Business & Economics
Business & Economics
Vallejo Goes for Broke
Can bankruptcy save California’s cities from staggering pension obligations? As California cities and counties struggle to fulfill the generous pay and pension commitments that they made to public employees during flush economic times, some politicians have taken comfort in a usually forbidding word: bankruptcy. Top officials in Los Angeles and ...
Business & Economics
Silicon Valley’s Innovative Approach to Creating American Jobs
Anytime immigration comes up in public debate, you can be sure there will be arguments that America should tighten its borders. However, in a global world where capital moves at will, and investors can and do take their money out of the U.S. to fund innovative ideas overseas, the concept ...
Business & Economics
A bone to pick with Bartlett on federal spending
Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Mike Pence recently called for a constitutional amendment limiting federal spending “to one-fifth of the economy.” Bruce Bartlett, a former official in the George H.W. Bush administration, promptly denounced the idea as “dopey,” one “terrible… on so many levels that it is hard to know where ...
Business & Economics
Growth Industry for Lobbyists: You, the Taxpayer
Forget the stereotype of the lobbyists shilling for corporate welfare in the polished corridors of K Street. The biggest single market for the lobby industry is government itself, as state entities try to get (or keep) money and privileges flowing from legislatures. The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) recently studied how ...
Business & Economics
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Business & Economics
Legends in their own minds
SACRAMENTO When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
Commentary
High-Risk Pools v. Community Rating and the Individual Mandate
Here’s a little intra-mural squabble that I haven’t gotten into much on this site: Is support for an individual insurance mandate compatible with consumer-driven health care? I’ve periodically linked to Who Killed Health Care?, a book by Regina Herzlinger, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and professor at the Harvard ...
Business & Economics
Tort Reform
Tort reform is a popular call-to-action when it comes to healthcare legislation. In general tort reform in the healthcare arena refers to reducing lawsuits or damages related to medical malpractice. Several states have enacted tort reform. No one argues that frivolous lawsuits need to be eliminated; rather the debate revolves ...
Business & Economics
The $2 Trillion Hole
Promised pensions benefits for public-sector employees represent a massive overhang that threatens the financial future of many cities and states. LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street. Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored ...
Business & Economics
One big lie says the U.S. is riding a reckless wave of capitalism
Don’t tell The Times, but America has long had a mixed economy with substantial regulations The theory of the big (but good) lie goes back to a certain reading of Plato’s most famous dialogue, the Republic. There are more or less crude versions of it, but the gist of the ...
Vallejo Goes for Broke
Can bankruptcy save California’s cities from staggering pension obligations? As California cities and counties struggle to fulfill the generous pay and pension commitments that they made to public employees during flush economic times, some politicians have taken comfort in a usually forbidding word: bankruptcy. Top officials in Los Angeles and ...
Silicon Valley’s Innovative Approach to Creating American Jobs
Anytime immigration comes up in public debate, you can be sure there will be arguments that America should tighten its borders. However, in a global world where capital moves at will, and investors can and do take their money out of the U.S. to fund innovative ideas overseas, the concept ...
A bone to pick with Bartlett on federal spending
Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Mike Pence recently called for a constitutional amendment limiting federal spending “to one-fifth of the economy.” Bruce Bartlett, a former official in the George H.W. Bush administration, promptly denounced the idea as “dopey,” one “terrible… on so many levels that it is hard to know where ...
Growth Industry for Lobbyists: You, the Taxpayer
Forget the stereotype of the lobbyists shilling for corporate welfare in the polished corridors of K Street. The biggest single market for the lobby industry is government itself, as state entities try to get (or keep) money and privileges flowing from legislatures. The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) recently studied how ...
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Legends in their own minds
SACRAMENTO When people ask why I moved to Sacramento to write about California’s notoriously dysfunctional government, I say that, in the next two or three years, the government here is likely to (figuratively) crash and burn and that, as a journalist, I want a front-row seat for the action. ...
High-Risk Pools v. Community Rating and the Individual Mandate
Here’s a little intra-mural squabble that I haven’t gotten into much on this site: Is support for an individual insurance mandate compatible with consumer-driven health care? I’ve periodically linked to Who Killed Health Care?, a book by Regina Herzlinger, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and professor at the Harvard ...
Tort Reform
Tort reform is a popular call-to-action when it comes to healthcare legislation. In general tort reform in the healthcare arena refers to reducing lawsuits or damages related to medical malpractice. Several states have enacted tort reform. No one argues that frivolous lawsuits need to be eliminated; rather the debate revolves ...
The $2 Trillion Hole
Promised pensions benefits for public-sector employees represent a massive overhang that threatens the financial future of many cities and states. LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street. Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored ...
One big lie says the U.S. is riding a reckless wave of capitalism
Don’t tell The Times, but America has long had a mixed economy with substantial regulations The theory of the big (but good) lie goes back to a certain reading of Plato’s most famous dialogue, the Republic. There are more or less crude versions of it, but the gist of the ...
