For Some Reason, New York's Rent Regulations Don't Seem To Be Keeping Rents Low

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  • New York City has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country among large cities, and maybe even the most expensive by some measures. By contrast to most other parts of the country, the majority of housing units here are rented rather than owner-occupied.

  • Latest data from Zillow.com gives a city-wide average rent (across all apartment sizes and types) of $3650. In Manhattan, according to this New York Post piece from August 12 (citing data from the Corcoran brokerage firm) the average rent has hit $6,655 per month.

  • According to the politicians in power, the reason for these high rents is that greedy landlords are taking advantage of the tenants. To deal with these greedy landlords, we have had rent regulations in place in various forms since World War II; but after some reforms in the 1990s, by the 2010s those were gradually diminishing in significance. By 2019 a slight majority of the rental apartments, about 1.1 million, were outside the regulation system, with just under 1 million apartments rent-regulated.

  • Then, in 2019, the State Legislature came under full control of the Democrats (after decades of partial Republican control), and the new majorities immediately set out to put the greedy landlords in their place.

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Energy Affordability: An IQ Test For New Yorkers That They Will Very Likely Fail

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  • Here in New York, our very-light-weight Governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election. To her slight credit, she has noticed that New York is a high cost state, not the least for cost of energy, and that New Yorkers are upset about that.

  • New Yorkers are right to be upset about the cost of energy. According to this chart from the federal EIA containing most recent data for July 2026, the average price of electricity to the ultimate consumer in New York for that month was 29.9¢/kWh, compared to a national average of 18.31¢/kWh; and New York’s cost had increased more than 14% from 26.22¢/kWh in July 2025, versus a 4.9% increase in the national average over last year’s 17.45¢/kWh. New Yorkers are also right to be upset because the premium they pay for electricity is mostly to entirely the consequence of intentional government policies that drive up the cost.

  • What’s crazy is that Governor Hochul has decided to make “energy affordability” a theme of her campaign. The reason that is crazy is that at the same time that Hochul claims she favors more “affordability,” she also brags about maintaining and expanding the very policies that have caused the excess costs.

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Mao Zedong Was A Monster

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Mao Zedong Was A Monster

  • The 50th anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong has just passed. (He died on September 9, 1976.).

  • I did not see large amounts of commentary about Mao on the occasion of the anniversary, but everything that I did see was either neutral or positive, with the majority being praise. And as I looked around for any commentary I could find from around the date of the anniversary, most of what I found is again praise.

  • How could that be? This man was a monster.

  • Certainly, the death toll for which Mao was responsible was a large multiple of anything ever attributed to Hitler, and also a multiple (although a smaller one) of the carnage committed by Stalin. Does any self-respecting person give effusive praise of either of those two? And if not to them, then why to Mao?

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Rescission Of Carbon Emissions Standards For Power Plants: The Litigation Begins

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  • In what may be a world record for turnaround time, the litigation has already begun over the recent rescission by EPA of its carbon emission standards for fossil-fuel fired power plants.

  • As reported here on September 17, on that date the EPA finalized its rescission of what were called its “Carbon Pollution Standards” for electric power plants. (EPA’s September 17 action did not rescind all of the Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants, but only those for existing power plants and major overhauls of existing plants; the standards for new plants remain in effect for now, although in its rescission action EPA gave strong hints that those will also soon be ended.). By the end of that very day, September 17, a Petition had been filed in the DC Circuit seeking review of the regulatory action. Here is a copy of the Petition. The Petitioners are the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

  • The Petition is a short two-page document that simply asks for “review” of EPA’s action, and does not say anything about the grounds for the request.

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Another Big Step In The Removal Of Destructive "Climate" Regulations

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  • I will never understand how large numbers of seemingly intelligent people got the idea that they were going to save the world by forcing the closure of all the functional parts of the energy system of the U.S. Nor will I ever understand how enough of those people got themselves into positions of sufficient political power to put their wacko energy ideas into effect.

  • And yet, by the time President Joe Biden and his minions had left office in early 2025, such people, operating deep in the administrative state (and with the apparent blessing of a demented President), had managed to impose regulations that, by some time in the 2030s would have, among other things, forced the end of the manufacture and sale of all vehicles except electric vehicles, and forced the closure of all power plants using fossil fuels.

  • Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump and his people have been actively working to rescind and eliminate this insanity. I have previously reported on many of these actions, for example here and here.

  • Today the EPA took another big step in removing these destructive regulations by finalizing a Rule titled “Partial Repeal of the Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units.”

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The BRICS Coalition Meets In India

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  • The coalition of second-tier and second-rate countries calling themselves the BRICS (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has just wound up its annual “summit,” this year held in New Delhi, India.

  • In the twenty years since the BRICS coalition’s founding, its membership has expanded beyond just the countries forming the acronym, with additional attendees at this year’s event including the likes of Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Of those new members, only Indonesia really has a claim for even second-rate status. Saudi Arabia and UAE are wealthy, but owe the wealth almost entirely to the good luck of oil discoveries; and the remaining three of Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran are more like fifth-rate.

  • Most heads of state actually attended, including Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, although Lula da Silva of Brazil skipped the conference, purportedly to participate in campaigning in Brazil’s upcoming elections.

  • This BRICS summit understandably generated almost no news that I have seen here in the U.S. However, one thing that did catch my eye was an opening address given on September 12 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.

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