The website of local watchdog Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN) has a photo of executive director Michael Shames. Underneath, it says that Shames “serves as an expert witness and attorney on behalf of UCAN.” (Italics …

Over the past two years, the economy and stocks have generally gone in opposite directions. In the economy, we have suffered the steepest downturn and the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, but since early …

Once again, Americans are beginning to talk about guns versus butter. Do we want to remain a military superpower, or do we want our social safety net and our corporate welfare programs? In San Diego, …

For decades, financial carpetbaggers have pulled the wool over the eyes of the citizens of Borrego Springs, the unincorporated desert town of 2600 full-time residents in northeast San Diego County. Now Borregans hope that a …

On March 24, San Diegan Laura Perry received a letter from Kerry Steigerwalt’s Pacific Law Center, once San Diego’s best known, most notorious, and most aggressively advertised law firm. Perry, 73, had paid $2000 to …

We may not suffer an economic double dip, but we’re in for double trouble, and it could last several more years. Both in the nation and San Diego, recent signs of weakness portend more years …

"Speed is the name of the game,” boasted Jeffrey Lubin, head of a real estate lending operation, Scripps Investments & Loans, in a San Diego Magazine advertisement in September 2004. “We try to give real …

On May 11, the oft-bashed bureaucrats who supposedly regulate the securities industry finally could smile: the Justice Department convicted billionaire hedge fund operator Raj Rajaratnam of criminal insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which …

When subsidizing businesses to move to an area, paying $100,000 per job is generally considered quite high. But in wooing biotech-research facilities and companies, Florida has been paying much more than $1 million — repeat, …

On April 28, Carlsbad’s Michael T. Pines filed a lawsuit in bankruptcy court boasting that “Michael T. Pines is considered one of the few and earliest experts in the legal issues involved in the foreclosure …

"Root, root, root for the home team.” It’s a tuneful ditty to sing during the seventh inning stretch, but it won’t help Padres fans. They should really sing, “Pray, pray, pray for the umpires to …

Back in the Old West, watering of livestock was standard business practice. A cow would be bloated with water so it could be sold at a stiff price. Pretty soon, Wall Street learned how to …

WFP Securities is a brokerage house headquartered on Cornerstone Court in Sorrento Valley. It is one of an interlocking network of financial companies with offices mainly in Southern California. The brokerage boasts on its website, …

San Diego fat cats transformed the concept of redevelopment from help for the poor to welfare for the rich. They have a fear of Governor Jerry Brown, who wants to get rid of redevelopment agencies …

Is it drunk outside? Or is it just me? San Diegans are asking a similar question: political and civic leadership appears perpetually besotted. Is this a local phenomenon, or is it happening elsewhere? You’ll be …

Let the sunshine in. Well, partway, anyhow. Two prominent San Diego economists are bullish on local home prices, and because consumer spending relies greatly on home values, they are also optimistic on retail sales. Two …

In 1989, San Diego mayor Maureen O’Connor, daughter of a professional pugilist, donned her boxing gloves and jumped into the ring with SCE Corporation, a huge Los Angeles area utility (now named Edison International), which …

If the massive union workers’ protests radiate from Wisconsin and Ohio across the country, you can almost bet there is one metro area that won’t participate in large numbers: San Diego County. Across the nation, …

Back in 1950, almost 31 percent of working Americans had manufacturing jobs. Now the figure is below 10 percent. Many analysts put the blame on American companies that sent such jobs to low- and slave-wage …

Call me Little Mary Sunshine. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But I am beginning to believe that pro football’s domination of the national psyche peaked with this year’s Super Bowl. This can only be good news …

Daily newspapers still report titillating items regularly. Early in February, the shapely Lady Catarina Pietra Toumei was charged in Manhattan with claiming she was a representative of the storied Guggenheim family as she tried to …

"Bar launches Aguirre inquiry,” shouted a Union-Tribune headline November 20, 2007. It was followed by many others: “State bar seeks details of meeting with Aguirre” and “Bar subpoenas bills of firms tied to Aguirre,” for …

San Diego–based Bridgepoint Education, the for-profit online school that spends more on marketing and promotion than it spends on education, may now be escalating efforts to pump up its stock. It seems to be doing …

Should taxpayer money go to schools and fire protection, or should it be used to subsidize shopping malls, big-box retailers, auto plazas, movie multiplexes, hotels, and pro sports stadiums? This may be California’s biggest battle …

"Risk” is not a naughty four-letter word. At least, that’s what our central bank, the Federal Reserve, keeps telling us. The Fed is openly stating that it is flooding the nation with liquidity so people …

The Reader has received from Dr. Zanetti a copy of the court order dismissing the case Cosmo Bioscience Inc. vs Adamis Pharmaceuticals dated February 21, 2013, with prejudice. The order states: "The Court hereby lifts …

If you're dreaming of a return to the good old days — San Diego's bubble years of the late 1990s and the early part of this decade — dismiss the idea. Ain’t gonna happen. The …

Padres attendance is worse than it was at Qualcomm, even though the team had a great 2010 season and is slashing ticket and concession prices. So why do the Chargers want a stadium a stone’s …

Suppose a deeply depressed mayor of an insolvent city comes to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and laments that he has had to cut back on fire and police services, close recreation centers, slash library hours, and …

At last, securities regulators seem to be realizing that illegal insider trading is a way of life among operators of hedge funds. And so is lying to government investigators, concealing documents and emails, obstructing justice, …

Mayor Jerry Sanders, who in reality has no intention of cleaning up the City’s fecal finances, says he opposes a City bankruptcy. Councilmember Carl DeMaio, who does want to deterge the fetid finances (as long …

In 1903, Native Americans who had occupied Warner Hot Springs and surrounding land for many generations were forced by the United States to evacuate in a three-day trek called the Trail of Tears. But a …

The Chicago Tribune of January 16, 1995, ran a story of a mother, Carol Spizzirri, lamenting the death in an auto accident of her 18-year-old daughter, Christina, in 1992. “This is my girl,” whispered Spizzirri …

"Try to remember the kind of September…” The song was from a musical named The Fantasticks. In that spirit, try to remember September of 2006. The media crowed that the state added 17,300 jobs that …

Remember the giddy days of the real estate bubble? Crooked lenders drew up mortgages without keeping track of them. Wall Street packaged them and foisted them off on naïve investors. The real estate bubble burst, …

The City robbed its employees’ pension fund to help pay for the 1996 Republican National Convention. Government labor unions went along but later got their reward. In the early 2000s, the city council gave workers …

Pssst! Wanna double your money in one day? Yes, the stock of Actis Global Ventures, based in Carlsbad, soared from $0.0001 to $0.0002 on September 2. Officially, the stock’s price is still $0.00, according to …

While everyone frets about burgeoning obesity, a local medical equipment maker is getting rich off the fat of the land. Yes, fat asses are delivering fat assets to ResMed, which makes equipment to relieve sleep-disordered …

‘The economic impact of a minor-league team is not sufficient to justify the relatively large public expenditure required for a minor-league stadium.” That was the conclusion of Arthur T. Johnson, author of the 1995 book …

These days, someone talking about a double-dip isn’t ordering ice cream. A double-dip is the dolorous possibility that the economy will slump again, after staging a very modest, government-goosed recovery from the worst downturn since …

Don’t look now, but corporate profit margins — earnings as a percent of sales — are back to where they were before the Great Recession began three years ago. A major reason is that companies …

There is an uncivil war raging in the United States. It’s between government employees and taxpayers who fear that those employees’ generous pensions will lead to inexorably higher taxes and more slashes in services. This …

The U.S. has lost more than 8 million jobs since the Great Recession began in late 2007. San Diego County has lost more than 80,000. They aren’t coming back soon, say local economists. A high …

March 17 of 2003 was Don Bauder Day in San Diego. (I suspected that most city council members voted for it because they were gleefully celebrating my departure from the Union-Tribune.) The honor was no …

La Mesa's Heather McGuire bought a condo in 2006, got married the next year, and before long got into a fight — not with her new husband. She moved in with him. Her battle — …

‘If you build it, they will come.” It works in fantasy movies (Field of Dreams, 1989). But it hasn’t worked in San Diego’s East Village. As part of the $301 million ballpark subsidy, developers created …

The heavily advertised Pacific Law Center was once San Diego’s best-known law firm, but its most controversial. Two years ago, Kerry Steigerwalt, a criminal lawyer who is regularly quoted on local television, gained control of …

"Until recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive and morally bankrupt as the subprime mortgage industry. I was wrong. The for-profit education …

“Unless he changes his position, Jeff Light is going to be known as Jeff Darkness.” Thus speaks Sandra Dijkstra, a nationally known literary agent in Del Mar, talking about the new editor of the Union-Tribune. …

Almost always, the deeper an economy plunges, the more vigorously it springs back. But this Great Recession is different. Therefore, it’s time for a reality check. Economic growth — in the United States and in …