Build Less, Pay More: Another Study Shows The Price of Housing Regulations

There was a time when buying a home with a white-picket fence was a staple of the American Dream. The home was a symbol of stability, independence, and upward mobility. At least in the middle twentieth century, one could buy a modest home with a single income. That started changing in the 1970s when the coastal cities became less affordable and Americans started gravitating more towards such Sunbelt metropolitan areas as Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami. 

Unfortunately, affording homes in these Sunbelt metropolitan areas is becoming more elusive with skyrocketing housing costs and housing stock decreased (see above). A new National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper from leading economists at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania provides an answer (Glaeser and Gyourko, 2025). From the abstract of the paper:

If the U.S. housing sock had expanded at the same rate from 2000-2020 as it did from 1980-2000, there would be 15 million more housing units...New housing growth rates have decreased and converged across these and many other metros, and prices have risen most where new supply has fallen the most. A model illustrates that structural estimation of long-term supply elasticity is difficult because variables that make places more attractive are likely to change neighborhood composition, which itself is likely other influence permitting. Our framework also suggests that as barriers to building become more important and heterogeneous across place, the positive connection between building and home prices and the negative connection between building and density will both attenuate. 

It is not a lack of land because Sunbelt metropolitan areas have plenty of land. What these economists found is that the major culprits for increasing housing costs in the Sunbelt area are zoning laws and other land-use regulations. This is basic supply and demand. When demand for housing increases, whether because of population growth, job opportunities, or migration, and supply does not grow at the same rate, prices are bound to increase. 

To give you some examples of these regulations. Zoning laws restrict what can be built and where, which constricts supply. Height restrictions and density caps further constrain supply by limiting the number of people that can live on a given parcel of land. Lengthy permitting processes and environmental reviews create delays and uncertainty for builders, which also limit the number of houses built. When all these housing regulations are combined, they create an artificial scarcity of housing. 

This both plays out in economic theory and in practice. This new NBER study is hardly the first study to come to this conclusion. Back in 2017, I illustrated how deregulating the housing market and removing these regulations would boost housing supply. Here is some other research since 2017 illustrating this point:

• In April 2025, the Bush Center estimated in its counterfactual analysis that such pro-growth housing policies as lax zoning laws, reducing minimum lot sizes, and eliminating parking requirements for apartments implemented throughout the country would have lowered housing prices by $115,000 and monthly rent by $450 per month.
• Another NBER paper shows how municipalities with stricter land-use regulations have particularly small and unproductive construction firms (D'Amico et al., 2024).
• The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) wrote a paper about light-touch density (LTD), which is a zoning strategy that incrementally allows for more diverse housing types within existing single-family zones. AEI researchers calculated that LTD could create an average of 930,000 additional housing units per annum over the next 30 to 40 years (Pinto and Peter, 2023).
• The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy reports on how minimum parking requirements contribute to increased construction costs and limit housing availability. 
• A study from the Mercatus Center shows that build-to-rent housing bans further constricts housing supply (Furth, 2022).
• The Bipartisan Policy Center released this explainer in 2022 illustrating how housing regulations impact housing supply. 

Expensive housing in the United States is no longer an outlier on the east coast or in California. Housing has become less affordable because zoning laws and land-use regulations that have constricted housing supply, thereby increasing housing prices. The housing crisis in the United States is clearly a supply-side issue caused by government regulations. Whether local jurisdictions realize the damage of these regulations and reverse them remains to be seen. What we do know as long as they remain intact, Americans will continue to pay through the nose for housing.

San Francisco's "Equity Grading" Is an Example of Why Schools Need to Purge Equity from Teaching

Late last month, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Superintendent Maria Su publicized that the SFUSD was going to start using "equitable grading." You can read the SFUSD proposal for yourself, but SFUSD was looking to remove such traditional metrics as homework completion, class participation, and attendance in favor of summative assessments focused on "learning mastery," whatever that means. In addition, SFUSD proposed lowering the grading where an 80% was an A and a 41% a C. Popularized by author Joe Feldman, the purpose of "equitable grading" is to not have students be compliant automatons, but able to show critical thinking and deep understanding. Although San Francisco is an exceptionally Left-leaning city, the framework was yanked before it even began due to the political pressure.

For those of us who are not woke and attribute every disparity to racism and discrimination, it becomes clear as to why "equitable grading" is not a good idea. As the above implies, "equitable grading" incentivizes students to do the minimum required. To quote analysts over at the Fordham Institute, "Ability and behavior go hand in hand in determining success, which is probably why course grade point average has historically been such a powerful predictor of later success." 

The analysts also pointed out how there is ample evidence to show that not grading homework or allowing for unlimited test retakes does not work (e.g., Tyner and Petrilli, 2018; Lichtman-Sadot, 2016; Barua and Vidal-Fernandez, 2014; Vidal-Fernandez, 2011). Another working paper shows that more lenient grading resulted in higher GPAs, but did not translate into better student achievement or attendance (Bowden et al., 2023). To quote the Fordham Institute again, "Moreover, there is not an iota of evidence that reforms making grading more lenient benefit students in the long run." 

This idea hardly floors me. The fact that rewards and punishment are consequences of human behavior that shapes human action is an essential part of behavioral sciences. In 2018, I analyzed the high college dropout rate and illustrated how academic preparedness in high school was a strong predictor of whether a college student would drop out. After all, if you do not show the ability or motivation to show up and put in the effort as a child, there is a good chance that it will be difficult for you to do so as you get older. Deadlines are shown to accelerate a child's developmental process in their executive skills (Dawson, 2021) and "grades are shown as an effective means of motivating students (e.g., Gershenson et al., 2022; Gershenson, 2020; Docan, 2006; Figlio and Lucas, 2004; Betts and Grogger, 2003)." Watering down expectations to the point of reducing motivation and accountability harms the students that the "equity grading" was meant to help in the first place. 

I bring this topic up because SFUSD is not the first major school district to try this inanity. Due to the COVID-era school closures and their deleterious effects on achievement levels and student attendance that still persist, other such school districts as San Diego and Montgomery County, Maryland. While I understand teachers and principals trying to find ways to rectify the situation, equitable grading is not the way to go about it, as previously illustrated. What is more is that grading is not the only facet of K-12 education that this equity nonsense has reared its ugly head. 

I have criticized removing honors classes, the time when the state of Oregon suspended its basic skills requirement, and the insidious critical race theory that perpetuates racism. Knowledge and skills gained through education are a major predictor of one's wellbeing and quality of life as an adult. To allow for equity to come in and the quality of education in the United States is not only a threat to the individual students, but also the vitality of the United States to the point one could argue that equity is a national security threat. Moments like San Francisco's equity grading show us that woke influences are still with us. If we truly want to make education great again, we need to replace the mediocrity, laxness, and catering of feelings so prominent with the equity crowd by embracing academic rigor and valuing effort and good conduct once more. Otherwise, equity will continue to steamroll the U.S. education system. 

"Free Palestine" Rhetoric Has Become a Free Pass to Justify Anti-Semitism and Attacking Jews

October 7, 2023 was a horrific day for Israel. Hamas militants crossed into Israel to carry out the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. They carried out unspeakable acts against humanity: rape, kidnapping 251 civilians, murdering over 1,200 civilians, torture, decapitation. In terms of per capita death rates, October 7 was the equivalent of September 11 about 15 times over. The bodies of the murdered were not even buried and yet the pro-Palestine "activists" were already out protesting against Israel. This first wave of post-October 7 Jew-hatred broke out before the Israeli Defense Forces even entered Gaza, which tells you how much the motives are about hating Israel and Jews. Since October 8, 2023, these protestors have been out in full force across the planet. 

Fast-forward to May/June 2025. In a two-week timespan, there were two violent and unfortunate anti-Semitic attacks that made international news. The first was the murder of two Israeli embassy staff members outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. The murderer was screaming "Free Palestine" as he was being arrested for this heinous act. 

The second attack took place in Boulder, Colorado. There was a rally for the hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for over 600 days. The assailant threw Molotov cocktails at the participants. The savage seriously injured eight participants, including an 88-year Holocaust survivor. As he threw the Molotov cocktails, he was screaming "We need to end Zionists." These attacks got me thinking a lot about the rhetoric used by pro-Palestine protestors and how it influences anti-Semitism and violence against Jews in the Diaspora. Let us examine the most commonly used rhetoric.  

"Globalize the Intifada". The word intifada comes from the Arabic انتفاضة, which is derived from the Arabic verb that means "to shake off" or "to get rid of." Within the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there have been two intifadas. The First Intifada was in the late 1980s to early 1990s, whereas the Second Intifada took place in the early 2000s. In both intifadas, there was political violence against Jews that resulted in over 1,000 Jewish deaths. Suicide bombing was commonly used during the Second Intifada. Since intifada against Israel has historically meant indiscriminate violence against Jews, does it surprise anyone that globalizing the intifada would translate into violence against Jews, Israelis, and pro-Israel institutions across the world?   

"From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". It would behoove us to ask which river and which sea. Answer: the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. What country is between those two bodies of water? Israel. This is not a call for a two-state solution, but to extend the clout of this proto-state (if you can call it that) by eliminating the state of Israel. At a bare minimum, this translates into the ethnic cleansing of Jews. More likely, it is a call for the genocide of the Jewish people, especially after the pogrom of October 7 and the uptick of anti-Semitism afterwards. This phrase ends up being problematic in practice because it is ultimately not about a call for justice or equality; it crosses the line into bona fide anti-Semitism and the political extremism of eliminating the world's only Jewish nation-state. 

"Resistance by any means necessary." This little beaut is commonly used by anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine (WOL). Hopefully, this one should not require that much explanation. Any means necessary means the ends justify the means. This includes multiple acts of violence, whether that is slaughtering children and the elderly, suicide bombings, shootings, and setting synagogues on fire. If you have any doubts about that, October 7 and the subsequent rise in anti-Semitism across the global should have settled that "any means necessary" literally means "any means."

False accusations of genocide and settler colonialism. Genocide and settler colonialism are evils in the world. The problem in this instance is that Israel is guilty of neither. When you are under the delusion that Israel is committing genocide (see my three-part refutation of the false genocide accusation here, here, and here), this sort of accusation fuels the flames of Jew hate. Why? 

It does not matter that the Jews are indigenous to Israel (also known as Judea) or that Israel has legal rights to the land under international law, thereby refuting the "settler colonialism" argument. If your take is mistakenly that the "evil Jews" are the most heinous human rights violators out there (especially when you are ignoring actual violations of human rights), then you might be inspired to do something drastic about stopping these misperceived injustices, as was the case in the Washington DC and Boulder attacks. 

Postscript

As I pointed out last October, anti-Semitism has been on the rise and at significantly higher rates than anti-Muslim crimes. Anti-Semitism has only gotten worse since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023. Let there be no mistake. Words have power. When pro-Palestinian protestors chant "From the river to the sea" or "Globalize the intifada," what they are doing is endorse, glorify, and encourage the bloodshed of Jews and Israelis. It is the public celebration of mass murder.  

What is jarring is that this rhetoric has become normalized and covered up with the excuse of "We're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionist," a phenomenon I explored in 2016. It does not matter what your views about Israeli policy are. It is possible to criticize the Israeli government without calling for its eradication. Israeli citizens do so frequently. Far too many on the pro-Palestine side has gone beyond mere political disagreement about Israel's foreign policy and venturing into bona fide anti-Semitic territory. If we are to live in a free, democratic society, support for violence against Jews needs to be deemed as abhorrent and unacceptable. Anything less is letting the terrorists win.  

Anti-Semitism across the world has become loud, brazen, unapologetic, and violent in a way that is giving me a taste of how Jews felt in 1930s Europe as the Nazi Party ascended to power. It is even worse when the "mainstream media" sanitizes the anti-Semitism in its reporting and parrots Hamas propaganda without doing a basic fact-check, which begs the question of how much the likes of BBC, Washington Post, and New York Times can be held accountable for spreading libel. It is even worse still because the pro-Palestine attempts to normalize violence against Jews as a form of being a freedom fighter or social justice warrior. What is scary about this framework is that it is working. The silent majority across the world has kept quiet as jihadism and anti-Semitism become palatable and trendy.

Yes, I am for the First Amendment right of peaceful protest, even that of pro-Palestinian protestors who I have come to view as the modern-day equivalent of Nazis. Where the present situation gets murky in practice is when the anti-Semitism of these chants are normalized and become weaponized as a justification to attack Jews. The line between acceptable free speech and incitement of violence has become blurred, which begs the question of what does a Jew who advocates for freedom of speech such as myself believe should be done. 

I both value freedom of speech and believe that Jews should be able to live without having to constantly worry about violence being carried out against them simply for being Jewish.  Granted, Jews have adapted to anti-Semitism over the centuries and are continuing to do so. At the same time, I have no easy answers in this muddled grey area. At the same time, I am inclined to believe that charging those who commit illegal acts not covered under the First Amendment, such as violence, incitement of violence, threats, intimidation would be a good start, as would be dismantling radical groups calling for revolutionary violence. That way, violence can be targeted without degrading freedom of speech. 

You might be reading this and think this only affects the Jews, so you should probably be fine. Why does this affect everyone? The Jews have historically been the canary in the coal mine. What is befalling the Jewish people will eventually reach other groups of people, especially those who have been oppressed or disenfranchised. Plus, this global intifada will not stop with the Jewish people. As I pointed out in my critique of "Islamophobia" earlier this year, Islam is the one religion on the planet whose mainstream followers seek to impose their religious taboos on everyone else. As we already see in Europe, this political violence will get worse if not confronted. Until this rhetoric is addressed and we can make political discourse civil once more, this sort of domestic violence will continue to be normalized and the pro-Palestine side will continue to wreak havoc on civil society. 

Is the Reign of the U.S. Dollar Coming to an End?: Assessing the Future of Global Reserves

Tariffs notwithstanding, the United States has fiscally been in such a tumult in recent years. Last month, the credit rating agency Moody's downgraded the United States from Aaa to Aa1. This downgrading is significant for two reasons. One is that the United States is the largest economy in the world. The second reason is that Moody's is the final major credit rating agency to downgrade the United States below its top credit rating. Much like with Fitch's downgrade in 2023, Moody's cited long-term debt issues fueled by the mandatory spending. Moody's anticipates that the United States' fiscal performance is to deteriorate at a faster rate relative to other highly-rated sovereigns. 

This got me thinking about a major topic related to all this mess. The United States dollar (USD) is the most held currency in global reserves. However, that clout has been declining over the years (see above). International Monetary Fund (IMF) data show that at the end of 2024, 58 percent of foreign exchange reserves are USD. Contrast that with the dollar being 65 percent a decade earlier. How legitimate is the concern that the percent of dollars in foreign reserves will continue to decline over time?  We should first ask what could replace the dollar as the primary global reserve. 

• Chinese yuan (人民币). China has the second largest economy and is continuing to grow, hence why it is a main contender. However, as long the Chinese central bank (中国人民银行) has exchange rate regime (currency manipulation), capital controls, and institutional weakness, the Chinese yuan will not be a global currency reserve. 
• The euro. The European Union rivals that of the United States and has political stability. However, it has internal economic issues that I have critiqued since 2010 and have done so since then (see here, here, and here). It is not only the lack of a common treasury or a unified European bond market, not to mention that its capital markets are inadequately integrated to muster the assets necessary to become a global leader. As a research paper from the European Commission points out, the euro zone crisis last decade resulted in the downgrade the credit rating of various European countries, thereby strengthening the dollar (Arroyo, 2022). 
• Other currencies. The Japanese yen, Korean won, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, and British pound lack the scale and liquidity to pull it off. The BRICS countries cannot cobble together a currency basket to rival the U.S. economy because of the structural challenges that do not make their countries' central banks robust. 
• Digital and blockchain alternatives. This option could have potential in the future. However, given current regulatory hurdles and the fact that these alternatives are still relatively nascent, they are not viable options, certainly in the short-term.

There is still no viable contender to step in and replace the U.S. dollar in the short-term. The United States remains a large, powerful economy that accounts for 26 percent of the world's GDP with rule of law and investor confidence. Because it takes a lot of time, money, effort, and political willpower to change currencies, there is inertia vis-à-vis the network effects that are in the U.S.' favor. The U.S.' market for Treasury securities remains large and liquid. The dollar is still the dominant currency choice for international trade transactions because the dollar is so entrenched in global trade and finance. That being said, it is clear from the Moody's downgrading that the U.S.' fiscal situation is untenable and it is looking like there is a lack of political will to change things. 

In July 2024, the CFA Institute surveyed nearly 4,000 global financial professionals. Not only did 77 percent of respondents find that the U.S.' finances are unsustainable, but nearly two thirds had the professional opinion that the U.S. will lose its global reserve status (52 percent in a marginal way and 11 percent in a material way). It was also interesting to see the reasons that respondents thought this would happen. Debt was number one, followed by a downright default (see below).

What does this mean for the global reserves system? Going back to the CFA Institute survey, what the respondents believed to be the most likely systems to replace the dollar would be a multipolar currency system, a digital currency, and hard currency (e.g., gold). If I were to speculate, I would say the system is becoming more multipolar and there will be an emergence of digital currency in global reserves. I believe that the dollar's prominence will remain in the short term but also decline gradually, much like it has in the past couple of decades. The fiscal cliff is not imminent, but it is the direction in which the United States is heading.

What came as a result of the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns has taught me to be more humble with my educated guesses, especially when prognosticating beyond a year or so. What I can say with certainty is that that more the United States government avoids meaningful fiscal reform and adds on deficit spending, the more that dollar will lose its dominance. The question simply will be a matter of how much dominance is lost, what will take its place, and how ugly of a process it will be.

King Charles Shows Us That Land Acknowledgments Are Performative and Virtue-Signaling

Last week, King Charles III of England made a trip to Canada to deliver the speech from the throne, which set out the agenda for the new Liberal government of Canada. This is the third time in Canada's history in which the British monarch delivered Canada's throne speech, the other two which were during Queen Elizabeth II's reign. During this speech, King Charles began with the following:

I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. This land acknowledgment is a recognition of a shared history as a nation. While continuing to deepen my own understanding, it is my great hope that in each of your communities, and collectively as a country, a path is found toward truth and reconciliation, in both word and deed.

This sort of statement is known as a land acknowledgement. A land acknowledgment is a formal statement that recognizes and respects indigenous people as the traditional stewards of the land. It is supposed to be a way to honor the original inhabitants of the land while acknowledging the subsequent effects of displacement. While they are intended to show respect and promote reconciliation, they act as nothing more than a performative gesture. 

Let us start with the reality that for much of history, conquest was a widely accepted means of acquiring land. The modern day concept of property rights (e.g., John Locke, Adam Smith), as well as international law stating that conquest is not a legitimate means of acquiring land (e.g., UN Charter, Article 2(4)), is relatively new. As reprehensible as the actions of Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, and Francisco Pizarro were by modern standards, white people do not have a monopoly on violence, brutality, or colonization. 

The Iroquois partook in aggressive warfare, whether through the Beaver Wars or mourning wars. The Crow Creek Sioux tribe had the Crow Creek Massacre in the 1300s, which killed about 500 people. The Inca Empire was created by a combination of peaceful assimilation and conquest for those who did not accept Inca rule peacefully. The Aztecs fought large-scale wars to expand their empire, as well as partook in ritualized violence and human sacrifice. The Māori tribe of New Zealand committed mass murder, enslavement, and cannibalism of the Moriori people. Then there was Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Aurangzeb of the Mughal Empire, the creation of the Ottoman Empire, the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and the Songhai Empire in western Africa, to name a few. 

If I were a betting man, I would say that everyone has at least one ancestor who partook in conquest of some sort or fashion. Why? Violence, colonization, and conquest made up much of pre-modern history, regardless of race or ethnicity. Some were simply more effective and brutal than others. Rather than acknowledge historical reality, it provides another opportunity for woke people to oversimplify racial relations into the racist and inaccurate claim of "White people = bad; minorities = good." History is more complicated than that and there are brutes across all races and ethnicities. 

For argument's sake, I will be a good sport about it and give the a benefit of a doubt. Let us assume for a New York minute that the indigenous people are unquestionably the rightful owners of the land. If so, there is another major issue that arises. The purpose of these land acknowledgements is reconciliation. Do land acknowledgments lead to genuine reconciliation? 

Ever since the beginning of modern-day land acknowledgments in the late 1970s, there has not been a single land acknowledgment that has resulted in the restoration of land ownership to indigenous nations or the establishment of indigenous governance over ancestral territories. What these land acknowledgements are in practice is being akin to someone stealing your possessions, writing a half-hearted, hand-written note admitting to the theft, and then doing nothing to either return the possessions or compensate you for the loss. How does that show respect for the aggrieved party? 

It is even more mind-boggling to do a land acknowledgment for a tribe that no longer exists as a distinct, unified entity, whether that is the Yamasee, Susquehannock, or the Massachusett tribe. To reconcile is to restore a sense of peace or harmony between both parties. Short of a Casper the Friendly Ghost situation, you cannot reconcile with a group of people that no longer exist.    

In the Canadian case cited at the beginning of this piece, it is not as if King Charles were a plebeian with zero clout. Although the monarch of England is largely a ceremonial role, he is still on the throne of one of the world's largest powers. If these land acknowledgments were meant to be about actual reconciliation and compensation, something of substance should have come about as a result of these land acknowledgements. 

The lack of outcomes as a result of land acknowledgements show how hollow and disingenuous land acknowledgments truly are. If you actually want to make a difference, put your money where your mouth is. Either give the aggrieved party their land back (or at least some form of compensation to help out indigenous people) or shut your hole. Otherwise, the moral exhibitionism that is land acknowledgement is as feel-good and useless as using plastic straws or recycling.