1) Home "Ownership" Hits a Record High $35 Trillion Equity

Good news: The market value of owner-occupied housing in America is now just over $50 trillion. That number has quadrupled since 2000 and doubled since 2015 (not adjusted for inflation).

Even better news: The owner equity share of that $50 trillion has steadily risen to 72% (up from 48% just 10 years ago). The remaining 28% is owned by lenders and investors. This means that Americans directly own nearly $35 trillion of the housing stock. We are a VERY rich nation.  

The big housing mystery is why aging baby boomers and empty nesters haven't cashed in on that equity and sold their homes to the younger generation - effectively, their children.

Answer: because they can't afford to sell because the capital gains tax owed would be so high. They are locked in.  Instead, the boomers sit on the homes like a mother hen and wait until they die to avoid paying the tax.

So we will say it again: Congress can alleviate the housing affordability crisis for young people by indexing the capital gains tax on residential property.  This will raise money for the government and dramatically increase the supply of houses for sale, as Jeff Yass and Stephen Moore argued weeks ago in the WSJ.

2) More Evidence of the Climate Change Movement Meltdown

This week, the Washington Post laid off 14 of its remaining 19 climate change journalists:

The Biden-era peak was in late 2022, when the Post announced that it "nearly tripled the size of our Climate team -- totaling more than 30 [!] journalists -- part of a newsroom-wide commitment to covering perhaps the century's biggest story."

There have been a lot of lies associated with the climate change story, but they were telling the truth that climate change would lead to a lot of layoffs.

3) Poverty Is More Subsidized Than Ever Before

This is a troubling trend: Our friend Dan Mitchell cites a new Congressional Budget Office study which finds that poor people now get about three-fourths of their "income" from government handouts.

Back in 1979, the poor actually earned about two-thirds of their income from jobs.

The series ends in 2021, the year the Democrats made the child credit larger and fully refundable as alleged COVID relief, so the tax subsidy (the green) has probably come down some since then. (But they would love to bring that policy back.)

What this overall trend tells us is that work requirements for able/bodied Americans aren't being enforced. Federal programs have for millions of Americans become a substitute for work, not an income supplement.

4) Voters Don’t Like Democrats Either

Maybe voters are saying a pox on both their houses.

Yesterday we reported on how unpopular Republicans are today. But Democrats are in the doghouse too.

The New York Times just published a roundup of surveys and elite opinions about the state of the Democratic Party.

The conclusion from their 21-state research project: "Working-class voters see Democrats as 'woke, weak and out of touch' and six in 10 have a negative view of the party," reported Politico on the project.

Meanwhile, the centrist Democratic WelcomePAC has tabulated the words contained in Democratic Party platforms from 2012 through 2024.

The frequency of the word "hate" increased by 1,323 percent; "white/Black/Latino/Latina" increased by 1,137 percent; "L.G.B.T./L.G.B.T.Q.I.+" increased by 1,044 percent; and "equity" increased by 766 percent. During the same period, usage of "father/fathers" fell 100 percent; "crime/criminal" fell by 30 percent; "responsibility" fell by 83 percent; "middle class" fell by 79 percent; and "veteran" fell by 31 percent.

And Democrats wonder why voters see them "woke, weak, and out of touch."

5) Quote of the Day on Green Energy Madness

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever:

“The EU's green energy policies make it impossible to provide for our own energy needs, make it impossible to mine for rare minerals in Europe.....we've made dogmatic choices against nuclear energy which was the stupidity of the century."

He wasn’t done fuming. In response to demands by green energy executives for mandates he said:

"That's when I started to feel like I was in the Soviet Union. If politicians have to create markets, that usually means subsidies without end….”

“The de-carbonisation of Europe risks becoming synonymous with the de-industrialisation of Europe" he warned, noting several European industries are relocating abroad.”

When the prime minister of the nation that hosts the European Union is so openly contemptuous of its policies, the revolt against its bureaucracy is right at its gates.

6) No Wonder Schumer Killed Voter Integrity Bill

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