Author: Charles Crumpley

Wanna buy a property cheap? I mean, for $40,000 you could buy a property that was worth $100,000 only a year ago, and may be worth that again soon. Maybe you could buy it for $30,000 if you bargain hard. Hold out, and perhaps that price would drop to a low, low $25,000.

That’s the kind of deal you could get from the Resolution Trust Corp. in the early ’90s. You remember the RTC? It was created in the midst of the savings and loan implosion. The RTC is often credited with clearing out the smelly air, but it is also blamed as engineering one of the greatest wealth transfers in history. It essentially took properties that had been foisted onto taxpayers and dumped them, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, to those shrewd enough to recognize a bargain.

If you’re really itching to hear someone say “duh,” just tell them with a straight face that houses are too expensive in Los Angeles.

Lots of companies put housing affordability near the top of their concerns about doing business here. Sure, middle-class workers can find acceptable family homes that are kind of affordable, but those houses may be so far inland they face commute times that could be measured by a calendar.

Everybody knows it’s a problem. The big question: What to do?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week announced a huge plan – as in $5 billion – to create more affordable housing in the city.

Now, I’m not going to quibble about the particulars of how the plan will work. Let’s leave that for another time. And I’m certainly not going to question his desire or motive. The impulse to do something to help this dire situation is understandable, commendable even.

The part I don’t understand is this: Isn’t this the same city government that’s actively tried to make homes more expensive?

Got a cowboy hat? Me neither. But it sure looks like more business folks are putting one on and moving to Texas.

That state last week made a big deal about how its economy has taken off in recent years. And it contrasted itself with California.

Actually, it makes sense to compare the two states, since they are the biggest economically and are something of rivals. But the comparison isn’t pretty. While Texans apparently are spending time keeping up with their booming economy, we seem to be blowing time keeping up with the Kardashians.

The Texas study, done by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, compared the two states for the last 10 years. On average, it said, Texas’ real economy grew 4.3 percent a year since 1997; California’s grew 3.7 percent. But Texas has been picking up speed in recent years.

What’s more, real personal income growth was much higher in Texas. Ditto for job growth.

The fact that 91 percent of Hollywood property owners last week voted to renew and expand the business improvement district in their neighborhood is a testament to how far Hollywood has bounced back and how effective the improvement district has been.

A decade or more ago, Hollywood was populated by miscreants, the homeless and shocked tourists who covered their childrens’ eyes. And while Hollywood Boulevard can be edgy still, its transformation is remarkable. Streets are clean and walkable. Armed guards patrol the area. Lots of construction is going on.

A big part of the transformation is due to the improvement district there called the Hollywood Entertainment District. The district pays for armed guards, tree plantings, extra trash pickup and the like. In the new vote by property owners, the district also will start collecting an extra assessment to clean up alleys in Hollywood in an effort to make them pedestrian friendly and even usable for retail or outdoor dining.

What started as a fairly simple and laudable goal – cleaning up the pollution at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles – long ago devolved into a mess. That mess now is getting bizarre.

It’s also a tragedy in the making. Hundreds, maybe a thousand or more little trucking companies that have long served the ports are in danger of being wiped out. And it’s unnecessary. This mess could stop. That’s what makes it bizarre.

The issue at hand is the Clean Trucks Program. The ports want to get rid of the thousands of old, fume-spewing trucks that ferry shipping containers into and out of the ports. They want new, clean-burning trucks. Many of the trucks that call at the ports are driven by their owners, many of whom are scraping by, and so the ports decided to subsidize the purchase of the new trucks. They came up with a fee on shipping containers that would help raise the considerable amount of money to subsidize the new trucks. The truck owners would still have to pay some, of course.

Santa Monica is crowded. Walking on the jammed sidewalks is like a modern-day joust. Traffic is impossible, and lucking into an on-street parking spot is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So it is understandable that residents are frustrated and some want to slam a lid on commercial growth. They’ve managed to get a measure on the ballot this fall that would cap construction of most commercial space to a piddling 75,000 square feet a year.

The frustration is understandable, but the proposal is misguided.

Like many measures designed to fix one problem, it may well end up creating others. And it may not even fix the crowding issue.

If you read this newsletter, you probably know what it means to take on a fiduciary responsibility. That’s the duty to handle other people’s money responsibly, to invest it in a way that maximizes return and to put the investors’ interests ahead of the fiduciary’s interests.

But apparently California’s big public pension funds aren’t too acquainted with that definition. Instead, Calpers, the California Public Employees Retirement System, and Calstrs, the California State Teachers Retirement System, have been pushing their so-called socially responsible investment plans.

Several years ago, they stopped investing in countries that didn’t have labor unions and a free press. They dumped stocks in tobacco companies and businesses they didn’t think were “socially responsible.” Instead, they boosted investments in businesses they did like and real estate, much of it in California.

The decision to make the giant funds become socially responsible was pushed by then-state Treasurer Philip Angelides, a Democrat, in the dawn of this decade. Funny how the definition of “socially responsible” favored the friends of Democrats, who got beneficial funding, but punished the friends of Republicans, who got screwed.

A new report last week said that consumer spending was down again. It said consumers are skittish about the economy and inflation. Although I’m just one consumer, I know my spending is down. But it’s not because of the economy. I’m fed up with retail clerks.

For one thing, they’re an endangered species. You can count more condors in the sky than clerks on the floor at Macy’s. And when you do find one, it’s obvious they’re on the sales floor by mistake because they’re clearly not there to help you. The last time I asked a clerk at Home Depot to look for something in the back because it wasn’t on the sales floor, he snickered, “Sure, dude,” and sauntered off, never to be seen again.

How long would it take a manager to tell all incoming clerks they must smile at customers, ask if they can help, say “thank you”? Would it take a minute to give that little speech? Thirty seconds even? I mean, we went to the moon and everything. You’d think a little speech like that could be told to all clerks before the end of the decade.

Honestly, I’m curious. Retail managers, please tell me, why can’t you hire a few more clerks and give them that little “be helpful” speech? What am I missing here? If enough explain, I’ll include some of the responses in a future column.