Blog
Blog
Two Years After Voters Said No, Special Interests Try Again to Pass Split Roll
Not quite a year ago, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have partially unwound Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that set off an “entrepreneurial and commercial explosion” and “a second California gold rush.” Supporters of the “split roll,” a tax regime in which residential properties retain their Prop. ...
Blog
New Survey Shows Government Hurting Minority Small Business Recovery
Small businesses have still not fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. A new survey from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows that California minority-owned small businesses have been struggling most of all. According to the survey, 18 percent of California Latino small business owners surveyed, and 13 percent ...
Blog
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
Blog
Goats: The Greatest-Of-All-Time Firefighters?
The New York Times calls them an “unconventional weapon against future wildfires.” Some are known as “Fire Grazers.” To most of us, though, they’re just goats. But they provide a valuable service: eating the “type of vegetation (that) is known as the fire fuel ladder and (which) leads to wider ...
Blog
Biden Plan Would Monitor What You’re Spending on Venmo, Reduce Financial Privacy
Very late to the party, last month I made my first financial transaction using Venmo. It’s hard to write to the next line and not come off like President Bush 41 being wowed by seeing scanners at a grocery store, but I was amazed at how quick and easy it ...
Blog
California Promotes Wind Energy, Ignores Market Forces
Windmills on the water. Get ready for them. They’re on their way, thanks to a recently signed bill. The new law requires the state’s Energy Commission “to evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of” offshore wind energy in federal waters, which “if developed and deployed at scale … can ...
Blog
Microsoft Flies Under the Big Tech Backlash Radar
“Find a bad guy you can beat up in the stairwell.” That’s the main takeaway from a LinkedIn post I read recently on marketing. The post explained how big brands engage in witty ads to poke fun at competitors and try and make memorable marketing campaigns for consumers. Think of ...
Blog
In California and Across the Country, Parents and Their Kids are Abandoning Public Schools
The COVID-19 pandemic may have been the crack in the dam that allowed parents’ building frustration with the regular public schools to burst forth. Public school enrollment is nose-diving across the country, with legions of parents everywhere choosing other learning options for their children. The National Alliance for Public Charter ...
Agriculture
Are Mandatory California Water Cutbacks Coming Soon?
Back in 2014, when I was in my past life working for elected officials, I found myself engaged in one of the more annoying parts of the job – “volunteering” on political campaigns. One day, my volunteer efforts took me to a neighborhood in San Bernardino. Knocking on doors, it ...
Blog
30 Million Real Men Don’t Have Jobs
I recently read an eye-popping article by business writer Andy Serwer, who reported that nearly one-third of working-age men in America “aren’t doing diddly squat. They don’t have a job, and they aren’t looking for one either.” All total, that’s nearly 30 million men. “How do they live? What are ...
Two Years After Voters Said No, Special Interests Try Again to Pass Split Roll
Not quite a year ago, California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have partially unwound Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that set off an “entrepreneurial and commercial explosion” and “a second California gold rush.” Supporters of the “split roll,” a tax regime in which residential properties retain their Prop. ...
New Survey Shows Government Hurting Minority Small Business Recovery
Small businesses have still not fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. A new survey from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies shows that California minority-owned small businesses have been struggling most of all. According to the survey, 18 percent of California Latino small business owners surveyed, and 13 percent ...
Growing a Tree Infrastructure Makes Sense
In Pres. Biden’s $3.5 trillion pork reconciliation package, there’s a line item that even we limited government-types can get behind — planting trees. The question is, should the Federal government really be taking the lead? The New York Post article recently uncovered that Biden’s mega-spending bill provides for $3 billion ...
Goats: The Greatest-Of-All-Time Firefighters?
The New York Times calls them an “unconventional weapon against future wildfires.” Some are known as “Fire Grazers.” To most of us, though, they’re just goats. But they provide a valuable service: eating the “type of vegetation (that) is known as the fire fuel ladder and (which) leads to wider ...
Biden Plan Would Monitor What You’re Spending on Venmo, Reduce Financial Privacy
Very late to the party, last month I made my first financial transaction using Venmo. It’s hard to write to the next line and not come off like President Bush 41 being wowed by seeing scanners at a grocery store, but I was amazed at how quick and easy it ...
California Promotes Wind Energy, Ignores Market Forces
Windmills on the water. Get ready for them. They’re on their way, thanks to a recently signed bill. The new law requires the state’s Energy Commission “to evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of” offshore wind energy in federal waters, which “if developed and deployed at scale … can ...
Microsoft Flies Under the Big Tech Backlash Radar
“Find a bad guy you can beat up in the stairwell.” That’s the main takeaway from a LinkedIn post I read recently on marketing. The post explained how big brands engage in witty ads to poke fun at competitors and try and make memorable marketing campaigns for consumers. Think of ...
In California and Across the Country, Parents and Their Kids are Abandoning Public Schools
The COVID-19 pandemic may have been the crack in the dam that allowed parents’ building frustration with the regular public schools to burst forth. Public school enrollment is nose-diving across the country, with legions of parents everywhere choosing other learning options for their children. The National Alliance for Public Charter ...
Are Mandatory California Water Cutbacks Coming Soon?
Back in 2014, when I was in my past life working for elected officials, I found myself engaged in one of the more annoying parts of the job – “volunteering” on political campaigns. One day, my volunteer efforts took me to a neighborhood in San Bernardino. Knocking on doors, it ...
30 Million Real Men Don’t Have Jobs
I recently read an eye-popping article by business writer Andy Serwer, who reported that nearly one-third of working-age men in America “aren’t doing diddly squat. They don’t have a job, and they aren’t looking for one either.” All total, that’s nearly 30 million men. “How do they live? What are ...
