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LA Biz Observed archive
Mark Lacter covered business, the economy and more here from 2006 until his death on Nov. 13, 2013.
The entire LA Biz Observed archive — more than 10,000 blog posts by Mark —
remains online and available.
July 2009
Good luck figuring out where growth is headed. It'll either be terrific, horrible or so sluggish that many of us won't even notice.
Earnings offer hope, Southwest interest in Frontier questioned, Platinum Equity looks at BW, and gas prices edge higher.
The economy was still contracting in the second quarter, but only at an annual rate of 1 percent, a huge improvement from the previous three months.
The Daily Show offers a very funny take on Treasury Secretary's Tim Geithner's unsuccessful efforts to sell his home in Larchmont, N.Y.
The Mouse House saw Q3 slippage in almost every area: networks, studio operations, parks and resorts, and even interactive.
Dow finishes up 84 points, about half of what it had climbed to earlier in the session. Still shapes up to be the best July since 1939. Index at 9154.
There's so much slack in the system that when the economy does begin to grow business owners won't be under much pressure to increase wages.
Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and the consumer electronics trade Twice are being put on the block by Reed Elsevier, parent of Variety.
L.A. not a foreclosure hot spot, mass layoffs in CA, PennyMac goes public, and airlines clean up on cancellations.
Asked about Jay's new show at 10 p.m., Joan tells TV critics, "America can get bored more easily and go to sleep earlier."
Here's the story of an Ernst & Young partner who was foolish enough to log onto a Web site for married people looking to have affairs. And then...
That would be Mike Milken, who is financing a business advice site where executives at small and mid-sized companies can pose questions.
Budget cuts hurt L.A., Madoff speaks, Marciano loses suit, and Avery Dennison pays fine.
L.A. unemployment is likely to top out at 13 percent, and the area won't see significant growth until the fourth quarter of 2010.
Sometimes this city does stuff that's so dumb and irresponsible you just want to scream.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger finally signed the budget but he cut hundreds of millions of dollars in state spending.
The one-time president of Countrywide is taking public a firm that buys distressed loans on the cheap and collects a return on the debt.
Parent company of the LAT, now in bankruptcy protection, has asked for four additional months to file a reorganization plan.
L.A. home prices stabilize, traders pushed up oil prices, governor makes more cuts in budget, and B of A to close branches.
In Japan, where office jobs are tough to come by, hostessing has become a reasonable alternative.
Entertainment lawyers tell the National Law Journal that the recession is eating into the number and value of deals.
More questions about whether Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd knew they were getting preferential treatment from Countrywide Financial.
Historian Kevin Starr thinks the latest budget agreement could become a watershed event for the state - in a good way.
Banks still slow on lending, SD condos sit vacant, CA could be hot real estate market in 2010, and network ad rates get cut.
He'll be leaving his post as co-chairman of NBC Universal Entertainment to start up a new venture in partnership with Barry Diller's IAC.
Non-payroll jobs like freelancers, independent contractors and laborers are becoming more prominent within the local workforce.
You mean that state lawmakers haven't a clue about how to handle the budget because they lack experience? Like, what a surprise!!!!
Some house offers continue to beat asking prices - and a lot of the action is in Socal. Why? Bargain foreclosures and sought-after neighborhoods.
The Assembly rejected a proposal to take $1 billion in transportation funding from local governments. Also turned down was allowing oil drilling off the coast.
It's looking as if circulation revenue will pass ad revenue for the first time. At the OC Register, classifieds are starting to look up.
Director Kevin Smith says of the masses attending this year's conclave in San Diego: "You just have to be glad that these folks aren't organized."
CA Senate passes budget plan, 7-Elevens sprouting all over L.A., Denny's sued over salt, and OC payrolls shrink.
Whether the WSJ.com's online model can be adapted for general news sites has been a long-running question in journalism circles.
CA Controller John Chiang doesn't know if the state will have enough cash to repay those IOUs when they become redeemable on Oct. 2.
The state's budget proposal is actually made up of 28 separate bills, many of which have not been gone over by lawmakers and some of which barely have been written.
CA budget vote tonight, big drop in location shooting, LAX traffic falls, and Disney considers paid site.
The new field is in Kern County and could contain 150 to 250 million barrels of oil and gas - the largest new oil and gas discovery made in California in more than 35 years.
L.A. County is not in the top 10. Actually, it's fairly far down the list, with an average weekly wage in the fourth quarter of $1,075.
California saw a slight drop in foreclosure proceedings during the April-June quarter compared with the prior three months, but the numbers remain higher than last year.
The numbers, however, are relatively unchanged - perhaps surprising for a state that supposedly is on the brink of collapse.
More opposition to budget deal, grim economic forecast for L.A., shortfall in Long Beach, and East West Bank raising money.
As expected, September ad pages are looking pretty bleak - and September is typically the fattest month of the year.
With unemployment likely to remain in the double-digit range well into next year (perhaps even into 2011), it wouldn't take much to upend any meager expansion.
They say they'll go to court if state lawmakers pursue plans to seize local redevelopment and highway taxes to cover the budget deficit.
California's giant pension fund saw its value fall by $56 billion from the previous fiscal year. Real estate took a huge hit.
Well, lots - a still-sour economy, a dysfunctional state government, and enough accounting tricks to impress Bernie Madoff.
Bernanke says economy show signs of stabilizing, CA lawmakers consider budget package, and Lennar buys into Newhall (again).
As expected, poor people, old people and school-age people will be hardest hit. The agreement could go before the full legislature later this week.
Dr. Doom tells CNBC that the economy is no longer in freefall (that's the good news), but that the recovery is going to be "very ugly."
Owners of the 400-room Dana Point property have been negotiating for weeks with mezzanine lender Citigroup, but they apparently couldn't come to terms.
Several lawmakers say they're confident that a deal can be reached later today and voted on by both houses of the legislature by Thursday.
They're offering to help modify the bum mortgages that they worked on in the first place - and they're pretty upfront about it.
Closing in on budget deal, studios go after Jackson film, more troubles commercial real estate, and VC's reluctant to invest.
It'll keep accepting the registered warrants for another week, to July 24. This is the second IOU extension
Gardena mattress retailer Sit `n Sleep is phasing out Irwin, who would always have a conniption when the prices got too low.
L.A. County's rate fell to 11.3 percent from a revised 11.6 percent the previous month, but it might just be the result of fewer people looking for work.
California's unemployment rate in June was 11.6 percent, up a shade from the previous month.
More bank profits (sort of), another Furlough Friday for CA, new woes for videogames, and a boost in DVD rentals.
The June numbers were down 12.7 percent from a year earlier. Inbound was off 17.1 percent and outbound 9 percent.
A bankruptcy filing by CIT Group could have huge consequences on the fashion business, much of it involving small manufacturers based in L.A.
Charles Schwab pulled its sponsorship from a CNBC documentary on the porn industry, only to be brown-nosed by one of the network's reporters.
Prices are especially low for a July, which is normally the peak of the summer driving season.
Tech eminence Chris Anderson says there are two main problems with newspapers: The news and the paper.
Strong earnings at JP Morgan Chase, budget talks continue in Sacramento, big Boeing deal for El Segundo, and Wal-Mart thinking green.
Hard to know whether this is real, but lawmakers and the governor keep saying that they're near a deal on the budget - perhaps as early as tonight.
Platinum Equity, the Bev Hills-based private equity firm that recently bought the SD Union-Tribune, is taking on the San Diego Reader.
The landmark downtown hotel at 5th and Main is being sold to affordable housing provider Amerland Group.
California's former treasurer will lead a new commission to examine the causes of the financial crisis.
June's median price of an L.A. County home was $320,000, according to Dataquick, up $20,000 from the previous month but still down $95,000 from June 2008.
Budget deal could be near, Kohl's takes over Mervyn's locations, more prime beef shows up in supermarkets, and Calpers sues over losses.
This time it's Moody's that has lowered California's credit rating two steps, to Baa1 from A2. That's three levels above junk bonds
June container traffic out of the Port of Long Beach fell 28.7 percent from a year earlier, an especially sharp drop that doesn't bode well for any near-term recovery.
The L.A.-based Spanish-language media giant, along with NY public radio station WNYC, will acquire the celebrated classical music station from the NYT.
Lots of interest in Thursday's Chris Anderson event, sponsored by the ALOUD Business Forum. I'm fresh out of passes....
Budget talks resume, another dip in gas prices, SFV office glut, and L.A. firms could be looking at BW.
He's headed to Butner, N.C. for a sentence of 150 years. Madoff will find himself earning pennies a day sweeping floors, cleaning toilets or working in the kitchen.
For those of us in a television daze over the weekend the sight of infomercials starring the legendary pitchman might have seemed, well, a little weird.
The attention he has received says a lot about how clueless the media and financial worlds continue to be about what's working and what isn't.
Web guru Chris Anderson will be talking about the free thing and other online matters this Thursday morning at another ALOUD Business Forum.
L.A. County filings for May jumped 72 percent from a year earlier. OC had a 61.6 percent increase. Nationally, the numbers were 37 percent higher than a year earlier.
Hope to hear from you. Address is twitter.com/LABizObserved....
Some progress in budget talks, housing market shows life, cruising opportunities at ports, and Abu Dhabi buys into Tesla.
Ticket sales for the Sacha Baron Cohen mock documentary tumbled 39 percent between Friday and Saturday, a sign of some seriously bad buzz.
New focus will be on accessing entertainment and related information (the social networking site had been headed in that direction for some time).
Not to sound like a broken record, but there is still no sense of urgency about resolving the crisis. Much of Sacramento is operating as if there were no crisis at all.
Perhaps we'll be seeing more dips in the coming weeks, what with the price of oil falling to around $60 a barrel.
Last night's power outage prompted the Department of Water and Power folks to tweet occasional updates on what had happened and the number of customers impacted.
Any person or firm offering to make a market in the IOUs - bringing buyers and sellers together - would have to register as a broker-dealer.
Barry Diller, appearing at the Allen & Co. get-together in Sun Valley, Idaho, expressed pessimism about the social network's prospects for making money.
Looks like another cost-cutting move by the paper's new owner, Bev Hills-based Platinum Equity. The building has 166,000 square feet of rentable space.
Things have definitely changed since the 1950s when the automaker thought nothing of using female hotties to plug their latest models.
The fresh fruit producer alleges in a Superior Court filing that it was defamed in Fredrik Gertten's documentary "Bananas." It's one more layer on an already convoluted case.
TMZ's Harvey Levin, fresh off his Michael Jackson scoops, says that covering celebrities requires the same skill set as covering the Iraq war, .
The city of L.A. should pay, of course. Sure, there's outrage over the costs of policing and other services. But in the life of a city stuff happens,
Gloomy news for shipping, lawmakers not budging on budget, L.A. traffic a little better but still bad, and Amgen has promising test results.
Things have definitely changed since the 1950s when the automaker thought nothing of using female hotties to plug their latest models.
We're hearing from lots of folks in their 40s, 50s and beyond - and less from those in their 20s who really didn't know much about him.
The central question continues to be when (or whether) the budget crisis will reach any sort of breaking point.
Columnist Bob Greene remembers the hoo-hah that took place in the days after that other king's death and sees some parallels to what's happening today.
Don't be misled by the anecdotal comments from out-of-town Jackson fans visiting L.A. to attend the memorial service - or at least to be part of the happening.
AEG Live, promoter of the Michael Jackson shows in London, stands to recoup a big chunk of its investment, thanks to insurance and two golden opportunities.
Banks were far more accommodating in 1992, the last time warrants had to be issued, and that laissez-faire stance might have delayed cutting a deal.
Most economists have very little good to say about the June unemployment and payroll numbers.
IOUs ready to be printed, feds tacking illegal workers, swindlers are on the loose, and big Wall Street bonuses are back.
Remember, though, that most of the forecasts had unemployment remaining high well into next year. In L.A., that means a double-digit jobless rate.
So far, it's only on a limited basis - through July 10. Still waiting for word from the other big banks.
A few small institutions say they will honor state-issued warrants from their customers, but the major players have not decided.
This time it's the soap and lotion seller Crabtree & Evelyn, which has locations in Century City, Glendale and Rolling Hills Estates.
Way slower than what the White House had been expecting at the beginning of the year, the result of depending on forecasting models that aren't reliable during a crisis.
IOUs getting readied, state deficit increases overnight, American Apparel probe over workers, and Wal-Mart pushes employer mandate.
Mark Lacter
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.The multi-talented Mark Lacter
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