I don’t think I told you guys that back in March I got to sit down for a long chat with one of my heroes.
The Great Mike Rowe invited me out to record an episode of his podcast, The Way I Heard It.
So cool!
We talked about everything from questioning assumptions, to why history matters, to how two cartoon kids ended up in a few million homes. And of course we talked about something near and dear to both of our hearts—the truth that there is a whole lot of value in skipping college.
I mean, this is the man who has spent decades giving America's tradesmen their dignity back while everyone else was telling kids that working with their hands meant they’d failed at life.
We all have a lot to learn from him.
Our episode just dropped, and you can listen here.
We might need to sit down again soon because an entire new episode could be devoted to all the ways the government hamstrings people who just want to work hard and take care of themselves.
Case in point: the same day the podcast went live, the National Association of Home Builders dropped a study that shows the crushing toll of government intervention on the very people Mike has always championed: the average, hardworking American.
It showed that a whopping average of $131,734 is added to the price of every new home build in the form of permits, code revisions, impact fees, design mandates, inspections (and of course inspections of the inspection). The average new home sells for $499,500 (!!!), which means that regulation accounts for more than 25% of the price of a home.
And the trajectory is the part that should actually infuriate you.
In 2011, the regulatory burden was about $65,000 per home, which is still just awful. By 2021, it was $94,000, and now it's $131,734—that’s 40% in five years. Meanwhile, your disposable income (by the best metrics) rose just 18% over those same five years. That means the cost of government permission is compounding at more than double the rate of your ability to pay for it.
There's no version of this math that ends well. You simply can't outrun a number that grows twice as fast as you do.
“But Connor, building codes keep us safe!”
Ok, sure. But look… nobody wants a house to fall over, not me, and certainly not any builder I've ever met. Dead customers are famously bad for business. That’s why builders figured out how to make houses stand up long before the permit office existed.
So did lumber and screws get 40% more dangerous since 2021? Did gravity change?
No. What changed is that every code board and council and agency has their finger in the regulatory pie. One fee here. One mandate there. Each one defensible in the committee meeting where it was born, but each compounding with others to take homeownership and prosperity further out of the hands of regular people.
Eighty-eight percent of developers now report complying with design standards that go beyond the actual zoning code—that’s past the rules, and into the realm of "also, we'd prefer different shutters."
In practice, that means that the framer Mike Rowe built a whole career celebrating—a guy with real skills who creates actual wealth with his hands—increasingly can't afford the thing he builds.
He'll frame forty houses this year and still rent.
Your kids are going to inherit this housing market. And when they do, an entire chorus of very credentialed people will tell them the fix is (you guessed it!) more intervention—subsidies to offset the costs the rules created.
It’s the government’s classic: break your leg, sell you a crutch, and then expect you to thank them for “helping” you.
The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom helps kids understand how even well-meaning central planners create unintended consequences that have crushing impacts. The Tuttle Twins and the Messed Up Market is a natural follow-up when your kids start asking the bigger "but why does everything cost so much?" questions.
Look, you don't need a business or economics degree to teach your kids the important lessons about the way the world around them works.
You're already doing it with every dinner conversation, and every "huh, I wonder why" you say out loud in the car. All we do is provide supplemental material to reinforce what you’re already teaching.
Someday, at a city council meeting, in an economics class, or across the table from someone very confident and very wrong, your kids will find themselves the only ones in the room who ask what a rule actually costs instead of just what it promises.
And it’ll be because of you and the work you’re doing right now.
Thanks for letting us help.
— Connor
