After Amazon: What Happened in New York Isn’t Just About New York

The fiasco surrounding Amazon’s recent escape from New York reflects a broader, potentially devastating trend. By driving Amazon out of the Big Apple, New York’s increasingly militant progressives have created a political paradigm that could resonate in cities across the country.

Densification Efforts Like SB50 Are The Wrong Fix to California’s Housing Problem

For decades California’s regulatory and tax policies have undermined our middle class. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in SB50, a densifications drive that seeks to destroy the single-family neighborhoods preferred by the state’s middle-income households.

The Once-Lucky Country

Few places on earth are better suited for middle-class prosperity than Australia. From early in its history, when it was a refuge for British convicts, the vast, resource-rich country has provided an ideal environment for upward mobility, from the pioneering ranches of the nineteenth century to the middle-class suburbs of the late twentieth. Journalist Donald Horne described Australia in 1964 as “a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck.”

Our Suicidal Elites

The French nobility, observed Tocqueville in The Ancien Regime and The Revolution, supported many of the writers whose essays and observations ended up threatening “their own rights and even their existence.” Today we see much the same farce repeated, as the world’s richest people line up behind causes that, in the end, could relieve them of their fortunes, if not their heads.

The Twilight of America’s Mega-Media

It’s far too early to predict which party will win next year’s election, but not too early to announce the national media as a clear loser in terms of national influence and prestige.

Cory Booker at an AFGE event, February 13, 2019

The Unwitting Committee to Re-elect the President

Given his consistently poor approval ratings, Democrats should have little trouble ousting President Trump next year. But instead, with a series of deeply unpopular proposals, they have morphed effectively into the Committee to Re-Elect the President.

Clippers Offer A Better Model For SoCal Than The Lakers

This year’s basketball season, with the surprising rise of the Clippers, poses a metaphor for the region. The Clipper model, reflecting a culture of hard work and teamwork, relies not only on celebrity but the raising of often obscure people into prominence.

Kamala Harris in Los Angeles at a Town Hall

Candidate of Big Tech

Few Democratic presidential candidates are better positioned than California’s Senator Kamala Harris; she’s also the favored candidate of big tech.

The Opium of California

To be truly a sustainable society, California needs opportunities for carpenters, machinists, middle managers, not just for the current structure that relies on superstar coders and produces large numbers of low-paid service workers.

A New Good Neighbor Policy

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump’s proposal to build a “beautiful wall,” it is unlikely to resolve the crisis sending ever more people—largely from Central America—to America’s borders.