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August 20, 2025

Welcome to The Lighthouse, the weekly email newsletter of the Independent Institute covering politics, economics, current events, and everything in between.

Dear Readers,

As rents climb and homeownership slips further out of reach, housing has become an ideological fault line. In cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston, debates over zoning, public investment, and tenant protections are leading to electoral coalitions.

In New York City’s mayoral race, Mamdani’s rent freeze proposal received a lot of populist support. Scott Beyer highlights a significant solution to the housing crisis could be the conversion of preexisting buildings into residential units. However, zoning laws and aesthetic regulations are hindering urban revitalization efforts. As cities grapple with affordability issues, the solution may be workable…if regulators are willing to step aside.

Also this week, Craig Eyermann finds a rare fiscal bright spot, pointing out that despite the $37 trillion debt milestone, interest payment growth has slowed thanks in part to early-term restraint. But with the One Big Beautiful Bill now law, that silver lining may be short-lived.

Sam Jenson delivers a reminder that unchecked police power corrodes civil liberties.

I note how the White House’s AI Action makes an important and welcome departure from European Union-style AI regulations.

As President Trump’s Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin sparks global debate, Ivan Eland argues that sidelining Kyiv risks turning peace talks into theater.

Happy reading.

Jonathan Hofer
Managing Editor

Top picks this week
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** Old Building Conversions Can Add Housing—If Regulators Back Off ([link removed])
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** Adaptive reuse is popular, and sometimes cheaper than new buildings. But government land-use regs stand in the way. ([link removed])
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** by Scott Beyer
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Converting old buildings into housing could ease urban shortages … but red tape, zoning laws, and aesthetic mandates stall progress and drive up costs.
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** A Silver Lining in U.S. Interest Payments ([link removed])
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** What it means for debt ([link removed])
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** by Craig Eyermann
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A rare hint of restraint may be cause for hope.
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** ICE and the Melting of Civil Liberties ([link removed])
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** The expansion of ICE’s power and budget under Trump has intensified civil liberties violations against both non-citizens and citizens. ([link removed])
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** by Sam Jenson
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ICE’s budget balloons and its tactics are intensifying. That’s not good for anyone.
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** AI Regulation Makes Important Shift Away from Focusing on Model Size ([link removed])
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** by Jonathan Hofer
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As U.S. AI regulation moves away from policing model size and more towards targeting real-world use cases, is America winning the AI race?
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** Invite Zelenskyy to the Alaska Summit ([link removed])
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** by Ivan Eland
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Without Zelenskyy at the table, Trump’s Alaska summit with Putin looked like a backroom deal that leaves Ukraine in peril.
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** FEATURED AUDIOBOOK — OUT NOW!
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** Let Colleges Fail ([link removed])
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** The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education ([link removed])
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** By Richard K. Vedder
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Everyone knows American universities are more expensive and less impressive than ever. But no one has come up with a plan to fix them … until now. Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education ([link removed]) —now available as an audiobook!—is the hard-hitting instruction manual America needs in order to save its institutions of higher learning.
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