Commentary
Business & Economics
Impact – March 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – March 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions.
Commentary
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Union Power Trumps Patient Rights
Way back last August, I wrote about the tragic closure of Los Angeles’ Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor hospital, the County’s safety-net hospital for LA’s troubled Watts neighborhood. After 35 years of government mismanagement, the death of a woman abandoned on the ER floor for three quarters of an hour was ...
Commentary
Bureaucracy Closes In On Parents Who Are Home-School Teachers
Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2008 A7 “Certifying Parents” aptly describes the failure of California’s public-schooling monopoly, and why so many parents want out. Thanks to a handful of State Assembly members, a record-setting five parental choice bills are being introduced this legislative session. This is the first time in ...
Business & Economics
Alaska’s Tort Gold Rush Stalls: Eli Lilly Shakedown Stumbles
Back in 2006, Alaska’s Attorney-General (like many others) decided he could mine some gold from a successful drug company: in this case, Eli Lilly & Co. Zyprexa, a successful psychiatric drug from Lilly, has also been associated with the side effect of obesity. Alaska alleged that Lilly was slow to ...
Business & Economics
We aren’t the world
BLUE IN THE FACE we have preached ourselves over the years arguing that punitive damages are a multifaceted disgrace. Lo, now comes an ally: the world. Or at least most of it. Many European courts simply refuse to uphold punitive-damage judgments returned by U.S. juries against their nationals and companies, ...
Business & Economics
What ‘net neutrality’ really means to consumers
WASHINGTON- In the past, when government has attempted to regulate networks, the result has been less choice, less innovation and more corruption. In the telecommunications industry, such regulations were so damaging that a second wave of regulations was devised to undo the damage caused by the first. Despite this historical ...
Commentary
Nuclear Renaissance?
Schwarzenegger ‘open minded about nuclear power’ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger believes that nuclear power has “a great future” and that it is time to “relook at that issue again rather than just looking the other way and living in denial.” The governor made these comments March 14 in Santa Barbara, at ...
Business & Economics
Researcher Rebukes Wireless ‘Net Neutrality’ Advocates
The attempt to force network neutrality on wireless carriers will result in disaster and is based on faulty assumptions, including one that there ever was neutrality on the Internet, according to a newly released analysis from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). In what is essentially an upbraiding of emerging FCC ...
Commentary
Los Angeles Times Health Care Whiplash!
Reading the Los Angeles Times, you might think there are two different Los Angeles, in two parallel universes. On the one hand, Karl Mannheim and Jamie Court criticize Hillary Clinton’s and Barrack Obama’s proposals for mandatory, private, health insurance by correctly asserting that that the Constitution does not give lawmakers ...
Business & Economics
Trial Lawyers Say Recent Study Proves Tort Reform Doesn’t Work
A new study on tort reform by a business-backed institute “proves tort reform does not work,” according to the association for the nation’s trial lawyers. American Association for Justice CEO Jon Haber, representing trial lawyers, said the state rankings recently released by Pacific Research Institute (PRI) show there is no ...
Impact – March 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – March 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions.
Re-opening a Community Hospital: Union Power Trumps Patient Rights
Way back last August, I wrote about the tragic closure of Los Angeles’ Martin Luther King, Jr.-Harbor hospital, the County’s safety-net hospital for LA’s troubled Watts neighborhood. After 35 years of government mismanagement, the death of a woman abandoned on the ER floor for three quarters of an hour was ...
Bureaucracy Closes In On Parents Who Are Home-School Teachers
Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2008 A7 “Certifying Parents” aptly describes the failure of California’s public-schooling monopoly, and why so many parents want out. Thanks to a handful of State Assembly members, a record-setting five parental choice bills are being introduced this legislative session. This is the first time in ...
Alaska’s Tort Gold Rush Stalls: Eli Lilly Shakedown Stumbles
Back in 2006, Alaska’s Attorney-General (like many others) decided he could mine some gold from a successful drug company: in this case, Eli Lilly & Co. Zyprexa, a successful psychiatric drug from Lilly, has also been associated with the side effect of obesity. Alaska alleged that Lilly was slow to ...
We aren’t the world
BLUE IN THE FACE we have preached ourselves over the years arguing that punitive damages are a multifaceted disgrace. Lo, now comes an ally: the world. Or at least most of it. Many European courts simply refuse to uphold punitive-damage judgments returned by U.S. juries against their nationals and companies, ...
What ‘net neutrality’ really means to consumers
WASHINGTON- In the past, when government has attempted to regulate networks, the result has been less choice, less innovation and more corruption. In the telecommunications industry, such regulations were so damaging that a second wave of regulations was devised to undo the damage caused by the first. Despite this historical ...
Nuclear Renaissance?
Schwarzenegger ‘open minded about nuclear power’ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger believes that nuclear power has “a great future” and that it is time to “relook at that issue again rather than just looking the other way and living in denial.” The governor made these comments March 14 in Santa Barbara, at ...
Researcher Rebukes Wireless ‘Net Neutrality’ Advocates
The attempt to force network neutrality on wireless carriers will result in disaster and is based on faulty assumptions, including one that there ever was neutrality on the Internet, according to a newly released analysis from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI). In what is essentially an upbraiding of emerging FCC ...
Los Angeles Times Health Care Whiplash!
Reading the Los Angeles Times, you might think there are two different Los Angeles, in two parallel universes. On the one hand, Karl Mannheim and Jamie Court criticize Hillary Clinton’s and Barrack Obama’s proposals for mandatory, private, health insurance by correctly asserting that that the Constitution does not give lawmakers ...
Trial Lawyers Say Recent Study Proves Tort Reform Doesn’t Work
A new study on tort reform by a business-backed institute “proves tort reform does not work,” according to the association for the nation’s trial lawyers. American Association for Justice CEO Jon Haber, representing trial lawyers, said the state rankings recently released by Pacific Research Institute (PRI) show there is no ...
