Matthew “Beau” La Madrid, no longer a registered investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nonetheless convinced 300 people that he had a surefire way of beating the stock market. He said he …

In 2006, Arthur Levitt Jr., former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, came under intense criticism in San Diego. At the time, Levitt was raking in $900 an hour as titular head of an …

On March 23, stocks were headed for a fabulous 7 percent gain. The Obama administration had just come out with a program in which private investors could buy toxic bank assets by putting up almost …

"For us, business is good,” says Barry Lander, clerk of the bankruptcy court. “It’s a sad thing.” Indeed it is. The courts, judges, clerks, and the legal profession have been blown good business in San …

All across the United States, and around the world, convention centers are vastly overbuilt. Supply exceeds demand. So municipalities that own the centers resort to price-slashing. They often lose money on their centers and have …

San Diego County citizens disgusted with massive potholes, deficient sewer and water systems, library closings, ad nauseam should scoff at politicians’ promises that things will get better. They won’t. Already-ruinous pension payments will eat up …

Psst. Wanna read a well-written, entertaining book? It’s filled with amazingly detailed descriptions of surroundings and dialogue from exciting events going back many years. It reads like zippy fiction. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that’s what this …

I told San Diego author Caitlin Rother that she has gotten a virgin. Me. Until I read an advance copy of her book Body Parts coming out this week, I had never had the slightest …

American consumers and American financial institutions are suffering dyspepsia from an extended trip to Las Vegas. The consumers drank and ate too much, and the banks gambled too much and lost big. Now, to keep …

In June of 1999, Nicholas Charles Herbert (aka Nick Ashton and Nick Hanson) was jailed in San Diego and charged by the district attorney’s office with selling homes out from under the owners — elderly …

In early September, Ian Campbell, general director and artistic director of San Diego Opera, was in London to discuss a possible coproduction with the prestigious Royal Opera, known as Covent Garden. He then went on …

There is a doozy of a donnybrook over usage of the southwest corner of Fiesta Island. It’s a real bitch. Or a real beach. Well, actually, those two words capsulize the battle: dog owners who …

On February 25 of last year, professional skydiver Alan (Buzz) Fink and his wife Kristina, who are not residents of San Diego, gave a total of $640 to Jan Goldsmith in his run for city …

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that is supposed to protect investors from Wall Street predators, says it is going to investigate how it missed the Bernie Madoff scam. San Diego’s Gary Aguirre, …

In the past, pro sports has been considered somewhat recession-proof. Not this year, and perhaps not in 2010. Attendance is already sagging, despite the slashing of some seat prices, even in the affluent National Football …

Almost everybody prefers inflation to deflation. Certainly, economists and politicians do. And the general public prefers inflation too. Why do you think Viagra sells so well? But you have probably noticed that those TV ads …

The San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System always likes to brag about its investment performance. It endlessly points out that among its peers (other municipal employees’ funds) and among benchmarks by which various funds are …

"The pride and presence of a professional football team is far more important than 30 libraries.” Intelligent people laughed when former pro-football-team owner Art Modell made the comment. Now San Diego, painfully broke, is the …

When a San Diego hotel concierge recommends a restaurant, he or she may be getting a fat kickback. “It’s an extortion ring. Like the Mafia. Restaurants are bribing concierges in hotels. It’s a bidding war,” …

Almost everyone has awakened one morning filled with remorse over the previous evening’s behavior. Perhaps it was the time, drunk as a billy goat, you bepissed the boss at the office Christmas party. That’s what …

On November 20, we got stood up by Andrea Tevlin, the independent budget analyst who reports to the council. She had agreed to do an interview at 2:00 p.m., but she called beforehand to tell …

‘It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be.” Those words are from the 1933 song “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Seventy-five years later, Americans understand that the financial system has …

There is a showdown coming. It might turn into a gunfight. Or at least a fistfight. There is a huge City budget deficit. To close the gap, the current council only wants to talk about …

Two elephants entered a special meeting of the City’s Budget and Finance Committee on Wednesday, November 12, and councilmembers donned their blinders to be certain not to see them. The two elephants were very inconvenient …

You’re exhilarated when the stock market zooms 10 percent in a day, right? Think again. Of the ten one-day miracles in investment history, when stocks have soared 9 to 15 percent, seven of those days …

Chances are your stockbroker or financial planner is telling you to buy stocks now. Oh, there is a chance they will go down in the short run, he or she will say, but in a …

What do you get when you cross Little Mary Sunshine with the Abominable Snowman? You get an email newsletter named Wolverine Network, sent to a list of prominent San Diegans, some still powerful. The publisher …

San Diego’s fourth-largest industry, tourism, looks as though it will take a hit in the current (fourth) quarter, and the pain will persist well into next year. This will hurt the ailing economy because the …

‘I don’t think the American taxpayer needs to be stepping in,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson assured the citizenry on February 27 of this year. Half a month later, the Federal Reserve bailed out Wall Street …

In San Diego’s hemorrhaging real estate industry, it’s better to be upside-down and rich than upside-down and poor. That may sound axiomatic — it’s always nicer to be rich than poor — but carriage-trade folks …

Hubris and horse manure go together. Just look at the national economic scene: in the past half century, America has turned economic logic on its head, with the gunslingers grinning all the way. Now we …

Are you entrusting your money to banking houses or sportin’ houses? The United States is in its worst credit crisis since the Great Depression, as shotgun marriages are arranged and financed by the government. Investment …

One quadrillion. That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000 — one plus 15 zeroes, or one thousand trillion. It is incomprehensible. And that’s what’s terrifying. This summer, the Bank for International Settlements, the bank for the world’s central banks, estimated …

On August 31, the Union-Tribune printed an obituary on the death of Allard Roen, one of the original developers of Carlsbad’s La Costa Resort and Spa. He was living there when he died August 28 …

Is the proposal to build a 40-foot-high, 100-acre concrete deck over the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal so far-fetched from an engineering and economic viewpoint that it is really a hoax? Is the envisioned project, which …

American consumers are tightening their belts. So companies selling to households are pulling in their horns. Wall Street expects San Diego consumer companies such as Jack in the Box, Rubio’s, Charlotte Russe, WD-40, and Callaway …

The most attractive asset of the Warner Springs Ranch is the spring-fed, hot mineral water pool. So maybe it’s fitting that through the years, this backcountry ranch has been in financial hot water. After opening …

Let’s quit the caviling and cut to the chase: the U.S. is in a recession, and so is San Diego. On the last day of July, the U.S. revised its numbers and said the economy …

San Diego’s cost of living tops the nation’s by 50 percent, but household incomes are only about 20 percent higher. Ergo, squeezed San Diegans live on “psychic income,” or pay a “sunshine tax.” But according …

The Chargers say they have a problem: Qualcomm Stadium is antiquated. Sorry. The Chargers’ problem is much broader and deeper than that. The Chargers have a problem with San Diego. Period. It’s not big enough …

The campaign to ballyhoo the proposed Sunrise Powerlink has one beneficial effect: it is shining light on how San Diego’s overlords try to use misinformation to manipulate public opinion. San Diego Gas & Electric and …

Rancho Santa Fe’s John Eggemeyer III gets reams of favorable publicity for buying, rehabilitating, and flipping small banks. But now the stock market is flipping the bird at his prize, the newly renamed PacWest Bancorp, …

When folks run out of gas, they lose interest in sin. This does not apply just to the elderly. Ask Sin City — Las Vegas. High fuel prices are walloping incoming air and auto traffic. …

TV audiences are mad about Mad Men, a show about a Madison Avenue advertising agency in 1960. The second season on the AMC cable network begins July 27, and you can buy designer fashions, calendars, …

It’s difficult to go digital when facing a debt default. Some of the nation’s largest newspapers are behind the times technologically, partly because they gobbled up additional newspapers instead of spending money on electronic advances. …

"Live well. Retire rich.” That was the proverb that Dan Holbrook preached over radio and TV, as he exhorted San Diegans to take on debt and pour the proceeds into real estate investments. “Real estate …

From superior product engineering to reckless financial engineering: that’s how America has declined from a society that makes goods to one that shuffles money around — obsessively gambling with excessive debt. This is the gist …

What’s the difference between National City and Rancho Santa Fe? Well — er, uh — money comes to mind. Last year, median household income in National City was $44,130, according to figures provided by the …

“Golf is a good walk spoiled,” growled Mark Twain, and in recent years, more and more Americans have been agreeing with him. The industry hopes that the U.S. Open, played June 9 through 15 at …

On April 27 of this year, craigslist, the online classified advertising behemoth, carried this small notice: “I am requesting information on Jeffry Wetzel from Poway, CA. We invested $135,000 with what he calls a hedge …