This chart is basically a loaded gun that just went off. Every hedge fund, pension, and bank that borrowed in yen for 30 years is now sitting at their desk praying this line stops moving. The “Yen carry trade” was a surefire way to game the markets, until it wasn’t.

The Myth of “Subsidized New York”: Small Town MAGA Politics Meets Economic Reality

For years now, many small town Trump supporters across America have painted New York City as some kind of parasitic socialist wasteland draining resources from “real America.” It has become one of the most repeated talking points in modern right wing political culture. The problem is that the numbers tell the exact opposite story.

New York City is not draining New York State. New York City is funding it.

That is the elephant in the room nobody in MAGA media wants to discuss.

According to a 2025 joint study by the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance and the Center for New York City Affairs, New York City taxpayers contributed roughly 54.5 percent of all New York State revenues during the 2021–2022 fiscal year. That amounts to approximately $68.8 billion flowing into state coffers.

One city. More than half the state’s revenue.

To put that into perspective, New York City contains about 43 percent of the state’s population, yet generates well over half of its tax revenue. Wall Street, corporate headquarters, financial services, tourism, media, technology, shipping, international trade, and some of the highest concentrations of wealth on Earth are all located there.

Many of the same people screaming that New York City is “destroying the state” are often living in regions heavily subsidized by the tax base generated by New York City itself.

That is not an opinion. That is how state revenue redistribution works.

Rural infrastructure, highways, schools, hospitals, agricultural programs, emergency services, and countless municipal budgets throughout upstate New York are supported through a tax system overwhelmingly powered by New York City’s economic engine.

Ironically, when New Yorkers advocate for higher wages, expanded childcare, affordable housing, public transit investment, or stronger social safety nets, critics often frame it as “taking other people’s money.” In reality, a massive portion of that money originated from New York City taxpayers in the first place.

It is their own money coming back to them.

The deeper issue here is not economics. It is political mythology.

Modern populist politics increasingly depends on convincing struggling working class people that large urban centres are their enemy, while billionaires, hedge fund managers, and multinational corporations quietly continue extracting historic levels of wealth from both urban and rural communities alike.

The culture war distracts from the class war.

A laid off factory worker in rural America has far more in common economically with a transit worker in Brooklyn than either has with a billionaire donor flying between Manhattan penthouses and private golf resorts.

But division is profitable.

As long as rural voters are encouraged to blame immigrants, cities, LGBTQ communities, universities, journalists, or “socialists” for economic decline, the real architects of wealth concentration remain protected from scrutiny.

New York City is imperfect. Like every major global city, it struggles with inequality, housing costs, crime, and political dysfunction. But economically, it remains one of the most productive urban centres on the planet and one of the single largest tax generators in North America.

The next time someone from a small town starts hollering about New York City “living off the system,” they may want to ask themselves who is actually paying the bills.

By GC

Sources:

CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance
Center for New York City Affairs
New York State FY 2021–2022 Revenue Data
New York State Comptroller Reports

Heckova job, “Zimbabwe Ben” Bernanke, Yellen the Felon, & BlackRock Jay!

Sometimes it seems like Americans here, don't even try to present a reasonable argument with facts. These people read something on some Libertarian image board and here they come spreading horse shit.

1. We have a great range of wages for doctors depending on the country from as low as 35K for a Romanian doctor to as high as 350K for a Swiss doctor. Since we don't force medical students into lifelong debt, they don't charge as much.

American doctors end their studies and start their careers with $300,000 in debts. Here they pay the $3,000 tuition and in half the cases unless they're from a wealthy family nothing. Anyone can become a doctor in Europe if they have the brains and affinity.

2. Americans do pay their doctors more and yet we in Europe live longer.

🇺🇸 United States

Average Doctor Wage: $386,000

Average Life Expectancy: 79.2 years

🇪🇺 European Union

Average Doctor Wage: $118,000

Average Life Expectancy: 81.5 years

Europe has plenty of issues. Our insulin however is 7$ a vial not $300. A Tylenol at the hospital here is $0,00. Because our hospitals can't get away with charging $500 for a $0.07 pill. A stitch is free. If you have any actual medical issues, the ambulance ride is free. If you don't it is usually still free.

3. American Pharma is superior , yet it barely benefits Americans. You guys have more advanced meds, yet you can rarely access them because they're overpriced.

When a new medicine comes out, Americans with premium healthcare or great personal wealth will be able to get it within 6-12 months. NOT the average American.

If the medicine is found to have greater efficacy than existing medicine, Europeans will have gain access to the medicine. AVERAGE Europeans. After the National government negotiates with the Pharma company, which takes ~3 years, less if it is a critical medicine.

4. The purpose is to heal people.

If I wake up with lung cancer tomorrow, I'll pay €385/$447 out of pocket. That's my deductible. If my cancer treatment is $100,000 that's fine. It's the reason I have been paying my €155/$175 insurance every month, my whole adult life to insure myself against undesirable health outcomes.

If an insured American wakes up with lung cancer, he'll have to pay ~$35,000 - $50,000 over a couple years, while they can't actually perform the labour they need to recoup those same costs, because they have fucking cancer.

If an uninsured American wakes up with lung cancer... well the greatest country on Earth, predicated upon Christian values has decided that the uninsured aren't human. They must pay $150,000 - $500,000 to treat them.

So YES, the European medical tradition and the systems European countries have built around it, IS SUPERIOR to America. I pay $175 each month.

The raw cost for a hospital to treat cancer is about $50,000 in total through all the stages. In my lifetime I will pay my basic package of $175 from 18 to 81.5 = 63.5 years. 63.5*12*175 = $133,350

Me and every other European would still pay for that cancer treatment, it isn't free. However my cost would be much closer to the actual raw costs of material, equipment, doctors, I also won't notice because I have been paying the monthly every month for 12 years now.

I don't have to die or beg on GoFundMe. I just pay insurance every month all my life. Then when I do get sick, I will use the insurance to fix the subject matter of the insurance aka my body. If I never get cancer, I'll still pay, but instead it would be for my neighbors treatment, if he ever gets cancer. Someone somewhere in this country will get cancer this week and my $175 will help make them better.

Please tell me all about the superiority of the country where they charge you $3321 for a fucking stitch.