A Note on Housing Unaffordability in America, &

BRIEFLY NOTED: 2022-04-02 Sa

FIRST: A Note on Housing Unaffordability in America:

Why is housing so unaffordable in America today? Yes, NIMBYism. But there is more:

We Are Only Now at Normal, after 15 years of sub-normality in construction:

• Single-family housing starts fluctuated around 1,200,000 a year for a generation and a half…

• Then the mid-2000s boom…

• Then the crash before the Great Recession…

• (Note: the housing crash did not cause the Great Recession—the economy had rebalanced out of housing and into other sectors before the recession began)…

• Then the most ænemic recovery in housing imaginable…

• Why so ænemic a recovery?…

• My guess: the U.S. Treasury kept saying it was going to reform housing finance and the GSEs, so people waited to see…

• And the U.S. Treasury never did so…

• The post-2007 shortfall in housing construction relative to that “normal” is immense…

• The post-2007 shortfall is 4/3 as deep and more than twice as wide as the extra housing construction of the mid-2000s boom…

• That means that the anti-boom is three times as many houses not built (relative to the 1.2M/year “normal” pace) as extra houses built during the boom….

• Is it any surprise that as soon as people feel they have enough wealth to extend themselves, housing real estate prices float upward?

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CONDITION: Wells Fargo’s Forecast, at Least, Still Looks Pretty Transitory:

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One Video:

Chicago Council on Global Affairs: World Review: West Mulls Russia End Game Amid Ukraine Peace Talks: ‘Steve Erlanger, Karen DeYoung, and Ed Luce join World Review with Ivo Daalder to discuss Russia’s attacks on Ukraine as negotiations between both sides continue: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Miaq_eSA9XM>

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One Picture:

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Very Briefly Noted:

• Colby Smith & Peter Wells: US Economy Gained 431,000 jobs in March as Tight Labour Market Persists<https://www.ft.com/content/0de891b8-b6bb-4b91-b939-24d008511224>

• Zorina Khan: Who was the First U.S. Economics Professor?: ‘Samuel Newman, of Bowdoin College… <https://research.bowdoin.edu/zorina-khan/life-on-the-margin/who-was-the-first-economics-professor/>

• Eric Levitz: Compact Magazine Makes a Strong Case For Liberalism <https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/compact-magazine-makes-a-strong-case-for-liberalism.html>

• Randy Nishimura: In Praise of 5-Over–1 Buildings <https://commonedge.org/in-praise-of-5-over-1-buildings/>

• David Glasner: Three Propagation Mechanisms in Lucas & Sargent <https://uneasymoney.com/2022/03/30/three-propagation-mechanisms-in-lucas-and-sargent/>

• Noel Williams: Insights for Marine (& Beyond) Force Design from the Russo-Ukrainian War<https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/insights-for-marine-and-beyond-force-design-from-the-russo-ukrainian-war/>

• Brad DeLong: Department of “Huh!?”: ‘A bunch of people have said that I should give Duncan Foley a second chance. So I started back through Duncan Foley’s Adam’s Fallacy. This time I got to pages 42–44 before the incomprehension meter redlined…. And all I can say is: “Huh!?”… <https://www.bradford-delong.com/2006/09/department_of_h_4.html>

Twitter & ‘Stack:

• Casey Newton: The Lesson Facebook Won’t Learn: ‘In a reckless, secret campaign against TikTok, the company’s paranoia leads to another self-inflicted wound… <

The lesson Facebook won't learn

• Ian Leslie: Othering the West: ‘The roots of Putin’s Westernphobia…. Occidentalism… characterises Western civilisation as a mass of “soulless, decadent, money-grubbing, ruthless, faithless, unfeeling parasites” (if you want a summary of the Occidentalist caricature, it’s all there). Believe in it, and killing Western civilians may begin to feel like a moral imperative… <

Othering the West

• David MacIver: Ubj gb ernq EBG13

Ubj gb ernq EBG13 (How to read ROT13)

• The Bazaar of War: ’In the early hours one July morning [in 1712], a long column of men, horses, and carts makes an abrupt change of course. They march swiftly through the predawn darkness to make a surprise attack, one which after eleven long years of war will decide the fate of Europe—the Battle of Denain!… <

The Bazaar of War @bazaarofwar

There is one other problem. During the siege of Le Quesnoy, the commander of the British contingent Ormonde is ordered to withdraw. He does so reluctantly and takes the English troops with him, but most of the Hanoverians and German mercenaries remain behind.

• Jordan Schneider: Chinese Industrial Policy: How A City Turned Itself Into a VC Fund

Chinese Industrial Policy: How A City Turned Itself Into a VC Fund

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