Robert Polin — Why Single Payer, Now, Is for Real

Is a single-payer health care system workable in California? My short answer is “yes.” I reached that conclusion by writing a research study, along with co-authors James Heintz, Peter Arno, and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, of the Healthy California single-payer bill (HB562) that was introduced into the California state Senate last spring. Our study was commissioned by the California Nurses Association, a lead supporter of the bill....

Commentators of all persuasions, but especially progressive ones, are doing nobody a favor by offering up overwrought pronouncements on why Healthy California must inevitably fail — especially when these pronouncements are grounded neither in evidence nor the growing political support for creating a decent health care system in California and the U.S. overall.

The worst enemy of progressives seems to be other progressives. But the so-called left is notorious for being unable to unite. So this is nothing new.

The Intercept
Why Single Payer, Now, Is for Real

Robert Polin | professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and founding co-director of its Political Economy Research Institute

California threatens to cut off funds to Federal gov't. Hahahahahahahaha!!!

What a bunch of idiot lawmakers in California.

I guess they don't understand that their state is a TAKER of U.S. dollars, not a MAKER. The maker would be the Federal gov't itself.

It would be like car owners withholding cars from Ford or General Motors. Those companies MAKE the fucking cars!

If I were Trump I would laugh in those Cali lawmakers' faces.

At the end of the day we'll see who are the bigger idiots--these California lawmakers or Congress and the Administration. Washington may actually feel threatened by this. Because, you know, the Federal gov't "needs" the money.

Idiots everywhere.

Robert Oscar Lopez — Let California Go

The American Thinker is very conservative. The author of this post identifies California with everything that is wrong with American politics and culture from the conservative point of view and recommends that California become what it already is, it's own country with greater territory, population, resources and wealth that most other countries.

I realized a long time ago that California is a bell weather for both the rest of the US and the world. It is a creative place and what begins there spreads throughout the world over time. Look to California for what the world will look like over time. This makes conservatives blanch. But separating California from the rest of the United States won't slow down the process much at all. It's what's happening.

The American Thinker
Let California Go
Robert Oscar Lopez

Sputnik — California’s Super Wealthy Refuse to Cut Water: ‘No, We’re Not All Equal’

Residents of extremely wealthy suburbs in Southern California are claiming that there is a “war on suburbia,” and that they are being “drought-shamed” for their wasteful habits. They believe that if they can afford it, the water should be theirs, and all theirs.

California Farmers to Cut Water Use Voluntarily Amid Severe DroughtA resident of Rancho Santa Fe, an ultra wealthy community that uses five times the statewide average of water, believes that water is not a basic human right to be shared and preserved for all to use, but rather a commodity similar to gas.

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas wrote on social media.

“We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he told the Washington Post. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”....

Wait, it gets even better.

“I call it the war on suburbia,” Brett Barbre of Yorba City, another wealthy community facing the same rationing, told the Washington Post.

Barbre then took it even further, telling the newspaper that “They’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands,” referring to his gardening hose and explaining that the water restrictions are infringing on his freedoms.

Sending America's message to the world. "Because neoliberalism."

Sputnik
California’s Super Wealthy Refuse to Cut Water: ‘No, We’re Not All Equal’

Greg Mankiw — California should raise the price of water

Sometimes the market solution is the right solution to public goods and utilities like water provision. While privatizing water, which had been a free good and then a regulated public utility, would not be a good solution, putting a higher price on water for bulk users and subsidizing other users would increase efficient use.

For example, households could be allocated a free or very low cost monthly water allowance and this could be varied by household size. This is in place in some areas already. There could also be a differential cost between residential use and commercial use and also an incremental cost for commercial use.

This would probably be more successful in a water-deprived state like California than the across the board 25% reduction in use just imposed.

The advantage of the 25% cut is that it is universal and so no one can say that their ox is being selected politically to be gored. All oxen just get less of a ration to drink. But as critics have noted it's difficult to enforce and avoidance is likely. Price is much more difficult to avoid, but water is a necessity of life, so a purely market solution with a single price is too regressive.

Some may worry about the distributional effects of a higher price of a necessity. But the revenue from a higher price could be rebated to consumers on a lump-sum basis, making the whole system progressive. We would end up with more efficiency and more equality.

This involves political decisions in addition to economic factors, so implementing anything in California will be difficult, given a divisive political climate and the political strength of commercial interests.

This is an increasingly pressing that the whole world is facing and we had better get on it instead of imposing ad hoc solution, i.e., shooting from the hip, after facing an imminent crisis and not having prepared for it. The alternative is lose the use of a lot of land, which will displace a lot of people, which will then result in migration to more resource-rich areas, causing problems there.

This is a supply issue that can't be fixed by just throwing public money at it. Moreover, this is a problem that faces only certain states, and states are budget-constrained since they are currency users. The low hanging fruit in supply problems is efficiency, and with respect to natural resources, conservation and recycling. The opportunity here is private investment in solutions to inefficiencies and public investment and regulation to address relevant externalities.

Greg Mankiw's Blog
California should raise the price of water
Greg Mankiw | professor and chairman of the economics department at Harvard University

Dr. Housing Bubble — The middle class migration out of California

People look at population growth in California and see nothing that stands out. Digging into the numbers you find some interesting figures. First, the main reason California is actually growing is because of international migration. California for well over a decade is losing domestic residents. That is, “domestic” Californians on a net basis are heading out of the state. On a more micro level, you are seeing the middle class either being phased out of the state or being pushed into lower priced inland regions. It is an interesting trend that is also happening in the tech hungry Bay Area. Housing continues to be an important topic because the vast majority of income is spent on housing. California has one of the highest percentage of families spending half or more of their monthly income on either rent or housing payments. In places like Los Angeles the main international migration is coming from Asia. You also see this driving up real estate values in certain areas and this contributes to domestic out migration. The migration numbers are interesting and shed light on this global trend.

Dr. Housing Bubble
The middle class migration out of California: While domestic migration is up, foreign migration is filling the gap.

Michael Finnegan And Seema Mehta — Analysis: Kashkari struggles to hit partisan balance in debate with California

Brown and Kashari are both positioned as fiscal conservatives and social liberals, which reflects the preference of California voters, the majority of whom are socially liberal but hate the state's high taxes — "the California premium."

It's an uphill fight for Kashari, who is an outlier in today's GOP, but he will get a lot of campaign cash from Silicon Valley.

McClatchy
Analysis: Kashkari struggles to hit partisan balance in debate with California Gov. Brown
Michael Finnegan And Seema Mehta

Brian Leiter — Berkeley: the canary in the coalmine?

Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary about the effects of the neoliberal agenda on Berkeley has been attracting a good deal of attention and commentary. As the latter piece points out, the Reagan revolution from the right has basically continued through multiple Democratic Administrations, and one of the casualties has been the idea of "public" higher education.

Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog
Berkeley: the canary in the coalmine?
Brian Leiter

Kiley Kroh — California Installed More Rooftop Solar In 2013 Than Previous 30 Years Combined

Climate Progress
California Installed More Rooftop Solar In 2013 Than Previous 30 Years Combined

Kiley Kroh

Scott Kaufman — U.N. torture investigator seeks access to California’s prison isolation units (via Raw Story )

U.N. torture investigator seeks access to California’s prison isolation units (via Raw Story )

Juan Mendez, the United Nation’s special monitor on torture, told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that he wanted access to California prisons in order to determine whether inmates held in solitary were having their rights protected. He argued that…

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California State Controller: Revenue and Spending Tracking Budget, Warns on impact from Shutdown

The 4+ year drag from the cutbacks at the state and local governments levels are mostly over. However the Federal government shutdown could start negatively impacting state budgets soon. Just as the states are starting to recover ... the House pulls the football away.

Calculated Risk
California State Controller: Revenue and Spending Tracking Budget, Warns on impact from Shutdown
Bill McBride

Nathan Mattise — California sends a cease and desist order to the Bitcoin Foundation

Licensing is required for money transmissions in-state; Bitcoin denies such activity.

ArsTecnica
California sends a cease and desist order to the Bitcoin Foundation

Nathan Mattise
(h/t Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)

Collison course.

Dr. Housing Bubble — The signs of real estate mania in California

Irrational exuberance is back in fashion in California real estate. The bullish case for real estate is so strong that the echoes of the last housing mania are slowly fading away into economic history. Flipping is now a big part of niche markets and we are starting to see the whacky stories that are common in manias. For example, In San Francisco’s trendy South Beach neighborhood a parking spot sold for $82,000. While that may sound extreme that is simply the behavior that occurs when virtually the entire state is cast under the spell of real estate fever. There can be no wrong and apparently incomes do not matter anymore. We’ve already discussed the reemergence of interest only loans so we are simply experiencing another mania with a different flavor.

Dr. Housing Bubble
The signs of real estate mania in California: San Francisco Parking Spot Sells for $82,000. Median California home price up 25 percent year-over-year. Welcome back interest only loans.

California is the best argument I know of against the rationality assumption. I am getting similar reports from friends on site. It's on again. But this is just the start and there's still money to made before it gets really crazy.

Bill McBride — States: Mo Money Mo Problems

Now some states are adding to the problem of demand leakage by saving (running surpluses).

Calculated Risk

States: Mo Money Mo Problems
Bill McBride

After losing money as a fund manager at Pimco, "TARP BOY," Neil Kashkari, goes back to government where he can impoverish more people

So according to the Wall Street Journal, Neil Kashkari is resigning his position at Pimco after poor performance running some of their equity funds and he's returning to where all former money-losing-ex-Goldman-Masters-of-the-Universe go when they're done blowing out tons of money--to government. Kashkari is running for office in California, it seems, as a Republican. So now he'll just impoverish people via the public sector, with classic Republican austerity, anti-labor, pro-corporate, predator capitalistic policies rather than doing it via the markets route.

Nate Silver — In Silicon Valley, Technology Talent Gap Threatens G.O.P. Campaigns

Nate investigates why the president had such an overwhelming tech advantage.

Even without the Bay Area’s vote, Democrats would still be favored to win California by solid margins. So why does any of this matter? 

The reason is that Democrats’ strength in the region is hard to separate out from the growth of its core industry — information technology – and the advantage that having access to the most talented individuals working in the field could provide to Democratic campaigns.

Companies like Google and Apple do not have their own precincts on Election Day. However, it is possible to make some inferences about just how overwhelmingly Democratic employees at these companies are based on fund-raising data. (The Federal Election Commission requires that donors to presidential campaigns disclose their employer when they make a campaign contribution.)

Among employees who work for Google, Mr. Obama raised about $720,000 in itemized contributions this year, against only $25,000 for Mr. Romney. That means that Mr. Obama took almost 97 percent of the money between the two major candidates.

Apple employees gave 91 percent of their dollars to Mr. Obama. At eBay, Mr. Obama took 89 percent of the money from employees.

Over all, among the 10 American-based information technology companies on the Fortune’s list of “most admired companies,” Mr. Obama raised 83 percent of the funds between the two major party candidates.

Mr. Obama’s popularity among the staff at these companies holds even for those which are not headquartered in California. About 81 percent of contributions at Microsoft, which is headquartered in Redmond, Wash., went to Mr. Obama. So did 77 percent of those at I.B.M., which is based in Armonk, N.Y.

It does not require an algorithm to deduce that the sort of employees who might be willing to donate substantial money to a political campaign might also be those who would consider working for it.

The New York Times | FiveThirtyEight

In Silicon Valley, Technology Talent Gap Threatens G.O.P. Campaigns

Nate Silver

So this is how we win the future?

California may have to cut the school year because of money problems.

So this is how we "win the future?"

Obama's caving in to Deficit Terrorists means that states cannot get any fiscal help from the Federal Government. So now our kids won't be getting a proper education. Eduction is the single most important factor in determining standard of living and competitiveness.

California is so broke it will shorten the school year.