Welcome to us.

That's California for welcome to the February 16th edition of National Reviews Radio Free California Podcast.

I'm Will Swain, CEO of the California Policy

Center. You can find my colleagues and me at California PolicyCenter.org. You can find my friend

and co-host David Bonson right here. He's an economist. He's host of the Capital Record podcast,

also available on National Review, and everywhere fine podcasts are given away for free. He's also the author of the book

full-time, Work in the Meaning of Life. That'll become relevant here in just a moment. And of course,

he's founder of the eponymous investment firm, the Bonson Group. Hello, David. Hello, Will.

How are you, my friend? Lovely, thank you. You're out in New York, so you, I'm sure you know,

we are getting just pounded by rain.

It's absolutely lovely, always a gift from God.

I just love rainy days.

But we are, we're getting really soaked out here.

How's things out there?

It's not as cold as it was a couple weeks ago.

It was, you know, one of the coldest winters for New York in 30 years. But this is

really pleasant. It's, you know, like 30, something like that. So...

Do I see blue sky peeking out behind you on the skyline there? Gorgeous outside. Very, very clear day,

yeah. Wow. Lovely. All right. Well, later in the show, David, I'm going to run our conversation, a conversation I had with Lance Christensen, our VP of Education Policy. And it's, I got to say, one of the best conversations with Lance I've ever had recorded or otherwise, just really illuminating on recent events. Lots of big news to report there. Before we move on, though, to the

news of California, well, I think this is news of California. I just wanted to point out that

sometimes we get email from people who say that you are far too cynical, far too skeptical about

California. You are a pessimist. And I just want to read the headline from a news item here.

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