In western lore, an hombre named the Wizard of Wichita would ride into a town, stride into a saloon, take one quick look around, and unerringly identify every no-good son of a bitch in the …

On April 25, the stock of Herbalife Ltd., which sells weight-loss and energy products through multi-level marketing, plunged by 9 percent to $40.08. On that day, San Diego fraud sleuth Barry Minkow had revealed that …

‘I characterized that administration as ‘form over substance.’ They were more concerned with how their guy looked than to do the right thing.” That is John Torell, who was San Diego city auditor from 2005 …

It’s always said that San Diego tourism, the county’s third-largest industry, is insulated from — if not immune to — recessions and high gas prices. When the economy sags and/or gas prices zoom, Angelenos and …

You’re walking around stoned all day. The economic statistics fed to you by the government are concocted to induce euphoria. For one thing, inflation is grossly understated. Because of these artificially low reported inflation rates, …

Centre City Development Corporation, the City’s downtown redevelopment organization, has been correctly accused of many things. Arrogance. Bullying. Conflicts of interest. Excessive pay and perks for employees. Loose contract policies. Being in the pocket of …

The Union-Tribune’s Christmas Massacre of December 2007 is still producing bloodshed. The Copley Press, aided by a high-powered consulting firm, is contesting unemployment claims filed by a small group of ex-employees who took a buyout …

In the depths of the Great Depression, the American government set up social and financial safety nets to prevent another treacherous economic downspiral and financial panic. The strategy seemed to work: in the years since, …

San Diego is on the financial brink. So is Chula Vista. But the pro football team known as the San Diego Vampires — er, San Diego Chargers — creeps about the county, plotting how to …

The Iceman Cometh, predicted playwright Eugene O’Neill, but eventually, the iceman went, and so did the milkman and the doctor willing to make house calls. Next to disappear: San Diego Gas & Electric meter readers. …

Ponzi schemes — in which early investors are paid off with funds from later investors — are most often tied to stocks, commodities, and currencies. But just a few years ago, when Southern California real …

The United States is behaving like a drug addict groping for another fix or an alcoholic reaching shakily for a hair of the dog. Our central bank, the Federal Reserve, keeps lowering interest rates and …

Tax-free municipal bond prices plunged in late February. The market has since stabilized a bit but remains nervous. The positive side of the collapse is that the interest rates investors receive on these bonds have …

San Diego’s heralded Smart Corner is smarting — as in stinging. It’s a condominium/office building project, another of the City’s touted public/private sector ventures. What titillates city planners is that the trolley runs between a …

Normally, consumers pull the U.S. out of a recession. This year, they may push us into one. Consumers have loaded themselves with far too much debt. With housing prices plummeting, the game of using the …

San Diego’s ruling class has no class — and worse, no shame. The well-heeled developers, hoteliers, and casinos that manipulate the mayor and his fellow puppets do so in broad daylight. The overlords collect slush …

“The wet 20th century, the wettest of the past millennium, the century when Americans built an incredible civilization in the desert, is over,” says a superb article in February’s National Geographic. The piece, entitled “Drying …

By now you have memorized those three ugly words, “subprime mortgage mess.” Get ready for three more: “credit default swap,” called CDS on Wall Street but barely known on Main Street, where it may well …

Increasingly, it looks as though the nation faces a recession and stocks are in for a bear market. San Diego is almost certainly in a recession already. Ditto for California. The national, state, and local …

The fast-buck peddlers slinking out of the subprime mortgage morass are getting their sticky fingers into reverse mortgages, a business that caters to the vulnerable elderly market. San Diego is no exception. As housing prices …

Former president George H.W. Bush pledged to make the U.S. a “kinder and gentler nation.” He was not thinking of James Kinder of La Jolla, a onetime lawyer who resigned from the state bar in …

There is an old Wall Street adage that is apt for both 2008 and 2009: “When they raid the whorehouse, they take the charwoman and piano player too.” Translation: when the stock market panics, it …

Who could have foreseen the housing bubble? And its malodorous bursting? Well, San Diegans, certainly, should have seen it, and some did: until late 2005, home prices had soared beyond anybody’s imagination as buyers grabbed …

Chicago's Pritzker family is one of the world's richest. There are ten Pritzkers listed in the 2007 Forbes 400, the magazine's compilation of the nation's wealthiest people. Those ten Pritzkers are worth a collective $26.6 …

On November 14 of last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission, after probing the City of San Diego's deliberate concealment of ugly financial facts in its bond filings, concluded that "The City, through its officials, …

Charles Brandes, 64, and Warren Buffett, 77, have a lot in common. They both have made fortunes by following the "value" investing concept. It was taught to them by the same person: Benjamin Graham, along …

Some scholars say there is no way to tell if the economy or stock market is in a bubble. Wrong. The telltale signs are maniacal initial public offerings (IPOs) -- young companies taking their stocks …

For months, everything went wrong for Blackwater Worldwide (formerly Blackwater USA), the mercenary firm that wants to put a training camp in tiny Potrero, 45 miles east of San Diego and almost on the border. …

The same bureaucracy that created the Sunroad fiasco has now brought forth the Mount Soledad calamity, with the enthusiastic assistance of politicians. The names of the mayors and councilmembers have changed, but the money jingling …

Some comparisons are invidious. Others are ridiculous. The attempts to compare politicians' responses to the 2007 San Diego fires with the pols' performance during Hurricane Katrina two years ago are preposterous. Fox TV blusterer Bill …

San Diego needs some good news. Here's some: high-paying tech jobs continue to proliferate. Tech should get some help from the weakening dollar, although it won't be as much as it might be. Much of …

When asked, "How's your wife?" the late comedian Henny Youngman used to crack, "Compared to what?" The local economy is like that these days. If someone asks, "How is the San Diego economy going to …

Imagine what would have happened if our Founding Fathers had made the Casho-cracy concept a part of the U.S. Constitution. The number of ballots per voter would have been determined by wealth, and corporations would …

San Diego's political progressives think Clear Channel Communications is flipping them the finger. It is. Clear Channel, owner of the liberal talk station KLSD-AM (1360), is ready to "flip" the station, in radio jargon, to …

It's an ill wind that blows no one any good, so will the weak dollar help San Diego? For example, the Canadian dollar, which as recently as early 2002 was worth 62 cents, is now …

It was succor for Wall Street and "Sucker!" to the overall economy, including San Diego and other cities with housing-related economic woes. On September 18, the Federal Reserve prescribed a double dose of sharply lower …

Two guys sloshing it up in a bar decide they will never be real men until they kill a bear. They mortgage their homes, buy the most expensive bear-killing equipment and, with their wives and …

San Diego is getting some astonishing surprises: prizes. In August, the housing project at Liberty Station won the Redevelopment Community of the Year Award from the Association of Defense Communities. The transformation of the old …

The City of San Diego's financial system needs to go on Viagra and stay on it. The Department of Finance is drawing a disturbing distinction between "hard debt" and "soft debt." Several experts worry that …

People of that once-perfect peninsula, Point Loma, fear that a perfect storm is gathering. Governments at the federal, state, county, and local levels are taking actions that threaten to increase the noise, traffic, pollution, population, …

'We have serious concerns about the management," says stock market research firm Morningstar, Inc., about a publicly held company, Usana Health Sciences. "The company is under investigation by the SEC, and scandals about directors and …

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce regularly opposes legislation favoring citizen entitlements that would, theoretically, promote the general welfare. But the chamber and its local affiliates are all for corporate welfare. Indeed, four years ago, two …

Strong mayor? Amid the strong odor? There are two things wrong with the administration of Mayor Jerry Sanders: (1) It can't grasp the big picture because it is in the pockets of real estate developers, …

Man bites dog. San Diego appears to be headed in a sensible direction on at least one pension topic. In an informal discussion, boardmembers of the San Diego City Employees' Retirement System have indicated that …

The Minneapolis bridge collapse and New York City steam pipe explosion have engendered introspection: Is the nation neglecting infrastructure? But the city with one of the most gaping infrastructure deficits, San Diego, has a slogan: …

The law doth punish man or womanThat steals the goose from off the commonBut lets the greater felon looseThat steals the common from the goose. -- anonymous 18th-century English epigram These pithy words should be …

October 12, 2006. Remember that date. Excuse me: forget that date. According to the late-June report by Mayor Jerry Sanders's purported Office of Ethics and Integrity, the City's real estate czar, Jim Waring, didn't learn …

Ethics I. Have you ever wondered why so many crooks set up shop in San Diego? It's for the climate -- the ethical climate. A sleazebag visiting the city this year and following the Sunroad …

Ethics II. An ethicist should understand that it's wrong to cite a legal opinion as your reason for taking a particular action when in fact you have rejected that legal opinion. But the City's self-professed …

The convention center deal between Chula Vista and Nashville's Gaylord Entertainment has apparently collapsed. People are wringing their hands. They should be clapping their hands. Chula Vista and the Port could not afford the heavily …