Roberts Samtins

Šis ir ļoti nopietni. Mēs, protams, esam ļoti piedodoša tauta, kurai patīk ciest, drusku tad paklusēt par izturētām ciešanām, nolikt bēdu zem akmeņa un iet tālāk. Ir drusku šermulītis šo skatīties, ne? Tur jau ir sava iela. Lūdzās arī blakus sētās. Tas tepat Purvciemā, netālu no Mēbeļu nama un McDonalda. Kāds plāns tur augšā sēdošiem par šo? Lūgums atbildēt - bez “tā nav mūsu atbildība, tur atbildīga cita vara, vai izpildvara, lēmējvara, gribasvara utt, ” - bez vārda “Demokrātija” lietošanas. - bez darba grupām. - bez Satversmes 99.panta piesaukšanas.

“SIF” ir audzējs, kurš jāizgriež…

Cik, lūdzu, tas beigās izmaksās? Ne mirkli neaizstāvot nodarījumu, vai 42! eiro ziedojumam visa abrāža apkārt nebūs tā kā neadekvāti liela?

Norway consistently wins the most medals at the Winter Olympic Games, with a population of just 5.6 million people. A big part of their success is how they treat youth sports—and it’s the opposite of what we do in the US. Here’s what we can learn from Norway: 1. Scorekeeping: In the US: Youth sports tend to be hyper competitive even at early ages. Leagues almost always keep score. In Norway: Scorekeeping isn’t even allowed until age 13. Removing winners and losers keeps the focus on the process not outcomes. It keeps kids engaged longer because it minimizes pressure (and tears) and maximizes fun, learning, and growth. The goal isn’t to win a third grade championship. It’s to love sport and keep playing. 2. Trophies: In the US: If you give everyone a trophy, you’re creating snowflakes who will never gain a competitive edge. In Norway: Whenever trophies are awarded, they are handed out to everyone. If getting a trophy makes young kids feel good, we should give them trophies. Maybe they’ll come back and play again next year!! As for the creation of snowflakes with no competitive edge—Norway’s athletes are tough as nails and all they do is win. 3. Prioritizing Fun: In the US: Far too often, the goal is to win. In Norway: The national philosophy is “joy of sport.” Youth sports in the US are driven by adults, ego, and money. Youth sports in Norway are driven by fun. Only half of kids in the US participate in sports. The number one reason they drop out: because they aren’t having fun anymore. In Norway, 93% of kids participate in youth sports. Fun is the foremost goal. 4. Playing Multiple Sports: In the US: There’s pressure to specialize early and play your best sport year round. In Norway: Try as many sports as you can before specializing as late as college. Norway encourages kids to try all types of sport. This reduces injury and burnout and increases all-around athleticism. It also helps promotes match quality, or finding the sport you are best suited for as your body develops, which is impossible if you commit to a single sport too early. 5. Affordability In the US: There is increasingly a pay-to-play model with high fees for leagues, equipment, and travel. This excludes many kids from playing. In Norway: It’s a national priority to keep youth sports affordable and therefore accessible for all. Kids aren’t priced out, which creates opportunities for everyone to participate (and develop into athletes), regardless of their parents’ income level. We could learn a lot from Norway: In the US, 70% of kids drop out of youth sports by age 13. This not only diminishes an elite-athlete pipeline, but it also destroys an opportunity for healthy habits and all the character lessons kids can learn from sport. In Norway, lifelong participation in sport is the norm. The goal isn’t to have the best 9U team. It’s to develop the best athletes. Those are two very different things. And Norway has the gold medals to prove it.

Who Will Build NYC if Builders Are the Enemy? As a New Yorker Jew, I'm surrounded by people who have been in real estate their entire lives. I am not trying to feed a stereotype, but that's my reality. They aren't activists or online commentators. They are people who bought their first buildings with all their savings, carried debt through rate hikes, fixed things themselves when there was no money to hire, and stayed in New York through high crime, recessions, 2008, COVID, rising taxes, insurance increases, and an ever-expanding book of laws and codes. None of them were promised fairness before they started, and none of them were protected from risk. They succeeded very slowly, and painfully, but with responsibly. That experience is exactly what is missing from the worldview of Zohran Mamdani, and it shows in every part of his housing agenda. Mamdani has never built anything. He never signed a personal guarantee, never met payroll, never carried a mortgage through a rough month, never had to choose between fixing a boiler now or hoping it survives another winter because there is no cash. He has only operated in a political world where consequences are abstract and other people absorb the risk. When you have never operated in the real economy, it becomes easy to believe that shortcuts are solutions. It is also why his message resonates with a certain type of voter. The people demanding “housing reforms” are not bad people. They are frustrated renters who feel like the system is rigged against them. I understand the frustration. But frustration doesn't change math. Housing is hard. Ownership is a very slow process. Building anything meaningful in this city takes years of stress, and debt. The people calling for "landlord policies" often want the outcome without the grind, the stability without the risk, and the reward without the years of sweating that every responsible adult who succeeded here had to endure. But it does not work like that. NYC is in housing crisis. Citywide vacancy sits around 1.4 percent, a level economists consider an emergency. Median rents keep rising anyway, with Manhattan near $4,800 and Brooklyn around $3,800, even under an already thick layer of regulation. The reason is obvious. Supply has not kept up. In a good year, New York adds roughly 30,000 units. The city needs hundreds of thousands more over the next decade just to stabilize prices. At the same time, construction costs here are among the highest in the country, financing is extremely difficult, and insurance is wildly expensive Mamdani’s proposals take that fragile situation and make it worse. When you cap upside while leaving downside unlimited, rational people stop participating. Developers do not argue on X. Lenders do not protest. They simply reallocate. Projects stop coming up. Renovations are postponed. New construction dies before a shovel hits the ground. The people I know in real estate are not angry. They are disengaging. Some are buying elsewhere. Some are sitting on cash. Some are done entirely. And when that happens, tenants do not win. Buildings deteriorate, supply tightens further, and rents rise anyway. What Mamdani offers is emotional satisfaction, not solutions. He tells voters that prices are high because someone else is greedy, not because the city has spent decades making housing harder and almost impossible to build. He frames landlords as villains instead of participants in an ecosystem that only works when incentives align. That framing feels good, but it does not produce housing. It produces resentment, fear, and withdrawal. Everyone I know who made it in this city did it the same way. Slowly, without shortcuts. Policies written by people who never did that do not create fairness or affordability. They create shortages. NYC doesn't have a landlord problem. It has a confidence problem. And a city that teaches people to hate the builders while demanding more building is a city sabotaging its own future.