Usually, at least once a day, I come across something on the internet that almost causes me to lose my lunch. Yesterday, it was a photo of Zohran Mamdani and Curtis Sliwa holding hands and getting flu shots together.
As someone who observed the mayoral race in New York City closely, I found the spectacle disgusting on multiple levels. Not because political opponents can’t be civil to one another, but because it immediately brought me back to how Sliwa folded like a cheap shirt after an election in which, in my view, he couldn’t get over himself long enough to put his pride aside, step out of the race and give Mamdani’s main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, a clearer shot at winning.
Instead, Sliwa stayed in the race, presenting himself as some type of principled alternative while insisting that remaining in the race was somehow the honorable thing to do when, if he *really *gave a shit about New York, he should have just swallowed his pride, recognized the electoral reality in front of him and gotten out of the way. Just because you *can *stay in, doesn’t mean you *have to. *
But alas, Andrew Cuomo is no more and we are now stuck with this smiling communist buffoon, whose economic ideas make a 9 year old playing SimCity on an iPad in the back of a minivan look like Fiorello La Guardia (and who may have just cost New York City $3 billion worth of investments from one sole taxpayer). .
After calming my stomach, the photo eventually got me thinking about something larger: as much as I dislike Mamdani’s politics, I understand exactly why Mamdani exists. It was put into words beautifully by my compatriot on Substack a couple of days ago on X, as well:
Mr. Bulltard is dead-on-balls accurate. And if the people running American monetary and economic policy don’t understand it soon, politicians like him aren’t going away. In fact, there’s going to be many, many more of them, for reasons I have written about extensively.
For years, the United States has responded to financial crises with some combination of lower interest rates, enormous fiscal deficits and extraordinary amounts of liquidity. Whenever something breaks badly enough, policymakers rush in to stabilize the system. By now, I’m hoping people are starting to realize that when this happens, the benefits and costs of these “rescues” aren’t distributed evenly.
In fact, they disproportionately brutalize the middle and lower class, the very same group of citizens that politicians are almost always claiming to help. And such rescues are almost *always *supported by both political parties:
In these situations, financial assets can respond almost immediately to easier money and abundant liquidity. Stocks rise. Bonds rise. Real estate rises. Private-company valuations rise. People who already own substantial assets watch their net worth recover and, eventually, soar.
The person living paycheck to paycheck experiences this very differently. He doesn’t own enough stocks for another bull market to change his life. Instead, he notices that his rent costs more. His groceries cost more. Insurance costs more. Restaurants cost more. A starter home that was already expensive becomes completely unattainable.
Back in the day, inflation would slow (but never reverse) and economists would announce that the problem was getting better. But the middle and lower class was still stuck with higher rent, groceries and home prices. Nowadays, inflation hasn’t even slowed. Prices are still skyrocketing higher. And the middle and lower class is getting torn to shreds by higher prices.
And that is the political environment that produces Zohran Mamdani…demonizing billionaires, proposing extremely regressive taxes, advocating for social revolution and just throwing around ideas of a state planned economy like he’s talking about the weather to a passerby in the park.
Which brings us to the great irony: the anger underlying his politics can be legitimate even if his proposed solutions make little sense on paper and even less sense in reality.
As I’ve said innumerable times on this blog, a voter doesn’t need to understand the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet to recognize that something feels profoundly wrong when working full time no longer seems sufficient to achieve the basic milestones previous generations considered normal.
And when that voter hears that the stock market has hit another record high, he doesn’t feel richer. He feels cheated…and pissed off…and envious.
Then along comes Mamdani offering to freeze his rent, subsidize his childcare, make his bus free and use government to intervene in the cost of everyday life. Is that man going to stop and thumb through history books to try and carefully determine what the historical outcome of such policies have been throughout history? Hell no. He’s going to volunteer to sell “Hot Girls For Zohran” T-Shirts in Union Square Park.
You can argue about the economics of Mamdani’s policies, but politically, the sales pitch isn’t difficult to understand. And the response from people who believe in markets cannot simply be to call these voters communists and lecture them about economics.
Instead, they have to answer a much more uncomfortable question. Why does the supposedly capitalist system increasingly seem to work spectacularly well for people who already own assets while becoming progressively harder for people trying to acquire them?
That is the question Mamdani is trying to present himself as answering. And most of us know he’s giving people the wrong answer. But that doesn’t make the question disappear.
In fact, there is something deeply ironic about responding to the consequences of years of economic intervention with demands for even more economic intervention…and then when your bullshit plans fail to make economic or basic common sense, turning to real entrepreneurs and business leaders for help.
We risk trying to cure distortions created partly by government policy with another layer of government policy, and then wondering why the distortions keep multiplying.
Eventually somebody has to address the disease rather than the symptoms. That means taking seriously what persistent inflation does to people who own few assets. It means acknowledging the distributional consequences of monetary policy. It means recognizing that rising asset prices aren’t synonymous with widespread prosperity. And it means understanding that “inflation is falling” is cold comfort to someone whose cost of living already jumped 20%, 30% or more.
If capitalism’s defenders want fewer socialists, they might start by making capitalism look like it works for people who don’t already own everything.
QTR’s Disclaimer**:** Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here.
I also may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and own things I’m bearish on. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions.
I cannot guarantee the accuracy of any or all facts and figures included in this article though I made an effort to get them right. I have been wrong before and will be wrong again, and encourage you to always double check, do your own research and speak to a licensed financial professional, which I am not.
Contributor posts, guest posts and curated posts have been hand selected by me, but have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author or reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.
Since 2026, I have been making an attempt to no longer actively trade as much as I once did ( read my story here). In an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle, I’ve also excluded myself from most fantasy sports, sports betting, online and in-person casinos and prediction markets.
My goal is for my investing/saving to be done by recurring contributions mostly to sector ETFs and a few select equities, trusted third parties who oversee my accounts, and advisors. Such advisors or funds, through individual equities, options, index funds, mutual funds, ETFs, or other securities, may have positions in, exposure to, or holdings of names mentioned herein that I know nothing about. Basically, it is possible I could own, have exposure to, or not own anything, at any point.
You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. Again, I get shit wrong a lot, both in the market and in life, but am trying my best. If you see numbers and calculations of any sort, assume they are wrong and double check them. I failed Algebra in 8th grade and topped off my high school math accolades by getting a D- in remedial Calculus my senior year, before becoming an English major in college so I could bullshit my way through things easier. Hence, I am a writer. I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. Many times I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Thanks, you’ve been a great crowd and don’t forget to tip your servers.
