Business & Economics
Business & Economics
New consumer bureau will be a bust – guaranteed
In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) formally begins operations. Republicans oppose President Obama’s top choice, Elizabeth Warren, to head the new bureau, which should not have been created in the first place. The CFPB will drive up prices, but won’t actually protect consumers. Consider first the sheer implausibility ...
Business & Economics
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
Business & Economics
Federal Health Reform and Stock Market Returns of Health Insurers
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) would not have passed without the support of business interests in the health sector. Stock prices of for-profit health plans have significantly outperformed the broader stock market since President Obamas election in 2008, but also since the Republican wave of 2010. ...
Business & Economics
A Case for Affirmative Disclosure of Public Pensions
An appeals court has ruled that a public agency must hand over pension data to a newspaper. This is a welcome development but a recent case confirms that California remains far behind the curve on government transparency. The Sacramento Bee has been conducting investigations into public employee pensions and finds ...
Business & Economics
Medicare Auctions for Durable Medical Equipment: Price Suppression and Research and Development Investment
San Francisco (June 13, 2011)—A new research study released by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free-market think tank, reviews the auction design process currently established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for medical devices and equipment. That process creates important adverse economic effects: It yields ...
Business & Economics
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Business & Economics
Bureaucrats Don’t Come to the Rescue
As a tragic San Francisco fire that claimed the life of at least one firefighter Thursday has shown, public safety jobs at times can be very dangerous. But an incident from earlier in the week across the bay in Alameda has also shown, public safety agencies also can be so ...
Business & Economics
Bashing Oil Industry is Counterproductive
In a recent speech, President Obama set a goal to reduce America’s oil imports by a third by 2025 — about 3 million to 4 million barrels a day. Unfortunately, Obama’s own energy policies undercut his goal. To reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources, domestic energy producers will need to ...
Business & Economics
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Business & Economics
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
New consumer bureau will be a bust – guaranteed
In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) formally begins operations. Republicans oppose President Obama’s top choice, Elizabeth Warren, to head the new bureau, which should not have been created in the first place. The CFPB will drive up prices, but won’t actually protect consumers. Consider first the sheer implausibility ...
Redevelopment Might Really be a Goner
Hours before the Wednesday midnight deadline for passing a state budget, legislative Democrats rammed through a ridiculous, gimmick-laden, majority-vote spending plan that failed to reform anything and failed to impress Gov. Jerry Brown, who wisely vetoed it less than a day later. The budget succeeded mainly in one area:ensuring the ...
Federal Health Reform and Stock Market Returns of Health Insurers
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) would not have passed without the support of business interests in the health sector. Stock prices of for-profit health plans have significantly outperformed the broader stock market since President Obamas election in 2008, but also since the Republican wave of 2010. ...
A Case for Affirmative Disclosure of Public Pensions
An appeals court has ruled that a public agency must hand over pension data to a newspaper. This is a welcome development but a recent case confirms that California remains far behind the curve on government transparency. The Sacramento Bee has been conducting investigations into public employee pensions and finds ...
Medicare Auctions for Durable Medical Equipment: Price Suppression and Research and Development Investment
San Francisco (June 13, 2011)—A new research study released by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free-market think tank, reviews the auction design process currently established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for medical devices and equipment. That process creates important adverse economic effects: It yields ...
Higher taxes will not make California a better state
Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent talk to the California State Association of Counties was more meandering and disjointed than usual, but the governor stuck to his talking points: Unless California voters approve tax extensions, they must get used to greatly diminished public services. Without at least the tax extensions, he said, ...
Bureaucrats Don’t Come to the Rescue
As a tragic San Francisco fire that claimed the life of at least one firefighter Thursday has shown, public safety jobs at times can be very dangerous. But an incident from earlier in the week across the bay in Alameda has also shown, public safety agencies also can be so ...
Bashing Oil Industry is Counterproductive
In a recent speech, President Obama set a goal to reduce America’s oil imports by a third by 2025 — about 3 million to 4 million barrels a day. Unfortunately, Obama’s own energy policies undercut his goal. To reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources, domestic energy producers will need to ...
Proving the Redevelopment Rule
Doug Tessitor is the mayor of Glendora, a city in Los Angeles County. He’s a self-described conservative and dead certain that preserving California’s redevelopment agencies (RDAs) is essential to his city’s fiscal health. In a pair of recent online columns, Tessitor mounted an impassioned defense of redevelopment in response to ...
Government‚ Get Out of My Face(book)
The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242), authored by state senator Ellen Corbett‚ a San Leandro Democrat‚ would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This ...
