{"id":354775,"date":"2026-06-10T15:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354775\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T15:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T15:16:09","slug":"organized-money-california-dreamin-of-a-slush-fund-for-uber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354775\/","title":{"rendered":"Organized Money: California Dreamin\u2019 \u2026 of a Slush Fund for Uber"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is known as a bastion of blue-state values, but when you start to look at how the state\u2019s legislative sausage gets made, you notice how completely borked America\u2019s most populous regulatory state has become. Today on the show, we have Jamie Court, a consumer advocate and president and chairman of Consumer Watchdog, to break down California\u2019s weirdness and some of his organization\u2019s recent work.<\/p>\n

First, we discuss how industries like insurance and ridesharing have captured so much of the state legislature, before homing in on how Uber specifically is running laps around its own regulators, with a fresh, bonus slush fund to boot. Then we discuss robotaxis and the role of the California insurance commissioner, currently held by the embattled Ricardo Lara, and how future commissioners might help untangle this morass. Finally, we get into why gas prices are so much higher in California than elsewhere in the United States. And no, gas taxes aren\u2019t the whole story.<\/p>\n

Listen via\u00a0Apple<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>, or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"David\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDavid Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street\u2019s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller.
\n
\nHe can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by David Dayen\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Avatar\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatt Stoller\u00a0is research director at the American Economic Liberties Project\u00a0and the author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Matt Stoller\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California is known as a bastion of blue-state values, but when you start to look at how the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6919,7,9,8,3060,123768,3002,144693,1813,42681,3986],"class_list":["post-354775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-autonomous-vehicles","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-consumer-protection","tag-energy-the-environment","tag-insurance","tag-organized-money","tag-podcasts","tag-state-legislatures","tag-uber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}