Here's An Idea To Get 30% Cheaper Groceries In New York Without Taxpayer Subsidies: Allow Walmart!

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Here's An Idea To Get 30% Cheaper Groceries In New York Without Taxpayer Subsidies: Allow Walmart!

  • During his campaign for office last fall, our new Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised to make groceries “affordable” for New Yorkers; but he provided few specifics.

  • Some specifics then emerged in late July, when Mamdani issued a big press release on his proposed public grocery store project. We learned that there are plans for five municipally-owned stores — one in each borough of the City — and that the groceries these stores will sell, or at least a “core basket” of them, will be “30% cheaper.” We know that the groceries will be “30% cheaper” because the Mayor’s press release says so multiple times:

  • Today [July 28], Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su and New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced that a core basket of everyday groceries will be 30 percent cheaper at the five new municipal grocery stores. . . . “A trip to the grocery store shouldn’t spell dread for New Yorkers [said Mayor Mamdani]. That’s why we are guaranteeing a 30% discount on the most common and most critical groceries. . . .” ‍ ‍

  • Well OK, 30% cheaper than what?

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The DSA Vision: Does Any Human Being Enjoy Living As A Zoo Animal?

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The DSA Vision: Does Any Human Being Enjoy Living As A Zoo Animal?

Here is a fundamental proposition to which I subscribe: The only thing worth being in life is an adult.

By the word “adult” I have something specific in mind. An adult is someone who, at a minimum, either alone or in a family structure, provides for himself or herself. That’s the minimum. Even more worthwhile is being an adult who also, through effort and within a family structure, creates and provides for a family. Still more worthwhile is being an adult who, after fully providing for a family, also assists others who may need help, beginning with extended family, and potentially then reaching to the broader society and to charity.

The alternative to living as an adult is living as a dependent on others or on society. You are relieved of all responsibilities, and somebody else somehow comes up with whatever you may need in life, be it food or housing or health care. Your own life is no longer burdened by the need to provide for yourself and family, and you can live without stress and without need to fulfill obligations.

In other words, this is the life of a zoo animal. Does any human being actually want to live such a life?

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Driving Up The Cost Of Energy While Claiming To Promote "Affordability"

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  • A fair criticism of politicians is that they all lie, at least to the extent of engaging in extreme levels of spin and/or exaggeration to put the best face on their proposals and programs. But some political lies are worse than others, in that they go far beyond mere spin or exaggeration and get into the blatantly counter-factual. In that category are the claims of many of the governors of the Northeastern states that they are promoting energy “affordability.” These lies are particularly consequential in that they involve very large economic effects and vast waste of resources.

  • In late 2025, the talking point of energy “affordability” became a major theme of the successful candidacies of Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.

  • Elsewhere in the region, the governors’ offices were not up for election in the off year, but the sitting governors have equally been talking up their energy “affordability” agendas. See for example, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts here on March 16 (“Governor Maura Healey today is setting strong new targets for bringing more energy into Massachusetts and lowering energy bills.”); and Governor Kathy Hochul of New York here on May 7 (“[Governor Hochul] Tackles Energy Costs With Sweeping Affordability Package.”).

  • And yet somehow, it’s hard not to notice that the electricity rates in the Northeastern states are among the highest in the country.

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Two Bets On The Future Of Wind Energy: Who Is Right?

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Two Bets On The Future Of Wind Energy: Who Is Right?

  • Two articles from the New York Times in the past couple of days describe the widening divergence between the approaches taken by the U.S. and China on the subject of wind energy. I apologize that these pieces are behind the Times’s paywall, but remember that I subscribe there so that you don’t have to.

  • On Monday (May 4) the article was about the status of wind energy development in the U.S., with the headline “More Than 150 Wind Projects Stall as Pentagon Delays Reviews.”‍ ‍Tuesday’s (May 5) piece covered the same subject in China, headline “China’s Big Bet on Wind Power Is Paying Off.”‍ ‍

  • These articles once again illustrate the extent to which the U.S. and its people are uniquely blessed in the world.

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Could There Be Any Idea More Ignorant Than Government-Run Grocery Stores?

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Could There Be Any Idea More Ignorant Than Government-Run Grocery Stores?

  • When I consider our new Mayor Mamdani and his legions of committed followers, the thought I can’t get away from is “How is it possible to be this ignorant?”

  • Right now here in New York, Mamdani is moving forward with his plan to open a chain of government-owned grocery stores, at least one for each of our five boroughs.

  • The underlying concept is that groceries have become too expensive for low income people to buy, undoubtedly due to evil capitalists siphoning off vast profits somewhere in the system. In the latest iteration of his proposal, Mamdani has said that the government stores will sell “basic” products like bread, milk and eggs at “guaranteed cheaper” prices.

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Zohran Mamdani Gets Positively Giddy About Taxing The Rich

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Zohran Mamdani Gets Positively Giddy About Taxing The Rich

  • 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.”

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