- New college freshmen show scant knowledge about or commitment to free speech. How’d that happen? [Howard Gillman and Erwin Chemerinsky, L.A. Times via Josh Blackman] New Gallup survey of students on campus speech [Knight Foundation and report] Greg Lukianoff (FIRE) interviewed [Fault Lines]
- Senior Ohio State administrator coolly advises protesters that not retreating from their “occupied space” will involve getting arrested and expelled [Eric Owens, Daily Caller]
- Mizzou’s chief diversity officer asked university administration to assist protesters with logistics. And it did. [Jillian Kay Melchior, Heat Street]
- No, the regents of a public university should not be saying that “anti-Zionism” has “no place at the University of California.” [Eugene Volokh]
- “In Her Own Words: Laura Kipnis’ ‘Title IX Inquisition’ at Northwestern” [FIRE interview, earlier] Title IX complainant at U.Va.: that mural must go [Charlotte Allen, IWF]
- National Coalition Against Censorship, AAUP, FIRE, and Student Press Law Center voice opposition to calls to ban anonymous speech apps such as Yik Yak on campus [NCAC, College Fix, earlier]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
April 20 roundup
- HBO back with “Confirmation” docudrama on the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill episode and Stuart Taylor, Jr. not greatly impressed [Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist]
- Another rogue Eastern District of Texas patent outcome falls, this time it’s Google for $85 million [Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica] “New Bill Designed To Stop Egregious Venue Shopping By Patent Trolls” [Nathan Leamer and Zach Graves, TechDirt]
- “Life in California — A Tax on a Tax” [Coyote]
- Washington Post looks at jury nullification in multi-part series;
- Michael Greve recommends this article on unorthodox methods of lawmaking and administrative law, and his recommendation is good enough for me [Abbe Gluck, Anne Joseph O’Connell, and Rosa Po, SSRN]
- Are public bureaucracies really a fount of innovation? Not really, despite vogue for new Marianna Mazzucato book The Entrepreneurial State [Alberto Mingardi, EconLog]
Update: California high court rules on “suitable seating”
Most major retailing chains have been sued under one or another of two California laws providing that workers who otherwise would spend most of the day on their feet must be given suitable seating when “the nature of the work” permits it. The scope of the law’s application had been ambiguous, but now the California high court has ruled and trial lawyers are apparently pleased with its answers. [Lisa Nagele-Piazza, BNA Daily Labor Report] More: Coyote.
Estimate: $15 wage to cost California taxpayers $3.6 billion/year
The state of California’s legislative analyst projects that raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, as a pending deal among political bigwigs would do, would cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more a year in government pay [Associated Press] Related: California plan an experiment that’s sure to generate interesting data, too bad it’s being conducted on real people [David Henderson] “Labor is not a commodity like bread or electronics,” moralists claim. Funny how it is subject to economic laws all the same [Coyote]
More: “The $15 minimum wage sweeping the nation might kill jobs — and that’s okay.” So now they tell us [Lydia DePillis/WaPo via Noah Rothman, Commentary] Data from Europe: Steve Hanke, Cato 2014.
California: we’ll make our citizens guinea pigs for $15 minimum
California political leaders have agreed on a deal that will lead to imposing a $15 minimum wage statewide, not only in San Francisco and San Jose, where the median wage is expected by 2022 to be $34-37, but also in Fresno and Chico, where the projected median wage in that year is around $20. [Noam Scheiber and Ian Lovett, New York Times]
Cities with high real estate prices are typically better able to withstand minimum wage increases than cities with low prices, because wages represent a smaller fraction of a business’s overall cost in those cities and therefore have a smaller effect on the bottom line….
Craig Scharton, the owner of a farm-to-table restaurant called Peeve’s Public House in downtown Fresno, said he was still smarting from a recent increase in the minimum wage from $9 to $10 an hour. He said the increase had forced him to close on Mondays and Tuesdays and played a role in reducing his staffing to a dozen today from 18 two and a half years ago.
Mr. Scharton was at a loss to explain how he would absorb the new increase. “We’re trying our best to revitalize downtown,” he said. “This just kind of kicks our legs out from under us.”
More: Scott Shackford/Reason, Preston Cooper/Economics 21, Charles Hughes/Cato, Timothy Lee/Vox, Ira Stoll (role of Berkeley “radical economist” Michael Reich).
Debra Saunders on California vehicle ticketing
The closer to sheer revenue maximization, the farther from justice: “California is filled with people who are one traffic ticket away from losing their means of independent transportation. They get a ticket for a busted tail light or a small-change moving violation. On paper, the fine is $100, but with surcharges, it’s more like $490. …In 2013, more people — 510,811 — had their licenses suspended for not paying fines than the 150,366 who lost their licenses for drunken driving.” [San Francisco Chronicle]
Danger: out-of-state geologists!
Occupational licensure, defended: “All those geology companies in Georgia and Alabama that have that certificate of authorization under their state will come into Florida to do that work and then our geologists will end up unemployed.” [Jim Ash, WFSU]
Related: “California’s Bipartisan Push Against Occupational Licensing” [Steven Greenhut, Reason]
“The case against mandatory seat-belt laws”
The federal seat-belt-law mandate was the result of a 1980s deal between Reagan-era Transportation secretary Elizabeth Dole (proof, long before Mayor Bloomberg, that nanny-state tendencies transcend partisan labels) and Detroit automakers, who calculated that regulating their customers would help stave off regulating their own design decisions. And now? Less individual liberty, more scope for police discretion, and in some states a taste for revenue: “In California, a single seat-belt violation can be as much as $490.” [Radley Balko] Earlier on mandatory seat belt usage laws here, here (“saturation detail” police stops), here, etc. (“doggie seat belt” laws), here (Germany: Pope in Popemobile), here, and here (England: Santa’s sleigh), among others.
They Came To Stay VI: co-owner feud on Telegraph Hill
He came to stay: “A Telegraph Hill resident who was squabbling with his building co-owners allegedly duped them into renting him their unit by using a false identity on Airbnb, according to a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court. Then, after two months in the apartment, he claimed he qualified for tenants’ rights and said he planned to stay indefinitely.” [San Francisco Chronicle, earlier in series]
Banking and finance roundup
- “The business model of Wall Street is fraud” line is, well, vintage B.S. (that’s Bernie Sanders to you) [Steve Chapman/Chicago Tribune, Bret Stephens/WSJ. More: “Sorry Bernie, Wall Street Wasn’t Deregulated Pre-Crash” [Jared Meyer, Forbes]
- Auto lender shakedowns by Obama CFPB and DoJ continue, latest is Toyota for $21.9 million [WSJ] “Obama bullied bank to pay racial settlement without proof: report” [Paul Sperry, New York Post]
- Delaware Chancery Court takes step toward countering plaintiff lawyers who sue on almost every deal, still has many miles to go [Ronald Barusch, WSJ “Dealpolitik”]
- New York Times endorses financial transactions tax with unconvincing regulatory rationale [Peter Van Doren/Cato, earlier]
- California insurance commissioner pushes politicized investing, which can actually complicate solvency risk by harming portfolio diversification [Business Insider]
- “Smaller community banks appear to have a valid concern that their compliance burden is rising and the playing field is becoming more uneven” [Preston Ash, Christoffer Koch and Thomas Siems, Dallas Fed via Kevin Funnell] Marshall Lux/Robert Greene study ties trend to Dodd-Frank law [Harvard Kennedy School via Todd Zywicki]
- Laws against money laundering hurt more good guys than bad guys, latest installment [Jeff Miron, Cato]