Finances

What would it take to get you into an electric car today? Forced by state regulators to sell more zero-emission vehicles, automakers are tripping over each other to offer consumers rock-bottom lease deals. For the first time, electric vehicles are penciling out cheaper than their gas-powered counterparts. Honda joined the price war this week by dropping the lease on its Fit EV from $389 to $259 a month. It threw in collision and vehicle theft coverage, maintenance, roadside assistance - even a charging station at your house.

Isabel Benham, whose deep knowledge of the railroad industry made her an influential bond analyst at a time when few women held positions of authority on Wall Street, has died. She was 103. She died May 18 in her New York City apartment, according to a death notice in the New York Times. No cause was given. Benham started working on Wall Street during the Great Depression. In 1964, after almost 30 years with R.W. Pressprich & Co., she became the first female partner in the firm's 55-year history.

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.

Many in Inglewood thought the city's struggling school district had been handed a lifeline last year when the state Department of Education took the reins, hiring new leaders and infusing the school system with $55 million in emergency loans to get it back on track. But in the nine months since the state takeover, the district's slide has gotten worse. Inglewood Unified has depleted its reserves, burned through nearly half of the emergency funds in one year and is operating at a $17.7-million deficit that calls for deep cuts.

Lloyd Charton recalls a fateful knock on the door. At his Dana Point home stood a cheerful man with an impressive knowledge of Charton's personal life. It was a neighbor, Dan J. Harkey. Harkey congratulated him on his retirement and asked about a recent vacation. He told him about his company, Point Center Financial Inc., which raised money from private investors and lent it to real estate developers.

A few weeks ago, the chairman of online auction site Bidz.com forecast good news ahead. The company was headed for another blowout quarter, David Zinberg said, with sales topping the already-rosy projections made in November. The announcement was designed partly to quell questions that had been swirling around the Culver City-based company for months.

Three Museum of Contemporary Art officials with key financial roles -- the chief operating officer, fundraising director and a trustee who chaired the board's finance committee -- have left MOCA in the last three months. They had been at their posts less than a year. Meanwhile, since Jeffrey Deitch became MOCA's director in mid-2010, efforts have stalled to pay down large deficits the museum incurred from 2000 to 2008 by illegally raiding its endowment. A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of MOCA's finances, said it has projected a deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. The spate of recent departures and two others in mid-2011 is "a turnover that begins to look like turmoil," MOCA's former chief executive, Charles E. Young, said this week.

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom. Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets. Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees.

If you're facing years of student loan payments but aren't making much money because you're working in public service, the federal government has some good news for you. A law that takes effect Tuesday could allow you to have some of your college debt forgiven.

Natalie Hickey left her small hometown in Ohio six years ago and aimed her beat-up Dodge Intrepid for the West Coast. Four years later, she realized a long-held dream and graduated with a bachelor's degree in photography from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. She also picked up $140,000 in student debt, some of it at interest rates as high as 18%. Her monthly payments are roughly $1,700, more than her rent and car payment combined.

Insurance giant American International Group Inc.'s attempt at selling its Century City aircraft-leasing company to a consortium of Chinese investors has run into turbulence because a deposit payment was not received on schedule. AIG revealed in a filing Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the investment group failed to meet the deadline that was specified under the terms of a deal to sell up to 90% of International Lease Finance Corp. for $4.8 billion. AIG now has the right to terminate the sale agreement, which was struck in December.

Before dawn one hazy March day in L.A., Armando Granillo pulled his SUV into a Starbucks near MacArthur Park, where he planned to pick up an envelope full of cash from an Arizona real estate broker, federal investigators say. Granillo, a foreclosure specialist at mortgage giant Fannie Mae, expected to drive off with $11,200 - an illegal kickback for steering foreclosure listings to brokers, authorities allege in court records. Granillo would leave in handcuffs. And investigators are now looking into assertions by Granillo and another former Fannie Mae foreclosure specialist that such kickbacks were "a natural part of business" at the government-sponsored housing finance company, as Granillo allegedly told the broker in a wiretapped conversation.

WASHINGTON - As the Internal Revenue Service's last two directors struggled to provide answers Tuesday about the agency's improper scrutiny of conservative groups, a lawyer for another key IRS official said she would invoke the 5th Amendment rather than answer questions about the screening and why she didn't tell Congress about it. Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, will assert her right against self-incrimination during her...

Nearly half of American mothers think their children are unprepared to get a job and one-third say their kids aren't ready to live on their own, according to a new study. The study by the McGraw-Hill Federal Credit Union found that 49% of mothers say their children aren't ready to get a job, while 44% say their progeny aren't prepared to finance their college educations. One-third of mothers say their children are “not at all prepared” to save money or live on their own, according to the study.

With under two weeks to go until election day, the race to become the city's next mayor is extremely volatile. A new poll shows Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti in a virtual dead heat , a vast improvement for Greuel, who was down by double digits in a USC Price/L.A. Times poll a month ago. The new poll also shows a growing gender gap as Greuel has increasingly emphasized that she would be the first female mayor of Los Angeles. A new television ad by a union representing city employees trumpets the historic nature of Greuel's bid. Simultaneously, new financial disclosure reports show Greuel's campaign committee has roughly one-tenth the cash on hand of Garcetti in the final days of the campaign.

WASHINGTON - President Obama nominated Democratic Rep. Mel Watt to be the top regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, moving to replace a career bureaucrat who has been sharply criticized by liberals for not doing more to help troubled homeowners. But confirmation of Watt, a 20-year congressman from North Carolina, to be director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is expected to be blocked by Senate Republicans. And the fight over the nomination could make it even more difficult for Republicans and Democrats to come together on legislation to overhaul the housing finance system and replace taxpayer-owned Fannie and Freddie.

As job losses mount and Americans are faced with mortgage payments they can no longer afford, many are asking: Should I stay or should I go? Bailing out on your home loan and opting to rent may make economic sense in some circumstances, particularly if you are saddled with a big mortgage payment on a home that has dropped steeply in value. But there are serious consequences -- financial, legal, emotional and ethical -- attached to the decision. "There is no angle that you can look at that situation and think it is a great idea," said Bruce McClary, a spokesman for ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions.

Recycling centers across California are closing, and scores of troubled youths are being tossed from "green" jobs onto unemployment rolls in the wake of Sacramento's raid on bottle deposit funds. California's recycling treasury, filled by consumers' nickel and dime deposits on drink containers, had hummed along successfully for two decades until state officials left it nearly bankrupt after taking $451 million out to help balance the budget. The unredeemed deposits that subsidized recycling facilities and such projects as a local conservation corps are virtually gone, leaving the programs in the lurch.

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is resisting a push by activists and journalists for better disclosure of campaign finance data, arguing in essence that it would cost too much to comply. It's a surprising stance from Bowen, whose office has fought to make more information about donors available to California voters. It also strains credulity. At issue is a request by MapLight California, California Common Cause and 10 others, including this newspaper, for a downloadable version of the campaign finance data that the secretary of state collects.

In a week in which beleaguered Fisker Automotive failed to make a $10-million loan payment, owners are looking to unload their cars. In some cases, they are seeing some very low offers. There were 48 listings for the high-end, hybrid electric Fisker Karma Eco-Chic and Eco-Sport cars on the Yahoo! auto sales pages. That might not seem like a lot, but the new- and used-car research company Edmunds said there were only 947 new registrations of Fisker automobiles between January 2012 and February of this year.