纽约的诞生：腐败与进步的交织

In the great city of New York, Benjamin thanks for meeting up. -It's good to be back. -Yeah right. -DC, Chicago, New York. -Yeah. New York is the city that invented grifting. It invented corruption. But what separates it from Chicago it could stare itself in the face with sobriety and say we can do better. It both invents the greatest corruption, the worst, the smartest forms, but then it figures out ways to improve it and to make this city really run. So we'll start in 1870s, we'll go to the 1970s, and we'll go to today. 在伟大的纽约市，本杰明，谢谢你安排这次会面。——很高兴回来。——是啊。——华盛顿特区、芝加哥、纽约。——是啊。纽约是那个发明了“街头骗术”的城市。它发明了腐败。但它与芝加哥的不同之处在于，它能够清醒地审视自己，并说我们可以做得更好。它既创造了最严重的腐败、最糟糕、最狡猾的形式，但随后又能找到改进的方法，让这座城市真正运转起来。所以我们将从19世纪70年代开始，到20世纪70年代，然后到今天。

And we got a nice performance going on. We got the performance and right over here I just spotted this view. We have the Statue of Liberty. Look at that. This is right as people are getting off the boat we got folks here doing the entertainment. And Peter, this is what happened in America's early days 'cause Fort Clinton, Castle Clinton, is right over there. Prior to Ellis Island days that's where immigrants came in. They got processed. And as they were coming off the boat there's a guy named Boss Tweed. He runs the city machine during the time. His agents are coming down just as they're coming off the boat here and they know to get them. Boss Tweeds folks are coming down and they say you need a job, you need a place to stay, and I don't want you minding what we're doing in City Hall. And they figured out how to define corruption in New York. And we'll talk about that soon. 我们在这里看到一场精彩的表演。就在这边，我刚发现这个景色。我们看到了自由女神像。看看那。这正是人们刚下船的时候，我们看到这里有人在进行娱乐表演。彼得，这就是美国早期发生的事情，因为克林顿堡（Castle Clinton）就在那里。在埃利斯岛时期之前，那里就是移民抵达的地方。他们被处理。当他们下船时，有一个叫“Boss Tweed”（捗时·泰德）的人。他当时是这座城市的政治首脑。他的代理人就在他们下船的时候在那里等着他们，他们知道要抓住他们。Boss Tweed的手下过来，说你需要一份工作，你需要一个住处，我也不想让你在意我们在市政厅做什么。他们就这样定义了纽约的腐败。我们很快会谈到这一点。

纽约的现状：数据与民众感受

Peter you remember when we went through Chicago we tried to think about how do we define corruption and how do we look at how well is a city operating. So let's do that with New York and just kind of go through some of the top line numbers. Okay. Crime is generally down about 4 to 5% across the board. Homicides are down 40 to 50%, somewhere in there. -40 to 50? -40 to 50%. -Wow that's great. Youth shootings have gone way up. That's largely due to a change in state law about when teenagers go to family court or adult court. -It's more permissive now. -Okay. So there's not as hefty of consequences. So there's been some uptick unfortunately. And they're looking at getting rid of that change in the law. Pretty low levels of satisfaction with New York City performance. About 25% of the populace is satisfied with the services that are being provided. Education concerns, public safety concerns, and the quality of what's being done in the city are the number one complaints here. Okay. 彼得，你还记得我们去芝加哥时，我们试着思考如何定义腐败，以及如何看待一个城市的运行状况。那么，我们现在就用纽约来做这件事，来看看一些关键数据。好的。总的来说，犯罪率普遍下降了4%到5%。凶杀案下降了40%到50%，就在这个区间。——40%到50%？——40%到50%。——哇，那太好了。青少年枪击案却大幅上升。这主要是由于州法律的改变，关于青少年何时进入家庭法庭或成人法庭。——现在更加宽容了。——好吧。所以后果没有那么严重了。因此，不幸的是，出现了一些上升。他们正在考虑废除这项法律的改变。纽约市的市民对其表现的满意度相当低。大约25%的民众对所提供的服务感到满意。教育担忧、公共安全担忧以及城市建设的质量是这里排在首位的抱怨。好的。

When we think about New York it's really important to think about how unique it is. It has a budget of $110 billion a year. -Wow. -That is more than 46 states in America. Only four states have budgets that are larger than the metropolitan New York City area. -Okay so greater metro which is roughly around 20 mil. Somewhere in there. So Benjamin before we get going on this you're going to come up with information today. Can we put all the sources down below? We will. Just as we did-- So when you drop these crime numbers you're going to give me the sources? Every one I'll give you a source and I can guarantee you on one or two of these I will mess something up and we'll get comments on it. Someone's going to comment which they should. -They should. Absolutely. -The goal here is truth. I hope you're not pushing a political angle. -I don't think you are. -No. As we know from before I come from a background, I'm a Republican. Yeah. I do a lot of fun constitutional litigation but I acknowledge good faith arguments from the Left. It's what our founders did. Hamilton and Madison didn't agree on all aspects of the Constitution. But they had good faith arguments about it. Corruption is not a partisan issue. -Right. So there is a demographic in the country that wants truth as the North Star. -They're not with a party necessarily. -Right. For example I don't have any allegiance. I'm a registered Independent. I'm going to go with whose policies I like better. And I'll switch quickly. I'm crossing over. It's not like sports teams for me. You're with a lot of Americans. A lot of Americans are moderate. Many are independent and… yeah. The goal of what I do is not to ramp up and be a cheerleader for my side or to double down on political controversy but to educate you and for everyone to walk away with a little more information, a little more history and principles. Okay. And your background for those that don't know, First Amendment attorney. I do constitutional litigation and mostly First Amendment work across the country usually in the federal courts. And I studied corruption. I was counsel to two chairmen of the Federal Election Commission. I've worked in campaign finance and anti-corruption measures. So I'm in New York a lot. I've got two, three, four cases pending here now. -Okay. Two in federal court, two in state court. So I'm here a lot. I know a good deal about the stories but I'm not a resident so I can't offer that part. -You'll have other folks who do that. -Yeah right. 当我们想到纽约时，了解它的独特性非常重要。它每年的预算是1100亿美元。——哇。——这比美国46个州的预算都要多。只有四个州的预算比纽约大都会区更大。——好的，那么大都会区，大约有2000万人口。就在那个范围内。本杰明，在我们开始之前，你今天会拿出信息。我们能把所有的来源都放在下面吗？我们会放。就像我们之前一样——所以当你给出这些犯罪数据时，你会给我来源吗？每一个我都会给你来源，我可以向你保证，其中一两个我会搞错，然后我们会收到评论。有人会评论，他们应该评论。——他们应该。绝对。——我们的目标是真相。我希望你没有在推动政治议程。——我认为你没有。——没有。我们都知道我之前的背景，我是一名共和党人。是啊。我做了很多有趣的宪法诉讼，但我承认来自左翼的善意争论。这就是我们的先辈所做的。汉密尔顿和麦迪逊在宪法的各个方面并不意见一致。但他们就此进行了善意的辩论。腐败不是一个党派问题。——对。因此，国家中有一部分人希望真相是北极星。——他们不一定属于某个党派。——对。例如，我没有任何立场。我是一名注册独立人士。我将选择我更喜欢的政策。我会迅速改变。我是在跨界。对我来说，这不像支持体育队。你和很多美国人一样。很多美国人是温和派。许多人是独立人士，而且……是的。我的目标不是煽动和为我这边加油，也不是加剧政治争议，而是教育你，让每个人都能从中获得更多的信息、更多的历史和原则。好的。如果你不知道，你的背景是第一修正案律师。我在全国范围内从事宪法诉讼，主要从事第一修正案方面的工作，通常是在联邦法院。我研究过腐败。我曾是联邦选举委员会两位主席的法律顾问。我曾从事竞选财务和反腐措施方面的工作。所以我经常去纽约。我现在有两三个、四个案子在那里待审。——好的。两个在联邦法院，两个在州法院。所以我经常在那里。我对这些故事很了解，但我不是居民，所以我无法提供那一部分。——你会找到其他人的。——是啊。

城市印记：移民、机遇与历史的痕迹

They're arresting you. [chuckles] What's going on? What's up man? How you doing? -Good. -Good. All right mate. -Oh yeah yeah. -Are you from Aussie, mate? -No England. -Oh England. Sorry. That was… I watch you on YouTube. Okay. How's New York? You having a good time? Yes. Amazing time. -You're loving it? -Yeah. We just came from Chicago. Chicago's cleaner. I think Chicago is way better. No. It's different. This is chaos is its best. -Yeah. -It's like London on steroids. 他们要逮捕你了。（笑）怎么了？你好吗？——很好。——很好。好伙计。——哦，是的，是的。——你是澳大利亚人吗？——不是，英国人。——哦，英国人。抱歉。那是因为……我看了你的YouTube。好的。纽约怎么样？你玩得开心吗？是的。非常开心。——你很喜欢？——是的。我们刚从芝加哥来。芝加哥更干净。我觉得芝加哥好多了。不。它不一样。这就是它最混乱的样子。——是啊。——就像打了激素的伦敦。

Oh. So what's more thriving right now, New York or London? -Probably here. -Here I would say. Okay. Okay, our Uber's here. Take care you guys. Have a good trip. Where are we off to Benjamin? We are heading to City Hall Park and to Tweed Courthouse. Okay. -Thanks. Hello. How are you? 哦。那么现在哪个更繁荣，纽约还是伦敦？——可能在这里。——我会这么说。好的。好的，我们的优步到了。保重，各位。旅途愉快。我们要去哪儿，本杰明？我们要去市政厅公园和泰德法院。好的。——谢谢。你好。你好吗？

That's what's so awesome about New York. Guys like this from Tajikistan, just cool guys. I remember going to his country many years ago they were so good to me. But it's just everything, you know? It's like it's hard to put into words you have to feel it. -Right. -The energy here. You're in 8.5 million people. You're in a giant economy and all the world is at your fingertips right here. And we were just talking about in the car it attracts both hustlers and con men but it also brings really smart people the reformers. Right. Some of the greatest minds about how do we clean this mess up? Let's turn on in here. We're going to go to City Hall Park. And as the name suggests, City Hall is here. The mayor's office is here. The 51 members of the city council meet here. But right near City Hall is the Tweed Courthouse and that's a fantastic story that not everybody knows about New York. So Boss Tweed was called the grand Sachem of the New York democratic political machine of Tammany Hall. These were Native American terms. They often used these to dress themselves up as authentic Americans. They weren't part of the aristocratic tradition from Europe. And so they would use art, imagery, and titles that were common to Native Americans. We're going to go by the fountain because I think it's beautiful. 这就是纽约的绝妙之处。像这样来自塔吉克斯坦的伙计，很酷。我记得很多年前去过他的国家，他们对我很好。但就是一切，你知道吗？很难用言语表达，你必须去感受它。——对。——这里的能量。这里有850万人口。你身处一个巨大的经济体，全世界都在你的指尖。我们刚才在车里谈到，它既吸引了骗子和诈骗犯，也吸引了真正聪明的人——改革者。对。一些最伟大的头脑，关于我们如何清理这个烂摊子？让我们进去。我们要去市政厅公园。正如它的名字所示，市政厅就在这里。市长办公室就在这里。51名市议会议员在这里开会。但就在市政厅旁边，就是泰德法院，这是一个很多人不知道的关于纽约的精彩故事。所以，Boss Tweed被称为纽约民主党政治机器“Tammany Hall”的“Grand Sachem”（大首领）。这些是美洲原住民的术语。他们经常用这些来把自己打扮成真正的美国人。他们不属于欧洲的贵族传统。所以他们会使用美洲原住民常见的艺术、意象和头衔。我们要去喷泉边，因为我觉得它很美。

So Boss Tweed was simply famous for figuring out, as we talked about when we were down by the Clinton Castle, immigrants are coming off of the boats in record numbers. This is the start of the Gilded Age in the 1860s, 1870s. We have an influx of people from all over the world coming here. And they need jobs. They need to figure out how they fit into society. And a smooth political operator sent his team down to figure that out and put them in different parts of the city. And at the same time to be able to build an expansive machine that said whenever you do business in New York whenever you're doing something for the city of New York my team is getting at least 15% of that coming back. So we've got City Hall but just adjacent to it is the Tweed Courthouse. Originally budgeted at about $250,000 in the 1860s. New York paid more than twice of what we paid for the state of Alaska. So that was about $14 million. Which equates to today's dollars of about $250 to $300 million. Carpenters came in and they would make over $100,000 during that timeframe's period money in rooms that had no wood. So everything was padded. There was no work or it was excessively billed for hours. 15% of it going back to the Tammany crew. They pocketed somewhere between $1 to $5 billion among their little gang running New York. Now Boss Tweed was eventually indicted on 204 counts of conspiracy, embezzlement, all these sorts of things. Using public funds for private purposes. And he tried to flee to Spain. He took a boat to Cuba with his mistress. And then he went on over to Spain. But here's how you capture, how you stop corruption. Journalists of the day, New York Times and Harper's Daily, they were both writing about him. New York Times from an intellectual side. But Harper's Daily was doing weekly comic cartoons for immigrants who weren't as accustomed to the English language. And Harper's Daily was published in Spain as well. So when he arrived in Spain the authorities recognized him immediately, captured him and brought him back to New York. He was found guilty in the very courthouse that he had built through his grift and corruption. New York, although it starts with these schemes and figuring out ways to bring thieves into public office, it brings some of the greatest minds who start thinking about things we take for granted today. How did we get civil service exams in government? It came out of the Tammany Hall affairs. Okay. How did we get the idea that maybe the public needs some transparency about budgeting and about monetary figures from government? That came out of Tammany. And so they started to build in these protections in the law to be able to provide some level of accountability to the public. And I think that's a great thing. To give you a sense of how freewheeling it was at the time another one of his associates George Washington Pluckett, his famous quote is "If I see an opportunity, I take it." There's no harm as long as money's not coming out of the government's budget. Pluckett went around and bought up swamp parcels and different land that he knew because of inside information working in government would be beneficial in the future. So he knew a park was being built somewhere. He knew a new financial center was going up. He'd buy up all these little parcels. Today we would think of that as usually violating various ethical provisions and against good standards of public service. But it was openly celebrated in the Gilded Age. And so we're left with this today. I believe there's pre-K and educational services that are here. There's some other governmental offices that are in the building. It's a beauty of course to see. Boss Tweed之所以出名，是因为他想出了办法，就像我们在克林顿堡附近谈到的那样，移民正以创纪录的数量涌入。这是“镀金时代”（Gilded Age）的开始，在19世纪60年代、70年代。世界各地的人们涌入这里。他们需要工作。他们需要弄清楚如何融入社会。一位精明的政治操盘手派出了他的团队去处理这件事，并将他们安排到城市的各个地方。同时，他建立了一个庞大的体系，规定无论你在纽约做生意，无论你为纽约市做什么，我的团队都能从中获得至少15%的回报。所以，我们有市政厅，紧挨着它的是泰德法院。在19世纪60年代，最初的预算约为25万美元。纽约支付的费用是阿拉斯加州的两倍多。所以那是大约1400万美元。相当于今天的2.5亿至3亿美元。木匠们进来了，他们在那个时期的金钱里，在一间没有木头的房间里，每人收入超过10万美元。所以一切都被夸大了。根本就没有工作，或者工作被过度计费。其中15%要回流给Tammany的团队。他们靠着经营纽约的这个小团伙，贪污了10亿到50亿美元。现在Boss Tweed最终被指控犯有204项共谋、贪污等罪名。滥用公共资金用于私人目的。他试图逃往西班牙。他和他的情妇乘船去了古巴。然后他去了西班牙。但这就是你如何抓住、如何阻止腐败的方法。当时的记者，《纽约时报》和《哈珀周刊》（Harper's Daily），都在报道他。从知识分子的角度来看是《纽约时报》。但《哈珀周刊》在制作每周漫画，给那些不熟悉英语的移民看。而且《哈珀周刊》在西班牙也有出版。所以当他抵达西班牙时，当局立刻认出了他，抓获了他，并将他带回了纽约。他在他通过欺诈和腐败建造的法院被判有罪。纽约，尽管它始于这些阴谋诡计，并想方设法让窃贼进入公职，但它也催生了许多最伟大的思想家，他们开始思考我们今天理所当然的事情。我们是如何在政府中获得公务员考试的？这源于Tammany Hall的事件。好的。我们是如何产生这样的想法，即公众需要对政府的预算和财务数据有一定的透明度？这源于Tammany。因此，他们开始在法律中建立这些保护措施，以便为公众提供一定程度的问责制。我认为这是一件好事。为了让你了解当时有多么自由散漫，他的另一位伙伴乔治·华盛顿·普拉克特（George Washington Pluckett）有一句名言：“如果我看到机会，我就会抓住它。”只要钱不是从政府预算中出来的，就没有什么危害。普拉克特到处购买他知道的、因为在政府工作而拥有内部信息，未来会受益的沼泽地块和其他土地。所以他知道一个公园要建在哪里。他知道一个新的金融中心要建起来。他会买下所有这些小地块。今天我们会认为这通常是违反各种道德规定，违背良好的公共服务标准。但在“镀金时代”，这得到了公开的颂扬。所以我们今天留下了这个。我相信这里有学前班和教育服务。楼里还有一些其他的政府办公室。当然，看到它是很美的。

It's beautiful here. -But is it worth more than twice the state of Alaska? -That is wild. -I think Alaskans might say no. -Do you want to check it out? -Yeah. See if we can go inside here. Okay so I like your approach Benjamin. You always go to historical bedrock before you talk about… -Where we are. -Where we are. -And everything comes from something. -Yes. If you don't understand the patterns and the principles you'll never solve them today. It's not about the people and the particular drama you see today. There's a long history of how it got to where it is. And by understanding that we can do better to stop it and have responsible government today. 这里很美。——但这值得付出阿拉斯加州的两倍价格吗？——这太疯狂了。——我想阿拉斯加人可能会说不。——你想进去看看吗？——是的。看看我们是否能进去。好的，我喜欢你的方法，本杰明。在你谈论……之前，你总是先追溯到历史根源。——我们现在的位置。——我们现在的位置。——一切都有其根源。——是的。如果你不了解模式和原则，你就永远无法解决今天的问题。这与人以及你今天看到的具体戏剧无关。它如何演变成今天这样，有着悠久的历史。通过理解这一点，我们可以做得更好，阻止它，并拥有负责任的政府。

Let's see if we can get in here. Alright. That's not gonna happen. Well we're not feeling a sense of openness or transparency that I think the reformers from the Tammany Hall era might have said would be good for the public to be able to enter a government building. This is the Department of Education administrative offices. You'd think maybe the public could come in and take a tour but… -Yeah to be fair they might have tours right? -We don't know. -They might. Yeah she wasn't having it. 让我们看看我们能否进去。好吧。那是不可能的。嗯，我们感觉不到那种开放或透明，我认为来自Tammany Hall时代的改革者可能会说，公众能够进入政府大楼是一件好事。这里是教育部行政办公室。你可能会想，公众或许可以进来参观，但是……——是啊，公平地说，他们可能有导览吧？——我们不知道。——他们可能有。是的，她不行。

Look at that beauty. That's a Frank Gehry building. It is so awesome down here. I forgot how great it is here. This is the New York I know because this block is where I spend most of my time. Why? Well this building right here is the federal courthouse. The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York as well as the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. I have a journalist free speech case going on in the Southern District. I have a Second Amendment challenge to New York law at the Second Circuit right now. And as we move over to the next building we have the State Supreme Court. New York calls its trial-level courts Supreme Courts. It's not the Supreme Court as you might think of it. It's their lowest-level court. -So being the corruption video it is with the corruption expert, how are our courts functioning overall? I know that's a wide question but say at this level. I think they function admirably well. And in particular in New York, the Southern District, the prosecutor's office here has taken a very aggressive no-nonsense stance when it comes to corruption and dealing with bad actors. So we'll talk about folks like Sheldon Silver who was the assembly speaker in New York and all the corruption and dishonest dealings he was engaged with and courts deal with it well. But the side you don't want to hear, the side your audience doesn't want to hear the First Amendment also puts kind of limits on what people might want to be made corrupt or illegal. But there's a balance. So I think from the popular eye there's probably more that people think should be done. I think they're doing pretty well. 看看那栋美建筑。那是弗兰克·盖里（Frank Gehry）设计的建筑。这里的景色太棒了。我都忘了这里有多棒了。这就是我认识的纽约，因为我大部分时间都在这个街区度过。为什么？因为这栋楼就是联邦法院。美国纽约南区地方法院以及第二巡回联邦上诉法院。我在南区有一个记者言论自由的案件。我现在在第二巡回法院对纽约的法律提出第二修正案的挑战。当我们走到下一个建筑时，我们看到了州最高法院。纽约将其审判级别的法院称为最高法院。它不是你可能认为的最高法院。这是他们最低级别的法院。——那么，作为一部关于腐败的视频，并且有腐败专家，我们的法院总体上是如何运作的？我知道这是一个宽泛的问题，但就这个层面而言。我认为它们运行得非常好。特别是在纽约，南区，这里的检察官办公室在处理腐败和不法分子方面采取了非常积极、不容置疑的立场。所以我们会谈到像谢尔登·西尔弗（Sheldon Silver）这样的人，他是纽约的议长，以及他参与的所有腐败和不诚实的行为，法院对此处理得很好。但你不愿听到的一面，你的观众也不愿听到的一面是，第一修正案也对人们可能想让腐败或非法的事情施加了限制。但存在一个平衡。所以从公众的视角来看，可能还有更多的事情人们认为应该去做。我认为他们做得相当不错。

现代纽约：腐败的新形式与应对

So all the beauty of New York also has a downside. If we look forward where we're going here you can see some extensive scaffolding on the side. -They're doing work on the building. -Oh, up there? Yep. Other areas of New York you can see literally blocks worth of scaffolding and these sidewalk tents to protect your head in case something drops down. New York has 8,000 scaffolding projects going on simultaneously. There's over 500 miles of scaffolding in the city of New York. -Seriously? It's far greater than any other municipality across the United States. So you have to ask yourself is there something that's really special about New York buildings that maybe it requires more work and more scaffolding? Or is there something else that's going on? Well there's been a lot of complaints about this. We've gotta look in pretty deep into the system. Looks like we have a perp walk coming up by the way. I'll wait a second. -Something happening here. Going to court? -Yeah. So what we need to do is look deeper. And so New York we know is heavily a union-favored city. To be able to do work here means higher labor costs. It has pretty stringent standards compared to almost any other municipality about what housing and building safety codes look like. And their calls for inspections are far more frequent than say Chicago, Los Angeles, anywhere else in the nation. So if you are owning say this building here and you have to have these inspectors come in every so often and tell you that you need to replace some facade and do stonework and the like. That's an expensive amount of money that goes into the uptake of it. What if you had a way out of this? -Gimme the way out Benjamin. -Here's a way out. And I'm sure there was a creative lawyer like me figuring this out. Get some scaffolding put up. You're in compliance temporarily with the law. You don't have to spend the hundreds of thousands on the stonework. Well your three months run up. "Could we get a six-month extension?" "Could we get another six-month extension?" There are scaffolding projects in New York that have been here more than 10 years. And it's likely because it's so expensive to do the work and there are rumors, these are unproven, that the people who do this contracting work, the scaffolding work, put political pressure within the city hall to allow for this flexibility so that they can rake in this money and that the property owners don't have to put out that money. So on paper it looks good. We have these stringent safety codes that are in place. But if you can delay it 7 years, 10 years, and just put up scaffolding and pay a fraction of the cost well you get this. You get 500 miles of scaffolding. -We don't know that's the case here. -We don't know what's going on. This is just an example of scaffolding. -But it is-- -It's widely reported. -It is Monday. -Yes. Nobody's working up there. And I was… I… So… Because I like to be prepared for your tours I do a pre-walk. I got in last night. I did about three hours of walking around. I walked this morning too during work hours. I haven't seen a soul on any scaffolding project. -It looks almost permanent. It's been here a while. -It detracts from the beauty and the architecture of New York. Right. Maybe it deprives New York citizens of some of the public safety that they've voted in to have in their buildings. -Here we go. All down here. -Yeah. Yeah this has been around. You can see it's just… -It's got cracks. 纽约的美丽也有其阴暗面。如果我们展望前方，可以看到侧面有大量的脚手架。——他们在对建筑进行施工。——哦，上面？是的。纽约的其他地方，你可以看到 literalmente 街区长的脚手架和这些路边帐篷，以保护你的头部，以防东西掉落。纽约同时有8000个脚手架项目在进行。纽约市有超过500英里的脚手架。——真的吗？这远远超过了美国任何其他城市。所以你必须问自己，纽约的建筑有什么特别之处，可能需要更多的工程和更多的脚手架？或者有什么别的事情在发生？嗯，关于这个问题有很多抱怨。我们必须深入研究这个系统。顺便说一句，看起来我们就要看到一次“嫌疑人游街”了。我等一下。——这里发生什么事了？要去法院吗？——是的。所以我们需要做的是深入探究。纽约我们知道是一个工会势力很强的城市。在这里工作意味着更高的劳动力成本。与几乎任何其他城市相比，它在住房和建筑安全规范方面都有严格的标准。而且，与芝加哥、洛杉矶或全国其他任何地方相比，它们的检查要求更加频繁。所以，如果你拥有这座建筑，并且必须不时地让这些检查员来告诉你，你需要更换一些外墙，做一些石工等等。这是非常昂贵的。如果你能摆脱这一切呢？——本杰明，告诉我办法。——这里有个办法。我相信肯定有像我一样有创意的律师想出了这个办法。搭起脚手架。你就暂时符合法律规定了。你不必花几十万美元来做石工。好吧，你的三个月期限到了。“我们能获得六个月的延期吗？”“我们能再获得六个月的延期吗？”纽约有一些脚手架项目已经存在了十多年。这可能是因为这项工作非常昂贵，而且有传言（这些尚未证实）说，从事承包工作、脚手架工作的人在市政厅施加政治压力，以允许这种灵活性，这样他们就可以赚取这笔钱，而房主则不必花这笔钱。所以表面上看起来不错。我们有这些严格的安全规范。但如果你能延迟7年、10年，只搭脚手架，却只付一小部分成本，那么你就会看到这个。你看到了500英里的脚手架。——我们不知道这里是不是这种情况。——我们不知道发生了什么。这只是脚手架的一个例子。——但它是——被广泛报道。——今天是星期一。——是的。上面没有人工作。我……我……所以……因为我喜欢为你的旅行做好准备，我提前走了一遍。我昨晚才到的。我花了大约三个小时四处走动。今天早上上班时间我也走了。我没在任何脚手架项目上看到一个人。——它看起来几乎是永久性的。它在这里已经很久了。——它损害了纽约的美丽和建筑。对。也许它剥夺了纽约市民他们投票获得的、应该有的建筑公共安全。——来了。都在下面。——是啊。是的，这已经存在很久了。你可以看到它只是……——它有裂缝。

现代腐败：法律、住房与公共服务

We're in Chinatown now. We're just touching Chinatown. We're gonna go a few more blocks forward to the old police headquarters. All right guys. Take a little break to talk about today's sponsor. As we all know navigating the news is very challenging these days. Every journal has an angle either leaning one way or the other. And this is what makes figuring out what's going on extremely difficult. So what's helped me is the app and website Ground News. With Ground News you can see who's covering a specific story and who isn't. Ground News will get you out of your information silo with tools like its Blind Spot feature. For example the story, "Mamdani defends $60 million city-run grocery pilot on CNN." That story is covered mostly by the Right. Or the story "Murdoch succession deal gives Lachlan control through 2050 buys out three siblings." That story is covered mostly by the Left. So often it's not what's being covered, it's what's not being covered. And Ground News helps you see this. Use Ground News to get all sides of every story be better informed with access to a vast amount of worldwide sources in one place and see who owns what media and follow the trail of where the money is coming from. I'm a big fan of Ground News. They've been a longtime sponsor of this channel and I think you'll like them too. Go to groundnews.com/peter to check them out. Subscribe through my link below in the description so they know that I sent you to get 40% off unlimited access. That's right, 40% off if you use my link down below. Now back to the story. 我们现在在唐人街。我们只是经过唐人街。我们要再往前走几个街区去老警察总部。好了，各位。我们休息一下，谈谈今天的赞助商。我们都知道，如今要理解新闻非常困难。每份报纸都有自己的立场，要么偏向一边，要么偏向另一边。这就是让弄清楚发生了什么变得极其困难的原因。所以，帮助我的是Ground News这个应用程序和网站。通过Ground News，你可以看到谁在报道某个特定故事，谁没有。Ground News将帮助你摆脱信息孤岛，它有“盲点”（Blind Spot）等功能。例如，故事“Mamdani在CNN上为6000万美元的市政府食品杂货试点项目辩护。”这个故事主要由右翼媒体报道。或者故事“默多克继承协议让拉克兰掌控至2050年，买断三位兄弟”。这个故事主要由左翼媒体报道。所以，很多时候不是什么被报道了，而是什么没有被报道。Ground News可以帮助你看到这一点。使用Ground News获取每一个故事的各个方面，在一个地方获取大量的全球新闻来源，从而更好地了解情况，并了解谁拥有什么媒体，以及资金的来源。我是Ground News的忠实粉丝。他们长期赞助这个频道，我相信你也会喜欢他们。访问groundnews.com/peter了解详情。通过下面的链接订阅，他们就知道是我推荐的，这样你就可以获得40%的无限制访问折扣。是的，如果你使用我的链接，就可以获得40%的折扣。现在回到故事。

So we're jumping forward 100 years from Tammany Hall days where we passed reform and we tried to clean up city government and did in many ways. This is the police headquarters until the 1970s. But in the 1960s a police officer named Frank Serpico starts coming to the New York Times and other newspapers suggesting that nearly all of the New York Police Department is on the take. And it sounds so outrageous and so conspiracy oriented that newspapers largely ignore him. So for half a decade he takes copious notes. He gets evidence, gets the receipts. Okay. of what's actually going on and he along with another police partner come to the New York Times and they run a story and it gets to the point of asking Peter, are you a meat eater or a grass eater? -I like grass fed beef. -So kind of a mix. -I like… Yeah. At the time in 1960s New York the New York Police divided themselves between what they called grass eaters and meat eaters. Grass eaters were folks, police officers who said, "You know if I give somebody a pass on a parking ticket I get that five dollars that ten dollars." They got little trinkets for every little thing that they did. Yeah. The meat eaters set up extensive rackets. -Yeah. So these guys are similar to the mafia in that you open up a floral shop in town police department officer shows up and he says, you know, welcome you to the neighborhood. There's been so many accidents and crime here it would be a shame if anything happened to your little floral shop but for a hundred dollars a month to the police auxiliary fund we'll be sure to make sure you're taken care of. And they ran these sort of rackets extensively. The later review is about 90% of New York's police were on the take or as they called it at the time, on the ham. -Okay how long did that go on until? So it's busted open in the early 1970s right? -So this is when the New York Times-- -That late?! -…runs the story. -Wow. We have what's called the Knapp Commission where we bring the officers forward there's wide scale investigations that are done. They bring in dirty officers who admit to what's going on and how extensive and how deep this is. And again, a lot of the things that we think of as common sense today happened because New York took the time through the Knapp Commission to study this. So better civil service entrance exams for police. Identifying who's more likely to be on the take. Who's an officer who's more likely to do that. Common sense things like we need to boost up salary. The higher government salary goes up and you're able to pay for your family and pay for your expenses the less likely you are to be on the ham. To be on the take. And to enter into these kind of things to create real consequences if you break the law. Beforehand it was a lot of wrist slapping. Development, if you've watched a police show on television you see internal affairs and that kind of a thing. We think of that as common. It wasn't common. New York invented that and were able to create a separate internal affairs unit that could withstand political pressure, wasn't subject to the normal police chain of command and these sorts of things. So it was really big steps forward to take care of that. Okay so that existed in the early '70s here. 我们从Tammany Hall时代往前跳100年，那时我们通过了改革，试图清理市政府，并在许多方面做到了。这是直到20世纪70年代的警察总部。但在20世纪60年代，一位名叫弗兰克·塞尔皮科（Frank Serpico）的警官开始向《纽约时报》和其他报纸爆料，称纽约警察局几乎所有人都收受贿赂。这听起来如此离谱和阴谋论，以至于报纸在很大程度上忽略了他。所以他花了五年时间做了大量笔记。他获得了证据、收据。好的。关于实际发生的事情，他和另一位警官搭档来到《纽约时报》，他们发表了一篇报道，引出了一个问题：彼得，你是吃肉的还是吃草的？——我喜欢草饲牛肉。——所以算是一种混合。——我喜欢……是的。在20世纪60年代的纽约，纽约警察分为他们所谓的“吃草者”和“吃肉者”。“吃草者”是那些警察，他们说：“你知道，如果我放过某人一张停车罚单，我就能得到五美元、十美元。”他们为做的每件小事都能得到小礼物。是啊。“吃肉者”则建立了广泛的敲诈勒索。——是啊。所以这些人就像黑手党一样，你在镇上开一家花店，警察就会出现，他说：“欢迎来到这个街区。这里发生过这么多事故和犯罪，如果你的小花店出了什么事，那将是件憾事，但每月支付100美元给警察辅助基金，我们将确保你得到照顾。”他们广泛地经营着这种敲诈勒索。后来的审查显示，纽约约90%的警察都在收受贿赂，或者他们当时称之为“吃肉”（on the ham）。——好的，这种情况持续了多久？所以是在20世纪70年代初被揭露的，对吧？——所以这是《纽约时报》……——这么晚？！——……发表了报道。——哇。我们有了所谓的“Knapp委员会”，我们让警官们出面，进行了大规模的调查。他们带进了那些承认发生的事情以及事情有多么广泛和深入的腐败警官。再次强调，我们今天认为的许多常识性事情的发生，是因为纽约通过Knapp委员会花了时间来研究这个问题。所以，为警察提供更好的公务员入职考试。识别谁更有可能收受贿赂。谁是更有可能这样做的警官。常识性的事情，比如我们需要提高工资。政府工资越高，你就能负担起你的家庭和你的开销，你就越不可能“吃肉”（on the ham）。收受贿赂。并承担这些行为的后果，如果你违法了。在此之前，只是象征性地惩罚。如果你看过电视上的警察剧，你会看到内部事务部门和类似的东西。我们认为这很普遍。但它并不普遍。纽约发明了它，并能够创建一个独立的内部事务部门，能够承受政治压力，不受正常的警察指挥链和类似事物的约束。所以这是向前迈出的非常重要的一步，来处理这个问题。好的，那么这在70年代初就在这里存在了。

I've lived in a few places in the world. I've traveled extensively. I was just in Columbia this last winter. We had to pay off a cop. My buddy was driving, got pulled over. It was more like give me some mo and I'll just leave you alone type stuff. So I always thought living abroad, and living in Ukraine, I lived there for four years, you could see the corruption in your face. As in the bridge that's not completed that started in 1993 right? Yeah. Or Chernobyl which the international community has put $2 billion towards in decommissioning it. And they've built the sarcophagus and they've, you know, decommissioned a lot of it. But the project is supposedly supposed to go on another 40 years. So when I'm 87 years old that's supposed to come to a close. Who knows exactly when. But my point being is I would have always thought in the United States yeah there's corruption but so much less. And with the petty on the surface stuff you don't see it as much unless you point it out like the scaffolding. Right. But at a deeper level you think we're a pretty corrupt country overall? I think well what I mentioned at the beginning New York, a budget of $110 billion a year. Whenever you concentrate money in a particular place of that size you are waving a flag to attract thieves and attract charlatans to come in. And I gotta hand it to New York City. It's really good at figuring out how do we stomp this out? How do we stop it? And the key is not to think that you can rest on your laurels or that the reform you passed in 1870 or 1970 somehow cures corruption for all time. There are always new tricks. There are always new games. It's ever vigilant staying on top of it. And it's voices from the Left and voices from the Right who come together and figure out solutions to all of this. And New York, it's the place that does it. And I have a pride in seeing that. And so long as you stay on top of it and you can be as dynamic as the thieves I think we're doing okay. And don't expect it to go away. -Better than Chicago? -Yes. How about Los Angeles? I think better functioning than Los Angeles too in terms of debt. In terms of performance for education. I don't know crime off the top of my head. -Okay. 我曾住在世界上的几个地方。我曾广泛旅行。去年冬天我刚去了哥伦比亚。我们不得不贿赂一个警察。我朋友开车，被拦下了。更像是“给我点钱，我就让你走”之类的。所以，我一直认为，在国外生活，在乌克兰生活（我住了四年），你就能直观地看到腐败。比如那座1993年就开始修建但尚未完工的桥？是的。或者切尔诺贝利，国际社会已经投入20亿美元进行退役。他们建造了石棺，你知道，退役了很多。但这个项目据说还要持续40年。所以等我87岁的时候，它才应该结束。谁确切知道什么时候。但我的意思是，我一直认为在美国，是的，有腐败，但少得多。而且那些表面上的小事，除非你指出来，否则你看不到，就像脚手架一样。对。但更深层次来看，你认为我们是一个整体上相当腐败的国家吗？我想，我开头提到过的，纽约，每年1100亿美元的预算。无论何时，当你将巨额资金集中在一个特定地点时，你就像在挥舞旗帜吸引小偷和骗子前来。我不得不佩服纽约市。它非常擅长找出如何根除它？如何阻止它？关键在于不要认为你可以高枕无忧，或者你在1870年或1970年通过的改革能够永远治愈腐败。总有新的伎俩。总有新的玩法。它需要时刻保持警惕。而且，来自左翼和右翼的声音会汇聚在一起，共同解决所有这些问题。纽约就是这样一个地方。我为此感到自豪。只要你保持警惕，并且像小偷一样灵活，我认为我们就做得不错。不要指望它会消失。——比芝加哥好？——是的。洛杉矶呢？我认为在债务方面，它也比洛杉矶运作得更好。在教育表现方面。我记不清犯罪率了。——好的。

Sir, do you know what these are? Is that a water tank up there? [man] I have no idea. I've never noticed that in New York before. I've seen them all over the place now. -Chicago. -Yeah. It's interesting. [man 2]…how am I supposed to know? -Your friend? -Maybe ask him. [chuckling] [man 3] Street pressure goes up five stories. About 85 feet. [Benjamin] Aha, there ya go. -Anything above that… -You need your own water tank. The water tank gets pumped up and then it gravitationally… This building is one of the most famous buildings in the city. -This is? -One of the original ten landmark buildings. It was a department store. It opened in 1858. It was like the Bonwit Teller, Saks Fifth Avenue. Broadway was… This was like the hot stretch. Uptown didn't happen yet. Oh yeah? Happened very quickly. [Benjamin] Yeah, but at the time-- But at the time there were the store, Brooks Brothers, and Lord & Taylor. -The original. -Right here? Right here on Broadway. It's called Haughwout, H-A-U-G-H-W-O-U-T. So he was a merchant. It's modeled after some building in Venice. 先生，你知道这些是什么吗？那是上面的水箱吗？【男人】我不知道。我以前在纽约从未注意到过。我现在到处都看到了。——芝加哥。——是啊。很有意思。【男人2】……我怎么会知道？——你的朋友？——也许问问他。【忍笑】【男人3】街道压力能达到五层楼。大约85英尺。【本杰明】啊哈，你看。——五层以上……——你需要自己的水箱。水箱被抽上去，然后靠重力……这座建筑是这座城市最著名的建筑之一。——是吗？——十个地标建筑之一。曾经是一家百货公司。它于1858年开业。就像Bonwit Teller、Saks Fifth Avenue一样。百老汇是……这是热门地段。上城区还没发展起来。哦，是吗？很快就发生了。【本杰明】是啊，但当时——但当时有这家店，Brooks Brothers，还有Lord & Taylor。——最初的。——在这里？就在百老汇。它叫Haughwout，H-A-U-G-H-W-O-U-T。所以他是一位商人。它是模仿威尼斯的一座建筑。

And you were saying off camera you're dealing with a little corruption here right now in New York? Fire department summons. Generally the fire department was the good agents. [Benjamin chuckles] But with COVID nobody stopped working at the office and they put everything into some computer system. And it keeps spitting out the same summons no matter how many times we show them the paperwork that we resolved it. And they're trying to get a thousand dollars from me. Your building here? This is my building. We have a sprinkler system which is required to be inspected, pressure tested. It's called a hydrostatic pressure test. Determine whether the pipes will hold the pressure if there's a fire. And the fire department brings in their pumpers and they attach it to the standpipe there and it pumps up the pressure in the sprinkler system. So you're required by law. Besides to have monthly, and quarterly, and annually, and there's a five year test. Which involves an inspector from the fire department and not just the sprinkler company. And he came and we did it. I have the paperwork. I notarized it. We signed this document. And what's really terrible actually to start it off they used to notify you have to do your five year hydrostatic test. This year they came in on January 6th a Russian woman inspector and they issued a summons instead of a notification. So you start off being in violation of the law even though you have all of 2025 to do the hydrostatic test. So that just starts it off. So of course we do everything by the book because you know you're gonna have problems if you don't. But it's just I'm on a carousel of getting notices saying violation has been cured no further action is required. And then you get a new violation. And then they say you didn't show up for the hearing even though it says you're not required to show up for a hearing. [laughter] And these are the benefits of big government protecting you. This is… yeah. 你在镜头外说，你现在在纽约正面临一点腐败问题？消防部门的传票。一般来说，消防部门是好的执法者。【本杰明笑】但由于COVID，没有人停止在办公室工作，他们把所有东西都放进了一个电脑系统。不管我们给他们看多少次我们已经解决的文件的文件，它都会不断地吐出同样的传票。他们想从我这里骗一千美元。你的楼？这是我的楼。我们有一个洒水系统，要求进行检查和压力测试。这叫做静水压力测试。确定管道在发生火灾时能否承受压力。消防部门会带来他们的泵车，将其连接到那里的立管上，然后给洒水系统加压。所以法律要求你这样做。除了每月、每季度、每年检查外，还有五年一次的测试。这涉及消防部门的检查员，而不仅仅是洒水公司。他来了，我们做了。我有文件。我已公证。我们签署了这份文件。事实上，最糟糕的是，他们以前会通知你必须进行五年的静水压力测试。今年1月6日，一位俄罗斯女检查员来了，他们发了传票而不是通知。所以你一开始就违法了，尽管你有整个2025年去做静水压力测试。所以这就开始了。所以，当然，我们一切都按规矩办事，因为你知道，如果不这样做，你就会遇到麻烦。但这只是我像坐旋转木马一样，不断收到通知，说违规已纠正，无需进一步行动。然后你会收到新的违规通知。然后他们说你没有出庭，尽管上面写着你不需要出庭。【笑】这就是大政府保护你的好处。这就是……是啊。

-You don't pay many taxes though so it's probably not an issue. -[Benjamin laughs] -What? It's pretty cheap in New York. One of the few municipalities with an income tax. I used to have a gallery here but I couldn't afford it anymore. They raised the taxes to such a point that there's no culture in SoHo. SoHo had 300 galleries until the 90s and then the taxes just… -Pushed the galleries out? Pushed the creative enterprises out of SoHo. It's still thriving as a commercial district but retail stores haven't. You see them go out of business all the time. Because who can afford? I… What I charge for rent you think that I would have a house in the Hamptons. But it all goes to the government. -All of it. -Right. It's all siphoned. I have my loft and my studio and my memories and I can sell the building and live in Delray or some place. But I'm just a masochist. [laughter] ——你没交多少税，所以这可能不是问题。——【本杰明笑】——什么？纽约很便宜。为数不多的拥有所得税的城市之一。我以前在这里有一家画廊，但我再也负担不起了。他们把税提高到了一个程度，以至于苏豪区（SoHo）没有文化了。苏豪区在90年代前有300家画廊，然后税收就……——把画廊挤出去了？把创意企业挤出了苏豪区。它仍然是一个繁荣的商业区，但零售店不行。你总是看到它们倒闭。因为谁能负担得起？我……我收的租金，你认为我会在汉普顿（Hamptons）有一栋房子。但所有这些都归政府了。——全部。——对。都被鲸吞了。我拥有我的顶层公寓、我的工作室和我的回忆，我可以卖掉这栋楼，搬到德尔雷（Delray）或其他地方住。但我就是个受虐狂。【笑】

In addition to police corruption in the '60s as it turned out New York City was gravely in debt to the tune of several billion dollars. It was tinkering on bankruptcy. Publicly threatening that. It reached out to the federal government for a bailout to which President Ford at the time famously said that they could drop dead. He later reconsidered that and there was limited federal aid for New York. But the question is didn't we cure all the problems in the 1870s? Didn't we get to the root of all this? My insistent lesson to everyone is thieves get smarter and figure out new ways to purloin the public purse. Those of us on the Right and those of us on the Left who care about this issue have to be ever vigilant about this. So in the '60s those who weren't so honest of government actors figured out a couple tricks. The first one was they figured out what is the reporting scheme for when we have to show the public the exact money that we spent? And if we wait till just right at the end period time… Okay. …we can do a balloon payment to a-- [engine revs] Love those. If we wait till the end point of a reporting period we can show a clean book to the public. But then maybe we spend an additional 25, 30 that won't show up for some time and the public won't get upset about it. And looks like we're all good clean actors. They also figured out this trick. Create quasi-government private corporate service organizations. So if you're the Department of Education and you're running deep in the red and you don't want to show that you create the Department of New York Education Services Corp. Then you shift all of your debt into the corp entity. The corp entity has no reporting obligations at that time under state or city law to be able to show that. So New York Department of Education, it's running in the black. It's doing all these great programs and it's doing so well. Meanwhile this mountain of debt is growing. So you see this promulgation. Explosion of all these little corporate government entities hiding debt from the taxpayer. And so a result of all this they had I think it was the Council of 71. A wide array of smart reformers, lawyers, retired judges, getting together and figuring out how do we stop this in the future. 除了60年代的警察腐败外，事实证明，纽约市严重负债，高达数十亿美元。它濒临破产。公开威胁说。它向联邦政府寻求援助，当时的福特总统曾著名地说他们可以去死。他后来改变了主意，纽约获得了有限的联邦援助。但问题是，我们难道没有在19世纪70年代解决所有问题吗？我们难道没有找到这一切的根源吗？我一再告诉大家的是，窃贼越来越聪明，想出了新的方法来侵吞公款。我们中的那些关心这个问题的人，无论是在右翼还是左翼，都必须时刻保持警惕。所以，在60年代，那些不那么诚实的政府官员想出了几个伎俩。第一个是他们想出了报告制度，即我们何时必须向公众展示我们花费的确切金额？如果我们等到报告期结束的时候……好的。……我们可以做一个一次性的大额支付给……【引擎轰鸣】我喜欢这些。如果我们等到报告期的最后，我们可以向公众展示一本干净的账本。但随后我们可能会花费额外的25、30，这不会在一段时间内显现，公众也不会为此感到不安。看起来我们都是好人。他们还想出了这个伎俩。创建准政府私营企业服务组织。所以，如果你是教育部，并且你亏损严重，不想显示出来，你就创建“纽约教育服务公司”。然后将你所有的债务转移到这个公司实体中。该实体在州或市法律下当时没有报告义务来展示这一点。所以纽约教育部，它是在盈利的。它正在开展所有这些伟大的项目，并且做得很好。与此同时，这座债务山却在不断增长。所以你看到了这种泛滥。这些隐藏债务不向纳税人公开的小型企业政府实体爆炸式增长。因此，所有这一切的结果是，我认为是“71委员会”。众多聪明的改革者、律师、退休法官聚集在一起，思考如何阻止这种情况的发生。

Looks like we got a street market. -Yeah. They got the name brands out here, Prada. Is this stuff legal in New York? [Benjamin] I don't know the exact status of this. Do you need permits or no? -Yeah I don't know that. -Doubt it. The better question is is that stuff legal? -Oh the Prada? -Yeah. -He's telling me I can't record. -Yeah. -He'd be wrong about that. -Sorry dude. Be wrong about that. So the point of all what I was just discussing 1960s they figure out new creative ways to hide debt and to be able to be slow in reporting what actual spending looks like to the people. And so they put firm limits in the 1970s on use of these entities. Corporate entities that could hide debt. They increase transparency requirements. They require more timely reporting of all money that is spent and if you have these balloon payments that they're reported more quickly to the public. -Benjamin it's just a process of someone very savvy and corrupt figuring out how to maneuver the system and then how fast can the system catch up with it change the laws and then how fast is the next… Opportunist go down that direction. It's just a constant game, huh? And I think there's a usual set of actors because if we go back to Tammany Hall if we go back to Frank Serpico what do we have? We usually have a whistleblower. Someone who possesses. extraordinary courage. Someone who's willing to put their life on the line. Serpico by the way after he testified and provided all this evidence he was called to a heroin sting site. He was shot in doing the investigation. Left dead on the floor, seemingly dead. None of his fellow officers called for backup or for a paramedic to come rescue him. -Oh geez. It was a butcher local businessman who found him. He just barely lived. That was how disliked he was. So he became a pariah in New York at the time. And it takes whistleblowers but then it takes media. Honest media whether it's a left-leaning organization like the New York Times or a right-winger, James O'Keefe. Any of these sorts of entities to be able to take that story and run with it show it to the American public and then you usually have commissions of individuals lawyers, political activists, folks who have been embedded in this who can sit down and figure it out. Now I mentioned before I'm conservative. I'll give credit to the Left. I think New York's done a good job with their comptroller and some government agencies in giving them a little more power to root this out and find corruption. I'm not a big fan of government power or government authority but in this area you do need some aggressive watchdogs. And sometimes it's not just the press and not just the uh, courageous whistleblower. Sometimes you need that sort of comptroller auditor and the like. -So the comptroller auditor right now are they doing a good job would you say? Based on what they've pulled out about spending during COVID and spending on the asylum migrant supposed crisis I would say they're doing fantastic. We'll get to that pretty soon. Okay. But they've uncovered some interesting stories and again it goes back to, okay we thought we cured this in the 1970s, 50, 60 years ago. -Turns out-- -It's just whack-a-mole. Not so much because there are always loopholes there are always exclusions… Okay. And it just takes some clever folks to figure out how to maneuver around it. 看起来我们有个街市。——是啊。他们在这里卖名牌，普拉达。这些东西在纽约合法吗？【本杰明】我不知道确切的状况。你需要许可证吗？——是啊，我不知道。——我想不会。更好的问题是，这些东西合法吗？——哦，普拉达？——是啊。——他告诉我我不能录像。——是啊。——他错了。【对不起，伙计】关于这一点，他错了。所以，我刚才讨论的重点是，20世纪60年代，他们想出了新的创意方法来隐藏债务，并能够缓慢地向公众报告实际支出情况。因此，他们在70年代对使用这些实体施加了严格的限制。可以隐藏债务的公司实体。他们增加了透明度要求。他们要求更及时地报告所有支出的金钱，如果你有这些一次性的大额付款，它们会被更快地报告给公众。——本杰明，这只是一个非常精明而腐败的人试图操纵系统，然后系统需要多久才能追上它，改变法律，然后下一个……投机者会走那条路。这真是一场持续的游戏，不是吗？而且我认为有一套固定的参与者，因为如果我们回顾Tammany Hall，回顾弗兰克·塞尔皮科，我们有什么？我们通常有一个举报人。一个拥有非凡勇气的人。一个愿意拿生命冒险的人。顺便说一句，塞尔皮科在作证并提供所有证据后，他被叫到一个海洛因陷阱地点。他在调查中被枪击。倒在地上一动不动，似乎死了。他的同事没有一个呼叫支援或叫救护车来救他。——哦，天哪。是一位屠夫，一位当地商人发现了他的踪迹。他刚刚险些丧命。他当时如此不受欢迎。所以他成了当时纽约的贱民。这就需要举报人，然后还需要媒体。诚实的媒体，无论是像《纽约时报》这样的左翼组织，还是像詹姆斯·奥基夫（James O'Keefe）这样的右翼人士。任何这些实体都能够抓住这个故事并传播它，展示给美国公众，然后你通常会有由个人、律师、政治活动家、那些身处其中的人组成的委员会，他们可以坐下来思考。我现在提到我是一名保守派。我要归功于左翼。我认为纽约在审计长和一些政府机构方面做得很好，给了他们更多的权力来根除这些问题并发现腐败。我不是政府权力或政府权威的忠实拥护者，但在这一领域，你需要一些积极的监督者。有时，这不仅仅是媒体和勇敢的举报人。有时你需要审计长和类似的人。——那么，现在的审计长，你会说他们做得好吗？根据他们在COVID期间的支出以及在所谓的“庇护所移民危机”上的支出，我认为他们做得非常出色。我们很快就会谈到。好的。但他们已经揭露了一些有趣的故事，再次回到那个问题，好的，我们认为我们在70年代，50、60年前就已经解决了这个问题。——结果——这就像“打地鼠”游戏。并非如此，因为总有漏洞，总有例外……好的。而且只需要一些聪明人来弄清楚如何绕过它。

现代腐败：住房政策与“幽灵公寓”

Now we are approaching 56 Leonard Street. It's no surprise to anyone that rents in Manhattan and real estate prices are dramatically high. Manhattan has one of the highest prices in the nation. Average is $5,000 a month for rent in Manhattan. We get some buildings like this which draw attention because these tend to be very pricey pieces of development. And they're often done in cooperation of a program called the 421-a Real Estate Affordable Housing Tax Exemption. So a developer says I want to build a luxury unit and I'm going to agree to somewhere somehow build some affordable housing units in New York. Now when this particular building was developed it gets a certificate of 421-a compliance. So it gets tax breaks and the people in here have less taxes as well. But it lost its 421-a exemption because it wasn't actually building affordable housing anywhere in New York. And there's been a series of these sorts of developments including 427-1. One which is Billionaire's Row in Manhattan. That's up by Central Park. And there we're looking at in the billions of lost revenue every year that go to New York because of these tax breaks. They allow rather wealthy individuals to have less tax exposure when developing these. These are often empty. They call them ghost apartments because foreigners often purchase these up as a sort of investment property. And you come by at night and you'll see in a lot of these properties that the lights are not on. They're not occupied or they're occupied a couple days out of the year. There have been suspicious people involved in money laundering and these sorts of things. Using it as an investment property flowing money in and out. This property in particular has had a lot of listings that the properties get sold, bought, traded get flipped. -Okay. -And not a lot of people actually live in there. So this is something that's sort of stooping people in New York City because everyone wants affordable housing. They want access to that. They don't think that foreigners buying up property and land seems inherently fair. Nor do tax breaks where they don't actually deliver affordable housing seem fair to the people in New York. And why are they sitting vacant? Why are they sitting empty most of the time? Is this the way you want to run a country? Now a lot of the details still have to… Not a country, a city. A lot of the details still have to be filled in. So anything that's modern we've got to be careful about making any allegations about what's happening and occurring. But affordability and housing accessibility is a really important issue especially for friends on the Left. That's a particular issue they're focusing on. So this is just one example in New York. If we went up by Central Park we'd see Billionaires Row. Again something that I think is one-third full. It's full of these tax exemptions that the Comptroller of New York and other good government groups have said this is costing the city and state of New York billions of dollars in revenue every year. They're not out performing and doing their obligations and we need to do better than this. 现在我们快到56 Leonard Street了。没有人会惊讶地发现，曼哈顿的租金和房地产价格非常高。曼哈顿的房价是全国最高的之一。曼哈顿的平均月租金是5000美元。我们看到了像这样的建筑，它们吸引了人们的注意，因为这些往往是价格非常昂贵的开发项目。它们通常是根据一项名为“421-a房地产可负担住房税收减免”的计划进行的。所以，开发商说，我想建一套豪华公寓，我将同意在某个地方以某种方式在纽约建造一些经济适用房。现在，当这座建筑开发时，它获得了421-a合规证书。所以它获得了税收减免，这里的人们也缴税更少。但它失去了421-a豁免权，因为它实际上并没有在纽约的任何地方建造经济适用房。这类开发项目已经有一系列了，包括427-1。其中之一是曼哈顿的“亿万富翁街”（Billionaire's Row）。就在中央公园附近。那里每年因这些税收减免而给纽约造成的损失高达数十亿美元。它们允许相当富裕的个人在开发这些项目时减少税收负担。这些地方通常是空的。它们被称为“幽灵公寓”，因为外国人经常购买这些作为一种投资性房产。你在晚上来，你会发现很多这样的房产，灯都没亮。它们没有被占用，或者一年只住几天。有一些可疑人员涉及洗钱等事情。将其作为投资性房产，资金进出。这个房产尤其如此，它有很多挂牌记录，房产被出售、购买、交易、转售。——好的。——而且很少有人真正住在里面。所以，这是纽约市人们感到沮丧的事情，因为每个人都想要经济适用房。他们希望能够负担得起。他们不认为外国人购买房产和土地是公平的。同样，那些没有真正提供经济适用房的税收减免对纽约人来说也不公平。它们为什么空置？为什么大部分时间都空着？这就是你想经营一个国家的方式吗？现在，很多细节仍然需要……不是国家，是城市。很多细节仍然需要完善。所以，任何现代的事物，我们都必须谨慎地对其进行任何关于正在发生的事情的指控。但可负担性和住房的可及性是一个非常重要的问题，特别是对左翼朋友们来说。这是他们特别关注的问题。所以，这只是纽约的一个例子。如果我们去了中央公园附近，我们会看到亿万富翁街。同样，我认为那里只有三分之一被占用。那里充满了这些税收减免，纽约审计长和其他良好的政府团体表示，这每年给纽约市和州造成数十亿美元的收入损失。它们没有按承诺履行义务，我们需要做得更好。

Now personally I don't have any problem if you're a billionaire or a hundred millionaire and you want to live in one of those two days out of the year. I do have problems and concerns if you're taking money out of the public dole. I mean it's a problem all over the country right? Housing. Yeah. Especially young people. How do you get into your starter home? Now in New York you're not getting… Or Manhattan at least there's no starter home that you can buy into. Everything's probably in the millions to start right? Yeah. You get out of Manhattan for your starter home. You have to get out of Manhattan but I do have a problem. New York is such an international place right? So I don't know how it would work here but I do have a problem with parts of the country where a lot of foreign investment comes in and buys up real estate stock. Like mainland Chinese money can buy land here. There's no way we can invest in real estate over there. Yeah. And if the prices, the more demand, the more the prices go up, and if we let the world just park their money here then it drives the prices up for our residents. And that's the problem 'cause you want people to have skin in the game. You want them to have a place they can call their home. Right. States are exploring options on that and limiting ownership. Piercing LLCs that buy land under mysterious conditions. 就我个人而言，如果你是亿万富翁或千万富翁，并且你想在那里住两天，我没有什么意见。但如果你从公共福利中拿钱，我就会有问题和担忧。我的意思是，这在全国都是个问题，对吧？住房。是的。特别是年轻人。如何买到你的第一套房？现在在纽约你买不到……至少在曼哈顿，没有你可以买到的第一套房。一切可能都要数百万起价，对吧？是的。你需要离开曼哈顿才能买到你的第一套房。你必须离开曼哈顿，但我确实有问题。纽约是一个如此国际化的地方，对吧？所以，我不知道这里会怎样，但我确实对国家的一些地方有问题，那里有很多外国投资涌入并收购房地产。比如中国大陆的资金可以在这里买地。我们根本无法在那里投资房地产。是的。如果价格，需求越多，价格就越高，如果我们让世界在这里停放他们的钱，那就会推高我们居民的价格。这就是问题所在，因为你希望人们有切身利益。你希望他们有一个可以称之为家的地方。对。各州正在探索这方面的选择，并限制所有权。穿透那些在神秘条件下购买土地的有限责任公司。

I was just in Palisades in LA. There's some foreign investment money. -Buying up lots. -Yeah. Right. I think it's fundamentally wrong. I'd say that if we had an abundance okay I could understand but we don't and it's a big problem in the country. It creates instability within your neighborhood. It creates doubt about who your neighbors are. It creates real problems for being able to get that starter house get that mid-level house whatever it may be. And yeah, so… I think both sides would come together on that one don't you think? The populist element of both sides would come together on that. I think so. And you're going to test how far you can go with that in the courts. Because you can imagine a system that is too severe and makes it almost impossible for a foreigner to come live somewhere or do business. But it's probably likely that you can impose some modest restraints and limits on how much they can invest and how extensively they can in a particular neighborhood. There's a lot of that in Miami too. A lot of Latin America parks its money in Miami. -Buys apartments. -Yeah. And then you get the ghost apartments like you have here. Yep. It's hard to find a restroom here even at Starbucks, no restroom. Peter is having an emergency. He needs a bathroom. I drank a lot of Black tea this morning. I need a restroom. -And this is actually a weird issue in New York. And I don't have the answers for all this but something smells suspicious. Because it has a profound lack of actual public bathrooms that are available. When the comptroller and other government agencies have done audits they've often found that up to two-thirds of them are either closed or they're missing things like toilet paper, soap, the water doesn't work. Things that you would expect. Public restrooms here? I don't see many though to be honest. There aren't many. And so as they've worked on an initiative to build more here's the more curious thing. It can cost on average somewhere between two to five million dollars per new bathroom that they create. But when you look at other cities they can do it on the cheap end somewhere around quarter million. On average around half a million dollars to create a bathroom. Now not all of that is me creating some conspiracy hoax here because New York has heightened cost of labor due to union presence so that adds in. So let's tack something on for that. We have different transportation costs or being able to come in and bring heavy equipment and machinery incurs additional costs for contractors. So that brings things up a bit. But probably not a scale of ten times the price. -Okay. -So something's happening. Three to five million for just like a men's and women's… Standard ugly public bathroom. -In a park type thing? -In a park. And New York doesn't have them. They know this so as I've mentioned they are doing a program to deploy more public bathrooms at exaggerated prices. Okay. But there's been appropriate pushback on that. Are you kidding me? Five million dollar bathrooms? They're not penthouse suites? They're just average? Right. We have to get this under control. So I don't know what all the prices are there but my guess is there's a little bit of corruption. There's probably a little bit of some padding going on there. Heavy padding. And I think as they investigate New York will do what it does. Smart people will get together and they'll uncover the other smart people who weren't so ethical and figured out this program to get rich off of building public bathrooms in New York. -Okay. -And we'll have the details. 我刚在洛杉矶的帕利塞德（Palisades）待过。有一些外国投资。——购买地块。——是啊。对。我认为这根本是错误的。如果说我们很充裕，好的，我能理解，但我们不是，这是这个国家的一个大问题。它在你的社区造成不稳定。它让你对邻居是谁产生怀疑。它对获得那套入门房、那套中等价位的房子等造成了真正的问题。是的。我认为双方都会在这件事上达成一致，不是吗？双方的民粹主义元素都会达成一致。我想会的。你将在法庭上测试你能走多远。因为你可以想象一个过于严厉的系统，几乎不可能让外国人来某个地方居住或做生意。但你很可能可以施加一些温和的限制，限制他们可以投资的金额以及他们在特定社区的投资程度。迈阿密也有很多这种情况。很多拉丁美洲的钱都停留在迈阿密。——购买公寓。——是啊。然后你就有了像这里一样的“幽灵公寓”。是的。在这里很难找到一个厕所，甚至在星巴克也没有厕所。彼得有急事。他需要一个厕所。我今早喝了很多红茶。我需要一个厕所。——这实际上是纽约的一个奇怪问题。我没有所有这些问题的答案，但有些事情闻起来可疑。因为这里公共厕所非常少。当审计长和其他政府机构进行审计时，他们经常发现多达三分之二的厕所要么关闭，要么缺少卫生纸、肥皂，水不通。这些都是你期望的东西。这里的公共厕所？说实话，我没看到多少。数量不多。所以，当他们致力于一项建造更多厕所的计划时，这里有一个更令人好奇的事情。他们创造的每个新厕所平均需要两到五百万美元。但当你看看其他城市，它们可以以便宜的方式完成，大约25万美元。平均而言，建造一个厕所大约需要五十万美元。当然，这并不是我在这里编造的阴谋论，因为纽约由于工会的存在，劳动力成本很高，这会增加成本。所以，让我们为此加上一些。我们有不同的运输成本，或者能够携带重型设备和机械进来，这会给承包商带来额外成本。所以这会稍微抬高价格。但可能达不到十倍的价格。——好的。——所以有些事情正在发生。三到五百万美元，只是一个男女厕所……普通的丑陋公共厕所。——在公园里？——在公园里。纽约没有。他们知道这一点，所以我提到过，他们正在实施一项计划，以过高的价格部署更多的公共厕所。好的。但对此已经有了适当的反击。你在开玩笑吗？五百万美元的厕所？它们不是顶层套房？它们只是普通的？对。我们必须控制住这一点。所以，我不知道那里的所有价格，但我的猜测是，有一点腐败。可能有一点在里面掺水。大量掺水。而且我认为，随着调查的进行，纽约会做它该做的事情。聪明人会聚在一起，他们会找出那些不那么道德的聪明人，他们发现了这个计划，通过在纽约建造公共厕所来致富。——好的。——我们将获得细节。 [woman] Thank you. [photographer] Feet together, so… [Peter] Guys, city's looking better. Thank you. -How's it been? It's been Okay. -Rough? More trash these days or less? Um… We're consolidating trash. -Consolidating? -Yeah. Okay. Like it's supposed to be. You see the city like no one else. What's your take on the city right now? Getting better. Yeah I guess. -It's getting a little better? -It's starting to get a little better. Always. -It's always improving. [chuckles] 【女人】谢谢。【摄影师】脚并拢，所以……【彼得】各位，城市正在变得更好。谢谢。——怎么样？还好吧。——艰难吗？这些天垃圾多还是少？嗯……我们正在整合垃圾。——整合？——是啊。好的。就像应该的那样。你看待这座城市的方式无人能及。你现在对这座城市的看法如何？正在变好。是啊，我想是的。——它正在变得更好一点吗？——它开始变得好一点了。一直如此。——它总是在进步。【忍笑】

That's what New York's good at. It's always improving. Yeah. You guys have an industrious innovative spirit. Without you guys the place stops. So thank you. You're welcome. -Thank you. -We gotta do the trash but we have control. Those are sort of the I hate to say, "invisible jobs" right? But that keep a place like this going. Without that nobody's doing anything. -You know what I mean? -Yeah I do. Where was the bathroom? Oh man. I don't think that's happening. Oh maybe there. I've been to this park. -Success Benjamin. We made it. -Yeah. It took a while to find but what a cool park. What park is this? -Columbus Park Court. -Oh yep. 这就是纽约的厉害之处。它总是在进步。是啊。你们拥有勤奋创新的精神。没有你们，这里就停滞不前了。所以谢谢你们。不客气。——谢谢。——我们得处理垃圾，但我们能控制。那些可以说是“看不见的职业”，对吧？但它们维持着像这里一样的地方运转。没有它们，什么都做不成。——你知道我的意思吗？——是的，我知道。厕所在哪里？哦，天哪。我不认为会找到。哦，也许在那里。我去过这个公园。——成功了，本杰明。我们找到了。——是啊。花了一段时间才找到，但真是个很酷的公园。这是哪个公园？——哥伦布公园法院。【哦，是的】

Haven't done a pretzel since last New York trip. So I'm going to give that a go. -Hello sir can I get a pretzel? -Yes sir. All right here we go. Want some pretzel Benjamin? I'll just take a little bit off if that's okay. It's the same as 1985. -[chuckling] -There's no difference. Probably the same company. They come in a pallet frozen. But… Yep. Tastes about that. 自从上次纽约之行以来，我就没吃过椒盐卷饼了。所以我要去尝尝。——先生，请问我能买一个椒盐卷饼吗？——先生，可以。好了，开始了。想吃椒盐卷饼吗，本杰明？如果可以的话，我只要一点点。这和1985年的一样。——【忍笑】——没有区别。可能还是同一家公司。它们是冷冻的。但是……是的。味道差不多。

现代腐败与法律的演变

So we're going to jump into modern corruption because every era gets a new iteration. So we're going to start in the early 2000s. We're equal opportunity here. Democrats and Republicans engage in this equally. Let's start with a Democrat. Early 2000s we've got Sheldon Silver. He's one of the long-standing speakers of the New York Assembly. He prides himself a real hero of the people. Particularly in his ability to help cure cancer and to be able to bring government research and funding to be able to do this. So Sheldon Silver in the background is doing special deals. And he's saying to doctors, "I need asbestos patients. So if you refer your asbestos patients to my law firm that does personal injury claims I can get your government funding grants." So he routinely was able to get half a million dollar cancer grants to particular doctors in exchange for this lucrative business coming in. He took in over $700,000 in that particular scheme alone. He did another set of enterprises where he worked with another law firm that would do tax appeals. So if your property had been overvalued or errantly valued they would work to do that. And so he would get business to come in guaranteed to this particular law firm and he got a cut out of that. In exchange he was working to make sure that these people were treated decently by the New York government. So he was tried here in the Southern District of New York in federal court on money laundering, on corruption-based charges, fraud, embezzlement, and the like, and he served his time and eventually died. But we have a Republican as well, Dean Skelos. Who had a son who needed work. If it sounds similar to a recent president it should. And this time it was Dean Skelos, a Republican from Long Island who said that when constituents and powerful people came to him, "How would you like a new consultant on your business? I've got a son. He does excellent work." -He's an expert in every field. Expert in every field and "Just sign him up as a phantom consultant for your particular business and we'll take care of your tax property problem. We'll take care of your zoning issue. We'll take care of that licensing problem or that summons that keeps showing up like the gentleman told us before." And so all of a sudden his son, I think it was Adam Skelos keeps showing up as this phantom consultant everywhere. He too was tried in the Southern District of New York for corruption-related charges, money laundering and the like, served his time. Now out of these two stories New York learned some rules and they just recently enacted some reform to help pass this because a lot of this came to light around 2005 to 2015 and now we're seeing the legislative changes come into being. So one of them that they just passed and is highly controversial is that no legislator can have side business income that exceeds $35,000. In other words being a legislator is a full-time job and your time is expected to be there. Yep. Now there are good arguments to say it doesn't pay enough and we need to be able to do our side work that we regularly do to be able to live in a place like Manhattan. Yeah, sure. So it's under judicial review. It's being challenged in court. But similar restrictions have passed scrutiny in other states. 所以我们要进入现代腐败，因为每个时代都有新的迭代。所以我们要从21世纪初开始。我们是机会均等的。民主党人和共和党人都同样参与其中。让我们从一位民主党人开始。21世纪初，我们有谢尔登·西尔弗（Sheldon Silver）。他是纽约州议会的长期议长。他以自己是人民的真正英雄而自豪。尤其是在他帮助治愈癌症，并能带来政府研究和资助方面。所以，谢尔登·西尔弗在幕后进行着特殊的交易。他对医生说：“我需要石棉病人。所以，如果你把你的石棉病人介绍给我的律师事务所，该事务所处理人身伤害索赔，我就可以为你争取政府资助。”因此，他经常能获得一百万美元的癌症资助给特定的医生，以换取这笔可观的业务。仅在那个特殊的计划中，他就获得了超过70万美元。他还进行了另一系列的企业，他与另一家律师事务所合作，处理税务上诉。所以，如果你的房产被高估或错误估值，他们会努力处理。所以他会把生意确保给这家律师事务所，然后从中分一杯羹。作为交换，他正在努力确保这些人受到纽约政府的公平对待。所以他在纽约南区联邦法院受审，罪名是洗钱、腐败相关指控、欺诈、贪污等等，他服刑后最终去世了。但我们也有一个共和党人，迪恩·斯克洛斯（Dean Skelos）。他有一个需要工作的儿子。如果听起来和最近的一位总统相似，那应该如此。这次是迪恩·斯克洛斯，一位来自长岛的共和党人，他告诉选民和有影响力的人，当他们来找他时，“你愿不愿意聘请一位新的商业顾问？我有一个儿子。他做得很好。”——他是每个领域的专家。每个领域的专家，而且“只要把他登记为你的特定企业的神秘顾问，我们就会处理你的税务房产问题。我们会处理你的分区问题。我们会处理那个许可问题，或者那个像这位绅士之前告诉我们的那样一直出现的传票。”于是，突然之间，他的儿子，我想是亚当·斯克洛斯（Adam Skelos），到处都以神秘顾问的身份出现。他也因腐败相关指控、洗钱等罪名在纽约南区受审，并服刑。现在，从这两个故事中，纽约学到了一些规则，他们最近还颁布了一些改革措施来帮助通过这一法案，因为其中很多是在2005年至2015年间曝光的，现在我们看到了立法变化的出现。所以，他们刚刚通过的一项备受争议的规定是，任何立法者每年的副业收入不得超过3.5万美元。换句话说，担任立法者是一份全职工作，你的时间应该在那里。是的。现在有一些好论点认为，它支付的报酬不够，我们需要能够做我们通常做的副业，以便在曼哈顿这样的地方生活。是啊，当然。所以它正在接受司法审查。它正在被法院挑战。但类似的限制在其他州也通过了审查。

Let's just say the two cases you talked about both the Democrat and the Republican if they let's just say happen at the same time in 2025. So if you were to read the New York Times you're not going to hear about the Democratic case. And if you're reading what, The Post here? Yeah. You're not gonna hear about the Republican and that's the world we're in. -Right? -It's unfortunate. Or there's going to be a strong bias or skew or in the Times the Republican guy is gonna have his eyes wide open and then the lights flooding out his face so he's pale white. And the Democratic guy is gonna look better and vice versa. And that's the world we're in. We've lost so much right? Because as we noted a few times in the video. -Corruption is not a partisan issue. -Right. If you're caught putting your son into favorable business positions for graft purposes, that's wrong. Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, whether your team's doing it or not. So the public… It's very hard for the public to navigate this stuff and really understand it unless they want to put a ton of time in. And people usually have their go-to media sources right? Yeah. And the average person is going to stick to those. And not crossing over to the other side and trying to understand it from both angles. That's the problem huh? But there are new apps and I think one of them advertises on your channel. And I just might… -This is true. I wasn't even gonna. -Ground News, I have right there. And I happen to find them favorable because they do the Blind Spot feature. -I like it yeah. -And you can get that. Because I'm a Republican my news trends to the right but I have a subscription to the New York Times like you do. I read well-thought-out good positions from folks I wouldn't ordinarily agree with because that makes me a better person. Sometimes my tribe is wrong. My camp is wrong. Totally. And I wish the Right had a Times-type publication. Actually I wish there was just one publication that sought truth as the North Star right? -That would be better. -Yeah. But the New York Times, they do have intelligent people there. Their user interface is excellent online. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there. But any of the big stories I know how it's going to be covered. It's pretty clear. Like border for example. If it's the border they're going to talk about the one out of ten legitimate asylum claims in the last four years versus the nine out of ten that are economic migrants. And so they choose the side and if you're only in that space that's what you see. Then you think the other side is insane. -Right. Yep. -How do they not get this? It seems to be working unfortunately as a business model. -It is the business model yeah. It's an emotional trigger to get people scared and get them worked up about the enemy marauders or about how good their team is. If the Times did a pro-Donald Trump story they would piss off their audience. -The majority of them. -Yes that's right. And vice versa, say Fox does a pro-Biden story. Yeah. Maybe you know the CHIPS Act. The factory being built north of Phoenix. Maybe that's a plus for the country right? -They're not going to talk about it. -No. You know they talk about food deserts. -We live in news deserts of sorts. -Right. They're self-selected and self-imposed. And we have to be willing to shake ourselves out of that. And there's a lot of good data on cognitive dissonance and how difficult it is for us to do that. But it's the most worthwhile thing in the world if we want a good government. -If we want a better system. -Yeah agreed. 就我们刚才谈到的两个案例，一个是民主党人，一个是共和党人，如果它们同时发生在2025年。如果你去看《纽约时报》，你听不到关于民主党人的案例。如果你在看《邮报》（The Post）？是啊。你听不到关于共和党人的报道，这就是我们生活的世界。——对吗？——这是不幸的。或者会有一个强烈的偏见或歪曲，或者在《泰晤士报》中，共和党人会睁大眼睛，然后灯光照在他脸上，他脸色苍白。民主党人会看起来更好，反之亦然。这就是我们生活的世界。我们失去了这么多，对吧？因为我们在视频中几次提到。——腐败不是党派问题。——对。如果你被抓到为了图利而把你儿子安排到有利的商业职位，那是错误的。无论你是共和党人还是民主党人，无论你的团队是否这样做。所以，公众……公众很难理解这些事情，除非他们愿意花大量时间。人们通常都有自己常看的媒体来源，对吧？是啊。普通人会坚持看那些。而不是转向另一边，试图从两个角度来理解。这就是问题所在，不是吗？但有新的应用程序，我认为其中一个在你的频道上做广告。我可能……——这是真的。我甚至没打算。——Ground News，我在这里。【本杰明】而且我碰巧觉得它们很有用，因为它们有“盲点”功能。——我喜欢它，是啊。——你可以使用它。因为我是一名共和党人，我的新闻倾向于右翼，但我订阅了《纽约时报》，就像你一样。我阅读了那些我通常不同意的人的深思熟虑的观点，因为这让我成为一个更好的人。有时我的阵营错了。我的阵营错了。完全错误。我希望右翼也有一个像《泰晤士报》一样的出版物。实际上，我希望只有一份以真理为北极星的出版物，对吧？——那会更好。——是啊。但《纽约时报》确实有聪明人。他们的在线用户界面非常出色。里面有很多有趣的东西。但任何重大新闻，我都大概知道会如何报道。很清楚。比如边境。如果涉及到边境，他们会谈论过去四年里十个合法庇护申请中的一个，而不是九个经济移民。所以他们选择立场，如果你只关注那个领域，那就是你看到的一切。然后你就会认为另一方是疯狂的。——对。是的。——他们怎么不明白呢？不幸的是，这似乎作为一种商业模式在运作。——是的，这就是商业模式。它是一种情绪触发器，让人们感到害怕，让他们对敌对的掠夺者感到愤怒，或者对自己的团队有多么出色。如果《泰晤士报》发表一篇支持唐纳德·特朗普的故事，他们会激怒他们的观众。——他们中的大多数。——是的，没错。反之亦然，比如福克斯（Fox）发表一篇支持拜登的故事。是啊。也许你知道《芯片法案》（CHIPS Act）。在菲尼克斯北部建造的工厂。这对国家来说是个好事，对吧？——他们不会谈论它。——不。你知道他们谈论食物荒漠。——我们生活在某种新闻荒漠中。——对。它们是自我选择和自我强加的。我们必须愿意摆脱这种状态。关于认知失调以及我们做这件事有多困难，有很多好的数据。但如果我们想要一个好的政府，这是世界上最有价值的事情。——如果我们想要一个更好的系统。——是啊，同意。

All right. So you had one more case you wanted to talk about. Yeah. I want to check one thing and then we will chat on that. One second. Guys, Benjamin is so organized here. One of the easiest guys to make a video with. He knows all the locations. He knows what to say. It's pretty much me just following with a camera asking a few questions. But I gotta say it's interesting getting into his world. Because for most of us we're not in this stuff all day long and he is. So that's what I try to do is find these people that have the expertise. I'm saying you have the expertise Benjamin. Fair to say? 好吧。你还有最后一个案子想谈。是啊。我想检查一件事，然后我们就来聊聊。一秒钟。各位，本杰明在这里非常井井有条。和他一起拍视频是最容易的。他知道所有地点。他知道该说什么。基本上就是我拿着相机跟着问几个问题。但我必须说，进入他的世界很有趣。因为我们大多数人不是整天都在研究这些，而他是在的。所以我试图做的就是找到这些有专业知识的人。我敢说你很专业，本杰明。这么说公平吗？

-Henry. -I've been watching your videos. All right. Well we got another one coming for you soon from New York. -Too bad you can't go in there right? -Oh what's that? That's a federal building where the bad stuff happens. [Benjamin] Yeah that's right. [chuckles] -We're talking about corruption today. -It is a corruption tour. This was a corruption of morals. [Peter] Oh it is? This is where the ICE is. -Oh the ICE. Taking people and disappear… -Wow. That's why there's a lot of protests. Yeah. Thank you sir. -Good to meet you. -I appreciate it. ——亨利。——我一直在看你的视频。好吧。我们很快就会从纽约为你带来另一个视频。——真可惜你不能进去，对吧？——哦，那是什么？那是联邦大楼，坏事发生在那里。【本杰明】是啊，没错。【忍笑】——我们今天在谈论腐败。——这是一次腐败之旅。这是道德的腐败。【彼得】哦，是吗？这里是ICE（美国移民及海关执法局）所在地。——哦，ICE。把人带走并消失……——哇。这就是为什么有那么多抗议。是啊。谢谢您，先生。——很高兴认识您。——我感激不尽。

Okay so you had to bring this one in. -This is where people love or hate you. -Yeah. I'm going to be fair on both sides because I think neither one is particularly interesting and neither one really reaches to the heart of true corruption that we should care about but it is an example of how different tribes get worked up about actors in different camps and we shout corruption and that's the case of Donald Trump and Letitia James both involving litigation here again in New York and federal court. Of course litigation against Donald Trump was that he routinely over-inflated the value of certain business entities for loan purposes and that he undervalued them for purposes of tax compliance. So at least at the early district court level he lost and that's currently on appeal and they'll figure that out. legal experts weighing in on it say that you usually have a great deal of latitude in terms of that estimation that he relied on professional accountants and appraisers to be able to do that. That people routinely have a difference in how you report that for tax purposes versus banking purposes and that everyone's doing that. And if Donald Trump is guilty then most of New York business owners are likely guilty too. People get very riled up about it because Donald Trump is a lightning rod sort of figure and some folks really hate him. And other people really tribally love him. But the question is does it go to the deep systemic sort of fraud where we're using public power or we're using public money to effectuate public policy in some distorted way? And that's not the case. This is a battle of forms. What did you mark on a form that you submitted to a bank? What did you Mark on a form that you submitted to tax authorities? Now this gets turned around because Letitia James, who is the Attorney General of New York, She got caught in two instances. One she had two properties and she had marked a property in Virginia Beach as her principal residence. Well the New York Constitution says if you're an officeholder you have to live in New York. -You can't be living in Virginia. -Okay. Similarly she has a rental property that has five units. She marked it as four units because there's a tax break if you have a four-unit or less property. And there's not a tax break if you have five. Sorry man. Those on the Right tend to get very excited about this. In a similar way those on the Left get excited about Donald Trump. But it's not an issue where we're taking taxpayer money and distorting policy or doing this in a way… It's a battle of forms and of lawfare. What did you check on a certain box when you submitted that in? And these seem to me like very pedantic, very low-level concerns. Maybe there's small fines and penalties that are involved with it. But overall this doesn't mark the true heart of corruption. The sort of scandals that we want to be concerned about. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of Skelos or Silver that we talked about earlier where we're distorting funds that are for cancer and where those might go or how the treatment of tax appeals work in the state or whether you have to hire a particular assemblyman's son just so you can work in New York. -Those are real issues. -Sure. What you mark on a form that goes to a bank what you submit on tax filings that's fairly low level. It's red meat for tribalistic concerns I think but it's all being duped out. The DOJ is now investigating Latitia James over this issue. The appeal for Donald Trump is ongoing about the business affairs. They're mirror images of the same issue. You think they're similar, they carry the same weight? Yeah which is to say not very much. [chuckles] But they make for good political drama and people really like these stories. 好吧，你得把这个引进来。——这是人们爱你或恨你的地方。——是啊。我将公平地对待双方，因为我认为两者都谈不上特别有趣，而且两者都没有真正触及我们应该关心的真正腐败的核心，但它是一个例子，说明不同阵营如何为不同阵营的参与者而激动，我们高喊腐败，这就是唐纳德·特朗普和莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯（Letitia James）的案子，两者都再次涉及在纽约和联邦法院的诉讼。当然，针对唐纳德·特朗普的诉讼是他为了贷款目的常规地夸大了某些企业实体​​的价值，并为了税务合规目的而低估了它们。所以，至少在早期地方法院层面，他输了，现在正在上诉，他们会解决的。法律专家认为，通常你在估值方面有很大的自由度，他依靠专业会计师和评估师来完成。人们通常在申报税务目的和银行目的方面存在差异，而且每个人都在这样做。如果唐纳德·特朗普有罪，那么纽约的大多数企业主也可能同样有罪。人们对此非常激动，因为唐纳德·特朗普是一个极具争议性的人物，有些人非常讨厌他。而另一些人则非常忠诚地爱他。但问题是，这是否涉及深层的系统性欺诈，我们是否正在利用公共权力或公共资金以某种扭曲的方式来实施公共政策？情况并非如此。这是一场形式之战。你在提交给银行的表格上标记了什么？你在提交给税务机关的表格上标记了什么？现在，这被扭转了，因为莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯，纽约的总检察长，她两次被抓。一次，她有两处房产，并将弗吉尼亚海滩的一处房产标记为她的主要住所。但纽约宪法规定，如果你是公职人员，你必须住在纽约。——你不能住在弗吉尼亚。——好的。同样，她拥有一处有五套公寓的租赁房产。她将其标记为四套公寓，因为四套或以下公寓有税收减免。如果你有五套，就没有税收减免。抱歉，伙计。右翼人士对此往往非常兴奋。同样，左翼人士也对唐纳德·特朗普感到兴奋。但这并不是一个我们动用纳税人资金、扭曲政策或以某种方式这样做的问题……这是一场形式之战和法律战。你在提交某个表格时勾选了什么？在我看来，这些都是非常迂腐、非常低级的问题。也许其中涉及一些小额罚款和处罚。但总的来说，这并不标志着腐败的核心。我们想关心的那种丑闻。它当然不像我们之前谈到的斯克洛斯或西尔弗那样严重，那时我们扭曲了癌症基金的资金，以及这些资金可能去向，或者州里的税务上诉是如何处理的，或者你是否必须雇佣某个议会成员的儿子才能在纽约工作。——这些才是真正的问题。——当然。你在提交给银行的表格上标记了什么，你在提交税务申报时填写的内容，这相当低级。我认为这是为了迎合部落主义的关切，但都被抹掉了。司法部现在正在调查莱蒂西亚·詹姆斯关于这个问题。唐纳德·特朗普关于商业事务的上诉正在进行中。它们是同一问题的镜像。你认为它们相似，它们具有相同的分量吗？是啊，也就是说，分量不大。【忍笑】但它们制造了很好的政治戏剧，人们非常喜欢这些故事。

So we're at the Dinkins building. Former mayor of New York and as you can see on the sign the home of city-wide administrative services. So your bureaucratic nest is right here. I am usually prone not to be too fond of bureaucrats but I'm going to show an element of good faith here and say they did a really good job in looking at abusive spending that happened during COVID and during the recent asylum migrant crisis in New York. City of New York awarded a $482 million contract to a company called DocGo D-O-C-G-O. And this was to provide emergency migrant housing to buy up hotel spaces, hotel rooms and the like. Right at the start of this the Comptroller of New York had concerns because DocGo barely had any business operations or experience and was a new entry. It was politically connected to actors in New York City. And New York decided that it would suspend all the usual rules that we have for competitive bidding and simply award it to somebody who looked good. Well somebody who was connected. Right. Studies that have gone into this show that about 80% of that $482 million, so about half a billion dollars were for unused rooms. Were for hotels just sitting empty with not a single migrant in them. And a whole lot of money that came into DocGo. Similarly there was another organization running an operation. It got a $287 million contract that ballooned to $987 million, almost a billion dollars. And similar findings of suspicious spending unused hotel rooms, a public facade of "We're here to help the migrants and provide asylum resources." When nothing was being delivered. And that was done by actual… and I'll give them credit this time, hardworking bureaucrats in the Dinkins building. -That's great. Do you have any names? Can we do any shout outs? I don't have any particular names. But similar thing happened during the COVID era. They dug into the receipts and they examined the spending that went on and all the unused material and the overbuying of masks, ventilators from politically connected vendors who went through no competitive bidding. So how did this all happen again? We had the 1870s. We had the 1960s and 1970s. We had real reforms. We put real teeth in. We were going to stop this. It was going to be the end of corruption. Well we left a loophole. And what we said in New York was that if there is an emergency well we can put these rules aside. So as soon as government comes together and says emergency then all the competitive bidding all the things that would show transparency for spending go out the door. And what we're left with is people who are politically connected saying I'll put together an LLC. I've got something here. I don't know. It's going to cost half a billion dollars. Does that sound good? Sounds good. Let's go do it. And this is literally what happened with DocGo on the ground. So we're looking at this now. And again New York's doing what New York has done every 70, 100 years or so. It has a reflective eye on it saying okay maybe there are emergencies. But that doesn't mean that you should be able to spend money like a drunken sailor for a year. Let's limit it to maybe a month. That's what they're thinking about now. We'll give you emergency powers for a month. Then you've got to comply with the law. Show us that this is necessary. Show us that it's a truly competitive bid compared to other people et cetera. This is all fairly recent, the revelations. So they may be investigating. There could be grand jury investigations going on for defrauding government. There's plenty of angles that you could use to prosecute this. So that's a stay tuned thing. And one of the criticisms by some commenters from the Chicago video is why are you talking about corruption from so long ago? Well it takes so long for these cases to go through. And so I can't tell you right now about whether or not we're gonna see legal action on DocGo. That's all happening if it is happening behind closed impaneled grand jury doors. And nobody knows anything about that. We might know in two to four years from now the story about DocGo, COVID spending, about the asylum migrant status and all that. What we do know is that at least folks, good governance folks in New York are starting to say "Yeah we can't give that broad of a grant of spending authority just because government says emergency. More problems are going to pop up. Now we have laws in place that say if you abuse the public trust and do these things you lose your New York state pension. That seems common sense. You know it's an interesting city. It offers its own state-funded healthcare system. It has extensive social spending that many cities in America don't have. But then they also have a pretty good policing unit on top of it tracking down that money and making sure it's not spent in massively corrupt ways. Unlike Chicago when we walked through it and I talked about a city charter that has no definitions of what's wrong. Yeah. And councilmen that had unlimited power. They're on the right track. So I'm optimistic. 我们现在来到了邓金斯大楼（Dinkins building）。纽约前市长，正如你们在标志上看到的，这里是全市行政服务中心。所以你的官僚主义巢穴就在这里。我通常不太喜欢官僚，但我会表现出一点善意，并说他们在审查COVID期间以及最近纽约的庇护所移民危机期间发生的滥用支出方面做得很好。纽约市向一家名为DocGo的公司授予了一份4.82亿美元的合同。这是为了提供紧急移民住房，购买酒店空间、酒店房间等。就在这时，纽约审计长就产生了担忧，因为DocGo几乎没有任何业务运营或经验，而且是新进入者。它与纽约的政界人士有政治联系。纽约决定暂停所有通常的竞争性招标规则，而只是授予一个看起来不错的公司。嗯，一个有关系的人。对。对这方面的研究表明，这4.82亿美元中约有80%，也就是约5亿美元，是用于未使用的房间。是用于酒店空置，没有一个移民入住。大量的钱进入了DocGo。同样，还有另一个组织在运营。它获得了一份2.87亿美元的合同，后来膨胀到9.87亿美元，接近10亿美元。并且有类似的发现，即支出可疑，酒店房间未被使用，一种公开的姿态是“我们在这里帮助移民并提供庇护资源”。但什么都没有被交付。而这正是由……这次我要赞扬他们，邓金斯大楼里辛勤工作的官僚们完成的。——太好了。你有什么名字吗？能点名表扬一下吗？我没有具体的名字。但COVID期间也发生了类似的事情。他们深入研究了收据，检查了支出情况，以及所有未使用的材料，以及从没有经过竞争性招标的政治关联供应商那里过度购买口罩、呼吸机。那么这一切又是如何发生的呢？我们有19世纪70年代。我们有20世纪60年代和70年代。我们进行了真正的改革。我们增加了牙齿。我们要阻止它。这将是腐败的终结。好吧，我们留下了一个漏洞。我们在纽约所说的是，如果发生紧急情况，我们可以将这些规则放在一边。所以，一旦政府联合起来说“紧急情况”，那么所有的竞争性招标，所有那些会显示支出透明度的东西都消失了。我们剩下的是那些有政治关系的人说，我将成立一个有限责任公司。我这里有些东西。我不知道。这要花费五亿美元。听起来不错吧？听起来不错。让我们去吧。这就是DocGo在实际情况中发生的事情。所以我们现在正在审视这一点。纽约又在做它每70年、100年左右做的事情。它会反思说，好吧，也许有紧急情况。但这并不意味着你可以一年像个酒鬼一样花钱。我们将其限制在一个月左右。这就是他们现在正在考虑的。我们将给你一个月的紧急权力。然后你必须遵守法律。向我们证明这是必要的。向我们证明这是真正具有竞争力的投标，与其他供应商相比，等等。这些都是相当近期的发现。所以他们可能正在调查。可能会有大陪审团调查欺诈政府。你可以利用很多角度来起诉这件事。所以这是一个“敬请关注”的事情。芝加哥视频的一些评论者提出的批评之一是，为什么你谈论这么久以前的腐败？因为这些案件需要很长时间才能走完。所以我现在无法告诉你，我们是否会看到针对DocGo的法律行动。这一切如果正在发生，都是在封闭的大陪审团门后进行的。没有人知道。我们可能会在两到四年后知道DocGo、COVID支出、庇护所移民状况等等的故事。我们所知道的是，至少那些人，纽约的善治人士，开始说“是的，我们不能因为政府说紧急情况就给予如此广泛的支出权力。更多的问题将会出现。现在我们有法律规定，如果你滥用公众信任并做这些事情，你就会失去你的纽约州养老金。这似乎是常识。你知道这是一个有趣的城市。它提供了自己的州政府资助的医疗保健系统。它有大量的社会支出，而美国许多城市都没有。但他们也有相当不错的警务部门，负责追踪这些钱，确保它们不会被大规模腐败地花费。不像芝加哥，当我们走过它时，我谈到了一个城市章程，它没有对什么是错误的定义。是的。而且市议员拥有无限的权力。他们走在正确的轨道上。所以我很乐观。

That's good to hear. Because I didn't think that was going to be the story today. Yeah. I thought it was going to be more like Chicago. So this actually had a little bit of an optimistic flair to it. Yeah. As long as you can appreciate that a lot of people want a magic solution that's going to stop corruption and it's gone and we don't have to think about it. Sure. If you can go back to Roman times going forward you can follow every Western city state. As long as there's been humans around. Yeah. There's charlatans, thieves, and folks who are purloining the public purse. And we just gotta stay on top of it and keep hammering it. Some cities like New York are really great at doing that. That's great to hear. -Other cities like Chicago. Yeah. -I learned a lot. And guys I want you to know Benjamin has an excellent channel about all sorts of law related First Amendment related topics. Is that how you classify it? Yeah. Constitutional law. Constitutional law. And the most recent video was about gerrymandering. -Yeah. -But all sorts of interesting topics. Benjamin goes into the details extremely well. Very thorough. Check it out down below in the link here. Thanks for coming along on that journey. Until the next one. 听到这个很好。因为我没想到今天会是这个故事。是啊。我以为会更像芝加哥。所以这实际上带有一点乐观的色彩。是啊。只要你能理解，很多人想要一个神奇的解决方案来阻止腐败，让它消失，我们就不必再考虑它了。当然。如果你能追溯到罗马时代，你可以追溯到每一个西方城邦。只要人类存在。是啊。有骗子、小偷和那些侵吞公款的人。我们只需要保持警惕，并不断地努力。像纽约这样的城市在这方面做得非常好。听到这个很好。——像芝加哥这样的其他城市。是啊。——我学到了很多。各位，我想让你们知道，本杰明有一个非常棒的频道，讨论各种与法律、第一修正案相关的课题。你是这样分类的吗？是啊。宪法。宪法。最近的视频是关于杰利蝾螈（gerrymandering）的。——是啊。——但各种有趣的话题。本杰明对细节的深入研究非常出色。非常透彻。在下面的链接中查看。感谢你一路同行。下次再见。