Cameron's Home-Buying Bungle | Cato Institute

Cameron's Home-Buying Bungle | Cato Institute: "Borrowing a sizable amount of money can easily make a family vulnerable to unexpected unemployment or income shocks, especially after paying a large deposit on a new house. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, Americans who saw their houses foreclosed learned this the hard way.

Moreover, because the costs of selling a piece of real estate are substantial, home ownership also creates a disincentive to labor mobility, tying people to places that may not have the best economic opportunities a decade or two from now. It may not be a coincidence that Spain, with a home ownership rate of 80%, suffers from 25% unemployment."

"In the end, the more important question seems whether people have access to affordable, convenient, good-quality housing. If that’s not the case, a reasonable government policy ought to encourage growth in the supply of the physical housing units, thereby making them more affordable both to renters and home buyers."

"This includes not only scrapping various land-use restrictions, but also urban-planning regulations that currently make it difficult to put up tall residential buildings."

Immigration Is Good for Wisconsin's Economy | Cato Institute

Immigration Is Good for Wisconsin's Economy | Cato Institute: "Even if supporters of reform got their pie-in-the-sky wishes, immigrants would only temporarily drive down wages, and that’s only if they compete directly with American workers. That rarely happens because, for the most part, immigrant and American workers have different skills.

A third of immigrants have less than a high school degree, but only 8% of U.S.-born American workers do. Immigrants with less than a high school degree just don’t compete with U.S.-born educated workers.

In addition, immigrants tend to speak English poorly, at least initially, so many specialize in jobs that don’t require much English. That creates opportunities for Americans to specialize in jobs that require English proficiency, jobs that also pay more."

"As unauthorized immigrant workers were weeded out of the Arizona workforce, an exodus of 130,000 since 2007, very few Americans took their places. Unauthorized immigrants left the state and took their jobs with them."

The Government (Non) Shutdown | Cato Institute

The Government (Non) Shutdown | Cato Institute: "Democrats have already agreed to support a continuing resolution at a funding level that is lower than they originally desired. Although I was initially concerned that the opposite would be the case, the House GOP’s willingness to go to the mat over Obamacare probably enabled this small win for taxpayers.

As it stands, Democrats are willing to fund those portions of the government that require annual appropriations at $986 billion (on an annualized basis), which is essentially the same figure that the House GOP proposed. On the downside, because that figure originally proposed by the GOP would still be above that which the still-in-effect sequestration would allow for the new fiscal year ($967 billion), the stage would be set for another round of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the mandatory cuts in January."