The Municipal Housing Toolkit: Where the Money Comes From and What It Does

Cities and counties working on affordable housing don’t write checks directly to struggling families and call it a day. The reality of municipal housing assistance is considerably more complex — and more interesting. Local governments operate simultaneously on two fronts: the demand side, helping individual households afford housing that already exists, and the supply side, creating or preserving the affordable units those households need in the first place. Understanding the distinction between these two fronts, and the specific tools deployed on each, is essential for any honest evaluation of whether a city’s housing strategy is actually working.

What follows is a plain-language guide to the most common tools in the municipal housing toolkit, organized by function, with an explanation of what each tool does and where the money originates.

Demand-Side Tools

These tools help households afford housing by subsidizing the cost of renting or owning, rather than directly creating new units.

HCV — Housing Choice Voucher Program Commonly called Section 8, this is the largest federal rental assistance program in the country. An eligible low-income household receives a voucher that covers the difference between 30% of their income and the fair market rent for their area. The household finds a private landlord willing to accept the voucher, and the local housing authority pays the landlord the subsidy directly. The program is funded entirely by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and administered locally by a public housing authority — in Plymouth’s case, the HRA. The city’s role is administration; the money originates in Washington. The primary constraint is not eligibility but supply: waiting lists of hundreds or thousands of applicants are common because the number of vouchers is fixed by congressional appropriation.

DPA — Down Payment Assistance Homeownership is out of reach for many moderate-income households not because they cannot afford a monthly mortgage payment but because they cannot accumulate the lump sum needed for a down payment and closing costs in a high-price market. Down payment assistance programs provide grants or deferred loans — often forgiven after a period of occupancy — to bridge that gap. Funding typically comes from CDBG allocations, state housing finance agency programs, or local HRA levies. Plymouth’s program currently offers up to $35,000, which against a median sale price of $616,000 covers roughly 5.7% — meaningful but increasingly strained by price appreciation.

LAHA — Local Affordable Housing Aid A relatively new Minnesota-specific tool, LAHA is an annual appropriation distributed to eligible cities and counties from a regional sales tax collected across the seven-county Twin Cities metro area. Payments began in 2024. Unlike federal programs, LAHA dollars come with relatively flexible use rules — eligible activities include construction, acquisition, rehabilitation, rent assistance, interest rate reduction, and gap financing. The funds must be committed within three years and expended within four. Plymouth had received approximately $1.3 million through early 2026. Because LAHA is locally controlled and flexible, it is one of the more strategically useful tools in Plymouth’s current toolkit.

BITH — Bring it Home A Minnesota Housing Finance Agency rental assistance program that allocates vouchers to local housing authorities for distribution to income-qualified households within a specific geography — meaning, unlike portable HCV vouchers, these cannot be used outside the city. Plymouth received 36 vouchers through this program, expected to be operational by spring 2026 at a cost of approximately $535,000 annually. Funding originates with the state of Minnesota through Minnesota Housing. The geographic restriction is both a limitation and a feature: it keeps assisted households in the community rather than allowing the subsidy to follow them elsewhere.

Supply-Side Tools

These tools create, preserve, or rehabilitate affordable housing units — addressing the stock itself rather than individual households’ ability to pay.

TIF — Tax Increment Financing TIF is the workhorse of municipal development finance and the tool Plymouth has used most aggressively for affordable housing. When a city creates a TIF district around a development site, it freezes the assessed value of that property at its pre-development baseline. As the development increases the property’s value and generates higher tax revenues, the incremental increase — the difference between the old and new tax bill — is captured and redirected to finance the project rather than flowing to the general tax base. This increment can pay off bonds that funded upfront infrastructure or gap financing for the project. TIF money is not an appropriation from a budget — it is a pledge of future tax revenue. For affordable housing, TIF is typically used to cover the financing gap that makes a project financially viable when rents must be kept below market rate. Plymouth has used TIF to generate over $6.5 million in affordable housing financing across multiple projects. Up to 35% of increments from redevelopment districts can be pooled and used for projects beyond the original district boundaries when applied to qualifying housing.

LIHTC — Low Income Housing Tax Credit Pronounced “lie-tech,” this is the primary federal tool for financing the construction of affordable rental housing and is responsible for the majority of affordable units built in the United States since its creation in 1986. The federal government allocates tax credits to state housing finance agencies — in Minnesota, that is Minnesota Housing — which then award credits competitively to developers. A developer who receives a LIHTC award sells the credits to investors (typically banks and corporations seeking to reduce their federal tax liability) in exchange for equity capital. That equity reduces the amount the developer needs to borrow, which in turn allows rents to be set below market rate while the project remains financially viable. Units financed with LIHTC must remain affordable — typically at 60% AMI or below — for at least 30 years. The money does not flow from government to developer directly; it flows from the federal treasury to investors through reduced tax liability, and from investors to developers as equity. Plymouth has multiple LIHTC-financed projects in its affordable housing inventory including Element, Cranberry Ridge, and West View Estates.

HRB — Housing Revenue Bonds Cities and counties can issue tax-exempt bonds to finance residential rental housing. Because the interest earned on these bonds is exempt from federal income tax, investors accept a lower interest rate, which translates into lower borrowing costs for the developer. The savings on debt service allow rents to be set below what a market-rate project financed with conventional taxable debt would require. The city is not on the hook financially — these are conduit bonds, meaning the city serves as the issuing vehicle but the developer is responsible for repayment. In exchange for the tax-exempt status, developers are typically required to set aside a portion of units at affordable rents. Plymouth has used housing revenue bonds extensively, with 846 rental units across city properties financed this way. The money originates with private bond investors; the federal subsidy is the tax exemption.

CDBG — Community Development Block Grant CDBG is a federal block grant program administered by HUD that flows to cities and counties for a wide range of community development activities, with housing rehabilitation being one of the most common uses. Unlike categorical grants with narrow use restrictions, CDBG gives localities considerable flexibility in how funds are deployed, subject to the requirement that activities primarily benefit low- and moderate-income persons. Plymouth uses CDBG for its First-Time Homebuyer Program, its Owner-Occupied Housing Rehabilitation Program, its Emergency Repair Grant program for seniors, and funding for social service agencies. The money originates entirely with the federal government. Plymouth receives approximately $250,000 annually plus program income from loan repayments. Importantly, CDBG administration requires significant staff capacity and reporting, which is why Plymouth is considering whether to transfer administration to Hennepin County — freeing staff time but losing some local control over how the funds are directed.

HIA — Housing Improvement Area An HIA is a Minnesota-specific statutory tool that allows a city to finance common-area improvements to townhome or condominium developments by levying the cost against the individual property owners in the affected association, collectible through property tax statements over time. It functions like a special assessment but for private common property rather than public infrastructure. The tool is particularly useful for older attached housing developments where the homeowners association lacks the reserves or borrowing capacity to fund major capital repairs — roof replacements, siding, windows, elevators — that if deferred would accelerate deterioration and reduce the affordability and habitability of the units. Plymouth adopted an HIA policy in early 2026. No public money is permanently expended — the city essentially extends its credit and taxing authority to enable a private association to finance improvements, recovering the cost through the levy. This makes it a powerful preservation tool with relatively low fiscal risk.

4d — Local 4d Affordable Housing Incentive Program The name comes from Minnesota Statute 273.128, which establishes a reduced property tax classification rate for rental housing where at least 20% of units are income and rent restricted at or below 60% of AMI. The reduced rate — from 1.25% to 0.75% of assessed value — lowers the property tax bill for qualifying landlords, improving the project’s operating economics and making it more feasible to maintain affordable rents. A city or HRA triggers eligibility by providing nominal financial assistance and entering a development agreement with the property owner that records the rent restrictions against the deed. Plymouth adopted a local 4d incentive program in early 2026. The money for the tax reduction does not come from the city budget directly — it comes from the tax base, meaning other taxpayers effectively subsidize the reduced rate for qualifying properties. The tool is most valuable for preserving NOAH properties that are already charging affordable rents but might escalate without an incentive to maintain restrictions.

IHP — Inclusionary Housing Policy An inclusionary housing policy requires or incentivizes developers of new market-rate housing to include a percentage of units affordable to lower-income households as a condition of receiving city financial assistance or land use approvals. The mechanism varies — some policies mandate inclusion, others offer density bonuses or fee waivers in exchange for voluntary compliance. Plymouth adopted an IHP in 2024 that applies to projects receiving city financial assistance, requiring developers to choose a level of affordability appropriate to their project. Affordable units produced under an IHP are financed by the market-rate portion of the development — in effect, market-rate tenants cross-subsidize affordable tenants through the blended economics of the project. No direct public dollars fund the affordable units, though the city’s financial assistance (often TIF) is what triggers the requirement. The tool only works in markets where development is actively occurring and margins are sufficient to absorb the cross-subsidy.

HTF — Housing Trust Fund A housing trust fund is a dedicated pool of public money that can be deployed flexibly to fill financing gaps in affordable housing projects that cannot be fully financed through other sources. Unlike categorical programs with rigid use restrictions, an HTF can provide grants, loans, or equity contributions depending on what a specific project needs. Funding can come from a variety of sources — developer fees, bond proceeds, general fund appropriations, fines and penalties, or dedicated tax revenues. Plymouth established its Housing Trust Fund in 2025 with an initial HRA allocation of $100,000 — a meaningful first step but a very small pool relative to the financing gaps in typical affordable housing projects, which commonly run into the millions. The value of an HTF grows over time as loan repayments recycle back into the fund and as additional revenue sources are dedicated to it. Cities with mature housing trust funds — Minneapolis being the clearest regional example — use them as the primary local matching tool for LIHTC applications and other competitive state and federal programs.

NOAH Preservation Programs — Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing Preservation NOAH properties are privately owned rental buildings that charge rents affordable to lower-income households not because of any subsidy or restriction but because they are older, smaller, or less amenity-rich than newer buildings. They represent the largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing in most cities and are also the most fragile — when they sell, rents typically increase to market rate and the affordability is permanently lost. NOAH preservation programs use a combination of acquisition financing, rehabilitation loans, and affordability covenants to intercept these properties before or at sale and lock in affordability for an extended period. Funding comes from a patchwork of sources: LAHA, pooled TIF, HTF, state programs through Minnesota Housing, and federal programs including the HOME Investment Partnerships Program. Plymouth’s 4d program, HIA policy, and LAHA funds are all oriented in part toward NOAH preservation, though a dedicated acquisition fund does not yet exist.

Land Assembly and Disposition Cities and HRAs can use their powers of eminent domain or negotiated purchase to acquire strategic parcels — often underutilized commercial sites, former motels, or obsolete retail — and either hold them for future affordable development or sell them at below-market prices to affordable housing developers. The land write-down reduces the developer’s total project cost, which in turn reduces the financing gap and the level of subsidy needed from other sources. Plymouth has used this tool at the Four Seasons Mall site and the former Red Roof Inn on Annapolis Lane. Funding for acquisition comes from HRA levy dollars, LAHA, or pooled TIF. The tool requires patience — assembling land, conducting environmental review, and finding the right developer and financing package can take years — but in high-land-cost markets like Plymouth it is one of the most powerful levers for enabling deeply affordable development that the market would never produce on its own.

These tools are rarely used in isolation. A typical affordable housing project in Plymouth might combine LIHTC equity, a city TIF note, an HRB for conduit financing, LAHA gap funding, and an IHP covenant — each piece filling a specific layer of the financing stack. Understanding what each tool does, where the money comes from, and which household archetypes it ultimately serves is the prerequisite for evaluating whether a city’s housing strategy is coherent, targeted, and producing results commensurate with the public investment behind it.

Happy Easter

Treasure trove of images to be found at Metmuseum

Although painted in the seventeenth century, Ter Brugghen’s scene of Christ’s crucifixion draws on the dramatic, emotional appeal of earlier religious art to inspire the private prayers of a Catholic viewer. The Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist, who flank the cross, provide surrogates for the viewer’s agonized beholding of the crucifixion. The rigorous symmetry of the composition; the flat, star-studded sky; and Christ’s contorted body, with blood streaming from his wounds, intentionally refer to the work of early-sixteenth-century German artists, who were coveted by collectors in Ter Brugghen’s day.

Crime 101– Movie Review

Parts of this movie you’ve undoubtedly seen before. But the lead actors, Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, and Mark Ruffalo, are certainly worth watching. It’s the ending that makes this film interesting. There are trades involved, and each of these players ends in the green.

There is one incredulous part. Halle Berry is told by her boss that she is a little past her prime and tired-looking. What?

Did you know? China property titling

China’s property titling system is unique due to the country’s socialist land ownership model. There is no private freehold ownership of land—all land belongs either to the state (urban areas) or to rural collectives (rural/suburban areas).25

Key Features

  • Land Use Rights (LURs): Individuals and companies can only acquire long-term rights to use the land, not own it outright. These rights are granted by the government for fixed terms:
    • Residential: typically 70 years.
    • Commercial: 40 years.
    • Industrial/office: 50 years.
    • Residential renewals are generally automatic under the Civil Code, though details can vary.16
  • Buildings/Homes: Owners can hold full ownership of the structures (e.g., apartments or houses built on the land). In apartment buildings, individuals own their specific units, while common areas are shared.
  • Registration System: Title is proven through official government registration (a Torrens-like system). Once registered, the buyer is protected as a good-faith purchaser. The system was unified nationwide starting in 2015 under the Property Law (2007) and Civil Code, with a single real property registry replacing earlier separate land and housing registrations (though some local variations persist).6

How It Works in Practice

  • Buyers purchase apartments or buildings along with the attached land use rights.
  • Transfers, mortgages, and changes must be registered with local authorities to take legal effect.
  • The certificate (often combining land use and building ownership) serves as strong evidence of rights.

This setup fueled China’s massive urban property boom but has contributed to issues like the recent real estate crisis, as developers rely on selling land use rights and buildings. Rural land remains more restricted, with ongoing (but limited) reforms for contracting and transfer rights among collectives.

In short: You “own” your home/building, but you’re essentially leasing the land from the state or collective for a long (renewable) period.

**Pointer to Hamish who attended my Land in Literature salon today. You meet interesting people at Interintellect! Stop in on a Zoom call sometime.**

Victoria Harbor a few years ago

Reorienting the housing help convo

Let’s shift the fundamental unit of analysis — from the unit to the household, and from price to fit.

Most municipal housing analysis is organized around a single question: how many units exist or need to exist at each price point? The AMI bands are the answer categories. Goals are set in those terms, progress is measured in those terms, and funding tools are designed around them. It is a tidy, internally consistent system with one significant flaw: it was designed for federal program administration, not local housing strategy. HUD needed a standardized eligibility threshold applicable uniformly across hundreds of cities. Most city councils inherited that threshold as their primary analytical lens — but a city council is not HUD. It governs a specific place with specific people, a specific labor market, specific geography, and a specific housing stock. None of that specificity survives the translation into AMI bands.

The better question is: which households need what kind of unit, in what location, and where do those matches currently fail?

When analysis is organized around households rather than units, several things change simultaneously.

The policy target becomes a person, not a number. A statement like “we need X units at 50% AMI” is a production target. A statement like “the people staffing our hospitals, schools, and restaurants cannot afford to live in the community they serve, and nothing in our housing pipeline reaches them” is a policy problem. One is easier to deprioritize. The other is harder to look away from.

Location becomes a first-order variable rather than an afterthought. The AMI framework treats a qualifying unit anywhere in a city as equivalent to a qualifying unit near transit, employment, schools, and childcare. They are not equivalent. For a household without reliable transportation, the location difference is the difference between a functional housing situation and one that fails on every practical dimension despite meeting the price threshold. When analysis starts with the household, proximity to what that household actually needs becomes part of the definition of adequacy — not a secondary consideration.

The gaps become visible in a way aggregate counts conceal. A jurisdiction can technically meet regional allocation targets while systematically failing specific household types, specific neighborhoods, or specific life circumstances. The households most likely to fall through are those who sit between program thresholds — earning too much for subsidized programs, too little to compete in the market. They are invisible not because the data doesn’t exist to find them but because the analytical framework isn’t organized to look for them.

The definition of success changes. Under the unit-and-price framework, success is production — units built at the right price point. Under a household-and-fit framework, success is matching — households that were previously unserved finding housing that works for their actual situation in a location that supports their actual life. That is a harder standard and a harder outcome to measure. It is also closer to what housing policy is actually meant to accomplish.

This reorientation has a practical consequence for how limited policy tools get deployed. If the question is “how many units at X% AMI do we have,” the answer drives toward production targets and subsidy programs. If the question is “which household types are unmatched and why,” the answer might point toward zoning reform, transit investment, bridge programs for transitional need, or data infrastructure that makes the mismatch visible enough to act on. The tool should follow the diagnosis. In most council chambers today, the tools are derived from a federal eligibility framework being applied to a local problem that framework was never designed to diagnose.

The AMI number is not the goal. It is one input among several that together determine whether a real household can live in a community. Keeping that distinction clear is the beginning of more honest — and more effective — local housing policy.

Pick a window and see what works

Maximizing the public health benefits of a park and trail system isn’t the job of one actor—it’s the result of multiple agent windows working in alignment.

From the resident’s window, the system only works if it’s used. Walking, biking, and simply being outside are what turn infrastructure into better health.

From the city’s window, the responsibility is structure and stewardship—designing safe, accessible parks and maintaining them so they’re inviting every day, not just on paper.

From the county’s window, the role expands outward: connecting systems across municipal lines so trails don’t dead-end at borders, but instead form continuous, usable networks.

From the state’s window, it’s about scale and continuity—funding, standards, and long-range corridors that make regional movement possible.

Each agent operates within their functional level. But the outcomes—better physical health, stronger mental well-being, safer and more active communities—don’t stay contained. They push and pull across these levels of agency.

A trail unused is wasted investment. A trail unconnected is underperforming infrastructure. A trail unsupported by policy is fragile.

But when each agent window is aligned, the system compounds—turning local decisions into regional health gains.

Taxing land for a very long time

The Ancient Roots

Egypt was arguably the first civilization to create direct taxes on property, around 3000 BC, used to build grain warehouses and the pyramids and to pay soldiers. Because there was no coined money at the time, taxes were collected in the form of harvest yields, other property, or labor, paid at least once a year under the supervision of officials called Viziers who acted on behalf of the Pharaoh.

Ancient property taxes were also levied in Babylon, Persia, and China. Originally these taxes were based on the production value of the land — a landowner would be taxed based on what they were able to earn through crops or livestock.

In ancient Greece, wealthy citizens paid a direct tax called eisphora, levied periodically during times of war and calculated based on the value of their property rather than income. They also paid liturgies, which supported public works like maintaining naval vessels or funding theatre festivals.

Rome took a more systematic approach. The empire sent census takers across its vast territories — to North Africa, Spain, Germany, Greece, and Persia — and eventually extended taxation to real estate property (known as tributum soli). Unlike the Greek liturgies, the Roman tributum was deeply resented, especially in the outer provinces, where subjects had little devotion to the central state levying the taxes.

Medieval Europe

In Medieval Europe, ownership of land was limited to royals, nobles, and gentry, though peasants lived on and worked the land. In England, peasants paid an annual tax for use of the land, with amounts based on production — a peasant typically paid about one-tenth of his income to the lord who owned the land. Under William the Conqueror, records were kept on all landowners, including the size and approximate yield of each parcel. Each town maintained a detailed record called the Domesday Book.

The Modern Era

The modern concept of property tax emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the United States, property taxes became widespread in the 19th century as a primary funding source for public education.

The early American “general property tax” was remarkably broad, applying to almost all property — real estate, livestock, valuable possessions, and even intangibles like stocks, bonds, and business equity. Local general property tax receipts grew dramatically from about 2 percent of GDP in the 1850s to 5 percent in the 1920s. Over time, this broad wealth tax was narrowed to focus mainly on real estate.

In the late 20th century, a political backlash emerged. California’s Proposition 13 in 1978 became the most successful attack on the property tax in American history, capping property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value and limiting annual increases in assessed value to 2 percent per year or the rate of inflation, whichever was lesser. The wave of tax protests it inspired swept almost every US state into imposing some kind of limitation on the property tax.

Property Tax Collection Worldwide: How Successful Is It?

The story of property tax collection globally is one of stark divergence between wealthy and developing nations.

Developed Countries: Property taxes raise more than 1 percent of GDP on average in OECD countries, and nearly 3 percent in some advanced economies. Collection in these countries is generally robust, supported by strong administrative infrastructure, reliable property registries, and legal enforcement mechanisms.

Developing Countries: By contrast, property taxes raise only around 0.1 percent of GDP in emerging Asia and Africa — a fraction of their potential. Collection rates in developing countries are often strikingly low. Colombia reported effective collection rates of about 80 percent for a large sample of municipalities; Indonesia reported collection efficiency of just 65 percent.

In some cases the gaps are even more dramatic. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, before reform efforts began, less than 1 percent of property owners were paying the property tax at all.

In Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the Western Hemisphere, 40 percent of taxpayers are delinquent on their property taxes. Even in the United States, several US cities have trouble collecting property taxes and feature noncompliance rates above 10 percent.

Why the Gap Exists: Developed countries collect much higher tax revenue than developing countries despite comparable statutory tax rates, even after controlling for underlying differences in economic activity. This suggests that cross-country differences in fiscal capacity are largely determined by differences in compliance and the efficiency of tax collection mechanisms, both of which are affected by the strength of political institutions.

Property tax is also inherently difficult to enforce. Elected local officials are often not in a position to act against delinquent taxpayers, especially when those who are non-compliant are community leaders. Potentially effective solutions like property confiscation are often considered too extreme and carry significant political fallout.

Success Stories: There are encouraging examples of reform. Lagos, Nigeria, increased its tax collection fivefold to more than $1 billion in 2011 by broadening the base of its property tax and coupling it with better enforcement. Advances in satellite imaging have enabled the accurate measurement of properties and the development of fiscal-register maps, allowing faster rollout of area-based property taxes even before full market-valuation systems are in place.

Research also shows that enforcement letters alone can make a significant difference — delinquent taxpayers in Mexico City who received letters emphasizing sanctions and fines showed triple the likelihood of making a payment compared to a control group that received nothing.

Bottom line: Property taxation is one of humanity’s oldest fiscal tools, dating back over 5,000 years. Globally, it remains one of the most stable and reliable revenue sources where it functions well — but its success hinges entirely on administrative capacity, political will, and the strength of local institutions. The gap between what property taxes could theoretically raise and what they actually collect in much of the developing world remains one of the biggest untapped opportunities in public finance.

Cool Map

Pg 174, The Great Wave by David Hackett Fischer

And then Hackett Fischer offers us this:

In the Victorian era, as in the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, creative thinkers in many fields drew their conceptual models from their historical condition. Similar textures of thought appeared in the biology of Darwin (1809-82), the geology of Charles Lyell (1797-1875), the historiography of Leopold von Ranke (I795-1886), the economics of Karl Marx (1818-83), the politics of William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98) and the statecraft of Abraham Lincoln (1809-65).

However different their ideologies may have been, these Victorians all thought of the world in dynamic terms as a process rather than a static state. All of them understood that world-process as a sequence of conflicts which were progressive, coherent, self-regulating and self-sustaining. The Darwinian principle of natural selection, the Rankean idea of historicism, the Marxian model of dialectical materialism, the Lyellian concept of geologic stratiology, the Lincolnian creed of liberal conservatism and the Gladstonian ideology of conservative liberalism shared those qualities in common.

These large ideas resembled the Victorian equilibrium itself, which was a dynamic, progressive, self-balancing and self-sustaining structure of countervailing forces. Most of these thinkers (with a few exceptions such as Lincoln) also shared a spirit that H. G. Wells called “optimistic fatalism.” This, too, was an expression of the Victorian equilbrium, and an instrument by which it was maintained.

The Weather

I got waylaid today when a one-hour snow flurry stretched into four, grinding the airport to a halt. Most travelers took the disruption in stride, shrugging off the chaos and making the best of their upended schedules. The truth is, weather wields far more power over service delivery than most people realize.

Severe weather, like a drought, can test an infrastructure. Take what is happening in Colorado. (American Rivers)

It’s not one dry year that has placed the Colorado River and all who rely on it in peril; it’s decades of drought amplified by warming temperatures and a system still adjusting, or refusing to adjust, to the reality of a smaller river. The sponge is wrung dry, and we’re a long way from re-saturation. A “Miracle May” might be welcome, but it cannot erase two decades of declining flows and depleted reservoirs to save us at this point.

Aquifers are drained.

The system is being tested. This can be the impetus of a major infrastructure overhaul.

Or take an example of too much water. Flooding throughout the 1800s pressured the development of improved sewer systems.

Sanitation

  • Sewage Backflow: Before the mid-1800s, London relied on approximately 200,000 cesspits and inadequate sewers that emptied into the Thames. Heavy rains caused these systems to overflow, sending a mixture of rainwater and raw sewage into the streets and the basements of low-lying houses.
  • Contaminated Living Spaces: Neighborhoods near the river, such as Lambeth, faced frequent tidal floods. These floods left behind a “filthy mix of river water, mud, and sewage” in residences, creating a “fever-breeding atmosphere” that led to diseases like rheumatism and fever.
  • Water Supply Pollution: The flooding of drainage ditches often polluted the very wells and water supplies Londoners relied on for drinking and washing. 

Weather is unpredictable and indiscriminate. It can be the final straw for the cooperation necessary to tackle major infrastructure projects.

Residential facts about elder care

Approximately 0.7% to 0.8% of the total U.S. population—representing about 2.2 to 2.5 million individuals—currently lives in senior care housing. Among the elderly population (ages 65+), roughly 5% to 7% reside in these facilities.

Historical Residency Values (Last 20 Years)

While the total number of seniors in care has risen due to population aging, the percentage of seniors living in institutional settings like nursing homes has generally declined as “aging in place” and home-based services have expanded. 

Screenshot

Key Long-Term Trends

  • The Shift to Assisted Living: In the early 2000s, nursing homes held nearly double the population of assisted living facilities. Today, the two sectors are nearly equal in size as healthier seniors opt for less restrictive residential care.
  • Declining Nursing Home Rates: The share of adults 65+ in nursing homes dropped from about 5% in 2005 to roughly 2.3% by 2025.
  • Occupancy Recovery: Following a decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, senior housing occupancy rates reached a high of 88.7% in late 2025, driven by the aging Baby Boomer generation.
  • Age Concentration: Residency is heavily concentrated among the “oldest-old.” While only ~1.1% of those aged 65–74 live in nursing homes, that figure jumps to 13.2% for those 85 and older.

War of the Worlds- Movie Review

I quite like Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise. Sure, the mixed reviews have some merit—there are pacing issues and a few tonal wobbles—but any serious effort to keep a literary classic alive and breathing for new audiences earns extra points from me.

Different viewers come for different reasons, and that’s part of what makes the film work as a gateway. Some are pulled in by the jaw-dropping special effects and the sheer spectacle of those towering Tripods rising out of the ground like mechanical demons. Others show up for Cruise’s trademark intensity and magnetic screen presence; even when his character is at his most flawed and frantic, he’s impossible to look away from. And then there’s Dakota Fanning—still a child at the time—who delivers one of the most raw, heartbreaking performances of any kid actor in a big-budget sci-fi film. Her terror feels unbearably real, and she more than earns the attention she gets.

But whatever the entry point—frivolous or not—the real victory is that H.G. Wells’ core message gets relaunched to an entirely new generation: humanity’s terrifying vulnerability in the face of superior technology, the fragility of civilization, and the humbling realization that we are not the apex predators we like to believe we are. In an age of drones, AI, and ever-advancing weaponry, that warning feels as urgent as it did in 1898. Spielberg’s version may not be flawless, but it keeps the conversation going, and that’s worth celebrating.

Who are we actually housing?

Most municipal housing analysis organizes everything around income bands — 30% AMI, 50% AMI, 80% AMI. These are federal eligibility thresholds, not human descriptions. They tell us what a household can afford in the abstract but nothing about who they actually are, what they need nearby, or how stable their situation is likely to be.

A better approach matches specific household archetypes to specific housing stock in specific locations. A single mother with a housing voucher doesn’t just need an affordable unit — she needs that unit within walking distance of an elementary school, a bus line, and the social services her family relies on. A young service worker couple needs a rental near the Highway 55 employment corridor, not a subsidized senior building across town. An elderly renter on fixed income needs proximity to medical transit, not a unit that looks affordable on paper but isolates her from the care she depends on.

This kind of intentional matching also multiplies the impact of the community’s voluntary infrastructure. When households are correctly placed, the tutoring volunteer at the neighborhood school reaches the kids who need her most. The volunteer driver picking up elderly residents for medical appointments serves a cluster of neighbors, not a scattered handful across the city. The food pantry, the after-school program, the church that quietly helps a struggling family cover a utility bill — all of these work harder and reach further when the people who need them most actually live nearby.

Getting housing placement right isn’t only about affordability. It’s about making sure that every dollar of public subsidy, and every hour of community generosity, lands where it was always meant to go.

Watch for it

Is a surge of forward momentum coming? I think so—and here’s why.

For a while now, a significant amount of talent has been effectively “held in place.” A large, established cohort has remained in positions of influence longer than expected—often prioritizing stability over experimentation. The result: slower adoption of new ideas and less momentum in execution.

At the same time, many mid-career professionals—the ones ready to lead—have continued to operate within existing systems. They’ve respected the rules, the hierarchy, and the pace set before them. There’s a real human dimension here: deference, institutional norms, and a reluctance to disrupt the order too aggressively.

But that equilibrium is starting to shift.

Younger generations are less inclined to wait their turn. They challenge assumptions, move faster, and are more willing to bypass traditional gatekeeping. That pressure alone begins to destabilize the status quo.

What’s more interesting, though, is what happens next: the “in-between” cohort—the experienced but previously constrained group—begins to recognize that the systems they’ve upheld are more flexible than they seemed. The same networks, processes, and institutional knowledge that once reinforced hierarchy can now be used to accelerate change.

And once that realization clicks, things can move quickly.

If that happens at scale, we’re not just looking at gradual change—we’re looking at a release of long-constrained capacity. A surge of leadership, execution, and innovation from people who were ready all along.

In other words: a boom driven not by new talent, but by newly unblocked talent.

Watch for it.

Transformations

When I query Grok about the core intuitions of Public Choice, I ask about transformations. The individual who is hired to look after the public good, let’s self-interested motives seep in. Groups of people band together once they realize they share an interest and form a selfish group most likely at odds with the greater group. Grok confirms:

Yes, exactly—that’s the beating heart of The Calculus of Consent (1962) by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock.208

They took the standard economic assumption—that people are rational, self-interested utility maximizers—and applied it unflinchingly to politics. No romantic view of benevolent “public servants” here. Government operatives (politicians, bureaucrats, elected officials) perform their own personal calculus before every action: “What’s in it for me—reelection odds, bigger budget, more power, prestige?” They weigh expected personal benefits against costs, just like a firm maximizes profit or a consumer maximizes satisfaction.22

And yes, groups form that do precisely the same thing. Individuals with aligned interests rationally band together into coalitions, interest groups, or “pressure groups” (there’s even a whole chapter on them). Why? Because collective action lets them concentrate benefits on themselves while spreading the costs across the broader public (classic concentrated benefits/dispersed costs dynamic). The main mechanism they analyze is logrolling (vote-trading): one group supports another’s pet project in exchange for reciprocal support, creating temporary winning coalitions that get policies passed even if the overall result is inefficient.2023

The Two-Stage Framework They Build

Buchanan and Tullock split decision-making into two levels to make sense of this:

  1. Constitutional stage (the “rules of the game”): Here, people choose the decision rules in advance (ideally by near-unanimity, under a veil of uncertainty about future positions). The goal is to minimize the sum of external costs (being harmed by decisions you oppose) and decision-making costs (the hassle of reaching agreement).
  2. Post-constitutional / operational stage (playing the game): Once rules like simple majority voting are set, self-interested operatives and groups go to work. Majority rule becomes a license for coalitions to impose external costs on minorities—exactly why you see pork-barrel spending, special-interest legislation, and “majority tyranny” in practice.23

They even graph the trade-off: unanimity is ideal for zero external costs but insanely high decision costs; simple majority is cheap and fast but creates huge external costs. Optimal rules sit somewhere in between, and the book argues for constitutional restraints (supermajorities, generality principles, federalism) to channel this self-interest productively rather than let it run wild.

This is the birth of modern public choice theory: politics isn’t a noble quest for the “public interest”; the public interest is simply the aggregate of all these private calculations. It explains why government grows, why lobbies thrive, and why “good government” reformers keep failing without changing the rules of the game.

Tullock later extended this with rent-seeking (wasting resources to capture transfers), but the foundation is all right here.

Me again. In this follow-up presentation, presented 25 years after the publication of their theory, Tullock laments the lack of follow-up on rule making and following that arrives as a primary condition to their proposal of public choice.

But I think there is another direction to take their powerful insight.

Although the formal constitutional rules that Buchanan and Tullock placed at the heart of their analysis are often codified in founding documents and statutes, the informal “rules of the game” that emerge afterward are equally—if not more—consequential. These unwritten norms continuously morph and adapt. Individuals first secure their own private interests, then weigh the external or public consequences of their actions, and finally align with others to form coalitions. Once formed, each coalition begins to behave as a new, unitary self-interested actor within the political arena. This layered sequence of micro-calculations and group realignments produces perpetual transformations in the effective institutional order. It is precisely these ongoing shifts that generate the momentum and structure the market-like dynamics of governance itself.

There’s more here about the underlying variables that track this activity.

Steadfast reassurances

Thrice happy she that is so well assured Unto herself and settled so in heart That neither will for better be allured Ne fears to worse with any chance to start, But like a steddy ship doth strongly part The raging waves and keeps her course aright; Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart, Ne aught for fairer weather’s false delight. Such self-assurance need not fear the spight Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends; But in the stay of her own stedfast might Neither to one herself nor other bends. Most happy she that most assured doth rest, But he most happy who such one loves best.

Edmund Spenser

A complete mix of buyers

I was out showing houses quite a number of years ago, and we were in a nice property on the edge of a wetland. In the family room, there was a fairly significant settling crack in the sheetrock along an exterior wall by the fireplace. When we went down to the lower level beneath it, we found a crack stair-stepping down the concrete block foundation as well.

The buyers were taken aback—rather alarmed—and questioned the feasibility of marketing a property with such a flaw. I agreed that this structural defect would rule out many buyers. It’s simply too much risk for the average couple. But I pointed out that in twenty years, if they drive by, the house would still be standing. There’s a buyer for every property. It’s just that different people are open to different situations—we call them preferences.

The shadow of suspicion that had hung over the seller—hinting at possible improper conduct—slowly lifted. The truth is straightforward: You can sell what you have, but you cannot conceal a known flaw or material fact.

In fact, the market functions at its healthiest when everyone openly acknowledges the full spectrum of features—and yes, the flaws too. Buyers okay with a busier road often get compensated with a lower price, a bigger yard, or some other perk. A run-down, dilapidated home becomes a dream for the renovation enthusiast who sees potential where others see problems.

The real poison for any market isn’t the flaws themselves—it’s the presence of obstacles like poor, incomplete, or hidden information.

Smith’s other book about the economy

Tihs is such a great interview on Econ Talk: Vernon Smith on Adam Smith and the Human Enterprise

Russ: So, what do you mean by ‘the rules’ part? In what sense is–explain that. Guest: Well, I think, the rules come from–for example one sort of rule comes from this first proposition, where actions of a beneficent tendency to proceed from proper motives alone require reward. Well, the rule that people generally follow is to reciprocate kindness. Okay? So, that’s a kind of rule that you get from Adam Smith. And also, he has another proposition, which is the reverse of the beneficent. And this has to do with the hurtful action. He says,

Actions of a hurtful tendency which proceed from improper motives seem alone to deserve punishment.

In other words, what does it mean to be improper? Well, you intended to be hurtful. If it was just an accident, um, Smith says, you know, if it was just an accident, that’s different. But if it’s intended, then this is hurtful. And people feel resentment to that. Just as they feel gratitude toward actions that intended to be beneficent, so they feel resentment when you deliberately make a choice, take an action that is hurtful to me. And that excites resentment, Smith tells us; and I am motivated–if I have an opportunity, I will punish you for that. And that, by the way–that proposition is the basis of property rights in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The Theory of Moral Sentiments develops beautifully a theory of property rights, and it comes from that second proposition. And it’s because we have these rules in our small group to respond in a resentful way toward deliberately hurtful actions, he says, When it comes time for civil government we just move those rules over and they become the law. You see. The law originates long before, in cultural groups, long before we have the civil law of government. And he develops that, very, very nicely. He says it’s kind of a–it’s not only a motivation to punish from resentment, but it’s sort of a proportional punishment, you see, depending upon the severity of the resentment. And he says this is why, under the civil order of government, that murder has the greatest punishment. Because what could be more serious than murder? And he also points out that, in that development, that theft and robbery carry a greater punishment than a violation of promises. In other words, contracts. And he says, Why? He says, because robbery and theft take from us what we have already acquired. Violation of contract merely frustrates our expectation of gain. Okay? And he says that’s different. And indeed, theft and robbery are criminal offenses. Violation of contract are only civil offenses. You can get redress, of course, but they are considered less serious. And he gets that from another fundamental proposition in Adam Smith, and that’s the asymmetry between gains and losses. Russ: It’s incredible. Guest: He says, we suffer, and I can tell you this one almost verbatim: He says, ‘We suffer more when we fall from a better to a worse state than we ever gain when we arise from a worse to a better.’ And he goes on, explains this, that it’s loss of fortune, of reputation, of esteem. I mean, it isn’t just money and fortune. He mentions, as I recall, three other things, but they have to do with our rank, our status–

The threat of loss can be a greater motivator than the potential of a gain.

Water notes

Ancient Infrastructure and Public Health
The ancient city of Rome built one of the world’s earliest large-scale urban water systems. By the 1st century CE, the Roman Empire operated 11 aqueducts delivering hundreds of millions of gallons of water daily to fountains, baths, and households. The system worked because water flowed constantly through public fountains, preventing stagnation—an early recognition that moving water helped keep cities healthier, even before germ theory existed.

The Modern “Water Recycling” City
Today, Singapore has one of the most advanced urban water systems in the world. Through a program called NEWater, wastewater is purified using microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet treatment, then reused as drinking water. About 40% of the city-state’s water supply now comes from recycled water, dramatically reducing reliance on imported water.

Cholera and the Birth of Modern Water Policy
A cholera outbreak in Hamburg, Germany in 1892 killed over 8,000 people because the city pumped untreated river water into its system. Nearby Altona, which filtered its water from the same river, had far fewer deaths. The episode became a famous demonstration that clean water infrastructure could determine whether epidemics spread or stop.

In the mid-19th century, when Charles Dickens was writing Bleak House, much of London still received water only a few hours a day. Private water companies pumped river water through pipes at scheduled times, and households had to fill rooftop cisterns or barrels while the supply was running.

The problem was that these cisterns often sat open or poorly sealed, allowing dust, insects, and sometimes sewage contamination to enter. Water might then sit stagnant for days before being used. Even homes that technically had “piped water” could end up drinking water that had gone bad.

This practice—called “intermittent supply”—was common across the city and contributed to repeated outbreaks of diseases like Cholera. Reformers later pushed for “constant supply,” where pressurized pipes delivered water continuously, preventing contamination.

Bundles

If you’ve ever bought a home, then you know how a bundle purchase works. If you like the proximity to the city core, you might only be able to choose a home built before 1940. If you like an expansive backyard, then you might have to move out to the suburbs. If you like a certain school district, you might have to lower your square-footage expectations. That’s how it works. The bundle cannot be unwound and sold off in parts.

If you reverse-engineer this thinking, features in real estate attract particular groups of people. The young artsy crowd can tolerate a little inner-city crime for cheap rent. Those who honor the walking on the Shabbat will outbid those who don’t. Those in the throes of raising children will be attracted to some acceptable combination of safety, schools, and recreation services. Movement among the groups is a sign of institutional strengths or weaknesses.

At different stages of life and circumstance, people will cluster to the services they hold most dear. How buyers navigate the market is an ongoing signal to all the support services they seek.

Dynamism through Action

Pete Boettke recently gave a talk about price theory. I love this bit about underlying variables. Listen 12:38-13:48.

The standard treatment of institutions as “rules of the game” is essentially static — it tells us what constraints are in place, but not why they persist, intensify, or dissolve. A more complete account requires treating shared objectives as the generative core of institutional life, and voluntary time-and-effort allocation as the price signal within the group that tells us how much those objectives are worth to members.

Consider: individuals do not sort into groups randomly, nor purely by material incentive. They sort by objective-fit — the degree to which a group’s collective purpose aligns with what they are trying to accomplish or become. This is praxeological in the strict Misesian sense: every hour volunteered into a church, a guild, a political movement, or a commons-governing body is a revealed preference for the objective-bundle that institution represents. Time is the least manipulable of resources — it cannot be borrowed against or subsidized — so voluntary time allocation is arguably the most honest signal we have of how individuals rank competing institutional commitments.

This has a direct and underappreciated implication for asset pricing. The assets governed by a group — whether land, reputational authority, epistemic legitimacy, or physical infrastructure — do not derive their value solely from their productive characteristics. They derive value from the depth of commitment surrounding them. An estate governed by a thriving, purpose-aligned community commands a premium not merely because it is productive, but because membership in its governing structure confers access to a bundle of shared objectives that individuals have already revealed they value highly. Conversely, when voluntary effort drains out of an institution — when members clock in but stop investing — the asset governed by that institution begins to reprice downward, even before any formal rule change occurs. The legitimacy discount precedes the market discount.

This reframes what Boettke calls the “underlying variables” in an important way. Property rights, norms, and enforcement capacity are not simply given features of the environment. They are continuously reproduced — or eroded — by the flow of voluntary commitment into and out of the objective-bundles we call institutions. The price system sits atop this layer, and price signals in the external market partially reflect the internal vitality of the groups that hold the relevant assets.

The sorting mechanism is therefore bidirectional. Individuals flow toward institutions whose objectives they share and whose shared assets are appreciating in legitimacy-value. As they do, their voluntary effort deepens the institution’s governance capacity, which further stabilizes and potentially raises the value of associated assets. The inverse dynamic — exit, reduced commitment, legitimacy decay — is equally self-reinforcing. This is not merely path dependence in North’s sense; it is a feedback loop between subjective valuation, voluntary action, and institutional asset pricing that operates continuously and below the threshold of formal rule change.

The practical upshot is that you can read the health of an institution — and anticipate repricing of its associated assets — by watching where voluntary effort is flowing, long before markets or formal governance structures register the shift.

Minnesota Writers

From Icons to Hidden Treasures

Recognized:

• F. Scott Fitzgerald — Born in St. Paul; master of the Jazz Age with The Great Gatsby, a cornerstone of American literature taught everywhere.

• Sinclair Lewis — Sauk Centre native; first American Nobel Prize in Literature winner (1930) for sharp satires like Main Street and Babbitt.

• Louise Erdrich — Longtime Minnesota resident (Minneapolis); Pulitzer winner (The Night Watchman), National Book Award finalist, powerful voice in Indigenous literature with series like Love Medicine.

• Kate DiCamillo — Minneapolis-based; two-time Newbery Medalist for beloved children’s books like The Tale of Despereaux and Flora & Ulysses.

• Bob Dylan — Duluth-born, Hibbing-raised; Nobel Prize in Literature (2016) for poetic songwriting; memoir Chronicles adds to his literary legacy.

• Garrison Keillor — Iconic Minnesota storyteller via A Prairie Home Companion; Lake Wobegon books like Lake Wobegon Days defined cozy Midwestern humor for national audiences.

• Tim O’Brien — Strong Minnesota ties (Worthington roots); National Book Award for Going After Cacciato; The Things They Carried is a definitive Vietnam War classic.

• William Kent Krueger — Prolific bestseller with the Cork O’Connor mystery series set in MN’s Northwoods; multiple Minnesota Book Awards and wide readership.

Underrated Gems:

• Faith Sullivan — Literary novelist capturing Depression-era small-town MN life in The Cape Ann with quiet emotional depth and resilience.

• Lorna Landvik — Warm, humorous tales of Midwestern women and friendship (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons); cozy, community-focused reads with recipes and heart.

• Allen Eskens — Smart, character-rich crime novels like The Life We Bury; rising regional star with thoughtful mysteries rooted in local settings.

• Marcie Rendon — White Earth Nation author; gripping Cash Blackbear series blends crime with Indigenous history and justice; Minnesota Book Award winner.

• Kevin Kling — Witty, poignant essays and memoirs (Big Little Mother) turning personal stories—including disability C

—into universal MN insights and humor.

• Anne Ursu — Magical middle-grade fiction with strong heroines (Not Quite a Ghost); thoughtful, chilling kid-lit that’s respected in the children’s book world.

• Sally Franson — Quirky, modern novels full of humor and self-discovery (Big in Sweden, inspired by her own reality TV adventure); captures Twin Cities ambition.

• Abby Jimenez — Rising romance bestseller (Just for the Summer) mixing laughs, emotion, and occasional MN nods; great for feel-good contemporary reads.

MN progressives go back a century

The early Farmer–Labor movement in Minnesota emerged in the late 1910s as a coalition of small farmers and urban workers who felt shut out of the state’s political and economic power structures. It quickly became known for its progressive agenda, pushing for labor protections, cooperative economics, and relief for struggling rural communities. The party’s roots lay in organizations like the Nonpartisan League, which challenged the dominance of established political elites and helped build a broad base of support among those seeking systemic reform.

Alongside its reformist goals, the movement also included more radical factions, such as socialists and other left-wing groups, which sometimes embraced confrontational tactics. These internal tensions meant that while many Farmer–Labor leaders pursued moderate change through elections and legislation, some elements within the broader movement were willing to use more aggressive or disruptive methods to push their demands. This mix of progressive ideals and occasional volatility made the early Farmer–Labor coalition both influential and, at times, controversial in Minnesota’s political landscape.

The reform-minded farmers and workers who shaped Minnesota politics in the 1910s were pushing against concentrated economic power in railroads, grain markets, and industry, and many of their ideas echo through today’s left‑leaning progressive movements in the state. Both groups emphasize economic fairness, worker protections, and public investment as tools to counterbalance large corporate interests. Early Farmer–Labor activists framed their struggle around cooperative economics and public ownership of key services, while today’s progressives often focus on issues like healthcare access, climate policy, and racial and economic equity. In both eras, supporters describe their movements as corrective forces responding to inequality and political exclusion.

Where are you?

Yuval Levin in conversation with Bill Kristol describes a staging of local activities.

Conservatism, Levin has notably said, “understands society not as just individuals and government, but thinks of it in terms of everything that happens in between. That huge space between the individual and the state is where society actually is. And that’s where families are, it’s where communities are, it’s where the market economy is.”[5]

And we like that space between the individual and the government. That’s where all interests Home-Economic reside as well.

Looking for signals in shampoo and conditioner

There’s endless talk about “norms,” but how do we know one exists when it hasn’t been written down anywhere? That’s the question behind this entertaining episode of Shampoo, Property Rights, and Civilization from EconTalk—a sharp, practical exploration of why it’s perfectly acceptable to take the mini shampoo bottles from your hotel room, but not the towels… and certainly not the mattress.

Since such things resist a written format, how do people find out what the current norms entail? Also of interest is to pick up signals when a well-established and purposeful norm is eroding.

Ice Cold— Series Review

Rocco Schiavone: Ice Cold Murders (also known simply as Ice Cold Murders in some listings) is a captivating Italian crime drama available on Prime Video, based on Antonio Manzini’s popular novels. Starring Marco Giallini as the titular Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone, the series follows this cranky, unorthodox detective who’s been “exiled” from his beloved Rome to the remote alpine town of Aosta in the Italian Alps after crossing the wrong people.

The lead character, Rocco, carries a heavy load of personal problems—he’s grieving the loss of his wife (who appears to him as a ghost in poignant moments), harbors deep regrets from his past, and often bends (or outright breaks) rules with his questionable ethics, marijuana use, and sharp-tongued attitude. These issues add layers of melancholy and complexity to his character, making him far more than just another brooding cop; he’s flawed, disillusioned, yet undeniably competent at solving crimes.

What really brings humor and warmth to the show is the supporting cast—Rocco’s team of local officers who bicker constantly like a loud, chaotic Italian family. Their banter, arguments, and everyday squabbles provide comic relief amid the darker murder investigations, creating a lively dynamic that feels authentic and endearing. It’s this motley crew’s interactions that often steal the scenes and keep the tone balanced between suspense and levity.

Visually, the series is a treat. The mountain scenery in the Italian Alps is stunning—snow-capped peaks, dramatic ski slopes, and the crisp, icy landscapes of Val d’Aosta serve as a breathtaking backdrop that contrasts sharply with the gritty crimes being solved. The cold, isolated setting enhances the atmosphere, making every case feel both intimate and expansive.

Overall, if you enjoy character-driven procedurals like Montalbano but with a grittier, more irreverent edge, this is a binge-worthy gem. The mysteries are solid, the acting (especially Giallini’s pitch-perfect portrayal) is excellent, and the blend of humor, heart, and intrigue makes it stand out. Highly recommended for fans of Italian crime dramas—it’s devilishly entertaining from start to finish!

George’s Jumble

Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (1879) remains one of the most compelling works in economic philosophy. His core proposition — that land value is created by the surrounding community, not the landowner, and therefore should be taxed back by that community — has attracted admirers across the political spectrum for nearly 150 years.

But there is a quiet logical fault running through the foundation of his argument, and it is this: George’s moral claim only runs in one direction.

When a city builds a transit line and your land value rises by $200,000, George says the community is morally entitled to capture that gain — you didn’t earn it, society did. The argument is elegant and, on its face, persuasive.

But what happens when the community fails? When schools deteriorate, crime rises, institutions collapse, and your land loses $200,000 in value through no fault of your own? George’s framework offers you nothing. The community claims the upside as its moral birthright, then silently disappears when the downside arrives.

This is not a minor oversight. It is a fundamental asymmetry that undermines the entire moral architecture of his proposal. Any genuine claim of community ownership over land value must carry liability in both directions. A silent partner who collects profits but absorbs no losses isn’t making a moral claim — they’re simply extracting.

The more defensible justification for property taxation was available all along: you pay taxes because you continuously consume a stream of public services — roads, courts, fire protection, enforceable title — that make your property functional and valuable. That is a flow, not a gain. Tax the consumption of the flow, and the asymmetry vanishes. When services decline, so does your bill.

George saw clearly that community investment shapes land value. He simply drew the wrong conclusion from that insight.

A Sketch

Between the hand and the waiting page
a quiet question breathes:

Is it the eye that reaches down
to press its longing onto paper,
or does the page lift itself
toward the gaze, hungry to be seen?

Pencil grazes, tentative,
then sure—
each line a whispered nerve
finding its twin across the white.

Logic wakes in the meeting of marks:
here a curve bows to angle,
there a straight path kisses its own return.
Edge finds edge like lovers
recognizing the shape of home.

Balance is not declared—
it arrives,
soft as breath held,
sudden as dawn
when the last connection
closes the circuit
and the project,
once mist,
now stands solid
inside the mind’s lit room.

Who Owns this Ground

The ancient, persistent, and surprisingly unfinished problem of recording who owns what land — from the city gates of Bethlehem to the blockchain.

Nearly every functioning society on earth has, at some point, tried to answer the same basic question: if you buy a piece of land, how does everyone else know it belongs to you?

The answer — a formal, state-endorsed system for recording property rights — sounds like a modern bureaucratic convenience. It is anything but. The instinct to register land transactions publicly, with witnesses and permanent record, is as old as civilization itself. What has changed is the machinery we use to do it.

85–90%of the world's ~195 countries have some legislated, state-endorsed land recording framework

Yet legislation and reality diverge sharply. Only about 30–40% of nations operate systems that function well and comprehensively in practice — with digitized cadastres, reliable title registries, and meaningful coverage of both urban and rural land. Another 30–40% have a framework on paper but face serious gaps: incomplete records, paper-only files, corruption, or vast tracts of rural land never formally mapped or titled. The remaining 15–25% — largely fragile or conflict-affected states — operate with little to no effective state system, leaving customary and informal tenure to fill the void.

The World Bank estimates that, globally, only around 30% of all land is formally documented, even in countries where registration systems nominally exist. Billions of people hold land through custom, occupation, or community recognition alone — arrangements that are often stable locally but leave them invisible to credit markets, vulnerable to displacement, and unprotected when disputes arise.

Why It Matters So Much

Secure, recorded property rights are one of the most powerful engines of economic development known to policy economists. Hernando de Soto famously argued that the trillions of dollars held in unregistered land by the world’s poor constitute “dead capital” — wealth that cannot be leveraged, mortgaged, inherited clearly, or used as collateral because it lacks the legal paperwork to make it legible to the formal economy.

Beyond economics, land registration underpins everything from tax collection and infrastructure planning to the peaceful resolution of inheritance disputes. Where it fails, the consequences are land grabs, protracted litigation, and the kind of slow-burning rural conflict that has destabilized societies from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia.

The Steps Have Always Been the Same

Strip away the technology — the cadastral surveys, the blockchain pilots, the GIS mapping platforms — and any land transaction has always required the same sequence of steps. You identify the parcel. You investigate its history for prior claims or encumbrances. You conduct the transfer. And you do it publicly, with witnesses, so the world can attest to what just happened.

This logic did not begin with the Domesday Book, or the Statute of Uses, or the Torrens system pioneered in South Australia in 1858. It is recorded in scripture.

The Book of Ruth — set during the period of the Judges, likely around the 11th century BCE — contains what may be the most vivid early account of a structured land transaction in literature. In four brief verses, Boaz navigates every stage of a property transfer with a procedural care that would not look out of place in a modern title search.

I Identify the parcel and its rightful seller

And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech's.Ruth 4 — The Kinsman's Right of Redemption

The parcel is named. Its origin — the estate of Elimelech — is stated. The seller is identified. This is the first act of any title search: establish what is being sold and by whose authority.

II Surface all encumbrances before closing

Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.Ruth 4:5

Here is the disclosure of the encumbrance. The unnamed kinsman had initially agreed to redeem the land — until Boaz revealed the obligation attached to it: marrying Ruth, the Moabite widow, to continue the line of the deceased. The kinsman withdrew. In modern terms, the title search had surfaced a condition that changed the buyer’s calculus entirely. This is exactly what a lien search, a probate review, or an examination of easements is meant to accomplish.

III Declare the transaction before witnesses

And Boaz said unto the elders, and unto all the people, Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi. Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.Ruth 4:9–10

The gate of the city was the court, the marketplace, and the public square all in one. To speak there, before the elders and “all the people,” was to enter a declaration into the community’s living memory — the only registry available. Boaz names the asset, names the grantor, names the consideration, and repeats the phrase ye are witnesses this day twice, as if to ensure no one present could later claim ignorance.

Three thousand years later, we accomplish the same thing with title insurance, notarized deeds, and entries in a government land register. The logic is unchanged. The human anxiety underneath it — that someone might later appear and contest what you believed was yours — has never gone away. We have only built progressively more elaborate machinery to manage it.

Measuring the back-stop jobs

Here’s a familiar story:

This is a story of a layer of social life that doesn’t appear in any contract, law, or job description — and yet, without it, the whole thing quietly falls apart.

Call it the system of imperfect obligations. No single person is required to act. No one is legally on the hook. But someone steps up anyway — and in doing so, they hold something together that would otherwise fracture.

You know these moments when you see them:

The stranger who jumps into a pond to pull out a drowning child. The passing drivers who stop at a roadside crash and stay until help arrives. The employee who becomes a whistleblower, knowing the personal cost, because the fraud had to be exposed. The friend who drives an elderly neighbor to chemotherapy every Tuesday — not because they were asked, but because someone had to.

None of these are rights. They aren’t enforced, and failing to perform them carries no legal penalty. They live in the space between law and love — the domain of norms, trust, and quiet expectation.

What’s remarkable is that this space scales. When a community of people consistently honors these unwritten obligations — not because they must, but because they understand that everyone benefits when they do — something more durable emerges. Consider diamond traders, who conduct enormous transactions on a handshake, backed by centuries of community reputation rather than legal contracts. When trust reaches that kind of density, informal obligation starts to function like institutional infrastructure.

That’s the hidden architecture. Rights protect us from the worst of each other. Laws keep order. But it’s the imperfect obligations — the voluntary, uncompelled acts of people showing up when no one technically has to — that make a community worth living in.

We don’t talk about this enough. Maybe because it can’t be mandated, it gets overlooked in policy. But cultivating it matters: in how we raise children, build organizations, and decide what kind of neighbors we want to be.

The backstop only works if someone is willing to be it.

A father’s instructions

This is an important thing, which I have told many people, and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.

Gilead by Marilynn Robinson

Morning at the Window

TS Elliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
and along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
and tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
an aimless smile that hovers in the air
and vanishes along the level of the roofs.

I didn’t realize

Yes, revealed preference theory is firmly placed within price theory—in fact, it’s one of the foundational pillars of modern price theory in microeconomics.

Price theory (often called “the theory of price” or simply microeconomic price theory) studies how relative prices coordinate economic activity, determine resource allocation, and shape individual choices under scarcity. It explains demand, supply, equilibrium, and welfare through the lens of prices, budgets, and rational behavior. Classic price theory textbooks (like David Friedman’s Price Theory, or sections in Varian, Mas-Colell et al., or even older works like Stigler) integrate revealed preference as the rigorous, behaviorally grounded foundation for consumer demand.

Paul Samuelson’s revealed preference approach was explicitly designed to reconstruct (and arguably purify) the pure theory of consumer behavior—a core part of price theory—using only observable data: market choices (purchases) at varying prices and incomes. Samuelson aimed to derive key price-theoretic results (like downward-sloping compensated demand curves, the Slutsky equation decomposition, homogeneity of demand, and negative semi-definiteness of substitution effects) without invoking unobservable “utility” functions or introspection.

• In his 1938 paper (“A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumer’s Behaviour”), Samuelson framed revealed preference as a way to explain price behavior observationally.

• By 1948 and 1950 (with Houthakker’s Strong Axiom completing the equivalence), it became clear that revealed preference axioms (WARP/SARP/GARP) generate the same predictions as ordinal utility maximization under standard assumptions.

• Later developments (Afriat’s theorem, Varian’s nonparametric tests) made revealed preference the go-to empirical toolkit for testing rationality and recovering preferences from price-quantity data.

In essence:

• Revealed preference operationalizes price theory by making consumer demand testable and derivable from observed market responses to prices.

• It sits at the heart of demand theory, which is central to how prices work in allocating goods.

• Modern price theory often presents consumer choice via revealed preference first (or alongside utility), precisely because it avoids metaphysical assumptions and focuses on what prices reveal through behavior.

So while Samuelson initially pitched it as a potential alternative to utility-based approaches, it ended up as the behaviorally austere backbone of price theory’s consumer side—empirically powerful and mathematically equivalent to the older framework under consistency conditions.

If you’re studying intermediate/advanced micro (or price theory courses), you’ll encounter revealed preference right alongside budget constraints, demand functions, and price changes—it’s not peripheral; it’s integral.

Polite yet misleading Voices

The county closed a motel in a first tier suburb recently. To read this article in the local newpaper, it was all about physical issues with the building.

“A few days prior, they had a frozen sprinkler pipe that broke, and we were just confirming that it was repaired. During this confirmation, it was noticed that the pipe was repaired and their sprinkler system was fully operational, but they were using a space heater in that unit, which is not up to good fire standards,” he said. “We found many other items of concern.”

Berg reportedly discovered common areas and unoccupied rooms that did not have heat, dried vomit and blood splatter on the walls in the stairwell, clothes scattered throughout the property and other health safety concerns. He conducted the inspection alongside the city’s fire marshal.

“One of the biggest problems is that none of their exterior doors close and lock. Two of them don’t even close all the way,” he said. “We explained the importance of getting these exterior doors repaired so that they lock. Management said that they have, and they try, and within days that they are damaged by their guests so that they can allow access to others in and out of the hotel, bypassing the front desk.”

And some more stuff about ceiling tiles and a dumpster.

The article focuses on the decay of the physical attributes. While completely relevant, it minimizes the social explanation for the deterioration of the property. Towards the close of the article, for the readers that linger that long, there’s this:

Berg said the fire department had been called to the Travelodge once for a possible heart attack, once for a gas odor and four times to provide CPR in the past month. The Brooklyn Center Police Department, meanwhile, responded to 102 calls from the Travelodge between Jan. 9 and Feb. 6. One led to the arrest of a carjacking suspect.

“It’s the highest four-week total since at least 2015,” Berg said. “They responded to seven drug overdoses, and two of them were fatal.”

The first sign of social concern could happen anywhere— a patron has a possible heart attack. But then the true numbers surface with no additional descriptors- 102 calls to the police. One hundred and two. People doing stuff that warrants a formal intervention from municipal security.

It is reported this way because readers don’t want to dwell on it. Nor the seven suicides. We don’t talk about unattractive social factors. Which is OK as long as they show up somewhere. Otherwise everyone just pretends the issue is physical maintenance when that is only a frivolous sideshow to the real concerns associated with this particular property.

Lingering Legacies

Zoning isn’t the only way to use the law to tie up land use. Private parties do it too! Here is a story of a farmer placing a conservation easement on his land so that it must remain under the till and plow.

Agricultural or Farmland Preservation Easement — A specialized form of conservation easement focused on protecting productive farmland. It limits non-agricultural development (e.g., no residential subdivisions or commercial buildings) while allowing continued farming, ranching, or related activities. Can be donated or purchased (e.g., via programs like USDA’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Program).

Legal and Lifestyle

There are factors in real estate that are legal, written in the books for all to see and enforce. And there are factors that concern lifestyle, or how people prefer to live. Take high-density living. Zoning is the big catchword that commentators like to dwell on. Zoning dictates which types of buildings can be built on specific land parcels. Some of the categories are Single-Family, Multi-Family, or Commercial. Of course, this plays into the development of the city. But after it’s already a built space, the impacts matter far less.

Whereas how people live within the rules of a complex is far more present and engaging. Association boards meet regularly, set budgets, and maintain a response to maintenance and complaints. A condo building has more shared walls and spaces than a townhouse. People feel closer to single-family living in a townhouse because their front door opens directly into fresh air rather than into a hallway.

Once a landscape is built, multiple parts of the system are going to be difficult to update and change. Zoning is not the only legal feature with lasting constraints on property.

Setting Standards, Institutional Supports

Have you ever wondered what happens when you are the victim of check fraud? The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), specifically Articles 3 and 4, provides important protections for consumers in such situations.

Under the UCC, a bank may only charge your account for items that are “properly payable”—meaning you authorized them. A check bearing a forged signature, an unauthorized alteration (such as a changed amount or payee), or a counterfeit is not properly payable. In these cases, the bank is generally required to credit your account for the unauthorized withdrawal, restoring the funds that were improperly deducted.

This rule places primary responsibility on the bank to detect and prevent fraud during the payment process, encouraging financial institutions to maintain effective safeguards and verification procedures.

At the same time, the UCC requires customers to review their bank statements and canceled checks with reasonable promptness—typically within 30 to 60 days—and to report any discrepancies promptly. Timely notification significantly increases the likelihood of full reimbursement. Delaying beyond the applicable period may limit or eliminate your ability to recover the loss, as the law seeks to promote diligence on both sides.

In essence, these provisions offer meaningful safeguards for account holders. They shift most of the risk of sophisticated fraud to the banking system while rewarding vigilant consumers with strong recourse when problems arise.

Join the Conversation

I will be hosting a salon on the excellent Interintellect platform on Thursday, March 26, 2026 @ 03:00 PM CDT.

Join me for a salon-style conversation pairing Charles Dickens’s Bleak House with John Broich’s London: Water and the Making of the Modern City. Together we’ll explore how Victorian London confronted environmental crisis, institutional gridlock, and the slow work of reform—through story and through history. Expect close reading, thoughtful exchange, and a focus on how competing factions ultimately produced public results.

This is a guided discussion, not a lecture. Curiosity welcome; prior expertise not required.

Series Review – The Night Manager Season 2

I’m sure the fact that I’m a Hugh Laurie fan plays into my review of this series. The plot, characters and setting hold their own against similar Le Carre films. A spy genre enthusiast will come away satisfied.

Tom Hiddleston does a wonderful job as Jonathan Pine— dashing and daring and willing to take a punch. There are more sexual overtones and less overt sex. There are smart assured moves that sometimes go awry. And in the end we’re just not sure how it all works out for our hero.

The supporting actors also do their part. Of course Olivia Colman is a pro, Camilla Marronne is classic Bond girl with a smart mouth and Indira Varma pegs the upper crust climber.

I hope they don’t take quite as long for Season 3.

Observations

Land use is dynamic.

Rail and road infrastructure are relatively stable

Buildings depreciate and become high maintenance.

Once torn down a popular replacement is low maintenance parking lots.

Under each of those streets run utilities like sewer and water.

What are all the factors you can think of for those paved over spaces not being put to higher or better uses?

Spring will arrive

Hope

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm. I've heard it 

in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

Stories about gentrification

The screenshot below, from a Bloomberg newsletter, tells a story that has been told before. An area in a downtown, or alongside a river, or in a first-tier suburb, becomes blighted beyond repair. As a result, a new development is scheduled to replace it.

The question is not whether it should happen. It simply does. Over again, worldwide, across all types of geography. When the plot of land becomes more valuable for a new purpose, the natural progression is for it to be redeveloped.

On a small scale, you see it in a neighborhood when one home has been let go to the point that it does not command a price above the lot value. A new owner, or a builder, secures it, razes the structure and builds anew. At least that is what most of the neighbors desire. A dilapidated home is no fun to drive by every day. Once one property becomes blighted, it seems that others follow suit. So new is nice.

The news gets a hold of the story when a significant portion of residents are caught in this cycle, and it requires a large swath of land to turn over. That’s the story posted above. PBS covered a renovation of a large apartment complex in Richfield, The Crossroads at Penn, due to the significant number of residents were low-income.

And that’s really what the outrage is about. It’s not about renovations. It’s not about a few people who in the end are better off in a new environment for all the reasons others move: proximity to medical facilities or jobs, families, better schools, and so on. The story becomes news when the sheer number of residents involved requires more social capital than is readily at hand.

Property maintenance is expensive and ongoing. Policies that hamper repairs will yield negative returns at multiple levels. Ideally, caring for the poor entails preservation of suitable property, not its destruction.

Lessons from the things they carried

448 Bomb Group

The 448th Bombardment Group was organized on 6 April 1943 and activated on 1 May 1943 at Gowen Field, near Boise, Idaho. The initial training of the air crews took place in Florida. The entire group was assembled Wendover Field, Utah. Both air and ground crews completed their training together at Sioux City, Iowa before transferring to England.

The 448th was stationed at Seething in Norfolk, England from Dec 1943 to Jul 1945. The ground crews arrived in Seething by early Dec 1943 while the air crews arrived by 22 Dec 1943.

The B-24 Liberators were part of the Allied bombing campaign against the Axis countries. Their first mission was Gacabruck, Germany. The 448th flew 262 missions through to 25 April 1945. The Group lost 101 aircraft in action flying 6,774 sorties.

The 448th was redeployed to the United States in the late June and early July of 1945.

Public ownership- Parks Edition

Most people agree that roads are not to be blocked by local residents. There are municipal roads, county roads, interstate roads, and dusty drives that connect country properties. Towns take care of their roads. County roads crisscross their cities and are monitored by the County Sheriff. The interstate system is under the state’s purview. But no one thinks any of these governance groups can set up a blockade to the detriment of the neighbors.

Parks don’t have that network quality, one connecting to all the rest. But the norm around parks is that they are open to the public. Visitors from near or far are welcome to join in the fun on the play equipment or on the bleachers, watching early spring Little League.

Does it make sense, then, that one metropolitan area prohibited another branch of government from using its parking lots? Even if legally, formally, the written word dictates that the city sets the rules, is this the norm? Rather, it is at odds with the big tent acceptance of all groups. It’s an internalisation, a removing of a privilege.

People will shrug. It’s not a big deal, they’ll say. Until another norm is broken and then another. And pretty soon, the mechanism for containing a wayward direction has broken downcompletely, and the scammers are off and running.

The breaking of norms is perhaps the first indicator of cultural drift.

Wise words about Work

From The Road to Wigan Pier, from the genius of George, George Orwell.

There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them. The labourer set free from digging may want to spend his leisure, or part of it, in playing the piano, while the professional pianist may be only too glad to get out and dig at the potato patch. Hence the antithesis between work, as something intolerably tedious, and not-work, as something desirable, is false. The truth is that when a human being is not eating, drinking, sleeping, making love, talking, playing games or merely lounging about – and these things will not fill up a lifetime – he needs work and usually looks for it, though he may not call it work.

Roles

I heard a story recently about that guy in the neighborhood. The one who tells everyone what to do. The garbage bins can’t be put out to the curb until after dark, unsightly as they are. Lawns are not to be mowed on Sundays– the noise unsettles the sanctity of the day. He had moved up north, they said, now that he was edging in on 90; he needed to be close to his kids. But for a couple of decades, he played sheriff of the neighborhood.

As it turns out, he also picked up some jobs. Like he would shovel out your driveway when the snow blew in on a clipper while you were up north for the weekend. A whole pack of dogs had paraded through his care. When asked, he’d water your urns full of annuals while you went to the Grand Canyon with the kids. So people along that road held back on hasty criticism of his bossy ways. One owner said she still questioned whether she should mow on Sunday even after he had left the neighborhood.

People have inclinations to play certain roles. Many are harmless. Some overstep into infringement territory. But given compensating factors, people find a balance. An acceptance.

Does Liberalism self-destruct?

This post says yes—

But what is described here, the dynamics of it, did it destroy the institutions? Universities and colleges are still with us. There has been a cycle of deconstruction– true. Was it an ebbing glow from the last vestiges of the 70s feminist movement? Perhaps. It’s hard to describe the depth and veracity of emotion over this issue. The feelings now have subsided. And those folks, those that carried it in their bellies, are fading from society.

There are many signs of a younger generation throwing off the foibles of the left and tacking on in a new direction. Perhaps Yglesias and Smith are the forefront examples. Liberalism is not defeated but vindicated as it rounds out another cycle. Analysis is only valid over proper time frames.

Fraud in MN

It’s been hard to read all the opinions about our fair state lately. Most people get some of it or all of it wrong: the groups, the geography, the factions, and the issues. In a post yesterday at The American Mind, Ayaan Hirsi Ali delivered the most insightful piece I’ve read so far. If you are from the West, you might want to read her book Infidel first as it best explains the depth and commitment of tribal society. The article, Minnesota’s Post-Assimilation Realty, details a concoction of groups moving together to create a powerful incentive package for what will probably be the largest theft of Federal dollars in US history.

Let’s pull apart the components of human action. Hirsi Ali introduces the first player.

Somali society is organized around the clan. Loyalty is not abstract, nor is it civic. It is biological and binding. The individual exists only insofar as he serves the group. Protection, marriage, honor, silence, and punishment are governed by this code. Obligations flow inward, sanctions flow downward. The clan precedes the individual and outlives him.

Instead of assimilating into the various groups of civic life, their group remains closed. Their action is based on internalizing benefits to themselves and keeping outsiders at bay.

Extract what can be extracted, and when the host weakens, move on. This is adaptation in its purest form. But it is fundamentally incompatible with modern civic life, which depends on social trust rather than blood ties.

Edward Banfield called this phenomenon “amoral familism.” Loyalty inward, indifference outward. Where it dominates, corruption is not a deviation from the system. In truth, it is the system. Public institutions become spoils to be captured, law becomes negotiable, and accountability vanishes.

But no group, in a country as large as the US, can operate solo. There are great over-arching institutions at play where activities will collide in action and deed. So who else is clearing an open path from other conflicting objectives?

Minnesota hosts a dense network of Islamic councils and advocacy groups dominated by Somali leadership. Nationally, the pattern is expanding. Each success is framed as inclusion, which is insulated from scrutiny by the language of civil rights. And each success advances a narrow, disciplined agenda that is deeply anti-modern.

The Democratic Party completes the triangle. Immigration shifted from policy to identity. Enforcement became immoral, and illegality was reframed as victimhood. The result is an unmistakable pattern of activists obstructing federal officers, officials retreating from their duties, and a party increasingly reliant on ethnic blocs it cannot discipline without alienating its base.

The common man (and woman) also has a role to play. In fact, they are now playing a role in the unraveling of this decade-long taking. But for so many years, the workers in Health and Human Services, the neighbors who noted empty daycare centers and so on, were silenced by political pressure. When the choice came between being a whistleblower and maintaining their social or workplace position, they chose to stay the course. Perhaps because they felt it would all be for naught. And perhaps they were right.

Read the whole piece. And all the while think about the structures, both in terms of people and their actions, and think about where liberalism was derailed.

Look for Groups

This is a great post for identifying players among the parties with an interest in calm returning to the streets in the central city.

Interestingly, these groups are present in most all communities, large and small.

The 60 business signed and posted a request for further cooperation. Note the neutral tone.

The editorial board of the local newspaper also called for a resolution.

Interestingly, the law enforcement folks went directly to the White House. Anyone following along with the conflict five years ago saw the effects it had on this, very necessary, segment of our communities. Their desire to make a direct appeal is understandable.

Each group’s ability to succeed in their duties and objectives have been crimped by the unrest between local and federal officials. But taking a stand can have tremendous costs. For good reason, all of these components are weighed out before action is taken.

Who will pull the plug?

It can be an unsuspecting player. Not one of the mighty forefront actors, digging in and refusing to back off. So small are they that they may never be recognized for their role. I say it will be the neighbors.

We’re talking about a very small geography, designated byperhaps a three-quarter-mile radius, taking the brunt of all this hyped-up activity. It must be exhausting. At some point, people say enough. But not out loud. Not where it can be filmed or recorded, but in the anonymity of the group. There will be a small signage. Warnings. Requests for no further contact.

That’s what happened five years ago. Slowly, the baskets of food, goods, and beverages dissipated. There was no fanfare, but small signals in facial expressions or shrugs expressed that the tents in the park had overstayed their allotted time for public use. Upon approaching a classic six-unit brownstone, one might only read the formal Do Not Disturb sign while standing at the entrance.

In the end, people want to live their lives in peace. They wish to be free to go to work, earn a paycheck, and bring it back to share with their families in pursuit of their individual desires. People seek ot balance their freedoms, not relinquish it all to others.

The neighbors will pull the plug.

What is Liberalism?

I wonder if Cass would agree: Liberalism is not fundamentally a fixed political ideology or a contingent historical doctrine; it is an enduring aspiration for the human condition itself—one that seeks to cultivate societies where individuals can pursue diverse visions of a good life, free from arbitrary coercion, amid mutual respect, pluralism, and institutions that safeguard dignity and self-governance.

I feel like Sunstein is would say freedom of speech is a necessary condition for liberalism. If man is to get along in society then there is a need for pluralism, for an admission that others, with other ideas, will group together and their choices as a path to freedom are to be respected. Thus, it is necessary to be able to speak freely about differences and similarities in the practical ways when people live side-by-side. In fact one might even say that free speech illicits a competitive pluralism where the investigation of others and a distinction of differences sets up a truth-finding for each.

Liberalism prompting

So I asked: Compare and contrast the substance of the ideas and the context in which they are presented between Cass Sunstein On Liberalism and Matt Yglessias recent posts on Liberalism on his Substack Slow Boring.

And here are some of excerpted reply.

Both Cass Sunstein and Matt Yglesias present liberalism as a broad, pragmatic framework rooted in core values like freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law, but they emphasize different aspects and respond to distinct critiques. Sunstein’s work, primarily through his 2025 book On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom and related Substack posts, offers a philosophical and historical defense, portraying liberalism as a “big tent” that unites diverse thinkers from John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Hayek to Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. He defines it via a “holy trinity” of freedom (e.g., speech, religion, property), pluralism (respect for diverse ethnicities, religions, and ways of life), and the rule of law, extending to human rights, security (freedom from fear, echoing FDR’s Four Freedoms), democracy, and “experiments of living” where individuals pursue varied paths without coercion. Sunstein incorporates economic elements like free markets with regulation, FDR’s Second Bill of Rights for social and economic guarantees.

For Sunstein, liberalism is not static but actively constructed, a “fighting faith” that promotes innovation, fairness, and self-correction, making it essential for freedom and self-government amid modern threats.

…..

In contrast, Yglesias’s recent Substack series on Slow Boring (spanning late 2024 to early 2026) takes a more policy-oriented, U.S.-centric approach, framing liberalism as pragmatic technocracy tied to Enlightenment roots like John Locke and Adam Smith, emphasizing individual rights, non-radical governance, and impartial benevolence (e.g., evidence-based policies that benefit broadly without favoritism).

…

Similarities in substance include a shared emphasis on pluralism, freedom, and pragmatism—Sunstein’s “experiments of living” aligns with Yglesias’s technocratic impartiality—and both see liberalism as adaptable, blending markets with social protections (e.g., Sunstein’s FDR-inspired guarantees; Yglesias’s public order as progressive). They reject extremes: Sunstein critiques illiberal left/right; Yglesias warns against socialist purges or cosmopolitan overreach.

George Orwell is too much

From The Road to Wigan Pier-

On the day when there was a full chamber-pot under the breakfast table I decided to leave.

Orwell, writing in 1935-1937 goes into great detail about distressed housing. Here is an insight.

I have noted ‘Landlord good’ or ‘Landlord bad’, because there is great variation in what the slum-dwellers say about their landlords.

I found – one might expect it, perhaps – that the small landlords are usually the worst. It goes against the grain to say this, but one can see why it should be so. Ideally, the worst type of slum landlord is a fat wicked man, preferably a bishop, who is drawing an immense income from extortionate rents. Actually, it is a poor old woman who has invested her life’s savings in three slum houses, inhabits one of them and tries to live on the rent of the other two – never, in consequence, having any money for repairs.

It’s always neglected repairs that do a handsome home in.

A rule versus a norm

This example of a kindness, in the implementation of a rule, can be found in Sunstein’s book On Liberalism.

Compare, for example, a mandatory retirement law for people over the age of seventy-five with a law permitting employers to discharge employees who, because of their age, are no longer able to perform their job adequately. If you are an employee, it is especially humiliating and stigmatizing to have employers decide whether you have been rendered incompetent by age. A rule avoids this inquiry altogether, and it might be favored for this reason even if it is both over- and underinclusive. True, it isn’t exactly wonderful to be told that you have to retire because of your age, but if a rule depersonalizes the situation, then it has significant advantages. Or consider a situation in which officials can give out jobs at their discretion, as compared with one in which officials must hire and fire in accordance with rules laid down in advance. In the first system, applicants are in the humiliating position of asking for grace.

So much of the chatter in the public square, often inflammatory, takes only one piece of an event and amplifies its negative consequences. Or portrays the actor in an unnaturally beneficial light. Rarely if ever are the two sides that led to choices aired out in the fashion quoted above. Often the this is intentional, to win over an audience.

But this type of provocation is not kind or right or productive. If one desires the most favorable outcome, a more insightful analysis of the whole picture is desirable.

Perhaps it is when people are keeping their opinions to themselves that an honest sifting through of the alternatives occurs. Mostly norms are in play here, in the quiet light of personal judgements and sacrifice.

Today’s world is ruled by emotional triggers and half-truths. Post a photo of a drama scene and then just tell half the story. It works for a while, but eventual people get wise to it. The truth shines with resilience.

Tehran -Series Review

I had heard about this show a while ago, and I am glad to now get to watching it. When I was quite young, we visited Tehran, but the depiction here is of a far larger and more sophisticated city. We also drove over the mountains to the Caspian Sea, and I think of that every time a panoramic shot of the urban skyline is backdropped by the Alborz.

The plot and action in the series are snappy and fairly unpredictable. There’s a nice tension of intrigue without too much violence. The two younger lead actors, Tamar and Milad, are excellent. They remind me of the Iranians students who were at boarding school with me in the late 70s.

There’s a lot to like about this series.

Words for abstraction, words for operation

Here are key words and phrases commonly used to highlight the contrast between a philosophical approach (abstract, conceptual, theoretical, reflective) and an operational approach (practical, applied, concrete, implementation-focused). These draw from philosophy, political theory, methodology discussions, and related fields like liberalism debates.

Highlighting the Philosophical Approach

• Abstract / abstraction

• Theoretical / theorizing

• Conceptual / conceptual framework

• Ideal / ideal-type / idealized

• Normative / value-oriented

• Principled / principle-based

• Speculative / reflective

• Foundational / foundational principles

• Visionary / inspirational

• Manifesto-like / declarative

• Big-picture / overarching

• North Star / guiding ideal

• Philosophical defense / justification

• Thought experiment / hypothetical reasoning

• Meta-level / meta-theoretical

Highlighting the Operational Approach

• Concrete / concretization

• Practical / pragmatism / pragmatic

• Applied / application-focused

• Implementation / implementable

• Operational / operationalizable

• Action-oriented / action-focused

• Step-by-step / procedural

• Toolkit / how-to / blueprint

• Policy-oriented / policy design

• Institutional / reform-based

• Executable / hands-on

• Measurable / testable / empirical

• Grounded in reality / context-specific

• Methodological / technique-driven

• Instrumental / cause-and-effect focused

On Liberalism and more

SUNSTEIN: Low probability (that liberalism is self-defeating). The likelihood is that

1:04

we’ll be undermined by anti-liberal and illiberal forces, not self-undermining. I think it’s fair to

1:11

say or to worry that liberalism doesn’t create the conditions for its own self-perpetuation,

1:18

so it’s not as if it’s self-undermining, but it doesn’t necessarily maintain itself. The reason is

1:24

that a society that is flourishing needs a lot of stuff in it, including norms of cooperation, norms

1:32

of charity, norms of mutual support. Liberalism, in my view, doesn’t undermine those things,

1:39

but other forces can undermine them, and it’s not clear liberalism has the resources to respond

1:45

COWEN: When you say other forces, do you mean hostile foreign powers? Or there’s something illiberal in societies that is not sufficiently driven out by liberalism?

1:53

SUNSTEIN: I think there’s something illiberal in the human heart.

In these first few minutes of this exchange between the irreplaceable Tyler Cowen and famed legal scholar Cass Sunstein, the sketch of timbers supporting liberalism as a way of life is laid out. The structure must be conducive to all the stuff society needs. The boards must be placed in such a way as to allow the rules to expand out while finding a tension so as not to collapse on each other. The builders need resources, in the form of materials and their labor.

But be aware! The biggest detractor may reside in the human need to hide things from ourselves.

At the juncture

Liberalism seems straightforward. Individuals are meant to live their lives freely. They flourish when they can follow their ambitions, or talents, or desires for a quiet life. As long as they do no harm to others, people left to their own devices can lead good lives.

All this is fine and good. But of course, we don’t live alone. We live with others. And it is at the juncture of protecting the desire for the self and the duties to the group that friction seems the most keen.

It’s perfectly acceptable for spouses to assign their liberties to each other. One takes care of pecuniary matters while the other looks after the relational part of the family, which is a common division. But sometimes the first is caught saying, “I own it all,” and the other is planning without a thought for the other. After a decade or two, one forgets what the other does for them. Slowly, without gratitude, all the small tasks enabling the freedoms they cherish are taken for granted.

The public and private often evolve into a crisis of duty.

Children easily take for granted the investments their parents made in their upbringing, especially in the US. It is easy for them to minimize what was done and begrudge them beneficial attention in their later years. Neighborhood dwellers take for granted the civic do-gooders who are responsible for small but useful things like stop signs and play lots. Volunteering to maintain or perpetuate shared services is thought of as optional.

And then, coming at the friction from the other angle, there are the enforcers. Those who wish to make every norm a rule. Instead of contributions made in sync with people’s time and talents, they wish to meter it all out and pass the collection plate with vigilance. The spirit of the exchange is ruined. Instead of thankful for the effort, people are resentful for the absence.

Liberalism maneuvers best along a framework for optimal execution. Liberalism needs a framework to avoid undermining itself from the illiberal tendency residing in most human hearts.

Mortgage rates to ease?

Trump has a plan—

“I am instructing my Representatives to BUY $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN MORTGAGE BONDS. This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” Trump wrote.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said on X that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will execute the purchase.

The combined cash and cash equivalents listed on the two firms’ balance sheets in their third quarter earnings reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission was less than $17 billion as of September 30.

Pulte in a phone call to Reuters said the two agencies had “ample liquidity” to carry out Trump’s order, including nearly $100 billion in available funds at each entity.

Full article from Reuters.

Red Eye— Series Review

Red Eye (2024 thriller series) is a gripping six-episode miniseries starring Richard Armitage as Dr. Matthew Nolan, a British surgeon accused of murder in Beijing, and Jing Lusi as DC Hana Li, the tough London officer escorting him on a red-eye flight back to China. Supporting standout Lesley Sharp plays MI5’s sharp Director General Madeline Delaney.

The plot unfolds aboard the overnight Flight 357, where passengers begin dying mysteriously, forcing Hana to question Nolan’s guilt amid a larger international conspiracy involving political deals and assassinations.

I quite enjoyed the fast pacing that keeps viewers hooked with constant twists, the claustrophobic airplane setting amplifying tension like a modern Agatha Christie mystery, and strong lead performances—Armitage’s charismatic vulnerability and Lusi’s grounded determination.

That was then– 1862

The Homestead Act of 1862 was a public initiative to make land in the middle of the US available to settlers at a very low fee. It encouraged the westward expansion by allocating 160-acre parcels of government-owned land to those who agreed to live on it for five years, build a home, and cultivate the land. By granting ownership after fulfilling these requirements, the US essentially gave away millions of acres to individuals who could prove up their claims. 

This policy hinged on a belief that one could turn labor into assets. The government asked people to take their families into the wilderness, far from protective services, to live in caravans or sod houses until they were able to build little cabins, to clear land of growth and turn the soil into protective crop acreage. This exchange offered little in way of immediate return. And the most successful groups turned out to be from cultures of strong family networks for support and a willingness to live frugally in anticipation of a better future.

In truth, the bargain entailed even more. The government was basically asking people to not only see to their own needs on their claim, but to collaborate with neighbors in townships and see the roads get built, and the one-room schoolhouses be completed. In exchange for 160 acres of private property, sweat and toil had to also be dedicated to transportation infrastructure and provisions for education. These early settlers had to have had an enormous desire for a homesite.

I don’t know if such a government program would be successful today. It seems like a tall order. Yet it would be helpful to know at what point the average citizen can be energized to volunteer their labor in support of public infrastructure or support. When are they energized to provide aid in response to a neighboring disaster? What severity of wrongdoing triggers the impulse of an observer to overcome possible whistle-blower costs and report? Where are their public goods ready to be provided spontaneously and who can match that need with their labor?

Non-profit reform and Methodology

Mark Gilson (@markwgilson) is a local data nerd on X. Mostly, he has concentrated on getting out small details of ons-goings at school board meetings. He’ll post things from the agendas or video clips from the meetings, which busy parents don’t have time to attend,

The recent fraud explosion has opened up a new lane for his skills. In a post today, he describes how he filtered a search of the local non-profit public filings to locate ones with out-of-sync attributes.

Using this technique and his data skills, he found this doosey.

Screenshot

But instead of the methodology to sweep the public records, what about the mechanisms that attract people like Mark to take on this job? Indeed, it has to do with the recent stepping down of the Governor from his reelection campaign. It was an admission of a loss of confidence, perhaps even wrongdoing. But what would it take for an everyday citizen to get involved sooner? The hanky panky has been in play for about a decade. Investigative reporters are meant to take on this exposé-type work, but they didn’t. Could there have been other incentives to engage other members within the group to play the heretic? Or is a society doomed to fail magnificently before a complete shake-down and repordering occurs?

Orientation Tables are cool

The concept of “orientation table” (plural: “orientation tables”) in economics refers to institutions—formal rules, informal norms, customs, laws, and social structures—that serve as cognitive and interpretive aids for individuals navigating an uncertain world of purposeful human action. These tables provide reference points or frameworks that help actors form expectations, anticipate others’ behaviors, coordinate plans, and attach subjective meanings to their situations, without rigidly determining outcomes.

Coined by Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist, the phrase draws from his praxeological framework in works like Human Action (1949), where he describes how individuals require guides for “orientation” in a chaotic reality lacking perfect causality or predictability. Mises emphasized that in an open-ended world, people rely on institutional “tables” to orient their actions, extending ideas from his earlier German writings on the role of social institutions in facilitating rational planning.

Virgil Storr and collaborators like Peter Boettke popularized and refined the English term “orientation tables” in post-2000 Austrian scholarship, particularly in papers such as “Post-Classical Political Economy: Polity, Society and Economy in Weber, Mises and Hayek” (2002). They portray institutions as non-deterministic “orientation tables” that embed economic action within social and political contexts, blending Mises’ methodological individualism with Max Weber’s interpretive sociology (Verstehen) and Friedrich Hayek’s spontaneous order.

For example, private property rights act as an orientation table by signaling legitimate control over resources, enabling entrepreneurs to plan without constant fear of expropriation. Market prices serve similarly, conveying dispersed knowledge to orient production and consumption decisions. Cultural norms, like trust in commercial dealings, provide additional tables in specific societies, explaining why markets function differently across contexts (e.g., bazaars vs. supermarkets).

In post-disaster recovery, community networks and property institutions orient survivors’ rebuilding efforts, fostering resilience. Absent robust tables—as in socialist systems lacking genuine prices—miscoordination and inefficiency arise.

Ultimately, by naming the orientation table under analysis, an observer can proceed with an aligned perspective. Rather than human action being socially embedded, individual action can be simultaneously quantified by group. This brings an understanding of price to complete the circle of individual and institutional value.

A mine, a port, and a road

Josh Hendrickson has an interesting New Year’s Day post on Economic Forces today. He reviews the term cooperation costs as proposed by Earl Thompson in a 1982 paper: Underinvestment Traps and Potential Cooperation. Hendrickson uses Thompson’s framework to discuss a breakdown or perceived breakdown in optimal investment in three scenarios. Each one offers a unique combination of the collective and private forces at work in the creation, penalty or use of a public good.

Let’s fit the first story about a mine, a port, and a road into the context I propose here at Home Economics. Instead of considering the whole landscape within a single system, break the system into groups, each with a mainspring to action. The mine is a profit-oriented venture. Its existence depends on the collection of actors that make up its workforce and investors, all of whom share an interest in extracting a private gain from their involvement. The group of people involved in the port’s operations is in a similar situation. The road is different. It is an infrastructure open to all nearby residents as well as those travelling for commercial needs. Roads are most often paid for by the larger group, as it is beneficial to most that their use remains open, even to the lowest payees. Even though members of GrMine and GrPort are also members of GrRoad, it is safe to assume the last group is significantly larger than either of the first two.

Earl Thompson’s model posits that the potential cooperation cost is the expense borne by investors in the mine and the port, along with the state, of communicating and bartering to secure the construction of the road. This happens at a fixed point in time, and once it is done, there are no more cooperation costs. Hence, the thought that those who come later free ride on the use of the road.

I propose to look at each group separately. Amongst the members of each group, there are shared social concerns. The ability to get to work on a good road may be one amenity of value. Yet the benefit of the new road for the mine workers may be a different value than the port workers, again depending on distances or substitutes that each set has access to. The municipality ( county/state or government structure of choice) is composed of a population that also should perceive a benefit from the road. However, this could be, on a per-person basis, of much lower value.

One of the three groups could be comprised of a population that is willing to pay for the entire road, as it is that valuable to them. If the mine is so remote, and the port area already has suitable transportation infrastructure in place, then in order to get employees out to the mine and product in from the mine, the mine might find it suitable to bear most of the expense. Or there could be some suitable combination. But the calculation involves each individual who must act for the enterprise to succeed.

There is also the possibility that the overarching group creates additional costs as members resist the new road due to costs not borne by either the mine group or the port group. If the road goes through a residential neighborhood, then the projected traffic noise has a negative impact on the residents, lowering their property values. In this communication stage of the project, their resistance to cooperation could be seen in city council meetings as voices of objection. Thompson’s model does not allow for outside resistance. Sorting by groups and their interests clarifies how costs are borne and hence who may sabotage cooperation.

There are all sorts of combinations of coordination costs between these three groups that could make it more worthwhile for one or the other to front the bill. We see developers putting in roads to provide access to a new development. We see municipalities investing in infrastructure to attract businesses. All of these choices are dependent on the particular situation and point in time. To say that those who come later take advantage of the cooperation costs of those who come before isn’t accurate, as the system is dynamic. They may not have paid for the cost, but they were not a part of any of the benefits of the original decision-making either.

The other factor facilitated by the sorting into groups is the time factor. The set-up time to open a mine is bound to be different than to complete a road. And what type of road are we talking: dirt, gravel, or asphalt? The reality is that these projects live over varying time spans. This factors into the decision to cooperate. Cooperation costs are not a single fixed cost, but a time-indexed stream of costs and benefits, discounted differently by each group.

The structural issue, for the purpose of analysis, is that the individual actors, reacting to their own concerns, reveal shared concerns with members of their group. The degree of this value plays into the cooperation costs of settling with outside parties on their shared interests. Thompson’s cooperation costs assume a fixed set of beneficiaries; once group membership, veto players, and time-path asymmetries are introduced, the free-rider interpretation no longer holds.

Year-End Update- What this site is about

This site advances a structural theory of economic organization in which societies are understood as collections of bounded groups that govern shared resources internally while competing externally through privately capturable returns. The central claim is that economic order emerges from a sorting mechanism: individuals and activities are continually reallocated between cooperative group settings and market-like domains based on the relative performance of group-public assets versus private opportunities.

Within this framework, groups are defined not merely by identity or culture, but by rule-governed access to non-divisible or imperfectly divisible assets. Such assets—landed estates, commons, institutional authority, epistemic legitimacy—function as group-public goods: they are accessible to members, governed by internal norms, and resistant to direct pricing. Participation confers benefits that are distributed through social rules rather than markets, creating a publicness that is endogenous to group membership rather than universal.

Outside these groups, individuals engage in domains characterized by alienable, liquid, and privately capturable returns. These domains—markets, trade, professional careers, or platforms—permit competition unconstrained by group obligations and reward individual optimization. The boundary between group and market is therefore not fixed; it is continuously reshaped by changes in relative returns, enforcement capacity, and legitimacy.

The theory’s explanatory power lies in showing how publicness and competition are not opposites, but complementary outcomes of the same sorting process. Internally, groups suppress price signals and individual appropriation in order to stabilize shared assets and reduce coordination costs, consistent with Ostrom’s findings on common-pool resource governance. Externally, groups compete for members, status, and influence through performance, innovation, and access to higher-return opportunities, aligning with North’s account of institutional evolution driven by differential returns and path dependence.

This mechanism also integrates Mises’s praxeological insight that all outcomes originate in individual action. Individuals are not assumed to act altruistically or selfishly in the abstract; rather, they respond to institutionally structured opportunity sets. Actions that appear cooperative within the group—maintenance of shared assets, adherence to norms, acceptance of unequal internal distribution—are rational given the group-public payoff structure. Conversely, actions that appear self-interested outside the group reflect the higher marginal returns and certainty of private capture. The theory thus avoids moralizing distinctions between cooperation and self-interest, treating them as context-dependent expressions of action under differing institutional constraints.

Historically, the theory explains periods of social transition as moments when private returns in external domains outpace the productive or legitimating capacity of group-public assets. Under such conditions, groups become custodial rather than generative: obligations persist while returns stagnate. Individuals increasingly sort into private domains, weakening internal enforcement and prompting pre-commitment maneuvering, ideological rationalization, or reform efforts. This dynamic aligns with classical coordination problems such as Rousseau’s Stag Hunt, while extending them beyond static games into historically embedded institutional change.

By framing economic structure as an evolving ecology of groups and markets linked through a sorting mechanism, this theory bridges literature on institutions, collective action, and market pricing. It accounts for why public goods are often effectively governed at intermediate group scales, why markets excel at allocating marginal resources across groups, and why systemic change is typically gradual, conflictual, and legitimacy-lagged rather than abrupt or purely efficiency-driven.

In sum, the proposed framework offers a unified explanation for how societies organize cooperation internally while sustaining competition externally, and how shifts in resource productivity drive the continual reconfiguration of social commitments and economic structures.

Blended systems of cooperation and competition

The Stag Hunt, explained as a shifting public–private balance

Imagine a small group of hunters living at the edge of a forest. Together, they can hunt a stag. A stag is large: it feeds everyone for days. But it can only be taken if all hunters cooperate, hold their positions, and act in coordination. The stag, once caught, is a group-public asset: no one hunter can claim it alone, and everyone benefits.

Individually, however, each hunter can hunt a hare. A hare is small, but it can be caught alone, quickly, and with certainty. The hare is a private asset: the hunter who catches it keeps it.

At first, cooperation dominates. The group trusts itself, norms are strong, and everyone expects the others to stay. Hunting the stag makes sense.

But conditions begin to change. Perhaps the forest becomes less predictable. Perhaps hunger becomes more acute. Or perhaps some hunters discover they are particularly good at catching hares. The private return to individual action rises, while the reliability of collective action weakens.

Now the calculation shifts. Any single hunter who abandons the stag hunt early can secure a hare for himself. If even one hunter defects, the stag escapes and the group gets nothing. As more hunters privately consider this possibility, the group-public asset becomes fragile. Trust erodes not because cooperation is irrational, but because its success depends on others remaining committed.

Eventually, everyone hunts hares. The group survives, but on less than it could have had. The stag hunt fails not because hunters become selfish in character, but because the balance between public and private returns has shifted.

Rousseau introduced the Stag Hunt in 1755, in Discourse on Inequality, as a way to illustrate how early cooperation collapses when private, individually secure options undercut fragile collective commitments. The Stag Hunt shows how cooperative systems fail not through greed, but through the gradual rise of privately secure alternatives that undercut shared commitment.

My experience is that mostly hunters group up. Partly because they share a similar interest. Partly for the camaraderie. But also because they share the work of baiting, setting up, tracking, and processing.

Paradigm Shift

In this ten-minute video, economic professor Ashley Hodgson lays out how a shift at the foundational base of a field of knowledge occurs and builds on new building blocks.

Ashley Hodgson’s New Enlightenment argues that modern societies are governed less by conscious choice than by incentive-driven systems that shape beliefs, behavior, and outcomes at scale. Drawing on behavioral economics and systems thinking, she challenges Enlightenment assumptions about rational individuals, neutral markets, and linear progress (especially GDP-centric thinking). Her central claim is that humans now function within a kind of social superorganism, where misinformation, institutional incentives, and feedback loops distort what people perceive as rational or true. A new enlightenment, she argues, requires updating our models of rationality, knowledge, and governance to reflect these systemic dynamics rather than relying on outdated economic myths.

Hodgson offers a compelling critique of Enlightenment assumptions and a sophisticated account of systemic failure, but her ‘New Enlightenment’ functions more as a diagnostic framework than as a theory of institutional emergence or system dynamics.

Religiosity of Employment

If you’ve been taking the classics for granted, if you’ve been focusing on science, you are denying yourself insights into solutions.

—A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from Nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.

J Austen reviews the intricacies of social decision making under constraints both natural and real.

Lookism a la J Austen

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain,-which taste cannot tolerate, —which ridicule will seize.

A ‘bulky figure’…c’est amusant.

Orientation-by-Institution

By “orientation-by-institution,” I refer to the way institutional arrangements function as shared interpretive frameworks that orient expectations and render individual plans mutually intelligible under conditions of uncertainty.

Chat has a story.

They were halfway through lunch—salads mostly untouched, bread already gone—when someone noticed it.

“Did you see her hair last week?” one of them said, lowering her voice even though the person in question wasn’t there. “It actually looked really good.”

“Yeah,” another replied, “but doesn’t she get it cut at Little Snips? Why does she even go over to that side of town?”

That set it off.

“Well, the cut is good,” someone said, “but it’s not like it’s magic. You can get a decent cut anywhere.”
Another leaned back and laughed. “Decent? Please. She pays way too much. That shwanky salon—what is it now, Maison Something? It’s nice, sure, but the cut is the same cut whether you pay forty dollars or two hundred.”

They all laughed, because it was true and because saying it felt good.

Then someone else chimed in, quieter but smiling. “Honestly, my sister-in-law cuts my hair in her basement. Folding chair, mirror from Target. I probably overpay her too, but at least I know where the money’s going.”

That changed the tone just a little.

“So really,” one said slowly, “we’re all paying for different things.”
“Exactly,” another added. “Not just the cut.”

They started listing it out without meaning to: paying for polish, for status, for supporting family, for convenience, for being seen in the right place, for not being seen at all. Same service, different prices—because each price bought entry into a different social arrangement.

By the time the check came, no one was talking about hair anymore. They were talking about neighborhoods, schools, reputations, obligations—about how money quietly props up the social worlds they move through every day.

And no one asked again why their friend went to Little Snips. They already knew

Wake Up Dead Man: Knives Out–Movie Review

I’m a fan of Daniel Craig, so I may be biased in this whole-hearted recommendation of the new Knives Out movie. Viewers will come away satisfied with the intrigue, the cast of characters, and the denouement of solving the crime. It’s all there. But there’s more.

In a surprising twist, this new release delves deeper. Writer Rian Johnson uses the exploration of faith as a central theme in this third incarnation of Knives Out. Somehow in this otherwise commercial entertainment vehicle, he depicts journeys of faith without condensation of suspended disbelief or mockery.

Is this the beginning of a new tolerance for ancient traditions? There was a magic in it.

Mises proposes Praxeology to show the way

Thus there are no irreconcilable conflicts between selfishness and altruism, between economics and ethics, between the concerns of the individual and those of society. Utilitarian philosophy and its finest product, economics, reduced these apparent antagonisms to the opposition of short-run and long-run interests. Society could not have come into existence or been preserved without a harmony of the rightly understood interests of all its members.

There is only one way of dealing with all problems of social organization and the conduct of the members of society, viz., the method applied by praxeology and economies. No other method can contribute anything to the elucidation of these matters.

Time tables for success

If people want effects muted they draw out terribly long time tables, muting any situational success or failure. If people want to control the narrative they clip the timetable to the period of interest.

Time matters for any proper analysis or policy considerations. In real estate, the timeframes are almost always too short.

Work and its natures

At home-economic we think of work as an activity within an analytical structure which proposes that human action is propelled by two forces. The work often associated with volunteerism percolates along, driven by the desire to help, to impact more than oneself.

This is from a lovely essay by Russ Roberts

Aristotle has a different explanation and it is quite beautiful. He says that unlike a creditor (who only cares about the recipient because he wants to be repaid), “benefactors love and are fond of those they have treated well, even though they are neither useful to them now nor likely to become so later on.” He then says something a little shocking and quite extraordinary. The bracketed phrase is Leon’s:

“The same thing also happens with craftsmen; for every craftsman loves his own work more than he might be loved by that work were it to become alive. This is especially true, perhaps, with poets, for they love exceedingly their own poems, loving them as children. This is in fact also the case with the benefactor, for the beneficiary is the work of the benefactor; thus, the benefactor is fond of him more than “the work” [that is, the beneficiary] is of its maker.”

From the Census

National vacancy rates in the third quarter 2025 were 7.1 percent for rental housing and 1.2 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate was not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2024 (6.9 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the second quarter 2025 (7.0 percent). 

The homeowner vacancy rate of 1.2 percent was higher than the rate in the third quarter 2024 (1.0 percent) and higher than the rate in the second quarter 2025 (1.1 percent). 

The homeownership rate of 65.3 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2024 (65.6 percent) and not statistically different than the rate in the second quarter 2025 (65.0 percent).

That was then – tenant screening

Sir Walter must face financial circumstance and lease out his country manor home. The go-between, Shepard, spouts off all the appealing characteristics of his potential tenant.

And who is Admiral Croft?” was Sir Walter’s cold suspicious inquiry.

Mr. Shepherd answered for his being of a gentleman’s family, and mentioned a place; and Anne, after the little pause which followed, added—

” He is rear admiral of the white. He was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the bast Indies since ; he has been stationed there, I believe, several years.

One must be careful using the family word in real estate, today. Best to think of other descriptors. But not personal features as such:

Mr. Shepherd hastened to assure him, that Admiral Croft was a very hale, hearty, well-looking man, a little weather beaten to be sure, but not much; and quite the gentleman to he sure in all is notions and behaviour.

Outward characteristics are not to be asked or recorded on a rental application. But the terms of the unit can be recorded.

not likely to make the smallest difficulty about terms; only wanted a comfortable home, and to get into it as soon as possible; knew he must pay for his convenience;-knew what rent a ready-furnished house of that consequence might fetch; should not have been surprised if Sir Walter had asked more;-had inquired about the manor;

Oh- and there’s this.

—would be glad of the deputation, certainly, but made no great point of it;— said he sometimes took out a gun, but never killed ;—quite the gentleman.

And theres lots to say about the family. (Also a no-no today)

Mr. Shepherd was eloquent on the subject; pointing out all the circumstances of the admiral’s family, which made him peculiarly desirable as a tenant.

He was a married man, and without children; the very state to be wished for. A house was never taken good care of, Mr. Shepherd observed, without a lady: he did not know, whether furniture might not be in danger of suffering as much where there was no lady, as where there were many children. A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world. He had seen Mrs. Croft, too;

All these rich social indicators are removed when renters seek homes in today’s market.

Good habits

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.

And be thankful. 

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
COLOSSIANS 3:15-17

What’s considered acceptable?

Standards can change over time.

Standards can vary between cities.

Standards may vary based on taste.

Ultimately, it is the local community that determines which options are the most suitable and which are less desirable. Which have fallen so out of favor that the structures are abandoned completely. And which ones promise a reward for rehabbing.

Real estate is local. National figures provide sparse details.

The grocery and the mountain

When should a community gather up its resources and provide a service to all members? And when should individuals be turned out into the world to navigate on their own dime? These debates cross all levels of government.

Some provisions are accepted as a government thing, like piped water or sewer. Even basic universals like education attract conversation about private options. Roads are sometimes (although truly not very often) toll roads. Bridges are mostly a public venture, as are parks. What takes a good out of private production and places it in the receivership of a bureaucracy?

Fear usually. Police and firefighters are in place to ensure personal safety. The New Deal was to alleviate fears against a repeat of depression era outcomes. When society risks a loss that compels a human response, society steps forward with a safety net.

Mamdani, New York Cities new mayor, sold the people on a fear of escalating grocery prices and thus the need for a government run store. This seems different than when a small community rounds up a helicopter rescue for a mountain climber who ventured up a nearby peak alone and unprepared.

So who gets to pick what there is to fear? Not everyone does this well. Here’s Mises (from Theory and History)

They recommend some policies, reject others, and do not bother about the effects that must result from the adoption of their suggestions.

This neglect of the effects of policies, whether rejected or recommended, is absurd. For the moralists and the Christian proponents of anticapitalism do not concern themselves with the economic organization of society from sheer caprice. They seek reform of existing conditions because they want to bring about definite effects. What they call the injustice of capitalism is the alleged fact that it causes widespread poverty and destitution. They advocate reforms which, as they expect, will wipe out poverty and destitution. They are therefore, from the point of view of their own valuations and the ends they themselves are eager to attain, inconsistent in referring merely to something which they call the higher standard of justice and morality and ignoring the economic analysis of both capitalism and the anticapitalistic policies. Their terming capitalism unjust and anticapitalistic measures just is quite arbitrary since it has no relation to the effect of each of these sets of economic policies.

Taking over a grocery is sure to fail financially without ensuring any additional food security for those who need it. It’s a vanity project. Wouldn’t it be like telling the mountaineer that a government representative would need to participate in the planning and execution of his climb? Yet here, the little community bears a disproportionate cost for the climbers’ foolishness.

It seems that the risk to persons and the community happens to various degrees. Whether the risk triggers community involvement has to do with its extreme and the distance between the risky step and all the other steps in between.

Happy Birthday Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty - but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room -

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty", I replied -
"And I - for Truth - Themself are One -
We Brethren are",  He said -

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms -
Until the Moss had reached our lips -
And covered up  - Our names -

How would it feel?

People speculate why young people have delayed home purchases. Only around 20% of home purchases fall in this category. A historic low. But is it that surprising? Look at the surge of foreclosures in ’07-’08 and ’09. Hundreds of thousands of people who were never meant to have financial struggles lost their homes.

Children ages 8-12, old enough to sense the stresses within their families, yet too young to analyze the impact of a national financial crisis, were bystanders to these unpleasant legal actions in the early 2000’s. These are today’s young home buyers. Uncertain of what a real estate purchase will do for them. The anxiety associated with foreclosures has often been portrayed in litterature.

In Death of a Salesman, the family’s fear of losing their home emerges gradually, revealed not through a dramatic announcement but through Linda’s quiet confession that they are barely keeping up with the mortgage. She tells Biff and Happy that Willy has been borrowing money just to make the house payments—a disclosure that reframes the entire domestic landscape. What had seemed like an ordinary family home is suddenly understood as something fragile, held together by secrecy and strain.

The looming threat of foreclosure exposes the play’s deepest emotional fractures. The mortgage becomes a symbol of Willy’s unraveling identity—his failure as a provider and his desperate clinging to the American Dream. Linda’s hushed explanations carry a mournful tenderness, showing how fear and loyalty tangle together under financial pressure. For Willy, the house is both sanctuary and burden, and the possibility of losing it turns that symbol of pride into a reminder of collapse. The family’s anxiety over the home’s instability reveals how economic pressure corrodes affection, pride, and hope, tightening around them until it shapes every gesture they make toward one another.

Capital Theory

What is Capital Theory in Economics?

Capital theory is the branch of economics that studies the nature, role, measurement, and productivity of capital — the produced means of production (machines, factories, tools, infrastructure, software, etc.) that are used to produce goods and services.

It tries to answer fundamental questions like:

  • What exactly is “capital”?
  • How should it be measured?
  • How does capital contribute to economic growth and income distribution (wages vs. profit/interest)?
  • Why does the return on capital (interest rate or profit rate) behave the way it does?

Capital theory has been one of the most controversial and technically difficult areas in economics, especially in the 20th century.

Key Concepts and Debates

  1. Capital as a homogeneous “fund” (neoclassical view)
    • Mainstream neoclassical economics (since the late 19th century) treats capital as a single, measurable quantity (like “dollars of capital” or a “stock of value”).
    • In simple production functions (e.g., Y = F(K, L)), K (capital) is treated like labor L — you can smoothly substitute one for the other.
    • The interest rate is the price that equilibrates saving and investment.
  2. The Cambridge Capital Controversy (1950s–1970s) – the big critique
    • Economists from Cambridge, UK (Joan Robinson, Piero Sraffa, Luigi Pasinetti) challenged the neoclassical view.
    • Major problems they exposed:
      • Reswitching: The same technique of production can become profitable again at lower (or higher) interest rates, destroying the simple idea that lower interest rates always lead to more “capital-intensive” techniques.
      • Capital reversing: Higher interest rates can sometimes lead to using more capital-intensive methods — the opposite of what neoclassical theory predicts.
      • Measurement problem: You cannot measure the “quantity of capital” independently of the interest rate or profit rate, because capital goods are heterogeneous (a robot ≠ a shovel). Their value depends on future profits, which depend on the interest rate — a circularity.
    • Conclusion of the critics: The aggregate production function and the idea of a downward-sloping demand curve for capital are logically flawed.
  3. Austrian view (Böhm-Bawerk, Hayek, Lachmann)
    • Capital is highly heterogeneous and time-structured.
    • Production takes time; capital goods are “intermediate goods” at different stages of completion.
    • Emphasizes the “period of production” or “roundaboutness”: more productive methods are more time-consuming.
    • Interest originates from time preference (people value present goods over future goods).
  4. Post-Keynesian / Sraffian view
    • Rejects marginal productivity theory of distribution.
    • The rate of profit is determined by monetary factors, class struggle, or growth requirements, not by the “marginal product of capital.”
    • Capital is valued in terms of its own reproduction cost (Sraffa’s “price of production”).
  5. Modern mainstream response
    • After the Cambridge controversy, most neoclassical economists largely ignored the deep logical problems and continued using aggregate production functions for practical reasons (they work reasonably well empirically in many contexts).
    • Some (e.g., “new growth theory”) shifted focus to knowledge, human capital, and ideas rather than physical capital.

Summary Table of Major Schools

Bottom Line

Capital theory is the attempt to understand one of the most important concepts in economics — capital — and it remains unresolved. The mainstream treats capital as a simple scalar quantity for modeling convenience, but the Cambridge controversies showed that this simplification has serious logical flaws once you dig into the details. The debate is largely dormant in mainstream teaching but still very much alive among economic methodologists and heterodox economists.