General Economy

Co-Authored by Christopher Thornberg, PhD Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Zocalo Public Square on May 2, 2018. Envious of Silicon Valley’s success, more than 80 places throughout the world have renamed one of their neighborhoods “Silicon-something,” including “Silicon Beach” in Los Angeles, “Silicon Bayou” in New Orleans, and “Silicon Roundabout” in London, as if the very word works an

Read more

Our elected officials in Washington DC continue to struggle over the issue of immigration policy reform. The Trump administration has already made its views known, with its Muslim Ban, mixed signals on the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program, and more recently, its immigration reform proposal, a plan that reflects a much more restrictive stance toward immigrants than previous

Read more

It is often said that generals always fight the last war—and this applies to that still highly overused and abused political catch phrase “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Such rhetoric about creating new jobs continues to be attached to the rollout of almost any new government policy, regardless of the veracity or relevance of the claim. Times change, as do economic realities

Read more

For years, Proposition 13 (Prop 13) has been viewed as the third rail of California politics. While Prop 13 is responsible for capping annual property tax assessment increases at 2%, it also required that future tax increases face a two-thirds vote for passage, making it very difficult for elected officials to tinker with the tax code. In 2012, voters approved

Read more

Editors Note: This posting was originally published on the Opinion Page of the Los Angeles Daily News. High housing costs continue to be at the center of policy debates in Los Angeles—and across much of the state. This intensifying focus is warranted now more than ever given how the crisis has moved from simply eating up the disposable income of residents

Read more

President Donald Trump has promised to radically change the trade relationship between the United States and the rest of the world. He has already pulled the nation out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), has promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and intends to penalize China for unfair trade practices. President Trump argues that the United States

Read more

Californians are correct to be worried about the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now that the Republicans control both branches of Congress and the White House. But they should be more worried about a looming crisis that neither presidential candidate addressed during the contentious election season — the coming fiscal calamity being driven by spiking Medicare costs. During

Read more

Donald Trump’s victory a few weeks ago threw the political science world into turmoil. As far as we know, most of the truly serious pollsters went into the election with numbers that suggested Hillary Clinton was highly likely to win—perhaps one reason why the Clinton camp failed to make needed investments in the swing states that threw the election Trump’s

Read more

In California, this year’s bumper crop of confusing and often contradictory ballot propositions are the best example of a bad idea that has rapidly grown out of control (our most recent post, The Tyranny of Direct Democracy, lays out the serious and intensifying problems associated with the state’s Initiative system). But despite a distorted and misused process, this year’s state and

Read more

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was co-authored by Adam J. Fowler.  Remember when the biggest thing arriving in your mailbox over the course of the year was the massive old Sears catalog? Times have changed. For many, this year’s heftiest arrival was probably the 2016 California Voter Guide, which came in at over 200 pages. The number of statewide ballot measures in

Read more