Latest news with #classwarfare
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Wall Street shivers over ‘hot commie summer' after Mamdani's success
When Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old self-described socialist, won New York's mayoral Democratic nomination last week over a seasoned but scandal-scarred veteran, the city's financial elite had a meltdown. This was the start of 'hot commie summer' in the city, New York hedgevfund billionaire Daniel Loeb posted to X. John Catsimatidis, billionaire CEO of grocery chain Gristedes and friend of Donald Trump, warned on Fox Business: 'If the city of New York is going socialist, I will definitely close, or sell, or move.' CNBC financial news channel anchor Joe Kernen compared New York to Batman's crime-riddled Gotham. ' They're taking Wall Streeters and making them walk out onto the ice in the East River, And, and then they fall through. I mean there is a class warfare that's going on.' With five months until the mayoral election proper, the 1% are revolting, led by loquacious billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman, who said he and others in the finance industry are ready to commit 'hundreds of millions of dollars' into an opposing campaign. 'The risk/reward of running for mayor over the next 132 days is extremely compelling as the cost in time and energy is small and the upside is enormous.' Ackman said he was 'gravely concerned' because he believed the leftwing candidate's policies would trigger an exodus of the wealth that would destroy the tax base and undermine New York's public services. The city under Mamdani, he posted on Wedneday, 'is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable.' In 2021, the top 1% of New York City taxpayers paid 48% of taxes – up from 40% in 2019, according to a report from the city's finance department. But at the same time, New York has become an increasingly unaffordable city for those outside the 1% – especially for people of color. In a post a day later, Ackman said: 'The ability for New York City to offer services for the poor and needy, let alone the average New Yorker, is entirely dependent on New York City being a business-friendly environment and a place where wealthy residents are willing to spend 183 days and assume the associated tax burden. Unfortunately, both have already started making arrangements for the exits.' 'Terror is the feeling,' Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, which represents top business leaders, told CNBC on Tuesday. Gerard Filitti, senior legal counsel at the Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel thinktank, non-profit and litigation fund, and a New Yorker with strong ties to the finance industry, said Mamdani's nomination 'marked a dangerous turning point for the city'. 'There's big concern that businesses and the economy will be hurt. There's already a move by business leaders and entrepreneurs to consider a move outside of the city, taking jobs and tax dollars with them, at time when the front-running candidate promises to make even more change that could destroy the economy,' Filitti said. The anger was not necessarily purely economic. Wall Street's decision makers have been shaken after seeing their preferred candidate, Andrew Cuomo, pushed aside despite the millions they poured into his campaign. Fix the City, Cuomo's political action committee (Pac), raised a record $25m to help see off Mamdani. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg alone gave $8.3m to the Pac. 'These are billionaires who are giving hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars to Andrew Cuomo precisely because they know we are going to tax them to make life a little bit more affordable here, in the most expensive city in the United States,' Mamdani told the New York Times before the election. 'They know they can count on Cuomo because Cuomo has a track record of rewarding the political donors.' New York's moneyed class argues it's not about them but the future of the city. 'When you look at what New York City is and has been historically – a bastion of trading and the center of world capitalism, the engine of economic growth and prosperity, the stock market, an the inspiration for other world economies to develop their markets and economies in line with New York – and now what were seeing is an economy and quality of life that is slowly deteriorating,' said Filitti. 'Now we have a front-running Democrat candidate who is promising even more radical change and that change is a threat to the structure of New York and the way people identify with New York City,' Filitti added. It's an argument the rich have made many times before. Many of the 1% threatened to leave after former mayor Bill de Blasio called for raising their taxes to pay for the losses the city experienced after the Covid pandemic. Wall Street poured millions into mayor Eric Adam's 2021 campaign for office to see off more progressive candidates. They won those fights; this time, they lost. A former Wall Street CEO told Politico: 'These titans of Wall Street and titans of finance are used to getting their way. They didn't get their way. They got the opposite of their way. They got a guy who couldn't be more disliked by them – and vice versa.' Wall Street's vision for the city is probably far from that shared by many other residents of a sprawling metropolis that traditionally has played host to vibrant immigrant communities from all over the world, many of them poor. It is of course, host to the Statue of Liberty on whose base is written the famous lines: 'Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' Manhattan was also the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street protests in the US back in 2011, which occupied the downtown Zucotti Square – blocks from Wall Street – and eventually saw protests spread across the rest of the country and the world. Democratic progressives were quick to celebrate Mamdani's victory. 'Your dedication to an affordable, welcoming, and safe New York City where working families can have a shot has inspired people across the city. Billionaires and lobbyists poured millions against you and our public finance system. And you won,' wrote representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another progressive who won out against a more establishment candidate. Another longtime critic of Wall Street and the billionaire class also saw a change in politics as usual. 'The American people are beginning to stand up and fight back. We have seen that in the many Fighting Oligarchy events that we've done around the country that have drawn huge turnouts. We have seen that in the millions of people who came out for the No Kings rallies that took place this month in almost every state. And yesterday, we saw that in the Democratic primary in New York City,' senator Bernie Sanders wrote in The Guardian. Millions will now be spent attacking Mamdani. But he has seen off one well-funded attempt to derail his campaign. Whether or not his campaign has the momentum to last until November, remains to be seen. But Wall Streeters have been put on notice that New York, and the changing nature of the Democratic party, may no longer be as amenable to their interests, or their vision for New York.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
New York election race compared to Batman movie
News anchor Joe Kernen suggested New York City could become like Gotham from Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. Kernen's comments on CNBC followed Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's victory in the city's Democratic mayoral primary. The presenter likened the situation to a 'class warfare' against Wall Streeters. Mamdani, a self-described socialist, ran his campaign with the high cost of living as a central issue. His proposals include free buses, universal childcare, and a higher minimum wage, funded by new taxes on the rich.
The Sun
31-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Clueless Labour's class war against Farage won't stop him… Reform voters care about policies not what school he went to
MEMO to the Labour Party – if you are ever going to stop rampant Reform UK, you will definitely not do it with laughably outdated class warfare. Labour chairman Ellie Reeves dismisses Nigel Farage as 'a privately educated stockbroker and career politician'. 7 7 But with her ham-fisted sneer, Ms Reeves draws unwelcome attention to her own privileged existence. Ellie is an Oxford-educated barrister, the sister of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the wife of Labour peer Lord Cryer, which makes her Baroness Cryer, and the daughter-in-law of two, er, career politicians. More privilege than you can shake a silver spoon at! Hardly a child of the proletariat, are you, Baroness Cryer? Are you still keeping coal in the bathtub? How are your racing pigeons? See you down the Rat And Trumpet for a game of arrows? Gawd blimey, what a load of nonsense! What a shedload of inverted snobbery. I was educated by the state because there was never another option for the child of a greengrocer and a dinner lady. I do not see my state education as a badge of honour. Who cares if Farage's folks sent him to a private school? The parents of Clement Attlee and Tony Blair also sent their sons to private schools. And Attlee and Blair were both consequential Labour Prime Ministers, arguably the only two this country ever elected. Labour's Baroness Cryer, I respectfully suggest, knows bugger all about the working class of this country. Back in the day, the working class were exhilarated to vote in their millions for Labour's Blair and, more recently, the Conservative Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford). Sure, you can have your doubts about Reform, and how they are going to pay for some of their big promises. Increasing benefits while slashing taxes — can it really work? And Nigel has to explain how Brexit will work in a world where America is an unreliable ally. But where Farage went to school, or earned a crust before politics, should never come into it. Unthinkable even a few months ago, there is now a path opening up that could whisk Nigel Farage all the way to 10 Downing Street, a path that has been built by disillusion with the first Labour Government since May 2010, and the increasing irrelevance of the Tories, who had 14 years to get it right. Keir Starmer's big state-of-the-nation speech on Thursday, his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up, was astonishing. No mention of Kemi! Starmer treated Nigel Farage (and the Reform MPs who could share a minicab) as the effective leader of His Majesty's Opposition, Starmer's true rival for power at the next General Election. Keir predictably rolled out the fact that his father toiled in a factory. No mention of his knighthood or lucrative career as a human rights lawyer. But Starmer got this right — the UK can't afford another Liz Truss. As the reality dawns that Farage could actually form the next government, he will come under increased scrutiny. Reform's policies The nation must know the bill for Reform's policies. But what Labour will not get away with is painting Farage as an unelectable toff. Because the man has the soul of the British working class on speed dial. For example, most ordinary Brits care about climate change. But I reckon that most of them love Farage's promise — in a country responsible for just one per cent of global emissions — to ditch the self-harming insanity of Net Zero. Unfortunately for Sir Keir, Baroness Cryer and all the silver-spoon socialists like them, working people are not snobs. The working class believes, as Ian Brown of the Stone Roses had it, that it's not where you're from that matters — it's where you're at. TOP marks to Tory Robert Jenrick for bravely confronting ticket cheats on London's lawless underground network. Now that's what I call a Justice spokesman. Sabrina knows Name Of The Game AT first, reports that Sabrina Carpenter is in the running to appear in Mamma Mia! 3 seemed a little unlikely. The Espresso singer was born in 1999, a full 25 years after Abba appeared on the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, singing an impossibly catchy song in adorably Swedish accents. 7 7 Then you learn that Sabrina has named her cats . . . Benny and Bjorn. Back in the Seventies, music snobs like me turned our noses up at Abba, while secretly humming S.O.S and Mamma Mia behind closed doors. But everybody is an Abba fan now. Sabrina's hamsters are probably called Agnetha and Anni-Frid. HARRY TRIPS AGAIN PRINCE HARRY made a surprise 6,400-mile round trip from his home in Montecito, California, to Shanghai, China, to give a speech on – you have to be kidding me – environmentally friendly travel. Flying across the planet to pontificate about saving the planet? The hypocrisy is off the scale. Harry's means of transport from Los Angeles to Shanghai remain unknown. But assuming that the Duke of Sussex did not travel to China in a hand-carved wooden boat, The Times reported that a first class return flight from LA to Shanghai produces more than 6,311kg of greenhouse emissions, while emissions in a private jet could be anywhere from ten to 100 times higher, depending on the aircraft. Which means that Air Miles Harry has a carbon footprint that is much larger than his brain. HIS MAJ TRUMPS DONALD BACK off, Tango chops! King Charles III did not directly criticise the American president when he – the King of Canada! – opened the Canadian Parliament. 7 No need. Just by being in the Canadian Parliament, and with his gentle, moving 'speech from the throne' in English and French, Charles obliterated Trump's casually graceless threats about making Canada the 51st state of the US. As if nothing had changed, the POTUS was still ranting on social media about how Canada would save itself $61billion if they 'become our cherished 51st state'. 'They are considering the offer!' Trump posted. Er, no they are not, Mr President. The Orange oaf's obsession with the deal is derailing his presidency. Because Donald Trump struggles to understand that some things in this world are just not for sale. DOGS OUT TO HELP DON'T bring your work problems home. It will upset your dog. 7 A team of psychologists at Virginia's Radford University report that dogs showed clear signs of stress when their owners complained about problems at work. 'Dogs are highly sensitive animals who can 'catch' the emotions and feelings of humans,' says the results, published in the journal Scientific Reports. 'They experience increases in stress when their owner does.' I would go further. Dogs are so completely attuned to human emotions that they know how you feel, even if they are not your dog. Our dog Stan died exactly a year ago. And every day since, one or two dogs I have never met before catch my eye and veer towards me, raising their faces as if to say: 'May I be of any assistance?' The study in the journal says that a dog's advanced sense of smell means they can sniff out a rise in cortisol – a hormone released when humans are experiencing profound emotions. At first, I thought it was my imagination. But after a year, I know it is real – dogs understand that I am in mourning for my own dog. And what incredible creatures dogs are – they just want to help. SHOVE YOUR EXCUSE WHEN Brigitte Macron shoved her husband Emmanuel in his brioche-hole, the pint-sized president of France recovered well. Taken aback by Brigitte's firm push in the face, Macron realised the entire world was watching. And smiled and waved. It was only when Macron later insisted that he and his wife were 'simply joking' that he began to look ridiculous. Brigitte shoved Macron where his croissant doesn't shine. Why try to spin it any other way?
Washington Post
28-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Trump has ignited class warfare by going after Harvard
Politics Trump has ignited class warfare by going after Harvard May 28, 2025 | 7:28 PM GMT The Sidebar panel breaks down the latest development of the conflict between President Donald Trump and Harvard.
