Agriculture
Agriculture
A way out of California’s water crisis
California’s chronic water problems were once again national news when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation establishing a code of water-use restrictions that would be more fitting for an undeveloped nation. As usual, policymakers chose the austerity of coercive public policy over the voluntary, cooperative agreements that markets use to efficiently ...
Agriculture
Ending War on Coffee Latest Example of Why Government Shouldn’t Play Dietician
A few months back we wrote about California’s “nags and nannies who relish forbidding pleasure, especially those of a gastronomic nature,” and their success in convincing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a preliminary ruling which requires stores that sell coffee to post cancer warning labels around their ...
Agriculture
If California Wants to Resist, Let’s Start with Trade Policy
Less than 32 percent of California voters who went to the polls on Election Day in 2016 pulled the lever for Donald Trump. These “deplorables” are probably delighted that Hillary Clinton isn’t president and pleased in general with how Trump has governed. Trump’s trade policies, though, should be another matter. ...
Agriculture
Victor Davis Hanson on the Wisdom of the Ancients
Spending time in April in New York, my PRI colleagues and I attended The New Criterion’s annual gala dinner which honored Victor Davis Hanson with the literary journal’s Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. In his introductory remarks, Roger Kimball, the editor and publisher of The New ...
Agriculture
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road in California? To Avoid the Politics of Cage-Free Eggs
Nearly a decade after California became the first state ban the confinement of hens and other farm animals in crowded cages, many farmers and policymakers around the country are still crying foul. The latest episode in the ongoing saga over California’s chicken law came last Wednesday, when a bill introduced ...
Agriculture
The Not-so-hidden Costs of Trade Tariffs
It should be no surprise that the Trump tariffs are not having their intended effect. Consider the impact on California farmers as documented by Bloomberg.com: More than half of Dan Vincent’s projected 2018 profit was wiped out with a stroke of President Donald Trump’s pen. Vincent runs Pacific Coast Producers, ...
Agriculture
Tariffs Are A Bad Negotiation Tool
Is he, or isn’t he? That’s the big question when it comes to the $100 billion in tariffs that President Trump has threatened to impose on China. Many supporters of these threatened tariffs would claim that the answer is: he isn’t; or more accurately, he won’t need to. In this ...
Agriculture
CAPITAL IDEAS: Will We Ever Build More Water Storage in California?
Read the PDF It’s not elected officials’ fault if it doesn’t rain. But they are largely responsible for the issues that arise when it doesn’t. That’s why California’s most-recent drought was often referred to as man-made. The next one, which will reportedly arrive this year, should carry the same label. ...
Agriculture
Free Markets and Education: The Answer is Freedom
The United States’ K-12 system of education must evolve to keep pace with the changing global economy. America has consistently taken a leading role in the world in a broad range of industries because we have avoided each century’s intellectual political fads (e.g. mercantilism, communism, & socialism) that dilute the ...
Agriculture
New Survey Shows Golden State Marching to the Beat of its Own Drummer
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting presentation in Sacramento by the Edelman public relations firm on its annual “Trust Barometer” survey. For the past 18 years, the firm’s research arm has conducted a global survey measuring the public’s trust in key institutions and organizations. You ...
A way out of California’s water crisis
California’s chronic water problems were once again national news when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation establishing a code of water-use restrictions that would be more fitting for an undeveloped nation. As usual, policymakers chose the austerity of coercive public policy over the voluntary, cooperative agreements that markets use to efficiently ...
Ending War on Coffee Latest Example of Why Government Shouldn’t Play Dietician
A few months back we wrote about California’s “nags and nannies who relish forbidding pleasure, especially those of a gastronomic nature,” and their success in convincing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to issue a preliminary ruling which requires stores that sell coffee to post cancer warning labels around their ...
If California Wants to Resist, Let’s Start with Trade Policy
Less than 32 percent of California voters who went to the polls on Election Day in 2016 pulled the lever for Donald Trump. These “deplorables” are probably delighted that Hillary Clinton isn’t president and pleased in general with how Trump has governed. Trump’s trade policies, though, should be another matter. ...
Victor Davis Hanson on the Wisdom of the Ancients
Spending time in April in New York, my PRI colleagues and I attended The New Criterion’s annual gala dinner which honored Victor Davis Hanson with the literary journal’s Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. In his introductory remarks, Roger Kimball, the editor and publisher of The New ...
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road in California? To Avoid the Politics of Cage-Free Eggs
Nearly a decade after California became the first state ban the confinement of hens and other farm animals in crowded cages, many farmers and policymakers around the country are still crying foul. The latest episode in the ongoing saga over California’s chicken law came last Wednesday, when a bill introduced ...
The Not-so-hidden Costs of Trade Tariffs
It should be no surprise that the Trump tariffs are not having their intended effect. Consider the impact on California farmers as documented by Bloomberg.com: More than half of Dan Vincent’s projected 2018 profit was wiped out with a stroke of President Donald Trump’s pen. Vincent runs Pacific Coast Producers, ...
Tariffs Are A Bad Negotiation Tool
Is he, or isn’t he? That’s the big question when it comes to the $100 billion in tariffs that President Trump has threatened to impose on China. Many supporters of these threatened tariffs would claim that the answer is: he isn’t; or more accurately, he won’t need to. In this ...
CAPITAL IDEAS: Will We Ever Build More Water Storage in California?
Read the PDF It’s not elected officials’ fault if it doesn’t rain. But they are largely responsible for the issues that arise when it doesn’t. That’s why California’s most-recent drought was often referred to as man-made. The next one, which will reportedly arrive this year, should carry the same label. ...
Free Markets and Education: The Answer is Freedom
The United States’ K-12 system of education must evolve to keep pace with the changing global economy. America has consistently taken a leading role in the world in a broad range of industries because we have avoided each century’s intellectual political fads (e.g. mercantilism, communism, & socialism) that dilute the ...
New Survey Shows Golden State Marching to the Beat of its Own Drummer
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting presentation in Sacramento by the Edelman public relations firm on its annual “Trust Barometer” survey. For the past 18 years, the firm’s research arm has conducted a global survey measuring the public’s trust in key institutions and organizations. You ...
