Plain folks had some eye-openers in the last two years. First there was the financial meltdown that began in 2008 but hit hard last year. Wall Street greed drove the economy down and unemployment up. Then the recent revelations about excessive salaries and benefits paid to city employees blew away cover-ups and demanded transparency in government affairs.

Immigration restructure is a political hot potato tossed around during an election year. Fresh from his victories in health care and financial market reform bills, President Obama appears not inclined to get burned on this debate. Undocumented immigrants taking jobs and using social services are just too sensitive to challenge at this time.

The regulations to be drafted to implement the recent financial reform bill should provide for a Funeral Plan. That's the opinion of Takeo Hoshi, prize-winning economist from UC San Diego, speaking at the Economics Roundtable.

Patagonia! The name itself gives one a vision of other worldliness, a place too remote to absorb easily. The region is shared by Chile and Argentina at the end of the southern hemisphere. Some people might say at the end of the world, since just getting there is an adventure in itself.

The recent liquidity crisis in the euro zone continues to shake up the global economy. Even though the Greek sovereign debt crunch also threatens Spain and Portugal economies and drives down the euro currency rate, global financial pundits believe the European Community should stay the course.

Banks and the Federal Reserve System have been taking it on the chin. A series of Congressional hearings and media investigations have unleashed unprecedented scrutiny into the heart of the U.S. financial structure and many of the gurus that run or regulate the U.S. economy.

When introducing William S. Lerach to the City Club, the author of a new book on corporate greed had it right. The Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way and opened the opportunity door for class action litigation. Bill Lerach was savvy enough to take advantage of the corporate executives who fudged on their fiscal reporting, causing big stock losses.

The mini-Cold War in Northern Asia was fired up again when North Korea torpedoed a South Korean war ship on March 26. Is there a remedy for this unprovoked attack?

Is there room for an extended law school in San Diego? That is the question asked by many community attorneys and business persons but not an issue on my radar screen until recently.

Bright fall colors are a novelty for Southern Californians. That's why an autumn leaf tour by boat in Northern New York State and Canada's St. Lawrence Seaway is a travel treat. Colonial history combined with the blaze of maple and birch trees offers a two-week Indian Summer get-away not to be missed.

(I)Ed. note: Major banks and business groups, fearing the political winds have shifted against them, are facing public anger over Wall Street excesses. This is the second in a series of commentaries reviewing financial industry reform being debated in Congress and recent regulatory sanctions against Wall Street icons.(/I)

By the time you read this, the outcome of the heated general election in the United Kingdom will be finished. Two weeks ago, public response to the national campaign swayed among the three principal political parties in near equal shares. The incumbent Labour Party was running in third place.

(I)Ed. note: Last-ditch lobbying by major banks and business groups, fearing the political winds have shifted against them, has accelerated in D.C. amid public anger over Wall Street excesses. This is the first in a series of commentaries reviewing financial industry reform being debated in Congress and pending sanctions against Wall Street icons.(/I)

Canada's best-kept secret is discovered in the unique beauty of the Maritime Provinces. Driving through the rural landscape of the Atlantic seacoast opens surprisingly new insights into remote North America. Here the French and British fought bitterly for colonial possession until Canada became a confederation in 1864 with political and trade ties to the British Commonwealth of Nations.

"More energy means more CO2," warned Lee Stein, a speaker at a Clean Tech Forum in March. The panel of four experts in sustainable energy gave numerous examples of how the global demand for energy of all types will outstrip the earth's capacity to produce without new technology. Clean tech is the new buzzword used in environmental circles.

Compromised women are standard opera fare to create the pathos of a heroine who loses her lover and often her life. In this opera the loose translation of "traviata" is a woman led astray, or more explicitly, a fallen woman.

April 15 is the day most taxpayers dread. This year will be worse than usual for many homeowners who have endured foreclosure, short sale or just plain underwater home loans resulting from housing prices going into the tank.

It was nature's secret. Only the Anasazi, or ancient ones, knew where the great chasm cut through the Navajo Land plateau. Legends about prehistoric spirits and real tales of massacres spring from the caves and river bottom of the remote canyon.

The ongoing debate and public frustration over health care reform keep the ashes of a stalled joint congressional bill stirred up. President Obama is trying to break the stalemate created by failure of bi-partisanship action and the opposing pressure by lobbyists working overtime for their insurance company clients.

The continuing decline in Japanese industrial triumph might be a prophesy of future growth for the United States. After decades of global leadership in electronics and automotive innovation, cracks in the Japanese corporate facades began to show leading into two decades of stagflation.

The tragic tale of the young lovers is familiar to the literary world due to the popularity of the Shakespeare play. The plot has been replicated down the centuries into contemporary settings but always with the conflict of two rival forces coming between innocent lovers.

Political reform in Mexico is an oxymoron, even if the current administration is dedicated to change. The potential of breaking the 70-year domination by a single political party has shown promise under President Felipe Calderon, a no-nonsense technocrat whose term of office expires in two years.

Yes, there is a remedy for market recovery. "Real estate is simply all about supply and demand," advised Sam Zell, real estate tycoon and entrepreneur extraordaire.

Continuing a season of desire, the second San Diego Opera production shifts from love and passion to freedom. Although "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi is based on a biblical event in the Book of Jeremiah, the quest of people held in bondage for freedom is timeless.

The Supreme Court of the United States has created a new creature. Corporations and labor unions were granted "citizenship" and certain rights previously limited to humans. The secret ingredient for this awesome award is the constitutional right of freedom of speech.

Planning a trip to Washington, D.C., for government business or sightseeing? A visit to the nation's capital should include a tour of the nearby Eastern Shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. Combining a feast of seafood with colorful colonial history, this coastline get-away is a scenic retreat from urban Baltimore-Washington D.C.

Much has been written about Japan's "Lost Decade" of the 1990s. Now the media pundits are pinning the donkey's tail to America's decade of 2000. We can all agree that the naught years failed to provide much good news, especially in the financial markets.

San Diego Opera brings back those lovable artists who cavort gaily around their Parisian garret despite being poor and cold. Their desire for artistic recognition and a lasting love has eluded the poet, the painter, the musician and the philosopher who struggle to pay rent and heat the garret.

A debate on National Public Radio last year was a proposition to blame Washington, not Wall Street, for the national fiscal crisis. Two advocates for each side duked it out verbally with equal passion.

In today's financial world struggling with economic recovery, big becomes bigger, according to a former president of the Federal Reserve. William Poole addressed the Economics Roundtable Forum at the University of California, San Diego in October sharing some insights with an audience focused on how to get out of this fiscal mess.

It's a provocative theme: desire for love, freedom, passion and life. Those yearnings are the central scenarios of four production presented by San Diego Opera for its season of 2010 beginning Jan. 30.

The future of health-care reform has been dangling like a dark cloud over the White House and Congress ever since President Obama took on the challenge for change. November legislation cleared the first hurdle when the House came up with a convoluted bill that is still being debated this week in the Senate.

It's a well-known secret that maritime services in San Diego provide an economic engine serving several local industries. Why doesn't the community realize what we have?

The media was full of doom and gloom for the crop of college graduates seeking jobs last summer. The recession that triggered the highest unemployment in decades is challenging to the entry level worker. It's just as tough for the high school drop out or illegal immigrant to get minimum wage or pick-up labor work.