Overregulation
Business & Economics
Reversing Regulatory Overreach Will Encourage Payment Innovations
Innovation is often a victim of its own success as the once unimaginable becomes the invaluable service people cannot live without. The modern payments system exemplifies this phenomenon. Innovations by fintech startups as well as traditional financial companies now enable trillions of dollars in transactions annually. And thanks to robust ...
Blog
California’s Policy Responses Risks Worsening a Bad Situation
Based on the bills legislators are considering, policymakers are learning the wrong lessons. Consider SB 222 (the Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act) introduced by state Sens. Scott Wiener and Sasha Renée Pérez. By allowing plaintiffs to sue oil and energy companies for the costs created by natural disasters, SB ...
Business & Economics
Fast food minimum wage’s predictable result: Fewer jobs, even higher prices to come
Wouldn’t it be nice if the government could make everyone richer simply by passing laws that increase our income? Unfortunately, our world doesn’t work that way. When government chooses winners, someone loses, and nothing illustrates this better than when lawmakers set wage floors, as they did with California’s $20 fast-food ...
Business & Economics
Overuse of Executive Orders is a Problem
President Donald Trump has been issuing executive orders at a breakneck pace, keeping campaign promises to the delight of supporters. But be careful what you wish for. Trump won’t be in office forever. Read the entire op-ed in The Sacramento Bee.
Business & Economics
Housing Unaffordability Is A Policy Choice Not A Technology Problem
Trying to deflect the blame for the growing problem of housing affordability, politicians across the country are channeling their inner Captain Louis Renault and “rounding up the usual suspects”. In this case, the usual suspects are property landlords using algorithmic software to better understand the local market dynamics. Read the ...
Blog
Read about California's latest move against Elon Musk
SpaceX Delaunched In California
The California Coastal Commission voted 6-4 last week to oppose Musk’s plans to launch as many as 50 SpaceX rockets a year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County. Musk’s response was to take the agency to court, which he did Tuesday, claiming in a lawsuit that it ...
Blog
Rise Of The Machines
Some years ago, in 2018, when the minimum wage in California was $11 an hour for companies with 26 or more employees, a Pasadena burger joint hired a machine named Flippy to turn patties on the grill. “The world’s first autonomous kitchen assistant,” an “upgrade on a human line cook,” ...
Blog
Learn how government is trying to stop another merger
Why is ‘The People’s Attorney’ Suing to Block a Private Transaction That Will Benefit Shoppers?
Yet busybodies from Washington to Sacramento want to block Kroger’s plan to buy the Albertsons chain for $24.6 billion. They’re so hostile to the proposal that Kroger is even on trial: The Federal Trade Commission, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, seven other state attorneys general and the District of Columbia ...
Blog
California and the SEC face legal challenges to their climate-related disclosure requirements
These requirements are not only financially burdensome but have been challenged on legal and Constitutional grounds. In January, the California Chamber of Commerce sued the California Air and Resource Board (CARB), seeking an injunction against the implementation of SB 253 and SB 261. In their complaint, they argued that California ...
Commentary
Learn why price controls won't reduce inflation
Kamala Harris is wrong. American economic history is replete with failed price control policies
Yet in one of her first policy proposals as the Democratic Party’s White House candidate, Kamala Harris insisted that the country needs “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries.” She would set “clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit ...
Reversing Regulatory Overreach Will Encourage Payment Innovations
Innovation is often a victim of its own success as the once unimaginable becomes the invaluable service people cannot live without. The modern payments system exemplifies this phenomenon. Innovations by fintech startups as well as traditional financial companies now enable trillions of dollars in transactions annually. And thanks to robust ...
California’s Policy Responses Risks Worsening a Bad Situation
Based on the bills legislators are considering, policymakers are learning the wrong lessons. Consider SB 222 (the Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act) introduced by state Sens. Scott Wiener and Sasha Renée Pérez. By allowing plaintiffs to sue oil and energy companies for the costs created by natural disasters, SB ...
Fast food minimum wage’s predictable result: Fewer jobs, even higher prices to come
Wouldn’t it be nice if the government could make everyone richer simply by passing laws that increase our income? Unfortunately, our world doesn’t work that way. When government chooses winners, someone loses, and nothing illustrates this better than when lawmakers set wage floors, as they did with California’s $20 fast-food ...
Overuse of Executive Orders is a Problem
President Donald Trump has been issuing executive orders at a breakneck pace, keeping campaign promises to the delight of supporters. But be careful what you wish for. Trump won’t be in office forever. Read the entire op-ed in The Sacramento Bee.
Housing Unaffordability Is A Policy Choice Not A Technology Problem
Trying to deflect the blame for the growing problem of housing affordability, politicians across the country are channeling their inner Captain Louis Renault and “rounding up the usual suspects”. In this case, the usual suspects are property landlords using algorithmic software to better understand the local market dynamics. Read the ...
Read about California's latest move against Elon Musk
SpaceX Delaunched In California
The California Coastal Commission voted 6-4 last week to oppose Musk’s plans to launch as many as 50 SpaceX rockets a year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County. Musk’s response was to take the agency to court, which he did Tuesday, claiming in a lawsuit that it ...
Rise Of The Machines
Some years ago, in 2018, when the minimum wage in California was $11 an hour for companies with 26 or more employees, a Pasadena burger joint hired a machine named Flippy to turn patties on the grill. “The world’s first autonomous kitchen assistant,” an “upgrade on a human line cook,” ...
Learn how government is trying to stop another merger
Why is ‘The People’s Attorney’ Suing to Block a Private Transaction That Will Benefit Shoppers?
Yet busybodies from Washington to Sacramento want to block Kroger’s plan to buy the Albertsons chain for $24.6 billion. They’re so hostile to the proposal that Kroger is even on trial: The Federal Trade Commission, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, seven other state attorneys general and the District of Columbia ...
California and the SEC face legal challenges to their climate-related disclosure requirements
These requirements are not only financially burdensome but have been challenged on legal and Constitutional grounds. In January, the California Chamber of Commerce sued the California Air and Resource Board (CARB), seeking an injunction against the implementation of SB 253 and SB 261. In their complaint, they argued that California ...
Learn why price controls won't reduce inflation
Kamala Harris is wrong. American economic history is replete with failed price control policies
Yet in one of her first policy proposals as the Democratic Party’s White House candidate, Kamala Harris insisted that the country needs “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries.” She would set “clear rules of the road to make clear that big corporations can’t unfairly exploit ...
