Apparently, even the most rabid left-wing politicians can draw reality checks from The New York Times when their radical agendas end up leaving their economies in the lurch. Times reporters Dana Rubinstein, Sally Goldenberg, Jeffery C. Mays, and Emma Goldberg ripped communist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on May 29, albeit with some tempered language: “Among Mamdani’s Priorities, Economic Development Seems Low on the List.” “Low on the list” is a funny way of saying the economy isn’t really a priority at all. They specifically called out Mamdani for leaving the top leadership role for the city’s Economic Development Corporation vacant, “deepening concern over his attention to the New York City economy.” Wow, who could have seen that coming? As Mamdani fills his ranks with dedicated socialists, wrote The Times authors, the EDC remains “rudderless,” as its intended mission is to “leverage city real estate and tax incentives to attract private capital and drive job growth across the five boroughs.” When your entire agenda is buoyed by fiscally derelict policies in one of the most highly taxed cities in the U.S., it’s easy to see why economic growth isn’t exactly being set up for a boom. To even lose the support of a leftist newspaper that was once willing to gaslight readers to protect Mamdani’s reluctance to condemn terrorist group Hamas over basic economics takes some insane levels of ineptitude: The uncertainty surrounding the E.D.C.’s leadership and direction has fed the notion, widespread among business leaders and moderate Democratic politicians, that Mr. Mamdani is insufficiently attuned to the health of New York City’s economy, and that his inattention potentially comes at his, and the city’s, peril. It’s still incredible they chose this hill to make its stand on for economic sense, even though anyone not blinded by extreme ideology could see Mamdani’s multibillion-dollar “freebie” agenda was a load of hogwash. His proposed $127 billion budget is being bolstered largely by massive tax hikes, which initially included a 9.5 percent property tax increase (and subsequently scrapped after massive opposition). Liberal CNN host Fareed Zakaria analyzed in February that NYC had already been “fiscally profligate” for so long, and Mamdani’s latest scheme was “similar to the annual expenditures of a mid-sized nation” like Greece or Thailand.  Apparently, none of that signaled further danger to The Times. In fact, it’s rich for them to complain about “economic development” as it then justified Mamdani’s equally asinine proposal to impose rent controls based on the musings of liberal firm Moody’s Analytics. “N.Y.C. Rent Freeze Wouldn’t Spell Doom for Most Landlords, Report Says,” read the June 3 headline by Times reporter Mihir Zaveri. But the four aforementioned Times reporters just played dumb: “It also raises larger and more fundamental questions: What kind of economic policy does the mayor want to embrace?” Here, let us help: it’s called communism, as AMAC concluded in a June 2 analysis:  As a whole, Mamdani’s housing policy creates a coordinated squeeze on private property. First, he freezes the rent, capping how much property owners can make. Then, he imposes expensive and complicated new requirements which landlords can’t afford because of the rent freeze. Finally, Mamdani’s army of lawyers and bureaucrats issue a flood of code violations in order to confiscate the buildings outright. It is reasonable to suggest no serious economist worth his salt would even dare say such an agenda copied and pasted straight out of Karl Marx’s playbook has anything to do with “economic development.” The Times may be missing the forest for the trees here, but at least they’ve picked up somewhat of a scent, but don’t expect that to last.