Ten years After Lehman Collapsed, We’re Still Screwed

by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — The collapse of Lehman Brothers 10 years ago today began the financial crisis that crippled and even killed for some the American dream as we had known it…

Moving truck on Nevada Highway

A Generation Plans An Exodus From California

by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox — California is the great role model for America, particularly if you read the Eastern press. Yet few boosters have yet to confront the fact that the state is continuing to hemorrhage people at a higher rate…

Mark Zuckerberg F8 2018 Keynote

America is Moving Toward an Oligarchical Socialism

Where do we go after Trump? This question becomes more pertinent as the soap opera administration seeks its own dramatic demise. Yet before they can seize power from the president and his now subservient party, the Democrats need to agree on what will replace Trumpism.

California Takes the Prize for Environmental Virtue Signaling — But Not Much Else

If there’s an award for environmental virtue signaling, California would win the prize. Yet for all the constant self-promotion, shameless grandstanding and endless moralizing, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the impact, and failures, of our current green obsessions.

Lincoln Community Center

Restoring Localism

Americans are increasingly prisoners of ideology, and our society is paying the price. We are divided along partisan lines to an extent that some are calling it a “soft civil war.” In the end, this benefits only ideological warriors and their funders.

Trump speaking at #FITN First In Nation Republican Leadership Summit, Nashua, New Hampshire

The Triumph of Trumpism Will Outlast Trump

Donald Trump’s presidency may prove, to quote Thomas Hobbes, to be “nasty, brutish and short.” But even if Trump ends up out of office sooner than planned, we will continue to live in a world shaped by him for years to come.

Suburbs of Houston, Texas

The Battle for Houston

Houston has embraced a light regulatory approach to housing that reflects market forces more than ideology. But last year’s Hurricane Harvey floods severely tested the Houston model.

‘Chinafornia’ and Global Trade in Age of Trump

California’s trajectory long has been linked to its partners across the Pacific. Yet these ties could be deeply impacted by President Trump’s immigration and global trade policies.

Kansas City downtown, by Simone

Cities Are for Rich People Now and Wooing Amazon Only Makes It Worse

If there are two facts of life in the modern American city, they are that rent will be too damn high, and that attracting investment from a mega corporation will seem to some local power players like the best way to stave off economic disaster.

The New McCarthyism of Our Censorious Age

We live in a newly censorious age, where old crudities are never forgotten. To be sure, there are some clear malefactors who should be punished to the extent of the law, but there’s clearly a distinct danger to free expression as the emboldened thought police steadily expand their domain.