The last couple days I’ve been parceling out a short proposal to found and build an institute that would push a pure form of supply side economics for housing policy. I’ve called it my message in a bottle. I’ve already written at Forbes about narrative. In what follows I try to reduce this down to fewer words and some specific actions. As I said, about five times to someone recently, unless and until we can shift the bigger narrative that leads reporters and politicians to simply accept the idea that building more housing won’t work, we’re never going to solve the smaller problems. As Hayek points out in The Use of Knowledge in Society, 

The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement.

The beauty of the price system is that price is all we need to know; when it goes up, we know we need more. I’ve likened the process of achieving social change as being like vaccination. We know measles are bad and we don’t want them so we get vaccinated and we don’t have to think about not getting measles. Changing the narrative is essential and efficient. It must be the end goal at all times, even while trying to get  permit, respond to a bad headline, or advocating for a specific policy. 

Principles

• Price signals help solve problems and create solutions
• Markets allow the Exchange of ideas and values and expands opportunity
• Efficiency is compassionate
• Do not tax what we need more of; and
• The solution for high prices is more supply

What do we do?

Today	Intermediate	Longer Term
Data: Produce original reports using the best data possible to support the principles. Effectively respond to use of data that undermines the principles in the public discussion and in the media. Get press coverage for our reports and our data and our stories.	Policy: Produce and advocate for policies (legislation and regulations) that advance the principles; work to eliminate existing polices that don’t. Using our data and our communications, defend against proposals that threaten our principles.	Outcome: Complicate the housing narrative so that when problems arise people don’t look for villains to blame but demand solutions that efficiently expand housing opportunity, including fewer rules, more direct cash benefits, and efficient collaborative efforts for those in the greatest need

Concept for Think-Do-Communicate Tank

Short Term	Intermediate Term	Longer Term
Principles	Projects	Narrative
·  Price signals help solve problems and create solutions ·  The market allows the Exchange of ideas and values and expands opportunity ·  Efficiency is compassionate ·  Don’t tax what we need more of ·  The solution for high prices is more supply	1.     Finance, build, and manage projects that: Use value capture; 2.     Use few if any public dollars; 3.     Demonstrate the limits of the existing system; 4.     Demonstrate the potential of a new way; and 5.     Provide real lasting solutions for people struggling with poverty, addiction, and their mental and physical health.	Outcome: Complicate the housing narrative so that when problems arise people don’t look for villains to blame but demand solutions that efficiently expand housing opportunity, including fewer rules, more direct cash benefits, and efficient collaborative efforts for those in the greatest need.