Collapse of Spanish empire as a cautionary tale for Europe

 Spanish empire was the first one in which the sun never set. But borrowing on future revenues for paying for today expenses ruined commercially.

Also the inbreeding of the Habsburg monarch didn't help. After the death of Carlos 3 without an heir the 7 years war started.

The end of Spanish empire was sealed by the attack of their ally Napoleon Bonaparte, who decided to invade them.

Europe had a period of prosperity which allowed indebtness when times were though.

And times got though, the entrance of China in World trade organization, the wars middle East, COVID, war in Ukraine increased debt. 

The political scene is in read also, for years we see the same faces, in France for example we have Macron,Zenour,Melanchon et LePen. Only recently LePen was replaced with Bardela.

In UK, Starmer,Corbyn, Johnson,Cameron.

Rishi Sunak was a kind of outlier. For me it seemed more competent.

In Germany Schröder and Merkel stayed too much.

Ursula von der Leyen seems to stay forever as head of European commission.

In Romania the power is cycled between PSD and PNL parties, everyone cycling the same people at power.

EU ally, USA is ditching it for Russia. 

Without a reform and new people, EU will be like Spain civil war in 20 century, with a powerful nationalist movement against some radicals supported by Moscow.

Only now the nationalists are supported by Moscow.

AI as a cultural phenomena

There are several technical disappointments. 

One is the cryptocurrency. Heralded as harbinger of financial autonomy, now it is used for money laundering.

The other is AI, the saviour of humanity that could cure cancer and heal the ecological disaster, is making fake photos and it makes conversation.

It seems that the now science is performative. You don't have to discover something to change the world, you must make a nice presentation.

AI now is chatty and more socially skilled.

Maybe that will help some guys with social anxiety.

I think the AI will be the mediocrity and it will force real talented people to stand out 

Like in Renaissance when every nobleman was an amateur artist and you had to be a Michelangelo to impress.

Zohran Mandami is the new Obama?

 I just found out that Zohran Mandamus a democratic socialist, an Indian Muslim born in Uganda was elected ad mayor of New York.

I didn't follow the NY elections, I just read the news, I got the same feeling as the election of Obama: that a person who doesn't fit to the WASP profile of the establishment was elected and everything will be fine for marginalized.

Obama came to white house with Hope and left disappointment.

The bailout of the financial in 2008 subprime crisis, and the protection of wall street crooks who engineered it, was one of the disappointments.

Another one was the Afghanistan, which he couldn't solve it despite billions thrown at the problem.

Ukrainians and by in large European allies were disappointed, when he didn't pushed back in 2014 when Russia took Crieea, dispute the US security guarantees given to Ukraine in 1992.

He disappointed the parents of children shot in schools, when he wept in a sprach instead of doing something, like increase security around schools, paying for mental help, using profiling on children to detect who will be a shooter.

Those are disappointments felt by an European, I imagine that Americans were more disappointed if they voted for Trump

Will Mandami crush the hopes of New Yorkers ?

What I know about NY is from internet and especially from Louis Rossman the activist for rights to repair, so my assessment is not correct.

What I know:

1.The rent in NY is high

2.The metro is dirty and unsafe 

3.The garbage is dumped on back alleys and rats are Godzilla size.

What I know that Mandami promised:

1. Rent control 

2. Free metro

3. He declared that NY is a city of emigrants and for emigrants 

How he tries to solve the rent problem?

Rent is dependent of population density and number of landlords.

You increase population density by accepting emigrants or worse tourists, :) you increase the rent for people who work in the city. 

This is seems on all touristic European cities.

In the city you need a minimum number of essential workers: garbage collectors,policemen,nurses, construction workers etc.

If the rent is high you don't have them or you have to pay them more increasing overall cost for citizens.

You can't reduce number of City dwellers. You can expect that the number will increase.

The number of landlords it is essential because a low number of landlords can artificially increase the rent price.

What the mayor can do ?

1.Negotiate on behalf of the people with land lords

 2.Build more public houses with low rent.

By negotiating he can demand a limit of increase in rent, as it is in Berlin.

I don't know if he has anti monopoly powers to force landlords to divest or to sell a part of their proprieties.

This could be a solution to increase competition.

He might demand to lower the rent, but I don't know if he can force the land lords to do it.

Even if he can force land lords to lower the rent I don't think is a good idea. If the rent is below expenses some landlord will not rent it and the offer will be lower, and it is better to have an expensive rent than no home at all.

Also artificial lowering the prices will disincentive people to rent or build.

He can enforce a sanitation code on land lords so they can't demand 2000$ /month for a storage room. 

If they request 2000$ they should give more amenities like kitchen and bathroom with a minim area 

This might force some land lord to reduce price or improve quality.

After the 1917 coup, the communists took over  the houses of the bourgeoisie and of the noblemen and crowded inside in insalubre conditions members of the proletariat, I don't see this happening in NY no matter how communist the mayor is. 

The communists finally solved the housing problem by building drab,grey commie blocks.

I think this the most realistic solution is number 2: build commie blocks in New York.

The  issue of NY metro: it looks bad and under maintained, here I think he should keep the fares, make it more safe more clean, to attract more people, and then when you have enough travellers to offer you a good cash flow you can reduce the ticket price.

Inundating infrastructure with non paying customers will break it.

Regarding the trash, in the past the garbage collection was monopolized by Mafia, if it didn't changed, Mandami will have a difficult time to get rid of rats.

Let's see how many promises Zohran Mandami can keep.