The modern history of the Silicon Valley arguably began in 1957, when eight young PhD graduates left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories to launch the first high-volume chip manufacturer, Fairchild Semiconductor. Fairchild and its spinoffs, including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), were the early participants in what became the most fervid ecosystem of fiercely competitive innovators the...

$450K Cap Proposed on Hospital CEO Salaries in California By Michelle Leming, June 14, 2016, NPQ One of America’s largest labor unions is taking a third attempt at capping hospital CEO salaries. The latest proposal by Service Employees International Union (SEIU)-United Healthcare Workers West would give authority to the California attorney general’s office to oversee...

Two weeks ago, using information supplied by the California Taxpayers Association, we called attention to “$6.2 Billion in New Borrowing on June 7th Primary Ballot.” As noted, “Next week voters will be asked to approve 46 local bond measures totaling $6.18 billion in new debt, along with 52 local tax proposals. If history is any...

Three recent stories point to the self-serving teacher union mentality. The bad. Joseph Ocol was in big trouble when he came to the U.S. in 1999. As a whistleblower, he was placed in the government’s Witness Protection Program for calling attention to an election fund-raising scam in his native Philippines. Even with a double degree in...

The California Department of Industrial Relations does not determine state prevailing wage rates for construction trades by surveying contractors or workers or by using statistics gathered by the California Economic Development Department. By law, the state uses union agreements to set prevailing wages. Thus, the prevailing wage is always the “union wage.” And the geographical...

Part One:  California’s Highways – A Legacy of Mismanagement and Over-regulation. A personal digression: My father was head of the Iowa Department of Transportation (then called the Iowa Highway Commission) in the late ’60s and early ’70s before he was appointed by President Ford to serve as Deputy Federal Highway Administrator. (Of course, he lost...

Most countries around the world think that it’s a good thing to have cheap energy. But in California, we have plenty of cheap energy available, just not the political will to access it. California depends on natural gas-driven turbines and hydroelectric generators to provide just 38 percent of its oil needs. The state imports 12 percent...

Rift Between Unions, Democratic Party Is Not Just Awkward As Campaign Season Nears By Dan Haar, June 6, 2016, Hartford Courant Sometime in the next couple of days, Sen. Danté Bartolomeo will sit in a closed room with leaders of the AFL-CIO. The Meriden Democrat will ask the labor coalition to endorse her for re-election...

Nearly every objection that supporters of presidential candidates Trump and Sanders raise to the establishment are intimately associated with government unions. But neither the people’s voice, or that voice as it is reflected back to them by their populist heroes, articulates this fact. (1) Do you want to reform Wall Street? You’ll have to go...