Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and.
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: Tracy, we might get a socialist mayor here in New
Speaker 2: York City. Can I tell you something please?
Speaker 3: It's slightly weird. Last night, the night before we're recording
Speaker 3: this episode, I had a dream that I was in
Speaker 3: a shared uber with Adrian Adams and she was the driver.
Speaker 3: So she's another mayoral candidate. She was driving and I
Speaker 3: told her we were going to interview this particular candidate.
Speaker 2: And I was amazing.
Speaker 3: I was asking her for good questions.
Speaker 2: This is an amazing dream.
Speaker 3: You're not, maybe, Lissa, No, My dreams are very literal.
Speaker 3: And everyone in the uber was giving me ideas for
Speaker 3: questions and had opinions and stuff like that. But now
Speaker 3: I can't remember any of it.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's really disappointing. Anyway. You know, we don't really
Speaker 2: cover a lot of New York City politics. We don't
Speaker 2: cover a lot of politics in general. We hardly ever
Speaker 2: talked about New York City politics. Who really cares about
Speaker 2: New York and the broad audience. We don't like to
Speaker 2: be too navel gazing. But you know, this is a
Speaker 2: city with a lot of people who, needless to say,
Speaker 2: work in finance. Potentially, if they're major changes to tax
Speaker 2: rates here, etc. Then that could have an impact on
Speaker 2: the industry that we cover a lot. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of economics stories that are sort of New York centric,
Speaker 2: particularly relating to housing, that are very universal, etc. So
Speaker 2: it's not a crime to every once in a while
Speaker 2: do a New York City focused episode.
Speaker 3: No, and this also relates directly to a previous All
Speaker 3: Balts episode we did all about how New York gets
Speaker 3: its groceries.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's the connection. Let's jump right into it.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to say we have a state assemblyman
Speaker 2: and candidate for the Democratic nomination for mayor, Zoron, Mumdanie
Speaker 2: coming on the show. Zoron, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: I mentioned your socialist. What specific strand of socialism are
Speaker 2: you and are the other socialists revisionists and deviationists of
Speaker 2: various flavor. We need to know your exact the exact
Speaker 2: category here.
Speaker 4: I will leave that to the internet. Will I will
Speaker 4: tell you that I am a Democratic socialist, yes, And
Speaker 4: I started to call myself that after Bernie Sanders' twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen run for president, when I finally had a language
Speaker 4: described the way that I saw the world and the
Speaker 4: way that I believe the world should be, which is
Speaker 4: one where every person has the dignity they need to
Speaker 4: live a decent life.
Speaker 2: By the way, you know, now that I am a
Speaker 2: journalist at a mainstream news organization, I do not personally
Speaker 2: have political opinions, but I can say that I didn't
Speaker 2: wasn't always the case. And I went to high school
Speaker 2: in Vermont, and I was a volunteer on Bernie's nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six house campaign, and want was a picture of
Speaker 2: me with Bernie. So I was a very early you too.
Speaker 2: I was a Bernard Brother before it became cool.
Speaker 4: Yes, you got in early.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: So how would you describe your platform? Is it the
Speaker 3: New York version of Sanders.
Speaker 4: It's heavily inspired by that same focus on income inequality
Speaker 4: and a recognition of the fact that one in four
Speaker 4: New Yorkers are currently living in poverty in what has
Speaker 4: now been described as the most expensive city in the country.
Speaker 4: And it is a platform at its core to make
Speaker 4: this city affordable and to use every tool at city
Speaker 4: government's disposal to do so, because for too long we've
Speaker 4: had politicians pretend that we are just bystanders to a
Speaker 4: suffocating cost of living crisis, when in fact, we have
Speaker 4: two choices, whether to exacerbate it or put an end
Speaker 4: to it. And we've seen Eric Adams do the former.
Speaker 4: We're running to do the latter.
Speaker 2: What did Eric Adams do when you said he did
Speaker 2: the former, what did he do in your view to
Speaker 2: exacerbate it?
Speaker 4: You know, the first issue that you hear from most
Speaker 4: New Yorkers when it comes to cost of living is housing,
Speaker 4: and the mayor sets the rent increases for more than
Speaker 4: two million New Yorkers who live in rent stabilized housing.
Speaker 4: And he came in as a self described real estate
Speaker 4: That's how he described himself coming into the office. And
Speaker 4: he's raised rents accordingly. He's raised them more than nine percent.
Speaker 4: And this year when the Rent Guidelines Board, which is
Speaker 4: entirely composed of his appointees, found that the landlords of
Speaker 4: those million or so units that have close to two
Speaker 4: and a half million tenants had seen a increase in
Speaker 4: their revenues by twelve percent. He wanted to raise the
Speaker 4: rent once again to close to eight percent. And that
Speaker 4: is one example. Another I would say is his relationship
Speaker 4: to con Edison. Connetison can only raise the rates of
Speaker 4: gas and electric with the permission of the state, and
Speaker 4: they do so through something called a rate case. The
Speaker 4: City of New York under Eric Adams administration sided with
Speaker 4: Walmart in support of Connettison's requests to raise those rates
Speaker 4: by sixty five dollars a month on average. And I
Speaker 4: know that because I was also a part of that
Speaker 4: rate case, one of the few elected officials who signed
Speaker 4: an opposition to it. And I think that you can
Speaker 4: see this again and again and again in the way
Speaker 4: that he has intervened in the major costs that are
Speaker 4: driving New Yorkers out of the city.
Speaker 3: So, since you mentioned housing and the rent freeze, you
Speaker 3: support rent freeze, lower rents? And what do you say
Speaker 3: to people who think that you need to incentivize landlords
Speaker 3: to maintain their buildings to build new ones. There are
Speaker 3: also people out there who think that regulatory reform is
Speaker 3: the key to the supply problem in New York. Why
Speaker 3: rent freezes particularly versus you know, maybe loosening some of
Speaker 3: the regulations.
Speaker 4: I think that many of these things can actually be
Speaker 4: achieved in tandem. I am both a candidate who believes
Speaker 4: we need to freeze the rent for rent stabilized tenants,
Speaker 4: and one who believes that we need to end the
Speaker 4: requirement to build parking lots when reconstruct housing, who believes
Speaker 4: we need to increase density around mass transit hubs, that
Speaker 4: we need to upzone wealthier neighborhoods that have historically not
Speaker 4: contributed to affordable housing production, and we need to interrogate
Speaker 4: why Tokyo is building ten homes for every thousand people,
Speaker 4: Jersey cities at seven and New York is barely at four.
Speaker 4: And some of that also has to do with what
Speaker 4: is often described as the mundane details of houses law,
Speaker 4: but can have massive impacts on whether or not it's
Speaker 4: affordable or expensive to construct that housing, be it single
Speaker 4: staircase versus dual staircase, or the regulations that have effectively
Speaker 4: made it illegal to build SROs in this city, and
Speaker 4: the need for us to have a true diversity of
Speaker 4: housing stock. And I think the reason for the focus
Speaker 4: on our rent freeze is that is the clearest and
Speaker 4: most direct way that you start your housing platform as
Speaker 4: the mayor of the city, given your appointing of all
Speaker 4: nine members of that Rent Guidelines Board. But it cannot
Speaker 4: be the extent of it, because a city of eight
Speaker 4: point four eight million people deserves a mayor with a
Speaker 4: housing platform for eight point four eight million people, not
Speaker 4: just the closes two and a half million that live
Speaker 4: in those units. And the other point I would make
Speaker 4: is that I have served in Albany. I'm now in
Speaker 4: my third term, and I've seen in Albany, while I
Speaker 4: have opposed it, we have passed legislation that allowed landlords
Speaker 4: to double the amount of money they can receive for iais,
Speaker 4: which are otherwise known as individual apartment improvements. So to
Speaker 4: your concern around incentive devising, repairs and things of that nature,
Speaker 4: landlords have already just won the right to double the
Speaker 4: amount of money they can receive for those improvements. And
Speaker 4: I was in opposition to that doubling because of the
Speaker 4: immense amount of fraud that we've seen in that kind
Speaker 4: of program, where expenses are not actually what they are
Speaker 4: represented to be. And the final thing I would say is,
Speaker 4: you know, the Rent Guidelines had that findings of the
Speaker 4: twelve percent increase in revenue for those landlords. If there
Speaker 4: are landlords for whom that picture is not an accurate representation,
Speaker 4: there is a program where they can apply a hardship
Speaker 4: program for relief when they show that their income from
Speaker 4: rents is not matching up to their costs at a
Speaker 4: ratio that is allowing them to continue to operate that building.
Speaker 4: And that is a program that I will intend to
Speaker 4: continue to support because I believe it is important to
Speaker 4: ensure that we can keep all of these buildings in operation.
Speaker 2: I've heard that about Jersey City, that they've actually done
Speaker 2: a fairly good job of expanding housing supply. What is
Speaker 2: the role in your vision for more affordable housing for
Speaker 2: the price it developers and the for profit developers and
Speaker 2: so forth, and you know, in your view, how can
Speaker 2: we actually move the dial in terms of housing production
Speaker 2: of we'll get into some of the stuff about I
Speaker 2: want to talk about the public housing too, or quote
Speaker 2: affordable housing. But for the private landlords, what can actually
Speaker 2: in your view move the dial on that.
Speaker 4: I think some of it has to do with the regulations.
Speaker 4: I was speaking of the fact that we continue to
Speaker 4: have this requirement to build parking when you build housing.
Speaker 4: That's not a requirement we should have any longer. The
Speaker 4: need for us to take advantage of our unique place
Speaker 4: in this country, and that we have mass transit hubs
Speaker 4: across the city and that should be a site of
Speaker 4: more housing density, and the fact that housing production has
Speaker 4: not been evenly distributed across this city, especially in wealthier neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: But I think even beyond that question of zoning, which
Speaker 4: is what a lot of this comes back to, there's
Speaker 4: also the question of process. We need to make it
Speaker 4: faster to build this housing yeah, and ensure that we
Speaker 4: don't see delay after delay after delay. And so one
Speaker 4: of the points of our housing plan is also to
Speaker 4: move away from the piecemeal process that is the one
Speaker 4: you can describe today as being where you have something
Speaker 4: known as member deference, where every city council member has
Speaker 4: the ultimate vote on whether or not a development goes
Speaker 4: up or down. We need to have a citywide approach,
Speaker 4: one that also fast tracks developments that are in line
Speaker 4: with the very priorities we've laid out with regards to
Speaker 4: housing production, labor standards, affordability. Because it's been too long
Speaker 4: where we've seen proposals to build affordable housing for low
Speaker 4: income seniors languish for years in delays, and those delays
Speaker 4: all cost money, and that's also what drives up the
Speaker 4: cost of this production, and I think we need to
Speaker 4: streamline those processes.
Speaker 2: Actually, let's talk about that a little bit further. Because
Speaker 2: public housing, which you want to expand significantly, is very
Speaker 2: costly to build. And you know, there are certain standards
Speaker 2: of public housing. We expect it to last a very
Speaker 2: long time. There's priorities that it be carbon friendly, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But like public housing production in New York City has
Speaker 2: been on parer cost wise with even some very high
Speaker 2: end private construction, Hudson Yards on a per unit basis
Speaker 2: came in pretty similarly, this would be important regardless of
Speaker 2: how it's financed. How do you actually get the costs
Speaker 2: down in your view of public housing production.
Speaker 4: So the first thing I would do is just distinguish
Speaker 4: between what kind of housing we're speaking of when we
Speaker 4: say public housing, A lot of times we're referring to
Speaker 4: Nischa developments. Yeah, across the fire.
Speaker 2: That's when I said it. I was thinking, nice, okay.
Speaker 4: Just to be clear, and I think that you know,
Speaker 4: what we've seen in Nischa is in many ways emblematic
Speaker 4: of a larger betrayal of working class New Yorkers. Nischa
Speaker 4: is technically underneath the auspices of the federal government, but
Speaker 4: the city and the state have an immense role to play,
Speaker 4: and we've seen over time, while the federal government has
Speaker 4: refused to fund the plan to put at least forty
Speaker 4: billion dollars towards Nischa to deal with an ever expanding
Speaker 4: amount of capital needs, the city since the time of
Speaker 4: Bloomberg has started to narrow the amount of funding that
Speaker 4: it provides, and the state is not stepping up in
Speaker 4: the way that it should. Now in our housing plan,
Speaker 4: we propose doubling the amount of money we spend on
Speaker 4: preserving Nischa housing because what we've seen is that oftentimes
Speaker 4: it's easy to describe this housing crisis in New York
Speaker 4: City is solely one of affordability, it's also a crisis
Speaker 4: of having a safe and habitable place to call your home.
Speaker 4: And as someone who represents the largest public housing development
Speaker 4: in North America, Queensbridge Houses, as well as the story
Speaker 4: of Houses Ravenswood Houses, I have seen so many of
Speaker 4: my constituents, seniors who are forced to walk up many
Speaker 4: flights of stairs because their elevator isn't working. Who are
Speaker 4: waiting for months to have repairs be conducted, and who
Speaker 4: in a moment of housing crisis. Under Eric Adams, we've
Speaker 4: actually seen the time it takes to fill a vacant
Speaker 4: unit in Nischa now exceed more than a year, which
Speaker 4: should be the easiest thing for city government.
Speaker 3: Today, I want to talk about another plank of your
Speaker 3: platform that is of particular interest to us, and that
Speaker 3: is groceries. Of course, so a while ago, Joe and
Speaker 3: I recorded an episode on how New York actually gets
Speaker 3: its produce and we learned about the importance of the
Speaker 3: Hunt's distribution terminal and all of that. Why grocery stores.
Speaker 4: You know, we are focused on the cost of living crisis,
Speaker 4: and when you ask New Yorkers whether they're making forty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars a year or two hundred thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 4: you will inevitably hear them speak about groceries and the
Speaker 4: sticker shock they feel in going back to the grocery
Speaker 4: store and their sense that that which they could afford
Speaker 4: years ago is now out of reach for them. And ultimately,
Speaker 4: groceries and food are a non negotiable art of being
Speaker 4: a New Yorker and living in any city in the world,
Speaker 4: you need to be able to afford it to build
Speaker 4: any kind of a life. And yet what we're seeing
Speaker 4: is that people are being priced out of produce. And
Speaker 4: when something is critically important to that dignity, I believe
Speaker 4: that there should be a public option for it. And
Speaker 4: what we have proposed is a reasonable policy experimentation in
Speaker 4: our city of a pilot program of a network of
Speaker 4: five municipal owned grocery stores, one in each borough, that
Speaker 4: would respond to twin crises, one of affordability and two
Speaker 4: of food deserts. Because, as I was saying earlier, as
Speaker 4: the representative of Queensbridge Houses, I will speak to constituents
Speaker 4: who live in the largest public housing development in North America,
Speaker 4: and they will ask me questions for which I don't
Speaker 4: have the answer, Questions like why are there five fast
Speaker 4: food restaurants in a five block radius, but I cannot
Speaker 4: find a place where I can get fresh produce that
Speaker 4: I can afford. And I hear that time and time again.
Speaker 4: And so what this proposal does is it not only
Speaker 4: guarantees cheaper groceries, but it also guarantees that those groceries
Speaker 4: can be in the very neighborhoods of New Yorkers that
Speaker 4: are being denied that service today.
Speaker 3: So some commentators have described this proposal as somewhat unusual
Speaker 3: in America. I actually don't think it's that unusual. I'm
Speaker 3: a former military brat and I vividly remember commissaries and
Speaker 3: bx's on military bases and those were subsidized. Anyway, how
Speaker 3: do you, I guess, address the fears of critics who
Speaker 3: worry that this is going to devolve into some sort
Speaker 3: of Soviet style market where you know, maybe I can
Speaker 3: only buy one specific brand of tuna fish versus like
Speaker 3: the five that are currently on offer.
Speaker 4: Well, the beauty of a pilot program is that it
Speaker 4: only expands if it's successful. Now, I'm confident that it
Speaker 4: will be successful, and yet we will have to see
Speaker 4: those results themselves. And the reason we even came up
Speaker 4: with this is because of the successes of this model
Speaker 4: in Kansas, as well as what you said in the
Speaker 4: context of military bases across the country. And what we've
Speaker 4: also found is there was a feasibility study done in
Speaker 4: Chicago to see the applicability of this kind of a
Speaker 4: model in an urban setting, and it found it not
Speaker 4: only possible, but urgent and necessary. And that is the
Speaker 4: exact kind of approach we have to take here. And
Speaker 4: I think what's been quite interesting to me is state government,
Speaker 4: in the time that I've been there, has had a
Speaker 4: similar recognition, but on a different topic, where it's said
Speaker 4: that gas prices are something that we can only allow
Speaker 4: to get up to a certain point, and when they
Speaker 4: go beyond that, we need to subsidize it to ensure
Speaker 4: that it's affordable. In twenty twenty two, the state spent
Speaker 4: more than six hundred million dollars to suspend portions of
Speaker 4: the gas tax. And yet we are watching as New
Speaker 4: Yorkers are being priced out of bread and milk and eggs,
Speaker 4: and we are saying that this is beyond our control.
Speaker 4: And I think the last point I would make here
Speaker 4: is that our proposal is one that would cost sixty
Speaker 4: million dollars for all of those five together. That is
Speaker 4: less than half of the money the city is already
Speaker 4: spending on a program called City the Fresh, which will
Speaker 4: subsidize corporate supermarkets in the hopes that they provide affordable groceries,
Speaker 4: but with no guarantee to that, and with no requirement
Speaker 4: for them to accept snap or WICK, or to engage
Speaker 4: in collective bargaining, or to actually guarantee those cheaper groceries.
Speaker 4: So this is going to save the city money while
Speaker 4: piloting a program that we are confident will actually deliver
Speaker 4: the results that we have been denied in that existing
Speaker 4: program today.
Speaker 2: All right, I have two specific questions on this. One
Speaker 2: is I understand and I find intuitively logical the idea
Speaker 2: that people should be able to afford produce and it's
Speaker 2: food has gotten very expensive at the grocery store. But
Speaker 2: grocery store margins themselves are pretty thin. So yeah, So
Speaker 2: in terms of like actually using the grocery store channel
Speaker 2: to deliver these cost savings, given that the retail storage
Speaker 2: margins are so thin, just three percent, why is that
Speaker 2: the dial rather than I don't know, give people a
Speaker 2: voucher so that they can order fresh direct or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: You know, I am someone who has been skeptical of
Speaker 4: the efficacy of a voucher based model, And what I
Speaker 4: am proposing with this idea of a network of municipal
Speaker 4: ow and grocery stores is not a means by which
Speaker 4: the city would make money and be able to increase
Speaker 4: that profit market is like.
Speaker 2: The grocery level margins seem very thin. Now, I know
Speaker 2: you're not trying to make money. I'm just saying the
Speaker 2: margin seemed thinned. So if I think, like what moves
Speaker 2: the dial significantly on affordability, the actual retail level grocery
Speaker 2: does not strike me as where the big optional opportunity is.
Speaker 4: I think the opportunity we have with a city run
Speaker 4: model is that we can actually guarantee those cost savings. Right.
Speaker 4: We have heard national chains and executives speak on earning
Speaker 4: calls about how they've been able to blame covid era
Speaker 4: supply chain costs to increase profit margins even further. And
Speaker 4: what this would be as a clear mandate from the
Speaker 4: city that every single dollar we save we pass on.
Speaker 4: But beyond that, given that the mandate is not a
Speaker 4: profit based one, that we can also pass on further
Speaker 4: savings to ensure that things like milk and eggs and
Speaker 4: bread are actually affordable.
Speaker 2: So the other thing, and you sort of anticipated this question,
Speaker 2: which is you mentioned, for example, that in existing Nightscha
Speaker 2: housing people are waiting for a long time to get
Speaker 2: an elevator repaired and so forth. How do you ensure
Speaker 2: operational success because I think people would say, oh, I've
Speaker 2: seen how Nightcha housing works. I guess I'm going to
Speaker 2: know how a city, a New York City run grocery
Speaker 2: store is going to work. And who knows if it's
Speaker 2: going to be open, and who knows if they're going to,
Speaker 2: you know, keep the refrigerators repaired, or if they're going
Speaker 2: to have tomatoes one day. I'm just saying, like, you
Speaker 2: have already confirmed the idea that certain city run things
Speaker 2: are not run particularly well. So why should we Why
Speaker 2: should the public have confidence that, even setting aside price,
Speaker 2: that these would be like run well, run efficiently.
Speaker 4: I have to earn the public's trust and I will
Speaker 4: do that every single day as the mayor of the city.
Speaker 4: And if if you believe in public goods in public service,
Speaker 4: as I do, it behooves you to believe in just
Speaker 4: as much in public excellence. And the first charges that
Speaker 4: you must have is to tackle that which has not
Speaker 4: displayed that excellence. I think Nischa is an example of that.
Speaker 4: I also think one of the reasons why I focus
Speaker 4: so much on the MTA in my time in the
Speaker 4: State Assembly has been because that's another example of that
Speaker 4: where we have a world class city and we do
Speaker 4: not have world class public transit. I love our public transit,
Speaker 4: I love our trains, our buses, I love riding a
Speaker 4: city bike, and yet I know that the way in
Speaker 4: which we are running it could be so much better.
Speaker 4: And what has excited me is that we've seen glimpses
Speaker 4: of what that excellence could look like. I mean, I
Speaker 4: remember when I went in to get my vaccine for COVID.
Speaker 4: I was in and out of that facility in fifteen minutes,
Speaker 4: and that, to me was an example of the public
Speaker 4: sector being able to match the efficiencies we often hear
Speaker 4: about when we describe the private sector. I think about Nischa,
Speaker 4: which today is a story of disinvestment and of so
Speaker 4: many New Yorkers being left behind, could also be a
Speaker 4: story closer to the one of how they developed the
Speaker 4: minifridge in this country because it was a direct result
Speaker 4: of an RFP that was put out or a story. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I think there's also a story today to be
Speaker 4: told about woodside houses, which is a niche development that
Speaker 4: is piloting a large scale installation of heat pumps that
Speaker 4: has been shown to both increase the quality of life
Speaker 4: but also decrease the carbon emissions and the cost, and
Speaker 4: ultimately that is what we need to show New Yorkers.
Speaker 4: We have to earn their trust, and the best way
Speaker 4: to earn their trust is to deliver the results that
Speaker 4: we're confident we can with these ideas.
Speaker 3: Just one more question on the grocery stores. So I
Speaker 3: take the point about their purpose is not to make
Speaker 3: money for the government, obviously, but how would you actually
Speaker 3: judge the success of them.
Speaker 4: I would judge the success in their provision of affordable groceries.
Speaker 4: I would judge their success in them meeting a need
Speaker 4: that is currently being left unmet. And I think that
Speaker 4: also means in the location of those stores, that they
Speaker 4: actually provide a grosser restore in a place where currently
Speaker 4: it is too difficult to find any of that produce,
Speaker 4: and that their prices are as we are discussing them,
Speaker 4: significantly more affordable and more in line with where New
Speaker 4: Yorkers are actually able to spend.
Speaker 2: I want to talk more about public excellence in the
Speaker 2: provision of public goods.
Speaker 4: My Bernard brother, let's do it.
Speaker 2: I am an avid utilizer of many of the public
Speaker 2: goods that New York City provides. My kids are in
Speaker 2: public school. They go to the park almost every day.
Speaker 2: We ride the bus together, we ride the subway together.
Speaker 2: I don't think the subway and the bus are as
Speaker 2: bad as some people say. It's certainly not as bad
Speaker 2: as the impression I would get if I didn't live
Speaker 2: here and now were watching Fox News about New York City. Nonetheless,
Speaker 2: there has been an increase in crime over the last
Speaker 2: several years. I think it's come down recently, but there
Speaker 2: is a fair amount of disrepair. My impression is when
Speaker 2: I think about public goods in general, which is that
Speaker 2: people on the left really like to talk about them
Speaker 2: and how important they are, and then generally do not
Speaker 2: seem as committed to sort of like product excellence as
Speaker 2: I would expect for them to say, be politically sustainable.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I feel very safe. I live in
Speaker 2: the East Village, I commute up here. I generally feel
Speaker 2: very safe. But you know, like I see needles on
Speaker 2: the playground at Tompkins Square Park. There are bathrooms that
Speaker 2: are almost never open or functional. They're smoking on the
Speaker 2: subway from time to time. It's not the end of
Speaker 2: the world, but it's not very pleasant, especially when you
Speaker 2: have kids. And I'm curious like what your view is about,
Speaker 2: like what seems to be a sort of tension between
Speaker 2: excellent provision of public goods and some of the law
Speaker 2: and order, as people would call it, requirements for them
Speaker 2: to be clean, friendly, excellent places.
Speaker 4: You know, I think we on the left have to
Speaker 4: make it clear that quality of life is of immense
Speaker 4: concern to us, because when we are fighting for public goods,
Speaker 4: for public service, for public excellence, at the core of
Speaker 4: it is that belief that everyone should have an excellent
Speaker 4: quality of life. And yet what has happened in the
Speaker 4: last few years is that this term has almost been
Speaker 4: made to be understood as if it is solely a
Speaker 4: conservative concern, when in fact, this is at the heart
Speaker 4: of what we're fighting.
Speaker 2: It feels to me, like, to be honest, that the
Speaker 2: left has conceded that that actually the part of the
Speaker 2: reason it's become a sort of conservative coded term is
Speaker 2: because I perceive, and tell me if I'm wrong, it's fine,
Speaker 2: but I perceive a certain discomfort about some of the
Speaker 2: hard choices or some of the you know more, maybe
Speaker 2: carcerole is the right word, law and order whatever that
Speaker 2: would contribute to making some of these public goods safer
Speaker 2: and clean.
Speaker 4: Well, I think what we have to make clear is
Speaker 4: that those are not the only choices on offer, and
Speaker 4: yet we do have to still respond to that same crisis.
Speaker 4: And so often, as you were describing living in New
Speaker 4: York City, you have a different understanding than if you
Speaker 4: were to view it through the prism of social media
Speaker 4: or TV. And yet we can say two things at once,
Speaker 4: which is that there is an immense amount of fear
Speaker 4: mongering and that we still have to deliver world class goods,
Speaker 4: which we are far from doing today. And I say
Speaker 4: that as someone who loves our subway system and who
Speaker 4: knows that when you ask New Yorkers where they feel
Speaker 4: least safe in the city, you oftentimes hear those same words,
Speaker 4: It's the subway system. And that's why at the heart
Speaker 4: of our campaign is a proposal to deliver that same
Speaker 4: public safety that New Yorkers have been denied under Eric Adams,
Speaker 4: a mayor who ran in twenty twenty one, telling those
Speaker 4: same New Yorkers they need not choose between safety and justice.
Speaker 4: He's shown himself unable to deliver the former, uninterested in
Speaker 4: delivering the latter. And what we've said is that we
Speaker 4: will create a Department of Community Safety, the DCS, which
Speaker 4: understands that police have a critical role to play in
Speaker 4: public safety, and we are currently relying on them to
Speaker 4: respond to almost every single failure of the social safety net,
Speaker 4: asking them to do the work of social workers and
Speaker 4: mental health professionals, a reliance that has made it nearly
Speaker 4: impossible for them to actually do their jobs. And we
Speaker 4: can see that in their inability to raise their clearance
Speaker 4: rates of the major seven categories of crime. And so
Speaker 4: what our DCS will do is tackle five key issues homelessness,
Speaker 4: mental health crisis, gun violence, hate crimes, and victim services
Speaker 4: and will learn from the evidence proven models that have
Speaker 4: been successful elsewhere in the country in responding to these
Speaker 4: very issues and doing so in America that provides public
Speaker 4: safety and frees up the police.
Speaker 3: So another part of your platform is raising the corporate
Speaker 3: tax rate, raising income tax for millionaires. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the things we are all perhaps internalizing this
Speaker 3: week as we watch Washington, DC and the big beautiful
Speaker 3: bill currently going through its process, is that raising taxes
Speaker 3: on the rich seems to be really, really difficult in America.
Speaker 3: Maybe New York is different, Maybe New Yorkers feel differently
Speaker 3: about it. But I guess my question is a why
Speaker 3: do you think it seems so difficult? And then be
Speaker 3: how can you actually overcome that particular hurdle.
Speaker 2: Just to take on You actually need state permission to
Speaker 2: do that, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: You do. You need to work with the state, and ultimately,
Speaker 4: the city is a creature of the state, and any
Speaker 4: agenda you have as a mayor that seeks to match
Speaker 4: the scale of the crisis New Yorkers are living through
Speaker 4: will require Albany. When we wanted to create universal pre k,
Speaker 4: we required Albany. When we wanted congestion pricing, we required Albany.
Speaker 4: And I think again, and again and again you will
Speaker 4: look at any of the most ambitious parts of any
Speaker 4: candidate's plans and it will require Albany. When I came
Speaker 4: into office in twenty twenty, one of the first battles
Speaker 4: that I helped to lead was to raise taxes on
Speaker 4: the most profitable corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers so
Speaker 4: that we could fully fund our public schools. And we
Speaker 4: eventually did so over the objections of then Governor Cuomo,
Speaker 4: raising about four billion dollars, and that allowed us to
Speaker 4: fulfill the legal requirement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity,
Speaker 4: a landmark case with regards to fully funding public schools.
Speaker 4: And I think it's difficult in Washington, and it's difficult
Speaker 4: for a number of politicians to raise taxes on the
Speaker 4: rich when those politicians are also funded by the rich,
Speaker 4: because ultimately that clash between the interests of their donors
Speaker 4: and the interest of their constituents is one that they
Speaker 4: will oftentimes pick their donors. And we've seen that with
Speaker 4: Andrew Cuomo. He speaks a big game about fighting for
Speaker 4: working people, but he is funded by the same billionaires
Speaker 4: that fund Donald Trump. We've just seen Bill Ackman give
Speaker 4: his super pack two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and
Speaker 4: we continue to see that even with him receiving a
Speaker 4: million dollar donation from DoorDash looking to very clearly purchase
Speaker 4: influencer around labor and street safety regulations. And I think
Speaker 4: there is a real possibility of doing so, not only
Speaker 4: because it's one of the most popular things when you
Speaker 4: pull it amongst New Yorkers and amongst Americans, but because
Speaker 4: it's needed to pay for an agenda that will transform
Speaker 4: the quality of life not only for working class New Yorkers,
Speaker 4: not only for middle class New Yorkers, but even for
Speaker 4: the wealthy. You hear this concern about the degradation of
Speaker 4: city services, and our proposal is one that meets the
Speaker 4: earlier conversation we were having about the necessity for a
Speaker 4: public good to be so excellent that even the wealthy
Speaker 4: use it and delivers that with regards to buses, with
Speaker 4: regards to childcare, and with so many of the city
Speaker 4: services that will keep this city running.
Speaker 3: If you're unable to raise the tax rate for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: how much of your policy proposal is not viable any longer,
Speaker 3: And how do you actually prioritize the different things that
Speaker 3: you are proposing.
Speaker 4: So I'm confident in our ability to raise it because
Speaker 4: I've seen in every year that I've been in Albany
Speaker 4: twenty one that the legislature has in its own budget
Speaker 4: proposals proposed, those increases on income taxes for the wealthiest
Speaker 4: New Yorkers and on raising the top corporate tax rate.
Speaker 4: And just for one moment, if I can explain what
Speaker 4: those proposals are. Our proposal is to raise the top
Speaker 4: state corporate tax rate to match that of the radical
Speaker 4: socialist utopia of New Jersey. Is seven point twenty five
Speaker 4: percent here in New York to match theirs of eleven
Speaker 4: point five percent. That's a tax that applies to the
Speaker 4: topmost level of profitable corporations. We're talking about their profits
Speaker 4: millions of dollars, and it would raise five billion dollars
Speaker 4: just in doing so. The second part of the tax plan,
Speaker 4: which would raise four billion dollars, would be to increase
Speaker 4: New York City's income tax rate on the top one
Speaker 4: percent of income owners. We're talking about people who make
Speaker 4: a million dollars or more a year by a flat
Speaker 4: two percent increase, so a twenty thousand dollars increase, which
Speaker 4: is what I would argue a rounding error when you're
Speaker 4: looking at it within that larger context. Those two things
Speaker 4: together raise nine billion dollars, and then we raise an
Speaker 4: additional billion through good government reforms, whether we're talking about
Speaker 4: procurement or hiring fiscal auditors, or actually collecting the fines
Speaker 4: and fees that New York City is owed. So that's
Speaker 4: our fiscal policy of how we raised ten billion. Now,
Speaker 4: you always have to prepare for every eventuality. The city
Speaker 4: also has about three billion dollars in its rainy day
Speaker 4: fund and its reserves combined. It also, in times of
Speaker 4: economic growth, as we've generally seen in the last few years,
Speaker 4: sees its budget increase by two to three billion dollars.
Speaker 4: So there are a lot of different opportunities. And the
Speaker 4: final thing I will say is, we have a city
Speaker 4: budget of one hundred and fifteen billion dollars. I am
Speaker 4: not confident that Eric Adams has been spending every one
Speaker 4: of those dollars in the most productive way. And one
Speaker 4: of the first things that I will do when I
Speaker 4: get into city Hall JOJ but no, I mean to
Speaker 4: be honest with you. It is a regret of mine
Speaker 4: that we have allowed someone like Elon Musk to use
Speaker 4: the language of fraud and inefficiency and waste for his
Speaker 4: own end of personal benefit, when really, if we care
Speaker 4: about public goods and public service, we should be ensuring
Speaker 4: that it is the most efficient spending of those dollars.
Speaker 4: And I think when we look, especially at the way
Speaker 4: in which we've hollowed out public capacity to instead replace
Speaker 4: it with private consultants, there's an immense amount of money
Speaker 4: to be saved, especially if we're looking specifically at the
Speaker 4: DOE and how much of our reliance on curricula procurement
Speaker 4: has to do more with who we've already been procuring
Speaker 4: with and not having any standardized approach when it should
Speaker 4: also be a universal approach across the department that ensures
Speaker 4: we both save money and deliver excellence.
Speaker 2: I want to ask another politics question. I don't really
Speaker 2: like to talk policy, but I think this is actually
Speaker 2: an important to mention. After the recent general election twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, and with clear that Democrats performed worse than
Speaker 2: they historically have among non white voters all around the country,
Speaker 2: there's this big debate about why, and the left says,
Speaker 2: are the centrist you failed to talk to the working
Speaker 2: class and the centris It's like, no, it's because you've
Speaker 2: made us talk about pronow and that repelled people, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I'm actually not that interested in that question right now.
Speaker 2: I'm interested that intra left left candidates actually have not
Speaker 2: done particularly well, mentioned Bernie among poorer voters, among non
Speaker 2: white voters, among polling. I'm not going to ask you
Speaker 2: about your own polling per se, but I saw a
Speaker 2: poll that said you were pulling at eight percent among
Speaker 2: black voters, with Andrew Cuomo having done a lot better.
Speaker 2: It seems like left politics in this country. It appeals
Speaker 2: to educated white people, many of them who probably work
Speaker 2: in newsrooms. I haven't pulled the Bloomberg newsroom, but you know,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. Why do you think that is why
Speaker 2: have general Left candidates, whether it's the primary level, et cetera,
Speaker 2: or even just looking at you know, New York City
Speaker 2: mayoral polling, not had more progress among what is arguably
Speaker 2: the core base of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: You know, I think these polls that we're speaking about
Speaker 4: right now with regards to New York City continue to
Speaker 4: be polls that are more reflective of name recognition than
Speaker 4: they are of support. And what I mean by that
Speaker 4: is Andrew Cuomo is a former governor who is the
Speaker 4: son of a former governor, and when I speak to
Speaker 4: many New Yorkers who support him, I almost always hear
Speaker 4: the word Mario in their answer. And what I'm proud
Speaker 4: of is that we are the only campaign other than
Speaker 4: Cuomo to have broken double digits with every single ethnic
Speaker 4: group across the city.
Speaker 2: But you know, like even like on say like unionization,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of excitement among unionization of Grand students,
Speaker 2: for example, but you know that's not what we think
Speaker 2: of as like, you know, the sort of like industrial
Speaker 2: beating heart of the labor movement, et cetera. It does
Speaker 2: seem to be a phenomenon. There's sort of more left
Speaker 2: culture or sort of left economic policies have taken hold
Speaker 2: more among educated whites.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I think you can look at DC thirty
Speaker 4: seven for an example. This is the largest municipal union
Speaker 4: in our city, and they represent the workers who actually
Speaker 4: keep this city moving. They are by and large black
Speaker 4: and brown New Yorkers, and they explicitly chose not to
Speaker 4: endorse Andrew Cuomo because he created Tier six, a new
Speaker 4: category in the pension program that took more than one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars out from working class New Yorkers' pockets
Speaker 4: and made them retire later after having served this city
Speaker 4: in state for decades. And I was proud to receive
Speaker 4: their endorsement, and I think that it shows me the
Speaker 4: path here is one where every single day over these
Speaker 4: next thirty four days, we are going to continue to
Speaker 4: increase our support where we have seen ourselves, for example,
Speaker 4: just break twenty percent in support with Latino voters. And
Speaker 4: that is indicative of the fact that the very New
Speaker 4: Yorkers who know Cuomo the most are the ones who've
Speaker 4: been failed by his policies the most as well. And
Speaker 4: that is a responsibility for my campaign and every campaign
Speaker 4: to showcase his actual record of cutting medicaid, stealing money
Speaker 4: from the MTA to fund upstate ski resorts, hounding the
Speaker 4: more than ten women who courageously stepped forward to accuse
Speaker 4: him of sexual harassment, and in many ways echoing a
Speaker 4: Donald Trump style record. And that's what we will seek
Speaker 4: to do, both at the doors the more than five
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand we've knocked so far, and on
Speaker 4: cable and broadcasts and mailers, because we have now raised
Speaker 4: eight million dollars, the most amount of money we can
Speaker 4: legally spend in this race, faster than any campaign in history,
Speaker 4: and podcasts, I guess, yes, this this is actually our
Speaker 4: master plan. Yeah, it all comes down to odd lots,
Speaker 4: thank you.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to cook that.
Speaker 3: So I just remembered something from my dream. Actually, So
Speaker 3: one of the passengers said that what he wanted was
Speaker 3: basically this is not a real passenger, but I think
Speaker 3: it's reflective of some things that you actually do here
Speaker 3: in New York. But he said what he wants is
Speaker 3: basically boring, old competency in a mayor so an administrator
Speaker 3: that has lots of policy experience as opposed to someone who's,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe relatively new and trying to do some
Speaker 3: new things. And I think that is important. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a big difference between coming up with policy ideas
Speaker 3: and actually executing them and executing them, well, how are
Speaker 3: you going to get things done? And what do you
Speaker 3: say to the people who just want, you know, like
Speaker 3: a boring continuation not necessarily of Eric Adams, but you know,
Speaker 3: maybe going back a little bit further.
Speaker 4: I understand that desire. It's a desire for normalcy in
Speaker 4: a time when politics has become about cronyism and corruption.
Speaker 4: And as much as Andrew Cuomo markets himself as a
Speaker 4: candidate and a campaign of competence, this is a man
Speaker 4: who couldn't even follow basic paperwork requirements to receive millions
Speaker 4: of dollars in public matching funds, someone who couldn't write
Speaker 4: a housing policy without the assistance of chat GBT, or
Speaker 4: even spell the names of his endorsers correctly in his
Speaker 4: own press releases. And as much as a phrenetic public
Speaker 4: facing schedule as I've been keeping over the last seven months,
Speaker 4: I've also been keeping a private schedule where I've been
Speaker 4: meeting with deputy mayors and commissioners from a wide variety
Speaker 4: of mayoral administrations to speak about the how of it all,
Speaker 4: Because an idea is only as good as its implement
Speaker 4: and ultimately, it comes back from a desire to build
Speaker 4: a team of the best and the brightest, one where
Speaker 4: we have a common threat of excellence, of fluency, and
Speaker 4: a track record that binds all of those appointments and
Speaker 4: those hires, not a common thread of having served together
Speaker 4: for twenty years, which is what it seems to have
Speaker 4: been with Mayor Adams today. And one additional point I'll
Speaker 4: say is that too often the style of leadership we've seen,
Speaker 4: whether it's from Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams, has been
Speaker 4: to hire replicas of yourself, to hire people who with
Speaker 4: whom you have one hundred percent agreement and who are
Speaker 4: the quickest to say yes to any one of your ideas,
Speaker 4: be they good or bad. I am not interested in
Speaker 4: that style of leadership. I'm interested in a style of
Speaker 4: leadership that understands that ultimately the buck stops with me,
Speaker 4: and that I have to build a team that speaks
Speaker 4: to a wide breath of opinion, of ideology and of
Speaker 4: track record, that not everyone is going to look and
Speaker 4: sound and be just like me, and that if I
Speaker 4: want a DOT commissioner, all I need to agree with
Speaker 4: them on is the vision for DOT, not HPD. And
Speaker 4: if I want to hire a deputy mayor, they need
Speaker 4: not agree with me on my thoughts on foreign policy.
Speaker 4: They need only agree with their purview that they're being
Speaker 4: hired for. Because it comes back to this notion that
Speaker 4: I think Mayor Koch put it best, which is, if
Speaker 4: you agree with me on nine out of twelve issues,
Speaker 4: vote for me. If you agree with me on twelve
Speaker 4: out of twelve, see a psychiatrist. And that speaks to
Speaker 4: the need to have room for that disagreement and ultimately
Speaker 4: be bound by that pursuit of excellence.
Speaker 2: During the twenty sixteen presidential campaign, it was a Trump
Speaker 2: supporter I'm looking up it was actually the founder of
Speaker 2: Latinos for Trump who said that if Trump didn't win,
Speaker 2: there would be taco trucks on every corner, which sounds
Speaker 2: really good to me. You have also proposed neoliberalism for
Speaker 2: halal cards, which I really like chicken over rice, so
Speaker 2: I'd be very happy to see more of them and
Speaker 2: be cheaper. But I'm curious how far you'd extend. So
Speaker 2: reduce the permits make it easier to open up.
Speaker 4: Increase the permits.
Speaker 2: Oh, increase the number of permits, make it easier, therefore
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 3: It is true that the Hellal guys in Midtown, I
Speaker 3: think the original one. You go by there in the
Speaker 3: afternoon and the line stretches around the block. It's kind
Speaker 3: of insane.
Speaker 4: They used to say a chicken in every pot. I'm
Speaker 4: saying a halal in every hand.
Speaker 2: Okay, what about hotels. Their hotel prices are insanely expensive.
Speaker 2: Airbnb is no longer legal. I know someone visiting the
Speaker 2: city right now who had to get a place in
Speaker 2: Jersey City because it's just too crazy. In New York,
Speaker 2: it's insanely difficult to build a new hotel, apparently due
Speaker 2: to opposition both from existing hotel owners to new hotels
Speaker 2: for all reasons and the hotel worker unions. Do you
Speaker 2: support liberalized in the same way that we need more
Speaker 2: wolog cards? Would you support liberalization of hotel development in
Speaker 2: New York City?
Speaker 4: You know I am not as interested in the concerns
Speaker 4: of existing hotel owners but I am very interested in
Speaker 4: the concerns of hotel workers, and I think that that
Speaker 4: is something that I would love to explore. Is there
Speaker 4: a way to expand the number of hotels while ensuring
Speaker 4: that we also retain the protections for those workers, because
Speaker 4: so often we've seen this very fight, and it's going
Speaker 4: to be one that will intensify in the next year.
Speaker 4: There's contract renegotiations coming to a head during the World Cup,
Speaker 4: where hotel owners have put hotel workers on the front
Speaker 4: lines of so much of the work without giving them
Speaker 4: the pay that is requisite for that. With Airbnb, one
Speaker 4: of my concerns has been the transformation of what would
Speaker 4: be housing into effectively small scale hotels and the proposal
Speaker 4: that they're pushing I think they've currently they're putting I
Speaker 4: think more than a million dollars into spending on local races.
Speaker 4: Has the prospect of turning a double digit number of
Speaker 4: one and two family homes, taking them off of the
Speaker 4: market and making them these vacant units.
Speaker 2: I'd just say Tracy, as someone who has lived in
Speaker 2: multi family housing my entire life in New York City,
Speaker 2: I'm not thrilled with Airbnb because I like to know
Speaker 2: who the neighbors are in my building and sometimes you
Speaker 2: get loud, noisy, crazy people. Anyway, keep going here.
Speaker 3: I think that's a concern that a lot of people
Speaker 3: will share. I have just one more question. It's the
Speaker 3: most important and one. But you have a little experience
Speaker 3: in Bollywood. I suppose I'm a big Bollywood fan. Everything
Speaker 3: I look I know about cricket I learned from Lagan,
Speaker 3: which is great film. Yeah, great film. Okay, So here's
Speaker 3: my question, Amir Khan or Shower Khan. Cho's one.
Speaker 4: Wow, Why why would you do this to me? Amir
Speaker 4: Khan for my head? Chau Khan for my heart?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 3: I think I would say a similar thing.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, why didn't we spend the interview on
Speaker 4: these questions?
Speaker 3: Do a Bollywood episode.
Speaker 4: I would love to do a Bollywood episode.
Speaker 2: Wait for those who don't know what is the Bollywood.
Speaker 4: So the bar's connection is that my mother, her name
Speaker 4: is Mirra, and I are She is a filmmaker. She
Speaker 4: is an Indian filmmaker who's made a number of films,
Speaker 4: my favorite of which is Mississippi Masala and it's not
Speaker 4: I actually.
Speaker 3: Haven't seen that one. I saw Monsoon Wedding and that
Speaker 3: was great.
Speaker 4: Great film, great film. You have to see missip Massala
Speaker 4: because it's also the reason that I'm alive. She met
Speaker 4: my father while researching for that film.
Speaker 2: Huh soar and Mom, Donnie, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on the thrilled that we could make it happen.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, the pleasure to be.
Speaker 2: Here, Tracy. If he wins, maybe he'll come back on.
Speaker 2: We can do a Bollywood well we have, we'd have
Speaker 2: a lots of other stuff to talk about, but I
Speaker 2: would definitely, I would definitely. I don't know much about it.
Speaker 2: I love Legon, so we should talk more about that. Sometimes.
Speaker 3: I really love Bollywood movies. I need to catch Mississippi Massala.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, I mean his mom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was obviously a very interesting conversation. I
Speaker 3: do think, you know, there's this sort of knee jerk
Speaker 3: reaction against socialism in America for you know, reasons or reasons. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but you know, examples of some of the stuff do exist,
Speaker 3: and I think the b x's and the military commissaries
Speaker 3: are a really good example of you know, we do
Speaker 3: have subsidized groceries that exist in America, and why not
Speaker 3: have them in New York.
Speaker 2: I think a really key thing, which is there's this
Speaker 2: bad cycle with the public provision of goods in the US,
Speaker 2: which is just that people look at them and don't
Speaker 2: think they're particularly well run, and then it's like now
Speaker 2: you want to have more, and so it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: like I said, I love the New York City Subway.
Speaker 2: I take it every day. What I want a grocery
Speaker 2: store that sort of resembles the New York City Subway.
Speaker 2: Probably not. I'm not saying it would, but I'm saying
Speaker 2: this is my experience interfacing with New York City public
Speaker 2: goods when I want a grocery store that like resembles
Speaker 2: the bathrooms at Tompkins Square Park or has similar No,
Speaker 2: not at all. I mean, so I just feel like,
Speaker 2: like it's fine. I love living in New York City.
Speaker 2: I think these public provisions are great, and some of
Speaker 2: them are absolutely incredible, like the libraries. But by and large,
Speaker 2: I think that the tenders of public goods, for various reasons,
Speaker 2: have not done a great job of like, no, these
Speaker 2: are actually really good services.
Speaker 3: That's fair, and obviously the government's core competency is probably
Speaker 3: not running grocery stores right, Like they wouldn't have to.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think. Yeah, they would have to.
Speaker 3: Learn a lot in order to get up to speed.
Speaker 3: But my point is, you know, the commissaries at military bases,
Speaker 3: they're pretty good, like you can buy everything and service
Speaker 3: is great. They still bag your groceries at least the
Speaker 3: last time I was there, So examples do exist. All
Speaker 3: I'm saying is it's possible for sure.
Speaker 2: You know the other thing and obviously we only had
Speaker 2: so much time. Is I'm really interested further in this
Speaker 2: tension between Deregulation is good when it's small things like
Speaker 2: a log card or a zorn recently didn't add, which
Speaker 2: we didn't get around to talking about, how like, you know,
Speaker 2: there should be make it easier for bodega owners and
Speaker 2: you know, less regulations for them, which sounds great. I like,
Speaker 2: I like all of my like the three local bodegas
Speaker 2: within a forty five second walk from my apartment. It's great.
Speaker 2: But why do those sort of basic principles of sort
Speaker 2: of liberalizing the rules around X not then applied to
Speaker 2: some of the bigger things such as hotels, which are
Speaker 2: insanely expensive in New York or other areas like real estate,
Speaker 2: et cetera. He did mention allowing more single family stairs,
Speaker 2: so they're all the single family stare nerds on Twitter. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm sure be very excited about that also, which we
Speaker 2: talked about on episode once.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah we did. Yeah, all right, so this
Speaker 3: is actually a.
Speaker 2: Core It is a core Odd Lots episode.
Speaker 3: Okay, shall we leave it there.
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the Odd Loots podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our guests zoron Mmdannie He's at zoron k Mamdanie.
Speaker 2: Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman, dash Ol
Speaker 2: Bennett at Dashbot at Calee Brooks at Cale Brooks. For
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