About a year ago I participated for a few months with an industry group that was attempting to insert some rationality into what is probably the most irrational, extremist, dangerous, job-killing, regressive laws in the modern history of the United States, AB32, California’s Global Warming Act. Unlike renewable portfolio standards, which can at least be justified by virtue of their potential [...]

Still absent from much of the discussion regarding state and local government budget deficits is an attempt to properly assess rates of worker compensation. But if one performs this exercise, normalizing for all present and future benefits, it immediately becomes clear that the true compensation of public employees is significantly higher than is being commonly reported, [...]

As we quite rightfully expose and attempt to rid our society of corruption in the corporate and financial sectors, and as we support legislation to root out the excessive influence they have exercised in politics, it is a mistake to allow such efforts to blind us to the reality of corruption in other areas. Over the past [...]

We have been warning readers about the pension crisis for a few years now.  In a nutshell, the problem is the following:  California public employee unions - which are virtually unregulated despite the fact they operate in the uncompetitive public sector - have pretty much taken over California’s state and local governments. In recent years [...]

Back in March 2008 we first posted an essay entitled “Rational Environmentalism,” where we explicitly stated fifteen principles that we believe summarize our editorial position on what environmentalism should be, versus what environmentalism has become.  We did this because we had just been noticed - perhaps we should consider this an honor, but we don’t - by [...]

Does that get your attention?  It should, because when that happens, the Silicon Valley will become the sister city of Detroit, with the only difference being Detroit gave way to union power fifty years earlier, and is still paying the price.  Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, and as long as it stays that way it [...]

Only an extreme libertarian would claim there is no role for government.  In the face of population growth, aging infrastructure, and myriad new, cleaner and more sustainable ways to deliver energy, water and transportation resources, there is much to be done by the public sector.  Green public works will create wealth and resource abundance.  Green public works must include [...]