Charles Piller and Robert Lewis are among this year’s finalists for the Gerald Loeb awards for their Sacramento Bee stories exploring hard money lending. The first of their two stories starts with a district attorney who borrowed from a hard money broker, which the story defines as the equivalent of a “legal loan shark who [...]
A local independent pet store that’s been around for years recently started advertising a courtesy home-delivery service. When I inquired about it, I got the sense that it was an effort to combat competition from online shopping services. That was a light-bulb moment, and indeed in checking Amazon, I found my dogs’ preferred brand for [...]
Remember that scene in “The Firm” where a giddy Tom Cruise, awed by the largesse his new job affords, is told that his employer will take care of his student loans, too? These days, legal and other grads are lucky to get a paycheck let alone plump perks.
David Olinger of the Denver Post questions investment bankers’ involvement in school bond campaigns, noting that their help to pass tax increases may be a violation of Colorado law.
Spencer Soper of the Allentown Morning Call exposed the working conditions at an Amazon.com warehouse last year, noting the intense heat and ambulances parked outside to treat employees who were unable to endure the heat. He writes: “An emergency room doctor in June called federal regulators to report an ‘unsafe environment’ after he treated several [...]
You may have seen some of the “Too broke to go bankrupt” stories that ran last week, based on this report by the National Bureau of Economic Research. (The report is available free of charge to journalists, upon request.) The gist is that, according to the report, as many as one million American households may be [...]
Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner of the Columbus Dispatch analyzed about 30,000 consumer complaints from people who’ve been unable to correct errors on their credit reports for a four-part series called Credit Scars. The complaints, filed with the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in 24 states, accuse credit-reporting agencies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion of [...]
I’ve been putting some thought into ideas for localizing the upcoming Facebook IPO, and one idea I like pretty much can span all business beats: Find the up-and-coming business talent and future young billionaires in your region.
Home prices may be moribund and “available” signs abound on commercial buildings, but despite those signs of stagnation in the real-estate market, there lately seems to be an increasing buzz about REITs, the investment trusts that specialize in, well, real estate. And while they’re not generally a go-to item in average consumers’ retirement portfolios, taking a look at [...]
