Author: Charles Crumpley

Hey, did you hear the one about Jay Leno moving to prime time?

It’s probably a good move. That way, Leno’s audience can actually watch half the show before nodding off. Ba-dum-dum.

Of course, to make room, NBC will have to find someplace to put a lot of its prime time programs. Shouldn’t be a problem, though. Forest Lawn is nearby.

But seriously, folks … NBC’s announcement last week to move Leno to prime time does have implications for L.A.’s economy. That’s because the army of actors and wannabe actors who live in and around Los Angeles will have fewer opportunities for work.

Last week we were told we are officially in a recession. That brings up a question: Just what good are recessions, anyway?

The biggest benefit is that they drive down inflated prices, a task this recession is carrying out with cruel efficiency. When prices get so low that buyers can’t resist the bargains, buying activity resumes, and the cycle begins anew.

The good news is that we’re seeing that occur already. Despite terrible retail sales generally, Black Friday results were better than anyone expected, thanks to one thing: low prices. And even Los Angeles’ beleaguered homes are now priced so low they’re moving briskly.

As you can see in the real estate section of the current issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, the number of homes that traded hands in November in L.A. County was 48 percent higher than the same month last year.

These examples are the early stirrings of the recovery that will follow.

The decision by eHarmony to create a same-sex dating Web site is an intriguing one.

At first blush, it appears the decision was risky because it frosted off its core constituency, conservative Christians. After all, the Pasadena matchmaking service was started by a born-again Christian. And, as pointed out in an article in last week’s Los Angeles Business Journal, eHarmony had long resisted creating a gay matchmaking service.

For those reasons, eHarmony was seen as a champion by evangelicals and other dedicated Christians. Their support helped propel eHarmony to the top of the Web-dating world. (The fact that eHarmony focuses on matching up singles for matrimony and not for quickie hookups also endeared it to the Christian right.)

So when eHarmony a few weeks ago said it would create a separate same-sex dating service, some evangelicals viewed the decision as a betrayal just short of Judas Iscariot’s.

As the mortgage crises deepened, one mortgage-relief program after another popped up as fast as rooftops used to in the Inland Empire.

All those programs sure make Congress and everybody feel good, knowing that they’re helping distressed homeowners stay put.

But lately, articles have appeared saying that lots of those homeowners essentially are treating the programs like door-to-door salesmen, saying “no thank you” and slamming the door shut before they even hear the pitch.

Frustrated lenders are trying harder to entice stressed borrowers to take a good deal. IndyMac Federal Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which now runs it, recently held walk-in counseling session in Van Nuys and is set to hold another in the Inland Empire so they could hawk IndyMac’s aggressive loan modification program.

Why are the drowning homeowners so reluctant to grasp at the straw of the various mortgage-relief programs?

The blazes around Los Angeles hadn’t even been fully extinguished last week before the call went out for more regulations. No surprise there. Regulations are about the only things that spread faster than wildfires around here.

After about 500 mobile homes were destroyed in Sylmar, you knew what was coming. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors didn’t disappoint us. On Tuesday, they directed fire officials to prepare recommendations to change building codes for mobile homes.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky reportedly said he’s in favor of the state requiring that mobile homes be built with more fire-retardant materials and that mobile homes not be situated closely together.

OK, let’s step back and think for a moment. Why do people buy mobile homes? It’s the low price, right?

At most awards dinners, you learn some interesting ideas and hear some success stories, and it all makes a nice, mild impression. But last week I attended an awards dinner in downtown Los Angeles that made me slap my forehead.

The dinner gave awards to non-profit organizations that distinguish themselves through innovation. The winner was KickStart International, which has devised a business model that’s ingeniously simple and wonderfully effective. If more non-profits, and even businesses, followed its lead, I dare say poverty throughout the world could be dramatically and permanently reduced.

KickStart operates in Kenya and other areas of impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. It comes up with sturdy hand-powered tools designed to immediately transform destitute people into money-making entrepreneurs.

It may seem crazy for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose giving tax breaks to film and television productions at the same time there is a state budget crisis, but this is exactly the time to make such a move.

The governor last Thursday announced he wants to extend roughly $100 million a year to producers as an incentive for them to make movies and TV shows in the state. That is a great deal of money, sure, but it is far less than California would lose if more production leaves.

As noted previously in this column and other places, about 40 states and several other countries offer some tax benefit or other incentives to producers who film there. California is not one of them. And some of those giveaways are embarrassingly generous – too generous for producers to pass up.

In fact, many of the producers haven’t. A few years ago, most film production was done in California. Now, most isn’t.

Thank goodness California is pushing the green agenda. The state will benefit economically because all kinds of business and jobs will be created to cater to the new demand for cleaner power.

How many times have you heard that statement? Probably more than you heard how the Dodgers pitching was going to carry them into the World Series.

There’s one itty bitty problem, though: Thanks to the green agenda, it’s quite possible the state will be a net loser economically.

The fact is, jobs and businesses likely will be created as a result of California’s still-new law called AB 32. That’s the one that mandates greenhouse gas emissions be chopped back about 30 percent by 2020 and more thereafter. But it’s also likely that a good number of jobs will be destroyed or will migrate out of the state, too. Whether the former will offset the latter is an open question. In other words, is it really more likely we’ll lose or win?

When this country’s top bankers went into a secret meeting last week, they may have believed that they were to meet Henry Paulson and hear an update on the unfolding financial crisis. Instead, the Henry Paulson they met was no longer just Treasury secretary but the new Don of the financial universe, and he was going to make them a deal they couldn’t refuse.

Yes, Don Paulson told them, the government had a deal for them. The government was going to buy a big stake in their banks and be their new partner, whether they liked it or not. Now, of course, the bankers had two choices: They could take the deal, or they could take the deal.

Actually, I made up the part about what Paulson said to them. We don’t know what he said. Apparently not so much as a transcript was made.