“There is one simple answer to why housing costs rise faster than inflation and incomes — restricted supply mated with subsidized demand. In many locales the supply of housing is restricted by the government (rent control, growth limits, expensive and time-consuming permitting, etc) and in every part of the country housing is subsidized by the government (mortgage loan guarantees, tax deductibility of mortgage interest, section 8 housing vouchers, etc). The net result HAS to be rising rents and home prices. I bring this up because we are in the insane situation that both the Left and Right are proposing to attack housing affordability by …. subsidizing demand and restricting supply.” (11/17/25)
“I was duped into thinking President Donald Trump was considering advocating for 15-year car loans, but when put into context it’s hard to blame me. A fake image of a White House statement circulated social media last week saying that Trump had tasked Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick with making ‘vehicle ownership for all a reality by introducing 15 year car loans!’ … I was one of many people to fall for it. Big if true, as they say. Of course it wasn’t, but it’s hard to tell these days. After all, the fake 15-year auto loan news came right on the heels of real announcements that Trump was considering 50-year mortgages and a $2,000 tariff refund (which he called a dividend). All of these ideas are ridiculous.” (11/17/25)
“Republicans, for once, are sounding downright squeamish about onrushing massive cuts to Obamacare subsidies, with premiums on the exchanges expected to more than double on average starting next year. GOP House committee chairs are reportedly having some ‘brainstorming sessions’ about what to do, and House Speaker Mike Johnson claims that they ‘will be rolling out some of those ideas’ at some point. So far, the genius idea in the lead is Trump’s pitch to reroute subsidies from health insurance companies to the American people, so they can buy health care. … Congratulations, folks, you now get to be your own private dealmaker with the health care system, and with your purchasing power and risk pool of one household, I’m sure you’ll get the best price!” (11/18/25)
“Aweekend NYT op-ed by Neale Mahoney and Bharat Ramamurti has caused a stir. It argues that policymakers should be open to considering price controls, given voters’ discontent about the cost of living. Price controls, the authors say, are a ‘tool’ to be used carefully. The key is to ‘design’ them to avoid the classic long-term consequences of ‘less investment’ in supply, but keep the benefits of providing ‘immediate relief’ to customers through lower prices. … Would ‘immediate relief’ via price controls really prove temporary as new supply is brought onboard? Mahoney-Ramamurti provide no historical or contemporary examples of such a bundle.” (11/17/25)
“Critics of low-skilled immigration usually lament their effect on low-skilled natives. Once in a while, however, the critics bemoan the effect of low-skilled immigrants on robots. Without low-skilled immigrants, there would be a much stronger incentive to mechanize agriculture, deliveries, driving, gardening, and beyond. Indeed, without low-skilled immigrants, we should expect much faster innovation for a vast range of labor-saving technologies. As J.D. Vance explained earlier this year: ‘[C]heap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it’s a crutch that inhibits innovation.’ … The argument is correct — and deeply misleading. It’s a technophile’s variant on the classic Broken Window Fallacy.” (11/17/25)
“Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington is a disgrace, and it is outrageous that he will likely leave with new U.S. pledges of support and more arms deals. The crown prince is a war criminal and a murderer in addtion to being an increasingly repressive despot. He is the de facto leader of one of the world’s worst governments, and he ought to be treated like a pariah. Welcoming him to the White House is an affront to American interests and basic human decency. Trump defined his first term with his abject servility to Saudi and Emirati interests. It seems that he wants to outdo himself in the second term.” (11/17/25)
“President Trump began his second term with a trade war, and the sentiment among US workers has been anything but great. Last week, however, the president surprised his cabinet and introduced a new idea: sending out a $2,000 ‘dividend’ check to Americans. Using revenue from the trade war, Trump is proposing the influx of money be put into people’s pockets as well as ‘lower our debt.’ What’s old is new. This isn’t the first time the president has floated sending out checks, and the idea faces countless hurdles were it ever to become law. However, one thing remains certain: sending out tariff rebates does not provide a long-term solution for families, but ending the trade war would.” (11/16/25)
“Born on November 16, 1938 in Brooklyn, Robert Nozick began his intellectual life as a young socialist but ended it as one of the twentieth century’s fiercest defenders of property rights and limited government. Raised in a Jewish immigrant household, he joined Norman Thomas’s Socialist Party youth wing and helped organize the Student League for Industrial Democracy, yet his curiosity soon led him beyond doctrinaire leftism. While studying at Columbia and later Princeton, he encountered thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Ayn Rand, whose arguments for self‑ownership and free markets challenged his egalitarian assumptions. In the preface to his most famous book, he recalled that a long conversation with Rothbard ‘stimulated my interest in individualist anarchist theory’ and began a process that changed his mind.” (11/17/25)
“By now, the U.S. Supreme Court surely must see that it made a horrendous mistake last year when it ruled that presidents are above the law. The court’s conservative majority should admit its error and fix it. Their decision in Trump v. United States was naïve at best. More likely, the court bought into the right wing’s confusion about the difference between a unitary president and a dictator. Either way, the ruling put the Constitution and the rule of law into the hands of a president who willfully abuses both. It was an especially reckless act when President Trump was seeking the presidency again. … he was clearly running for office to escape trials and jail time for dozens of additional alleged crimes. Trump ran on a platform of personal retribution rather than public service. Once in office, he wasted no time proving how ill-advised the court’s decision was.” (11/17/25)
