Previously published on September 2, 2015 on Fox and Hounds As California weathers its fourth straight year of extreme drought, policy makers and their cheerleaders continue to scapegoat California’s agricultural industry. Writing in the Sacramento Bee, economist Christopher Thornberg, for example, refers to the industry as “feckless” and advocates using eminent domain to seize farmers’… Read more

The Federal Open Market Committee began its two day September meeting yesterday, where it will consider raising the short-term policy rate, or the guidance on that rate. It has been nine years since the committee has raised this rate. The prospect of higher rates has financial markets and their commentators very nervous. The rate-raising event,… Read more

John C. (Jack) Bogle graduated from Princeton University in 1951 and founded The Vanguard Group, Inc. in 1974. In 1975, Vanguard introduced the first so-called “Index Fund” based on the Standard and Poor 500 (S&P500) stock index. The S&P500 is a market capitalization weighted average of 500 of the largest stocks that trade on the… Read more

Previously published on August 29, 2015 on NewGeography.com I recently made a couple of tweets/Facebook posts pointing out that market declines threaten California’s budget surplus. I referenced articles in the WSJ and Bloomberg, and I thought the observation was non-controversial—almost banal. So I was surprised at the feedback. One person asked why. Another said it… Read more