Some good news, some bad news

I've got a couple of items today. The first one is short but highly interesting to me. The Economist, which at one time was a big global-warming alarmist journal, has had the guts to admit scientific studies show no rise in global temperatures over the past 15 years. I'll be anxious to see what Al Gore does with that information.

Secondly, there is an article in a local newspaper entitled "Stifled by Lack of Freedoms." The authors, professors of political science, have just written a new book entitled Freedom in the 50 States, in which they evaluate dozens of parameters to decide which states have more freedoms and which don't. Guess where California lands?

They point out nearly 2,000,000 California residents left the state between 2000 and 2010, representing a little over 4% of the state's 2000 population. In addition, the authors say Californians saw their real personal income shrink from 2000-2007 even before the great recession caused its damage. Only the state of Michigan (think Detroit) has a worse record.

So where does California land among the 50 states after the authors look at a wide array of numbers and policies around the nation? It's 49th on overall freedom, trailing only New York.

Why is California doing so badly? The authors claim it's due primarily to business regulation, where the state beats out the other 49 states for its onerous laws against business. It has strict local zoning regulations, the most expensive labor laws in the country, a high minimum wage, no right-to-work law, and costly workers compensation/short-term disability/family-leave mandates.

Then there's our court system. California's legal environment routinely ranks among the worst in the nation, which drives up liability insurance for businesses. It's estimated that California's poor tort system costs businesses and consumers around $10 billion per year.

California ranks low for other personal freedoms too. It has a high incarceration rate, tight gun laws, transfat ban, cigarette taxes, and regulations on drivers that all help drive down its personal freedom score.

The authors end by saying our loss of freedom here "costs Californians billions of dollars a year, makes their lives harder, and encourages more and more of them to move somewhere else."

And it's not going to get better. As long as our lives are run by the radical leftists in Sacramento, we have no chance of increasing our freedoms.