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California Unions Uber Alles?
In the media coverage of the presidential election, one state that is unlikely to get much attention is California, which appears to be solidly in…
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UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm To Step Down Following Turbulent Tenure
John Wilhelm, the long-time president of the union UNITE HERE, has just announced he plans to step down. Union leadership changes are not often…
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RIP Prince Roy of Sealand, Seasteading Pioneer
For as long as there have been states, there have been people seeking to escape state authority. Throughout most of history, such escape has meant…
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State Pension Bailout Threat
The state pension underfunding crisis has grown so severe that it has prompted most U.S. states to cut benefits, according to calculations by The…
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California Pension Reform Plan A Step In The Right Direction But Not Enough
California Governor Jerry Brown (D) yesterday announced a pension reform agreement, which if approved by the legislature, likely will help narrow the Golden State’s…
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New Moody’s Standards Give Clearer Picture Of Public Pension Crisis
The public pension funding crisis has led to a vigorous debate over how those pension liabilities are valued and how large they are. The debate…
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Struggle Over Union-Owned Bank Is A Sign Of Union Weakness
Shifting deposits to the union-owned Amalgamated Bank has become a leftist cause celebre, as several Democratic and progressive groups try to be seen as…
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The Great Hollywood Swindle
When is a market not a real market? When it trades in fake goods — products or services that could not exist if government didn’t…
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Maryland’s Public Pension Debacle Is Likely to Repeat Itself
The Maryland public employee pension system announced this week that it had achieved a dismal return rate on its investments of 0.36 percent — a…
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Pension Fund Activism Threatens Workers’ Retirement Security — And Taxpayers
While the underfunding of union pensions cannot be ascribed to any one cause, there is one that is troubling because it is so avoidable: pension…
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To Fix The PBGC, Free Its Premiums
Setting the heavily underfunded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on a sound financial footing has got to be one of the toughest jobs anywhere. The…
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The Coming Public Pension Meltdown
While the impact of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s (GASB) new public pension reporting requirements won’t be known for some time, some indications of its…
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Unions: Political by Nature
Two items in The Wall Street Journal today highlight a feature of organized labor that distinguish it from other special interests: Unions, as they have existed in…
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Politicians’ Incentives to Give in to Government Union Demands
In his column today, George Will identifies a key problem in addressing overly generous government employee compensation: incentives. While he rightly places the blame…
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Former GAO Auditor: Public Pension Underfunding Worse than Pew Estimates
This week, GASB approved new standards that would require state pensions that are less than 80 percent funded to base income projections on lower — more…
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Highway Bill Would Continue Pension Underfunding Shell Game
As if the Senate Highway Bill (S. 1813) could not become more of a lumbering monster, along comes its Section 40312, which allows "pension…
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The Growing Threat of a PBGC Bailout
Everyone hates a bailout. Or at least that's what everyone says, until circumstances force some business leaders to seek them and politicians to grant them…
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Will New GASB Rules End States’ Fuzzy Pension Math?
Today, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) voted to approve new government accounting standards that will provide a clearer picture of the liabilities taxpayers across the…
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The Myopia of “Green” Business at Rio+20
If cliches carry a grain of truth, the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished,” carries a silo in the business world. One of the sorriest…
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Supreme Court Rules against Union Forced Speech
Thomas Jefferson said that, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and…
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To Reform Public Pensions, Reform GASB Rules
Many public pension plans in the United States make riskier investments than plans in Canada and Europe, according to a new study by researchers…
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From One Nobel Prize Winner to Another: Vernon Smith on Elinor Ostrom’s Contribution to Economics
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In New York, a Private/Public Sector Union Rift
The fact that government employee unions have been at the center of budget debates across the nation underscores their outsize influence on state and local…
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Seasteading for Enterprise on the High Seas
Complete exit from the state has long been a dream of many libertarians. From the defunct Republic of Minerva (perhaps the only nation every to…
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Union Leaders, Not Members, Determine Union Political Donations
Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum dismisses the fact that 38 percent of Wisconsin union households voted to retain Governor Scott Walker as “exactly the…
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Taxpayers Win as Dulles Rail Drops Pro-Union Contracting Rules
In a win for Old Dominion taxpayers, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) yesterday rescinded a pro-union project labor agreement (PLA) for the building of the Metro…
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George Will Makes the Case for the REINS Act
In his column today, George Will makes the case for Congress to take responsibility for the enormous costs which regulation imposes on American businesses…
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After Wisconsin, whither Government Unions ?
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s victory in a recall election at which organized labor threw everything but the kitchen sink will likely encourage lawmakers in other…
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In Confronting Unions, Walker Further than Reagan
When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker first put forward his public sector labor reform, organized labor and its allies tried to portray the legislation -- especially…
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Causes of Public Pension Underfunding Are Not Hard to Identify
As if on cue, nearly every time state and local government officials try to rein in public employee pension costs in order to bring their…