Extradimiensional Cephalopod gets a Comment of the Day for making a good faith effort to justify Mamdani’s absurd quote that is also the essence of totalitarian reasoning. Here it is, in reaction to “Unethical (and Stupid) Quote of the Month: Zohran Mamdani...”:
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“We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”
This statement is stupid enough that I consider it signature significance.
Arguably, it almost makes sense that there’s no problem too large for government to solve, but it would be more precise to assert that there’s no problem too large for people to solve (which I happen to agree with, but even I think it’s beyond the purview of a politician to officially assert something so absolutely optimistic). Government is just the process of establishing and enforcing rules if the solutions that people come up with need those rules in order to work, or to protect the solution from interference.
I kept trying to imagine a proof for the proposition that no concern is too small for the government to care about, but my examples stopped being “too small.” E.g., a specific person’s hangnail is too small for the government to care about–that’s the individual’s responsibility. However, if enough people care about preventing hangnails, maybe the government could create an agency that somehow stops all hangnails without causing other problems. At that point, though, the problem is clearly big enough for many people, and therefore the government, to care about. It still requires a sufficient number of people being seriously concerned about a particular problem for the government to step in.
Unless we think it’s feasible for the government to assign a social worker to each person to help them with all their little discomforts, it seems pretty clear that small problems should be handled by individuals, friends, family, and community engagement.
That’s how much work I had to do to make Mamdani’s statement not seem completely ridiculous. Politicians should not say things that are so many steps away from making sense. Pity… I was hoping from what I’d heard about Mamdani earlier that he was standing up for legitimate concerns of the people regarding the government and the economy, but it sounds like he’s yet another politician pandering to people’s biases to seize power.
Ethics Alarms 
“I was hoping from what I’d heard about Mamdani earlier that he was standing up for legitimate concerns of the people regarding the government and the economy,”
This is the “affordability” talking point Dems have surfaced and harped on over the last few months and during the off-year elections. Remember when everything was “income inequality” and everyone pretended they’d read Thomas Piketty’s book.
Affordability is a total crock. Victor Davis Hansen explains it as well as CM would:
Despite warnings from even liberal economists that the “stimulus” was a recipe for hyperinflation, Biden—or whoever at that time ran the country—went ahead with his massive borrowing and ensured that inflation would peak at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in 2022.
The mess continued, however, since inflation still kept up in the next two years at 3-4 percent. And when Trump entered office in 2025, goods were over 21 percent higher than when Biden had been inaugurated—with even steeper prices on key staples like energy, groceries, automobiles, housing, and insurance.
Most prices have never gone down. The fact that they have remained high over the last ten months has been blamed on Trump, on the strange rationale that he was supposed to have engineered a deflationary economy in less than a year to lower what Biden recklessly had raised over four years.
The left-wing propaganda is Orwellian:
“Our four-year policies created hyperinflation. Your 10-month antithesis did not. But you are still responsible for not undoing in ten months what we did in 48 months. Therefore, we deserve to return to power to repeat the disaster that we made under Biden.”
The Race for the Trump Economy › American Greatness
I wonder what are the challenges in pursuing a deflationary economy. Surely it is a ssimple as contracting the money supply, right?
Right! It’s easy-peasy! Nothing like a good old recession!
The problem is that this economy is now Trump’s economy. As a retiree who is not dependent on a salary who owns a house I personally do not have any reason to be unhappy, but the Gen Z and Gen Alpha face different economic challenges in getting well paying jobs, being able to buy a house, afford the rent and the grocery bills. It has been said (e.g. Ben Shapiro) that the election losses in NJ and VA are related to the economy. That means that the Trump administration needs to pay attention to the messaging regarding the economy (example: FDR’s fireplace chats during the Great Depression).
I am still concerned about the effect of the tariffs; I am afraid that these pissing matches with China, Canada, India create a lot of necessary uncertainty for investors.
I am also concerned that the nineties are calling back with an AI bubble similar to the dot.com bubble; if this bubble burst it will hurt the GOP in the following elections.
Cees, for what it’s worth, Hansen (see above) makes the case that Trump’s economic policies will bear fruit as the midterms approach. Fingers crossed.
EC’s closing observation, which OB also references, is spot on.
“I was hoping from what I’d heard about Mamdani earlier that he was standing up for legitimate concerns of the people regarding the government and the economy, but it sounds like he’s yet another politician pandering to people’s biases to seize power.”
Whatever label you pin on Mamdani, communist or socialist, is irrelevant. It has been said that the only difference between the two ideologies is the speed and number of bodies that pile up. Both systems are anti-capitalist and have no respect for individual property rights. Mamdani is using the same playbook that the Democrats have used since FDR. Buying votes with the promise of free stuff.
Regardless of party or ideology, all governments only have three actions they can take to effect change. They can make things legal or illegal, or they can take money or resources from some individuals and give them to others.
The biggest problem with a wealth redistribution game plan is that people with money and business move to states or countries that are less confiscatory of people’s hard-earned money. Or as Margaret Thatcher put it, “the only problem with socialism is you eventually run out of people’s money”.
Another problem with buying votes is that the cost increases every election. The data below demonstrates how the population reacts to the socialist policies of NYS and NYC. I looked at population trends and budget dollars, comparing Florida and Texas to New York State and New York City for the years 2010 and 2025. For a baseline, we also included data for US national values.
From 2010 to 2025 Population increased
US 11%
NYS 1%
NYC 4%
Texas 26%
Florida 47%
Budgeted spending increased (All dollar amounts are in billions)
US 83% from $3456 to $6326
NYS 89% from $134.3 to $245.3
NYC 81% from $63.4 to $115.0
Texas 84% from $91.8 to $169
Florida 77% From $66.5 to $117.4
Per capita spending is given below. Inflation 2010 to 2025 = 49%
US From $11,174 to $18,498 increase = 66%
Inflation-adjusted per capita spending = 17% increase
NYS From $6,923 to $13,041increase = 88%
Inflation-adjusted per capita spending = 39% increase
NYC From $7,741 to $13,561 increase = 75%
Inflation-adjusted per capita spending = 26% increase
Texas From $3,635 to $5,306 increase = 46%
Inflation-adjusted per capita spending = – 3% decrease
Florida from $4,156 to $4,996 increase = 20%
Inflation-adjusted per capita spending = – 29% decrease
NYS and NYC’s biggest problem is not just that their population growth trails the National population growth; it is the loss of taxable income that makes even the pre-Mamdani policies unsustainable.
If Mamdani’s promises are implemented, NYC may be left with just takers and no givers. For example, in 2024, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the NYC-centered mega-bank, has more than 30,000 employees in Texas, while in NYC it has fewer than 29,000. According to a NY Post article:
https://nypost.com/2025/09/29/us-news/jpmorgan-chase-now-employs-more-workers-in-texas-than-ny-top-city-biz-advocate-calls-it-scary-development/
“New York City’s financial services sector has grown by only 4% since 2019.
In contrast, other metro areas have experienced explosive growth in banking jobs over the same period — Austin, Texas grew by 27%, Charlotte, NC up 21% and Dallas, Texas increased 11%”
This fact proves the adage that you can only fool some of the people all the time.
Comment of the Day, Tom.
Thanks, Jack. I don’t imagine you have too many occurrences of two comments of the day comments on a comment of the day post. That aside,
I wish I could say that the idiots in NYC will deserve whatever hell Mamdani foists upon them, but the entire state of New York and the country will also feel negative impact from his election.