Demand

Michele and Russell Poland's credit was shot, but they managed to buy their suburban dream home anyway. After a business bankruptcy and a home foreclosure, they turned to a rare option in this era of tightfisted banking - a subprime loan. The Polands paid nearly $10,000 in upfront fees for the privilege of securing a mortgage at 10.9% interest. And they had to raid their retirement account for a 35% down payment. Most borrowers would balk at such stiff terms. But with prices rising, the Polands wanted to snag a four-bedroom home in Temecula near top-rated schools for their 5-year-old son. By later this year, they figure, they'll be able to refinance into a standard loan.

WASHINGTON - Europe's recession stretched into the first three months of the year, making it the single-currency region's longest downturn and raising concerns about its effect on the U.S. recovery. The 17-nation Eurozone economy contracted 0.2% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, according to data released Wednesday by Eurostat, the region's statistical office. It was the sixth straight quarter of contraction, exceeding the five-quarter recession from 2008-09.

WASHINGTON - How hot is hot when it comes to housing markets across the country right now? Crazy hot: Some houses sell within days, sometimes within hours, of listing. Then there are the growing numbers that sell even before they formally hit the market - sold through a controversial technique known as "pocket listing. " What's a pocket listing? Essentially it's a private, "off-market" listing, often of short duration. Instead of putting the house on the local Multiple Listing Service, which exposes it to a vast number of shoppers and agents via real estate websites, agents restrict access to information about the house to their own buyer clients or colleagues in the same brokerage, hoping for a quick, full-price sale.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein made headlines recently by demanding a forceful U.S. response to Syria's use of chemical weapons against its population. Less noticed was that the California Democrat wasn't urging deeper military involvement or other dramatic steps, but only a new push for action by the United Nations Security Council, which has already rejected Western-backed resolutions on Syria three times. In this cautious approach, Feinstein, who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is not alone.

Jeremy Parker is a rancher who raises his cattle the old-fashioned way. His herd feeds on grass. "There's definitely growing demand" for grass-fed beef, he said. "There's more demand than there is availability. " Although still only about 3% of the beef consumed in the U.S., grass-fed beef will keep rising in popularity, advocates, consumers and producers predict. One study put demand growth at 20% a year. "It's expanded dramatically," said Alan Williams, a grass-fed beef producer and member of the Pasture Project, an effort to get more conventional producers in the Midwest switching to pasture-based systems.

Add one more victim to the economic downturn's casualty list: clean pools. The recession and its aftermath killed off many pool-cleaning businesses as cash-strapped homeowners looked to economize or lost their homes altogether. In some neighborhoods, pools turned green with algae and became breeding grounds for mosquitoes. But the pool-cleaning companies that managed to stay afloat are seeing a bit of a resurgence, in part because some of the competition has been wiped out. Also, banks are finding themselves forced to maintain the pools in foreclosed homes to avoid liability issues and meet public-safety demands by local governments, while homeowners say they are finding that they can no longer put off fixing problems caused by poorly maintained pools.

The history of organ transplantation in the United States began in 1954 with a successful kidney transplant performed in Boston. Since then, demand has grown to the point that 108,893 people in the U.S. are now awaiting organ transplants -- the majority of them kidneys. About 74 organ transplants are performed in the U.S. each day, but 17 people die daily because of a shortage of donors. OrganDonor.gov tracks the wait list (by organ) and provides basic information about how to become a donor.

Re "Job creation slows amid uncertainty," July 7 U.S. firms are hesitating to hire new employees because of reduced demand, not because of uncertainty. Demand for goods and services creates jobs. Why would a company hire when no one is buying its product? Put money in the pockets of consumers and they will spend it. Companies will then have to produce more by hiring more people to satisfy the demand. The transportation bill that Congress passed last week will put money in the pockets of consumers.

Growing demand from creative businesses such as post-production, new media, advertising and technology firms resulted in the greatest net absorption of creative office space on Los Angeles County's Westside in 2011 since the start of the recession, a report said. Last year, more than 500,000 square feet of offices were taken off the market, the highest annual net absorption since 2006 and a 32% increase over 2010, real estate brokerage Industry Partners said. The firm describes creative space as an adaptive reuse of an existing commercial or industrial building predating 1970 or new construction meant to convey a similar look and feel.

Companies in creative businesses that scorn traditional glass-and-steel office towers continued to rule the Westside real estate market in the second quarter as landlords scrambled to meet their demands. While large spaces in some of downtown Los Angeles' signature skyscrapers such as 72-story US Bank Tower lay fallow, homely old industrial buildings tricked out on the inside were in short supply, according to a report by real estate brokerage Industry Partners. Direct vacancy in the 17.7-million-square-foot Westside creative office market was 9.2%, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2009.

WASHINGTON - As a sweeping immigration bill moves forward in the Senate, Republicans are demanding stronger border security measures than those agreed upon during four months of bipartisan negotiation. The process of toughening the bill could win additional votes from the GOP, but there is also a risk of losing Democratic support if the amendments go too far. "If, in fact, the American people can't trust that the border is controlled, you're never going to be able to pass this bill," Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told four officials from the Department of Homeland Security during a hearing Tuesday.

Gov. Jerry Brown has made it clear how unhappy he is about having to produce a plan to reduce the inmate population of California's prisons by another 9,000. Under the 2011 realignment law, the state has already lowered the prisoner count by 43,000 by diverting many would-be new prisoners to county jails and many would-be parole violators to county supervision. Besides, the governor has argued, the whole point of the court-imposed population cap - 137.5% of capacity - is to resolve serious problems with inmate medical and mental health care, and hasn't that already been done with an enormous new commitment of resources and treatment?

The Dodgers have gotten more offense out of their pitchers than their third basemen. That makes any news about Chase Headley pertinent to the Dodgers. The new ownership group of the San Diego Padres had been practically invisible all season, until Executive Chairman Ron Fowler popped up Wednesday to tell U-T San Diego the team soon would offer Headley a contract that would make him the richest player in franchise history. "Indentured servitude went out a long time ago, so we can't force him to stay here," Fowler said.

Ordering some Chardonnay or Cabernet while eating out can sometimes be the priciest part of a meal. And it's only getting more expensive. The price of vino by the glass rose steadily over the last six months, according to Restaurant Sciences, an independent firm that tracks food and beverage product sales. The cause of the costlier buzz? A tightening squeeze on wine inventories - some even call it a shortage - coupled with swelling consumer demand for the alcohol. "We're seeing more and more wine lists with nothing under $40 for a bottle," said Michael Whiteman, president of Baum/Whiteman International Restaurant Consultants.

Did you hear about the loan underwriter who demanded a letter from the borrower's doctor stating the borrower had been healed and his illness would not come back? How about the underwriter who wanted a verification of employment from the borrower who listed her occupation as "homemaker"? Yes, things are tough out there. And despite some evidence that lenders are easing up just a tad, in the new world of "prove everything - and prove it twice," there have been some unusual demands, to say the least.

First came the frenzy for iPhones and iPads. Now there's a scramble for iBonds. Apple Inc. sold $17 billion in bonds Tuesday, a gargantuan deal that ranked as the largest in global corporate history. And even though the securities are paying microscopically low interest, investors tripped over themselves to buy in. In the financial equivalent of a line stretching around the block, investors reportedly submitted more than $50 billion in requests, or more than three times the amount available.

NEW YORK -- There may not be enough bonds to satisfy demand in coming years as the private sector trims debt and workers retire. Rick Rieder, chief investment officer for fixed income at BlackRock, said central banks will likely keep interest rates low in coming years as countries continue reducing their debt loads, or leverage. "Central banks have to keep real rates low to deal with this burden of leverage,” Rieder said at an event in New York on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, the percentage of the working-age population in the United States, Italy, Germany, Japan and China is projected to decrease in coming years, Rieder said.

State Sen. Michael Rubio (D-East Bakersfield) and 22 of his legislative colleagues are demanding a congressional investigation of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. USADA is the quasi-governmental body known for stripping American athletes of their right to compete based on doping charges that it doesn't have to prove in a court of law. USADA's most recent target was Lance Armstrong. The legislators' demand, in a letter last week to U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, is a response to  my column about USADA's Armstrong ruling , which declared him a doper and purportedly stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came out swinging against the city's labor unions last week, urging lawmakers - and the next mayor - to abandon or pare the 5.5% raise that comes due for many city employees on Jan. 1. Villaraigosa set a defiant tone as he unveiled his latest budget, his last before he leaves office after eight years, saying city workers need to contribute more toward their healthcare costs. Yet amid the tough talk, the mayor's spending plan shows he already has the money to cover those costs if the unions are unwilling to deal.

Jianwei Li and two other wealthy Chinese businessmen thought they had a sure thing when they wired $1 million each to a California firm that had promised to build a fine Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area city of San Bruno. The project had an alluring budget with multiple lucky 8s - $5,888,888 - and the three investors were assured it would create enough jobs to obtain the real prize: a U.S. green card. Months passed and nothing happened. When Li's friends cornered the project developer one evening at a karaoke bar, the man, identified in court papers as Sammy Lee, apparently devised a fantastic escape.