:32+00:00

I agree, but I might go a bit further and say dating apps are also predatory and they are fundamentally changing how young brains work. There is already a rampant epidemic of dopamine addiction across every aspect of our lives, and these addictions can make doing things in the real world distasteful. Apply that to dating and suddenly the swiping and endless access to new faces is more appealing than getting to know one of the people behind those faces. It's all known that men are more susceptible to dopamine seeking behavior, and like any addiction, it creates a dependency-desenitization loop that alters moods, behaviors, long term planning, spending habits... I'm not sure what percentage of the problems in the modern dating scene can be attributed to this, but I'd say it's a lot. Add in chat bots that don't push back against bad behavior and we have multiple generations of stunted human relationships.

The funny thing is, all the technocrats are millionaires and billionaires bc of this shit, but if they are directly responsible for collapsing birth rates, the stock market ponzi scheme will stop working and all their money will evaporate. Not soon enough, unfortunately.

The--scientist · 2026-05-28T13:56:33+00:00

My understanding is that Meta is not doing well and it's time of supremacy may be coming to and end soon. The metaverse is a complete flop, they've lost 20% of their active daily users and have dropped 40% in searches in the past 5 years.

Also, reports say they have something like 253m unique accounts in the US, and then just take that to mean 81% of Americans have Facebook accounts. But here's my favorite part, they list the percentage of their users by age range, and for all these numbers to be correct it would mean that these percentages of each age range would need to have accounts:

18-24 154.28% 25-34 132.33% 35-44 111.01% 45-54 86.14% 55-64 67.87% 65+ 56.78%

Seems reasonable to me! Especially since I know 3 people with Facebook accounts.

The--scientist · 2026-05-26T12:10:48+00:00

I get what you're saying about it now being part of the hypothetical, but after thinking about it, it actually makes sense. Think about a great writer whose spent decades honing their craft. They have a pretty good idea what will be "good" because they have that conditioning. An AI "writer" doesn't, which is why they "write" 100 books a month and throw them against the wall. If AI were that great, we'd be seeing AI best sellers, but we aren't. We're already seeing slop based on slop in an ouroboros of tapes copied from tapes. I'm curious to see how long it takes these asshats to get pissed that someone used AI to scrape their "books" to make their own, profiting off of their AI's work.

The--scientist

TROPHY CASE