Friday morning headlines

Immigration deal: Lots of coverage about the Senate/White House compromise that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. provided they report to authorities and pay a $5,000 fine. This could be a good thing for employers of low-skilled workers - many of them in our fair city - because it supposedly would assure them a steady supply of legal labor. But that assumes, among other things, that workers are able to shell out five grand. In the future, immigrants would rely on some cockamamie point system to determine who is deemed a better or worse candidate for citizenship. "Are only rocket scientists going to get in?" Laura Reiff of the Essential Workers Immigration Coalition told the WSJ. Another option might be a guest-worker program in which 400,000 workers are admitted each year on two-year visas and matched with employers who have proved they can't find workers in the U.S. Guest workers could renew their visas twice, but would have to leave for a year each time. Anyone who didn't leave when the visa expired would be barred permanently from re-entering the U.S. So you can see how byzantine this thing is - as if the negotiators were trying to appease every single constituency in the debate, which of course is exactly what they were doing. And can you imagine the additional compromises once folks in the House get their mitts on this thing? This is looking more and more like the sequel to health care reform. NYT

Drop in new car sales: New registrations of cars and light trucks in L.A. and OC fell 5.6 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier (with a 10.8 percent drop in light trucks). Expect more year-over-year declines for the rest of the year, according to the California Motor Car Dealers Association. Among the factors cited: sluggish economic growth, high household debt levels, and a correction in the housing market. Plus, car sales have been through the roof for the past few years, so a cyclical downturn would not be that unusual. Compact SUVs had the biggest gains and full- and mid-sized SUVs had ther biggest losses.

Gas prices back off: Not a big surprise, given an increase in inventories on the West Coast. But don't expect to notice much change. The Auto Club's weekly survey shows that the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.462, which is two cents cheaper than last week, 15 cents higher than last month, and six cents above last year.

Refineries cleaning up: Well, what do you expect when gas prices are so high? The major gas refiners made about $10 billion from their refining operations domestically and abroad in the first quarter, up 50 percent from a year earlier. With lower-than-normal inventories, earnings should be even better in the second quarter. From the WSJ:

Refiners have been on a roller coaster since hurricanes slammed into the nation's refining belt along the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. Gasoline prices spiked above $3 a gallon. That led to a rise in what the industry calls the refining margin, or the difference between the price refiners pay for oil and the prices their fuels fetch. But gas prices eased, and refining margins collapsed in 2006. Supply-and-demand economics aren't the only forces behind the current rise in fuel prices. Hedge funds and other investors have plunged into the gasoline futures market in recent years, creating more volatility and magnifying price swings. "The fundamental factors don't come close to justifying either the current peak in margins, or even the elevation of margins of the last two to three years," says Mark Gilman, analyst at financial broker Benchmark Co.

Houses more affordable: Yeah, sure. In the first quarter, only 80 percent of L.A. County households couldn't afford a median priced home, instead of 81 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006. In the first quarter a year ago, it was 79 percent. So we're not talking major breakthroughs here. Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist at the California Association of Realtors, said potential buyers are still waiting for a big price slide but that's not likely as long as the economy stays in relatively good shape. Daily News

Early dock talks: Conciliatory words of the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union are quite a contrast to the rancor of 2002, when a contract dispute shut down the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for 11 days. The current contract doesn't expire until next year, but both sides agreed to get things started early. With the ports doing blockbuster business, it's probably in the interest of both sides to keep the docks humming. AP

Saban sells landmark estate: It's in Acapulco, but it has strong ties to Hollywood. The three-acre compound, in the gated Las Brisas community, is where Warner Communications, under the stewardship of the late Steve Ross, entertained clients and celebrities, including Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg. Under pressure from shareholders, the renamed Time Warner sold the property in the late 1990s to L.A. billionaire Haim Saban for $7 million. He's now asking $12 million. WSJ

Imus still battling: At least according to the NY Post, which reports that his attorneys have not yet filed a lawsuit against CBS because they want to use it as leverage for some kind of reinstatement (what planet are these guys on?) The Imus legal team says there's a clause in his contract that stipulates he must be warned before being fired. CBS says there are at least four provisions in Imus' contract that would allow CBS to terminate him without notice. Of course, just because he won't be back at CBS doesn't mean he's out of the biz; the Post says he's been contacted by other radio networks, and while there’s a lot of spin behind that sourceless contention, would anybody be surprised to see the return of Imus?