Inside Higher Ed, Sept. 10, 2024 (Opinion)

Opinion: Tim Walz, China and Me

The choice of a vice presidential candidate with deep ties to China prompts Jeffrey Wasserstrom to reflect on trips taken and not. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UCI Chancellor’s Professor of history writes, “We live in an era of binary thinking and all-or-nothing stances, so I have been finding it hard to convey the nuanced thinking behind my position on the to-go-or-not-to-go question. … And I find myself in the position, for the first time in my life, of having some things in common with a candidate for vice president. Like Walz, I first went to the PRC [People’s Republic of China] at the age of 25 in a year associated with student protests.” 

The New York Times, Sept. 9, 2024 (Opinion)

Opinion: Higher Taxes Are on the Horizon. Don’t Let Them Spoil Your Retirement.

California’s generous supplement to the federal government’s earned-income tax credit is poorly designed, a new study says. California provides the biggest supplement of any state to its lowest-income workers. But the credit — which is intended to make working more remunerative — has no effect on the employment of less-skilled single mothers, according to the paper by David Neumark and Zeyu Li of University of California, Irvine. California’s supplement phases out rapidly as income rises, so it discourages recipients from earning more money, Neumark and Li found. 

The Orange County Register, Sept. 8, 2024 (Opinion)

Opinion: California’s COVID booster rates are dismal as new shot debuts. More sickness ahead?

UC Irvine epidemiologist and demographer Andrew Noymer [said] “During the Delta surge … it was clear COVID was going hell-for-leather. Now we get these surges, and it’s less predictable.” … “Unlike 2020 and some extent 2021, most people have had a COVID vaccine by now,” Noymer said. … “I still believe it reduces severity. I’d advise readers who haven’t gotten any to get on board. You could be saving your own, or someone else’s, Nana.”

Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9, 2024

Spotty redactions and public records reveal names of deputies in case against DA advisor

“This just shows how Attorney General Rob Bonta has wasted the time of several Los Angeles judges by asking them to keep these court records secret,” said Susan Seager, the UC Irvine law professor who has been fighting on behalf of the LA Public Press for the release of the deputies’ names since May. “Anyone can go to the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse today and find all the deputy lawsuits challenging their discipline and post them online. What happens in our public courts belongs to the public.”

Business Insider, Sept. 9, 2024

The cult of Nvidia 

Nvidia’s quarterly earnings reports have turned into a referendum on the future of the whole stock market and even the US economy — a highly anticipated financial event like the jobs report or an inflation print. … “There’s a lot of academic research about why retail investors buy stock, and the No. 1 attention grabber is big returns,” said Christopher Schwarz, a finance professor at the University of California Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business.