Entry Level

There's a feature on Honda's new NC700X that looks a bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Lift the lid on a space that holds the gas on most motorcycles, and riders can fit an entire full-face helmet. This in-place-of-the-gas-tank cubby is just one of several innovations on a bike that caters to want-it-all but can't-really-afford-it Americans now that the world economy has backfired and put the skids on an industry long dominated by twist-the-grip excess. In development since the Lehman Brothers collapse of 2008 and on the market since August, the $6,999 NC700X is the latest, low-cost offering in what Honda is calling its Value for Money lineup, which includes the $4,099 CBR250R sport bike released last year and the $4,499 CRF250L dual sport that came on the market earlier this month.

Luxury car and SUV sales and leases are up 11% so far this year after climbing 13.7% in 2012, according to a new analysis by Kelley Blue Book. The growth has been driven by sales at the lower end of the luxury segment, said Alec Gutierrez, senior analyst at auto price information company Kelley Blue Book. "The brands that are doing best are the entry level luxuries lines: Acura, Infiniti, Lexus," Gutierrez said. "Success at the entry level is why you see Mercedes-Benz introducing the CLA and BMW introducing the 320i.

Sony Corp. unveiled a top-level organizational shake-up that signals key shifts in the Japanese company's priorities in consumer electronics as incoming Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai works to turn around massive losses. Hirai, promoted a month ago to replace Howard Stringer as the company's top officer effective Sunday, has restructured the electronics business around three "pillars": mobile, games and digital imaging. As of Sunday, the new mobile group will include both Vaio laptops and the Sony Ericsson cellphone business, while the games segment will include all PlayStation products.

Bargains on bank-owned homes are quickly vanishing in the country's most competitive markets. Since the start of the mortgage meltdown, repossessed homes have been considered the discount aisles of real estate. Now competition among investors and first-time home buyers for affordable digs is making those distressed properties less affordable, a new analysis by Zillow.com shows. "They will get somewhat of a deal, depending on the market," Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said.

Tonight, four days after the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank's death--memorialized around the world last week by public readings of her eloquent diaries--South Coast Repertory weighs in with its own Holocaust commentary: a NewSCRipts presentation of Peter Sagal's "Denial." The Harvard-educated writer, 30, believes that the SCR Mainstage reading of his new play could not come at a better time or in a more appropriate place.

Ever since Jewish immigrants poured into garment shops on New York's Lower East Side at the turn of the century, the "rag trade" has provided entry-level jobs for refugees. Sewing remains equally attractive to new capitalists. It takes only about $20,000 to $30,000 to rent a shop and sewing machines and launch a garment-contracting business. Orange County has at least 400 such shops, the majority owned by Vietnamese refugees who have immigrated within the last five years.

The NHL Players Assn. confirmed Thursday it would accept an entry-level salary system if owners agree to drop a proposed levy on payrolls of the top 16 revenue-earning clubs. However, it's doubtful that alone will persuade the league to lift the lockout, which is in its 42nd day. Owners claim they lost $70 million the last two seasons, and salary controls during players' first three seasons would not produce savings of anywhere near that amount.

Optimism surged Wednesday that the NHL lockout might be near an end, fueled by reports that players are willing to adopt an entry-level salary structure and move toward the owners' position on limiting salary arbitration. Today's negotiations in Buffalo, N.Y., will largely determine whether those are false hopes or steppingstones toward resolving the 41-day-old stoppage and starting the season by early or mid-December.

If you want a career in environmental work, you don't have to go to Brazil to save a rain forest or to MIT to get an academic pedigree or to IslipY., to battle municipal solid waste. Just pick out your favorite environmental issue and make a local call. You can be at the front in no time flat and still be home by dinner. Your pay will be terrible at first--even nonexistent--but eventually, in many of these jobs, a decent wage can be had.

Anne Do is used to sharing walls. She rented at Warner Center Apartments for three years while trying to buy a home. But after repeatedly losing bidding wars to equity-rich buyers, the 35-year-old commercial real estate attorney was losing hope of ever owning. Then in October, the new owners of Do's Woodland Hills complex offered tenants the right of first refusal to purchase the 1,279 rental units being renovated to for-sale condominiums.