Will Guaranteed Income Play in Stockton?

In 1797 Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, proposed that a “citizen dividend” be paid to each American and funded by a tax on land. Paine’s proposal—now dubbed Universal Basic Income (UBI) or guaranteed minimum income—is, some 220 years later, coming to California. Specifically, it is coming to Stockton, a […]

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 […]

An Election that Shifts the Economic Center West—To the Far East

Did the presidential election change the Pacific Rim as we know it? During these days of transition speculation, there is plenty of talk about what president-elect Donald Trump’s victory means for health care, for immigrants, for the economy, for minorities, for NATO, and so on. In terms of long-term national interests, it’s important to add […]

The Unintended Consequences of Extending Proposition 30

In 2012 voters passed Proposition 30—an initiative to raise taxes and take state government finances out of crisis mode. However, the new taxes, primarily falling on the top income earners in California, did not purport to be a cure for the underlying problem. Rather, the rationale was to give the state some breathing room. And […]