May 15, 2026

Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP via Getty Images

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a victory lap after releasing a budget that closes a $12 billion funding gap, without so-called austerity measures.

But as Eric Kober notes, Mamdani’s plan is just a short-term fix, good for one year. His pension changes also set up structural budget gaps that future mayors will struggle to close.

“If he had listened more to the budget critics, less trouble would be in store for the future,” writes Kober.

Read here to see how a better budget could set New York City up for prosperity.

In the recent Petersen Energia Inversora SAU v. YPF case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with Latin American socialists over Wall Street investors. When Argentina’s national oil and gas company was privatized in 1993, it secured over a billion dollars of U.S. investment. The Argentine government provided strong guarantees against future nationalization in both its bylaws and filings with the SEC.

However, socialists returned to power in Argentina and re-nationalized the company, followed by a decade of litigation. U.S. investors were owed $16 billion, but Judge Denny Chin, writing for a divided appeals court panel, has let the Argentine socialists take the money and run.

Michael A. Fragoso, who represents Petersen Energia Inversora in the dispute, writes, “For a court long entrusted with preserving the sanctity of New York’s envy-of-the-world capital markets, it’s a shocking decision—one that should be reversed as soon as possible.”

Read more here.