Last Week, Kathy Hochul Told the New York Rich They're Unwelcome

Kathy Hochul, Governor of New York, is a political hack. Always has been. As a student at Syracuse, she was a very left-leaning political activist, organizing boycotts, lecturing the administration on how to invest its money, even demanding that Syracuse rename its football stadium. Snore!

Since her days of being an insufferable, yapping liberal college student, she has spent her entire career in government politics and influence peddling, sucking up to all the unhinged know-nothings in New York State. She has never even run a lemonade stand, but last week she did something extraordinary for its giant-sized hubris. She told a score of wealthy businessmen that they and their tens of billions of dollars of capital are not welcome in New York. In a sweeping executive order, she declared a moratorium on practically all new data centers in New York State. There is no "end date" to her moratorium, and we all know what that means in progressive politics. It's a ban; a ban is a ban. Talented New Yorkers—the ones with brains, "go get 'em” know-how, and plenty of money—are leaving New York in droves, and Kathy baby is giving them a going-away present, rationalizing their decisions to move.

This is a classic case of Chicken Little-ism, and I'll go ahead and say it because I've seen it so many times: toxic femininity, which is the inability to think beyond emotion and feel-good-isms.

Data centers are necessary for the AI revolution. They consume a lot of electricity, and they need adequate water supplies for their cooling systems. Yet the economic benefits vastly outweigh the costs of these resources, and indeed, the use of these resources makes for a better natural environment. The shrill shrews and their skinny-jeans male counterparts do not have the multi-level thinking capacity to comprehend these issues. Before their brains can evaluate benefits, their cognitive circuitry goes haywire, sparks fly, and the henhouse is burned down. Emotion drowns out rational thought.

I've been involved in several high-profile real estate zoning cases where NIMBY emotion cannot be assuaged by mountains of rational thought. There are the Luddites who hate all progress, the environmental crazies, and the virtue signalers who'd rather tell folks what to do with their own property than spend their time dieting and losing 100 pounds. I once was called a religious fanatic by a NIMBY girly-man because I stated at a public hearing that the Book of Genesis calls man to be a steward of the earth's assets, and not to be feral creatures with no dominion over the earth's bounty. Every positive element of modern civilization was created by utilizing man's genius to harvest the earth's resources for the benefit of mankind. Such progress is synonymous with productivity, a term not fully understood by many economists because the "bean-counting" industry finds it hard to measure things that often can't be seen. Ingenuity and capital combine to create civilizational advancements, higher living standards, greater comfort, and more leisure.

The rap on data centers is they use great amounts of electricity and water. The Malthusian argument thus becomes: we must ban data centers instead of just increasing energy supplies, say through nuclear energy. What's not seen is AI will be used to conserve electricity on virtually every meter in the U.S., not to mention create enormous efficiencies in energy industries. Water? The earth is 71% water. In the past gazillion years, it has stayed at 71%; no one is using it up. All over the world, man has exercised his dominion over water by building lakes, retention ponds, and millions of other methods to trap it and use it effectively. AI engineering will improve these systems. The Chicken Little-ists often cackle about construction projects that have, to them at least, scary names. "Pipeline" is one such word that causes them to cluck apoplectically. They are against any project that is a "pipeline," not realizing that there are oil and gas pipelines under their feet at almost all times. They knoweth not what they speaketh of. New data centers use recycled water, closed-loop, and air-cooling systems that dramatically reduce the need for water use. Environmental screeching, aka eco-fascism, is usually just a subterfuge for the Luddites, the crazies, and the virtue signalers to do the "chicken strut" around the barnyard.

Yet, with most advancements that scare the "sky is falling" crowd, there exists the inability to recognize the tremendous societal benefits from increased productivity. Like Adam Smith's invisible hand, it exists but can't be measured through any traditional quantitative means. The blind squirrels of progressivism never find their nut, but neither do many economists fixated on quantifying shiny objects with no regard for what they can't see: the invisible ether of productivity enhancement rolling through the countryside, creating wealth and opportunities in its wake.

AI works like every other technological improvement in history. Creative destruction. Both human and financial capital flow to where they can be most productive. When the ditch digger is replaced by the backhoe, the ditch digger's labors flow to where he can serve the economy by doing something productive. The contractor using the backhoe has more money to invest in the economy; competition and technological innovation drive prices down, and the ditch digger's standard of living goes up. AI is going to reduce the need for many smart people—lawyers (yay!), accountants, doctors, researchers, etc. Virtually no industry will be untouched, but this frees up this immense human capital to find new ways to serve society’s interests.  Man is wired to work, create, innovate, and better himself.

Hochul laid an egg with her executive order. Indeed, it was a "fowl" act.