California's Six-Figure Pension Club Has 62,000 Members (Also a HUGE problem for Marinwood CSD)

California's Six-Figure Pension Club Has 62,000 Members

And seven retirees in Los Angeles pulled down more than $1 million each in retirement benefits last year.

Eric Boehm|Oct. 23, 2017 10:23 am

Ingram Publishing/NewscomTwo retired Los Angeles city employees—Earl Paysinger, a former deputy police chief, and Emile Mack, a former assistant fire chief—pulled down more than $1.4 million apiece in pension benefits last year, giving them the largest nest eggs across all California's public retirement systems.

Last week Transparent California released data showing that more than 62,000 retired California public workers earn at least six figuresin annual retirement benefits. Paysinger and Mack are two of the seven members of the exclusive million-dollar pension club. All seven retired from the Los Angeles police or fire departments.

In a related story, more than 20 cents of every dollar spent by the Los Angeles city government now goes to fund the retirements of former employees. "The city's general fund payments for pensions and retiree healthcare reached $1.04 billion last year, eating up more than 20% of operating revenue—compared with less than 5% in 2002," the Los Angeles Times reported last year.

Previously, Transparent California had only collected data from the state's two largest pension funds: CalPERS, which pays retired public workers, and CalSERS, which pays retired teachers. The newest update includes data from the state university retirement system and local pension funds from several big cities, including Los Angeles, where some of the highest payouts occur.

The more comprehensive data reveal nearly twice as many $100,000 pensions. Using last year's data, Transparent California said Michael Johnson, a former Solano County administrator who received a $388,407 pension, was the highest-paid government retiree in the state. This year he does not even crack the top 100, a group dominated by Los Angeles police and fire retirees along with a handful of former San Diego city employees.

Paysinger, the new king of the California pension hill, spent 41 years with LAPD before retiring in 2016 to take a job as vice president of civic engagement at the University of Southern California.

Six- and seven-figure pensions are not the sole reason why California's state and local retirement funds are in trouble, but they are a part of that picture.

The CalPERS fund alone is more than $139 billion in the red. The East Bay Times reported last year that CalPERS' retirement debt "averages out to $11,000 for every California household," a relevant comparison since "taxpayers, not government workers, must make up the shortfall."

At the local level, things are even bleaker. Increasing pension costs will likely continue to crowd out resources that otherwise would go to public assistance, recreation, libraries, health, public works, and in some cases public safety, according to the authors of a new report by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

In Los Angeles, the Stanford report suggests that pension debt will grows to $11,000 per household by 2029. Since 2004, the city has shifted more than $900 million of expenditures from other services in order to fund pensions.

Green Tyranny: The Propaganda Machine

‘Smart Cities’ Will Know Everything About You

‘Smart Cities’ Will Know Everything About You

How can marketers cash in without becoming enemies of the people?  [Editor's Note: They Can't.]

By
MIKE WESTONJuly 12, 2015 6:36 p.m. ET
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From Boston to Beijing, municipalities and governments across the world are pledging billions to create “smart cities”—urban areas covered with Internet-connected devices that control citywide systems, such as transit, and collect data. Although the details can vary, the basic goal is to create super-efficient infrastructure, aid urban planning and improve the well-being of the populace.

A byproduct of a tech utopia will be a prodigious amount of data collected on the inhabitants. For instance, at the company I head, we recently undertook an experiment in which some staff volunteered to wear devices around the clock for 10 days. We monitored more than 170 metrics reflecting their daily habits and preferences—including how they slept, where they traveled and how they felt (a fast heart rate and no movement can indicate excitement or stress).

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

If the Internet age has taught us anything, it’s that where there is information, there is money to be made. With so much personal information available and countless ways to use it, businesses and authorities will be faced with a number of ethical questions.

In a fully “smart” city, every movement an individual makes can be tracked. The data will reveal where she works, how she commutes, her shopping habits, places she visits and her proximity to other people. You could argue that this sort of tracking already exists via various apps and on social-media platforms, or is held by public-transport companies and e-commerce sites. The difference is that with a smart city this data will be centralized and easy to access. Given the value of this data, it’s conceivable that municipalities or private businesses that pay to create a smart city will seek to recoup their expenses by selling it.

By analyzing this information using data-science techniques, a company could learn not only the day-to-day routine of an individual but also his preferences, behavior and emotional state. Private companies could know more about people than they know about themselves.

For marketers, this is a dream come true. Imagine the scenario: A beverage company knows a particular individual’s Friday or Saturday night routine. The company knows what he drinks, when he drinks, who he drinks with and where he goes. It also knows how the weather affects what beverage the individual chooses and how changes in work patterns influence how much alcohol he consumes. By combining this information with the individual’s social-media profile, the company could send marketing messages to the person when he is most susceptible to the suggestion to buy a drink.

Businesses could market divorce services to couples who, through data analysis, are shown to exhibit behavior that indicates that their relationship could be in trouble—things like unusual travel patterns, and changes in work-life balance, such as a rapid increase in the amount of time both individuals spend at work or in separate bars. Individuals who are shown to lead very unhealthy lifestyles could be deliberately targeted by brands selling fatty foods.

The scenarios are endless, ranging from the genuinely useful to the potentially terrifying. But what will moderate how a smart city works and how brands can use data?

Recent history—issues of privacy and security on social networks and chatting apps, and questions about how intellectual-property regulations apply online—has shown that the law has been slow to catch up with digital innovations. So businesses that can purchase smart-city data will be presented with many strategic and ethical concerns.

What degree of targeting is too specific and violates privacy? Should businesses limit the types of goods or services they offer to certain individuals? Is it ethical for data—on an employee’s eating habits, for instance—to be sold to employers or to insurance companies to help them assess claims? Do individuals own their own personal data once it enters the smart-city system?

With or without stringent controlling legislation, businesses in a smart city will need to craft their own policies and procedures regarding the use of data. A large-scale misuse of personal data could provoke a consumer backlash that could cripple a company’s reputation and lead to monster lawsuits. An additional problem is that businesses won’t know which individuals might welcome the convenience of targeted advertising and which will find it creepy—although data science could solve this equation eventually by predicting where each individual’s privacy line is.

A smart city doesn’t have to be as Orwellian as it sounds. If businesses act responsibly, there is no reason why what sounds intrusive in the abstract can’t revolutionize the way people live for the better by offering services that anticipates their needs; by designing ultraefficient infrastructure that makes commuting a (relative) dream; or with a revolutionary approach to how energy is generated and used by businesses and the populace at large.

Mr. Weston is the CEO of the London- and Dubai-based data-science consultancy 

Profusion.

What possibly can go wrong concentrating power with a few elites and a strong government? 

Affordable Housing giveaways

Atlanta Scrambles to Get Out of Expensive Deal It Forgot It Made

The city's housing authority committed to selling $138 million of government land for $17 million.

Christian Britschgi|Oct. 17, 2017 9:40 am

OTRS/Wikimedia CommonsWhich is worse: committing to sell off public land at millions below its market value, or not remembering you'd made that commitment in the first place?

That's the question the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) is no doubt asking itself as it tries desperately to get out of a deal it made to sell $138 million of land to a property development company for the recession-era price of $17 million.

The company, Integral, claims it was promised the $120 million discount by former AHA chief Renee Glover in a 2011 agreement. AHA's current president, Catherine Buell, says she knew nothing about the 2011 deal until Integral tried to make good on it in late 2016, and that the terms are wholly inappropriate.

"The Atlanta Housing Authority is not a land bank for private developers to purchase land at rock bottom prices," saysBuell. Her agency is now suing to stop the deal, calling it "unconscionable," "secret," and a violation of federal and state regulations.

It's gross mismanagement at best, pure corruption at worst. And sadly, it isn't the only time a housing program has been caught in such a scandal. Money meant to house low-income people has been directed toward politically connected developers, wasted on never-completed projects, and even spent demolishing the homes of poor people.

This particular episode has its roots in "revitalization agreements" made between AHA and Integral at the turn of the century, whereby Integral promised to convert several of Atlanta's low-income public housing projects into mixed-income developments. For its trouble, Integral was awarded some $114 million in AHA loans, funded through Department of Housing and Urban Development's HOPE VI program.

In 2011, then-president Glover amended these revitalization agreements to give Integral the option of buying some of the vacant land surrounding the mixed-income communities it had developed at severely depressed land valuations. According to the lawsuit, Glover made this multi-million-dollar commitment without the consent of either the AHA board of directors or HUD, both of whose sign-off was required.

AHA Communications Director Cecilia Taylor tells Reason that no meeting minutes or records show any vote being taken by the authority's board of directors on the 2011 deal, and two board members have said they have no memory of it.

There is also no record of any review or approval from HUD, which is responsible for funding and supervising revitalization agreements.

In March the Atlanta Constitution-Journal requested records of whatever approval HUD gave for Glover's 2011 deal. None were provided to the newspaper. Taylor tells Reason that HUD has yet to provide AHA with any such records either.

This would not be the first time HUD has failed in its oversight of HOPE VI funds. A 2007 GAO report found that the department had no standard means of enforcing the terms of grant agreements it made, and that it often failed even to monitor the progress of those grants.

Despite the lack of documentation, Glover has insisted the deal she brokered with Integral went through all the proper channels. So has Egbert Perry, co-founder of Integral. (Both Perry and Glover serve on Fannie Mae's board of directors.) Perry claims not just that the deal was reached within the bounds of the law, but that the massive subsidy his company gets from it is a fair reward for the value his tax-funded investment has brought to AHA land.

"They don't realize what's there is because of what we did," Perry told the Atlanta Constitution-Journal back in March, "not what the authority did. What we did."

That's a pretty rich claim coming from a man whose investment was underwritten by federally funded AHA loans, and who still owes some $29 million in interest on those loans. AHA describes the likelihood of that money being repaid at "moderate-to-low."

The argument has also gotten short shrift from Atlanta housing advocates such as Tim Franzen of the Housing Justice League, who told the Journal-Constitution, "This is a government giveaway. This is the government giving a gift to a private developer who seeks to withdraw as much wealth as possible."

Sadly, government giveaways are a natural consequence when an agency tries to play at being both a developer and a financier of low-income housing.

Deadly California Wildfires Spark Needed Debate About Current Spending

And it's already contentious.

Steven Greenhut | October 20, 2017

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In the days before Facebook and other social media, it was a matter of course to wait a few days after tragedies strike before making political and policy points about the latest event. We always need to show compassion for the suffering—and wait until more of the facts roll in before getting up on that soapbox.

At the OC Register, we used to refer to the late editorial writer Alan Bock as "Reverend Bock" because he was so good at offering condolences rather than lectures. But, ultimately, it's the role of opinion writers to provide constructive policy advice after destructive events. We see this following the Las Vegas massacre this month, where gun availability became an understandable topic, and after recent hurricanes, where relief efforts received scrutiny.

Now, it's time to think about wildfires. It's hard not to think about them in northern and Southern California. My house is 80 miles from Napa Valley, yet the air is thick with smoke. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. At least 41 people have died and hundreds are missing as 16 fires engulf more than 160,000 acres in a heavily urbanized area. More than 3,500 homes and businesses have been destroyed, including wineries.

This is terribly sad. Anything one says about other people's misery comes across as inadequate or trite, but we should have heavy hearts for what our fellow Californians are going through. Wildfires are, of course, a regular occurrence. The fields and woods typically are dry this time of year. It gets windy. Power lines fall. Wildfires spread like, well, wildfire.

What should we learn for next time?

The debate already is contentious. "Climate change is lengthening the fire season in the West," the San Jose Mercury News argued. "Congress and Western state legislatures should be amping up prevention—just as we strengthen dams to help prevent flooding." The newspaper also pointed to (and downplayed) conservative arguments in favor of more logging, which could "reduce the severity of fires."

Those are important discussions, but involve broad topics of climate policy, land-use regulations and federal budgetary priorities. I'm more focused on the concerns on the ground. In particular, there's been talk about the state having too few firefighters and insufficient resources. For instance, news reports suggest that instead of working 24-hours on and then having 24 hours off, firefighters are working nonstop and getting little sleep. We're increasingly dependent on firefighters from other states.

Like all budgets, firefighting ones are limited, wherever the wildfire-fighting funds come from. And public-safety budgets are consuming the bulk of municipal spending these days. Most of that has to do with pay and benefit levels.

The median total compensation cost for a California firefighter ranges from $145,000 for state agencies to more than $196,000 in cities and counties, according to some estimates. Firefighters can earn $300,000 in overtime. The base salaries may be relatively modest, but overtime, pension obligations (firefighters typically retire at age 50 with 90 percent or more of their final year's pay) and other benefits drive these costs into the stratosphere.

Furthermore, California has some of the highest firefighting costs in the nation. That largely has to do with our dry climate and geography, with vast wilderness areas abutting massive population centers. But this shortfall also is because of the salary structure and pension system, with the way governments spend their existing resources. There's a reason that thousands of applicants may line up for a small number of firefighting openings. Those pay packages are hard to fathom considering that a majority of the nation's firefighters do this work on a volunteer basis.

This may be a difficult time to discuss the compensation of firefighters. Firefighting isn't one of the more dangerous professions according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Loggers, fishers, pilots, roofers, refuse workers, iron and steel workers, drivers, farmers, power-line workers and groundskeepers top the list. But there's no question firefighting can be a very dangerous job, and we're all appreciative of the dangers firefighters are enduring now.

Nevertheless, this is a simple math problem. If fire officials spend unnecessarily high amounts on existing workers, they have less money to hire more people. There could be far more firefighters available to fight disastrous fires if overly generous pension payments didn't consume such a large portion of local budgets.

A new study from Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research found that public-employer pension contributions have soared by 400 percent over 15 years even though operating budgets have not grown nearly that much. This "crowds out" public services. That means that the state government and municipalities can higher fewer employees, which means fewer firefighters, also.

As deadly fires rage, this might not be the easiest time to discuss this, but we need to face the obvious. One of the best ways to prepare for future wildfires is for the state to get its pension and compensation systems under control.

This column first appeared in the Orange County Register.

Progressive Cities: Home of the Worst Housing Inequality

Progressive Cities: Home of the Worst Housing Inequality

October 18, 2017 By Wendell Cox Leave a Comment


America’s most highly regulated housing markets are also reliably the most progressive in their political attitudes. Yet in terms of gaining an opportunity to own a house, the price impacts of the tough regulation mean profound inequality for the most disadvantaged large ethnicities, African-Americans and Hispanics.

Based on the housing affordability categories used in the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey for 2016 (Table 1), housing inequality by ethnicity is the worst among the metropolitan areas rated “severely unaffordable.” In these 11 major metropolitan area markets, the most highly regulated, median multiples (median house price divided by median household income) exceed 5.0. For African-Americans, the median priced house is 10.2 times median incomes. This is 3.7 more years of additional income than the overall average in these severely unaffordable markets, where median house prices are 6.5 times median household incomes. It is only marginally better for Hispanics, with the median price house at 8.9 times median household incomes, 2.4 years more than the average in these markets (Figure 1).

The comparisons with the 13 affordable markets (median multiples of 3.0 and less) is even more stark. For African-American households things are much better than in the more progressive and most expensive metropolitan areas. The median house prices is equal to 4.6 years of median income, 5.5 years less than in the severely affordable markets. Moreover, for African-Americans, housing affordability is only marginally worse than the national average in the affordable market.

Things are even better for Hispanics, who would find the median house price 3.8 times median incomes, 5.1 years less than in the severely affordable markets. This is better than the national average housing affordability.

Among the four markets rated “seriously unaffordable,” (median multiple from 4.1 to 5.0) the inequality is slightly less, with African-Americans finding median house prices equal to 2.2 years of additional income compared to average. The disadvantage for Hispanics is 1.5 years.

In contrast, inequality is significantly reduced in the less costly “moderately unaffordable” markets (median multiple of 3.1 to 4.0) and the “affordable” markets (median multiple of 3.0 and less).







The discussion below describes the 10 largest and smallest housing affordability gaps for African-American and Hispanic households relative to the average household, within the particular metropolitan markets. The gaps within ethnicities compared to the affordable markets would be even more. The four charts all have the same scale (a top housing affordability gap of 10 years) for easy comparison.

Largest Housing Affordability Gaps: African American

African-Americans have the largest housing affordability inequality gap. And these gaps are most evident in some of the nation’s most progressive cities. The largest gap is in San Francisco, where the median income African-American household faces median house prices that are 9.3 years of income more than the average. In nearby San Jose ranks the second worst, where the gap is 6.2 years. Overall, the San Francisco Bay Area suffers by far the area of least housing affordability for African-Americans compared to the average household.

Portland, long the darling of the international urban planning community, ranks third worst, where the median income African-American household to purchase the median priced house. Milwaukee and Minneapolis – St. Paul ranked fourth and fifth worst followed by Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Chicago (Figure 2).





Largest Housing Affordability Gaps: Hispanics

Two of the three worst positions are occupied by the two metropolitan areas in the San Francisco Bay Area. The worst housing affordability gap for Hispanics is in San Jose, a more than one-quarter Hispanic metropolitan area where the median income Hispanic household would require 5.0 years of additional income to pay for the median priced house compared to the average. Boston ranks second worst at 3.9. San Francisco third worst at 3.3 years. Providence and New York rank fourth and fifth worst. The second five worst housing inequality for Hispanics is in San Diego, Hartford, Rochester, Philadelphia and Raleigh (Figure 3).



The San Francisco Bay Area: “Inequality City”

Perhaps no part of the country is more renowned for its progressive politics and politicians than the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, in housing equality, the Bay Area is anything but progressive. If the African-American and Hispanic housing inequality measures are averaged, disadvantaged minorities face house prices that average approximately 6.25 years more years of median income in San Francisco and 5.60 more years of median income in San Jose.

Moreover, no one should imagine that recent state law authorizing a $4 billion “affordable housing” bond election will have any significant impact. According to the Sacramento Bee, voter approval would lead to 70,000 new housing units annually, when the need for low and very low income households is 1.5 million. The bond issue would do virtually nothing for the many middle-income households who are struggling to pay the insanely high housing costs California’s regulatory nightmare has developed.

Smallest Housing Affordability Gaps: African-American

Tucson has the smallest housing affordability gap for African-Americans. In Tucson, the median income African-American household would pay approximately 0.4 years (four months) more in income for the median priced house than the average household. In San Antonio, Atlanta and Tampa – St. Petersburg, the housing affordability gaps are under 1.0. Houston, Riverside – San Bernardino, Virginia Beach – Norfolk, Memphis, Dallas – Fort Worth and Birmingham round out the second five. It may be surprising that eight of the metropolitan areas with the smallest housing affordability gaps for African-Americans are in the South and perhaps most surprisingly of all that one of the best, at number 10, is Birmingham. (Figure 4).





Smallest Housing Affordability Gaps: Hispanic

Among Hispanic households, the smallest housing affordability gap is in Pittsburgh, where the median priced house would require less than 10 days more in median income for a Hispanic household compared the overall average. In Jacksonville the housing affordability gap for Hispanics would be less than two months. In Baltimore, Birmingham, St. Louis and Cincinnati, the median house price is the equivalent of less than six months of median income for an Hispanic household. Detroit, Memphis, Virginia Beach – Norfolk and Cleveland round out the ten smallest housing affordability gaps for Hispanics (Figure 5).





Housing Affordability is the Best for Asians

Recent American Community Survey data indicated that Asians have median household incomes a quarter above those of White Non-– Hispanics. This advantage is also illustrated in the housing affordability data. Asians have better housing affordability than White Non-– Hispanics in 37 of the 53 major metropolitan areas (over 1 million population).

The Importance of Housing Opportunity

Housing opportunity is important. African-Americans and Hispanics already face challenges given their generally lower incomes. However, by no serious political philosophy, progressive or otherwise, should any ethnicity find themselves even further disadvantaged by political barriers, such as have been created by over-zealous land and housing regulators.

Cross-posted at New Geography.

Wendell Cox a is visiting professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris

Smart Growth is just a new wave of Bland development.

Big Brother's warm embrace (yikes!)

I wonder how the new "communications system" in Marin is doing?

Capitalism is the greatest Antipoverty program with PROVEN results.

Dr. Yaron Brook is the president of the Ayn Rand Institute, here he argues with a smug student on the morality of capitalism. Clip from "Equal is Unfair - The Inequality Advantage" at The University of Exeter, to The Undergraduate and SEE Talks.

Imagine a World without Taxes

Mary Jane Burke, Marin County Superintendent of Schools makes an emotional plea to the Board of Supervisors to support a sales tax increase to pay for free preschool, childcare, healthcare and expanded social services for low income families.  Of course, most Marin families will not qualify for free benefits.  Many families must work two or more jobs just to pay for the essentials in Marin County.  Marin has the dubious distinction for having the highest property taxes in the State of California.  

Will California Ever Thrive Again?

Will California Ever Thrive Again?

July 7, 2016 11:23 am / Leave a Comment / victorhanson


The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites.
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

There was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed rail — before the first mile of track has been laid. One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the area soon.

Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason.

The basket of California state taxes — sales, income, and gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.

After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still being diverted to sea. Thousands of rural central-California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned because of a sinking aquifer and dry wells.

One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. Yet the state’s gas and electricity prices are among the nation’s highest.


One in four state residents was not born in the U.S. Current state-funded pension programs are not sustainable.

California depends on a tiny elite class for about half of its income-tax revenue. Yet many of these wealthy taxpayers are fleeing the 40-million-person state, angry over paying 12 percent of their income for lousy public services.

Public-health costs have soared as one-third of California residents admitted to state hospitals for any causes suffer from diabetes, a sometimes-lethal disease often predicated on poor diet, lack of exercise, and excessive weight.

Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the Los Angeles area are classified as hit-and-run collisions.

Grass-roots voter pushbacks are seen as pointless. Progressive state and federal courts have overturned a multitude of reform measures of the last 20 years that had passed with ample majorities.

In impoverished central-California towns such as Mendota, where thousands of acres were idled due to water cutoffs, once-busy farmworkers live in shacks. But even in opulent San Francisco, the sidewalks full of homeless people do not look much different.

What caused the California paradise to squander its rich natural inheritance?

Excessive state regulations and expanding government, massive illegal immigration from impoverished nations, and the rise of unimaginable wealth in the tech industry and coastal retirement communities created two antithetical Californias.

One is an elite, out-of-touch caste along the fashionable Pacific Ocean corridor that runs the state and has the money to escape the real-life consequences of its own unworkable agendas.

The other is a huge underclass in central, rural, and foothill California that cannot flee to the coast and suffers the bulk of the fallout from Byzantine state regulations, poor schools, and the failure to assimilate recent immigrants from some of the poorest areas in the world.

The result is Connecticut and Alabama combined in one state. A house in Menlo Park may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot. In Madera, three hours away, the cost is about one-tenth of that.

In response, state government practices escapism, haggling over transgender-restroom and locker-room issues and the aquatic environment of a three-inch baitfish rather than dealing with a sinking state.

What could save California?

Blue-ribbon committees for years have offered bipartisan plans to simplify and reduce the state tax code, prune burdensome regulations, reform schools, encourage assimilation and unity of culture, and offer incentives to build reasonably priced housing.

Instead, hypocrisy abounds in the two Californias.

If Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg wants to continue lecturing Californians about their xenophobia, he at least should stop turning his estates into sanctuaries with walls and security patrols. And if faculty economists at the University of California at Berkeley keep hectoring the state about fixing income inequality, they might first acknowledge that the state pays them more than $300,000 per year — putting them among the top 2 percent of the university’s salaried employees.

Immigrants to a diverse state where there is no ethnic majority should welcome assimilation into a culture and a political matrix that is usually the direct opposite of what they fled from.

More unity and integration would help. So why not encourage liberal Google to move some of its operations inland to needy Fresno, or lobby the wealthy Silicon Valley to encourage affordable housing in the near-wide-open spaces along the nearby I-280 corridor north to San Francisco?

Finally, state bureaucrats should remember that even cool Californians cannot drink Facebook, eat Google, drive on Oracle, or live in Apple. The distant people who make and grow things still matter.

Elites need to go back and restudy the state’s can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government — at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity, and homes; safe roads; and competitive schools.

Idiocracy, Novato candidate makes tough decisions by asking "smart people"

Kevin Morrison candidate for Novato City Council explains that he builds consensus by "listening to smart people" and patronizing his opponents with empty words. He will dismiss costs and risks to the community because "smart people" told him the right thing to do. The man is either a genius or a fool.