Drew Warshaw frames the "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) phenomenon as a rational, if selfish, economic decision. Incumbent homeowners are incentivized to restrict new housing supply because basic economics suggest that increasing supply could decrease the value of their primary asset: their home.
Public pensions may invest in private assets not only for potential outperformance but to avoid the daily mark-to-market volatility of public markets. This 'volatility washing' creates an illusion of stability that may not reflect the true economic risks of the underlying assets, serving as a poor reason to invest.
Beyond zoning debates, the complexity and outdated requirements of building codes massively inflate construction costs. Drew Warshaw proposes a novel approach: auditing the building code itself to create a streamlined, model version that could strip 15% from project costs, making it a powerful tool for affordability.
When a public pension fund underperforms its benchmarks, the state is legally required to make up the shortfall. Candidate Drew Warshaw argues this funding comes directly from taxpayers through higher property and state income taxes, effectively creating a hidden tax to subsidize poor investment management.
Instead of only auditing agencies that spend money, a more impactful strategy is to audit the regulators overseeing entire industries like insurance and utilities. Drew Warshaw suggests this meta-audit can uncover systemic failures in how monopolies and critical services are managed for the public interest.
The New York State Unclaimed Fund holds $20 billion of citizens' money—a figure that has nearly tripled in 18 years. Candidate Drew Warshaw frames this growth not as a large asset, but as a key performance indicator of the comptroller's failure to proactively return money to its rightful owners.
The NY Pension Fund pays hundreds of different managers to actively invest. Candidate Drew Warshaw argues this level of diversification is self-defeating, as it effectively recreates the market index but with massive fees and a worse tracking error, resulting in significant underperformance compared to simple, low-cost index funds.
Unlike most large funds, NY's pension is managed by one person without a board. While a board seems like an obvious solution, candidate Drew Warshaw cautions that politically appointed boards can diffuse accountability rather than improve it, creating a different set of governance problems.