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.

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. (Read: The Devil Neither Political Party Will Name)

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.