Commentary
Blackouts
Network Theory Can Explain US Credit Crunch
The financial crisis currently consuming the U.S. has led tech industry leaders, such as Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Steve Ballmer, to speak out in favor of quick Congressional action. Tech stocks, as well as general stocks, have plummeted, and there is confusion over why this crisis is happening and spreading so ...
Commentary
A Job to Downsize
SACRAMENTO – David Long, California’s Secretary of Education, resigned on August 10, the fourth such Secretary to resign in the past five years. California should take this opportunity to eliminate this position, which Mr. Long’s brief 18-month tenure confirms to be redundant. “I’d be less than honest if I didn’t ...
Commentary
Patients need control to fix state’s health care system
To help fix Rhode Island’s budget mess, Gov. Don Carcieri has proposed an overhaul of the state Medicaid program. Such a move is certainly welcome. But Carcieri’s Medicaid overhaul won’t be able to cut costs unless policymakers relax their regulatory stranglehold on private insurance and address the state’s miserable medical ...
Business & Economics
Study: region’s business regs are worst
San Francisco, Calif. — The Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in California, has released the ‘U.S. Economic Freedom Index 2008 Report,’ a ranking of economic freedom in the 50 states. Published in association with Forbes, the index scored states based on 143 variables, including regulatory and fiscal ...
Commentary
California’s air-quality enforcers miss an opportunity
If someone tells you that you can get something for nothing, you might ask that person if that’s a subprime mortgage security he or she is selling — or whether they work for the California Air Resources Board. The board’s new “economic” study by two University of California at Berkeley ...
Commentary
Why Americans Won’t Tolerate Overseas ‘Models’
Everyone knows that American health care is in crisis. Its poor quality arrives accompanied by a huge bill and lack of universal coverage. Like dining in an amusement park, Americans are captives to a cafeteria that serves up cold, fatty food at double the price, leaving those who can’t pay, ...
Business & Economics
Tort Reform is Needed to Refill the Nation’s Medicine Chest
AFTER EIGHT DECADES IN NEW JERSEY, drugmaker Hoffmann-La Roche recently announced plans to move its headquarters, transferring many high-paying jobs to another state. This is more evidence of a shrinking pharmaceutical industry in the Garden State—once known as“the nation’s medicine chest.”One reason for the exodus is the state’s poor tort ...
Business & Economics
Economic Freedom in America: What is Economic Freedom?
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ...
Business & Economics
Impact – September 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – September 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions. Read PDF
Blackouts
The Credit Crunch is a Network Failure
Dr. John Rutledge Blog, September 30, 2008 My friend Sonia Arrison, the technology wizard at Pacific Research Institute, asked me to give her my current thinking about how to analyze the current credit crunch as a cascading network failure, a subject I wrote about in Chapters 6 and 7 of ...
Network Theory Can Explain US Credit Crunch
The financial crisis currently consuming the U.S. has led tech industry leaders, such as Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Steve Ballmer, to speak out in favor of quick Congressional action. Tech stocks, as well as general stocks, have plummeted, and there is confusion over why this crisis is happening and spreading so ...
A Job to Downsize
SACRAMENTO – David Long, California’s Secretary of Education, resigned on August 10, the fourth such Secretary to resign in the past five years. California should take this opportunity to eliminate this position, which Mr. Long’s brief 18-month tenure confirms to be redundant. “I’d be less than honest if I didn’t ...
Patients need control to fix state’s health care system
To help fix Rhode Island’s budget mess, Gov. Don Carcieri has proposed an overhaul of the state Medicaid program. Such a move is certainly welcome. But Carcieri’s Medicaid overhaul won’t be able to cut costs unless policymakers relax their regulatory stranglehold on private insurance and address the state’s miserable medical ...
Study: region’s business regs are worst
San Francisco, Calif. — The Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in California, has released the ‘U.S. Economic Freedom Index 2008 Report,’ a ranking of economic freedom in the 50 states. Published in association with Forbes, the index scored states based on 143 variables, including regulatory and fiscal ...
California’s air-quality enforcers miss an opportunity
If someone tells you that you can get something for nothing, you might ask that person if that’s a subprime mortgage security he or she is selling — or whether they work for the California Air Resources Board. The board’s new “economic” study by two University of California at Berkeley ...
Why Americans Won’t Tolerate Overseas ‘Models’
Everyone knows that American health care is in crisis. Its poor quality arrives accompanied by a huge bill and lack of universal coverage. Like dining in an amusement park, Americans are captives to a cafeteria that serves up cold, fatty food at double the price, leaving those who can’t pay, ...
Tort Reform is Needed to Refill the Nation’s Medicine Chest
AFTER EIGHT DECADES IN NEW JERSEY, drugmaker Hoffmann-La Roche recently announced plans to move its headquarters, transferring many high-paying jobs to another state. This is more evidence of a shrinking pharmaceutical industry in the Garden State—once known as“the nation’s medicine chest.”One reason for the exodus is the state’s poor tort ...
Economic Freedom in America: What is Economic Freedom?
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ...
Impact – September 2008
PRI Ideas in Action – September 2008 Policy Update and Monthly Impact Report PRI continues to impact public policy in California, the nation, and abroad. Click below to view PRI’s recent contributions. Read PDF
The Credit Crunch is a Network Failure
Dr. John Rutledge Blog, September 30, 2008 My friend Sonia Arrison, the technology wizard at Pacific Research Institute, asked me to give her my current thinking about how to analyze the current credit crunch as a cascading network failure, a subject I wrote about in Chapters 6 and 7 of ...
