LA Biz Observed

Words can speak volumes in describing social change

2013-05-21T18:50:41Z

Google's database of 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008 provides some interesting clues about usage - and perhaps about attitudes. Citing a study, NYT columnist David Brooks writes that "personalized," "self," "standout," and "unique" were used more often between 1960 and 2008, while "share," "community," "collective," "and "common good" were used less frequently. Another study found that "virtue," "decency" and "conscience" were used less frequently over the course of the 20th century. From Brooks:

Over the past half-century, society has become more individualistic. As it has become more individualistic, it has also become less morally aware, because social and moral fabrics are inextricably linked. The atomization and demoralization of society have led to certain forms of social breakdown, which government has tried to address, sometimes successfully and often impotently. This story, if true, should cause discomfort on right and left.

How did L.A.'s mayor's race get to be a punchline?

2013-05-20T15:40:00Z

Several out-of-town budinskis have called the campaign an embarrassment for L.A., which was certainly not the case (Washington is where you'll find the real embarrassments). Let's just say that the race, like so many others these days, was a missed opportunity - drowned out by posturing and positioning by the city's interest groups, eclipsed by the intractable problems that no mayor is remotely capable of mending. It's been easy to beat up on both candidates (I've certainly done my share), but let's be clear that Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti are bright, well-meaning people who have devoted most of their working lives to public service and are passionate in their belief that L.A. can be a better place. So why was it so flat, so off-key?

--Waaaaay too long: This has been a two-person contest going back to the first part of the year, well before the initial election, and since then the race has been mostly about killing time with lots of over-spending and over-endorsing. Having the runoff drag out for three months is lunacy (one month between elections makes a lot more sense). Future candidates should also consider cutting back on the number of debates - the stultifying sessions between Greuel and Garcetti might have actually lowered interest in the race.

--Little substance: Much of the campaign had a "first do no harm" quality. This was especially true of Greuel - did anyone else want to scream each time she suggested that the city's money troubles could be corrected by stamping out waste, fraud and abuse (not remotely true) or that helping operate her family's small business provided some sort of managerial gravitas to run the nation's second-biggest city? Garcetti was disingenuous himself by claiming too much credit for reducing (but hardly solving) the city's structural deficit - and offering little indication of what he plans to do once the city begins contract talks with public unions.

--Crisscrossed interests: How on earth was Greuel supposed to lay out a coherent policy message when she had endorsements from both former mayor Richard Riordan, who has blamed the city unions for L.A.'s budget troubles, and the city unions? She couldn't even take a position on something as straightforward as moving one of the LAX runways for fear of pissing off somebody (either nearby homeowners who vote in droves or L.A.'s business establishment). But that's the nature of the job. If she can't handle that, how will she deal with the pension problem?

--Chronic voter ignorance: Most Angelenos haven't a clue about what the mayor does - or more important, what he/she does not do. Both candidates, for example, spent much of the campaign laying out their views on education when in fact the mayor has no control over the L.A. school system. An entire debate was devoted to education issues! Where a mayor can exert influence is on planning policy, which received next to no coverage. And what about dealing with the City Council? Some might argue that the elected official with the most power these days is Council President Herb Wesson, and yet we have no idea how the new mayor is likely to work with him or the full council.

--Chronic voter apathy: As the LAT reported last week, low turnouts go well beyond the current election (though having two unexceptional personalities with much the same politics doesn't help). What's unfortunate this time around is that the city's innards are falling apart. Mayor Villaraigosa and the Council have applied enough duct tape to make it seem as if things aren't all that bad because no elected official wants to face the truth on his or her watch. What the city should offer its citizenry, in good times and bad, is the real issue behind this year's race, but if no one is willing to fess up - candidates as well as voters - how on earth can we expect any change?

L.A. assessed valuations projected to jump in 2013

2013-05-17T23:37:48Z

Here's another explanation for the improving fiscal outlook: Property is gaining in value. L.A. County is expected to see a 4.23 percent increase in revenue-producing valuation, to $1.125 trillion, according to the assessor's office. Changes in ownership, which include the sale of homes, is expected to increase by $18.5 billion. This, of course, is good news for local governments, which will be taking in more in tax revenues - thus easing their budget problems - and it's also good for homeowners who have seen the value of their properties creep back up after several down years. Property tax revenue for the city of L.A. is already coming in above budget projections for 2012-2013, although budget officials have been somewhat concerned about the durability of the recovery. By way of perspective, county valuation totaled $1.07 trillion in 2012, $823.7 billion in 2005, $569.6 billion in 2000, and $412.8 billion in 1990. From the forecast:

The previous decline in the real estate market resulted in decreasing assessment rolls from 2007 through 2010. The 2011 and 2012 assessment rolls reflected modest increases of 1.49 percent and 2.24 percent, respectively. Based on a variety of indicators, the Office of the Assessor estimates that the 2013 Assessment Roll will increase by approximately 4.23 percent. The estimate is based on the best information available at this time; however, there are several areas that are subject to change as new trends emerge.

Whatever happened to those dastardly budget deficits?

2013-05-17T20:58:18Z

The state Legislative Analyst's Office says that Gov. Brown's projections were too pessimistic and that California should expect $2.8 billion more in tax revenue than what the administration was estimating. Meanwhile, the federal budget deficit, which topped out at $1.4 trillion in 2009, is expected to drop this year to $642 billion, or just 4 percent of GDP (well within safe limits). Long-term spending is still a problem, especially when it comes to entitlements, but it's not a short-term crisis. So what cleared the clouds? From Time magazine's Christopher Matthews:

Basically, the change can be explained by a combination of a recovering housing market -- which has improved the finances of government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- combined with a better-than-expected economy overall, which is boosting corporate and personal income tax revenues. This economic improvement is happening despite higher taxes and budget cuts enacted as part of the fiscal cliff deal reached in December, and the sequestration-related budget cuts that went into effect recently. This change is yet another vindication of economists and commentators who argued that large budget deficits are the natural outgrowth of effective economic policy in the wake of a severe recession. Economic recession reduces employment and corporate profits, lowering tax revenues. At the same time, safety net programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps must spend more to accommodate the larger number of people who need them.

This is stuff you learn in an introductory economics class - government is needed a lot more in bad times than in good times. With the economy getting better, albeit slowly, that reliance not only is starting to recede, but it's being replaced by more money coming in. Good news, but not all that surprising news. And yet, for five or so years, really going back to the financial crisis, debate out of Washington has focused on those dastardly deficit numbers and how they would destroy the country. Bloomberg's Josh Barro nails it:

[House Speaker] John Boehner doesn't really care about the public debt, as he made clear when he repeatedly supported debt-expanding measures under a Republican president. What Boehner and House Republicans really want are excuses to cut federal spending, particularly on programs such as Medicaid and food stamps that support low-income Americans. But those cuts are unpopular, so Republicans frame fiscal debate to make such cuts appear necessary to avoid disaster. If you can't borrow or tax more, and can't cut old-age entitlements or the military, which command the majority of federal spending, you're not left with many options but to soak the poor.

So where has the media been during this week's stunning recalculations? Well, mostly covering the Washington pseudo-scandals (this week's Congressional hearings have been farcical). Check out the amount of time that CBS, ABC, and NBC have spent on the revised deficit projections: A grand total of 0.00 minutes. Fiscal matters make for boring television unless somebody - usually a Republican - yells "crisis."

Average retirement age is creeping up... to 61

2013-05-17T17:12:58Z

Yeah, I was surprised it was that low - but that's still up from 1991 when the average retirement age was just 57, according to a Gallup survey. Much of the increase has come since the recession (those still in the workforce expect to retire well past 61). By the way, the biggest concern among non-retirees is having enough money to live on. Matter of fact, there's so much fear about running out of savings that one study recently said that many Americans in their 70s and 80s tend to under-spend. From press release:

Currently, 37% of nonretired Americans say they expect to retire after age 65, 26% at age 65, and 26% before age 65. The most notable change over time is the increase in those expecting to work past age 65 -- the 37% this year is up from 22% a decade ago and 14% in 1995. Meanwhile, the percentage of nonretirees who say they expect to retire before age 65 has declined to 26% from 49% in 1995.The percentage who say they will retire at exactly 65 has held fairly constant over the decades.

Big drop in California jobless rate*

2013-05-17T15:38:12Z

April's unemployment rate was 9 percent, down from 9.4 percent the previous month. While that's still the fourth-highest in the nation, behind Nevada, Illinois and Mississippi, the jobless rate hasn't been this low since late 2008 (that tells you how far California had had to climb back from the recession). Over the past year, the decline has been 1.7 percent. One likely reason for the big drop for April is not such good news: That more Californians stopped looking for work. A separate payroll report showed a paltry gain of 10,300 jobs, though the year-over-year increase was 273,100, second only to Texas, and these numbers tend to be revised quite substantially. Here's the BLS release.

*L.A. County saw a significant drop in April, but its jobless rate remains stubbornly high at 9.9. percent. That's down from 10.2 percent in March. The payroll survey showed a gain of only 200 jobs, with leisure and hospitality among the industries with bigger gains and government and entertainment among those with large losses.

Probably time to tamp the Obama scandal narratives

2013-05-16T17:23:45Z

One of the sillier practices in journalism is taking three somewhat similar events and making them the basis of what we used to call a trend story. For whatever reason three was always the magic number (editors like heft - maybe it's just their CYA reflex). Anyway, the three-pack principle has been used this week to develop a case that the Obama administration is awash in scandal - that the president is either a conniving, corrupt worm or inept beyond comprehension (there's usually no middle ground). The problem is that adding two and two gives you four, not 18, as the attack dogs in Congress and the media would want you to believe. Thankfully, these stories are not all that compelling (boring is the less charitable word), and the Washington Post's Ezra Klein writes that, barring new revelations in the IRS, Benghazi, and AP cases, the scandal angle is starting to fall apart.

The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political repercussions. Government wrongdoing is boring. Scandals can bring down presidents, decide elections and revive down-and-out political parties. Scandals can dominate American politics for months at a time. On Tuesday, it looked like we had three possible political scandals brewing. Two days later, with much more evidence available, it doesn't look like any of them will pan out. There'll be more hearings, and more bad press for the Obama administration, and more demands for documents. But -- and this is a key qualification -- absent more revelations, the scandals that could reach high don't seem to include any real wrongdoing, whereas the ones that include real wrongdoing don't reach high enough.

[CUT]

The scandal metanarrative itself is also changing. Because there was no actual evidence of presidential involvement in these events, the line for much of this week was that the president was not involved enough in their aftermath. He was "passive." He seemed to be a "bystander." His was being controlled by events, rather than controlling them himself. That perception, too, seems to be changing. Mike Allen's Playbook, which is ground zero for scandal CW, led Thursday with a squib that says "the West Wing got its mojo back" and is "BACK ON OFFENSE." Yes, the caps are in the original. The smarter voices on the right are also beginning to counsel caution. "While there's still more information to be gathered and more investigations to be done, all indications are that these decisions - on the AP, on the IRS, on Benghazi - don't proceed from [Obama]," wrote Ben Domenech in The Transom, his influential conservative morning newsletter. "The talk of impeachment is absurd. The queries of 'what did the president know and when did he know it' will probably end up finding out "'just about nothing, and right around the time everyone else found out.'"

Airline satisfaction is at highest level in years... but why?

2013-05-16T15:38:57Z

Perhaps because the flying experience, while not always wonderful, is a bit more tolerable these days, thanks to greater efficiency and reliability. Industry-wide, satisfaction reached 695 on a 1,000-point scale, according to JD Power, a 14-point increase from 2012 (though only a 3-point rise from 2006). The survey includes satisfaction on fares, fees, in-flight services, and boarding, deplaning and baggage. The low-cost airlines do better than the traditional carriers, with JetBlue routinely receiving the highest numbers of any airline (Alaska is tops in the traditional network category). It's easy to ding airlines for packing planes and charging for basics, but tighter-run operations (technology has made a huge difference) have resulted in relatively inexpensive fares on many routes and less frequent delays. Travelers are even grousing less about the baggage fees. Certainly, there will be complaints - flying millions of people to all corners of the world is a very complicated, often messy business and lots of stuff will go wrong on a daily basis. Still, the industry seems more adept at anticipating trouble, and then dealing with it. From JD Power release:

Despite the fact that passengers are using self-service options in increasing numbers, airline staff continues to impact passenger satisfaction. The industry is improving the customer experience, with both carrier segments achieving an eight-year high for passenger satisfaction with flight crews in 2013. Among passengers who are greeted with a smile by airline staff, even if only some of the time, satisfaction scores are 105 points higher than among those who never receive a smile. The gap doubles to 211 points higher among passengers who are greeted with a smile consistently, compared with those who do not receive a smile at all. "Treating passengers as valued customers and guests--welcoming them with a genuine warm smile--is an important opportunity for airlines to achieve considerably higher levels of satisfaction," said Faza. "With the increasing use of technology reducing some personal interactions in the reservations and check-in processes, making the most of the rest of the passenger interaction with airline staff is imperative."

JD Power America Airline Satisfaction Study (on a 1,000-point scale)

--2013 695
--2012 681
--2011 683
--2010 673
--2009 658
--2008 668
--2007 687
--2006 692

L.A.'s low-wage world is made up of haves and have-nots

2013-05-15T21:47:54Z

We all know that political campaigns are not geared for dispensing accurate information, and yet the union claims that Wendy Greuel would raise wages to $15 an hour if elected were breathtaking in their audaciousness - not to mention their inaccuracy. What the $15 refers to is a very specific effort to raise the so-called living wage of unionized hotel workers near LAX from the current $12. The regular minimum wage of $8 an hour is not changing. My question is why not. The low-wage world is a world of haves and have-nots. Those workers lucky enough to earn the "living wage" of nearly $12 an hour are pulling in several thousand dollars a year more than those getting only $8. As I point out in this week's Business Update on KPCC, that $4 difference is serious money for many families. That's why wage inequality at the low end of the income scale is arguably a more compelling issue than the rich-poor disparities we often read about. Some businesses can afford 12 bucks an hour; others can't. But in most cases, an $8 minimum is scandalous. Also this week is a look at why so much of the immigration issue is really about economics.

Steve Julian: We've talked a lot about pending immigration legislation in Washington, but if those laws are changed what might that mean for the Southern California economy. Business analyst Mark Lacter, what do you think?

Mark Lacter: Don't expect too many changes in the short run, Steve, and that might be just as well, given the dynamics of Southern California. Look, it's well established that having such a large population of undocumented immigrants helps the L.A.-area economy big time, in that it provides a large labor pool willing to accept low-paying jobs that most other workers just don't want to do.

Julian: Picking fruits and vegetables, working in restaurant kitchens -

Lacter: - or as construction workers who get hired by the day. You reported on a USC study that estimates 2.6 million people are in California illegally - about 900,000 of those folks live in L.A. County. Many of these people have been in the country for at least 10 years, and they represent some of the biggest economic success stories - even without an easy path to citizenship. (By the way, six out of 10 undocumented immigrants in L.A. County have full-time jobs, which is only slightly lower than the percentage of U.S.-born workers.) The reality is that without this workforce, the economy would be upended - low-paid jobs would go begging, and wage levels would increase, perhaps by a lot. The more relevant question is how the reform proposals might affect future migration patterns.

Julian: Naturally, most people entering the U.S. (whether legally or illegally) are looking to make better money and enjoy a better quality of than wherever it is they're coming from.

Lacter: And a few years ago during the recession, the number of immigrants coming in from Mexico and other parts of Latin America nose-dived because there were so few jobs here. Recently, the pattern began to shift because more work is becoming available. No amount of border security is going to totally end that back-and-forth pattern - and even though there are plenty of reasons for wanting to become a U.S. citizen, it only makes a difference if the economic opportunities open up. And. we're not just talking about an opportunity to be a dish washer. We're talking about the chance to buy a house, to have your kids go to college - opportunities that only happen if the job market is a lot more robust than it is right now.

Want a subway extension? Here's what you can look forward to

2013-05-15T19:45:55Z

Delays, cost overruns, inconvenience - it's all on tap, thanks to the boneheaded notion that a subway extension to Westwood (not the beach) is the answer to our transit woes. Look at what's happening with SF's Central Subway project. Any large public works project is bound to cause trouble, but underground rail is an especially dubious enterprise. If you think the 405 widening is a disaster, just wait until major Westside boulevards are ripped up. From the WSJ:

Proponents have said it would be a boon for residents of congested Chinatown while opponents say the subway is poorly planned and the money would be better spent on more cost-efficient transportation projects. Cost remains one of the biggest issues. The $1.6 billion price tag is far above a $647 million estimate from 2001. Last month, the low bid to build the stations and tracks came in $90 million to $120 million higher than the MTA's estimate. At the same time, concerns emerged that a complicated plan to pull tunnel-boring machines out of the ground in North Beach could cost more than anticipated. It isn't unusual for large public works projects to go over budget. An oft-cited 2003 study by Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg found that on average, rail projects went over budget by 45%, with bridge and tunnels over by 34%. And a 2009 Federal Transit Administration risk assessment calculated that the Central Subway had a 30% chance of coming in within the $1.6 billion budget.

Projects worth pursing already have an infrastructure of some sort, as with the Expo Line (already a success story) or the fledgling toll road effort on the 10 and 110 freeways. Rule of thumb: Stuff that you can accomplish in a few years as opposed to a few decades is probably a better bet. From Baruch Feigenbaum, a transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation (via the Daily News):

Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis, Northern Virginia, San Diego and Seattle have all converted car-pool lanes to toll lanes in recent years. And as drivers learned how to get the most value out of the lanes and save the most time, the lanes grew in popularity. Atlanta converted car-pool lanes to toll lanes last year and had a rough start. But since October 2011, the number of toll lane trips has grown 270 percent, from 160,000 to 440,000 trips as of March 2013. In Minneapolis, where car-pool lanes were converted to toll lanes in 2005, 76 percent of the public is satisfied with the toll lanes and 85 percent are satisfied with the traffic speed. On San Diego's Interstate 15 Express Lanes, similar to the 110 project, the number of vehicles in toll lanes increased 143 percent while travel times decreased by 20 minutes. Travel times also decreased slightly - by one to two minutes - in the general lanes.

Getting the real story on the IRS 'scandal' (it's not what you think)

2013-05-15T15:27:54Z

Forget about what you've been reading the last few days. The prevailing narrative about Democratic-leaning tax investigators going after the Tea Party and other right-wing groups is not quite what's going on. The real, more intricate story is that political groups have been trying to claim a special tax status that would allow their donor pool to be kept secret - a status that they shouldn't be entitled to. The IRS's biggest sin is not that it went after these groups, but that it didn't do more, especially with the bigger political players. President Obama has been sucker-punched once again. LAT columnist Mike Hiltzik explains:

The organizations at issue are known as 501(c)4 groups (call them C4s for short) after the section of the tax code that applies to them. They're nonprofit "social welfare" organizations that by law must be devoted primarily to programs broadly serving their communities, not private groups. IRS forms reveal what the agency considers to be mainstream C4s: religious groups; cultural, educational and veterans organizations, homeowners associations, volunteer fire departments. In recent years, however, overtly political groups have been claiming C4 status, which allows them to keep their donor lists secret and to avoid paying taxes on certain income. Our lunatic campaign finance system is what turned the typical C4 from a volunteer fire department into a conduit of anonymous political cash. Big donors were given the green light to spend freely on elections by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. That wasn't good enough for some; they wanted to distribute their largess secretly.

Here's another myth: That only right-wing groups were targeted for extra scrutiny. In fact, they represented just a third of the 300 or so applications selected - too wide a net for what the tax agency was looking for. So the screen was adjusted to capture "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, [and] social economic reform/movement," according to the Inspector General's report that's been used to fuel the firestorm. More from Hiltzik:

Remember the mysterious $11-million donation to the campaign for California's anti-union Proposition 32 last November? When the state Fair Political Practices Commission punctured its anonymity, it found not one, but two 501(c)4 organizations behind it. The FPPC, which is still investigating, has already called this a case of "campaign money laundering." As of September last year, the center found, some $254 million, or 20%, of all outside spending came through C4s. The biggest C4 in the electoral arena was Crossroads GPS, an affiliate of American Crossroads, a campaign organization founded by Rove. The Obama camp's C4 was known as Priorities USA. The IRS was swamped by the wave. The number of groups seeking C4 status from the agency rose from 1,500 in 2010 to 3,400 last year. Meanwhile, the agency was being pulled in two directions. In February last year, seven Democratic senators complained that the IRS was too "permissive" with its rules, which judged a C4 not to be engaged "primarily" in electioneering as long as no more than 49% of its spending went to such activities. In August, 10 GOP senators warned the agency to deep-six any efforts to tighten the rules on C4s.

New Yorker writer Jeff Toobin is on a similar track:

It is certainly true that the I.R.S., and every other part of the government, should be evenhanded in how it applies the law, regarding liberal and conservative groups alike. If left-leaning organizations were disguising their true purposes to obtain 501(c)(4) status, the I.R.S. should have turned them down, too. And there will also be questions about how the Service, which is an independent agency, answered questions from Congress. But let's be clear on the real scandal here. The columnist Michael Kinsley has often observed that the scandal isn't what's illegal--it's what's legal. It's what society chooses not to punish that tells us most about the prevailing ethical standards of the time. Campaign finance operates by shaky, or even nonexistent, rules, and powerful players game the system with impunity. A handful of I.R.S. employees saw this and tried, in a small way, to impose some small sense of order. For that, they'll likely be ushered into bureaucratic oblivion.

Unfortunately, the parallel universe story - that Tea Party groups became the victims of a Washington witch hunt - is already out of the barn, and it's an easier story for much of the media to wrap their arms around. It just doesn't happen to be true.

How will California's elected officials spend responsibly?

2013-05-14T19:58:23Z

That's a trick question, folks. When politicians have money to burn - as in next year's state budget surplus - the temptation is to resume spending the old-fashioned way: Recklessly and irrationally. But in laying out the latest budget plan. Gov. Brown is sticking to his old penny-pinching self. Matter of fact, he's proposing $1.3 billion less in general fund spending than what was first laid out in January. That means no new funding for most of the social service programs that took big cuts in previous budget years. "The money is not there," Brown said. "Anyone who thinks there is spare change around has not read the budget." If the governor has his way, much of the money will go to schools in poor communities. While the surplus is now running at about $4.5 billion, budget officials expect that number to drop to $2.8 billion by the end of June. Even so, Brown faces considerable pushback in the Democratic-controlled legislature, where lawmakers are looking to restore a wide array of safety-net programs. The sensible answer is to reexamine those programs to see how they could be run more efficiently (i.e. cheaper). But that takes time and would put too many noses out of joint. What's the political upside in doing that? From the LAT:

In announcing the revised blueprint, the governor focused on school funding, a central part of his plan. He wants to send more money to districts that serve large numbers of poor students and non-native English speakers than to wealthier areas, while giving all of them more flexibility in how they spend state dollars. "I think it's fair. I think it's just," Brown said. "I think it has great moral force." The governor's January plan, containing many of the same elements, stirred controversy immediately. But Brown has budged in only a few areas. For example, he still wants to make counties pay more for social welfare services, but he now says that change can be phased in over several years. And he will keep pushing to tie new state funding for universities to certain performance benchmarks, but he dropped a proposal to increase tuition for students who take excessive courses.

April another strong month for housing market

2013-05-14T19:29:32Z

Prices were the big story, with the April median price in Southern California jumping to $357,000, according to Dataquick, up 23.1 percent from a year earlier (L.A. County's median of $395,000 rose 27.4 percent from April 2012). Since last August, Socal prices have risen by double-digit percentages, although last month's median was still well below the peak of $505,000 in 2007. Nearly 30 percent of all sales went for more than $500,000, the highest since April 2008. It's still a case of too many buyers going after too few homes; properties that are priced right routinely receive multiple offers that are often well beyond asking. Many of those offers are all cash, which has created problems for potential buyers needing to finance. April home sales were also up from a year earlier. From press release:

"This is a market that is still re-balancing. Sales of deeply discounted properties in affordable neighborhoods are way down. Activity in middle and high-end communities is on its way up. Now it's catch-up time, with a healthier economy spurring more demand and rising prices tempting more people to put their homes up for sale," said John Walsh, DataQuick president.

APRIL HOME SALES (% change from April 2012)
Los Angeles 7,140 +9.7%
Orange 3,327 +13.9%
Riverside 3,760 +8.1%
San Bernardino 2,512 +9.6%
Ventura 884 +10.0%

APRIL MEDIAN PRICE (% change from April 2012)
Los Angeles $395,000 +27.4%
Orange $535,000 +27.4%
Riverside $248,000 +24.0%
San Bernardino $195,000 +24.8%
Ventura $420,000 +16.7%

Source: DataQuick, DQNews.com

True Religion sold in $835 million deal

2013-05-10T17:26:26Z

The Vernon-based jeans maker, which has been talking about a possible sale since last fall, will be acquired by the private equity firm TowerBrook Capital Partners. Purchase price works out to $32 a share, which is a lukewarm 8.7 percent above True Religion's closing price on Thursday. Then again, the company has lost some of its shine from earlier years, what with operating margins narrowing to 16.7 percent last year from 33.2 percent in 2005. Still, the brand remains well known and so acquiring the company at a relatively cheap price might make sense. TowerBrook has a diverse portfolio that includes Rave Holdings, the movie theater chain, and the St. Louis Blues hockey franchise. From DealBook:

True Religion, which, like many of its competitors is based in Southern California, was among the fastest growing of these brands, fueling the demand for the perfect pair of frayed, ripped, or faded jeans. It justifies its premium prices by using high-quality denim and having workers hand finish the pants with unique stitching or patterns. The company was started in 2002 by Jeffrey Lubell, who as a teenager growing up in New York would bleach bell-bottoms and embellish his favorite pairs of jeans with leather and denim patches, according to its Web site. He says of the company's name: "There's only one real religion and that's people. And all the people in the world wear jeans."

W Hollywood penthouse, at 25,000 sq. ft., on market for $45 million

2013-05-10T14:48:07Z

Even by L.A. standards, this one is a jaw-dropper. With four bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and stunning views of pretty much everything, the 15th floor property is part of the 143-unit W Hollywood residences complex (other units range from a measly $800,000 to $3 million). Only two-thirds of the units have sold, which tells you that the condo-on-top-of-luxury-hotel craze hasn't been a huge hit with buyers. The $45 million penthouse seems like an especially tough sell. As reported by the WSJ:

It includes a ballroom that can fit 250 people, a wine room and wine vault, a screening room with LCD projection, a solarium, a gallery and a pub-style tap room. The nearly 4,000-square-foot master suite has a fireplace, entry foyer and oversize walk-in closet and dressing room designed to look like a Ralph Lauren store, says Richard Robertson III, the apartment's architect. The unit also includes a fitness center with an attached beauty parlor, a library, 17 valet parking spaces and a reception area with separate women's and men's powder rooms.