In this week's newsletter: 

• Let’s examine the current state of the housing market — by looking back at American economic history.

• Can just anyone start a cell phone carrier now? It’s not just the Trump family.

• Chinese tariffs aren’t finalized, but big-ticket items are more expensive anyway.

• We’ll tally up the design and money that goes into your Netflix home screen.

• Summer just started, so why are stores full of Halloween decorations?

The housing market has plenty going wrong these days: high interest rates, high home prices, and affordability challenges — especially for first-time buyers.

Now add another wrinkle: President Donald Trump’s renewed push to re-privatize the giant government-owned housing-finance corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They were taken over by the federal government (placed into conservatorship) during the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis.  

Some critics have warned that re-privatizing them could be risky if it undermines the government backstop that Fannie and Freddie provide to the U.S. housing market, by guaranteeing principal and interest payments on mortgage-backed securities that are sold on to investors.  

What mortgages are we talking about? The stable, predictable, affordable 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

“The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is the engine that drives homeownership in the United States,” said Vanessa Perry, professor and interim dean of the business school at George Washington University. “Not only does the math work for homebuyers, the math also works for investors.”

“It really is the best of all possible worlds,” said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association. “It locks the principal and interest portion of the payment over a long period of time. Should rates drop, it’s pre-payable without a penalty. So it provides both stability and flexibility.”

When mortgage rates fall, buyers can refinance, and lock in an even lower monthly payment over the remaining life of the loan.

The math also works for the financial markets, said Fratantoni, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up 30-year mortgages, bundle them into securities that they guarantee, then sell those on to investors, reducing long-term risk.

“More than 90% of home purchases are financed with 30-year fixed-rate loans,” said Fratantoni, “and it really differentiates the U.S. from other countries around the world.”

So, how did U.S. homeowners come to have this great economic boon — the ability to get a really long-term bank loan to buy a house, with essentially no inflation or interest rate risk, where the monthly payment doesn’t change for thirty years, no matter what else happens in the economy?

Well, it didn’t used to be like this.

“The mortgage system prior to the Great Depression was very dangerous,” said Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

We’ve yet to really see the much-anticipated tariff-driven bump in prices come through in official inflation data, but a new Congressional analysis just found that the cost of goods in one spending category is already rising because of tariffs: baby gear.

Since the beginning of April, the cost of the five most common things new parents buy — car seats, bassinets, strollers, highchairs and baby monitors — has gone up nearly 25%. The vast majority of those goods are made in China. 

Everything Sarah Wells sells is made in China — she owns Sarah Wells Bags in Fairfax, Virginia. It’s a “13-year-old small business that makes both breast feeding apparel and bags to transport your breast pump,” she said.

Wells has been working with the same factory in China to make those bags the whole time she’s been in business. The last time she placed an order was right after the holidays. It made it onto a container ship in February and cleared customs in March.

“We were hit with that very first 20% additional tariff from 2025, which amounted to over $15,000 of surprise tariff at the port,” she said.

Wells couldn’t absorb that unexpected cost, so she’s had to raise her prices 10% to 15%. And that was before the president announced he was raising tariffs on Chinese imports even more. 

Since then, David Jacobs, co-owner of a children’s store in Brooklyn called Mini Jake, said most manufacturers he works with have raised prices between 10% and 20% — or more.

So he has too. So far, customers are still buying.

“But I think people are less inclined to buy the highest priced items, and are looking at alternatives that are lower priced,” he said.

For the first time in 12 years, Netflix is redesigning its home screen. That’s the screen the streaming giant’s 300 million subscribers see when they first log in, right after that trademark “ta-dum” sound.

It’s a big deal not just for Netflix, but for the entire entertainment industry. Whether it’s Netflix or Disney+ or HBO Max, the real estate on streaming homescreens is extremely valuable. What titles appear on that screen, where on the screen they appear, how often they appear — all of that influences what you actually watch.

At the top of most streaming homescreens is typically that big, poster-like image or auto-play clip that eats up half your TV.

Netflix calls it a “billboard.” On Disney+, it’s a “rotating carousel.”

Leading my Disney+ carousel at the moment is a close-up of Elisabeth Moss in a white bonnet and red robe.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” series finale. This is there because it’s the hottest piece of property that the Disney empire currently has to stream,” said Ole Lütjens, former vice president of design at Disney streaming.

I shared my Disney+ homepage with Lütjens over Microsoft Teams. He said the carousel functions as something more than a movie theater marquee.

“It’s the Saks Fifth Avenue, one of the five windows they decorate for every season. It’s the big beautiful display of the best stuff we have to offer that’s supposed to draw you in,” said Lütjens.

That’s partly because audiences are more likely to watch the first big shiny show or movie they see after they log in. (Although how much more likely is each streamer’s closely guarded secret.)

But the carousel is also subliminally seeding what you may want to watch in the future. Like how a McDonald’s commercial at 10 p.m. might make you crave a Quarter Pounder for the next day’s lunch.

“There is the subconscious emotional knowledge that we're loading you up with that might pop up in your brain, just as a behavioral moment, as a habit later,” said Lütjens.

Halloween vibes? In the middle of summer? It’s more likely than you think. 

Tony Wagner wrote this newsletter. Mitchell Hartman reported our top story on the 30-year fixed mortgage and Samantha Fields reported on the price of baby gear.