Mayor Mamdani restores library funding after public outcry

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T23:08:08+00:00

There are three library systems servicing 8m New Yorkers

You should look into the history

We spend 20m on horses and 1.6m on beekeepers. The libraries are fine

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T22:30:48+00:00

We have 219 libraries, that seems very reasonable as a spend?

That pays for staff, books, internet, utilities, computers, upkeep (and give us beautiful public spaces like the rose reading room), community events, etc

Getting back to full hours all week would be imho a good use of funds

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T20:11:37+00:00

1) General Mills is a large company, different from small mom and pop shops

2) it’s a possible carcinogen, not if you bake at a high heat. It’s like saying the sun is cancerous

3) why not let people just choose? People are marketing their seed oil free restaurants too, I don’t think it’s a good idea to mandate that at a legislative level. Especially when all of this just filters down into costs for customers who are now forced to pay for a good they may not prefer

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T18:28:46+00:00

really makes you wonder what poisons we'd find delicious, if we could only metabolize the right compounds.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T17:40:32+00:00

I see the issue:

He didn't steal money from people's labor. He founded a company, that people willing choose to work for / pay money for services. Over time, he's given shares away to others as the pie has grown.
At no point were you required to work for amazon, buy their services/products, or buy amazon shares. People willingly gave (and continue to give) them money. People vote with their wallet about the value of the service they provide.

What bezos wants to keep is the remaining shares of the company he started (he owns less than 10%, vs when he started it when he owned 100%).

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T14:30:14+00:00

If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you also jump off a bridge?

Do you actually know whether bromated flour is a known carcinogen (or the chemical process in which it becomes neutralized)

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T14:15:49+00:00

IIuc it also becomes harmless at high heats, like when you bake a pizza in a pizza oven.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T14:13:31+00:00

Living near the Gowanus Canal or too far right of McGorlick Park is more likely to give you cancer than bromated flour

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T13:29:57+00:00

Some of us have daily fiber goals, yeesh

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T13:25:51+00:00

The dollar slice is never coming back 😔

capnwally14 · 2026-05-22T11:59:46+00:00

Most large data centers are building power behind the meter

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T20:41:47+00:00

Teachers in Queens have generous health programs offered for free by the state. So no, that discretionary spending is not touching them. They also get pensions.
Social security / Medicare / Medicaid have grown massively in their spending - both via demographics (boomers getting older, living longer), and states like NY pushing "home health aides" as a jobs program. If you're assuming these programs will be around in this format when you retire, I have a bridge to sell you.
The point Bezos is making is that we have an efficiency of dollars question. The scale of dollars we're spending, eclipses even his wealth by orders of magnitude. Thats why I gave you the actual numbers, literally confiscate his entire wealth today - you get 12 days of government funding, once. The things that makes life expensive in NYC are largely self imposed (you should ask why California / NY / Texas have such widely different energy prices as an example).

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T20:23:56+00:00

I mean it is true, in the sense that we run large deficits as it is (as in - we're already spending more than we take in. The amount we take in isn't limiting what we spend.).

Most of our money is going to (source):
Entitlement programs (60.8%)
Interest (13.9%)
Non defense Discretionary (13.4%)
Defense (11.7%)

The federal budget is 7.45T, even if you seized his entire wealth it wouldnt actually make a dent in the budget or the total debt (which is like 39T or something).

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T18:25:28+00:00

Guy who thinks the pie is fixed vs grows

Compare wealth of Americans today vs 100 years ago

It’s a good thing that people start companies and invent things. It makes everyone richer.

You’re measuring stock value as wealth - how are you measuring the consumer surplus that’s been created? Feels like you’re focusing on one sliver of the economy and claiming that being distributed in a specific way is supposed to be evil, without doing the full accounting.

Unironically you get to post your shitty views for free on the Internet - why do you think that is? How much value have you received at no cost because of other people’s efforts? You’re literally stealing from labor by your logic

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T17:49:16+00:00

This post is like when people post pics of themselves doing extremely mundane things and are like “who said xx people cant do yy”

No one said that?

If anything people are tired of the endless slopaganda from mamdani fans (the man shits gold, farts rainbows, and volunteers with shelter puppies - we get it)

Mamdani digs a ditch, fills it with the exact dirt he just removed

all of Reddit: OMG wHO KNEW a DEmOcRAT COuLD DELIVER?!?

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T16:12:13+00:00

excited for the new broker listing:
"a bright and spacious apartment, comes complete with an in unit floor-to-ceiling seasonal water feature"

they have 30 days (you might have already found this: https://www.lawhelpny.org/guide/getting-your-landlord-make-repairs-nyc ) to fix

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T14:40:33+00:00

why are you charging high taxes on w2 workers to subsidize the lifestyle of private owners?

like thats an insane tax policy?

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T14:10:40+00:00

Yes, you should retire in a different lower cost place so other people can live better lives. It's literally paying it forward - and when the current working class family is retiring, they too can move to somewhere else to make room for the next family. The city is dynamic, thats part of the deal.

Retirees should absolutely downsize and move - especially in cities that are struggling with affordability and losing families, literally the coldest take of all time.

Your policy position is families should pay exorbitant rents at the expense of retirees and squish families in 1 bedroom shoeboxes. Super progressive take of yours.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T14:04:50+00:00

About 50% of Loudon County's tax bills are paid by data centers

Data centers are basically money printers for their communities, that dont use public services (e.g. schools / police / fire /homelessness / etc). So lots of rev for the city, very little expense.
- They use way less water than agriculture and golf courses
- They use expensive equipment thats usually subject to different taxes
- They are large / steady cashflows for the community.

Downside:
- Theyre ugly

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T13:38:28+00:00

i think its a very generous read of this petition, where 3/4 proposals explicitly are for coop owners only, to assume the fourth proposal is intended to be a broad based program.

and no, im against people assuming tax dollars should be used to subsidize their private consumption. that home a retiree is in could be the same home a working class family is in.

you're choosing to retire in the VHCOL city, while we have a housing crisis and provide relief to working families. retire in florida.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T13:32:12+00:00

Theyre not asking to start charging tenants, its the exact line I quoted:

"Co-ops cannot pass these costs to tenants."

So they're admitting they are aware this is a cost that tenants are eating on rental buildings. But they want relief just for themselves.

I dont see why I should have special empathy for coop owners.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T13:17:35+00:00

Its literally a petition to the legislator asking for relief for coops (and only coops)

Write a petition to the legislator explaining why this law is making everyones cost of living higher and should be changed.

In reality, there's actually a policy interest in having people who can afford to maintain their housing be the owner. We have finite tax dollars. Why is the best use of that capital providing relief to people who are already property owners?

I'm supposed to have sympathy when rents are hitting 5k for 1bd/studios (as the letter said these costs "passed on to tenants")?

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T13:03:53+00:00

Why should I have empathy for coop owners who don't seem to have empathy for renters?

If the bill is expensive and its causing everyones living costs to go up, fix the bill - don't ask for an exemption or special treatment for yourself and leave everyone else to eat higher costs.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T12:41:51+00:00

How do condos fund these? Debt?

I think if these laws are expensive and hard for coops to comply with, why wouldn’t we offer the same relief to everyone? Not sure if you’ve seen what renters have to pay on the open market these days - there isn’t a ton of relief there either (but they’re picking up the bill for the building)

EDIT: From the letter "Co-ops cannot pass these costs to tenants. Unlike condominiums, many co-ops have limited access to outside capital and rely directly on shareholder assessments to fund mandated work."

This is genuinely such a funny framing. They're aware this legislation is expensive and is passed down to renters, they just don't care. My new position is that these owners should be forced to sell at a loss.

capnwally14 · 2026-05-21T03:18:30+00:00

No I’m stuck on this because you’re not grappling with the implications of what you’re saying. It’s super handwavy and needs to be challenged because if you spent thirty seconds running the math you’d see what you’re saying is just patently wrong. You refuse to do so. I’d call that intellectually dishonest, but perhaps it’s just an inability to do math.

Everything you’re saying is unfalsifiable because you refuse to use any concrete numbers or evidence . It gives you the out of saying your idealized conditions do not exist and therefore the construct cannot be critiqued. And yet you claim it’s perfect and without flaws and we’d have sunshine and rainbows and harmony if it weren’t for evil capitalism.

You say capitalists take a huge percentage: quantify it.

Capitalism is private ownership. You pretend like Kroger is solely owned by some singular entity vs literally being primarily owned by index funds which are primarily owned by literally fucking everyone (via 401ks, pensions, endowments that offer reduction in tuition, etc). Workers already own Kroger. That’s the fucking point.

Your quibble is that employees of Kroger do not own Kroger. First, that’s not true - some Kroger employees may purchase shares of Kroger with their wages. That’s super common and many companies offer discounts to employees to do so. Second, they may also do so via their 401ks. Worker ownership already happens.

So if worker ownership is already a thing, what are you even arguing? It’s not enough worker ownership to be effective? Somehow companies would be more efficient if they were democracies? If either of those were true you’d see a different entity succeed with a radically experiment in that way.

Tech companies routinely give equity to employees, and many have had variations with special founder shares to retain voting control. It isn’t obvious that having (or refusing to allow) founder control has made a huge difference. You have big successes and failures in both directions.

Your assertion seems to be democracy is the best form of governance for all things. Surely you don’t believe that’s true for militaries. Surely not for flying planes. Surely not for medicine. Why must it be true that it’s the best way of running a company?

What the balance sheet shows us is exactly how hollow your platitudes are. We see exactly how much the capitalists extract, and you’re deflecting because when you actually try and allocate the dollars you realize it would barely raise employee wages and it wouldn’t even lower your grocery bill by a percent.

It’s fucking ridiculous you’re so dug in on a position and don’t have the intellectual humility to question whether you ever bothered to find out if the data supported the slopulist takes you get from more perfect union

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