With American fertility rates in decline, ideas have emerged from both the right and the left about how governments can incentivize having children, or at the very least reduce some of the costs. Patrick T. Brown observes that the steady increase in the price of housing may be leading people to delay starting families, and argues that, as is so often the case, well-intended government interventions are the culprit:

In the wake of World War II, the United States adopted a type of industrial policy for housing—favorable tax treatment, federal assistance, a rejuvenated homebuilding industry, and easier financing led to exploding homeownership rates (of course, not every group benefited equally). . . . But by the 1970s, the great engine that had been powering the growth of the housing supply began to peter out. Two factors are of particular interest to our story: a regulatory climate that shifted from favoring development to protecting the environment, and the rise of what the Dartmouth economist William Fischel calls the “homevoters.”

First, the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and state-level equivalents made it more cumbersome for developers to build. These laws were arguably well-intentioned, but the added years of environmental and legal review are inevitably capitalized into the price of a home. . . . Funnily enough, in the context of today’s concerns over the climate, the environmental laws championed by 1970s activists may be making it harder to fight carbon emissions. For example, in today’s legal climate, it’s easier for developers to build in Arizona or Nevada than the San Francisco Bay Area. As a result, more people move to hot, sunny areas that require intensive use of air conditioning rather than staying in more temperate areas like the Bay Area.

Second, the high-inflation environment of the 1970s, combined with the record-high rates of ownership, changed the mental framework around housing. For most people, a single-family home is the single largest purchase they will ever make. If a home continues to rise in value after its purchase, a homeowner can see the value of the house as both consumption (in the form of a place to live, make memories, etc.) and as investment. That means that homeowners have a rational, vested interest in seeing the value of the home maintain (if not improve).

A new road, apartment, or housing development changes the status quo, and even the most open-minded homeowner might be worried about taking a risk, even a small one, that his house could end up worth much less than what he paid for it.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.