The property’s asking price at that time is not available in listing records
Yeah…that’s a red flag right there that they’re full of it. I didn’t even have to scroll far down a Google listing to find the Times article about the sale, back in 2014. It raised zero eyebrows then as the building was popular and just renovated. Even right now, in a poor real estate market, single units are listed at $5 million and he had a double unit which will double+ the value (because it’s one unit).
And no listing price was, as it took me just under 20 seconds to find out, because it was a private sale. Again, a totally normal thing. And, not that it needs the caveat, something Trump does all the time.
Stewart’s activism in pressuring Congress to do right by 9/11 first responders deserves mad props, but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that’s the same as governing. People’s first foray into politics shouldn’t be the presidency. I would support him in a run for Congress, though.
He got that done through celebrity, by using his platform as a comedian. That doesn’t translate well to politics, where the real work is done 1-on-1 or in small groups.
And it’s not about getting elected alone. It’s about doing the job once you’re there. T**** showed everyone just how bad it can be to have someone who likes running for president but hating the actual job in that role.
As seen in 2008 when banks were writing predatory mortgages and driving up housing prices. They also ended up being unintentional property owners by encouraging foreclosure and rapid resale.
As of 2024 there has been precisely one President of the United States who entered office with no prior experience in public service. We all saw what an unmitigated clusterfuck that was.
Being popular and media saavy is not the same as being qualified for the office, as I’m sure Stewart himself would readily acknowledge.
i don’t know. part of the problem was that they securitized loans; so nobody was quite sure who owned what when it all blew up. not to mention robo-signing; did anyone ever determine if that was actually legal or not?
there seemed to be quite a lot of: please don’t look too closely at all this paperwork, because its so encumbered now who can say, so how about we just pretend we own it; good enough?
( and then somehow the hedge funds and investor groups were able to buy up all that property anyway; which is one of the reasons housing is now so expensive. )
No reasonable person is aiming for a utopia of any sort. We are looking for a society that at the very least aims to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people regardless of their immutable characteristics or life circumstances; Libertarianism fails right out of the gate in that regard in a way that even Marxism doesn’t.
They have that capablity, all the more so if the policy changes aren’t grounded in an ideology that extols selfishness, exploitation, deregulation, and zero-sum transactions. As @anon61221983 said, we’ve seen what happens with the Libertarian implementation of incentives and disincentives (which can be and are incorporated into other ideological frameworks as a matter of course); “sustainable” is not the word to describe it.
As for that light touch, or “nudge” if you will, Chicago School economists have been using the concept of choice architecture mainly as a way to distract from the far more effective results of making systemic changes. Time and time again, it’s been demonstrated that the positive outcomes claimed to be mainly the result of a light-touch neoliberal policy nudge could be more attributed to the government simply having put more money and resources and enforcement into the general initiative.
It really helps to understand how governing works, however, on some level. And some sort of experience running something in the public sector also helps, because despite what years of propaganda might have made some believe, a government doesn’t run like a private corporation.
so, how about we stop thinking that just any old famous person would be okay to have one of the most powerful jobs on earth… We tried it, and it has not worked out well.
Related: my outsider (IANApolitical scientist) hypothesis on Western perspectives of authoritarianism in communist vs capitalist systems.
Both Leninist communism as realized in the Soviet Union and capitalism as realized in the US suffer from the same flaw that all systems share, which is that power tends to centralize. The result of unchecked centralization of power is authoritarianism.
When the Soviet experiment inevitably resulted in authortiarianism, Western economic commentators were able to criticize the State by highlighting how far removed the authoritarian system was from the principles of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” etc. It wasn’t as much the communist principles that were offensive as it was the failure of the system to abide by those principles.
But when a capitalist system inevitably slides towards authoritarianism, this reads as the natural and correct consequence of doing capitalism well, since the way you win at capitalism is by centralizing power. The economic commentators can really only watch and say, “Well… uh… good job! Bravo!” (unless they wanted to be branded socialists).
TL;DR: From the arch-capitalist perspective, the flaw of the Soviet system wasn’t authoritarianism, it was hypocrisy.
And I think comedians can make great presidents, the people of Ukraine seemed to like Zelenskyy even before he was a wartime president even though his only qualification was “played the president in a comedy on tv”.
It does help, and governments should be the opposite of corporations. In theory one is solely profit driven, and one is solely people driven.
But I diddnt pick john stewarts name out of a hat of famous people. I think he would legitimately do good things and im pretty sure he does know how government works.
You can split all the hairs you want, and you are entitled to your opinion. That said, this entire discussion is kind of irrelevant since I wouldnt expect him to be on any election form for public office ever.
He was on the road to irrelevancy prior to the invasion. He’d be long gone by now, had it not been for his brave response.
That doesn’t mean he’s be a good president… and FFS his name is JON, not John…
It’s not about spliting hairs, it’s about acknowledging reality… first that the entertainer to president pipeline isn’t a strong one, and second that the person your demanding run for president has no interest in doing so…
We tried it, and it has not worked out well.
