787 Dreamliner teaches Boeing costly lesson on outsourcing
February 15, 2011
The biggest mistake people make when talking about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs by U.S. companies is to treat it as a moral issue.
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Groupon and Facebook valuations: A new paradigm or return to insanity?
February 11, 2011
I am now officially terrified.
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What California should learn from the Texas budget crisis
February 9, 2011
Billions of dollars in government red ink. Classroom spending near the bottom of national rankings and heading down. Desperate appeals to Uncle Sam for emergency funds to stave off cuts to the poor and elderly.
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A damning post-mortem of the financial meltdown
February 6, 2011
The public reaction to major man-made disasters always follows the same life cycle: First come shock and outrage, then demands for investigation and retribution against the guilty, and finally resignation about God's mysterious ways, fatigue and ennui.
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L.A. officials' unseemly glorification of the NFL
February 2, 2011
There are several cardinal rules governing public works projects that smart municipal leaders have learned from grim experience. Here are the most important:
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Time to shine a harsh light on California's redevelopment agencies
January 30, 2011
Nobody expected Gov. Jerry Brown's first budget to be a painless affair, not least because he announced in advance that it would be ugly.
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Regulators have little power over health insurance rate increases
January 25, 2011
Big, powerful industries facing tougher government oversight — the health insurance industry, say — know that the legislative battle in Congress or state capitals is just the first skirmish.
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Lap-Band maker Allergan wants it both ways
January 23, 2011
This year is shaping up as a gratifying one for Allergan, the big Irvine company known for Botox and breast implants.
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Comcast-NBC merger does nothing to enhance the public interest
January 1, 2011
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is poised to greenlight the proposed merger of the big cable company Comcast Corp. with the huge entertainment conglomerate NBC-Universal.
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Looking at the cloud from both sides now
December 28, 2010
You may have been too busy during this holiday season to notice, but while your back was turned a little bit of the cloud started to go away.
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2011 may be the year California gets smart about economic policies
December 24, 2010
As opinion pollsters and college professors know, the answer you get is always heavily dependent on how you put the question. For the better part of the last decade, we've been asking the wrong questions about our state's economic future, and naturally getting the wrong answers.
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Car dealer gets a front-seat view of 'uncertainty' in the economy
December 22, 2010
The closest thing there may be to a certainty in Southern California business (death and taxes aside) is that there will always be a Casa de Cadillac.
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Scrutiny of Lap-Band enterprise is overdue
December 19, 2010
The tragedy of Ana Renteria's life was in the way it ended: her body ravaged by infection 10 days after she had the Lap-Band weight-loss operation advertised on those billboards and radio spots bearing the phone number 1-800-GET-THIN.
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Social Security payroll tax cut is no way to give workers a break
December 14, 2010
There are reasons to like the tax-cut deal President Obama reached with Republican congressional leaders this month, and reasons to dislike it.
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Flipping through e-readers, a skeptic becomes a believer
November 28, 2010
The last time I was stuck somewhere without a book to read was 1988. The place was Homa Bay, a village on the Kenyan shore of Lake Victoria that I wouldn't be leaving for five days at the minimum, with lots of downtime in store.
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Book review: 'Common as Air' by Lewis Hyde
October 31, 2010
Common as Air
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All-electric claims for Chevy Volt fire up GM's critics
October 24, 2010
To understand the furor that erupted recently when General Motors rolled out its new electric car, the Chevy Volt, for its public debut, it pays to keep the following fact in mind: For electric car enthusiasts, GM is a company with blood on its hands.
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Is UC regent's vision for higher education clouded by his investments?
July 14, 2010
Conflicts of interest almost always involve money, but sometimes they raise more questions about the subjects' perspective than about their wallets.
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Corporate welfare and California's budget deficit
June 18, 2010
I believe we can all agree on the root cause of the state's $20-billion budget gap.
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Corporate power grabs on the California ballot: What do we learn?
June 12, 2010
We may finally have discovered a remedy for corporate executives with more greed than brains: Let them invest corporate funds by the millions in California ballot initiatives, then vote the things down.
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Coffeepot maker vents about doing business in California
July 30, 2009
Wilbur D.Curtis invented the globular glass coffeepot, that staple of coffee counters everywhere, in 1940. Since then his son and grandsons have turned Wilbur Curtis Co. into a manufacturing concern that earns revenue approaching $100 million by turning out commercial coffee brewing equipment from a sprawling factory in Montebello.
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CalPERS appears to be a willing victim
July 27, 2009
Students of the fine art of pointing fingers know that the key thing is to not make yourself look like an idiot in the process.
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File California tax system revision effort under flawed
July 20, 2009
In these budget-crisis days, when California citizens showing true public spirit are thin on the ground, I propose a tip of the hat to Gerald L. Parsky.
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It's time to close a big tax loophole for businesses
July 13, 2009
Of all the ways in which California residents have slit their fiscal throats over the last 30 years, surely the most inexplicable is the bestowal of a gaping tax loophole on commercial and industrial property owners.
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Mercury General using guise of benevolence to assault Prop. 103
July 2, 2009
The art of setting automobile insurance rates is incomprehensible to most of us civilians. Liability coverage, comprehensive insurance, assigned risk pools, discounts, surcharges . . . the list goes on. Just try to figure out how your carrier arrived at the figure at the bottom of your itemized bill -- I know nuclear physicists who can't do that math.
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A California tax on oil drilling? Why not?
June 15, 2009
The most persistent misconception about Californians is that we hate to raise taxes. The truth is that we adore raising taxes -- as long as someone else is paying, that is.
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In-N-Out: Can perfection survive?
May 7, 2009
My life as a fast-food consumer pretty much ended the moment my kids became old enough to drive themselves to the nearest hamburger stand.
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Apple's condition linked to Steve Jobs' health
January 5, 2009
Some important questions can't be asked without sounding crass and insensitive. But there's no way around asking this one that's on everybody's mind, so here goes:
