Within days the U.S. Supreme Court is going to issue its ruling on the case Janus vs AFSCME. This case, if the ruling goes as expected, is going to overturn current law that requires public employees to pay union dues. Here in California, however, the real story is how laughable is the notion that this […]
Property taxes represent a major source of revenue for states and localities. In fiscal year 2015, the latest year of data available, 31.1 percent of total U.S. state and local tax collections came from property taxes, more than any other source of tax revenue. In the same year, 25 states and the District of Columbia […]
Is homo sapiens, in the final analysis, a being incapable of living unless supported by a universal basic income (UBI)? One of the mounting threats to liberty around the globe is that the marvels of technology are vulnerable to being exploited to normalize paternalism and dependency on government. Technology was supposed to enable a cornucopia […]
An industrial process for large-scale capture of atmospheric CO2 (DAC) serves two roles. First, as a source of CO2 for making carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels, enabling carbon-free energy to be converted into high-energy-density fuels. Solar fuels, for example, may be produced at high-insolation low-cost locations from DAC-CO2 and electrolytic hydrogen using gas-to-liquids technology enabling decarbonization of […]
As detailed in this space a few days ago, the Legislature is using a budget “trailer bill” to deprive voters of vital information about local government and school bond issues. The legislation, drafted without public hearings or other input, would suspend for two years a new law, which took effect on January 1, requiring proposed […]
How much does it take to make it into the 100 top-earning CalPERS or CalSTRS retirees? A pension of more than $219,000. CalPERS is the retirement system for most state employees. CalSTRS is the retirement system for most certificated school district employees. Both systems have faced scrutiny for years due to large unfunded liabilities — […]
Middle-income housing affordability is important, because affordable access to quality housing has been pivotal to the democratization of prosperity that occurred in the last century in most high-income nations. Normally, the competitive market has provided middle-income housing without the need for subsidies. Middle-income is different from low – income housing (also called “affordable housing” or […]
Who is the world’s largest operator of wind and solar farms? It’s also America’s most valuable power company. Still stumped? It’s by design. “That is a marketing problem…that we foster intentionally,” Michael O’Sullivan, NextEra Energy Inc.’s head of renewable development, told University of Notre Dame students in 2015. The Florida company has grown into a […]
[Deregulation] opened the door to market manipulation by Enron and some other big energy players, drove one major utility (Pacific Gas and Electric) into bankruptcy, almost sent another (Southern California Edison) into insolvency, caused blackouts and wound up costing California consumers many billions of dollars. This brief excursion into not-so-distant history is important because the […]
The behemoth of a clean energy bill could reshape Massachusetts utility policy, if it survives the legislative process. The measure also asks the state to consider adding 5 GW of offshore wind energy, directs electric vehicle charging station distributors to create time-of-use rate plans for infrastructure and increases the state’s renewable portfolio standard. While the […]
We investigate the role of marital patterns in explaining rising income inequality using a structural marriage matching model with unobserved heterogeneity. This allows us to consider both the extensive and intensive margins of the marriage market, i.e. who remains single and who marries whom. Using US data from 1962 to 2017, we show that marital […]
Amazon is the largest property taxpayer and private employer in Seattle. Since 2000, the metro area has added nearly 100,000 new jobs, leading to an influx of high-skilled workers and a thriving tech industry. But some residents and local officials believe Amazon’s growth has been the catalyst for several problems, including affordable housing and homelessness […]
Officially, SCERS aims for retirees to receive their first monthly check 45 days after paperwork is submitted. But metrics released at a recent board meeting show that the average wait time in 2017 was 80 days. To be clear, Stern said, once people are in the system, they don’t experience delays getting money. It’s that […]
The legislation, now known as Assembly Bill 813, will be considered by the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications committee, the influential panel chaired by Hueso. It was also referred to the Senate Judiciary committee because the bill rewrites terms of the state-controlled nonprofit that now governs most of the state power grid. Supporters say the […]
The overall economy appears to be growing at a steady pace, but there are potential threats that could affect the United States and California economic outlooks, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast’s second quarterly report for 2018. The risk of a trade war with one or more of the major U.S. trading partners, the uncertainties […]