Monday morning headlines

Stocks creeping up: Dow gains about 80 points after two hours.

Budget battle continues: More legislative maneuvering over the weekend, with Democrats in the Assembly trying to somehow approve a budget package with only a majority vote instead of the two-thirds vote that has blocked most budget plans. From the Sacto Bee:

While tax hikes normally require a two-thirds' approval, Democrats argued that by eliminating an 18-cent-per-gallon excise tax on gasoline, the net revenue to the state becomes zero and thus doesn't represent a tax hike. Sunday's bills would then replace the excise tax with an equivalent fee, which Democrats argue does not require a two-thirds' vote.

New talk about Prop 13: Yes, things have gotten so bad that some lawmakers are at least considering adjustments to the 31-year-old law. The initiative fixed the rate of property tax increases and required a two-thirds majority of the Legislature to raise taxes and approve state budgets. From the SF Chronicle:

Terri Sexton, a professor of economics at Cal State Sacramento and an expert on the measure, said "the only time you have a chance at some kind of reform is in the middle of a crisis." While Sexton and a few other analysts think the state's current crisis may provide a brief window of discussion, some of them wonder if there is the political will to do more than pay lip service to the stream of suggestions for fixing the state's financial mess.

Audit blasts Olvera Street operator: El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument is charging most of the merchants below-market rents and low maintenance fees that forces the city to subsidize the tourist destination by almost $1 million a year. From the Downtown News:

El Pueblo, a collection of shops and cultural attractions on the site of the city's birthplace, operates as a city department with an annual budget of $4.1 million. It contains four museums and five parking lots with 74 stores on Olvera Street. It draws more than 2 million visitors a year. Despite Olvera Street's popularity, the department requires a subsidy every year from the city. In fiscal year 2007-08, the department earned $3.3 million, with about $2 million generated from parking and about $840,000 from rent paid by merchants.

Koreatown bank shuttered: Wilshire State Bank takes over the operations of tiny Mirae Bank, which was seized by federal regulators late Friday. Mirae is the sixth bank in California to be taken over this year. (Business Journal)

Park Fifth up for sale: There's no asking price for the long-stalled 76-story mixed-use project across from Pershing Square. Any prospective owners would have a tough time finding financing, but much of the approval process has been completed. (Business Journal).

Zucker unhappy with Universal: The NBC Universal head is sending out the company's CFO to have a look, the NY Post reports, though it's unclear from the story about how unusual a move this is. He wants to know the process for greenlighting movies and determining production and marketing budgets.

Early "Bruno" review: The latest from Sacha Baron Cohen gets only a lukewarm notice from Variety's Todd McCarthy:

Undeniably funny, outrageous and boundary-pushing, this further documentation of 's sheer nerve will draw an abundant share of "Borat" fans, gross-out seekers and the culturally curious, making for some potent B.O. figures, at least at first. But the content will turn off some (no doubt including some gays), as will the sourness and ill will triggered by the picture's cumulative misanthropy.