White families are excluded from the recently announced pilot program because the "Oakland Equity Index" suggests that white households, on average, make more money than black households annually. The 30,000+ white residents of Alameda County living below the federal poverty line could not be reached for comment. Matt Margolis reports for PJ Media.
Read MoreMany California counties and cities rushed to defund their police department after the George Floyd death in Minnesota. As crime and violence soared, many of those municipalities have come to regret those decisions. L.A. County is the latest volte face, as reported by Jarryd Yeager for the PostMillenial.
Read MoreRandal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute, in this exclusive analysis for Opportunity Now, provides a clear-eyed perspective about the problems facing the worst-performing transit agency in America, and how recent kerfuffles around VTA's governance deflect attention from the real causes of the transit agency's woeful status.
Read MoreVTA costs soar and ridership plummets (see article nearby). Overpriced and overbudget high speed rail project misses deadlines. What to do? Matthew Holian, professor of Economics at San Jose State University, explores the cost/benefit analyses of local rail options for San Jose at a recent Saurman Provocative lecture at San Jose State.
Read MoreCalifornia politicians maintain a narrative suggesting how green and energy efficient the state is. But does that narrative withstand scrutiny? Ronald Stein provides a clear-eyed analysis for Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
Read MoreCalifornia suffers simultaneously from a poverty and housing crisis. Dan Walters of CalMatters notes the relationship between the two developments, and fingers the startlingly high cost of new units as a key contributor.
Read MoreCalifornia schools are now implementing anti-racism campaigns in schools. This curriculum begins as young as kindergarten. Jordan Davidson explains what's going on for The Federalist.
Read MoreThe Biden administration's recent $1.9 trillion (no typo) spendingpalooza provided huge allocations to help bail out failing state and city governments (and, to be fair, 10% of the outlays actually went to coronavirus relief). But not all cities, at least in California, are equal, according to the Los Angeles Times. SF, LA, and Oakland received more than twice as much per capita as San Jose.
Read MoreTom Means, professor of Economics at San Jose State University, spoke at a Saurman Provocative Lecture at SJ State, in which he explored the paucity of economic knowledge displayed by our political leaders. Means was formerly the mayor of Mountain View.
Read MoreAs minimum wage fever continues to grip Sacramento and Washington, D.C., Veronique De Rugy at Reason magazine provides a useful corrective on how minimum wage laws effectively prohibit young people from taking their first step on the employment ladder.
Read MoreAs San Jose City Council starts to absorb its progressive majority, Joel Kotkin at National Review reminds us what happens when liberal activists have free reign in municipal government: the working class and minorities suffer.
Read MoreThe COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many social scientists to reconsider fundamental economic and government structures. While most aim to vastly increase state power, Marianna Mazzucato, professor of economics at University College London and author of the new book Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, has a new, more optimistic idea. What if government acted like an angel investor for business? As reviewed by Frances Cairncross in the Literary Review.
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