Blog
Blog
Education and Free Markets: How Education Changes People’s Lives, Through Increased Upward Mobility
If you want to handicap a man for the rest of his life, deny him an education. This is manifestly true in America, as the disadvantages associated with a poor education tend to multiply in a free society and a free economy. It is our dedication to free markets that ...
Blog
Rent Control Measure Would Make California’s Housing Woes Worse
One of the factors driving California’s housing crisis is the upward pressure rent-controls laws place on home prices. Everyone except those enjoying the dividends of rent-controlled housing would be better off without the laws. Yet a measure that will allow them to spread will be on the ballot this fall. ...
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, ...
Blog
Lieutenant Governor’s Race is a Political Chess Match
Candidates Sen. Ed Hernandez and Eleni Kounalakis One of the most hotly contested races this year is the race for Lieutenant Governor. Gavin Newsom once called the lieutenant governor’s office “a largely ceremonial post . . . with no real authority and no real portfolio.” Of course, that hasn’t stopped ...
Blog
Will Housing People in Our Backyards Help Reduce LA’s Homeless Population?
A drive through the homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles reveals a swamp of squalor unworthy of a first-world nation. Yet there it is, grim and uncivilized. Los Angeles’ homeless problem is a growing concern. The region has the second-largest homeless population in the country, with more than 55,000 living ...
Blog
Today is California Tax Freedom Day
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. It’s especially cruel for Californians because today, April 23, is the day when California taxpayers have collectively earned enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bill for the year, according to the Tax Foundation. After working for nearly four ...
Blog
What We’re Watching: Even Fabio Has Turned on California
There were simply too many great videos to choose from for this week’s “What We’re Watching”. Narrowing down our choices this week was as hard as the task faced by the judges on American Idol on Monday night having to cut down 5 contestants. For the record, I’m still upset ...
Blog
Gann Limit Blast from the Past Has Become Brown’s Budget Thorn in the Side
Ancient scrolls tell us there was once an era when Californians rose up against the heavy hand of taxation. In the now-distant year of 1978 voters approved Proposition 13 to limit the government’s reach in property taxes. The final tally was a 65-35 message from voters which clearly told politicians ...
Blog
Slow Times at Vallco Mall
Watch the 1980s classic film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and you’ll see Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh and the gang hanging out at “Ridgemont Mall,” which was actually the Sherman Oaks Galleria. The “go to” mall for me growing up was Vallco Mall in Cupertino. ...
Education and Free Markets: How Education Changes People’s Lives, Through Increased Upward Mobility
If you want to handicap a man for the rest of his life, deny him an education. This is manifestly true in America, as the disadvantages associated with a poor education tend to multiply in a free society and a free economy. It is our dedication to free markets that ...
Rent Control Measure Would Make California’s Housing Woes Worse
One of the factors driving California’s housing crisis is the upward pressure rent-controls laws place on home prices. Everyone except those enjoying the dividends of rent-controlled housing would be better off without the laws. Yet a measure that will allow them to spread will be on the ballot this fall. ...
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, ...
Lieutenant Governor’s Race is a Political Chess Match
Candidates Sen. Ed Hernandez and Eleni Kounalakis One of the most hotly contested races this year is the race for Lieutenant Governor. Gavin Newsom once called the lieutenant governor’s office “a largely ceremonial post . . . with no real authority and no real portfolio.” Of course, that hasn’t stopped ...
Will Housing People in Our Backyards Help Reduce LA’s Homeless Population?
A drive through the homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles reveals a swamp of squalor unworthy of a first-world nation. Yet there it is, grim and uncivilized. Los Angeles’ homeless problem is a growing concern. The region has the second-largest homeless population in the country, with more than 55,000 living ...
Today is California Tax Freedom Day
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. It’s especially cruel for Californians because today, April 23, is the day when California taxpayers have collectively earned enough money to pay their federal, state, and local tax bill for the year, according to the Tax Foundation. After working for nearly four ...
What We’re Watching: Even Fabio Has Turned on California
There were simply too many great videos to choose from for this week’s “What We’re Watching”. Narrowing down our choices this week was as hard as the task faced by the judges on American Idol on Monday night having to cut down 5 contestants. For the record, I’m still upset ...
Gann Limit Blast from the Past Has Become Brown’s Budget Thorn in the Side
Ancient scrolls tell us there was once an era when Californians rose up against the heavy hand of taxation. In the now-distant year of 1978 voters approved Proposition 13 to limit the government’s reach in property taxes. The final tally was a 65-35 message from voters which clearly told politicians ...
Slow Times at Vallco Mall
Watch the 1980s classic film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” and you’ll see Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh and the gang hanging out at “Ridgemont Mall,” which was actually the Sherman Oaks Galleria. The “go to” mall for me growing up was Vallco Mall in Cupertino. ...
