Grassroots Infrastructure for Initiatives and Recalls is Growing in California
Grassroots Infrastructure for Initiatives and Recalls is Growing in California
Earlier this month the effort to recall Gavin Newsom was officially ended. As reported in the Times of San Diego on March 17, “Last week, the California Secretary of State’s Office informed Erin Cruz of Palm Springs that her petition effort to oust the Democratic governor had failed. A year earlier, an initiative to repeal California’s gas tax made...
By Edward Ring
California Dystopia Update, March 2020 edition: How the stage was set for a coronavirus homeless disaster
California Dystopia Update, March 2020 edition: How the stage was set for a coronavirus homeless disaster
The debate over homelessness in California seemed to shift last fall, when dozens of local governments supplied or co-signed amicus briefs in a case in which Boise, Idaho, officials urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that banned arrests of people sleeping in public if they had nowhere else to go....
By Chris Reed
California Cities in Critical Condition
California Cities in Critical Condition
The specter of California’s cities and counties becoming insolvent is nothing new. Three major California cities have already declared bankruptcy, Vallejo in 2008, Stockton and San Bernardino in 2012. In October 2019, the California State Auditor’s Office reported on the fiscal health of 471 California cities. On what the California State Auditor’s office describes as a “Local Government...
By Edward Ring
Sustainable Megacities
Sustainable Megacities
Modern urban centers around the world now have neighborhoods that house well over 100,000 people per square mile. The Choa Chu Kang district in Singapore, defined by boulevards lined with 10 to 12 story mid-rise residential buildings, has a population density of over 125,000 per square mile. The entire borough of Manhattan has an average population density of over 70,000 per square...
By Edward Ring
Government Pensions Are Dividing Americans and Damaging the Economy
Government Pensions Are Dividing Americans and Damaging the Economy
Now that financial markets around the world are experiencing a long-overdue correction, the best we can hope for is that we hit bottom before a deflationary cascade causes a worldwide depression. Those economists who believe in the long-term debt cycle may claim that this time the end has arrived, and they may be right. COVID-19, oil price...
By Edward Ring
Gathered for the feast at the Hotel California
Gathered for the feast at the Hotel California
Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place… Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year, you can find it here… – “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, 1977 For decades California’s aristocracy has engaged in unsustainable feasting, as they consume the leviathan carcasses of what were for a time the world’s the...
By Edward Ring
Californians reject new taxes and borrowing
Californians reject new taxes and borrowing
The preliminary election returns reported on March 4th indicate that California’s voters delivered a stunning rejection of new taxes and borrowing. It’s about time. At the state level, Prop.13 which would have authorized $15 billion in general obligation bonds for schools and colleges, required a simple majority for approval. But as of March 9th the...
By Edward Ring
The Wondrous, Magnificent Cities of the 21st Century
The Wondrous, Magnificent Cities of the 21st Century
The American Conservative recently laid an egg. They published a misanthropic, pessimistically aggressive Malthusian screed, written by James Howard Kunstler. Kunstler’s “Why America’s Urban Dreams Went Wrong” attacks pretty much every urban amenity Americans have built since the invention of the automobile. And his reasoning, all of it, reflects a dismal lack of faith in human...
By Edward Ring
The Premises of California’s Dysfunction
The Premises of California’s Dysfunction
Anyone unfamiliar with what is really going on in California would have listened to Governor Newsom’s State of the State address on February 12 and gotten the impression that things have never been better. Newsom’s opening set the tone for the rest of his 4,400 word monologue: “By every traditional measure, the state of our state is...
By Edward Ring
California’s K-12 spending exceeds $20,000 per pupil
California’s K-12 spending exceeds $20,000 per pupil
“It’s not enough. We’re still 41st in the nation in per pupil funding. Something needs to change. We need to have an honest conversation about how we fund our schools at a state and local level,” – California Governor Gavin Newsom, State of the State Address, February 12, 2020 It should come as no surprise that Governor...
By Edward Ring
Why Jerry Brown bears considerable blame for PG&E’s deadly incompetence
Why Jerry Brown bears considerable blame for PG&E’s deadly incompetence
When Gov. Jerry Brown left office in January 2019, most of the reviews of his second eight-year stint as leader of the nation’s richest, most populous state were effusive. Citing his restoration of fiscal stability after the Capitol chaos seen in the last three years of the Schwarzenegger administration, Brown biographer Narda Zacchino declared he...
By Chris Reed
Die Another Day: Bonds like Prop 13 are a burden for tomorrow
Die Another Day: Bonds like Prop 13 are a burden for tomorrow
The conventional wisdom about Proposition 13 — the only ballot measure before California voters in the March 3 election — is that the $15 billion construction bond benefitting public schools, state universities and community colleges is of relatively little importance to the average voter. While there are concerns that local districts will have to raise...
By Chris Reed
Public Safety Compensation and Public Safety
Public Safety Compensation and Public Safety
Public sector unions are by far the most powerful special interest in California. And they are united in their goal to pay themselves as much or more than public agencies can afford, which shields unionized public servants from the worst effects of the laws (which they almost always support) that have made California’s cost-of-living the...
By Edward Ring
Seven reasons to question a state utility takeover
Seven reasons to question a state utility takeover
On Feb. 3, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill that would transfer to California taxpayers responsibility for the state’s largest and most troubled utility, Pacific Gas & Electric. The bill would give a new government agency, the California Consumer Energy and Conservation Financing Authority, the power to buy the assets and pay...
By Mark Lisheron