Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Lads podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway, former Odd.
Speaker 2: Lad's guest is very likely to be the next mayor
Speaker 2: of New York City.
Speaker 3: That's right. So we interviewed Zora and Mumdanie. I think
Speaker 3: it was in early May and right after that. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying I'm not going to take credit for this,
Speaker 3: but right after that he really started to surge in
Speaker 3: the polls and he went on to win the Democratic nomination.
Speaker 2: I think we think very very minor credits.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it was a coincidence.
Speaker 2: The thing actually that struck me after that episode was
Speaker 2: hearing from a lot of people who were basically like,
Speaker 2: I don't like any of his ideas at all, but
Speaker 2: I still like the guy, and I still found him
Speaker 2: impressive and intelligent and very strong understanding of policy. And look,
Speaker 2: I don't think his victory is attributable to us, but
Speaker 2: I did think that was telling in the sense that
Speaker 2: a lot of people who maybe on paper shouldn't or
Speaker 2: wouldn't really like some of his views, didn't seem particularly
Speaker 2: threatened by him, which I thought was really interesting and
Speaker 2: may have contributed to his sort of extraordinary margin is
Speaker 2: extraordinary victory.
Speaker 3: I do think what's interesting about this whole story is
Speaker 3: the tension between New York City as this hub of capitalism,
Speaker 3: this hub of business. You have a lot of money here,
Speaker 3: a lot of billionaires obviously with their own interests, and
Speaker 3: now you have this democratic socialist candidate who's proposing something
Speaker 3: a little bit new. Although some people would say we
Speaker 3: had something more similar to that in say the nineteen
Speaker 3: fifties nineteen sixties New York. But that tension is what
Speaker 3: I find really fascinating right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have to we have to learn more.
Speaker 2: I mean again in the run up to the election. Look,
Speaker 2: what are New York City's business financial elites thinking right now?
Speaker 2: What do they think of a possible I'm Donnie Merrilty.
Speaker 2: What do they think about New York City in general?
Speaker 2: All of this stuff, There's there's a lot to learn.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a rich vein of interesting
Speaker 2: stuff for us for a while.
Speaker 3: We're going all New York local politics, I guess, But
Speaker 3: I do think it has national consequences.
Speaker 2: Internet, so we should talk about it. We should definitely
Speaker 2: talk about anyway. I'm really excited. We do have, indeed
Speaker 2: the perfect guest to talk about how the city's business elite, billionaires, etc.
Speaker 2: Are thinking about the city, think about the election, the
Speaker 2: possibility of Donnie being the mayor. We're going to be
Speaker 2: speaking with Kathy Wilde. She's the president and CEO of
Speaker 2: the Partnership for New York City, which is an organization,
Speaker 2: a business leadership organization here all kinds of major employers.
Speaker 2: If you read any article about Kathy in the media,
Speaker 2: described as sort of one of the ultimate power brokers
Speaker 2: of New York City.
Speaker 3: Yeah, words like power brokers, power player comes up.
Speaker 2: In every single one, and so truly the perfect guest. So, Kathy,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 4: Oud lots, thank you for having me, Joe and.
Speaker 2: To absolutely we're really excited. What do you just before
Speaker 2: we move on, describe what the Partnership for New York
Speaker 2: City is and what you basically do there.
Speaker 4: The Partnership is business working in the interests of the city.
Speaker 4: It's not a chamber of commerce. It was organized after
Speaker 4: the city's nineteen seventy five physical crisis by David Rockefeller,
Speaker 4: who was then the chair of Chase Bank. And other
Speaker 4: CEOs of the major corporations that were not just businesses
Speaker 4: headquartered in New York, but were real citizens of New
Speaker 4: York and trustees of its hospitals and museums, and real
Speaker 4: contributors to the city as philanthropists. So it is very
Speaker 4: much a business organization that is designed to tap the
Speaker 4: expertise and the influence of the business community to support
Speaker 4: New York City and to maintain it as the city
Speaker 4: of great economic opportunity.
Speaker 3: What's the partnership's relationship like typically with the mayoral administration
Speaker 3: and are there examples where you've worked together to effectively
Speaker 3: do something or maybe change the path of policy.
Speaker 4: Well, absolutely, the partnership's relationship to government is really as
Speaker 4: an intermediary between business and government, as I said, to
Speaker 4: provide expertise, to provide advice, to give feedback, really to
Speaker 4: be a resource more than an adversary with the local government,
Speaker 4: in particular local state government and some extent the federal government.
Speaker 4: When there are overriding issues that make a big impact
Speaker 4: on New York that are being considered in Washington.
Speaker 2: When did Zoron come on the radar of the people
Speaker 2: that you talk to, of the CEOs, etc. In the like,
Speaker 2: was it a month before?
Speaker 3: Was he?
Speaker 2: Were they thinking about him at all? Three months before
Speaker 2: the election? I'm sort of curious, like when it may
Speaker 2: have flickered in their minds that the Democratic Party could
Speaker 2: nominate a socialist.
Speaker 4: I would have to say that it was primary night
Speaker 4: about ten o'clock.
Speaker 2: Really, it's incredible to me.
Speaker 4: Well, I had forewarned them that it was a possibility,
Speaker 4: but I think Cromo had been a figure in their
Speaker 4: lives as Mario's son, as attorney general, as governor for
Speaker 4: twenty some years, and it was kind of a foregone conclusion,
Speaker 4: is the guy we know who's now running for mayor
Speaker 4: is going to be mayor? And especially after Mayor Adams
Speaker 4: announced he was not going to be in the Democratic primary,
Speaker 4: and so they had kind of zeroed in on accepting
Speaker 4: that it was going to be Cromo, and really no
Speaker 4: one had met zorun.
Speaker 3: What is the mood like on primary night? Did everyone
Speaker 3: immediately go home and start looking up socialism on the
Speaker 3: internet on chat GPT?
Speaker 4: Well, I would say hysteria would be a good word
Speaker 4: for shock. Was first shock first and what happened? And
Speaker 4: who is this person? And so I tried to provide
Speaker 4: some reassurance. We had for the past twenty years led
Speaker 4: efforts to bring congestion pricing to New York City to
Speaker 4: both manage traffic but to really make the city a
Speaker 4: more efficient place. Excess traffic congestion was costing the city
Speaker 4: twenty billion dollars a year with lost time, lost productivity,
Speaker 4: and what makes New York a great place to work
Speaker 4: is the productive workforce. So we'd been an advocate of
Speaker 4: congestion pricing, and I had actually met Zoron in that
Speaker 4: context at the Rider's Alliance where it's a group of
Speaker 4: subway riders advocates, and had found him to be a
Speaker 4: very smart, interesting young man. So I had known him,
Speaker 4: and then he reached out to me last September and said,
Speaker 4: I'd like to talk to you about my mayoral prospects
Speaker 4: when he was polling at one percent, and so I
Speaker 4: met him for coffee at the LPQ at eighty five
Speaker 4: Broad and we had a conversation, and I found him
Speaker 4: to be smart, and I took him seriously from then on.
Speaker 2: HM. I'm impressed from his perspective that that early on
Speaker 2: he wanted to sort of build that connection or make
Speaker 2: that connection with you before you talk more about him.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine described you as a therapist to
Speaker 2: the New York City billionaires. They were hysterical on or
Speaker 2: they're experiencing hysteria on primary night. Did you feel like
Speaker 2: that was your role in that night? Did you feel
Speaker 2: like a therapist to the members of the partnership?
Speaker 4: To provide reassurance to the business community, I mean, number one,
Speaker 4: to remind them that many of the things they want
Speaker 4: are most worried about from a Democratic Socialist candidate were
Speaker 4: things that he has absolutely no capacity to execute on. So,
Speaker 4: for example, raising corporate and income taxes is not something
Speaker 4: that the city or the mayor can do. Free buses
Speaker 4: is not something the mayor can do, and figuring out
Speaker 4: where you make up that eight hundred million in revenues.
Speaker 4: So that was number one, reassuring them that we have
Speaker 4: a moderate governor who's watching out for business interests, who
Speaker 4: says she's not going to further raise taxes in New York,
Speaker 4: which is the highest tax city in the country and
Speaker 4: in most cases the world for both individual income tax
Speaker 4: and corporate tax. So that was number one, providing reassurance
Speaker 4: that as mayor, he would have an agenda. But there
Speaker 4: are a lot of checks and balances to work through
Speaker 4: in New York and it's not a unilateral post. Now.
Speaker 4: That was more difficult with the real estate community because
Speaker 4: their concerns having to do with land use proceedings and
Speaker 4: approvals and construction permits, etc. That the mayor does control
Speaker 4: basically huge amount of control over that process. That is
Speaker 4: one thing that's local and real estate taxes where the
Speaker 4: mayor has significant influence. So it was more difficult with
Speaker 4: members of the real estate community, who after the primary
Speaker 4: quickly pivoted to remembering what a good friend Mayor Adams was.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk more about the concerns of
Speaker 3: the business community, obviously, but before we do, I can't
Speaker 3: resist asking, when you first met zoron over coffee, what
Speaker 3: advice did you give him? What did you actually say
Speaker 3: to him about a mayor run.
Speaker 4: Number One, I said that you can't lead New York
Speaker 4: City unless you have a constructive relationship with the Jewish community,
Speaker 4: because that was the most obvious source of concern that
Speaker 4: he seemed not able to address. That worried me a lot.
Speaker 4: Number Two, that the solution to affordability is not for government,
Speaker 4: local government to spend more money. That the money that
Speaker 4: local government spends has to be accounted for that you
Speaker 4: need to raise taxes to support it, and ultimately that
Speaker 4: just ups the cost of living and the cost of
Speaker 4: doing business in New York and that all ends up
Speaker 4: getting passed along to consumers. So the affordability question, which
Speaker 4: he was absolutely right to emphasize and emphasize from the beginning,
Speaker 4: that we've got to make New York more affordable to
Speaker 4: not just poor people, to the middle class, to those
Speaker 4: people who rent an apartment and now the average rents
Speaker 4: almost four thousand dollars a month. This is the big
Speaker 4: concern of employers, and I said, this is their number
Speaker 4: one concern. How do we keep and retain young talent
Speaker 4: if they can't afford to rent an apartment in New
Speaker 4: York City? Big frustration. So that was kind of the
Speaker 4: conversation that we had, and he was open to that
Speaker 4: conversation and interested in learning. I mean, he impressed me
Speaker 4: right away as somebody who is interested in learning more,
Speaker 4: but who has has very strong opinions and is very committed.
Speaker 4: And I mean he's thirty three years old. In the
Speaker 4: world is his oyster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned the importance of relations with the Jewish community,
Speaker 2: and I saw I watched that. I didn't watch the
Speaker 2: whole debate, but I did watch the last debate and
Speaker 2: there was that question about which country you're going to
Speaker 2: visit first, and every candidate blood store On said they
Speaker 2: were going to visit Israel. He said he wasn't thinking
Speaker 2: about is going to visit. Can you explain from the
Speaker 2: perspective of the business leaders new York City, why do
Speaker 2: they perceive that good relations with Israel is such an
Speaker 2: important aspect of the job of Why does the.
Speaker 3: Mayor of New York have to have a foreign policy?
Speaker 4: Well, their fears that he has a foreign policy. I
Speaker 4: don't think anybody thinks the Mayor of New York has
Speaker 4: to have a foreign policy. But he has a record
Speaker 4: of speaking out on issues that impact the Jewish community
Speaker 4: about Israel that they're very concerned about, and so their
Speaker 4: concern is not having. New York City has a long
Speaker 4: history of values that are very strong on supporting a
Speaker 4: diversity of people, are very tolerant of various religious beliefs,
Speaker 4: and a long history with Israel. I mean, when Cornell
Speaker 4: Technion partnered on Technion's the university in Israel, that really
Speaker 4: led the Startup Nation movement in his and did so
Speaker 4: much to propel their economy. And they were selected under
Speaker 4: the Bloomberg administration to establish a first class engineering school
Speaker 4: in New York on Roosevelt Island, which has been very
Speaker 4: successful and is producing a great number of PhDs. And
Speaker 4: so at the time that they came in, Technioy came in,
Speaker 4: they told me how they had been funded. Originally it
Speaker 4: was New York Jewish philanthropists that funded that effort. So
Speaker 4: there's this long term relationship. And obviously we have many
Speaker 4: people in New York who are family of Holocaust victims
Speaker 4: and survivors, and for whom the fact of a Jewish
Speaker 4: homeland a safe space for Jews around the world is
Speaker 4: of top area of importance. I think that that they
Speaker 4: are very concerned that the mayor of New York City
Speaker 4: respect and understand the importance of Israel and our long
Speaker 4: term relationship, and that worries them a lot. And that's
Speaker 4: an issue that I think he has yet to resolve.
Speaker 4: I think it's difficult because he has strong support in
Speaker 4: the young Jewish community, and so I'm sure he feels
Speaker 4: that he's got a lot of people who are with
Speaker 4: him on the issues of protecting the rights of the
Speaker 4: Palestinians and concerns about that. So it's this is an
Speaker 4: area again where the fact that he ran a campaign
Speaker 4: and had built relationships that are a piece of New
Speaker 4: York City. He expanded the electorate to folks who have
Speaker 4: not participated, but he really did not develop much of
Speaker 4: a relationship with the historic electorate. He was running against
Speaker 4: the democratic establishment, not with it, and so the communities
Speaker 4: where much of the Jewish population is concentrated were not
Speaker 4: communities he was necessarily reaching out to, except for the
Speaker 4: young people and the social media crowd, and that's not
Speaker 4: the people who are most concerned.
Speaker 3: So on the topic of the campaign, I mean, this
Speaker 3: was one of the really surprising things of him winning.
Speaker 3: He had this sort of grassroots campaign which was very
Speaker 3: much focused on social media, lots of merchandise with really
Speaker 3: interesting designs. I've seen the hot girls for zor and
Speaker 3: T shirts. People wearing those around town, usually young women,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned. And I'm curious, are any of the
Speaker 3: people you're speaking to perhaps thinking differently about campaign donators
Speaker 3: going forward if they donated billions of dollars for Cuomo
Speaker 3: and zorin.
Speaker 4: Well, not billions but millions. Okay, yes, yes, I would
Speaker 4: say that for the most part, what I'm hearing is
Speaker 4: that people feel that they contributed to Cuomo and that
Speaker 4: they don't feel they got a very good campaign out
Speaker 4: of it. They want to meet Zoron and I think
Speaker 4: they're making There are many, particularly in the real estate community,
Speaker 4: that are stepping up to transfer whatever donations they were
Speaker 4: making Cuomo to Eric Adams, if you will, the somebody
Speaker 4: that they know they can do business with, then who
Speaker 4: has been supportive of tremendously positive growth in the city
Speaker 4: from the nature of the pandemic and where our economy was,
Speaker 4: where our real estate situation. I'm Eric Adams. It should
Speaker 4: not be ignored that he has his administration has led
Speaker 4: rezoning efforts and really changed the zoning code for the
Speaker 4: first time since nineteen sixty one. So he's made a
Speaker 4: tremendous investment in trying to begin the process of making
Speaker 4: it easier and less expensive to develop housing in the
Speaker 4: city and supported economic growth overall. So there was concern.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously he's the first mayor that's been indicted,
Speaker 4: and when he dropped out of the Democratic primary, I
Speaker 4: think that solidified most of the money going to Cuomo,
Speaker 4: but Eric is back in the general and in good form.
Speaker 2: I noticed you said something. I think your first answer
Speaker 2: that the business elite had accepted Cuomo as who was
Speaker 2: going to be the nominee. Accepted, it does not sound
Speaker 2: the same as enthusiastically support. I hear that is sort
Speaker 2: of resigned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, status Cuomo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I'm curiously.
Speaker 3: Come on, you have to laugh at that.
Speaker 2: Good lie here, right, status quo. That's a good one.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: That was good. But how did they feel actually about Cuomo?
Speaker 2: And also, like I know there's some question it's still
Speaker 2: unclear whether he's gonna run actively in November, but if
Speaker 2: they do coalesce around someone, does it definitely seem like
Speaker 2: it's going to be Adams so.
Speaker 4: Far, I think yes, I think it's going to be
Speaker 4: Adams if and again, it is the real estate community
Speaker 4: that's most concerned. You understand that the financial industry in
Speaker 4: New York basically is prohibited by federal regulation sec IF
Speaker 4: in run other regulation from contributing to state and local
Speaker 4: candidates beyond a nominal amount of a few hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: So they are not, for the most part, money players
Speaker 4: in state and local elections, which has really disadvantaged New
Speaker 4: York's business community, which represents like forty percent of our
Speaker 4: tax base, who can't participate in supporting candidates of their choice.
Speaker 2: They could knock on doors like the Zorone volunteers did,
Speaker 2: they just can't donate gobs of money.
Speaker 4: And that would be great, but not happening. Okay, most
Speaker 4: of them are beyond the door knocking age. But your
Speaker 4: question about Cuomo. Cuomo was Attorney General during the financial
Speaker 4: crisis and was not very friendly toward the financial industry
Speaker 4: and did not develop relationships that were very positive during
Speaker 4: his tenure as Attorney General with the business community. So
Speaker 4: that was his job to be an enforcer. And during
Speaker 4: his term as governor he came in with a very
Speaker 4: strong agenda to try and get state spending under control
Speaker 4: and get taxes under control. But having made some of
Speaker 4: some real progress there on medicaid reform and pension reform,
Speaker 4: as the political wins changed, there wasn't that same relationship
Speaker 4: with the business community. So with the exception of real estate,
Speaker 4: where he was very pro growth, investing in infrastructure, supporting
Speaker 4: real estate development. So I would say that he had
Speaker 4: relative enthusiasm in the real estate community, but not broadly
Speaker 4: based in the business community.
Speaker 3: So on this note, you've emphasized a number of times
Speaker 3: that a lot of business leaders obviously want to talk
Speaker 3: to Zorin. They want to get in the room with him,
Speaker 3: and you are organizing, I believe, discussions between the business
Speaker 3: community and the mayoral candidate. I think next week we're
Speaker 3: recording this on let's see July ninth. How do you
Speaker 3: decide who gets to be in the room with Zorin?
Speaker 4: Well, the first meeting we're doing and I set this
Speaker 4: up with Zorn He called me right after the election
Speaker 4: and said he wanted to establish those relationships, and I said, well,
Speaker 4: it's so we set up a meeting with the CEOs
Speaker 4: of the partnership that's on Tuesday, and so they'll be
Speaker 4: some will join virtually, but it's going to be mostly
Speaker 4: an in person one hundred and fifty maybe CEOs of
Speaker 4: major companies, major employers in the city who have never
Speaker 4: met him and will be for the first time getting
Speaker 4: an opportunity. And that's going to be a conversation with
Speaker 4: our co chairs, Rob Speyer of Tishman Speyer and doctor
Speaker 4: Albert Borla of Pfizer and so they'll be having a
Speaker 4: conversation with Solorn and then we'll have some Q and
Speaker 4: A with our members, and so that's that's number one.
Speaker 2: And then I'll come back next week, right, and I
Speaker 2: will follow up to this episode.
Speaker 4: Interesting. Yes, I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to that conversation,
Speaker 4: but I think again it's an introduction and I have
Speaker 4: full confidence as you know having met him, Zorn is
Speaker 4: pretty good at presenting himself and very fast in terms
Speaker 4: of his thoughtful responses on issues. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 4: to that because it'll save me a lot of time
Speaker 4: reassuring him that he's not the devil. He's okay. And
Speaker 4: then on Wednesday, Kevin Ryan, who is kind of the
Speaker 4: father of Silicon Ali Ali Corp. Is the name of
Speaker 4: his corporation, has a prolific history of creating tech companies
Speaker 4: in New York. Kevin is going to moderate a conversation
Speaker 4: with him which will be heavily tech focused, more entrepreneurs
Speaker 4: than corporate finance types. So that'll be on Wednesday, and
Speaker 4: then I should add that on Thursday, we'll be doing
Speaker 4: breakfast with Mayor Eric Adams and speaking to him about
Speaker 4: his path forward. And as I said, there's been a
Speaker 4: lot of support for the policies that Eric Adams has
Speaker 4: he started out as mayor. I had the same conversation
Speaker 4: with Eric. I'm a Brooklyn person, so I've known Eric
Speaker 4: for many years and most recently in his capacity as
Speaker 4: Brooklyn Boro President. But when we started out, he didn't
Speaker 4: know anybody in the New York business community either. But
Speaker 4: he introduced himself as saying, my number one priority is
Speaker 4: public safety, and my number two priority is a thriving economy.
Speaker 4: And I'm with you, and having lived through eight years
Speaker 4: of Bill Deblasio as mayor, who had nothing to do
Speaker 4: or to say to them except your awful people. And
Speaker 4: as Jamie Diamond famously said, for eight years, I never
Speaker 4: got a call from Bill Deblasio when he was mayor
Speaker 4: and have never had a conversation with him. So Eric
Speaker 4: immediately reversed the Deblasio big business is bad for New York,
Speaker 4: and Eric said, I want wealthy people in New York.
Speaker 4: I want big business in New York. So I don't
Speaker 4: expect that from Zoran next week. I think that he's
Speaker 4: not going to have the same unbridled enthusiasm for billionaires,
Speaker 4: but I do expect that he will come across as
Speaker 4: a responsible person who's thinking seriously and is open to learning,
Speaker 4: which is most important to listening and learning. And I
Speaker 4: think that that the number one concern is, is this
Speaker 4: a dogmatic, ideological person who is just going is going
Speaker 4: to be not interested in what we can contribute to
Speaker 4: the city or what employers contribute.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Kevin Ryan. I used to work for Business Insider,
Speaker 2: which was one of the Ali Corp companies, so I'm
Speaker 2: a beneficiary of his New York City investments. You know,
Speaker 2: when the night of the primary, I got some random
Speaker 2: messages online. They're like, oh, are you going to leave
Speaker 2: New York City. I'm never gonna leave New York City,
Speaker 2: Like it's the best city in the world, obviously, but
Speaker 2: you know, people do leave, And in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty two, people pretended to think that Miami
Speaker 2: was a better option for them. I think a bunch
Speaker 2: of them came back or they spent just the you know,
Speaker 2: minimum amount of time there so they could you know,
Speaker 2: qualify for their local taxes, et cetera. In your view
Speaker 2: or in the view of the employers of New York City,
Speaker 2: what are the threats the substance of threats that would say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this would meaningfully change the desirability of doing business in
Speaker 2: this town.
Speaker 4: Number One is public safety, and that's again they've appreciated,
Speaker 4: particularly under Commissioner Tish and original and Er Commissionery Key
Speaker 4: chance Sewell, they have appreciated that the Atoms administration has
Speaker 4: focused on public safety and that we're.
Speaker 2: That's more important things like taxes for them.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, because the whole basis of business being here
Speaker 4: is the talent pool. And if talent doesn't want to
Speaker 4: be here, if they're scared to leave it be in
Speaker 4: New York City. If they're worried to go on the
Speaker 4: subway because they might get mugged or pushed in front
Speaker 4: of a train, that's the worst thing that could happen
Speaker 4: to New York. So and importantly, Zoran has acknowledged that
Speaker 4: keeping New York a destination for talent is a priority
Speaker 4: for him. So I think that message is very important.
Speaker 4: So the public safety number one. And then, as I
Speaker 4: said before, affordable housing and affordability that again allows talent
Speaker 4: to be here and doesn't have a premium cost. I
Speaker 4: mean already in most sectors New York City salaries have
Speaker 4: a twenty percent premium at least over if you're going
Speaker 4: to locate in Texas or Florida or whatever. When it
Speaker 4: gets higher than that, it becomes hard to explain to
Speaker 4: shareholders why you're here and why you're creating jobs here.
Speaker 4: So that's the other consideration. So it's really having a
Speaker 4: safe city and having an affordable city are the top criteria,
Speaker 4: And at least in terms of having an affordable city,
Speaker 4: they've got common cause with Zorin's campaign.
Speaker 3: This is what I was going to ask you. Are
Speaker 3: there any areas of I guess overlap or agreement between
Speaker 3: Zorn's agenda and the concerns or the desires of the
Speaker 3: business community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as I mentioned, one of the big questions that'll
Speaker 4: come up next week. Probably the first question that will
Speaker 4: come up is what is your commitment to public safety?
Speaker 4: You know, symbolically, would you keep Jesse Tish's police commissioner,
Speaker 4: And she certainly won't stay if he's going to defund
Speaker 4: the police because she's looking for more officers, more resources
Speaker 4: to really make sure that we stay the safest city
Speaker 4: in America and the world. Hopefully, So that'll be public safety,
Speaker 4: and then on affordability, it'll be hoping that they can
Speaker 4: communicate that just having city government increase its budget does
Speaker 4: not improve affordability. We've got to be more creative than that.
Speaker 2: What do you see as the main constraints to affordability?
Speaker 2: What do you from just from your first petive? How
Speaker 2: many years did they were they debating about putting up
Speaker 2: some houses at the Elizabeth Street garden like these The
Speaker 2: process take forevers But like I know, it's like the
Speaker 2: most hot button topic in the world. But just broadly,
Speaker 2: what do you perceive is the main constraints towards making
Speaker 2: rent cheaper?
Speaker 4: In New York City, thirty percent of rent is real
Speaker 4: estate taxes in rent regulated buildings, So government spending that
Speaker 4: depends on real estate taxes, that's where the majority of
Speaker 4: the city revenues come from, is driving high rents. Uh,
Speaker 4: It's not that developers and these older rent regulated buildings
Speaker 4: are making a huge profit. It's that their costs have
Speaker 4: gone up, their water bills, et cetera. All these are
Speaker 4: on water and sewer. These are under control of the city.
Speaker 4: So there are things government can do very quickly to
Speaker 4: reduce costs.
Speaker 2: As an example, what about just sheer volume of housing production.
Speaker 2: Because right in the end, like most people. Okay, rent
Speaker 2: is very expensive. It's also scarce, and that contributes to
Speaker 2: the fact that rent prices go up and that landlords
Speaker 2: can collect a lot of rent. Do you think there
Speaker 2: are meaningful levers that could be pulled to rapidly increase
Speaker 2: the pace and which we build, whether it's affordable housing
Speaker 2: or market rate housing, etc. What would you identify?
Speaker 4: Absolutely Again, it's reducing government bureaucracy. Right now, I'm on
Speaker 4: the City Charter Revision Commission, which is going to put
Speaker 4: resolutions before the public I believe in November, to look
Speaker 4: at how we can cut down on the time and
Speaker 4: cost associated with development approvals, especially for smaller projects. The
Speaker 4: other thing I want to mention that affects the cost
Speaker 4: of construction very much, but also affects all other costs
Speaker 4: is the cost of litigation passed along to consumers through
Speaker 4: the high insurance costs. We have the highest claims and settlements.
Speaker 4: We have the highest degree of litigation in the country.
Speaker 4: It's almost impossible to get anything through the legislature that
Speaker 4: doesn't include a private right of action. The trial lawyers
Speaker 4: are the strongest lobby in Albany also have a lot
Speaker 4: of influence within the city and we have to get
Speaker 4: down our litigation costs. Our insurance costs are substantially higher
Speaker 4: than anywhere else in the country. Our curR insurance costs
Speaker 4: are forty nine percent higher than the average in the country.
Speaker 4: Our health insurance costs are twelve percent higher. These are
Speaker 4: all costs that we could absolutely contain in control, and
Speaker 4: the city, which is basically self insured, ends up paying
Speaker 4: this out of pockets with a pee billions of dollars
Speaker 4: a year in medical mailpractice.
Speaker 2: In other government, a lot of free buses.
Speaker 4: That would fund a lot of free busses.
Speaker 3: Aren't the higher litigation costs. Aren't they just a reflection
Speaker 3: of I guess the higher cost of living and materials.
Speaker 4: No, they're a reflection of a system where our jury
Speaker 4: awards are much higher than any place else. They call
Speaker 4: them nuclear awards. No, it's all because of laws. We
Speaker 4: have one law in the books in Albany. It's part
Speaker 4: of the labor law was passed one hundred years ago,
Speaker 4: and it was passed before we had workers' compensation and
Speaker 4: other protections for construction workers. If you have a gravity
Speaker 4: related injury, and many of these are staged, that one
Speaker 4: law can add five to seven percent to the cost
Speaker 4: of construction, just that one law. And so when we
Speaker 4: say why does it cost a million dollars to produce
Speaker 4: a two bedroom and rental apartment in New York? To
Speaker 4: build it? When you look at it, you'll see that
Speaker 4: a big chunk of that is the result of the litigation,
Speaker 4: insurance costs, and the time that it takes to get
Speaker 4: anything done, the carrying costs for the time.
Speaker 3: I want to ask a sort of social question, given
Speaker 3: your role as therapists to the wealthy, But I got
Speaker 3: a sense sometimes that there is a feeling out there
Speaker 3: among maybe a lot of people that billionaires are less
Speaker 3: charitable than they once were, certainly going back to earlier
Speaker 3: in the century perhaps, and I think back to like Rockefeller,
Speaker 3: who you know or knew and worked with, and him
Speaker 3: bailing out the city in the nineteen seventies, Like that
Speaker 3: was an act where he decided, I am going to
Speaker 3: spend money in order to save New York and contribute
Speaker 3: to New York's future.
Speaker 2: Is that an.
Speaker 3: Accurate portrayal of billionaires nowadays? Are they less engaged in
Speaker 3: overall society?
Speaker 4: Well, in many cases, the family wealth, like in the
Speaker 4: Rockefeller family, has diversified, so you don't have one person
Speaker 4: who is as wealthy. It's spread out. But the commitment
Speaker 4: to New York, to its hospitals, it's museums, its universities,
Speaker 4: its institutions. We have by far the most philanthropic city
Speaker 4: in the world. I get visitors from all over the world,
Speaker 4: from Paris, from London, from la from San Francisco, all
Speaker 4: of whom say, how does New York create a culture
Speaker 4: which is so giving, which is so generous? And the
Speaker 4: Rockefellers and the Astors and any of the families that
Speaker 4: you know, the key families of New York did contribute
Speaker 4: to this. But then you saw the tributes to Leonard
Speaker 4: Latter who died a few weeks ago. If they were
Speaker 4: all differ from every nonprofit institution, the generosity of New
Speaker 4: Yorkers is huge. The label billionaire is often attached to
Speaker 4: self promoters who are promoting themselves as billionaires. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: would distinguish that none of the people that I'm talking
Speaker 4: about want to be known or proclaim themselves or position
Speaker 4: themselves as billionaires.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that definitely resonates. I want to go back to
Speaker 2: something you know. You mentioned the generational divide among New
Speaker 2: York City's Jewish community and the idea that the under
Speaker 2: forty crowd may have a very different perception of the
Speaker 2: relationship that New York City should have about the state
Speaker 2: of Israel or state of Israel period. And you also
Speaker 2: mentioned that you know, for many of the people that
Speaker 2: you work with, it only on them that Socialists could
Speaker 2: be the Democratic nominee at ten pm on election night,
Speaker 2: which makes me wonder, like how plugged they are in
Speaker 2: because certainly, in at least the month prior to the election,
Speaker 2: it became very obvious to me that this was like
Speaker 2: a very real possibility that he could win. Like, is
Speaker 2: there a persistent problem of sort of like generational awareness?
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking also about affordability and housing and some
Speaker 2: of these other issues where I don't want to say
Speaker 2: like out of touch, but I guess out of touch
Speaker 2: between the business elites, the CEOs, et cetera, and what's
Speaker 2: on the mind of younger voters period, across a range
Speaker 2: of issues.
Speaker 4: I think that's a very fair comment. Most of the
Speaker 4: mature business world is not living on social media, so
Speaker 4: they're well, they're not They're not plugged into that world,
Speaker 4: and that's that's a great contributor to the generational divide.
Speaker 4: I mean I still read a paper, a real paper,
Speaker 4: and that's a differentiator. And the other thing is that
Speaker 4: the globalization of the economy has meant I mean New
Speaker 4: York is a center of world industry leadership and they
Speaker 4: are focused and spending their life traveling all over the world.
Speaker 4: So the fact that we're a headquarters city in all
Speaker 4: these diverse sectors in passion and media, and it means
Speaker 4: that the focus is global rather than local. Politically, especially
Speaker 4: the focus is Washington, which is where most of the
Speaker 4: regulatory activity is coming from, not local. City and state
Speaker 4: are sidelines compared. So it's just the nature of our
Speaker 4: changing economy over the last fifty years, which has gone
Speaker 4: from being a local fifty years ago industrial economy to
Speaker 4: being a service economy to today being a global digitally
Speaker 4: and all of that means that the attention of business
Speaker 4: leadership has been largely externally focused on the world business,
Speaker 4: world markets, and on Washington. That just there's only so
Speaker 4: many hours in a day. What we try and do
Speaker 4: with the partnership is synthesized for those global leaders what's
Speaker 4: happening locally and who's who and what's what. That's what
Speaker 4: we're doing with regard to the mayor election now is
Speaker 4: trying to bring them into the conversation at a point
Speaker 4: where they're taking it seriously and they have to prioritize it.
Speaker 4: But these are people who are running global businesses and
Speaker 4: that's the whole that's what's changed. It's not anything else,
Speaker 4: but the focus of attention has to be global. And well,
Speaker 4: I would just mention, because we sit here in Bloomberg
Speaker 4: Podcast world, that Mike Bloomberg changed that when he was mayor.
Speaker 4: He brought the attention of our global leaders back to
Speaker 4: New York, which was extremely useful. I started as CEO
Speaker 4: of the partnership in two thousand, right before two thousand
Speaker 4: and one, before Mike was elected, and I took advantage
Speaker 4: of re engaging you. If you went to a cocktail
Speaker 4: party in New York that Mike Bloomberg is going to
Speaker 4: be at, you had to talk New York. And he
Speaker 4: was a thought leader. He was the leading philanthropist when
Speaker 4: people ask me who replaced David Rockefeller as the leading philanthropist,
Speaker 4: and he was Mike Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Simple.
Speaker 3: I have to do the disclaimer here, which is, of course,
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News Bloomberg Media is part of Bloomberg LP, which
Speaker 3: is owned by Mike Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: So we didn't tell our guests to see jobdives as the.
Speaker 3: No, we did not.
Speaker 4: I just have this isn't the first time I've said it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I just have one more question, which is, have
Speaker 3: you noticed or seen at all I guess moments of
Speaker 3: introspection among the business community, this idea that like, oh,
Speaker 3: maybe we miss something about Zoren, Maybe we missed why
Speaker 3: he's resonating so much in the city. Maybe we should
Speaker 3: start doing something different, Maybe we need to, you know,
Speaker 3: actually build more housing or lower rents or whatever. Or
Speaker 3: are they still committed very much to this, not the
Speaker 3: status quomo, but the Eric Adams status quo and they
Speaker 3: want him to win again.
Speaker 4: Distinguishing between the real estate community that sees the potential
Speaker 4: of an existential threat to private development putting that aside.
Speaker 4: In terms of the general business community. I think your
Speaker 4: point that they're feeling a little out of touch with
Speaker 4: what's been happening on the ground and they want to
Speaker 4: plug in. They are really interested in me, and we've
Speaker 4: had tremendous interest in meeting Zorn speaking with him. He's
Speaker 4: made calls to some business what.
Speaker 2: Do they say after like the after those phone calls,
Speaker 2: because they've you know, you mentioned the meetings that are
Speaker 2: coming up, but some have already they've already chatted like
Speaker 2: what is what? What is their response?
Speaker 4: Their response is that he is you know, they said,
Speaker 4: he's the politician of a generation. I mean, he's a
Speaker 4: generational figure. They're they're impressed after a ten minute phone
Speaker 4: call with him because he is he's a very effective
Speaker 4: communicator and he listens on you know, business leaders like
Speaker 4: to be listened to.
Speaker 2: Kathy Wilde, that was fantastic. So glad we made this happen.
Speaker 2: And like I said, maybe we'll maybe we'll have you
Speaker 2: back at some fun or would love to have you
Speaker 2: back on it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Nice to be here, Tracy. I really like that conversation.
Speaker 2: There was a lot to pull from this idea. There
Speaker 2: are a number of things. This idea that the CEOs
Speaker 2: who are headquartered here in New York City, just by
Speaker 2: the nature of the changing economy, are less New York
Speaker 2: City focused themselves, to me, is like something I hadn't
Speaker 2: really thought about but makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. The other interesting
Speaker 3: point that Kathy brought up was I guess the divergence
Speaker 3: between you know, Wall Street CEOs and perhaps other businesses
Speaker 3: versus real estate, which really seems to be freaking out
Speaker 3: about the prospects of Mumdani mayorship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's really interesting, this idea that it's not monolithic.
Speaker 2: I said it in the intro, or I said it
Speaker 2: early on. You know, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: who are on paper they're like, well, you look down
Speaker 2: the list of his policies. Maybe not something that they're
Speaker 2: too into, but the fact that they don't like find
Speaker 2: him to be threatening or they don't find him to
Speaker 2: be repellent in some way. And so it's striking that
Speaker 2: already he's having these conversations. Also, like, it is just
Speaker 2: striking to me that you know, people see him as
Speaker 2: you know, potentially this extremely ideological person, and yet from
Speaker 2: the very beginning of his campaign in September was reaching
Speaker 2: out to Kathy and like making these connections. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was a really savvy campaign.
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing on that note, First of all,
Speaker 3: I'm really fascinated to see whether or not this starts
Speaker 3: to change campaign finance and the way it works, because
Speaker 3: again Cuomo had all the money. Yeah, exactly. And the
Speaker 3: other thing I'm really interested in is, Okay, the business community,
Speaker 3: Kathy was saying one of their primary concerns is attracting
Speaker 3: talent into the city. Well, you know that talent, presumably
Speaker 3: a lot of it is young. There's probably a large
Speaker 3: portion in there that is, you know, of a progressive bent,
Speaker 3: and so a candidate like Zoraen might appeal to them
Speaker 3: and actually bring more peace into the city.
Speaker 2: So it's also interesting, I mean, the safety and crime
Speaker 2: thing is the number one thing right that would cause
Speaker 2: people to leave because and again there's a lot more
Speaker 2: talk about leaving New York City though there is actually
Speaker 2: leaving New York City. And it is true that I
Speaker 2: think a lot of those people who thought they were
Speaker 2: going to DeCamp to Miami during the post pandemic period
Speaker 2: of comeback for obvious for obvious reasons. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: that it's not even like any of the economic stuff.
Speaker 2: It's not the socialism stuff. It's just the basic safety stuff.
Speaker 2: And there is I know, there's a lot of the
Speaker 2: question about whether Mamdani, if he wins, will keep the
Speaker 2: police commissioner. The crime stats have improved quite a bit
Speaker 2: in recent years. The idea that this is like the
Speaker 2: really big thing more than you know, the rent freeze
Speaker 2: or taxes or anything else. I think it's just going
Speaker 2: to be an interesting executive question for Mamdani.
Speaker 3: Lots of interesting questions thrown up by this whole election.
Speaker 3: Shall we leave it there for now?
Speaker 2: Sure, let's leave it.
Speaker 3: There has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway and.
Speaker 2: I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen armand Dashel Bennett
Speaker 2: at Dashboud and Kilbrooks at Kilbrooks. From our Odd Lots content,
Speaker 2: go to Bloomberg dot com slash od Lots for the
Speaker 2: daily newsletter and all of our episodes, and you can
Speaker 2: chat about all of these topics twenty four to seven
Speaker 2: in our discord Discord dot gg slash odlog.
Speaker 3: And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like it
Speaker 3: when we do local New York politics that has national relevance,
Speaker 3: then please leave us a positive review on your favorite
Speaker 3: podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber,
Speaker 3: you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free.
Speaker 3: All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel
Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 3: bend
Speaker 2: In