Philanthropy in Plane Site

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More than 340 of L.A.’s business and political elite showed up Oct. 11 for the annual gala benefit for the Alfred Mann Foundation. Partiers reported that they were wowed by the venue a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport that was transformed into a Chinese palace.

Among the attendees, besides Al Mann and his wife, Claude: Ed and Gayle Roski, Zev and Barbara Yaroslavsky, Ronald Sugar, Andrew Cherng, Dennis Tito and Kent Kresa. Receiving awards were Dominic Ng, Leeza Gibbons and professor Thomas Lenarz. Entertainment was provided by Michael Bolton, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and the Silk Dancers from Cirque Du Soleil.


Recession Proof

When Ben Stein, the humorist and economist, heard last week that the National Association of Business Economists said the recession had ended, he was skeptical. Well, more like scornful.

“If you ask a person who is unemployed and is looking for a job in Southern California if the recession is over, he would laugh at you,” Stein told KNX-AM (1070)’s Frank Mottek last week. “If you ask a wife who’s trying to sell her home, she would laugh at you. If you ask anyone selling automobiles in Southern California if the recession is over, he would laugh at you. The recession might be over by some metric, but according to the way real human beings live, it is not over.”

Stein, a local resident who occasionally teams up with Mottek for a “Frank and Stein” segment, went on to say that economic forecasters are “worthless” and suggested waiting for the government to make the recovery official.

He called it a “stubborn recession,” but, he added, “I hope I’m wrong.”


For the Dogs

Several hundred of L.A.’s business elite showed up at City National Bank’s investment conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel recently hoping to learn where the economy is heading. But first they got a reminder of how crazy things used to be.

Before keynote speaker and CNN analyst Paul Begala took the stage, City National Chief Executive Russell Goldsmith said the credit market was so loose before the recession that no one in the Goldsmith household had any trouble getting a credit card.

“Even my dog got a credit card in the mail,” he said. “Luckily, I didn’t let him use it.”


Staff reporter Richard Clough contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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