RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/05/homes-for-hipsters/

More than his good looks, charm and great social-media game, the biggest reason that Zohran Mamdani may become New York’s next mayor grows from his focus on the city’s affordability crisis, most of which is tied to high housing prices.

Mamdani’s ‘cost of living’ campaign – offering rent control, free buses, childcare and city-owned supermarkets – seems to some leftist pundits a potential road back to power, under the guise of the burgeoning YIMBY (‘yes in my backyard’) movement that seeks to lower rental prices through massive housing construction.

Although Mamdani claims his focus on affordability appeals to working-class voters who shifted to Donald Trump, his core constituency lies elsewhere – with relatively affluent, young, single and childless professionals. For them, rent control is a true blessing, although they may not need free buses or want city-financed grocery stores, unless they resemble Whole Foods.

Housing, of course, is not just a New York issue. It also has a particular resonance for younger Americans. A Harvard poll of 18- to 29-year-olds this year ranked housing as the third-most-important issue overall, after inflation and healthcare. The educated hipster class – Mamdani’s base – understandably worries about the fact that in New York, you need a $135,000-a-year salary to afford a decent place, without it eating up most of your paycheque.

On a national basis, Mamdani’s win could prove a critical boost to the YIMBYs. From their origins in California, they have always been an odd agglomeration, originally financed by Bay Area tech and real-estate elites, while also embraced by more predictable leftist advocates of rent control, heavy subsidies and public housing. As YIMBY policies – like rezoning and densification – have either failed to solve the problem, or failed to gain traction with the public, more draconian socialist approaches seem to be gaining currency.

The YIMBYs are at least right about one thing: the lack of new housing is a profound national failure. Homebuilders constructed a million fewer homes – including units – in 2024 than in 1972, when there were 130million fewer Americans. One estimate puts the US housing market short by an estimated 4.5 million homes.

But if YIMBYs have diagnosed a key problem, their solutions – wherever imposed – have tended to make things worse. High-density development, often seen as the alternative to urban sprawl, does not solve the problem of higher urban land costs and higher construction fees.

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/28689/pedophilia-and-politics

 goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com 

In an important recap of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revelations, journalist Margaret Flavin reports on an audit of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as discussed in a recent interview with Vice President JD Vance. Flavin’s article, “Vice President Vance Underscores Reports of Massive Waste and Corruption in Foreign Aid (Video),” posted on Gateway Pundit, June 29, 2025. The results of the audit reveal that only 12% of the money allocated to USAID for aid arrives at its destination! How is this possible?

Vance explains the corruption:

“So, we send $100,000 to this group to buy food for poor kids in Africa, okay.”

“And what actually happens is it’s not $100,000 that go to the food for the poor kids in Africa. The NGO, the non-government organization that gets that money, contracts it out to somebody else, and then they subcontract it. So, there’s like three or four middlemen.”

“Marco Rubio, who’s the Secretary of State, he’s a very good friend. What he told me is that his best estimate, after he had his team look at it, is that 88 cents of every dollar was actually being collected by middlemen.”

“So, every dollar we were spending, humanitarian assistance, 12 cents, was actually making it to people who needed it.

In fiscal year 2023, USAID distributed $7 billion of American taxpayer monies worldwide, and less than $1 billion was actually distributed to the needy. This confirms the waste, fraud, and abuse that Elon Musk’s DOGE team discovered. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded with his March 10, 2025, announcement that 83% of USAID programs, a whopping 5200 contracts, many were cancelled saving tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars. The 1,000 remaining programs will be managed under the State Department.

Marco Rubio’s March 10, 2025 tweet:

After a 6-week review, we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.

In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1,000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.

Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.

So, who are the big losers in the crackdown on USAID, and what programs and policies that harmed or did not serve the national interest were they funding?