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Watch this video before the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017!

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On World Elephant Day–Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017–the Smithsonian’s National Zoo celebrated Ambika the elephant’s 70th birthday. Hear her keepers of more than 30 years talk […]

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Highlights of the year 2017 Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

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We used to make a big deal out of Casual Fridays at work.  But now that we're entering the dog days of summer, is anyone dressing up?

Mark Austin Thomas: Business analyst Mark Lacter, dare I ask what you're wearing?

Mark Lacter: This is radio for a reason, Mark!  And certainly, don't ask that question at the L.A. Daily Journal newspaper, which recently issued a memo that laid down the law on what's not considered appropriate attire.  As in, no jeans, no sneakers (except for messengers), no sandals or flip-flops, no halter tops, no spaghetti straps, no tee-shirts.  Also, no shorts, leggings, or exercise pants.  And, if you don't measure up, you may be sent home to change clothes - without pay for the time you've missed.  Now, to be fair, the Daily Journal is a legal newspaper, and law firms - along with the courts - remain kind of a bastion for traditional business attire.

Thomas: And that means jackets and ties for men...?

Lacter: ...and skirt suits and business dresses for women.  It's the same deal for many offices in New York and Chicago.  Matter of fact, dressing down is still not especially popular in many parts of the country, according to a new survey I came across.  More than half of the respondents say it suggests an employee doesn't have respect for the workplace.  In other words, not a team player.

Thomas: But L.A. has this huge creative community where jeans and tee-shirts are almost part of the uniform.

Lacter: Yeah, the only people wearing suits at these places are the high-level executives who are actually called "suits."  This has been true in Hollywood for years, but now you're seeing it with the growth of tech companies.  Imagine how confusing it must be for an attorney who wears the standard business uniform, and who has one of these companies as his client.  And, maybe that's the point - there is no single workplace culture, even within the companies themselves.

Thomas: Is being comfortable just not on the radar at these places?

Lacter: Well, not to pick on the Daily Journal, but so what if someone who is stuck in front of a computer all day wants to be a little more comfortable in jeans?  Will the world as we know it come to a halt?  You know, the workplace is far different than it was even 10 years ago.  People are doing their jobs in all sorts of ways, whether it's working from home, or as independent contractors.  And, this is really all about common sense - so, maybe it's time the stick-in the-muds realized as much.

Thomas: Attire aside, how is the workplace itself changing?

Lacter: Some of those downtown law firms have been cutting back, which means that they don't need as much space.  Not every attorney needs a giant office.  Same with the downtown accounting firms - when folks do go to work, the office may include a fancy kitchen, a ping pong table, workstations that double as treadmills, a place to do yoga or even to take a nap.

Thomas: All this is supposed to boost productivity...

Lacter: ...which it probably does, though you do have to wonder whether having a yoga room really enhances output, or is just a way of keeping employees from not taking a job somewhere else.  My favorite perk, and I say that facetiously, is the office kegerator, which not only seems like a dumb idea, but a great way for a company to get sued if somebody has one too many.

Thomas: Quickly Mark, any news in the dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable?

Lacter: Not good news.  Time Warner Cable offered what it said were two possible solutions to the standoff, but CBS has came back and called it a sham.  Time Warner Cable subscribers have been without CBS programming since Friday, which is already going on longer than analysts had first expected.  The fight is over re-transmission fees - the amount of money that a programmer receives from a distributor- in this case, Time Warner Cable.  CBS apparently wants a big increase, and Time Warner Cable doesn't want to pay.

Mark Lacter is a contributing writer for Los Angeles Magazine and writes the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Businesses are cutting back on hours to avoid having to provide health care coverage under the new Affordable Care Act.

Steve Julian: Business analyst Mark Lacter, who's affected here?

Mark Lacter: Thirty hours a week is the magic number for workers to be considered full time under the new law.  If a business has 50 or more full-time employees, health care coverage has to be provided.  Except that a lot business owners say that the additional cost is going to be a financial killer, so instead, some of them have been cutting back hours to below that 30-hour threshold.  More than 200,000 Californians are at risk of losing hours from the health care law - that according to one study.

Julian: What kinds of businesses are doing this?

Lacter: Restaurant chains have received much of the attention, but the city of Long Beach, as an example, is going to reduce hours for a couple of hundred of its workers.  And, last week came word that the L.A.-based clothing chain Forever 21 will cut some of its full-time employees to a maximum 29-and-a-half hours a week, and classify them as part time.  That touched off an outcry on the Internet - people were saying that Forever 21 was being unfair and greedy - though the company says that only a small number of employees are affected, and that its decision has nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act.  There's really no way to know - Forever 21 is a private company, which means it's not obligated to disclose a whole lot.  What we do know is that those people will be losing their health care coverage.

Julian: And, the ultimate impact on businesses and workers?

Lacter: Steve, you're looking at several years before the picture becomes clear.  Here in California, workers not eligible for health care through their employer can get their own individual coverage, and if their income levels are not over a certain amount, they'd be eligible for Medicaid.  And, let's not forget many businesses already provide coverage for their employees.  So, lots of rhetoric - but, not many conclusions to draw from, which does make you wonder why so many business owners are unwilling to at least give this thing a chance.  Just doesn't seem to be much generosity of spirit for their workers, not to mention any recognition that if people can go to a doctor instead of an emergency room we'd probably all be better off.

Julian: Health care is far from the only controversy for Forever 21, true?

Lacter: In some ways, it's one of the biggest Southern California success stories.  Don Chang emigrated here in 1981 from Korea at the age of 18, opened his first store in Highland Park three years later (it was called Fashion 21), and he never looked back.  Today, revenues are approaching $4 billion.  But, the guy must have some pretty hefty legal bills because his company has been accused of all kinds of workplace violations.  The lawsuits alleged that workers preparing items for the Forever 21 stores didn't receive overtime, that they didn't get required work breaks, that they received substandard wages, and that they worked in dirty and unsafe conditions - sweatshop conditions, essentially.

Julian: Are most of their claims settled out of court?  You don't hear much about them.

Lacter: They are, which means there's usually a minimal amount of media coverage.  If a privately held company decides to keep quiet by not releasing financial results or other operational information, there's not likely to be much of a story - unlike what happens with a company like Apple, which is always under scrutiny.  Sometimes, plaintiffs will try to organize class-action suits, but that's extremely tough when you're dealing with low-wage workers who are often very reluctant to get involved because of their legal status.  And, let's not forget that Forever 21 - like any low-cost retailer - is simply catering to the demand for cheap, stylish clothes that are made as quickly as possible.

Julian: I guess you can't make that happen when wages and benefits are appreciably higher than your competition.

Lacter: The next time you walk into a Forever 21 store and wonder how prices can be so reasonable, that's how.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Across the country, the sale of electric cars is sluggish.

Susanne Whatley: But business analyst Mark Lacter, that's not quite the case in California...

Mark Lacter: Well, comparatively speaking, Susanne.  L.A. and San Francisco alone made up 35 percent of the electric cars sold in the entire U.S. during the first half of the year - 35 percent!  Keep in mind that statewide just 9,700 electric cars were sold in that six-month period, which translates to a little over 1 percent of all car sales in California.  So, they're not exactly lining up around the block, even in a region that's known for its early adopters.  Of course, electric cars were always going to be a tough sell -

Whatley: I've been driving one for about half a year now... and I absolutely love it.  But they ARE expensive, and I'm sure that's a factor.

Lacter: - and that's even after a federal tax credit, but they also require drivers to learn about recharging the battery - sometimes in not-very-convenient places - and, from a design standpoint, most of them don't stand out (one of the automakers that's now out of business had been selling what was a basically plain vanilla Mitsubishi sedan).  Now, the one notable exception is the Tesla - so long as you have at least $90,000 to shell out, and are willing to wait a while to get your car delivered.  In affluent sections of L.A., this is truly the hot car - just 600 or so Teslas have been sold in Southern California during the first seven months of the year.  It's also received rave reviews from all the big automotive publications.

Whatley: And perhaps most surprising of all, Tesla has been making money…

Lacter: That's right, although the stock price is ridiculously overvalued at around $20 billion (that's one-third the market value of General Motors, even though Tesla cranks out all of 21,000 vehicles a year while GM sells almost 5 million).  People seem to love this car almost in spite of it being battery powered, which gets us back to the challenges in trying to sell these things.  Elon Musk, who founded the company (he's also behind SpaceX and he co-founded PayPal), has managed to win over customers because the car itself is so much fun to drive.  The other makers of electric cars - not so much.

Whatley: So, for the folks still on the fence... might it be better to wait until driverless cars become available?

Lacter: That's going to be quite a wait, although all the automakers are working on their versions of self-driving cars.  The Mercedes people just announced plans to launch in 2020 - the same year that Nissan wants to bring out its car - and Google, which has had self-driving cars tooling around California for several years, is looking at 2017.  So, what we're seeing is real, but the question is what sort of real it'll turn out to be.  Certainly, the possibilities are nothing short of revolutionary - you're looking at, potentially, faster commute times because cars will be able to travel closer to one other (reaction times would be faster than with a human behind the wheel); in addition, fewer accidents and injuries (also a function of reaction times).  But, how well the vehicles work once they get beyond the testing phase is anyone's guess.  California does allow self-driving prototypes car for testing purposes, but that's far different than full-scale authorization.

Whatley: What if something goes wrong?

Lacter: That's one of the big concerns - liability, but the real issue is public acceptance.  Already, surveys are finding reluctance to buying a driverless car, or even having them on the road.  That's not a huge surprise considering how novel the concept still is - and all it takes are a few mishaps to affirm the skeptics.  All of which points to a lengthy transition period - not unlike the early days of the passenger plane, when most folks couldn't imagine getting into a flying machine.  Eventually, they got used to them, but it took time.

Whatley: And finally, some thoughts on Cal Worthington?

Lacter: Certainly one of the great showmen in the annals of L.A. broadcasting - Cal Worthington wasn't the first auto dealer to discover the benefits of commercials, but he lasted longer than anyone else, selling more than a million cars (that according to his count), and grossing billions of dollars.  The Worthington ads are sometimes considered the first infomercials - that might be a stretch, but three factors really made it all come together: Southern California's appetite for the automobile, the ease by which Cal could deliver his schtick (remember when he was strapped to the wing of a biplane?), and the fact that there was so much available air time to sell in L.A.. Definitely a legend in his own time.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Sign ups for the Affordable Care Act start in a week, and the program is leading to changes in the way employers handle health coverage.

Steve Julian: Business analyst Mark Lacter, what's the most noticeable adjustment?

Mark Lacter: Steve, once you get beyond the squabbling over efforts to defund the new law, what's happening is quite remarkable: businesses are finding new ways to administer and pay for coverage - and some would say it's long overdue.  One interesting example: the grocery chain Trader Joe's, which is based in Monrovia, employs over 20,000 people, and shells out millions of dollars a year in helping provide its people with health insurance.  Well, Trader Joe's has decided to end coverage for part-timers working fewer than 30 hours a week - under the new law businesses are not obligated to provide benefits to employees who work less than that amount.  However, the company is giving those people $500 to go towards the purchase of premiums at the new public exchanges.  And that, along with the tax credits available, could make the new arrangement cost about the same or even cheaper than the current health care package.

Julian: How did TJ's explain this to its employees?

Lacter: The company cited the example of an employee with one child who makes $18 an hour and works 25 hours a week.  Under the old system, she pays $166 a month for coverage; under the new system, she can get a nearly identical plan for $70 a month.  Now, there are cases in which workers will end up paying more - usually it involves having a family member who makes more money, but who doesn't have access to coverage (good example would be an independent contractor or freelancer).  By the way, other companies - including the drug store chain Walgreen's - are also moving part-timers to the public market, and offering some sort of a subsidy.

Julian: I imagine not all companies are being as conscientious...

Lacter: No.  We've seen a number of corporations cut worker hours and not offer a supplemental payment.  Steve, it's worth remembering that administering health insurance is something that businesses fell into quite by accident 60 years or so ago - premiums cost next to nothing at the time, and it was seen as way of attracting workers without having to jack up wages.  The arrangement became more attractive over the years because of certain tax benefits.  But, it's far from ideal - workers move from job to job more often than they used to, and not all businesses are capable of handling the extra costs, especially small businesses.

Julian: Doesn't L.A. have a higher percentage of uninsured than elsewhere?

Lacter: Considerably higher - the Census Bureau show that 21 percent did not have coverage in 2012, which is higher than the overall national number.  Now, there are a bunch of reasons for this: L.A. has a large percentage of households that simply can't afford health insurance or don't have access to government programs, among them undocumented immigrants.  You also have big numbers of people who are self-employed and don't get covered - we're talking about freelancers or consultants of some sort.

Julian: …Or, they work for small businesses whose owners either can't afford, or don't want to provide coverage…

Lacter: That's right - the new law only requires businesses with more than 50 full-time workers to offer health insurance, and a lot of small businesses don't meet that threshold.  The Census Bureau says that in the L.A. area, one in four people with jobs do not have health insurance - and, by the way, there's been a drop-off both in the percentage of businesses in California that offer coverage.

Julian: Sounds dire.  Who picks up the cost?

Lacter: Well, we all do in one way or another - and that, of course, is the problem.  What the Affordable Care Act offers is a start in getting some of the uninsured onto the rolls.  Clearly, it's an imperfect solution that will require all sorts of adjustments, and even though everyone and their uncle seems to have formed a definitive opinion about the new law, it's going to be years before there's any real sense of how it's going.  And, let's remember, signing up for these programs is not some political act.  It's just a way for people to get health insurance for themselves and their families.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The partial federal government shutdown is one week old, but economists are still saying that its impact in Southern California and elsewhere will be limited.

Susanne Whatley: Business analyst Mark Lacter, why is that?

Mark Lacter: If you look back on the history of these things, Susanne, you see that the disputes are resolved before too much damage gets done.  As for Southern California, I notice that KPCC's Alice Walton was asking around over the weekend about the shutdown, and most folks gave it a shrug.  The regional economy is just too diversified - and not especially tied to federal employment.  You have about 46,000 federal workers employed in L.A. County in one capacity or another - that's out of a workforce of nearly 5 million.  And, now it appears as if the federal employees who have been furloughed are going to receive their back wages whenever the shutdown finally ends.

Whatley: That still might make things dicey when it comes time to pay the monthly mortgage...

Lacter: ...but at least money will be available before most folks run into serious liquidity issues.  That's what the shutdown really comes down to - inconvenience rather than dislocation.  And, you see this with the various government services affected: the E-Verify website is down - that lets business owners know whether the people they're wanting to hire can work legally in the U.S., which obviously is important.  The Small Business Administration has stopped processing loan applications, and the Federal Housing Administration is reporting delays in its loan processing, which could mean a home buyer might not complete his or her paperwork all that quickly.

Whatley: But, what if this were to go on for months?

Lacter: Well, then it would create problems, but nobody really thinks that's going to happen.  The real issue, not just nationally and regionally - but globally - is the refusal by Congress to raise the debt ceiling.  The deadline is a week from Thursday, and - of course - there's been all sorts of debate about what this would mean for the economy.

Whatley: All right, so what would this mean for the economy?

Lacter: Well, no one knows exactly.  But, then again, no one knows exactly what would happen if you fell out of a airplane without a parachute.  I just wouldn't want to test it out.  And, of course, let's keep in mind that these are manufactured crises - not reflective of anything that's going on with the real economy.  It's certainly not reflective of anything that's going on in L.A., which saw a big jump in payroll jobs for 2012 - actually it was the sharpest increase since 2005, and nearly double the national rate (that's despite an unemployment rate that remains very high in certain parts of Los Angeles).

Whatley: What about some of the big locally based companies?

Lacter: Well, if your company is publicly traded, there's a good chance your shares took a dip these past few days.  Going back to September 18, the Dow has lost almost 700 points, which - percentage-wise - is not very much, but it is reflective of how uneasy Wall Street has become.  Public companies based in the L.A. area are taking it on the chin - Disney, Amgen, Mattel, DirecTV - their stock prices are all down going back to the middle of September.

Whatley: Even so, hasn't this been a good year for the stock market?

Lacter: It has - those local companies are up anywhere from 13 percent 30 percent year to date, and the Dow is up 14 percent year to date.  Of course, the stock price of a company doesn't always match the amount of money it makes, and this year, even before worries about the debt ceiling, the numbers haven't been as good as they should be at this stage of a recovery.  And, that's why there's particular concern about next week.  You do have to wonder whether a default could have ripple effects involving trade, consumer spending, the dollar - who knows what?  Now, it's still a pretty good bet that saner heads will prevail, although there are no guarantees - and again, if worse came to worse, do you really want to be jumping out of that plane?  Guess we'll find out.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The contamination of Foster Farms chickens has provided insight into food regulation.

Steve Julian: Business analyst Mark Lacter, had we been paying attention before this happened?

Mark Lacter: You know, Steve, we often have an out of sight, out of mind attitude when it comes to food safety, and - as we're seeing with this episode - the government has a way of enabling that attitude.  What stands out, first of all, is that people started getting sick from salmonella-contaminated chicken back in March, and yet, it wasn't until the past few weeks that news stories began appearing about the seriousness of the problems.

Julian: At last check, more than 400 people have been infected, with most of them in California...

Lacter: Right, and Foster Farms, which is based in Merced County, controls two-thirds of the poultry market along the West Coast.  No fatalities so far, but many of the people who became sick had to be hospitalized - and that leads to still more concerns that the salmonella strains were resistant to antibiotics.  Now, why it took this long for consumers to be made aware that there was a problem tells you something about the way the federal government regulates poultry plants.  It was only last Friday, after the company had seen a 25 percent drop in sales, when the president of Foster Farms decided to go public.  He said he was embarrassed by the outbreak, and promised to change the company's processing facilities so that salmonella can be better identified.

Julian: Where was the US government in this?

Lacter: Apparently, the Department of Agriculture only requires testing for levels of salmonella at the time of slaughter - not later on, after the poultry is cut into parts.  Foster Farms now says it will do retesting at that later stage.  What's also interesting is that Foster Farms was not asked to recall any of its products because the chicken is considered safe as long as it's handled properly and then cooked to the right temperature, which is at least 165 degrees.  That's why some supermarkets have kept carrying the brand.

Julian: Can the government even order a recall?

Lacter: Not in a case like this - and that's because of a court case in the 1990s involving a Texas meat producer that federal inspectors were ready to shut down due to a salmonella outbreak involving ground beef.  The company sued the government, arguing that salmonella is naturally occurring, and therefore, not an adulterant subject to government regulation.  And the courts agreed.  Foster Farms has been using much the same argument.

Julian: Why isn't there more public outrage over this?

Lacter: Well, again, we go back to out of sight, out of mind.  Slaughterhouses are not exactly fun places, and they're usually not well covered by the news media until something bad happens, like the Foster Farms situation.

Julian: Chino comes to mind - a story we covered.

Lacter: That's when an animal rights group used a hidden camera to record inhumane treatment of cattle at a meat processing plant.  That company was forced into bankruptcy.  Another reason coverage is spotty is because it's not always easy to trace someone's illness to a contaminated piece of meat or chicken.  And, that leads to lots of misinformation.  The broader issue is figuring out a way to monitor these facilities without the process becoming cost prohibitive.  The Agriculture Department has been pushing a pilot program that would allow plants to speed up processing lines, and replace government inspectors with employees from the poultry companies themselves.

Julian: The idea being?

Lacter: The idea being to establish safeguards that can prevent problems before they get out of hand.  But, this is pretty controversial stuff, and advocacy groups representing poultry workers say that processing lines need to be slowed down, not speeded up.  So, you have this ongoing back and forth involving industry, government, consumer groups, and labor organizations.  And unfortunately, most of us tend to move on after one of these outbreaks gets cleared up.

Mark Lacter writes for Los Angeles Magazine and pens the business blog at LA Observed.com.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.