Studies
Agriculture
Is Your Food Making the Planet Sick?
Modern agriculture has been blamed for a host of environmental problems, including global warming, water pollution, and ecosystem damage. While growing crops and raising livestock does have significant environmental impact, in many cases the situation has been misrepresented or oversimplified, and some of the proposed solutions have been ineffective or ...
Business & Economics
Costs and Consequences: Rate-of-Return Biases, Rate Suppression, and Market Incentives for Quality in Property/Casualty Insurance Regulation
The imposition of legal and regulatory constraints on market pricesprice controls, or rate suppression in the case of the property/casualty insurance marketis an important tool with which public officials can effect wealth transfers among groups and economic sectors. Rate suppression can take the form of allowed rates too low to ...
Business & Economics
California Tax Facts 2011
State of California General Fund Tax Revenue, Fiscal Year 2010 July 1, 2009 June 30, 2010 up 5.6% from FY 2009 Source: California State Controller (p. 12) $86.58 billion California Tax Facts 2011 – Revenue Sour Personal Income Taxes $44.83 billion 52% Retail Sales and Use Taxes $26.74 billion ...
Business & Economics
No Bang for the Taxpayer’s Buck: Why California Must Reform Spending and Trim Government
California Government Spending The estimate for California’s total state spending in 2009–10 is $125.1 billion, of which General Fund spending constitutes 69.1 percent. Total state spending (nominal) has increased from $75.3 billion in 1998–99 to $125.1 billion in 2009–10 (an increase of 66.2 percent). The increases over this period outpaced ...
Business & Economics
PRI Study: Californians Deserve Better Value for Tax Dollars
San Francisco— California government can do more with fewer taxpayer dollars, according to a new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in San Francisco. No Bang for the Taxpayer’s Buck: Why California Must Reform Spending and Trim Government finds that California is ...
Business & Economics
Can We Fix the California Crackup?
Last month, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation came to Sacramento to promote their new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It. Few if any in the audience at the University of California Sacramento Center took issue with ...
Education
Back Stories to Waiting for Superman
Waiting for Superman, touted by Oprah, Bill Gates and other celebrities, is now playing California theatres. Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim directed the film, best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Several back stories, and the star, will not be apparent on the big screen. Waiting for Superman follows five ...
Business & Economics
The Whole 209 Yards: California’s Proposition for the Nation
The November elections have been dominating the news, obscuring a story of great interest to Contrarian readers. Those readers know that this column finds little merit in most government policies on women’s issues or gender issues. Sometimes, however, a government measure can have a positive effect. That even holds true ...
Business & Economics
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Business & Economics
Does California’s Budget Crisis Discriminate Against Women?
A group of California legislators and community leaders recently met on the steps of the state capitol to protest Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts. The group charged that these budget cuts disproportionately affect women, but the claim ignores some key realities. “We are here to say we’d like to ...
Is Your Food Making the Planet Sick?
Modern agriculture has been blamed for a host of environmental problems, including global warming, water pollution, and ecosystem damage. While growing crops and raising livestock does have significant environmental impact, in many cases the situation has been misrepresented or oversimplified, and some of the proposed solutions have been ineffective or ...
Costs and Consequences: Rate-of-Return Biases, Rate Suppression, and Market Incentives for Quality in Property/Casualty Insurance Regulation
The imposition of legal and regulatory constraints on market pricesprice controls, or rate suppression in the case of the property/casualty insurance marketis an important tool with which public officials can effect wealth transfers among groups and economic sectors. Rate suppression can take the form of allowed rates too low to ...
California Tax Facts 2011
State of California General Fund Tax Revenue, Fiscal Year 2010 July 1, 2009 June 30, 2010 up 5.6% from FY 2009 Source: California State Controller (p. 12) $86.58 billion California Tax Facts 2011 – Revenue Sour Personal Income Taxes $44.83 billion 52% Retail Sales and Use Taxes $26.74 billion ...
No Bang for the Taxpayer’s Buck: Why California Must Reform Spending and Trim Government
California Government Spending The estimate for California’s total state spending in 2009–10 is $125.1 billion, of which General Fund spending constitutes 69.1 percent. Total state spending (nominal) has increased from $75.3 billion in 1998–99 to $125.1 billion in 2009–10 (an increase of 66.2 percent). The increases over this period outpaced ...
PRI Study: Californians Deserve Better Value for Tax Dollars
San Francisco— California government can do more with fewer taxpayer dollars, according to a new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a free-market think tank based in San Francisco. No Bang for the Taxpayer’s Buck: Why California Must Reform Spending and Trim Government finds that California is ...
Can We Fix the California Crackup?
Last month, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation came to Sacramento to promote their new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It. Few if any in the audience at the University of California Sacramento Center took issue with ...
Back Stories to Waiting for Superman
Waiting for Superman, touted by Oprah, Bill Gates and other celebrities, is now playing California theatres. Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim directed the film, best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Several back stories, and the star, will not be apparent on the big screen. Waiting for Superman follows five ...
The Whole 209 Yards: California’s Proposition for the Nation
The November elections have been dominating the news, obscuring a story of great interest to Contrarian readers. Those readers know that this column finds little merit in most government policies on women’s issues or gender issues. Sometimes, however, a government measure can have a positive effect. That even holds true ...
The Prospective Effects of Proposition 23 on Employment in California
Suspension of AB 32 Would Add 150,000 Jobs in California in 2011 and More than 500,000 in 2012, According to New Study San Francisco A new study by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco, finds that the approval of Proposition 23, suspending the implementation ...
Does California’s Budget Crisis Discriminate Against Women?
A group of California legislators and community leaders recently met on the steps of the state capitol to protest Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget cuts. The group charged that these budget cuts disproportionately affect women, but the claim ignores some key realities. “We are here to say we’d like to ...
