Economics

The One Element Missing from the Discussion of Housing in CA: Tolerance

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In California we pride ourselves on being very tolerant of a diverse array of lifestyles and lifestyle choices. Dress how it suits you; love whom you love; define yourself in accordance with your own preferences. Do your own thing. Sing your own song. Dance your own dance. The Californian thing is to live and let live.  read more »

Jim Crow Returns to California

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California’s leaders might see themselves as a vanguard of progressive and eco-friendly values. But in reality, their draconian climate policies have created a racially segregated state more akin to the pre-Civil Rights era South.  read more »

The Working Poor Need Workhorse Vehicles

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With more than forty percent of the EV’s in the entire country being in California at the end of 2020, the EV popularity in California has gotten President Biden so excited to want the rest of the country to follow California’s lead that Biden issued a new executive order that pushes for half of all new cars sold in America by 2030  read more »

Company Headquarters Leaving California in Unprecedented Numbers

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For the first six months of 2021, the number of companies relocating their headquarters out of California is running at twice the rate of recent years and is showing no signs of slowing, according to a study issued today by Spectrum Location Solutions and the Hoover Institution.

The research provides the most detailed and comprehensive data on relocations of California business headquarters from 2018 to the first half of 2021, documenting that departures during the first half of this year are double the rate for each of the three previous years.  read more »

Progressives Have Ruined California

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The very idea of a recall vote seemed absurd at first in California, this bluest of US states. Yet Californians’ surprisingly strong support for the removal of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has resulted in precisely that, with the vote scheduled for 14 September. This reflects a stunning rejection of modern progressivism in a state thought to epitomise its promise.  read more »

Powering Down the Developing World

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The Covid-19 pandemic has been particularly cruel to the developing world, with Africa, Latin America, and South Asia all epicenters of high fatalities. But something worse may be on the way – this time not from viruses but good intentions, bolstered by often-unrealistic climate projections, which threaten to keep these countries in poverty for the foreseeable future.  read more »

Grandpa's Basement House

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My mother-in-law was born in a small town in rural Nebraska in 1941. Her father was oversees fighting World War II for the first few years of her life, so she and her mother lived on her grandparents’ farm in a society absent of young men.  read more »

The World's Finest Railroads

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The United States has the most efficient and productive railroads in the world. Not coincidentally, the United States also has the most private railroads in the world. Other than Canada, almost every other country that has railroads has nationalized them.  read more »

Opie with an Apple: Can Tech Save the Heartland?

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In a recent Brookings’ essay, Senior Fellow Mark Murro and colleagues brought down a strawman they themselves propped up. The piece was entitled “Remote work won’t save the heartland”.  read more »

A COVID Postcard from Australia

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Australia’s response to Covid-19 has quickly turned from laudable to laughable. For a nation which only a few months ago seemed to be the toast of world leaders for having so effectively limited the spread of the virus and still growing its economy, to a nation now lagging on vaccination and struggling with lockdowns, the turnaround has been dramatic.  read more »