April 17, 2026

Zohran Mamdani Gets Positively Giddy About Taxing The Rich

April 17, 2026/ Francis Menton

Here in New York, our new Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on a platform of “taxing the rich.”
But that leaves a question to which the answer up to now has not been completely clear: Does Mamdani advocate taxing the rich because he thinks it is good tax policy, or does he advocate taxing the rich as a way to take revenge and punish a group he thinks of as predators and oppressors?
Currently the New York Legislature and Governor are in the midst of their annual budget negotiations, in which one of the issues is whether Mamdani will be granted any of his “tax the rich” wishes. Word so far had been that the Governor has resisted those wishes, particularly the wish to increase the rates of income tax on high earners.
However, on tax day (April 15) news emerged that there is some kind of an agreement on one piece of Mamdani’s tax agenda, namely a proposal to impose a special tax or fee of some kind on expensive New York properties used by non-residents as second homes or “pieds-à-terre.”

April 15, 2026

Schadenfreude Of The Week: Majority Of New York's Pending Wind And Solar Projects Getting Canceled

April 15, 2026/ Francis Menton

It’s the feel-good story of the week, if you don’t mind taking joy from others’ misfortunes. When it comes to the wind and solar energy grifters, I don’t mind a bit taking joy from their misfortunes.
The last few days bring the news that apparently the majority of the remaining wind and solar electricity projects still in development in New York State are under imminent threat of cancelation.
At this point the details are sketchy, and nobody is attributing the news to any named source as far as I can find. Nevertheless, the story is sufficiently widely-reported from normally reliable sources that I’m ready to give it credit.
The Albany Times-Union appears to have been the first with the story in a piece from April 12. . . .

April 12, 2026

April 12, 2026/ Francis Menton

In his April 9 address to the Heartland Climate Conference, physicist John Clauser devoted the first quarter of his time to the issue of extreme weather events, and the remainder to something called the Earth’s Energy Imbalance, or EEI. On April 10, I summarized the portion of the presentation relating to extreme weather events in my prior post here. Today I will discuss Clauser’s presentation on EEI.
Before hearing Clauser’s presentation, I had heard of the EEI metric, but I had not studied it in depth. Nor had I realized the extent to which the IPCC and the climate cabal have embraced this metric as providing the preferred proof of impending dangerous global warming.
The metric that has previously been most used as the supposed proof of dangerous atmospheric warming generally goes by the name Global Average Surface Temperature, or GAST.

April 10, 2026

April 10, 2026/ Francis Menton

I spent the past couple of days attending the International Conference on Climate Change, put on by the Heartland Institute in Washington. There was a good deal of material that will be of interest to readers.
A major issue addressed by multiple presenters goes under the heading “What is the proof?”, and in particular what is the proof that there is some kind of climate “crisis” coming our way. You will not be surprised to learn that for most every claim of the climate cabal, the proof is lacking.
The most interesting presentation on this subject came from John Clauser.
Clauser titled his talk “Global warming, climate change, and scientific consensus have not been proven. There is no proven climate crisis.”

April 07, 2026

April 07, 2026/ Francis Menton

In New York State, the annual budget is due by April 1. Here we are on April 7, and no budget has yet emerged.
Word is that the Governor and legislative leaders are hidden away behind closed doors hammering out the details. Word also is that somewhere in this “budget” process, the seemingly unrelated matter of the deadlines of the Climate Act (for starters, 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030) are about to get extended.
When the Climate Act (officially “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” or CLCPA) was enacted back in 2019, the deadlines, beginning in 2030, seemed so very far away. The legislation was almost entirely activist-driven, with a willing audience of gullible and innumerate “progressive” useful idiots controlling the Legislature.
Normal people generally paid no attention and had little idea what was about to hit them. However, as the deadlines have gotten a little closer, and as the costs of renewable generation have begun show up in utility bills, finally some of those are starting to wake up.
Meanwhile, what is happening over on the activist side?

April 04, 2026

April 04, 2026/ Francis Menton

Back in May 2024, I had a post titled “So How Are Things Going In China?” The post was inspired by a New York Times article of April 15 of that year that had reported that China’s economy had grown “more than expected” in the first three months of 2024; and by a just-issued IMF prediction that China’s economy would grow by 5% in 2024.
To believe the New York Times and the IMF, in 2024 the Chinese economy was growing at an annual rate of 5% or more. For 2025, China again reported a GDP growth rate of about 5%.
Meanwhile, the reported rates for U.S. GDP growth were 2.8% for 2024 and 2.1% for 2025. It looks like China is beating the pants off us. Surely, it can only be a few more years before China’s economy overtakes ours as the largest in the world.
Well, maybe things aren’t quite that simple.