Environment

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Are Trailers the Solution to LA’s Homeless Problem?

A dashcam video of downtown Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2017 revealed the devastating reality of the city’s homelessness problem. The video, shot in the city’s Skid Row district, shows dozens of tents, makeshift shelters, and people walking aimlessly along streets littered with trash. The video looked like it was ...
California

Would An All-Electric Car Future Really Benefit Californians?

Sacramento is threatening to outlaw a freedom Californians have enjoyed for more than a century through a bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting, of San Francisco. If it’s passed and signed, new gasoline-powered cars will become the state’s new undocumented immigrants. Government will refuse to register them. Should it ...
California

Water from the Sands

There’s no thirstier state than California. Its history of water wars, droughts—both natural and manmade—and, according to some, outright theft of water from the Owens Valley about four hours north of Los Angeles, has inspired legend, myth, and movies. But even after roughly a century of water flowing into an otherwise ...
California

Kerry Jackson Cited in Mises Wire: Why California Has the Nation’s Worst Poverty Rate

Earlier this week, the LA Times reminded its readers that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. Specifically, when using the Census Bureau’s most recent” Supplemental Poverty Measure” (SPM), California clocks in with a poverty rate of 20 percent, which places it as worst in the nation. To be sure, California ...
Blog

Infrastructure Should Be Budget Priority – Here’s 2 Smart Ways to Make It So

Repairing California’s crumbling roads and highways, and investing in our other infrastructure needs should be at the top of the agenda in Sacramento.  Often, it falls victim to other budget priorities. There’s no question that setting aside a secure and stable annual funding stream to fix our roads, bridges, and ...
California

California, Poverty Capital

California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is ...
Blog

Higher Prices During Crises – Is It Really Price Gouging?

On New Year’s Day, months after wildfires had started their deadly march through California, the Los Angeles Times published an article headlined “After the flames, allegations of rent-gouging fly in devastated wine country communities.” It did not include a single defense of higher prices, which indicates bias, or economic ignorance ...
Blog

California Can Expect More of the Same from Sacramento in 2018

There are no fortune tellers at PRI, but it isn’t hard to foresee what is likely to happen in California in 2018. First, it’s a sure bet that the Legislature will pass a boxcar load of unneeded, heavy-handed and odious policies when lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 3. One that will ...
California

What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis

In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Blog

More Red, White … or Blue

In 2017, PRI launched its first podcast, and because we are headquartered near Wine Country, and because no other think tank does wine better than PRI (okay, I may be biased), we made it our tradition to ask each guest for a wine or cocktail recommendation at the end of ...
Blog

Are Trailers the Solution to LA’s Homeless Problem?

A dashcam video of downtown Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2017 revealed the devastating reality of the city’s homelessness problem. The video, shot in the city’s Skid Row district, shows dozens of tents, makeshift shelters, and people walking aimlessly along streets littered with trash. The video looked like it was ...
California

Would An All-Electric Car Future Really Benefit Californians?

Sacramento is threatening to outlaw a freedom Californians have enjoyed for more than a century through a bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting, of San Francisco. If it’s passed and signed, new gasoline-powered cars will become the state’s new undocumented immigrants. Government will refuse to register them. Should it ...
California

Water from the Sands

There’s no thirstier state than California. Its history of water wars, droughts—both natural and manmade—and, according to some, outright theft of water from the Owens Valley about four hours north of Los Angeles, has inspired legend, myth, and movies. But even after roughly a century of water flowing into an otherwise ...
California

Kerry Jackson Cited in Mises Wire: Why California Has the Nation’s Worst Poverty Rate

Earlier this week, the LA Times reminded its readers that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. Specifically, when using the Census Bureau’s most recent” Supplemental Poverty Measure” (SPM), California clocks in with a poverty rate of 20 percent, which places it as worst in the nation. To be sure, California ...
Blog

Infrastructure Should Be Budget Priority – Here’s 2 Smart Ways to Make It So

Repairing California’s crumbling roads and highways, and investing in our other infrastructure needs should be at the top of the agenda in Sacramento.  Often, it falls victim to other budget priorities. There’s no question that setting aside a secure and stable annual funding stream to fix our roads, bridges, and ...
California

California, Poverty Capital

California—not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia—has the highest poverty rate in the United States. According to the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure—which accounts for the cost of housing, food, utilities, and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income—nearly one out of four Californians is ...
Blog

Higher Prices During Crises – Is It Really Price Gouging?

On New Year’s Day, months after wildfires had started their deadly march through California, the Los Angeles Times published an article headlined “After the flames, allegations of rent-gouging fly in devastated wine country communities.” It did not include a single defense of higher prices, which indicates bias, or economic ignorance ...
Blog

California Can Expect More of the Same from Sacramento in 2018

There are no fortune tellers at PRI, but it isn’t hard to foresee what is likely to happen in California in 2018. First, it’s a sure bet that the Legislature will pass a boxcar load of unneeded, heavy-handed and odious policies when lawmakers reconvene on Jan. 3. One that will ...
California

What California Should Do To Ease Housing Crisis

In September, Sacramento lawmakers passed more than a dozen bills aiming to begin healing the state’s housing sore. It was, to their thinking, “Housing Day” in California. Two weeks later, legislators joined Gov. Jerry Brown in San Francisco as he signed what he called “15 good bills.” “Today, California begins ...
Blog

More Red, White … or Blue

In 2017, PRI launched its first podcast, and because we are headquartered near Wine Country, and because no other think tank does wine better than PRI (okay, I may be biased), we made it our tradition to ask each guest for a wine or cocktail recommendation at the end of ...
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