Wayne Winegarden
Business & Economics
Read an analysis of the 2024-25 CA proposed budget
Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget fails the moment
Governor Gavin Newsom is wrong. His proposed budget is not “resilient;” it demonstrates an inability to learn the lessons from California’s volatile budget history. The crippling deficit is merely one manifestation of the broader crisis. Newsom estimates a $37.9 billion deficit, about one-half of the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office’s (LAO) ...
Commentary
The Rising Costs From Monopoly Utilities And Excessive Energy Mandates
The onset of Winter is once again highlighting the electric grid’s declining reliability. But unlike the cold Winter, a less reliable grid is not inevitable. It is a self-inflicted problem caused by monopoly electricity providers and growing renewable energy mandates that thwart competitive power markets. Instead of creating incentives to ...
Blog
Read how Biden plan would hurt medical innovation
The Biden Administration Abuses Inflation to Attack Medical Innovation
It is theoretically bankrupt because price changes for individual goods and services reflect unique market factors in addition to broad-based inflation trends. There is no reason to expect any good’s price changes to always equal the average of all price changes (e.g., measured inflation). For instance, a deep frost that ...
Commentary
Giving The Gov’t Drug Patent March-In Authority Is Bad Policy
In early December, the Biden administration announced a proposal on exercising march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions that allows prices to “be a factor in considering whether a drug is accessible to the public.” This is a terrible idea. As the Congressional Research Service summarized, it is an ...
Blog
Read about latest state homeless spending
Newsom Homeless Encampment Plan an Overly Costly Solution at Best
More likely, the $300 million that the Governor wants to spend will barely make a dent in the state’s worst in the country homeless problem. The reason: this $300 million is still adhering to the costly yet ineffective Housing First approach. According to the Notice of Funding Availability, which defines how ...
Commentary
Reforming PBM Practices Would Improve The Pharmacy Market
Patients, the ultimate healthcare arbiter, continue to bear the costs from the perverse incentives driving the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market. Because of these disincentives patients pay excessive out-of-pocket costs. Just as troubling, the misaligned incentives create impediments that dictate where patients can fill their prescriptions and which prescriptions they can ...
Business & Economics
Read the latest about green investment mandates
Is CalPERS Still A Responsible Fiduciary?
Addressing global climate change is difficult and costly. Success requires an environment that encourages many ideas and experiments to flourish. Mandates from CalPERS undermines such an environment to the detriment of investors, the economy, and the environment. Read the full article at Forbes.com
Climate Change
Read about state & local climate change lawsuits
California Is Abusing The Legal System To Set Energy Policy
These claims are an end-run around the proper democratic process and, if successful, would be economically destructive. Making these costs harder to bear, the lawsuits are a futile exercise in hypocrisy. Federal courts have already dismissed similar claims against the automobile and electric power industries. Essentially the courts have stated ...
Commentary
The Federal Trade Commission’s Assault On Growth
The FTC’s mission is to protect consumers by ensuring that markets are competitive, not to protect competitors. Presumably, the Commissioners imagine that the theoretical harm to competitors will somehow make consumers worse off, but if this sounds far-fetched, this is precisely what an FTC administrative judge concluded when hearing the ...
Read an analysis of the 2024-25 CA proposed budget
Gov. Newsom’s proposed budget fails the moment
Governor Gavin Newsom is wrong. His proposed budget is not “resilient;” it demonstrates an inability to learn the lessons from California’s volatile budget history. The crippling deficit is merely one manifestation of the broader crisis. Newsom estimates a $37.9 billion deficit, about one-half of the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office’s (LAO) ...
The Rising Costs From Monopoly Utilities And Excessive Energy Mandates
The onset of Winter is once again highlighting the electric grid’s declining reliability. But unlike the cold Winter, a less reliable grid is not inevitable. It is a self-inflicted problem caused by monopoly electricity providers and growing renewable energy mandates that thwart competitive power markets. Instead of creating incentives to ...
Read how Biden plan would hurt medical innovation
The Biden Administration Abuses Inflation to Attack Medical Innovation
It is theoretically bankrupt because price changes for individual goods and services reflect unique market factors in addition to broad-based inflation trends. There is no reason to expect any good’s price changes to always equal the average of all price changes (e.g., measured inflation). For instance, a deep frost that ...
Giving The Gov’t Drug Patent March-In Authority Is Bad Policy
In early December, the Biden administration announced a proposal on exercising march-in rights on taxpayer-funded drugs and other inventions that allows prices to “be a factor in considering whether a drug is accessible to the public.” This is a terrible idea. As the Congressional Research Service summarized, it is an ...
Read about latest state homeless spending
Newsom Homeless Encampment Plan an Overly Costly Solution at Best
More likely, the $300 million that the Governor wants to spend will barely make a dent in the state’s worst in the country homeless problem. The reason: this $300 million is still adhering to the costly yet ineffective Housing First approach. According to the Notice of Funding Availability, which defines how ...
Reforming PBM Practices Would Improve The Pharmacy Market
Patients, the ultimate healthcare arbiter, continue to bear the costs from the perverse incentives driving the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market. Because of these disincentives patients pay excessive out-of-pocket costs. Just as troubling, the misaligned incentives create impediments that dictate where patients can fill their prescriptions and which prescriptions they can ...
Read the latest about green investment mandates
Is CalPERS Still A Responsible Fiduciary?
Addressing global climate change is difficult and costly. Success requires an environment that encourages many ideas and experiments to flourish. Mandates from CalPERS undermines such an environment to the detriment of investors, the economy, and the environment. Read the full article at Forbes.com
Read about state & local climate change lawsuits
California Is Abusing The Legal System To Set Energy Policy
These claims are an end-run around the proper democratic process and, if successful, would be economically destructive. Making these costs harder to bear, the lawsuits are a futile exercise in hypocrisy. Federal courts have already dismissed similar claims against the automobile and electric power industries. Essentially the courts have stated ...
The Federal Trade Commission’s Assault On Growth
The FTC’s mission is to protect consumers by ensuring that markets are competitive, not to protect competitors. Presumably, the Commissioners imagine that the theoretical harm to competitors will somehow make consumers worse off, but if this sounds far-fetched, this is precisely what an FTC administrative judge concluded when hearing the ...
