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Mamdani's New York is coming to tax your private jet. (fortune.com)

submitted 17 hours ago by Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47052375

To understand how a New York City private jet tax could actually be implemented, you need to understand who controls the airports.

The Port Authority is a bi-state agency jointly controlled by the governors of New York and New Jersey with an annual operating budget of $10.1 billion and a proposed $45 billion capital plan from 2026 – 2035. It operates JFK, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty, and Teterboro — all rated high tax-risk under current political conditions. Teterboro Airport, which does not allow scheduled airline flights and only services private flights, handles approximately 177,000 arrivals and departures annually.

Westchester County Airport (HPN) is not a Port Authority facility. It is owned and operated by Westchester County — outside Mamdani’s direct political sphere and outside the joint gubernatorial control structure of the Port Authority. This makes it the most insulated major reliever airport in the New York metro under current political conditions.

Republic Airport (FRG) on Long Island is New York State property — its vulnerability depends on whether Governor Hochul aligns with Mamdani’s agenda, which remains an open question.

Key policy context: The Port Authority has the authority to set fees, surcharges, and access terms at its facilities without requiring standard legislative processes in many scenarios. The question isn’t just whether a tax gets proposed — it’s whether the mechanism to implement it already exists. In many cases, it does.

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

With "working" usually consisting of a bunch of optional meetings where everyone has to cater to their whims and business lunches that would make the Editor in Chief of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy blush, of course.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 hours ago

Some of those lunches would even outdo Petronius.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'm lucky enough that the few rich people I've personally interacted with, haven't been such insufferable pricks.

If I give any real information, I'll probably dox myself to any of my old coworkers, but old boss and his wife were super hard workers, net worth in the high tens or perhaps even a few hundred million. They spent a couple of decades building the company, no outside investment (he was the founder, but she joined him when it was still pretty tiny). At the end of it, she wanted to sell and retire, he was unable to let go of his "baby". So he killed himself, she brought in private equity and everything went to shit just as I was leaving anyway.

They held a bunch of meetings too, but it was product design and direction related any time I had to join one. And they actually knew the needs of the target audience of the product we were building - I did not, as it was VERY far removed from my job as a software engineer. Essentially they functioned as analysts or project managers, except with 3 or 4 decades of experience working on the same product. They'd also interact directly with customers for product feedback, including some they'd managed to retain for nearly 2 decades.

There was another company where the owners and leadership were much worse, but I never personally interacted with the CEO. He was pretty close to what you describe, with the business lunches and everything, but then again he brought on multi-billion dollar companies as customers so it seems that bullshit works lol. Personally, I'm an introvert who needs to recharge after prolonged socialization, but I'm also a social butterfly who can chat for hours and bullshit through anything, so I could probably pull that job off fairly easily, but I don't have the whole "bunch of multi-millionaires owe me some favours for shady shit I pulled years ago to make them richer" thing going on for me that getting that job in the first place requires.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 0 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

This is the fundamental difference between a privately owned and publicly traded company.

A privately owned company is likely still owned by the guy who started it or someone he's directly involved with, who is still in it either just purely for the love of the game or because he genuinely wants to create a quality name that will live on beyond him.

A publicly traded company is owned by a school of rabid pirahnas that want to shake all the loose nickels out of it, and will pursue any self-destructive tendency if it generates a short-term return.

Rich folks who got that way by being real entrepreneurs generally tend to understand the value of hard work and personability. Rich folks who got that way by trading someone else's value, don't.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago

There is a reason founders are generally ejected when their businesses get big enough to go public. They tend to be obsessive micromanagers who abuse their staff.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

A publicly traded company is owned by a school of rabid pirahnas that want to shake all the loose nickels out of it, and will pursue any self-destructive tendency if it generates a short-term return.

Run by, not owned. You see how BlackRock and Vanguard are listed as major shareholders for all big publicly traded companies? Those are actually made up mostly of retail investors buying ETFs. But you don't control the shares you own through ETFs and the companies managing the ETFs tend not to actively manage anything either. It's a combination of the other shareholders who control the board, and they might not even own a very big part of the company in reality.

Truth is, privately owned companies can be even worse than public, but public is basically guaranteed to be bad.