Entrepreneurship
Business & Economics
Memo to Candidates – Dire Economy Calls for Deep Reforms
California’s unemployment rate is 12.4 percent – third-highest in the country – but that statistic fails to tell the whole story of our economic woes. If marginal workers and those forced to work part-time are added to the base unemployment rate – what the Bureau of Labor Statistics refers to ...
Business & Economics
New leadership on taxes needed
A general economic malaise permeates everyday life in California, best illustrated by the state’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate, third-highest in the country. This melancholy has forced responses from the candidates for governor. Californians should give their ideas careful scrutiny. In his eight-page fiscal plan, Jerry Brown offers vague and general ...
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 ...
Business & Economics
Golden State offers tarnished ideas
Huge deficits and mounting debt. Increasing concern about creditworthiness. Large and growing government. Constant calls for higher taxes. High unemployment and a discouraged, even fearful, business community. Welcome to California. If you thought we were describing Washington, you had good reason. In instance after instance, Washington has mimicked the failed ...
Business & Economics
Tax competitiveness is key to California recovery
California’s budget deficit is currently estimated at $19 billion, but the Golden State also suffers from myriad tax-based problems. To recover economic prosperity, the state needs immediate tax reform and long-term tax relief. The Golden State relies heavily on personal income taxes, which impose much larger economic costs than consumption ...
Business & Economics
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Business & Economics
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
Business & Economics
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
Business & Economics
Drowning In A VAT Of Taxes
The debate over a national sales tax, or valued-added tax, to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems has intensified as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should be clarified–if ...
Memo to Candidates – Dire Economy Calls for Deep Reforms
California’s unemployment rate is 12.4 percent – third-highest in the country – but that statistic fails to tell the whole story of our economic woes. If marginal workers and those forced to work part-time are added to the base unemployment rate – what the Bureau of Labor Statistics refers to ...
New leadership on taxes needed
A general economic malaise permeates everyday life in California, best illustrated by the state’s 12.4 percent unemployment rate, third-highest in the country. This melancholy has forced responses from the candidates for governor. Californians should give their ideas careful scrutiny. In his eight-page fiscal plan, Jerry Brown offers vague and general ...
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 ...
Golden State offers tarnished ideas
Huge deficits and mounting debt. Increasing concern about creditworthiness. Large and growing government. Constant calls for higher taxes. High unemployment and a discouraged, even fearful, business community. Welcome to California. If you thought we were describing Washington, you had good reason. In instance after instance, Washington has mimicked the failed ...
Tax competitiveness is key to California recovery
California’s budget deficit is currently estimated at $19 billion, but the Golden State also suffers from myriad tax-based problems. To recover economic prosperity, the state needs immediate tax reform and long-term tax relief. The Golden State relies heavily on personal income taxes, which impose much larger economic costs than consumption ...
California’s recipe for stagnation
As legislators finished their session and scattered to their home districts this week without a realistic budget plan and two months after the deadline for approving a budget, one cannot help but wonder if our elected leaders truly grasp the depths of economic crisis and despair facing Californians. Unemployment in ...
Make California ‘open for business’
California’s unemployment rate, according to the most recent figures, is 12.4 percent, down from a revised 12.5 percent the month before, which was the highest jobless rate ever recorded for California since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting standardized data in 1976. Such high unemployment is powerful evidence of ...
What an economist learned in Haiti
I recently spent a week in Haiti helping with reconstruction efforts. I volunteered only as someone with two hands and a lot of Gatorade, but my professional background as an economist allowed me to diagnose some of Haiti’s problems. These go much deeper than the earthquake. I registered with the ...
Drowning In A VAT Of Taxes
The debate over a national sales tax, or valued-added tax, to tackle the country’s deficit and debt problems has intensified as we approach the fall election. Unfortunately the facts are becoming more obscure, and the narrow scope within which a VAT makes sense is being lost. This should be clarified–if ...
