New York affordability, Boneless wings and more travel miles for the Gerald R. Ford
Now the warm bosom of collectivism
I had basically decided to ignore the vacuous babblings of those on the far left. It must be awful to have AOC as your spokesman – much like having Al Sharpton as the spokesman for black people. So even though in the past I have devoted some time to write about New York’s Zohran Mamdani, I decided to cross him off the list as well. Until now. New York has a budget of $127 billion and a shortfall of $5.5 billion. State law requires a balanced budget and Mamdani wants New York state to allow him to raise the taxes on the uber-wealthy and corporations. The state doesn’t seem to have the inclination to do so and as a result Mamdani is threatening to raise property taxes by 9.5 percent. Now this budget does not even include all the free stuff Mamdani promised in his campaign to make the city more “affordable”. But isn’t an increase in property taxes a violation of his promises? Won’t the increase make New York less affordable? Mamdani, like most socialists has a distain for market economics but he should heed the Laffer curve and raise more property taxes by lowering property taxes. That should also stimulate more supply as landlords will be able to afford to bring some of the thousands of empty housing units back on line. The lack of affordability in socialism reveals itself in shortages because they always ignore supply.
Meanwhile, New York may be facing a budget crisis with a deficit of $5.5 billion but that did not stop its mayor and AOC recording a video in Spanish urging everyone regardless of immigrant status from signing up their children for free pre-school. Mamdani said this was part of his effort to bring free universal healthcare to everyone while AOC said “free childcare is one of the most important ways we can make our city more affordable for everyone.” Do you see the disconnect here? Won’t this widen the budget deficit? How is the city paying for this? Or rather who in the city is paying for this? How is this making the city “more affordable?”
I don’t go to Buffalo Wild Wings because I hate their commercials
There was a court ruling on whether Buffalo Wild Wings was deceptive in having its boneless wings made from chicken breasts rather than deboned chicken wings. I am not kidding. How this nonsense ever made it to federal court and was not thrown out is beyond me. Some litigious person sued Buffalo Wind Wings. I guess he claimed emotional damage when he found out he was eating chicken breast meat rather than wing meat. He sued claiming breach of express warranty, common law fraud, and unjust enrichment. In a 10 page decision the judge ruled that “This complaint has no meat on its bones,” because the plaintiff “does not plausibly allege that reasonable consumers are deceived by boneless wings.”
I absolutely love Buffalo Wild Wings’ response “It’s true,” the company tweeted “Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.” I hope the plaintiff was made to pay court costs. I think a better suit would be that their commercials cause undue emotional distress.
Can I put these miles on my frequent traveler account?
I hope the Gerald R. Ford carrier group gets frequent traveler miles. It was in the Mediterranean and was sent to the Caribbean. Then Trump ordered it to the Persian Gulf joining the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group now that Trump is rattling his swords at Iran. Reports are that the longer than usual deployment is causing some angst amongst the crew and their families at home. One wonders why it is always the Ford and not one of the other eleven carriers that seems to be always chosen to show the flag.
Recall when the president told Iran to stop killing the protestors or else? “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Well they didn’t and he didn’t either. Now the only reason why we have two carrier attack groups in the Persian Gulf is to attack Iran if they don’t knuckle under to whatever the president is demanding. I am not so certain what that is. Is it the protestors? Is it the nuclear program that I thought Trump said was destroyed by our earlier attack on their facilities? Is it the funding of terrorists? Is it the financing of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis? Is it regime change? Somehow I don’t think that they will try to kidnap Khamenei.
Iran’s Gulf adversaries, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates don’t appear to be enthused about a US military strike on Iran – at least not publicly. Are they worried that a US attack on Iran will lead to war in the Middle East? Would a destabilization in Iran spread to citizen unrest against their own authoritarian regimes? I haven’t a clue but apparently they are comfortable with the status quo. Would such attack also lead to a reigniting of terrorist bombings and kidnappings worldwide? Also does Trump realize the irony in holding his so-called Board of Peace meeting while at the same time threatening war against Iran?
By the way, we are withdrawing our troops from Syria. Does this mean we are abandoning the Kurds again? History repeats itself as we are once more leaving our allies to fend for themselves. In his first term, Trump withdrew our troops from Syria to appease Turkey prompting Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign. No way Pete Hegseth will ever oppose anything that Trump orders. One wonders why any group would align themselves with the United States against the dominant force in their country – Afghans anyone? And Taiwan should start getting worried too.
Lastly, I want to congratulate Ukraine and its embattled president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for defying all expectations and battling the Russians to a virtual stalemate over four long years. How many predicted that Ukraine would fold almost immediately with its territory seized by the Russian bear? The Russians think that they can keep throwing soldiers lives away along with Russian resources and eventually the Ukrainians will give up. The Ukrainians think that they can hold on and force the Russians to withdraw. Trump has always been the wild card here, often siding with his buddy Vladmir Putin wanting Ukraine to give up territory in exchange for a nebulous guarantee of security. But Zelenskyy knows that is a nonserious starter. He is a former comedian so he can recognize a joke when he hears one. Trump has stopped selling Ukraine arms and is now selling them to Europe which then sells them to Ukraine. It looks like European continuing aid along with Ukrainian grit may yet win the day. I certainly hope so. In any regard, why anyone would fear the Russians and the Russian army is beyond me. All Russia is is a loud mouth bully with nuclear weapons. But as NATO has reminded the Russians “We have nukes too.”
haroldblackphd.com 