Ignore the “Idiot Issues” of This Election

Scientists and companies are creating vaccines, creating solar panels with four times the efficiency of current solar panels, making rockets, and creating genomics solutions that can cure thousands of major diseases. 

Let’s not stop them. Innovationism is the core philosophy that creates jobs, solves climate change, creates better healthcare, creates less infant mortality, etc. Government does none of this.

You either send goods or bullets over borders. And as America is more and more prosperous, it becomes more likely we trade goods rather than bullets. And as more innovations result, more job opportunities are created. 

(Are you really going to make an important decision based on what you read in the newspaper?)

The presidency needs to do what the Declaration states: Make sure that the liberty and pursuit of happiness of any member of society is not hampered. That is the role of the president. 

But there are many issues that I will call “idiot issues” that both parties and the media keep bringing up to try to scare people on BOTH sides. Do not pay attention to these issues. 

This is not a pro-Biden or pro-Trump article, although I keep getting accused of both. Stop it. 

I feel like if you’re not alt-right, people will call you a “libtard” or “snowflake” and if you’re not alt-left, people will call you a racist fascist. Since when has it been a crime to be a centrist? Most people are centrists but are afraid to speak right now. 

So I will. 

This is more a guide for thinking clearly about which issues are media-created and what’s actually important. Don’t make a decision based on issues dictated to you by the media.

Here are a few of the idiot issues:

ADDERALL

Both sides are claiming the other side is taking Adderall. Trump is insisting Biden take a drug test before the debates and Biden is saying no. And others are suggesting that a chunk of Adderall flew out of Trump’s nose during a televised press conference. 

My response: Who cares?

First, of course Biden is going to refuse a drug test. These guys are in their 70s. They are taking drugs for all sorts of things. 

(I wish the reporter had taken Adderall!)

And do you think if they wanted to avoid drug test results, their doctors aren’t good enough to fake any result? Of course they are. But why risk it?

Personally, if they are taking any kind of “performance-enhancing” drugs to be President of the United States, then power to them. It’s not like they have to worry about the health effects for the remainder of their lives (who cares about that?) and it’s not like they are “cheating” against other world leaders (again, who cares?) and it’s not like they are sending the wrong message to our kids (who all take Adderall anyway). 

So all the arguments are foolish. I hope they are taking Adderall. 

PERSONAL TAXES

Trump didn’t pay taxes for many years. Nobody knows how to interpret this. Did he cheat the government? Is he poor? 

The answers are obvious: No and no. And everyone understands this. It’s stupid to make this an issue. 

First off, billionaires don’t pay income taxes. They don’t have an income. Second, their capital gains are wrapped in companies that are wrapped in companies that are wrapped in companies. I doubt any billionaire pays their true taxes. 

(Hmmm…)

Second, Biden was “broke” in 2009. And in 2017–2018 he made $15 million. Good for him. This is America. He’s had opportunities the regular person doesn’t have. Do we blame him for it?

No, of course not. Elizabeth Warren is worth $12 million. Bernie Sanders is worth $3 million. Nancy Pelosi is worth over $50 million. Obama is worth $40 million. Even Martin van Buren was worth $29 million by the time he died. 

All of these guys are worth a lot and taxes are complicated because money is buried in trusts, companies, charities, etc. 

DEMENTIA

Believe me, Democrats know that Biden has some cognitive difficulties. But unless you are a doctor who specializes in this, it’s hard to say he has “dementia.”

When I do a podcast, I often forget what I’m saying and I stutter. When I give a speech I sometimes stutter. And it gets worse as I get older. The other day I had a migraine in the middle of a podcast and it almost seemed like I was having a stroke (my dad died of a stroke so I get scared when I have migraines). 

The reality is: Everyone close to Biden tells me that Biden has a good bench of people to help him. And most people voting for Biden are really voting “no Trump” so they don’t care whether he has dementia. 

Is Trump hiding any illnesses? Probably. I don’t care. Both sides appoint people who they consider experts. 

UKRAINE: TRUMP OR HUNTER BIDEN

Oh my god, I couldn’t care less. Was there quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine? I hope there was! We were giving them a ton of money. We better get something back for it. 

And was Hunter Biden corrupt in his dealings with Ukraine? Of course he was!

Why would some random guy make millions on the board of a big Ukrainian company? Because he was the son of the Vice President of the United States. Duh! 

Is that corrupt? I don’t even care. Yeah, OK, it was corrupt. Big deal. They are ALL corrupt. 

EXECUTIVE ORDERS 

Oh man, another executive order from Trump. Shouldn’t he let the legislative branch do the legislating? 

Yeah, he should! That’s what the Constitution says. Whenever he issues an executive order about, say, drug prices, you have to ask: Can he really enforce this, or is this political messaging? 

Again, either way, I don’t care. Lower drug prices? Sure, sounds good. But I doubt he can get it. Eviction moratorium? Sounds good. But I doubt he can execute on that. As political messaging? Great. Now I know where he stands. 

Is he over-using executive orders? 

Here are the last few presidents and their number of executive orders:

• Bill Clinton 253
• George W. Bush 291
• Barack Obama 276
• Donald Trump 187

It’s not a big deal. 

FLIP-FLOPPING

I really respect Bernie Sanders. He’s had the same political beliefs his entire life. And, by the way, if you watch Trump speaking in the ’80s, he says the exact same things about tariffs and taxes then that he does now. 

Sanders and Trump have always been pretty consistent about their biggest issues (but not smaller ones). 

Biden, on the other hand, has switched his beliefs several times. Is this bad? Of course not! I also respect someone who can change beliefs given new data and new circumstances. 

So this is a non-issue. 

TRUMP AND SCIENCE

Everyone says Republicans are “anti-science” and Democrats are “pro-science.” I don’t understand this. 

Trump has followed Fauci’s recommendations almost every step of the way. The classic case is when Trump had the travel ban against China and Pelosi called him xenophobic. 

OK, I don’t blame her either for ignoring the importance of the pandemic. I was in San Francisco the exact day Pelosi was trying to get people to go to Chinatown. I WANTED to go to Chinatown that day but Robyn was against it. I guess I was “anti-science.” 

(Let’s get science on this!)

I really admire Hong Kong. As soon as there were two cases (TWO!) they had lockdowns, masks, social distancing, etc and they barely had cases. Good for them. We didn’t do that. Shame on us. 

But, as far as I can tell, Fauci was basically in charge of everything in terms of our initial response. Happy to be wrong on this. 

And there’s a lot of questionable science in terms of allowing for protests with 50,000 people, but you can’t have weddings or funerals. 

I don’t think we know the full science. 

In March, just a few months ago, we did not know the contagion rate, the mortality rate, the immunity factor, the herd immunity percentage, whether the virus was man-made, whether it was transmitted through the air or surfaces, the effects of various treatments (HCQ, Vitamin D, Dexamethasone, Doxycycline, etc.) and, to be honest, we still don’t. 

The world just passed 1 million COVID deaths today. Horrible! Hong Kong Flu in 1957 was 2 million deaths and affected children a lot more. 

Does this mean this is “better” than Hong Kong Flu? No, not at all. But it does question if we did the right thing economically. I don’t think we will know what the right decisions were until a post-hoc analysis. And I don’t think any expert on either side disagrees with that. 

I think if decisions had to be made right now, both Trump and Biden would make different decisions than was either made or suggested in February or March. But BOTH seem to trust Fauci. 

ROE VS. WADE

For everyone who is worried about Roe vs. Wade, don’t be. I am worried about Roe vs. Wade. I do not want it repealed. But the reality is: It’s not going to be. 

Amy Barrett is an “originalist” who doesn’t always believe in precedents to change the Constitution. This, and the fact that she is a religious Christian, makes people believe she will repeal Roe vs. Wade, preventing young girls from having the right to seek abortion. 

Barrett has said she views Roe vs. Wade a strong enough precedent that she wouldn’t repeal it. 

Personally, I wish there were laws directly related to allowing women to choose to have an abortion if they want to. I don’t like that Roe vs. Wade hinges on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s right to due process to include a right to privacy. I feel that is a flimsy connection. 

Instead, the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should guarantee rights of women: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”

Since a fetus is not even remotely considered a citizen and assuming that “men” in this context means all people, then women have the same right of liberty as men, and the government’s role is simply to protect those rights and not take them away. 

I wish there were stronger laws about this but Amy Barrett is not going to take away Roe vs. Wade based on her prior experience. 

JOBS

Biden says that Trump is the only president to lose jobs during his term. 

Trump says that he had the greatest economic boom for jobs ever until the pandemic hit. 

Both are correct. 

Under Trump, unemployment was at a historic low, even for Hispanic Americans and African Americans. 

But under Trump, we had a forced economic lockdown, which reduced jobs to near-catastrophic levels. 

So you have to ask: dDd Trump cause the downfall of jobs during the pandemic? (Maybe yes, maybe no.) Was the economic lockdown necessary? If he had followed the science, would the economic lockdowns have caused less job loss? (Unclear.)

And then you have to ask, regardless of the above, who is more likely to create jobs in a bounceback (this is really the only thing that is important at this point in terms of jobs). 

Biden and Obama did return America to some employment normalcy after the Great Recession. Credit to Obama for helping build bipartisan support for the TARP bill, as well as the efforts to repeal or reduce FASB 157 , which, in my view, led to the bounceback. 

And credit to Trump for really ramping up job creation. Whose approach is better? I don’t know. That’s the issue. Not these empty numbers both sides are saying. 

RUSSIA

Clearly Trump is not a Russian asset. And, correctly, he has been focused on China, which has been much more hostile to America in terms of tariffs, IP stealing, human rights issues, etc. 

Is Trump allowing Russia to put bounties on American heads? Of course not. 

Is Russia trying to slowly build back the old Soviet Union? Of course. This has been known for about 20 years and nobody denies this. 

Will Trump be soft on this and Biden tough? Will Biden be tough on China so they stop stealing our IP and taking our jobs with their tariffs? 

We’ll see. This is the issue. Not some stupid issues about whether Trump is a spy or Hunter Biden is corrupt. I could care less about Hunter Biden and it’s ridiculous to think that the president is a Russian asset. 

DICTATORSHIP

Two qualities of a fascist dictator: 

• State-run economy — Where the government, ruled by one individual, is in charge of every aspect of the economy, from what job you can do, to what businesses stay in business, to who we trade with, to taxes, etc. 
• Identity politics — e.g., “Aryan people are the best people.”

Does either side want a government-controlled economy? Does either side play “identity politics”? 

Yeah, it can be argued both sides play identity politics. And I hope neither side wants a government-controlled economy, which goes against the real source of prosperity in America — the ability to innovate thanks to few government restrictions against innovationism. 

On the one hand, people are worried Trump won’t peacefully transfer power. 

On the other hands, Hillary Clinton is telling Biden to “not concede” even if he loses by a huge amount. 

So I’m not sure who is against changing power in the case of an election loss. 

Certainly both sides don’t want fraud. That is reasonable. And nobody will concede in the case of fraud. Also reasonable. 

There’s certainly been fraud in prior elections and power was transferred. 

In 1960, Nixon/Kennedy. Nixon barely lost and it may have been due to dead people voting in Chicago. Nixon even contested the election in courts but nothing came of it. 

2000, of course. 

1876 is the only clear-cut case of corruption I can think of, when Hayes paid off congressmen to vote for him when the election was close enough it was thrown into the house. This was a horrible blemish on American history, which led to much more restrictive Jim Crow laws. 

Should you be worried about any of the above? 

Yeah, if you think Trump is a Russian spy. Or if you think Biden is so riddled with dementia he could bypass all safeguards and launch a nuclear weapon, then sure, you should be worried. 

But these are fake worries. 

Every decision is either a fear decision or a growth decision. 

Don’t vote for a president out of fear. The media wants you to be afraid. On both sides. That’s their business model and, yes, it’s a great business model and it works. 

Vote for a president because you think it’ll make you and the country will grow. What does “growth” mean? That’s for each individual to decide.

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A Simple Guide to Every -Ism

People say this is an important election. I’ve never voted in a presidential election (the only two times I voted were in 1991 and 2004.)

When I say the above, many people vote-shame me. “If you don’t use your voice then you shouldn’t speak, ever!” or “Silence is violence!”

That’s not true. Silence does not equal violence. There are many things more important than politics. And I use my voice in many ways that I think are more valuable than a vote.

Don’t be addicted to anger when discussing issues important to you.

But, that said, I wanted to really understand the issues. And the best way to do that is to REMOVE THE PERSONALITIES from the equation and focus on the “-ISMS.”

What are the political philosophies that are out there? And which ones do I believe in and which candidate or party (if any) would best promote philosophies I believe in?

And to understand something, you also have to be able to explain it as simply as possible.

Too many academic pseudo-intellectuals have tried to explain Marxism or capitalism to me over the years, and the fancier their language got, the more I knew they were wrong.

Here are the -ISMs, tweet-sized, one at a time. From Marxism to Trumpism to Yangism and fascism and more.

MARXISM

Any financial division between an owner (someone who accumulates capital generated from the work of others) and a worker (someone who is paid less than the value he or she creates) results in class struggle and eventual revolution.

SOCIALISM

A capitalist society (where a worker gets paid less than value created and a boss gets the remainder), but where capital or ownership is later redistributed to “even things up.”

(Who would’ve thought? Such an easy acronym. I’m only dealing with the political -isms in this article but will also do one on the economic -isms.)

CAPITALISM

Karl Marx’s description of a system where some people do not create value but accumulate capital. This does not exist in real life. When people use the word “capitalism” they mostly don’t realize they are referring to Karl Marx’s definition of it.

INNOVATIONISM

The real source of prosperity and societal improvement (including human rights) comes from innovation. Innovation is a response to all prior technologies ever invented to solve a problem. Policies that reduce the friction required to innovate increase a society’s prosperity, healthcare, social issues, etc.

POLITICAL LIBERALISM (not “liberal” in the “left” sense)

A belief that all should have equal access to opportunity and that all deserve human rights. A belief that “rational” people will vote for their best interests, but that “reasonable” people require many different ideas from rational people, will vote on the ideas, and will abide by the consensus, even if it doesn’t go their way.

WOKEISM

A belief that some should have more access to opportunity than others in order to equal things out based on prior injustices that are now baked into the society. At any given point, the weakest voices (segregated by race or sex or preference or the intersection of these) should have the most access to opportunity.

LIBERTARIANISM

All should have equal access to opportunity. Decision making needs to be decentralized (individualized or, at least, localized) versus centralized (government-made) since a central body cannot make better decisions for the individual than the individual.

OBAMAISM

Friendship and consensus leads to prosperity. Even if a decision or policy is bad, if it is made with a group of decision makers, it is still more likely to result in prosperity than a decision that generates hostility among key decision makers. Consensus among nations creates globalism. Some, but not all, historical injustices can be corrected with policy.

TRUMPISM

A leader makes a limited amount of decisions but makes many decisions unilaterally to avoid “bureaucracy by committee.” Also isolationist — prosperity for a country comes from always making the best decisions for your country and ignoring the needs of other countries unless it benefits your group.

(BFFs forever?)

YANGISM

Innovation leads to a welcome prosperity but often creates new problems to be solved. Part of the increase in prosperity created by innovation needs to be redistributed to ensure smooth transitions as innovations move faster than new opportunities are created.

(Fun podcast to learn about Yangism.)

FASCISM

State-controlled capitalism mixed with identity politics. Fascism often is an extreme, nationalist version of socialism (despite what most people think). The National Socialist party in Germany and the Italian Socialist party in Italy ultimately became fascist parties.

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Any -ISMS I’m missing?

Or any clarification on these -isms without degenerating into anger or personal attacks on anyone?

I know I am an “innovationist,” with a touch of Yangism.

Although I love the name of Kanye West’s political party: the Birthday Party. If you call a political party “The Birthday Party,” you don’t need any -isms.

And one more thing: “Ism” is a legal word in Scrabble.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Check out the “Choose Yourself” Prime series just released on Amazon.

AND:

Check me out at the Hard Rock Cafe in Miami on October 1 doing standup.

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Here’s How to Save Cities But I Doubt People Will Listen (Part 2)

In yesterday’s email, I explained how the secret to saving cities was not to “think outside the box,” but rather to smash the box.

As promised, here are some of my “destroy the box” ideas for Cities 2.0.

A) CITYBUCKS (e.g. NYCBucks, LABucks, etc.)

A big problem facing cities is our addiction to Amazon.

I want batteries! Amazon gets them to me tomorrow. I want nectarines! Amazon gets them to me in an hour. I want soap! Amazon sent it to me yesterday because it has me on “subscription” and knows when I run out.

Up to 1/3 of small businesses in major cities might never reopen. 

How do we remove people’s addictions to Amazon and get them to buy local?

A brief interlude…

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Economics 101: The Money Multiplier Lesson

For every $1 spent in an economy, it adds $3–10 in economic growth. 

How come? If I spent $1 to buy a newspaper, the newspaper guy spends that $1 to buy some gum, the deli guy then spends that $1 to buy flowers, the flower guy spends that $1 to buy a coffee, etc. 

So $1 spent added $4 in economic growth to the region. 

When you spend $1 on Amazon, economic growth is limited. It’s unclear if Amazon ever spends that dollar. And the money leaves your city. The key is to create incentives for people to spend $1 in your local city so that the economic growth stays in the city.

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Enter… CityBucks. 

1. A cryptocurrency that can only be spent in local stores. The crypto feature knows if you are local and keeps track of all the transactions. 
2. Mining — a way that people can earn more CityBucks — happens every time a CityBuck is spent, both for the seller and the buyer. For example, if I spend 10 CityBucks in a restaurant, maybe I get an additional 1/4 CityBuck in my crypto wallet, and so does the restaurant owner.  This acts like a “negative sales tax” for people who are spending and selling locally — i.e., they make extra, instead of spend extra, the more transactions they make. This gives incentive to GO to a city and SPEND money in that city.
3. CityBucks can be redeemed five years later into U.S. dollars. 
4. All city taxpayers are given an initial universal basic income (UBI) of CityBucks. All tourists who book stays in hotels are given an allocation of CityBucks when they arrive. Every store in a city will accept CityBucks because they know it will be redeemed by the city into dollars and they also know they will be making more CityBucks the more they accept them because of the “mining” feature.
5. Whatever city implements their local CityBucks (for instance, if NYC implements NYCBucks), will be able to issue municipal bonds easily. If you release $10 million worth of CityBucks and they are spent, and we get a sense of the money multiplier, then we know exactly how much in sales taxes the city will generate in the future and they can borrow off of that. The good thing about borrowing fairly cheaply is that you can use that money to plug the current hole of deficits versus declining revenues so you can continue paying for critical services.

B) THE FEDERAL RESERVE INFLATES

The Federal Reserve recently announced that its big goal is to get back to 2% “average” inflation. 

Why is this a big deal? 

Everyone is frightened that if the U.S. prints too much money, we could get hyperinflation. Which means if you spent $3 on a loaf of bread last week, maybe it will cost $1 million a month from now with hyperinflation. 

But this is not what is happening. Prices are going down. Hotel prices slashed, air travel prices are slashed, clothing prices are down, of course real estate prices in major cities are down, wages are down at many companies, etc.

(The last time there was deflation was during the Great Depression, leading to mass hunger, food lines like above, and unemployment. We are at risk of that now.)

When prices are down, people wait before they buy because they think, “Well, it might be down MORE next week.” And then when next week prices are, in fact, down, people wait longer. And so on. Deflation leads to depression, leads to more businesses bankrupt, leads to higher unemployment. 

The Federal Reserve has been desperately trying to get inflation by buying Treasury bills and corporate bonds. 

How does this get inflation? When they buy Treasury bills, it brings down interest rates, which brings down the rates you get in a savings account, which gives the consumer more reason to spend money or invest money, since they are losing money by keeping it in a savings account. 

But it doesn’t work. When people are scared, they don’t spend money. 

The Federal Reserve should buy up the municipal bonds of cities. In other words, if NYC owes a bank $1 billion, then the Federal Reserve can buy that debt and say to NYC, “Listen, we still want the money back, but you don’t have to start paying us back for another 10 years. Get your act together first.”

This will increase spending! Cities, free of debt, will spend more on essential services, will spend more on infrastructure, which will create jobs, will spend more… period. More spending equals more inflation.

C) SELL OFF HOSPITALS AND UNIVERSITIES

This won’t be popular.

But we’re not here in this article trying to win a popularity contest. 

Why should Gotham City own the Arkham Asylum? Why are they in the hospital business?

NYC owns 27 hospitals. The hospitals make $6.7 billion in revenues but lose money every year. 

NYC should be in the city business, not the hospital business. There are many hospital companies that provide great healthcare and know how to make hospitals profitable at the same time. 

NYC can sell (or long-term lease) their hospitals for approximately $20 billion. Maybe more. Maybe they can sell their universities (NYC is also not in the education business and colleges are going down the tubes now anyway) for $10 billion. 

NYC’s total debt is around $120 billion. With this one move, they could get rid of 25% of their debt, making them capable of borrowing and spending money on new initiatives, as well as helping them avoid any layoffs. 

Every large city could do some version of this. Maybe not hospitals, but they could sell bridges or tunnels, or lotteries, or other assets owned by the city.

Heck, sell part of Central Park. I don’t care what people think. Get jobs back, get incentives back, get innovation back, get revenues up, and you can make all the parks you want after that.

D) GET RID OF BLUE COLLAR LICENSING

What do people want? JOBS. Prosperity makes a city better. 

What stops people from getting jobs? Blue collar licenses. 

Yes, white collar licenses are also ridiculous. Get $300,000 in debt in law school, then spend thousands to take various bar exams just so you can help someone get out of a traffic ticket. That’s B.S. but that’s for another story. 

Here’s an example: Many cities require a license to be an interior decorator. 

Are you kidding me? You mean if I want to get paid to choose wallpaper, I have to take a test, pay for a license, etc.?

Yes.

In Washington D.C., for instance, I would have to spend 2,200 days (even years) in either apprenticeship or education classes, and then spend $364 for a license. So guess how many people who live in housing projects are able to become interior designers? 

ZERO.

Licenses for hairdressers, manicurists, travel agents, gas pump attendants, hair braiders, TV installers, plumbers, etc. have to go away. 

People need to get jobs without friction. That’s how you get people employed and self-sufficient and not in need of social services. 

Los Angeles has blue collar license requirements for 192 different jobs, the most of any city. This is a huge regressive tax on the poor. 

Reform blue collar licensing laws. 

D) GET RID OF ZONING LAWS AND RENT CONTROL

Zoning laws say things like, “This block is just for apartments, and this block can have stores.” 

Well, why? Why limit where I can open a business or live? 

If you limit the number of places where I can live, then the supply of apartments goes down. When supply goes down but demand remains the same, then the price of rent goes up, making it more expensive to live in a city with zoning laws — i.e., every city. 

Also, get rid of outdated rent control laws in major cities. 

Up to half of rentals in NYC might be regulated in some way by rent control or rent stabilization. 

“Rent stabilization” is a horrible set of laws many cities have that allow people who moved in 50 years ago to pay the same rent.

There are people with five bedroom apartments in NYC that are paying $1,000 a month. Prices in NYC for those apartments might be as high as $30,000 a month or more. 

But why are they as high as $30,000 a month? Again, supply and demand. The more apartments that are rent stabilized or rent controlled means fewer available apartments, means supply is down, means prices go way up.

E) EVICTION HOLIDAY 

Here’s a big joke: Don’t pay rent for 10 months and then pay it all in one chunk.

Are you kidding me? Before the pandemic, the average American had $400 in savings. Where are people going to get 10 months of rent to suddenly pay after 55 million people total went on unemployment insurance?

This plan has not been well thought-out. 

This is what you do, and you do it just once: 

• The renter gets a pass from the landlord.
• The landlord gets a pass from the bank.
• The bank goes to the Federal Reserve and gets the money from them. 
• The Federal Reserve achieves its goal of inflation. 

There’s a lot of things wrong with this idea. It’s not fair, for instance, to the people who have been paying their rent all along.

My answer: So what? Not everything is fair. This is about saving cities. A rising tide lifts all boats. If cities are saved, the value of apartments goes up, more businesses move in, more people get jobs, salaries go up, everyone wins.

F) SELL OFF FEDERAL HIGHWAYS

In 2006, Chicago sold the Chicago Skyway for $1.8 billion. It had been losing money for decades. Now it makes money. 

Not only does selling a highway generate money for the city or state, but usually improves the performance of the highway as the new owner uses profits to protect infrastructure, and gets creative about congestion pricing, etc. to reduce traffic and make more money. 

I don’t know how many highways exist in the U.S., but the  country / states / cities are not in the highway business. Sell to the companies that are and use the money to reduce debt. 

This creates jobs, raises money, wipes out debt, etc. And highways are going to be smaller sources of revenue in the future anyway due to less travel post-COVID.

G) REFORM LAW ENFORCEMENT

In 2016/2017, I helped start a company (meaning, I was in the room when conversations were happening) that created a nonlethal device for law enforcement. 

The Bolawrap is a device that shoots out a steel cable and wraps around the person who was shot at. Think of it as long distance handcuffs. I’ve been wrapped. It doesn’t hurt. And the more I struggled, the tighter the Wrap became. 

But isn’t the Taser nonlethal? No. Google it. In fact, the cofounder of Taser is now the president of Wrap Technologies. Andrew Yang has suggested police forces look into it. Many police forces are already using it and lives are being saved every day. 

Want to avoid riots and looting and even protests? Stop killing people.

This is a start. Are some of these ideas bad? Probably. 

But there are a lot of laws and ideas that are much worse. Whoever came up with the idea of the government backing student loans has done more harm to the millennial and gen Z generations (who now sit on $1.6 TRILLION in personal debt) than any war possibly could. 

Cities need to be the places where people are free to exchange ideas, start cultural projects, start businesses, and succeed. 

Not where they get sucked under by obscure regulations, arbitrary taxes and fees, invisible penalties like rent control, and declining social services because of lower and lower tax revenues. 

You can’t go back to old fake utopias and solutions that never worked. 

Cities 2.0 need to do more than reward old bad behavior. They have to create new behaviors that increase prosperity for everyone.

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Here’s How to Save Cities But I Doubt People Will Listen (Part 1)

I don’t care how many people talk about “grit” or “energy.” I don’t care about the history or the romance of a city. “Grit” won’t generate the money needed to pay garbage collectors, or teachers, or healthcare workers.

People said to me, “Why don’t you focus on solutions instead of just writing that NYC is dead forever?” 

OK, I will. But I don’t think anyone is going to implement these ideas. People are content to grab political power at all costs while the population fools itself until it’s too late.

Here’s the basic philosophy. Cities need to: 

I) ENCOURAGE INNOVATION

This is the No. 1 reason people come to cities. Immigrants come to find jobs and opportunities. Opportunities here because people are innovative when they can share ideas with others.

The benefit of a city is that ideas collide. Put millions of people in a dense area and you have trillions of opportunities for “idea sex,” where people exchange ideas and innovation happens. 

II) INCENTIVIZE PEOPLE TO COME

For instance, in NYC, I see many people have this misguided view that life will be great. It will be like the ’70s again. Rents will be low and artists will flourish.

Are you kidding me?

(NYC in the ’70s)

A) NYC was a piece of garbage in the ’70s, with violence and filth the normal ways to describe it  then. 

B) Yes, there were artists in the ’70s. But artists have been coming to NYC since forever. Not just the ’70s. 

C) Yes, apartments were cheaper then. But that doesn’t happen magically overnight like people think. To really make NYC affordable will take decades of horror before you see affordable rents. Unless the ideas below work.  

III) STOP BEING IN THE HOSPITAL OR EDUCATION OR HIGHWAY BUSINESS 

Cities should stay in the “city” business. More on this later.

CITIES 2.0: WHAT I WOULD DO

Anyone who thinks a dead city will lead to this utopia of low rents and greater culture doesn’t realize how cities work.

A city with spiking deficits and declining revenues leads to:

A) Fewer teachers, police, healthcare workers, infrastructure repairs, garbage collectors, transit workers, health facilities, schools, which leads to greater crime, worse education, worse healthcare, more garbage, worse infrastructure, etc. 

B) Which leads to fewer tourists

C) And fewer businesses wanting to relocate

D) And higher taxes, disincentivizing people and businesses from moving into the city

E) Which leads to fewer people employed

F) Which leads to more crime (with less police) and worse health (with less healthcare) and more people hungry (with less money for social services to help the hungry), etc. 

G) Which leads to a giant spiral down with even fewer people, fewer services, worse revenues, etc. 

This spirals all the way down and gets you a Detroit, or a Scranton, or a Baltimore, or worse. Every city in the world has gone through this. 

The key is to not think “outside the box” but smash the box.

Tomorrow, in Part 2 of this series, I’ll go into details on some of my ideas for how to do this. Stay tuned…

The post Here’s How to Save Cities But I Doubt People Will Listen (Part 1) appeared first on James Altucher.

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My Predictions for the Year 2084

In 2015, someone asked me, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” 

I can’t remember my answer but I can tell you one thing for sure about how I answered: I was wrong. 

In 2010 the iPad came out and Steve Jobs wouldn’t let his children use it for fear it would be too addictive. Bandwidth speeds were about 2.5 Mbps. CNBC anchors were laughing at me for saying Apple would be the first trillion-dollar company and… that year I got married. All of those statements would be impossible to say 10 years later.

Perhaps the best sentences that can easily describe 10 years from now and be correct will be statements like: “That seems unbelievable!” and, perhaps, “That could never happen here!” 

But let’s give it a try! Ten years from now (or 64) we can take the trends that exist now, throw in a little bit (or a lot) of spicy tension, and sweeten it with some chaos and a dash of inspiration. What we end up with is a clusterf*ck planet mixed with cool high tech. 

A) BANDWIDTH

We’re upping a “g” almost every two years and upping bandwidth at an exponential rate. With “10g” on our phones, we’ll look back at 2020 and laugh about how slow the internet was and how Zoom calls were so low quality and how you actually had to “sign up” for bandwidth as opposed to it being a natural right, an important commodity of air itself.

My children will laugh at me when I’m nostalgic for the days when it wasn’t so easy to go into a complete virtual reality with millions of pixels every centimeter and once you are transported in it it will feel as real to you or more as any other reality. 

With 100GB/ps we’ll be able to not only work remotely, but work remotely in the same office.

I will be able to “VR-port” into work, go into my office, see my coworkers, go to meetings, all without leaving my home. Haptic sensors will not only make me feel everything I touch in Microsoft VROffice Suite but also massage my muscles so they don’t atrophy in case I do overtime. 

B) AUGMENTED REALITY WILL OPERATE SIDE BY SIDE WITH ACTUAL REALITY

Robyn and I will be walking by an Amazon 3D printing store and she’ll see a coupon for bras on the door and I’ll see a coupon for some marijuana. We’ll walk by a restaurant and she’ll see, about 12 inches in front of her eye, the vegan menu and I’ll see the paleo menu.

We’ll walk by a neighbor and if his settings are set for “everyone” then we’ll see a floating image of the last movie he saw or recent photos from his latest vacation. Or a listing of his political beliefs, on display for all to see just in case you want to have (or avoid) a conversation with him. 

This will be a direct result of increases in bandwidth, storage, and user interfaces for AR. 

C) THE RISE OF CRYPTO

When COVID finally ends, many will abandon the expensive cities for safety reasons, quality of life reasons, financial reasons.

Because of increases in bandwidth and the ease of use of Zoom, there will be no more need for office buildings to be full. People could live anywhere and work in the 2D virtual office or in Microsoft VROffice.

With fewer people and companies, the tax revenues will plunge just when the deficits are spiking. Mayors in each city will be forced to fire teachers, garbage collectors, police, etc. Crime spikes, garbage everywhere, and fewer tourists will want to go to each city. 

Cities will need to create incentives! Each city will create a local cryptocurrency to provide incentives. New York City, for instance, will create “NYCBucks.”

The idea: Everybody in NY gets a steady UBI (universal basic income) in NYCBucks (instead of dollars), and everyone who visits NYC as a tourist gets an allocation based on how many days they would be in the city. You could only spend your NYCBucks in NYC.

For every transaction both the buyer and the seller “mine” micro NYCBucks pro rata with the size of the transaction. For every 100 NYCBucks you mine, you can exchange for $100 and $100 is deducted from your state and city taxes. 

Tourism begins to come back to cities. And businesses return and require more employees to be local. Cities, for the moment, are saved. 

D) U.S. CURRENCY WILL COLLAPSE, BUT NOT THE WAY PEOPLE THINK

PART 1: Everyone is worried about hyperinflation.

“The Fed isn’t a printing press!” irate home economists screech into the Twitter void.

Unfortunately the value of a currency is based not on just supply but also on demand. The demand for the dollar is too high. Everyone in the world wants out of theirs and into ours.

The Federal Reserve right now is scared to death of DEFLATION. They would kill for some inflation right now. So they print more and more money. 

PART II: The Great Secession

The Blues don’t like the Reds. They think they are fascists. And the Reds also, coincidentally, think the Blues are fascists.

In 2020, there are three electric grids in the United States: East, West, and Texas. Texas secedes first.

The Army refuses to get involved. Other states begin to secede. And soon all of the states secede in one giant Secession Convention held on Zoom.

Each state works out trade agreements with the other states, in an EU like fashion. Washington D.C. is kept on life support but with only the Departments of State, Treasury, and Defense.

A rotating group of governors or lieutenant governors are in charge of each department. Allocations are decided by representatives from each state who will occasionally meet via Zoom. Capital Hill is turned into a museum to attract declining tourism. 

PART III: The Blue states do aggressive crypto-contact-tracing. 

Crypto to track everyone with coronavirus and those they go near. And the more you use it, the more “tracing crypto” you mine, which the governments of the Blue states translate into Blue Dollars. 

But then the executives of the Blue states realize it’s not enough to contact trace but also compliance trace.

You have to make sure they are using their masks. You have to make sure they are washing hands. Or quarantining when sick or blood sugar spikes for the diabetics, or older people keep more socially distanced.

But then it’s best for society if compliance also includes any hate speech, or maybe hate thoughts, or being around people who may have been around people who didn’t think the right thoughts. “You have to keep with the times,” the media will cry.

More and more people are Social Justice Mining and the governments of the Blue states need to borrow money from the Red states to fend off hyperinflation.

The Red state bankers are getting tons of fees putting together the bonds for the Blue states under the premise that these contained the densest, most successful cities and were not liable to default. 

But the Red state bankers will get too greedy, the terms too egregious, the Blue states too desperate for money and each individual state’s currency starts to devalue, leading to a currency crisis.

And since Blue Dollars and Red Dollars are mostly tied to the old U.S. dollar, the dollar starts to crash vis-a-vis the euro. The Red state banks collapse because of all the debt the Blue states owe them and the Red state currency collapses, triggering a Blue state collapse as well.

As a last resort, the people decide that the incentive crypto dollars they had been using (e.g. NYCBucks mentioned above) will be the currency for all of the states.

The dominoes fall on every major fiat currency around the world and they all switch to a fork of USBucks called EarthBucks. EarthBucks and USBucks usually trade at 1:1. 

The domination of crypto will be complete.

E) STORAGE WILL BE 100X IN SPEED, SECURITY, AND CAPACITY

Because of VR demand and enormous blockchain demands now that crypto is widely adopted, cloud storage demands will be 1000x what they currently are.

The biggest companies in the world will be Amazon, Google, Dropbox, Apple but mostly for providing and upkeeping cloud storage and security for data. Every day of 2030 will add up to more information and data created than the entirety of the human race from 0–2025 AD. 

F) DNA COMPUTING AND QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY

With DNA computing, NP problems will be solvable — including breaking public key cryptography codes, which means crypto keys can be decoded. Which means crypto currencies can be stolen.

Although quantum computing never will never work out (Murphy’s Law is constantly being broken), quantum cryptography is solved (it’s a simpler problem than quantum computing) and developed to ensure the safety of crypto after traditional public keys are decoded. 

G) 3D GENOMICS

In 2020, genomics is in a state of 2D stagnation. Yes, the genome was sequenced and diseases based on single-gene mutations (e.g. Tay Sachs) are being regularly cured with CRISP technologies. But diseases based on multi-gene mutations are still impossible to compute. The addition of DNA computing perfectly is suited to solve the problem, uncovering the gene pairs that mutated for all cancers, heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s.

And then later… IQ, emotional intelligence, athletic ability, charisma. The Chinese and Texas governments have no ethical issues quickly using 3D genomics to create a country of super intelligent babies. Nobody knows what the final result will be. 

H) CRYPTO IoT AND ACOMMERCE (AUTO ECOMMERCE)

Everything that can be chipped, will be.

The smart refrigerator will scan when you are running low on milk, do a blockchain transaction with the wallet at the grocery store, a drone will drop the milk in the panel in the back of the house feeding into the refrigerator. The more transactions the refrigerator does, the more USBucks are mined.

If you run every day, your sneakers will signal when they are worn out and a new pair is ordered.

If your cortisol spikes, your therapist will try to contact you. If you read the news and feel angry, the government will keep track of your actions. Maybe soft music will start playing.

Big Data and AI plus the tracking of neurochemicals will allow for Minority Report-style situations where crimes can be predicted before they occur.

All data is tracked and there are still pockets of society where social justice tracing keeps the population in line.

I) GAMIFYING ENLIGHTENMENT

Depending on your DNA and other factors, the ideal number of steps, hours of sleep, hours of reading, vitamin D, calories consumed, water drunk, etc. will be counted each day. But more than just “fitbit style.”

It will be all agreed that competition breeds the best results so the results would be public and ranked by various health metrics so all could see who is healthier than whom. Dating apps will be set up to match those with similar health. USBucks will be mined by those in peak health at the end of each month.

Soon other factors of mental well-being will be measured and gamified as above — including the correct amount of dopamine uptake each day, serotonin, oxytocin (perhaps measuring sex?), and then meditation skills would be demonstrated on how quickly each spike in cortisol subsides into endorphins.

This will be ranked each month, with the winners earning the rank of “Buddha” and more USBucks mined. 

People who have higher levels of cortisol may be taxed because of surplus cortisol levels, incentivizing people to reduce stress or not engage in revolutionary activities.

The best will happen and the worst will happen. Bandwidth and storage will be 100% commoditized.

The world will adapt to crypto because of financial collapse caused by a collapse in debt as well as a collapse in politics.

Boundaries will shift and countries will turn upside down. Fascism and laissez-faire attitudes will interweave depending on which state one is in, and the panacea of 3D genomics, VR, acommerce, crypto will be everyday parts of society we can’t imagine living without. 

Some people will choose to permanently live in VRs while machines keep their muscles from atrophying. Their “geographic footprint” will decrease, allowing for more people to inhabit the planet. Millions of artificial worlds will be created to handle the overwhelming geographic footprints of society.

Will it be a better world? I have no idea. Time will tell.

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Why I Said NYC Is Dead Forever…

I want to put to rest all of the controversy around my recent article “NYC Is Dead Forever… Here’s Why.”

Two weeks ago, I wrote a viral essay on LinkedIn, which said that due to the coronavirus’s devastating effect on the city, NYC as we know it is dead, forever. A few days later, I woke up to find that the piece had received intense criticism from the likes of Jerry Seinfeld (who penned an op-ed against me in The New York Times), Mark Cuban, and even the mayor himself, Bill DeBlasio—as well as millions of others.

While I included lots of factual data to back up my proclamation, outlining everything from the city’s current real estate crisis to a rise in unemployment and loss of culture, many were quick to assume I merely had given up on New York City altogether.

This is far from the truth! 

Watch this 6-minute video to learn more about why I wrote this piece, what that crazy experience was like, and what I believe needs to happen to save the city I assure you I love so dearly.

Big thanks to Gary Vaynerchuk for his advice and help on this video. 

Also, I released this podcast today…

Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough president and candidate for NYC mayor comes on and we talk about possible solutions. 

Eric is an old friend and we were able to talk freely and I was very direct in my questions.

You can check it out here.

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