This Is How New York Will Collapse | Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE Clips

Summary

Impact Theory Podcast Summary

Episode Title: This Is How New York Will Collapse | Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE Clips
Date: November 1, 2025
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Main Theme:
The episode dissects the state of New York’s economy, housing crisis, and policies proposed by Zoran Mamdani, a controversial mayoral hopeful. The conversation critically examines the feasibility, ideological motives, and unintended consequences of progressive policies like free public transit and rent freezes. Through robust debate, the guest experts highlight fundamental economic principles and question whether well-intentioned reforms could precipitate New York’s decline, referencing both historical evidence and current economic indicators.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Allure and Danger of "Free" Public Services

• The episode launches into a debate on Zoran Mamdani’s popular proposals (e.g., free buses), positioning them as ideologically driven rather than pragmatically motivated.
• [01:46] Economic Analyst: “The supervillain is Marxism itself, socialism itself. When you look at the price of gold right now and realize...the price of gold is an indication as to how stable the market thinks your economy is... It's saying, bro, you're in real trouble.”
• The analyst argues “nothing is ever going to be free. Everything is going to be paid for by somebody.” The abstraction of cost is seen as a policy flaw, with skepticism that “free buses” could ever deliver net benefit without negative externalities: increased debt, money printing, or capital flight.

Rent Freezes and the Historical Consequences

• The analyst recounts historical failures of rent control in New York, citing the 1970s and 80s' spike in arson as an unintended result of overregulation.
• [03:33] Economic Analyst: “We did rent freezes in the extreme back in the 60s and 70s and it led to the burned out buildings...housing is an entrepreneurial endeavor...When you put rent freezes, [building owners say] ‘you’ve now just made it impossible for me to make money off my building.”
• The analogy compares restricting apartment rentals with price fixing in other businesses, noting that such policies decrease supply and quality:
  • “Imagine if I told you, hey, you can’t charge people...for a pair of shoes. The number of people making shoes goes down.”

The Human Element & Perverse Incentives

• The plight of small landlords is conveyed through a hypothetical scenario:
  • [06:55] Economic Analyst: “Your mom had bought a house...counting on the rent...the government comes along and says, you can't charge more than $1500 a month...now your mom’s like, hold on a second...I’m losing money every month.”
  • When pressed (“[07:04] You can sell the building.”), the analyst responds: “Who’s going to buy the building? When I say you can’t make money, you will lose money.”
• This highlights how market interventions risk trapping individuals in financially perilous situations and creating desperate, unethical outcomes.

Housing Supply, Economics, & Regulation

• The conversation pivots to the underlying issue: a fundamental shortage of housing, not just affordability.
• [08:10] Economic Analyst: “The way to make housing more affordable [is] to make more housing.” Calls for deregulation and building upwards, rejecting the narrative that rising supply won’t lower prices.
• The policy commentator counters that new high-rises rarely create affordable options for the displaced.

The Value Debate: Who Deserves to Live in the City?

• The heart of the disagreement surfaces:
  • [08:36] Economic Analyst: “Yes, of course I’m saying it’s fine [if the poor can’t afford certain neighborhoods]...you don’t have a right to live in whatever neighborhood you want to live in. Stop artificially making it impossible for people to live somewhere...”
  • The analyst’s thesis: allow the free market to guide development and pricing, with some targeted restrictions (e.g., limiting foreign ownership or taxing multiple properties progressively).

The Role of Values and Empirical Outcomes

• The debate crystallizes as a values conflict between equity and market realism.
• [11:50] Economic Analyst: “If it worked, I’d cheer for it. It doesn’t work. It goes the exact opposite direction. It will make a housing crisis. It will make it so that nobody wants to invest in the area.”
• The policy commentator insists that policies like rent control are intended to protect lifelong residents from being priced out by demand surges.

Nuanced Policy Solutions

• Moderate proposals (e.g., occupancy requirements, steep taxes on additional buy-to-let properties) are explored as alternatives to outright rent controls.
• [10:28] Economic Analyst: “If you want to lower it as much as you can, then you would deregulate as much as is safe...put limitations on ownership or habitation, like you can only own a house here if you actually live in it at least 51% of the time.”

Memorable Exchanges

• [11:13] Policy Commentator: “So...the end result of that policy would be this is just how much it is. Either you got it or you don’t. It’s like you’re at the bar:”
• [11:25] Economic Analyst: “You can’t own a house on a minimum wage. Yeah, just not going to be possible.”

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "The supervillain is Marxism itself, socialism itself...The price of gold is an indication as to how stable the market thinks your economy is... It's saying, bro, you're in real trouble."
  – Economic Analyst [01:46]

• "We did rent freezes...in the 60s and 70s and it led to the burned out buildings...even buildings...housing is an entrepreneurial endeavor."
  – Economic Analyst [03:33]

• "If what we see is...a measurable improvement...and you don't see capital flight...great, no problem. I have exactly zero belief that that's how this is going to go."
  – Economic Analyst [02:35]

• "You should be mad at the arsonist because it’s illegal. You should also recognize the government put them in that position."
  – Economic Analyst [06:19]

• "You can’t own a house on a minimum wage. Yeah, just not going to be possible."
  – Economic Analyst [11:25]

• "If you want to lower [prices] as much as you can, then you would deregulate as much as is safe...If that price is just...too high...well Manhattan is just more or less off limits for anybody that's making less than whatever $350,000 a year."
  – Economic Analyst [10:28]

• "Mamdani's policy is...so ignorant to how economies work that the very thing I'm screaming for is for people to just follow the math."
  – Economic Analyst [12:22]

• "When you have some small amount of [rent control] going on, it hasn't solved shit. Because what it does is it tells investors, don't invest here."
  – Economic Analyst [12:55]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 01:30–02:40: Introduction to Mamdani’s candidacy, "villain" framing, and skepticism about socialist reforms.
• 03:15–05:30: The case against rent freezes; historical context and economic analogies.
• 06:10–08:05: Debate over policy intentions versus actual incentives and outcomes; hypothetical about small landlords.
• 08:10–11:13: Free-market versus regulatory approaches to housing; arguments for and against high-rise development and neighborhood exclusivity.
• 11:29–12:55: Core disagreement: who New York should be for; defense and critique of rent control; call for better economic literacy in policymaking.

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Overall Tone

The conversation is animated, opinionated, and sometimes confrontational, yet rooted in appeals to empirical evidence and economic fundamentals. The Economic Analyst is blunt, sometimes cynical (“that’s my fucking point...it hasn’t solved shit”), while the Policy Commentator contributes nuance and pushes back with questions of fairness and values. Tom Bilyeu’s guiding presence is more implicit, grounding the debate in the episode’s central theme: how to see the world clearly amidst ideological noise—a true reflection of Impact Theory’s mission.

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For listeners seeking clear, unvarnished debate on urban policy, economics, and the ideological battles shaping U.S. cities today, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

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[Economic Analyst]

Zoran Mandani is clearly going to be the next mayor of New York. But he is a villain. A charming villain. But here's what his fans are not thinking about.

[Policy Commentator]

The mayoral debate was yesterday, in the words of Tom, who calls Mom Donnie his villain. Is he like your supervillain now? At this point, like an arch nemesis?

[Economic Analyst]

The. The supervillain is Marxism itself, socialism itself. When you look at the price of gold right now and realize how rapidly up and the price of gold is an indication as to how stable the market thinks your economy is. And it's saying, bro, you're in real trouble. Everything that is wrong with the economy right now is based on debt, money printing. Mamdani is going to make that worse. The buses are never going to be free. Nothing is ever going to be free. Everything is going to be paid for by somebody. But this all becomes abstracted. If New York decides that what they want is free buses, then my only question is, what aren't you going to do to be able to pay for that? If what we see is. Is a measurable improvement in something that we all care about based on that, and you don't see capital flight because they're like, okay, yeah, this is a thing that we're, that's worth paying for. Great, no problem. I have exactly zero belief that that's how this is going to go. I think he's doing it from an ideological standpoint. I think no matter what happens economically, whether he gets the funding or not, whether tax revenue goes down or not, he's going to keep pushing his agenda because he believes from an ideological standpoint this is what we ought to do. The city's too expensive. I think that housing has become too expensive essentially ubiquitously across all of America. I think it is one of the most catastrophic problems. We have tried rent freezes before in New York. In fact, we're doing rent freezes already in New York. It hasn't solved the problem. We did rent freezes in the extreme back in the 60s and 70s and it led to the burned out buildings in the 70s and 80s. People do not understand that even buildings. Housing is an entrepreneurial endeavor. It is somebody who their poor product is an apartment complex. You buy that product because you want to live inside of it. And what ends up happening is imagine if I told you, hey, you can't charge people, you can't charge them that amount for a pair of shoes. Well, all of a sudden the number of people making shoes goes down because it has a knock on consequence to all the things that they can make those shoes from. And so upkeep in a building to take it back to real estate. When you put rent freezes, they're like, well, you've now just made it impossible for me to make money off my building. Maybe you make it break even, which just reduces somebody's incentive because they're like, wait, I'm going to have to work this hard and I'm going to have nothing to show for it. Why would I do that? So people aren't going to run businesses out of charity. What ends up happening is people go, wait a second. If at those rents I can't afford to repair the plumbing, for instance, so they don't. And they tell you wrap a towel around it. And so you end up in a situation, this is real, you end up where a quarter of all of the buildings that burned in the Bronx were due to arson because it was cheaper to burn the building and collect the insurance money than it was to try to upkeep it. When you start mapping Marxist beliefs on somebody who's really trying to make the poor's life better, you're going to be eternally confused because they'll do things that are so obviously well documented that it doesn't work and they do it anyway. So it's like, why are they doing that? If you map them as resentful people who want to punish the wealthy, all of a sudden all of their moves make sense. In the cross cultural study, what they found was if people had the opportunity to create a tax policy that made the poor's lives better but also helped the wealthy, they won't vote for it. Not as much as they'll vote for something that makes the life of the poor worse but punishes the wealthy across cultures. The thing that people will actually vote for is the thing that hurts the rich. They won't vote for the thing that helps the poor. And so helping the poor would be let the free market stop putting so many regulations on housing and let people go in and build new apartments, build new buildings and charge whatever rent they can get away with charging. Now putting some restrictions on it. Like we're not going to let foreign investors buy property. Okay, I get that. With every additional property that a person buys, just charge them bigger and bigger taxes. If somebody wants to buy the third property and you're charging them 50% tax, okay, well that's on them. Let them do their thing. Very simple things like that would over, let's say the next five years, make housing very, very simple.

[Policy Commentator]

I don't think that's necessarily a fault of the policy as opposed to a fault of the person.

[Economic Analyst]

Of course it's a fault policy.

[Policy Commentator]

I think we should be more mad at the arsonist and not mad at the person whose rents are lower.

[Economic Analyst]

You should be mad at the arsonist because it's illegal. You should also recognize that the government put them in that position. And I would bet dollars to donuts if I described a scenario where let's say that your mom had bought a house her whole life was like, when I get to 65, I'm going to retire. I'm going to move to a really small apartment near my son. I'm counting on the rent that I'm going to be able to get from that house and my upkeep on the house with property taxes and maintenance and all of that, let's say is seventeen hundred dollars. And then the government comes along and says, you can't charge more than fifteen hundred dollars a month for that apartment. Now your mom's like, hold on a second. Now I'm losing money every month with no hope of ever making.

[Policy Commentator]

Or you can sell the building.

[Economic Analyst]

Who's going to buy the building? When I say you can't make money, you will lose money. And so now your mom is like, no one's going to buy this, so you just tank the value of my real estate. Because anybody even considering buying this building is going to ask, can I make money off of maintaining it off of the property taxes? And if the answer is no, she's left holding a building that she literally can't sell. That's what happens. And now, remember, this is your mom who for 30 years paid into this building with a plan for how she was going to retire. And then somebody says, you can't charge what the market is willing to pay. And now your mom's entire, like, plan for the rest of her life is just over. She can't sell the building. And now she's looking at it going, I. I have to get the money out of that, otherwise I'm going to be working until the day that I die. And this is where people get put into desperate situations. Now, I'm not saying that your mom is a good person if she burns the building down, but I am saying I get why one day, late at night, she's like, well, that is an option.

[Policy Commentator]

Housing, I think, is a different bucket here. Even the grocery store thing, I can kind of take that point and see is that a different bucket.

[Economic Analyst]

So you know the way to make housing more affordable, to make more housing, you come up with a narrative that we can't build up, which I totally reject wholeheartedly.

[Policy Commentator]

I'm just saying when we build up, especially in New York City, you've never seen a high rise that's more affordable than the unit that he replac.

[Economic Analyst]

So now your beef is, I don't want there to be places like Beverly Hills that poor people, they just can't

[Policy Commentator]

afford this neighborhood that's all of Manhattan.

[Economic Analyst]

Fine.

[Policy Commentator]

So. So you're saying it's fine that they can't afford it?

[Economic Analyst]

Yes, of course I'm saying it's fine they can't afford it.

[Policy Commentator]

But I thought the problem was housing affordability.

[Economic Analyst]

Yes, of course you don't have a right to live in whatever neighborhood you want to live in. What I'm saying is stop artificially making it impossible for people to live somewhere that it's. The government regulation is making it impossible. For instance, stop freezing rents. Because if building a business in building a building in Manhattan was lucrative, then a whole bunch of people would do it. And if a whole bunch of people were doing it and renovating these buildings and knocking them down and building new things with more tenants, it's going to become more affordable. Now if in doing that the wealthiest people in America are like, actually, I want to migrate to the city. Yes, it is very possible that given that that is just a fixed finite piece of land, that the wealthiest people are going to keep pouring in. But my instinct is that isn't going to be true.

[Policy Commentator]

It's the number one city in the world, arguably.

[Economic Analyst]

Right, but are you trying to regulate who can and can't come there? I don't understand if you are saying no neighborhood should ever be able to be out of reach of, and I don't know if you'd say anyone, but are you saying every neighborhood should have low income housing?

[Policy Commentator]

I have not said that, no.

[Economic Analyst]

Perfect. Then now you're just into what you just said a minute ago, which is there will always be a supply and demand problem when Manhattan is of finite size. What I'm saying is the free market is going to lower the prices. It's not going to take them up. Regulation is going to take them up. It's not going to lower them. So I'm saying, yeah, it's possible that an area just becomes so desirable for a whole host of reasons. Take the Hollywood Hills for instance. The Hollywood Hills are always going to be more expensive because they have a view. And there's just always going to be a certain type of person that's going to be willing to pay for that view. So limited amount of hills, how many

[Policy Commentator]

additional units we try to build on Hollywood Hills, we are going to reach upper threshold. Yeah, exactly. We ran out of hills.

[Economic Analyst]

Right. But I'm saying if you want to lower it as much as you can, then you would deregulate as much as is safe. I'm not saying you take it to zero and then if you're going to put limitations on it, put limitations of habitation. So I get a regulation that says you can only own a house here if you actually live in it at least 51% of the time or whatever. Now you're going to find out when it is single family ownership, single family dwellings, what becomes the price. And then if that price is just, it's too high. There's so many people that can afford that place and want to live in that place. Well, Manhattan is just more or less off limits for anybody that's making less than whatever $350,000 a year.

[Policy Commentator]

I understand the A to Z of what that laid out, but the end result of that policy would be this is just how much it is. Either you got it or you don't. It's like you're at the bar, it's

[Economic Analyst]

always going to be the case.

[Policy Commentator]

You have to cover, you can't, you

[Economic Analyst]

can't own a house on a minimum wage. Yeah, just not going to be possible.

[Policy Commentator]

Now enter Mamdani, who's saying there are people who are quote unquote residents of New York who are born in New York who are now getting priced out of this same thing because the demand is too high, because the prices are rising, because New York is number one city in the world, because people are still flooding in, they are getting price. So what he's saying is I'm going to artificially hold this amount of units just so that way I can help those specific people.

[Economic Analyst]

And if it worked, I'd cheer for it. It doesn't work. It goes the exact opposite direction. It will make a housing crisis. It will make it so that nobody wants to invest in the area.

[Policy Commentator]

There's rent controlled units now. There's people who still want to live in New York. New York does not have a vacancy problem. I guess this is the fundamental. This is a values problem. So I think we could talk about housing, but you have to tell me

[Economic Analyst]

what, what the end result is that you want to get to.

[Policy Commentator]

Drew personally understands how the economics are working. The reason I'm trying to argue Mandani's point is because I think a lot of times when we talk about him on the show, it becomes, oh, that's the socialist. And we kind of minimize like what he's trying to.

[Economic Analyst]

Mandani's policy is full. It, it is so ignorant to how economies work that the very thing I'm screaming for is for people to just follow the math. If you follow the math, you realize if you make it impossible for business to run, then business stops running. Business is how you get affordable homes in anywhere. And he's making that equation. We've run this scenario before, not only here, but all over the world. It doesn't work sometimes. It literally never works.

[Policy Commentator]

But we're doing that now though. And that's the thing that I think

[Economic Analyst]

when I'm literally hear yourself, you're saying, wait, New York is totally fucked, it's totally broken and we're already running his policy. That's my fucking point is even now, when you have some small amount of it going on, it hasn't solved shit. Because what it does is it tells investors, don't invest here.

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