Unscrambling the Housing Crisis
California’s housing crisis is the biggest issue for the business community, low-income residents and middle class workers according to a disparate group of panelists taking part in a session sponsored by the California Association of Realtors’ Center for California Real Estate on Tuesday. The Los Angeles event included Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business […]
Business Split on Transportation Tax Increase
The governor and legislature barreled ahead with their tax and vehicle registration fee increase proposal for road repair with little compromise that would use more currently collected revenues for the roads. The plan offers some accountability language and a constitutional amendment to protect the new taxes from being spent on other than transportation needs. But […]
Why the Housing Crisis Won’t Get Fixed by Building Cheaper Homes
This time of year, the swallows return to Capistrano, and I return to my birthplace, San Francisco, for the city’s annual pre-budget finance conference. For the last few years I have kicked things off with an economic outlook for the coming year, replete with a discussion of risks. This being San Francisco, naturally, I had […]
Trust No One
Without public notice, in the absence of any staff analysis, contrary to the direction of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted a resolution that will drive up the cost of delivering goods to market and harm the competitiveness of California’s ports. On Thursday, March 23rd, following the […]
Stop Blaming California for Donald Trump
Is California to blame for Donald Trump? That may seem a preposterous question to ask of a state that voted so decisively against the new American president that it was responsible, all by itself, for his loss of the popular vote. It seems even stranger given California’s near-total resistance to Trump’s presidency, and the way […]