Elon Musk has just purchased Twitter among cries for freedom of speech and demands that Trump be reinstated after he was kicked off for lying about the elections. What we really need is an outfit like Twitter that presents proponents of both sides of any question and lets them fight it out. But that’s impossible if one is lying all the time. So there must be truth and that requires an arbiter of truth. An arbiter will result in decisions being made that will remove information from the board because it is not truthful. This is where the lame assholes like Jim Jordan or Ted Cruz get all bent out of shape because without lies they have no platform.
So what does Musk’s purchase portend? Is it the beginning or the end of free speech? Musk has stated that he is for more free speech but that all depends on your definition of free speech.
When Ted Cruz celebrates Musk’s move one begins to think that Musk may be opening a door to a Trumpian version of free speech in which truth is not a recognized element. On the other hand, a version of open debate, even one limited by standards of truth would be a great tool for those attempting to disseminate information in a world with very low standards of intelligence.
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Commentators are moaning about the idea that voters aren’t listening to the programs that some politicians are putting forth. That’s because voters are either not too bright, grossly uneducated, or so set in their ways that many just don’t want to hear any new ideas simply because that will force them to think. Rural America believes that Democrats are only interested in creating welfare for lazy people and letting crooks out of jail. Any idea that runs contrary to that just gives them a headache.
If the Dems want to win this election they have to stop talking about gun laws, abortion, prison reform and a pile of other legislation they rightfully want to pass for the benefit of a lot of people who don’t even understand what those laws mean and concentrate on the cost of gas at the pump, rising rents, grocery prices and what kids ae being taught in schools, because that’s what the majority of Americans are worried about. Why are they worried about these things? Because these are the things that affect their lives!
Most Americans don’t really care about the war in Ukraine simply because it doesn’t directly affect them. They vote about stuff that does. The GOP understands this. They have been successfully lying to these people for decades and they have figured out how it works.
Now it’s the Democrats job to make the people understand that the GOP lies to them and that the Democrats will help them if elected in large enough numbers to pass legislation without the help of phonies like Manchin and Sinema.
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If there is to be any kind of successful culmination to the war in Ukraine, Putin will have to arrive at the conclusion that peace in Ukraine, no matter how much he must give up to get it, will be better for him than a continuance of the current mess. But how do we make him understand that? Troop losses and the destruction of his plan doesn’t seem to affect him at all. Maybe it’s because all the action is happening in Ukraine and is being kept from the Russian people. The answer may lie with a barely reported action that appears to have taken place this week when explosions in three Russian villages near the border were underreported. It is not clear if these explosions were the work of Ukrainian artillery shooting across the border or anti-Kremlin resistors setting them off on site. Either way it’s a sign that all is not well in the homestead and maybe it’s a sign that there is now some kind of organized résistance to the Putin regime at home. But if there isn’t, maybe we could encourage such a resistance by equipping the Ukrainians with the kind of artillery that can take out some significant architecture inside Russia. It just might get some well-connected people who are currently on the fence to get off the pot.
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A couple of blogs back I threw in a filler about the destructive rent control laws in NYC. I never expected to get much reaction but in a world beset with the war in Ukraine, the abortion issue, immigration problems and all sorts of other important stuff that one really hit the fan. The biggest reaction seemed to be that I attacked the problem without even hinting at a solution. So okay!
Yes I do have one and here it is.
As previously stated the State has found a very safe and voter friendly solution to affordable housing. Let the landlords pay for it by keeping them from raising rents on Stabilized tenants. This works great for the tenants because their rent rarely goes up and never by any substantial amount. It works even better for the State because they can stop worrying about tenants who can’t afford high rents but do have a rather active history of demonstrating.
Unfortunately all these great results are killing the landlords, especially the small ones who own only one or two buildings. The problem is simple. The cost of running the buildings keeps going up but the rent doesn’t. Eventually the buildings will all be losing money, which means no necessary renovations or repairs get done and things get dangerous. This actually happened once before, in the ‘50s and we found landlords walking away from their buildings or just losing them when they could no longer pay taxes. That turned The Bronx, Harlem and the Upper West Side into slums. The Upper West Side has fought its way back and Harlem is beginning to do the same but the DeBlasio administration doubled down on landlords and now many of them are in trouble. But there is a solution. The City won’t like it because it will cost them money and the only way to replace it will be to raise the taxes some place else and we all know how everyone hates to pay taxes but here goes. The difference between Stabilized rents and free market rents can be significant. The difference between what an Upper West Side landlord may be getting for a Stabilized and a free market one bedroom can easily run to $1,500 a month and more. That’s $18,000 a year on just one apartment. Multiply that by two or three Stabilized apartments and we’re talking significant money. Here’s really only one fair place to get it from and that’s a refund on property taxes. Most townhouse or brownstone sized multiple dwellings on the Upper West Side pay more than $100,000 per year in property taxes. Those tax payments are the solution. The city gives the landlord a tax rebate for the difference between the Stabilized rent they are getting and the free market rent for the apartment. It costs the tenant nothing, the landlord is made whole, and the city or state has to look to the entire tax base to make up the difference, which is as it should be.