Commentary
Business & Economics
Prop. 1A’s passage would open doors to more taxation
In 1987, Gov. George Deukmejian gave California taxpayers a $1.1 billion rebate. Due to the Gann spending limit enacted in 1979, named after Proposition 13 co-author Paul Gann, the state had a budget surplus, making the rebate mandatory. Subsequent ballot measures, however, rendered the limit meaningless. Now we are being ...
Climate Change
On Earth Day, don’t buy into the eco-doomsaying
Environmental Index Report: 2009 What would Earth Day be without hand wringing over the supposedly dire state of the planet? Concern over climate change seems to have reached a fever pitch. And the American economy has been fingered as the culprit. President Obama’s recent budget proposal pours a whopping $150 ...
Business & Economics
Robert Murphy to the Rescue
Myths about the Great Depression were once a mere annoyance. Now they have become a source for tyranny. The Bush-Obama response to the meltdown proves that one thing is certain: until we get the history of the 1930s right, liberty will be under threat of those trying to repeat the ...
Commentary
Paying for Cancer Therapies
While health insurers pay for diagnosis, surgery, and intravenous chemotherapy for cancer patients, they balk at paying for oral anticancer pills dispensed by pharmacies, according to a New York Times story. Although the new drugs are expensive, the journalist figures that they are surely cheaper conventional alternatives. So here’s the ...
Commentary
Business Groups & Health Reform: Conflicts of Interest?
I enjoy the research, news, and commentary produced by the Pacific Business Group on Health, with whose Executive Director for National Health Policy, Peter Lee, I’ve had the privilege of sharing a podium. PBGH represents fifty large, corporate purchasers of health care. have not yet met PBGH’s other executives, but ...
Blackouts
Attention Greens and Geeks: Time for an Energy Revolution
Earth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a difficult matter. The electricity grid’s basic structure hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison came ...
Commentary
Energy freedom is crux of solution to economic woes
Washington. The maxim states that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. And America’s financial crisis is no exception to the rule. Overwhelmed by bailout plans and other convoluted proposals, many of our nation’s leaders are missing the obvious answer to our economic woes: energy freedom. For that reason, ...
Business & Economics
Patent system exploited
A federal agency on Friday barred the second-largest supplier of high-definition televisions in North America from selling its products in the United States. This action reveals a patent system badly in need of reform. The U.S. International Trade Commission punished Irvine’s Vizio for infringing on a competitor’s patent, even though ...
Business & Economics
The Left’s pension dilemma
You know the pension tsunami is getting close to shore when the mainstream media are filled with hard-hitting stories about the coming crisis, such as the front-page article April 11 in the Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee, documenting the manner in which huge pension costs for retired public employees “threaten ...
Commentary
Clean energy, overpopulation, black carbon, rising sea level, and other environmental news
Let’s take a quick look at a few of the environmental issues making news today, which include whether old coral formations in Mexico show a “catastrophic” rise in sea levels 12,000 years ago, and if so, what it might mean today. And more: Is consumption in industrialized nations more harmful ...
Prop. 1A’s passage would open doors to more taxation
In 1987, Gov. George Deukmejian gave California taxpayers a $1.1 billion rebate. Due to the Gann spending limit enacted in 1979, named after Proposition 13 co-author Paul Gann, the state had a budget surplus, making the rebate mandatory. Subsequent ballot measures, however, rendered the limit meaningless. Now we are being ...
On Earth Day, don’t buy into the eco-doomsaying
Environmental Index Report: 2009 What would Earth Day be without hand wringing over the supposedly dire state of the planet? Concern over climate change seems to have reached a fever pitch. And the American economy has been fingered as the culprit. President Obama’s recent budget proposal pours a whopping $150 ...
Robert Murphy to the Rescue
Myths about the Great Depression were once a mere annoyance. Now they have become a source for tyranny. The Bush-Obama response to the meltdown proves that one thing is certain: until we get the history of the 1930s right, liberty will be under threat of those trying to repeat the ...
Paying for Cancer Therapies
While health insurers pay for diagnosis, surgery, and intravenous chemotherapy for cancer patients, they balk at paying for oral anticancer pills dispensed by pharmacies, according to a New York Times story. Although the new drugs are expensive, the journalist figures that they are surely cheaper conventional alternatives. So here’s the ...
Business Groups & Health Reform: Conflicts of Interest?
I enjoy the research, news, and commentary produced by the Pacific Business Group on Health, with whose Executive Director for National Health Policy, Peter Lee, I’ve had the privilege of sharing a podium. PBGH represents fifty large, corporate purchasers of health care. have not yet met PBGH’s other executives, but ...
Attention Greens and Geeks: Time for an Energy Revolution
Earth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a difficult matter. The electricity grid’s basic structure hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison came ...
Energy freedom is crux of solution to economic woes
Washington. The maxim states that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. And America’s financial crisis is no exception to the rule. Overwhelmed by bailout plans and other convoluted proposals, many of our nation’s leaders are missing the obvious answer to our economic woes: energy freedom. For that reason, ...
Patent system exploited
A federal agency on Friday barred the second-largest supplier of high-definition televisions in North America from selling its products in the United States. This action reveals a patent system badly in need of reform. The U.S. International Trade Commission punished Irvine’s Vizio for infringing on a competitor’s patent, even though ...
The Left’s pension dilemma
You know the pension tsunami is getting close to shore when the mainstream media are filled with hard-hitting stories about the coming crisis, such as the front-page article April 11 in the Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee, documenting the manner in which huge pension costs for retired public employees “threaten ...
Clean energy, overpopulation, black carbon, rising sea level, and other environmental news
Let’s take a quick look at a few of the environmental issues making news today, which include whether old coral formations in Mexico show a “catastrophic” rise in sea levels 12,000 years ago, and if so, what it might mean today. And more: Is consumption in industrialized nations more harmful ...
