Mamdanis business czar targets justice instead and NYC stagnation looms

New York City’s Economic Development Corporation has been a prime mover in promoting citywide prosperity and growth for 35 years.But under the thumb of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, we might need to call it the Economic Stagnation Corporation instead.That’s the takeaway from a speech by Anthony Shorris, Mamdani’s recently appointed EDC president and CEO.Shorris’ under-the-radar keynote, delivered at City & State’s Sept.17 “Economic and Workforce Development Summit,” means we should be afraid, very afraid, of the role he envisions for the agency.The former deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio joined an administration whose hostility toward business enterprise is palpable.As The Post reported this week, Mamdani’s “influencer” minions are plotting a smear campaign against the city’s top business leaders — apparently expanding on the mayor’s infamous tirade against Citadel founder Ken Griffin for owning a $238 million condo.Never mind that Griffin’s companies employ thousands of New Yorkers, who paid over $2.3 billion in city and state taxes over the last five years.In his speech, Shorris didn’t acknowledge the capitalists who make the city’s big spending possible.But he charmingly referred to EDC board chairman Lina Khan — the anti-business crusader who headed Joe Biden’s overreaching Federal Trade Commission — as “my partner in crime.”Maybe it was a joke.Yet in the rest of his remarks, the man entrusted with the indispensable, herculean task of promoting citywide business growth sure sounded like he’s swallowed Mandani’s socialistic Kool-Aid.A crucial EDC mission entails creating the job-generating conditions that enable poorer citizens to enter the middle class.Its role is not to shower citizens with government handouts that encourage them to remain poor.Yet Shorris, parroting the rhetoric of Mamdani and his true believers, repeatedly referenced “inclusion” and “economic justice” as EDC goals.Government, he said, s...