It is rare that a book can objectively present the facts and then draw all of the wrong conclusions. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017, is one such book. Author Matthew Desmond follows eight low-income families and their landlords during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. He chronicles…
Ayn Rand often pointed out that businessmen have long been blamed for the disasters caused by government intervention in the economy. If one considers an issue out of context, such blame might seem plausible. But if we examine the full context, we will see that government frequently incentivizes bad behavior. The collapse of the housing…
“In a democracy,” Aristotle wrote, “the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.” In a democracy, the poor and their supporters can vote for politicians who promise to provide free food, education, health care, and housing. In a democracy, the…
An inevitable result of government’s growing intervention in economic matters is a conflict between various policy goals. An example of these conflicting goals is the goal of preserving historic buildings and the goal of providing affordable housing. A common feature of preservation ordinances is that repairs to an existing building must use “in-kind” materials. For…
An opinion piece in The Dallas Morning News correctly notes that SB12, which would force social media platforms like Facebook to publish content the company finds objectionable. Can you imagine a law that forced someone who plants a yard sign supporting a Republican candidate to also place one for the Democratic opponent beside it? That’s…
Imagine for a moment, that you want to open a restaurant in an impoverished neighborhood in your city. When you apply for the necessary permits at the Health Department, you are told that you will only be allowed to open your restaurant if you agree to sell a percentage of meals below your costs. You…
For nearly a century, Americans have been told that we face an affordable housing crisis. Despite an endless number of government schemes purported to address the problem, it has only grown worse. Why? The simple answer is that supply has failed to keep pace with demand. But the simple answer doesn’t explain why developers and…
Housing advocates frequently claim that racism explains the large gap in home ownership between whites and non-whites. To overcome this racism, they call for government programs to help non-whites purchase homes. It is true that past racism did deter home ownership among non-whites, but that fact must be considered in the full context. The source…
Leftists have a tactic that is often effective in generating support for their policies. They tell a really sad story, sprinkle in some horrifying statistics, and then evade relevant facts. A story about the eviction crisis on The Appeal illustrates this tactic. The article begins with a story about Samantha, a mother who worries where…
One of the primary complaints about gentrification is the displacement of the existing residents in a neighborhood. To reduce displacement, a growing number of cities are requiring developers to include affordable housing in exchange for permission to build a new housing project. These mandates violate the property rights of developers by interfering with their freedom…
When government officials mandated the wearing of face masks in public, they implied that we are too stupid to make rational decisions. They implied that, even if we were presented with the facts, we would refuse to make wise choices. They implied that, without public officials issuing orders, we are helpless. Sen. Ted Cruz received…
In 2011, I purchased a boarded up home in the Sunnyside community of Houston. This low-income neighborhood was filled with similar homes. Many of these homes were in disrepair and hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in decades. To call the area economically depressed would be an understatement. Yet, I took a risk and…