It's safe to assume that would-be applicants to the Covered California program, as well as the other insurance exchanges, are simply giving up trying to enroll in a health plan. That's not political spin - it's the cold reality of what's been a disaster.

Southern California's economy is in pretty good shape, with most of the effects likely to be short term and marginal.

Covered California processed 94,500 applications as of Oct. 16, roughly half of the applications being reported from the 16 states (and the District of Columbia) that have their own insurance markets. But what does that mean?

September home sales and prices are down a bit from the previous month, according to Dataquick, but that's not such a bad thing.

Everyone knows that older concrete buildings are especially vulnerable in an earthquake unless they're reinforced. The problem is that retrofitting can be very expensive. What to do?

House Speaker John Boehner apparently has agreed to bring the Senate-crafted measure to a floor vote, which means that most all Democrats would join with enough Republicans to pass the thing and avert crisis.

Their efforts to de-fund the Affordable Care Act are not going to work, and yet they continue to push, making a bad situation even worse.

What we're seeing play out has nothing to do with policy. It's all about face-saving.

High-end home sales, which had been lagging in the early days of the housing recovery, are making up for lost time. Big-time investors like Colony Capital are getting interested.