Money

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

Surf apparel company Quiksilver Inc. hasn't given investors much to be stoked about in recent years. The Huntington Beach company owns some of the biggest brands in action sports: Quiksilver, Roxy, DC and others. Yet it has lost money each of the last six years and is expected to post a loss this year too. So, what's the deal? Analysts note a slowdown in the action sports industry, increased global competition and, perhaps, a loss of focus. And the company's less successful brands hurt its performance.

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.

Re "Warning on greenhouse gases," June 11 The International Energy Agency, "an independent research group established by the world's most-industrialized nations," has sounded a warning on the perils of climate change if greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked. The lying, greedy conspiracy of climate scientists has obviously gotten to them. Congress remains uninterested, but a miraculous reversal in interest would suddenly manifest if only the scientific community could outmatch the fossil fuel industry's kickbacks to lawmakers loyally blocking any action.

WASHINGTON - In the first and only vote Thursday on the immigration bill, senators turned back a Republican measure that would have delayed a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally until after the border with Mexico is fully secure. Republicans still plan to offer several other measures to enhance border security, but this one, from Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, was one of the most hard-line of the proposals. The 57-43 vote to defeat the amendment offered an imprecise test of whether the Senate will find the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.

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.

Few markets crashed harder than Compton when California's real estate bubble burst. The city's northwest side saw the median home price plummet to $94,000 in 2009, down from $385,000 at the peak. Foreclosures dotted the streets. Families fled, leaving trash and old furniture behind. "There were a lot of empty houses. It was a big mess," said real estate broker Ruben Magdaleno of Re/Max VIP. These days, the working-class community has a new identity: comeback kid. Northwest Compton has posted the most dramatic price jump of any area in Southern California.

In these troubled economic times, it's not hard to understand why people might want to protect their life savings by purchasing a hard asset like gold or silver. At least, that's the pitch of Monex, the big Newport Beach investment firm, which bills itself as "America's trusted name in precious metals investments" and assures clients that it's "committed to customer service. " So let's take a look at the experiences of some customers who say their trust in Monex was misplaced.

What Congress giveth, Congress taketh away. And so it was that on Jan. 1 most wage earners found themselves a little light in the paycheck. The reason, of course, is that lawmakers late last year allowed the 2-percentage-point cut in the employee portion of the FICA tax to expire. That benefit was enacted in 2010 to put more cash in taxpayers' wallets during the tough economic downturn. But the greater tax burden doesn't mean would-be home buyers need to put off taking advantage of some of the lowest mortgage rates in eons.

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

Dear Liz: I have three credit cards that are in my name only, plus a small loan at my credit union. My husband did not sign for any of these, nor does he know the extent of my debt, which is about $10,000. If I should die before I can get them paid off, will he be responsible for my debt? Answer: Your debts become an obligation of your estate when you die. That means creditors will be paid out of the assets you leave behind. The extent to which creditors can make a claim on jointly owned assets - such as, say, your home - varies by state.

A Beverly Hills-based property developer is under investigation for allegedly using his daughters and two of his firm's attorneys to launder illegal campaign contributions to Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez, according to a search warrant obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The warrant comes as the district attorney's influence-peddling investigation focuses on whether commercial property owners who contributed to Noguez - and received significant property tax breaks - violated the law by hiding the true source of campaign money to the assessor.

CALI, Colombia - Ask Ana Julia Torres how many children she has, and she'll say 652: two human offspring plus the hundreds of tigers, lions, mules, snakes, monkeys and other species residing at her refuge north of here. The creatures have typically been seized from or cast off by narcos, circuses, animal traffickers and bored collectors. Her reference to the "children" inhabiting her 8-acre private facility, named Villa Lorena after her daughter, reflects her deep love for the animals.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown has backed off his proposal to tie some money for California's public universities to such requirements as improving graduation rates, enrolling more low-income students and freezing tuition for four years. University of California and California State University officials fought Brown's carrot-and-stick approach to higher education, which the governor had embedded in his budget plan. Brown wanted to steadily increase funding for universities over the next four years as long as they met specific conditions - ensuring more students finish their degrees on time, enrolling more transfers from community colleges and other measures - and to withhold the money if tuition was raised.

Often, by the end of an election, the weaknesses of the existing campaign finance laws have become evident, and the need to update them has been made clear by the ways those weaknesses have been exploited. That is certainly the case with Los Angeles' most recent city elections. Some of the problems are not fixable locally. The explosive rise of independent expenditures, for instance, is constitutionally protected. The Supreme Court has held that the 1st Amendment protects the right of individuals, unions and corporations to spend unlimited sums on a political race, so long as the spending is not made directly to (or coordinated with)

A couple of recent On the Spot columns (www.lat.ms/19uSnX6 and http://www.lat.ms/11J5PFc) dealt with making sure that travelers have a credit card that's compatible with foreign systems. Many U.S. cards have a magnetic stripe. They are, technologically speaking, old hat. They're supposed to work abroad. They don't always. Many foreign merchants use smartcards with a chip. Some require a personal identification number to work; others just a signature. The smartcard credit card is increasingly available in the U.S. but not always readily.

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Car dealers have found a new way to profit from people with money trouble: leasing them hand-me-down vehicles. The deals are pitched to customers as the cheapest way to drive a used car off the lot, with the added benefit of an easy escape for those who can't keep up with the payments. Few customers are told about the advantages on the other side of the trade. Leases can allow dealerships to sidestep interest rate caps, and there are fewer financial disclosures rules than with a conventional car loan.

SACRAMENTO - When federal agents raided state Sen. Ron Calderon's Capitol office last week, it jogged memories of the FBI's sweeping Shrimpscam sting 25 years ago. Fourteen politicos - legislators, lobbyists, staffers - were convicted in the scandal that prompted voters to impose term limits on elected state officials. We still don't know, as of this writing, precisely what the latest raid was all about. All we really know is that agents carted off several boxes. It apparently involved a U.S. attorney's suspicion about Calderon, a Democrat from Montebello, and his brother, former Assemblyman Tom Calderon.

JERUSALEM - Israeli doctors were among the first to set up emergency hospitals in Haiti after its devastating 2010 earthquake. Israel also swiftly dispatched water-purification experts to Japan following the 2011 tsunami and trauma experts to Boston after the recent marathon bombings. Yet despite such high-profile disaster assistance, Israel ranks near the bottom among leading free-market economies in providing foreign aid to developing nations. Along with Mexico and Chile, Israel gives the least as a percentage of gross national income among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.