Tea at Trianon: For More Affordable Housing: ‘Build Baby Build’

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 25, 2025

For More Affordable Housing: ‘Build Baby Build’

From Direct Line News:

Let’s start with facts, not fear. Institutional investors own roughly 2 percent of single-family homes in America.¹ Meanwhile, local governments and zoning boards control 100 percent of what can or cannot be built.
If you’re wondering why home prices and rents keep climbing, don’t look to Wall Street. Look to City Hall. Decades of red tape, arbitrary height restrictions, and “not-in-my-backyard” politics have strangled supply. When you outlaw density, you guarantee scarcity. And when you guarantee scarcity, you guarantee higher prices.
Republicans used to say it plainly: you can’t tax or regulate your way into prosperity. Well, you can’t regulate your way into affordable housing either.
Remember 2008? Neighborhoods were filled with foreclosed and abandoned homes. Ordinary families walked away. Government bailouts went to the banks, not the blocks.
Who stepped in? Investors-many of them private-equity firms, who bought distressed homes, fixed them, and turned them into livable rentals. They didn’t just flip properties; they restored neighborhoods. Crime dropped. Property values recovered.
That wasn’t predation. That was capitalism doing what it does best: seeing value where others see decay.
Today, these investors provide stable, professionally managed rentals for millions of Americans who can’t-or don’t want to-own right now. That’s not exploitation. That’s housing choice. (Read more.)