Ancient Oracle tries to Decipher PPIC Poll
I invited an ancient Oracle from Delphi to help me decipher what California voters were telling us with their answers to PPIC’s most recent poll of the state’s electorate. The Oracle laid out the entrails as found in the poll’s questions and answers and crosstabs and thought quietly for a time. A puzzled look came […]
How “Public” Is the Public Sector?
Crossposted on New Geography You may have heard the old joke about the convenience store with a neon sign blaring, “Open 24 Hours”. A customer stops in one morning for coffee, and confronts the store’s owner, “Your sign says ‘Open 24 Hours’, but I stopped by last night at midnight for a pack of smokes […]
State May Consider Taxing Services
Crossposted on CalWatchDog Hold on to your wallet — Sacramento may be hatching yet another way to reach into your pocket: a state sales tax on services. Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-El Dorado Hills, has authored AB 1963, which calls for a study of the revenue impacts of a service tax. Huber said she’s looking for […]
California’s Sky-High Residential Electricity Rates
While I’m not adding this electricity cost analysis to my “Breaking Bad: CA vs. the Other States” fact sheet (this analysis is a hard item to condense into one sentence), it’s a situation my California readers need to understand. Our state’s residential electricity rates often are outrageous compared to the rest of the nation. And […]
Gov. Jerry Brown – Job Killer
When Jerry Brown was governor of California the first time (1975 to 1983) he went on a safari to Africa with rock warbler, Linda Ronstadt. Now, back in the statehouse as governor again (elected in November 2010), Brown ought to take another safari — this time to Silicon Valley (south of San Francisco). Brown, who […]