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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, it's Bradley. Before we dive into today's episode, I've got some interesting news. Firewall was nominated for its first ever Webby Award. If you're wondering what are the Webby Awards, it's like the Oscars for Internet stuff, and we're up for best individual episode in the podcast category. And the way they determine the winner is through voting. And we could really use your help because we're up against some really heavy hitters, including Oprah. So if you go to the Show Notes, you can find the link that'll take you right to the ballot. Or if you go to Webby Awards, you can navigate your way there too, and we'd really appreciate the support. Thank you. All right, welcome back to Firewall. I'm your host, Bradley Tusk. It's a Tuesday episode, so with this is our friend and producer, Hugo Lindgren. Hugo, how you doing?
- [00:51]
B
I'm good. I love friend and producer.
- [00:53]
A
I don't know what it is. I just love it. Well, you know why? Because you were telling me this morning before we started that you were waiting for your car to be fixed, and so you walked into Greenwood Cemetery. So maybe since we've discussed in the past about how you'd like that to be in your tombstone, maybe it was kind of in the back of your mind. In fact, a couple weeks ago, I was in Miami, and I was at the Perez. I was at some museum. It was the Perez, I think, where there was a Basquiat that said, on a green wood, and then it said, para moreir, which means to die.
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B
And.
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A
And so I texted. I took a picture of it, and I texted Mira Joshi, who runs Greenwood Cemetery, and I said, did you know there was a Basquiat in Miami? She said, yeah, he's buried here.
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B
Oh, he is?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Oh, that's. That's actually a. Like a. Like. Like a grave site.
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A
I would. She's. Actually, we should. She's keeps inviting me on, like, a tour and all kinds.
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B
I would do this.
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A
We should go. We should make it an outing.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. It's not. Parks department.
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A
Right.
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B
Greenwood.
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A
It's a private cemetery.
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B
Oh, it's private.
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A
It's, like a nonprofit.
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B
It's a nonprofit, Right?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay.
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A
And people can still be buried there?
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B
Actually, yeah, A friend of mine's dad was buried there.
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A
It would be cool to. I. I actually just redid my will and said I want to be cremated, because I just figured. Seems to me that on the way out, you could do two final sort of good things. You could Donate your organs. And if you were cremated, it's gotta be better for the earth than sticking up more space. Right. With a box and a body and everything else. But I do think it would be kind of cool to be buried in Greenwood. You know, what an amazing view of
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B
the city from there. It's really. It's a great place to visit and it is pretty peaceful there. So.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay, I'm in. Let's do the talk.
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A
All right, so the episode today is a little meandering in advance. So the. It was one of those weeks where, like, we had like two topics that were kind of loose, and then by this morning we had like 13. So I don't even quite know what to talk about. 13.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But I'm just going to let Hugo drive and I'll. I'll answer questions.
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B
Bradley, you should. As we discuss. Also, you were going to just address your kind of. Is it state of mind or is it more.
- [02:54]
A
Oh, just that I couldn't sleep, couldn't fall asleep last night. I took a Tylenol PM like 1:30 in the morning. And so now I'm like a little loopy.
- [03:00]
B
All right, He's. He seems fine to me. But we've been talking about how Bradley sort of like has a very sort of legible energy level on the podcast. And that's a thing. Yeah, mostly very.
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A
Here's how you know, there's two things that show that I'm not a professional podcaster. One is the quality, and in some ways just sort of the. Yeah, the tone is set by my energy and mood at that moment. I would imagine a true professional can just completely put that together.
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B
You could never tell what just happened.
- [03:32]
A
Yeah. And then two would be. When we have guests, the episode is as good or bad as the guest. Like, if it's a good guest, it can be an amazing episode, but if it's a bad guest, I don't have the talent to rescue it and make it a good episode.
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B
Yeah, well, I think. I think you're better at that than you think. But it's good to just, you know, be self critical.
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A
Yeah, sure.
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B
Good. All right, so we're going to start by talking about Marijuana Anonymous.
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A
Yeah. And so remember when we did the podcast on transcranial magnetic stimulation?
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B
Yes. And you've gone back and done that again, right?
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A
I did it again last week. Although I did realize last week that doing it midweek is a really bad idea because I was fucking wiped the rest of the week, so.
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B
And did you take a few days off then or.
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A
No, And I just kept going. I turned out the previous times it was like on a Friday or whatever. So, anyway, I'll. Next time I'll switch it. But we did an episode on it because, look, it's called transcranial magnetic stimulation, but effectively it's electroshock therapy, and as a result, it has very negative connotations. And yet, as someone who had suffered from OCD my entire life and had taken medication and tried different types of therapies and. And none of it really did anything, this was enormously effective, transformative even for my life in many ways. And I wanted people to know about it. And I feel like, in general, if you are lucky enough to be a public figure with a platform like I am, you have some obligation to. When there are things that are important but maybe stigmatized in some way, if you have personal experience with it, to be able to speak to it publicly, knowing that some people maybe will judge you for it, and that's okay. But much more importantly, letting other people, A, know that it's a useful resource and B, you know, in speaking about it in your own personal experience with it, being able to help destigmatize it a little bit, so that if somebody wasn't comfortable with it, it may not change their mind, but perhaps it's at least a data point they can factor in. And so I wanted to do that again. And so, as you know, my entire adult life, I have struggled with weed. And it in many ways was this thing that I really turned to that I believed was very helpful, because, as you know, and I think as the listeners sort of realize, like, my mind, typically, not counting the timeout, p.m. at 1:30 in the morning, moves really, really quickly. Right? And that has resulted in a lot of great things. No one's listening to this podcast just by random. It's because you think I've done and do things in the world that are interesting. Right. But at the same time, it's a lot. And what I had always told myself was this is the thing that can slow me down and make me feel a little more like a normal person. But the challenge is, you know, I was effectively using it as relief and escape as people have used substances, you know, since Dionysus and the wine back in the Greek mythology era. And if you can use something in moderation, whatever it is, sure, that's great. For whatever reason, weed for me is not something that I can use in moderation. Alcohol, no problem. But weed, no. And I managed to quit for two years, and I was really Proud of that. And then after a breakup in the fall, I relapsed and found myself back to smoking far too often.
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B
Just right back to sort of that level that you were accustomed to.
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A
Yeah. And I think also because it is legal and so widely available, it's just there's no friction at all. Right. So when weed was illegal, one of the things that actually helped me moderate usage was that you just had to go to some effort to get it. And as a result, it wasn't just like every time you walk outside, like, oh, here it is, you know, and it's no problem, just buy it. Right. There's friction. And so that combined with me sort of yet again convincing myself, like, oh, this time I'll be able to just do it.
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B
And you did think, like, when you first started back using it, you thought like, oh, a couple days.
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A
And then I thought that. But of course that wasn't true.
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B
Of course.
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A
And so 27 days ago, so almost four weeks ago, I kind of finally realized, like, look, this thing has control over me and I am doing it far too much and even in some ways just as bad, I'm spending so much time, mental energy around it. Right. Angry at myself, negotiating with myself, when to do it, when not to do it, how to do it, how much to do. And I kind of realized like, two things. One, I'm not capable of doing this in moderation and I don't want to be controlled by anything. And two, that I could use help in stopping. Not in stock. That's not true. Stopping is never a problem for me. Staying stopped is a problem for me. And so I checked out Marijuana Anonymous and I have been going to meetings and I just want to recommend it that if you are someone that's trying struggles with weed and you haven't checked it out, it's a really great resource. It's on zoom. It's basically almost available on the hour. You don't have to sign up in advance.
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B
You haven't gone in person?
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A
No.
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B
And are there meetings around?
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A
There are, but, you know, if you just go to literally the Marijuana Anonymous website, there's just a list of meetings happening everywhere around the world at any time.
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B
And you leave your camera on.
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A
You can do that, you can be on, you can be off, you can speak, you can not speak. It is free. And I would say the community is incredibly lovely, incredibly supportive. It's a incredibly diverse group of people. And I would say I'm not sure that I've gone on there and seen someone else. Not that I would know. But just even like that, that I would say, like, oh, this person's life seems similar to mine. I think I haven't really encountered that, to be honest. But everyone has something in common, which is that they feel like they don't have the ability to use marijuana in moderation and that they are controlled by it and they don't want it in their life.
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B
And.
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A
And you can share, you can listen, but people are incredibly loving, incredibly supportive. It is just a great community. It's an incredible resource. Like I said, it's free.
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B
Is it New Yorkers or is. It could be anywhere.
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A
Could be anywhere. Right. So, you know, there are some that occur, say, every day or every. Whatever, once a week, whatever is at the same time. So there are some that are. A couple that I've gone to multiple times. There are others where I recognize people from other meetings. I mean, some people, I think they're really, really focused on it and they're probably going to several meetings a day or there's a thing for a lot of people where in the first 90 days there's an attempt to do 90 meetings. Yeah, I don't think I quite need that, but. And I don't entirely know how to quantify the impact that it has on me, but I will just say that I know that on my own, I don't have the ability to handle it either in moderation or to. Stay stopped is a term I think that people use in that world.
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B
Stay stopped. That's it. Yeah.
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A
And so it is something that I have started doing, I think, in the last.
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B
How many people in every meeting, is it capped?
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A
No, I mean, there's a time allotment for speaking, so that's basically. And then the meeting's an hour, typically, so that's the cap, effectively.
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B
And you've spoken a bunch of.
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A
Not a bunch, but I have. I did this weekend. You know, I don't really have a dramatic living under the bridge type story to tell.
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B
Not yet.
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A
Yeah. So. But it's just. It's, you know, it is helpful. And I would imagine that in the same way that the legalization and normalization of weed certainly made it so much harder for me to not use it constantly. Unlikely I'm the only person like that. And so if that happens to be you or someone you know and love and care about, it's a resource worth checking out. And if you want to talk more about it, feel free to just, you know, email me at the firewall address and I'd be happy to talk to you. About it.
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B
I just want one more question. Is it the same as AA just for weed, or is it different?
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A
No, I've been to AA, but there's the 12 steps, there's the Serenity Prayer, and.
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B
Do you have a sponsor?
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A
No.
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B
Okay.
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A
No, I don't at the moment. Really feel the need for that.
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B
You know, it's good where you are.
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A
Yeah, I think so for me. And look, I think people can pick, right. There are sponsors available. Doesn't cost you anything. And I think a lot of the people who are either sponsors or just are, you know, there's different ways to serve in the meeting. You can be the moderator, you can be the timekeeper, whatever it is. I think being of service, we talk with this on this podcast all the time, you know, gives people a sense of meaning and purpose. And I think that really is helpful to them as much as it is to everybody else. And so, you know, it's possible that no one listening to this episode has this issue, but if you do or someone, you know, does. It was not something that I had really been familiar with until recently. And I think it's just an incredible resource and want to talk about it.
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B
Good. Should we talk about New York City?
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A
Yeah, sure.
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B
We have a few different topics here. First, Madani threw himself a party for his 100 days.
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A
He did.
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B
I was at the Knockdown center in Queens. You were not there.
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A
I was not there. I was not even invited.
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B
Do you think, could we have gone?
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A
I know a couple. I read the article, said a couple thousand people want. I guess if we got this could
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B
have been too tight.
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A
Yeah. If we really wanted to go, I could have called someone I matched and got another list.
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B
Let's go to the 200 day.
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A
I don't think they do.
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B
It's gonna hold a party every 100 days. Yeah. So there were. According to the New York Times, there were various exhibits commemorating some of the mayor's early accomplishments. And then they listed them. He has restarted stalled bus lane projects, filled potholes, targeted bad landlords and bad employers, and built a rest stop for delivery workers.
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A
I mean, I like the act of doing it in the sense of. Not unlike when I did the Campaign Promises Index for Bloomberg, where we announced the status of where every one of our campaign promises stood every year, regardless of the. Done or not done was not the point. The point was to be totally transparent and accountable. So if you're going to put yourself out there like this, then you have to try to show what you've done. And if that is a forcing Mechanism to get you to be more proactive. I think that that's a good thing. And I will say, you know, there's been, I've read a bunch of criticism of his first hundred days, but you know, I don't think it's been that bad. I think that he has focused a lot on operations and that is truly what I believe the job of the mayor is. I think that his appointments on the operational side have been generally pretty good. You know. Are there criticisms of him? Sure. You know, he initially refused to break up the homeless encampments. I think 19 people died in the extreme cold as a result of it. And to a certain extent that's his fault. I think the budget is a total mess and he has misplayed it completely. And that's, that's a big one though, right? It's a big one.
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B
I mean, those are two big ones. 19 dead and yeah, for sure, the budget.
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A
Yeah. So there are some negatives. But on the flip side, I do think that he has been pretty proactive in trying to just deliver on the day to day stuff that matters to New Yorkers. And also, even though it was Governor Hochul's initiative and state money that she is accountable for, I don't think the, I think it was two and a half billion that was pledged to free childcare in New York City would have happened had Mondavi not made it such a focal point of his campaign. Now how they execute on it is another story. And if he doesn't execute on it well, then it's not an accomplishment. There's definitely this fallacy among the left that spending money in and of itself is the accomplishment, that it's not, it's how you do it. But overall, for 100 days I think he's been, okay. Now the budget is a big one. And I don't know that they. My guess is if I had to sort of predict that they will paper a lot of it over with gimmicks and refinancing like they always do. And well, the problem is the US government could do that indefinitely in the sense that you don't have to have a balanced budget and you can literally print more money and just sell more national debt. Now we're going to get to a point where the interest payments on the debt federally exceed what we're spending for any substantive issue. And that's a massive problem in and of itself. But for New York City, yeah, you can probably get away with it for a year or so. If he's going to be mayor for eight years and most people get reelected as mayor. The bill does come due. So I imagine what he's going to do is just push everything off and then hope that next year he gets a big tax increase in Albany and that saves him. But the thing is, I don't from Governor Hochul after, you know, presumably she's not going to run for a third and a half term or whatever it is, or in 2030. Right. She came in in the kind of middle of Cuomo's term when he had to step down one reelection. I believe she'll win reelection again this year. I hope she does. So I think it's. And she's, you know, I don't know, in her mid-60s or something like that. So I think it'd be surprising, which means she's probably done running for office, which means she doesn't really need him anymore going forward. Right. So she holds all the cards. So if she truly does believe that huge tax increases put New York at a massive competitive disadvantage because high incurs,
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B
which she certainly does. She does. Right.
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A
They leave. And you know, the challenge that the left sort of refuses to acknowledge on taxes is when you raise taxes on the rich in a specific jurisdiction, again, if you did it federally, people are not renouncing their citizenship by and large over that. Right. But if you do it in a single jurisdiction, especially when others are courting those people, there is less absolute tax revenue at the end of the day. And that hurts the poorest people the most.
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B
People like moving to Florida and Texas anyway.
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A
I mean, you know, and keep in mind, a lot of the agita to raise taxes on the rich come from the people not who are the poorest, but sort of in the second and third decile who are angry about their lot in life and feel like they would feel better about themselves if the people ahead of them were punished in some way. So I do think that he's banking on that, and I think that might be unrealistic because I don't know why Hokul would ever need to give that to him going forward. I think Albany will give him. And their budget's not done either yet. They'll give him something of a bailout, but he's got, depending on who you believe, somewhere between a 5 and $10 billion deficit. So, you know, it's going to be a mix of some bailout from Albany, maybe a slight increase in the corporate income tax that Albany does and then a lot of gimmicks.
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B
Basically, you wanted me to bring up the idea that New York City should run subways and buses.
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A
Yeah, I've been banging this drum for a long time.
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B
Okay, but throw that into the sort of budget context a little bit too. Like, I mean, what. What about right now makes that so it wouldn't.
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A
Look, it's a big, complicated idea.
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B
Why don't you just explain? Just quickly let me give you a
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A
little context on it. Actually wrote it up. It'll be my next Daily News column. Okay. So Mike Bloomberg got control of the schools in 2002. And I think it was incredibly good for New York because before that it was the Board of Education, which was mainly controlled by the borough presidents. And it was a wholly political affair. And the interest of kids was completely secondary. And Mike was given control by Albany in 2002. He brought in Joe Klein as chancellor, and they did a lot of innovative things that made a really, really big difference for a lot of kids. But Mike Bloomer didn't come up with the idea of mayoral control of schools. Ed Koch started arguing for it in 1978. Right. This was an idea that took well over 20 years to kind of percolate. And eventually it gained enough steam that combined with the momentum of unexpected Bloomberg mayoralty win, it happened. Congestion pricing. Mike Bloomberg proposed it in 2007 and it was roundly rejected by Albany. But in 2025, Governor Hochul did implement it, and it seems to so far be working pretty well. So sometimes really big ideas take a while. So in 2009, when I was running the Bloomberg campaign, my big idea, what I wanted to be the kind of policy center piece of the campaign was New York City control of our subways and buses both. Because to me, it is crazy that one of the single most important things that the city that makes the city run literally is our, you know, 5 million people a day, I think, to collectively use the subways and buses. It is the actual lifeblood of the city, and yet it is run by the mta, which is a mainly state run entity. And it is totally unaccountable to the mayor, totally unaccountable to the people of New York City. When Cuomo was governor, he was taking MTA money and putting into political slush fund projects around the state that had no bearing whatsoever on mass transit in New York City. And the idea that we shouldn't control our own subways and buses is crazy. If the MTA were an ultra high functioning agency, that'd be one thing, but they're not. And there is no real political imperative that forces them to be better. I think Jano Lieber's been a good director of the mta, and he has made improvements. He could be the head of the. You know, the New York City Transit. Right. Or whatever it is. I mean, and there is a subset of the MTA that's at.
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B
But.
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A
But ultimately, look, it would require a lot of stuff. You'd have to shift a bunch of different revenue streams. There's the bridge, internal authority. It's complicated, but I wanted Mike to do it because my feeling was, one, it would be a big idea. Two, if anyone would be good at sort of running the subways and buses, it would have been Mike Bloomberg. He's an engineer because he had. From when. When he ran for mayor the first time, he was from aerial control of schools, in part because it was a good idea, but in part because he had no experience with Albany's. He didn't kind of know how brutal they were. Right. Eight years later, after losing congestion pricing, after losing the Olympic stadium, after losing a whole bunch of other stuff in Albany, he was like, no, they're never gonna do this. I'm not gonna, like, embarrass myself and call for something that's never gonna happen. And so he did. I couldn't convince him to do it. And then de Blasio and Adams had no interest in. In fact, de Blasio flipped it around and just like, this is not my problem. Um, but Mondami clearly must believe that the mayor should have a role here, should be in charge, because when he called for free buses, you know, most voters don't realize who runs the subways and buses. They assume this is something the mayor can do.
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B
Right?
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A
He can't. It's up to Albany. But if you want to make buses free, then clearly you believe that you, as mayor, should have the ability to dictate what the subways and buses do and how they operate. Right. And so what I would like to have happen is I don't think that if Mondami calls for it, and he's not going to call for it while he's dealing with this budget cycle, but next year, whatever it is, if he said, hey, we should do this, will it happen this year? Next year? No, it might not even happen at his mayoralty, but I just think that it should happen. And I would like to see this mayor show some leadership and get the
- [22:21]
B
idea, do something big in this regard. Do you. Do you understand or have an idea of what the sort of economic practicalities of it, never mind the management getting the thing running better.
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A
I mean, it's just because there's like
- [22:32]
B
what it's like $50 billion in long term debt the MTA has. Right.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah. Long term debt too. Right. So you would, you'd have to basically shift. You might need some approval from bondholders. There's revenue that comes in when they pay tolls on the bridges. That goes to the mta. I mean, yes, no, there's a ton of revenue.
- [22:50]
B
I mean, but I mean it would,
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A
there's a bunch of bureaucratic opera.
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B
You don't think any of that significantly obstacle.
- [22:58]
A
I think that the people who don't want to do it or people who are consumed, who kind of are process first and process driven and see everything inside out as the most important thing is to make things easy for government and then everyone else just works for the betterment of the government, then no, they'll object to it. But subways didn't exist at one point in time. The United States didn't exist at one point in time. We're not talking about laws of physics or nature. We're talking about bureaucratic operations.
- [23:26]
B
Let's put it in the context of the one you used for the tax increase where you talk about Hokul wins re election. She there, you know, she's, she's done running for, for all intents and purposes. Does she see this as something she can give to Madani without much cost? As a lame.
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A
I mean, I think it's complicated. Here's the thing. Andrew Cuomo or Elliot Spitzer never would have done this because for them the only point of holding office was power. Right. Kathy Hochul does not. She's tough, but she is not about power for the sake of power. From what I can tell. And I don't know what she thinks about this issue, but if she said, you know what, that's a fair point, I'm open to it, she would at least be the kind of governor that would be willing to have a reasonable conversation about it. And look, I don't know how you could look at the schools and say that we were better off before with an unaccountable bureaucracy running it than we are today. And I think the same thing would be true with mass transit.
- [24:23]
B
I sent you a ranking of growth rates for major metropolitan areas in the United States. Houston is number one. This is between 2022 and 2024. Houston metro area grew at 10.6%. New York was 17th on the list at 3.3%. The top cities were the ones you sort of would expect. Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix. But there were also cities like Baltimore and Detroit that were ahead of New York.
- [24:50]
A
And to a certain extent, keep in mind it, where you're starting from has an impact.
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B
The city's economy is hugely bigger than all of those.
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A
Right.
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B
But still one third the growth rate of, of, of Houston.
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A
Yes.
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B
What is, is that a useful comparison? What could we learn from it?
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A
Well, I think it is. So, so if your ultimate goal is, is to help as many people as possible and have the best place to live as possible and not using tax policy and economic policy as a form of, you know, emotional retribution, then if you look at Houston, they why would you want to be there? Texas has no state income tax. The regulatory climate is much, much friendlier towards business. But also what's interesting, Houston was always sort of made fun of because they have a wildly different approach to zoning and permitting that is far, far more market oriented and libertarian. And it was always like, this is ridiculous. There's a hundred story building next to a church, next to a strip club. And you know, yes, it was easy to make fun of, but you know, has, does not have an affordable housing crisis. Houston do, you know, not have nearly as much of a homelessness problem. Houston. So because they make it really easy to build and if it's really cheap and easy to build, then people build more housing. And if there is more housing total, then the price of housing goes down because supply goes up, then the price goes down. And so Houston is not only a better business climate, but arguably it is a cheaper place to live. Like when people leave places, I don't
- [26:30]
B
think arguably it's a cheaper place to live.
- [26:32]
A
When people leave New York City to go to Houston, to Charlotte, to Phoenix, to, you know, wherever it is, it's in part because they can't afford to live in New York City and they want to go somewhere else that is more affordable and then to turn around and say, well, all of those places are wrong with the way they do everything. Well, clearly they're doing something right because they are able to provide things for people that New York City cannot. So some of this is our housing policy, which is highly restrictive. And the reality is most of that actually is not. Some of that is the fault of, you could say greedy developers, but a lot of it is the fault of the left. When you insist that unions have to be used to build everything, when you block the use of modular construction and all kinds of technology that can make things a lot cheaper, when you demand that every community group is able to veto any project and sort of suck out endless donations to semi Corrupt nonprofits. And when you have every time that there's a snail that goes by, you have to halt all construction for another three years of litigation, then you can't build anything. Right. And it doesn't make sense to build anything. And so New York City, ultimately, in seeing itself as a progressive, fair place, equates that with high taxation and high regulation. And the truth is, you could argue that those two things are a chokehold on making New York City a better, safer, more affordable place to live. The problem is in this case, and I just spent some time praising the mayor, but we have a mayor who I think does not understand the economy in any way, shape, or form, a mayor who has never had to make payroll, who has never had a real job of any kind on top of that.
- [28:23]
B
You mean private sector job.
- [28:24]
A
He was a rapper and he was a state assembly member. So I would say he has not had a real job of any kind of. And maybe it was a community organizer somewhere along the way, too, and renamed Economic Development, Economic justice, and said that our goal is to hold people's company's feet to the fire, which just means we're gonna make it even more difficult to be here. Now, I will say Julie Hsu, who is the deputy mayor for Economic Justice, I have been talking to her, and I, to her great credit, she has been proactive in soliciting ideas. And so I think she might surprise us in a really good way, and then we'll see. I don't know how much relative power she has within City hall to get her ideas across. We will see. But I will. I just want to give a little shout out to Julie because I actually am quite surprised and pleased at how proactive she has been. I've given her a bunch of ideas. We will see what comes of them. But ultimately, look what New York has. It's funny. I was at the Knicks game last night with a friend of mine who now lives in San Francisco, which is a bustling city. Right. And yet he was just making the point that the energy of New York's just not there. And he doesn't feel, from an intellectual standpoint, just from almost a work standpoint, pushed. Right. He felt like when he worked in New York.
- [29:52]
B
Oh, oh. The New York energy is not in San Francisco.
- [29:55]
A
He said when he worked in New York, there were always people around him who were 10 steps ahead of him.
- [29:59]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:00]
A
And he was learning from them and trying to keep up with them, and it forced him to grow and work harder and be better. And he doesn't feel any of that pressure in San Francisco.
- [30:10]
B
Isn't that weird? It's like right next to Silicon Valley.
- [30:12]
A
So I think maybe if you're in the he's not intact, if you were attack, it might be different. Just like I think there's an, you know, this a little bit, you know, there's a Hollywood LA and then there's a non Hollywood la. Right. And they're different cultures completely.
- [30:23]
B
Yeah.
- [30:24]
A
New York, the culture is kind of pervasive, right?
- [30:27]
B
Yeah. Right.
- [30:27]
A
Like no one, you know, you were in media and you would say it was that culture. I've been in tech and in politics. It's that culture. People in finance would certainly say that
- [30:36]
B
leads into everything else.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah, fashion, advertising, whatever, law, everything. Right.
- [30:40]
B
So
- [30:42]
A
for as long as the most talented, ambitious people from all over the world want to be here, we will probably always have a massive competitive advantage. But that requires a few things. It requires a, on a federal level, allowing immigration. Right. And letting people come here and not charging $100,000 for an H1B visa, which makes it very hard to. We've sponsored people in the past. I think it would be a lot harder now to do so. That's number one. And then number two is, you know, it has to feel clean and safe and well run. And if those two things are happening, it can work. But then number three, I guess would be people who come here have to feel like they could at least somewhat afford to live here. Right. And when we make housing so impossible to build, you know, you really start to make that impossible. So. And then if we were to raise income taxes, that would further drive more high income earners out of the state, more jobs out of the state, and further weaken our competitive positioning. So, and then the last thing would be, you know, we saw this a little bit in this qsbs. Did we talk about this on the air? I think we did a little. Maybe a little bit. So there was a proposal by Andrew Gonartis, who's been on this podcast before, who I like, who's a state senator, to decouple New York from federal qsbs tax treatment. QSBS is a provision in federal tax code that encourages people to invest in new companies, early stage startups. So the idea is that if you invested a company, it was 10 million, now it's 15 million, where the valuation of the company is below that, the gains that you have on that particular part of the investment are tax free. And New York, Ganard has proposed should decouple from that and charge people that and the reason why that was such an incredibly stupid idea was New York is already not a place that the tech sector has to be, right? We don't have an MIT or a Stanford that are churning out incredible engineers who want to stay local. Cornell Tech was supposed to be that maybe it will be that one day. It's not that right now the weather sucks, taxes are high, regulations are high, it's wildly expensive to live here. So if they had done that, the message they were sending to tech was, go fuck yourself. We don't want you here, we don't want your jobs. And you would be robbing New York of one of the biggest growth opportunities at the same time when other industries like finance, I think JP Morgan now has more jobs in than they do in New York City, right? So it died. We ran a quick campaign against it. It died a very quick death. But what it did sort of unveil was how little awareness there is by the city and state of the tech sector in New York, how little effort there is to try to grow that sector. So when Mike was mayor, he worked very hard to build a tech sector in New York. And you know, he's. He, that's who he is. He was a tech entrepreneur. That's where Bloomberg lp, you know, it doesn't feel like a startup anymore, and it's not, but it was, right? And de Blasio went the other way with it and did everything he could to say that he hated technology. Adams had the right kind of views on tech but was too inept to do anything with it. And so if New York does not make some effort to at least make the tech industry feel like they want them here, then our competitive position is going to become even worse. Because, you know, Miami beckons, Austin beckons, the taxes are a lot less, the regulations are a lot less. Housing in many ways becomes a lot cheaper because you aren't, you know, as we said with Houston, encumbered by so many absurd restrictions that make it impossible to build. And so New York, it's probably not vulnerable to the same type of death spiral that despite some growth recently that a Baltimore or Detroit, a Newark or Cleveland found because it's New York, but ultimately New York is to even just to serve and help poor people, is dependent on 1% of the population pays 50% of the taxes in New York City. And that 1% is the 1% that is the easiest to leave. Right? Everyone probably has homes already elsewhere and can pick up and move. And so I think that if we don't take this Seriously, it will grow worse. And I do worry that you have a mayor who clearly sees things the other way and a governor who I think has the right intentions. But I don't think she really understands what the tech sector is in New York or has done much in a, you know, she's done some stuff in a big way to get like microchip factories here and that's great. But it's not just about economic growth in upstate New York. It's got to be how do we grow the entire sector. And we haven't seen that.
- [35:16]
B
So let me ask, I. There was a state assembly candidate standing outside my building, you know, handing out flyers.
- [35:22]
A
Yep.
- [35:22]
B
I took a flyer and I was reading it and it was all kind of a normal stuff on the left side of the spectrum, affordable housing, free and fast transit, climate stuff. But one of the things is, just
- [35:33]
A
doesn't the climate stuff conflict with the affordable housing stuff?
- [35:36]
B
Well, they probably do. Let's see, for climate action now, it says, accelerate a green New York through funding, building retrofits, renewable energy, and finally providing resiliency protection for lower Manhattan.
- [35:46]
A
Okay. So if that includes, as I think they would say, instinctively, yes, we must protect the climate from the perils of development that you can't get more affordable housing. If it's, yes, we must raise taxes on the rich, then the tax money you need to do everything, it said,
- [36:02]
B
well, let's talk about the tax on the rich. So one of the things here, this is the thing that stuck out or jumped out at me. He wants to implement progressive taxes on vacant high end units.
- [36:12]
A
I actually don't disagree with that one.
- [36:14]
B
Okay.
- [36:15]
A
In the sense that at least for people where it's, I would just say at the very least foreign owned.
- [36:22]
B
Right, Right.
- [36:22]
A
There are definitely a lot of people from China and Russia and UAE and others who own, you know, all those buildings on billionaires rail on 57th Street.
- [36:32]
B
Right.
- [36:33]
A
Whatever it is, a lot of those are vacant apartments that are owned by people in other countries who maybe rent them out or maybe use them once or twice a year. But it's, you know, parking money in the US economy to get out of their country where, you know, the rule of law is not there. And would they arguably be easy pickings in the sense that you could, if, if there was a extra 4% tax or whatever it would be, in order to take their money out of Russia and put it in the US Would they pay that? And is that sort of more elastic?
- [37:07]
B
Probably so. So just on a property rights thing, you're fine with it, like.
- [37:12]
A
Yeah.
- [37:12]
B
I mean somebody buys something whose businesses of it, whether like they stay in it or not.
- [37:18]
A
I'm not that libertarian.
- [37:20]
B
Okay, Interesting. All right, let's talk about tanking in the NBA.
- [37:25]
A
Sure.
- [37:25]
B
How would you fix it? Well, let's first of all say the problem with tanking the NBA now and what happens is, is that the bad teams have no incentive to play well because they want to get a higher draft picks. So over the years have been some famous examples, a few teams a year like. But this year it's like this year it's nine teams.
- [37:41]
A
Yeah.
- [37:42]
B
So suddenly like a third of the league almost is like not competitive.
- [37:45]
A
Right.
- [37:46]
B
And it's like kind of dreary and bumming a lot of people out.
- [37:49]
A
Yeah.
- [37:50]
B
And finally it's sort of coming to a head. Your view of it is, is it's a problem. Right.
- [37:56]
A
And it's a problem. It's really shitty for the fans in their city now.
- [38:01]
B
It's amazing anyone goes to those games at all, isn't it?
- [38:03]
A
It is and I understand. So it's interesting. I had this debate with Lyle who took a very kind of libertarian free market approach to it, which was if you are a bad team, the only way to improve is mainly through getting, you know, hitting on your draft picks.
- [38:23]
B
Right.
- [38:23]
A
And therefore the only logical thing to do is to tank. And he was. And it was sort of like, okay, I get it. But at the same time it's a little bit like the property tax question you just asked a second ago, which is how does that impact the good of the league overall and the fans. Right. And you know, Philly to me is a very cautionary tale where Sam Hinkey was the general manager and he was sort of revered as this like quant hedge fund like guy comes to the NBA. Media loved him and he's got. The media loved him, the Sloan Conference and he's got the process. And it was all about I'm smarter than everyone else and we're going to tank and tank and tank and that's going to be our key to salvation. And guess what? It totally failed. All of their tanking yielded one or two second round appearances in the playoffs, which is highly mediocre. And the only true star that they ended up getting was Embiid, who, you know, was hurt half the time. Right. Everyone else totally flamed out. Markell Fultz, Ben Simmons, New Orleans, Noel Jamel Okafor. So even when you have these guys who come out of Harvard or Stanford or MIT and they're so Much smarter than all the dumb former players and scouts. And you got to trust them. And trust the process was literally the phrase in Philly. It didn't even fucking work. Right. So I would say this, which is the. You can't have a scenario where in order to theoretically make a team potentially better in the future. And by the way, draft picks are an incredibly inexact science because you're, you're betting on human beings who are just totally variable. Right. Some people surprise you, some people overperform, some people underperform. And if they knew, then it would. Every draft would work out exactly where the actual outcome of the player would be reflected in the order. Right. And that's not the case at all. Right. You know, Tom Brady, the NFL was, he's the greatest football player of all time, was a six round draft pick. Right. Jokic was a second round draft pick. Right. Giannis went in the middle of the first round. So like, clearly that's often not the case. And so I think that you have to do something. I've heard a lot of different ideas thrown out there.
- [40:32]
B
Well, let me throw one out for you. If I gave you the magic wand, would you do a relegation system like they have in European soccer? So you have basically an NBA 2, that's a top 20, and then the, you know, the only teams that don't make the playoffs actually go down into the, into the NBA two. Maybe you could even do NBA three, you know, like.
- [40:48]
A
Yeah, well, yes. And that kind of gets to sort of where I was. Yes.
- [40:51]
B
Yeah.
- [40:52]
A
Which is the only thing owners probably hate more than losing games is losing money.
- [40:57]
B
Yeah. And. Well, I think they probably hate losing money more than losing games. They do lose games. Yeah.
- [41:01]
A
Right.
- [41:01]
B
Oh, they watch. Right.
- [41:03]
A
So the idea I. Of the different ideas I've heard thrown out there, I didn't hear relegation. And the, the, the Bill Simmons, who I, I like to listen to has been championing this thing that to me is way too complicated, where the player gets to pick where they want to go within a system. It was to me then it was too.
- [41:18]
B
So the draft is like reverse.
- [41:20]
A
Reverse. That was his idea. I thought it was too much. But I, I heard one idea which is simply you effectively declare that you're tanking at a certain point of the season and then from there on out, ticket prices are 50%, concessions are 50%, and you have to effectively, you know, reimburse the fans for a really shitty experience.
- [41:42]
B
Yeah. And, but that doesn't help though. Like, like, I mean, you're a fan. The Knicks aren't tanking, but you don't want to see.
- [41:49]
A
I should get reimbursed, too, for those
- [41:51]
B
games or for when they come to the Garden. Yeah, but you won't even go, right?
- [41:54]
A
I mean, like, I usually give them away and somebody wants to go, but. Yeah, no, you're. You're right. Although it's funny. I was there last night, and the Knicks just started all the scrubs because they were locked into the three seed, which made sense. Why would you want to risk someone getting hurt? Garden was full. It was totally full. I was really surprised. I almost didn't go. And then only because I had invited a friend and wanted to have a tourist product.
- [42:16]
B
I mean, it's like, yeah, Times Square is full, too.
- [42:18]
A
Maybe so. Right. But I do think that they are ruining the league. And at the same time, they're talking about expansion to Seattle and Vegas. And you shouldn't be expanding the product when you can't even feel the competitive product among the 30 teams that you have. Right.
- [42:38]
B
Except for the money.
- [42:39]
A
Right.
- [42:39]
B
So what are those teams gonna go for? 2 billion each or something?
- [42:41]
A
No, they're talking closer to 10 each.
- [42:45]
B
10 each?
- [42:46]
A
Yeah. 7 to 10 each.
- [42:47]
B
Oh, my God.
- [42:48]
A
Yeah. So the owners would obviously get 100,
- [42:50]
B
and then LeBron's gonna get the Vegas team or run the Vegas.
- [42:53]
A
That was at least the rumor at one point. Although you could also see a world where. So Mark Cuban sold the Mavericks in Dallas to the Adelson family, who. It's a Vegas.
- [43:03]
B
Still shocks me that it did that. Did anyone seem to like running a team more than he did? Like, no.
- [43:07]
A
No. I think he wants to buy them back now, actually. So I could see a world where the current Mavericks or there's some world where the Adelsons end up with the Vegas franchise, and then there's either the new Dallas's expansion team or. So I could see something around that. And then Cuban's back in some way. Yeah. Or something like that. Maybe LeBron has some ownership in one
- [43:26]
B
of those 10 billion. Cuban might be priced out.
- [43:28]
A
I don't know how much money he. He has. Right. And obviously it's, you know, debt and equity, and you could have partners and whatever it is, but. But overall, I do think that. I mean, here's the real risk of all of it, which is just if the product gets diluted, which it has been, then there's less interest in it. When there's less interest in it, there's less revenue overall, and then that just means that the game is weaker. Although I Did reach a. In my sort of angst about baseball, which is my true love, you know. So the average baseball fan is a 56 year old white guy. Right. I'm still below the age of the average fan.
- [44:07]
B
You're young. Yeah, right.
- [44:09]
A
How crazy is that? I've been going to Mets games since I was five, so. And I was like, oh, what's gonna happen if basically those fans die out? And I was like, you know what? Nothing. All that would happen is baseball would continue to exist. It would be a cheaper, less fancy product. The stadiums wouldn't be as nice, the players wouldn't make as much. They would still play baseball because if the average salary was 700,000 instead of 4 million or whatever it is, it's still price 650,000 more than most of those guys would make doing anything else. My ticket prices would be cheaper. My fan experience wouldn't be quite as nice, but at the end of the day it kind of be fine. Right.
- [44:51]
B
And so, well, the 50s, like the golden age of baseball, like the league was falling apart. I mean, like it's the.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah. Or just. Or look at boxing. Like boxing is, you know, was at one point it was baseball, horse racing and boxing. Only baseball has sort of survived of those three. But boxing still exists. It was mainly done in by its corruption more than anything else. But, you know, I went to a fight at the Garden in January and we had a great time. So, you know, I would like the league to fix it. I think the only way to do it is to really financially punish the owners.
- [45:26]
B
All right, I have one more small Trump question. We're gonna put it right at the bottom. Orban won the lost election in Hungary. Everybody's really excited about that. The NPR was going crazy this morning. The Vice President Vance was sent to Hungary like a week ago to campaign on behalf of Orban. Now, it wasn't a surprise that he lost. He was pretty well behind in the polls and that was obviously known.
- [45:47]
A
He lost by a lot.
- [45:48]
B
He lost by a lot.
- [45:49]
A
It was like 62, 38 or something like that.
- [45:51]
B
Was there some other reason he got sent there, or is it just a dumb move to like.
- [45:56]
A
I think that Trump, in his sort of pathology believes that everyone loves him and if you don't, there is something fundamentally wrong with you. And therefore believes that his endorsement in a place like Hungary would be really powerful. And so if he dispatched his number two to go there and campaign, that he would effectively be commanding the Hungarian people to do as he says. And the Hungarian people told Trump to Go fuck himself. And by the way, other than Trump, he's run three times, he's won twice, he's lost once. Right. But other than that, there's not much in the way of coattails. Like in the midterms that Trump had in 18, the Republicans lost. They're gonna get crushed this year when he endorses candidates for governor, other things. You know, he has power in Republican primaries for sure, but in general elections, not so much. And the reality is there's roughly a third of Americans that seem to truly love Trump. Right. And that's a lot of people, for sure, but it's not a majority. Right. So, you know, oftentimes in a competitive general election, when you do have them, you know, if, if you are the candidate of the third, you're kind of effectively signaling to the other 2/3 to be for the other guy, right?
- [47:23]
B
So it's just stupid sitting there or just vain or just.
- [47:25]
A
I don't think he is capable of just. I mean, did you see his attack on the Pope last night or two days yesterday? Whatever it was, I mean, it was fucking crazy. But like, you know, there's what, 2 billion Catholics in the world or something like that? And like, you're just gonna insult their leader for. Because he doesn't like war. Pope's not supposed to like war.
- [47:43]
B
Whoever the Pope, let him say what he wants about war.
- [47:45]
A
Right. You know, and so I just, I mean, to me, you know, the matzo ballers who were having a discussion about it this morning, and my conclusion, right or wrong, was there are always deranged people throughout history that win power. In fact, in some ways, their derangement is probably part of what propels them to power. Right. The challenge is you have about a third of this country that fundamentally supports and agrees with Trump. And the question is, if that's the case, when Trump is gone, can we function and coexist together? We certainly live in a world now, or a country now, at least, with far less emphasis and concern for the collective good. Right. It is a very zero sum world. I think brought about Trump is the logical, ultimate conclusion and manifestation of it, but in many ways brought about by the hippie baby boomers from the 1960s, right, being so me, me, me, that they effectively eroded that sense of the common good. And it, it that combined with sort of the, you know, capitalism taken to its logical extreme, combined with the Internet and social media got us to where we are today. But then when you look back at that sort of time, when there was a collective good, it was also a time where that was in part because a relatively small group of people, white Christian guys, basically had all the power, and blacks and Latinos and women and gays and, you know, all kinds of different people didn't even have equal rights, you know, and so that doesn't work either, obviously. So the question is, can you have a country where everyone has equal rights and yet we can peacefully coexist and work together and compromise to solve problems? I still think the answer is yes, because on most issues, most people can sort of agree on a reasonable framework on a solution. And of course, you know, that gets to the mobile voting argument, which is we empower, because of gerrymandering, because of low primary turnout, because we make voting deliberately difficult. We empower the extremes and various special interests as opposed to the people as a whole. Look, whether it's mobile voting or getting rid of gerrymandering or creating a truly viable third party in the middle, or cleaving the two parties into four, you know, there are different ways potentially to get there. I would argue that mobile voting, of the different ways, is the most scalable and feasible. But if we continue to just be oppositional and we continue to just empower the extremes at the expense of everyone else, you will get to a point where I just don't see how this country continues to exist. Because if all we are doing is fighting and it gets more and the political violence is massively on the rise, and that just keeps going up and up and there's no solution to it, eventually, just like half of, you know, married couples in America, you reach the conclusion that it makes sense to call it quits. And then it's, is that a peaceful dissolution or is that a civil war? I don't know. Right. But it would seem a shame to me to take the greatest experiment and the greatest country in the history of the world and throw it away. Not because we were truly fundamentally divided, but because we couldn't figure out how to take the consensus of most people and put that ahead of the needs of the people at the extremes.
- [51:08]
B
Two more things.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah.
- [51:10]
B
We were texting over the weekend. I went to the theater on Saturday night with some friends, saw Dog Day Afternoon. I just wanted to mention one thing about it. I mentioned it, too.
- [51:17]
A
Well, I want to talk about the value proposition of it.
- [51:18]
B
Oh, yeah, you do? Okay. Well, I just want to say this. So we saw Dog Day Afternoon based on a great movie from the 1970s. They turn it into some bizarre sitcom that.
- [51:28]
A
Oh, is it comedy? I mean, I don't know if it
- [51:30]
B
was technically a comedy, but it had laugh lines in it.
- [51:33]
A
It was funny in a way.
- [51:34]
B
Yeah. No, it had humor, sort of.
- [51:36]
A
If you haven't seen the movie, it's a great movie.
- [51:39]
B
It's a great movie. The show is weird.
- [51:40]
A
Sidney weird. Was he the director of that one?
- [51:43]
B
I think he was Sidney Lumet.
- [51:44]
A
Yeah.
- [51:45]
B
So anyway, the show is strange, but here's one of the strangest aspects. I went down to get something to drink during intermission, and I looked at the swag they have for sale, and one of the things was a tote bag that said Attica, Attica, Attica, which is a chant that they. That's in the movie. And it's also in the show that it refers to a prison riot.
- [52:05]
A
Right.
- [52:06]
B
In the deadly prison riot, 46 people, something like killed, like horrible tragedy. And they've turned it into a slogan that they sell bags. So I think that's bizarre, actually kind of reprehensible.
- [52:19]
A
But if you think about it, when you say Attica, Attica, Attica, it's a phrase from a Hollywood movie uttered by Al Pacino, one of the biggest stars of our time. And, you know, time plus tragedy equals comedy.
- [52:34]
B
And first of all, not that much time, right?
- [52:36]
A
40 years.
- [52:37]
B
50 years. 50 years.
- [52:38]
A
50 years. I'm just saying it still feels like it makes sense to me that it
- [52:44]
B
would be funny now, not that it
- [52:45]
A
would be funny that our culture is such that that if something gets touched by celebrity, that overtakes the reality of it.
- [52:54]
B
Oh, that's a good. I like that theory. I think it's pathetic. Not your point, but the idea that we do that, for sure.
- [53:02]
A
But I do think it's very. And by the way, this is. But you would never say the United States forever.
- [53:07]
B
Let's say this. You would never say my lie, my lie, my lie.
- [53:11]
A
Right.
- [53:11]
B
On a bag, like, you know, well,
- [53:13]
A
so what if there was a Vietnam movie and somebody, you know, Timothee Chalamet is the one screaming that, and then pass another 50 years. Could there be a play about it where Pete would. It's on a tote bag. Yeah.
- [53:26]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. All right. You want to make a thing about the judges, you don't go.
- [53:31]
A
I don't go. And I think part of the reason I don't go, maybe that I'm a philistine. Part of it is that I seem to lack the suspension of disbelief when it. In the physical theater, if I watch TV or movies, I can kind of sink into it sometimes or at this Point now, I probably have two screens going, but, like, when I'm in the physical theater, I'm just kind of looking around and I'm sort of uncomfortable. But I also just think the value proposition of theater is pretty shitty because it is exceptionally expensive. You have to go to Times Square, which is a miserable experience in and of itself. It's physically, wildly uncomfortable. And. And then the, you know, the sunk cost is such that I think it's really hard for people to leave. If it's bad one, it's sort of awkward because of, like, actual actors on the stage.
- [54:18]
B
We did discuss leaving an intermission, right.
- [54:20]
A
You can leave at halftime.
- [54:20]
B
I didn't want to leave, but most people.
- [54:22]
A
Most people don't. Right. Because of that. And I just think, whereas, you know, you go to a movie, the seats these days are actually pretty comfortable. It's 20 bucks as opposed to 200 bucks. And if you want to get up and leave, nobody gives a shit, right? So. Or you can just watch it at home. And so I really do think that the value prop. Now, with that said, it's whatever the market demands. And if it's something that tourists want to do when they come to New York, it's kind of. Your point about the Knicks last night, fine.
- [54:52]
B
But you're not against other people.
- [54:54]
A
I don't hold it against anyone, but I don't feel bad about myself that I don't ever go to theater.
- [54:59]
B
Do you have any recommendations?
- [55:00]
A
I do. It's a phenomenal show on Netflix called Big Mistakes. Have you seen it or heard about it? So it's Dan Levy, who did From Schitt's Creek. He wrote it. And it's a dark, dark comedy about a family in New Jersey that inadvertently, the brother and sister get mixed up with the mob, and they end up being, like, have to become sort of part of it to kind of pay off their debt. And at the same time, the mom is running for mayor of their small town. And just like all this crazy shit happens. And as the title implies, it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. But it is really funny. I really like dark comedy in general.
- [55:39]
B
You watch the whole thing?
- [55:40]
A
I watched the whole thing. It's eight episodes, you know, 25 minutes each. Whatever it is, you can rip through it. So highly recommend.
- [55:46]
B
Okay. All right.
- [55:47]
A
All right.
- [55:47]
B
Thanks, Tyler.
- [55:52]
A
Firewall is recorded at my bookstore, PNT Network, located at 1180 Orchard street on the lower east side of Manhattan. We'd love to hear from you with questions, feedbacks, or idea for a guest, just email me at Bradley Firewall Media or find me on LinkedIn. And to keep up with what's on my mind and my latest writing, please follow my new substack@bradleytus.substack.com thanks again for listening.