Wow. Over the years, I have heard many adjectives applied to New Yorkers. "Hard core", "uncaring", "smart", "tough" among others. But never, in my strangest musings, would I have ever thought of New Yorkers as gullible.
That's right, gullible.
The mayor-elect, a socialist named Mamdani, just got elected promising free bus fare, frozen rent rates, among other perks. Of course, he fails to detail how he plans to pay for these goodies.
Well, New Yorkers, you know who will pay, in the long run - YOU. I never thought I would ever have to remind New Yorkers that there is absolutely no such thing as a free lunch.
President Obama tried that when he introduced the mis-named "affordable care act". He promised insurance premiums would go down, all uninsured Americans would be covered, people who had coverage could keep it, and people could keep seeing the doctors they trusted.
The result? No where near the number of predicted people were covered. Many people lost coverage, many people were no longer able to see their trusted doctors. And worst of all - EVERYONE'S health care premiums went up dramatically. We suffered at least five years of double digit premium increases. We are ALL still paying for Obama's pie-in-the-sky promises to this very day. We are ALL paying for the impractical experiment of government-run health insurance.
And so, the city of New York embarks on another experiment, based on lofty promises of free stuff for the people. Will there be an exodus of people who can no longer afford to live in New York? Will businesses reduce their New York presence, to keep from having to pay for Mamdani's campaign promises?
Humans are notoriously bad at passing life lessons down to later generations. We older folks have largely given up on the practice, because so many of the younger generation actively reject our hard-won wisdom. It's a demonstrated fact that the younger generations think they know what they need to know about life. They are wrong. And young New Yorkers are about to get a life lesson that will, hopefully, show them just how little they really know.
I hope they learn from it.
