Some Personal and Varied Outlooks on Today’s Economy : These Are Neither the Best of Times nor the Worst of Times; They Are, Perhaps, the Most Confusing of Times in the U.S.

For Joe Valdez, 41, who runs an auto repair shop on Kenmore Avenue near Western Avenue, 1986 has been “like a roller coaster,” with more downs than ups. But plummeting prices at the gasoline pumps are giving both him and his customers something to smile about. “My wife has a ’79 Cadillac that she’s driving again,” he said. “We don’t have to worry now about how much gas it uses.”

Barry Dean, 55, president of upscale Dean Homes of Beverly Hills, reported an escalating demand for homes in the $2-million-to-$3-million bracket. Dean, who said he earns $500,000 annually, noted that although he is “not worried about the economy,” he is “watching it.”

In Silver Lake, Richard Falcon, manager of the United Bank branch, said his customers are bringing money in, “not taking it out.”

Specter of a Strike

For Katie Soderberg Keir, 32, a directory assistance operator with Pacific Bell and member of the Communications Workers of America, the specter of a strike being called next month when her unit’s contract expires is unsettling. Keir, a head of household who supports three children on a gross weekly pay of $430, said she would be “on the streets” if it weren’t for the fact she rents a Van Nuys house from her parents for $450 a month.

These are neither the best of times nor the worst of times; they are, perhaps, the most confusing of economic times. Gimbel’s is going under, U.S. Steel is no longer U.S. Steel, Congress is working on tax reform and the stock market is bouncing around like a beachball at Dodger Stadium (while the team languishes in the cellar). Still, interest rates are down and Hershey bars, we are promised, are going to get bigger.

But Alice Tsou, who runs the Chinese American Service Center in Echo Park, whose food giveaway program draws 300 to 400 people a month, said, “There are more homeless. I have never seen it worse.” Tsou, 72, a retired County Department of Health employee, said, “I see people lying in the street. I see more beggars than before.”

Two Chinese Groups

In the Chinese community, Tsou said, there are two groups: those who came here to establish businesses and the non-English-speaking who work in the garment sweatshops and restaurant kitchens of downtown’s Chinatown, where they cluster in overcrowded housing. The latter are Tsou’s clientele.

But the mainstream middle class--interviewed as part of an unscientific sampling of attitudes about the economy--appears to be less worried than it is resigned to changing life styles. For many, that precludes such traditional American prerogatives as single-family homes and annual vacation trips.

Griffin and Millicent Jackson agree they “don’t keep up with the economy.” But the couple, who’ve been married seven years and in November purchased a home in South-Central Los Angeles, have no trouble monitoring the economy’s effect on them.

“It’s worse,” said Millicent, 40, who’s in charge of mailing supplies for an insurance company. “It’s no good for the average person,” added Griffin, 53, who described his job as a foreman for a maintenance service as “minimum wage, no benefits, low pay.”

With savings accumulated during the years Griffin earned more money by taking care of an elderly invalid, they have managed to buy a modest home but, Griffin said, “We’re scraping the bottom just to make the payments. You know, you walk in a store and you see a pair of shoes you like. They’re only $45 but you really can’t afford it the way times are now.”

Though they have seen better times financially, the Jacksons do not seem bitter about the sacrifices and cutbacks they have to make, even though Griffin suspects that people collecting welfare, food stamps and other public aid may have a higher standard of living than he and his wife.

The Jacksons have no children. Millicent explained, “That would just add to the problem.”

“I don’t follow the news,” said Catherine Frogozo, 16, who had just finished her summer school algebra class at Marshall High near Silver Lake. She and her friend Irma Rosa, 15, said they had never heard of the Federal Reserve Board or the discount rate.

But Catherine and Irma do know about jobs and money and how costly it is for their parents to provide for them. Both girls said they are confident they could find summer jobs paying minimum wage if they looked around enough. (Catherine’s work experience includes a stint at a McDonald’s.)

The Frogozo family, with four children, lives in an apartment. “My parents want to buy a house,” Catherine said, “and they’ve been saving for one.” It is not the price of houses but uncertainty about future income that has caused them to defer this purchase. She explained, “My Mom and Dad worry that if either one got sick for even one month, then they’d miss a (mortgage) payment and lose everything.”

The potential for strikes and the reality of technological change and shifts in corporate structure, as well as in the economy itself, are seen by union members as a major threat.

Pacific Bell’s Keir said she lives “from paycheck to paycheck,” has no savings and generally pays her bills late. Keir said money is a constant source of concern for her and her friends, one of whom has declared bankruptcy to get out from under a mountain of debt.

She worries, too, that local governmental cutbacks will erode services such as child care. Her youngest children, who are 6 and 7, are in county day-care programs. Her eldest, now 13, has been a latchkey child since he was 8.

Mann Junior High School math teacher Marilyn Landau, 44, is finding that, despite improved salaries for teachers, the numbers just don’t add up. After 20 years as a teacher, 16 of these with the Los Angeles Unified School District, she is unable to afford the luxuries the profession might warrant.

Landau, who is single, said, “I am at the top of the schedule--about $38,000, including extra for teaching in the inner city--but only this year was I able to qualify by myself for a loan to finance a condo (in Torrance).

“Now I have mortgage payments of more than $1,000 a month, the monthly association fee and property taxes. My telephone and gasoline costs are never less than $60 a month. A big priority, as it is with most teachers, is setting aside summer money because my last full paycheck is at the end of June and my next full one is in November. And very few jobs are available for just the summer months.”

Landau finds herself “struggling financially. My clothing purchases have to go on plastic, and so I have the credit card bill at the end of the month. I have the time, but I can’t go anywhere on vacation because I simply don’t have the money.”

For the last five years John Peavoy, 38, an assistant professor of English literature at Scripps College in Claremont, and his wife, Frances McConnel, 45, who works part time in a bookstore, have been living a somewhat spartan, but rent-free, existence in a Scripps dormitory apartment, where they have been taking their meals, free, with the students.

As a result they have saved enough for a down payment on a house in Claremont and are finally in escrow. “Now things will get interesting,” said Peavoy, who makes a salary in the mid-20s. “Now we will have monthly mortgage payments and property taxes, and the food factor. I don’t think there will be much left over.”

If the rich are indeed getting richer, they are also keeping a watchful eye on the economy.

“My life style has improved,” said Bobi Leonard, 35, an interior designer who is a property owner on Santa Monica’s upscale Main Street and who puts her annual income at $500,000.

“I just bought a new Mercedes,” Leonard said, but today “I’m much more aware of where I spend my money. I’m concerned about a rainy day. I’m single and supporting myself.”

Leonard Rabinowitz, 38, chairman of the board of a clothing firm, Carole Little for St. Tropez West, which did $115 million in retail sales last year, said low interest rates in money market funds have forced him to turn his sights to smaller companies on the stock exchange.

He and his wife, Carole Little, have just bought a site for a new home in Mandeville Canyon and, in December, they purchased a private jet. “The tax situation has been an agonizing thing over the past year,” Rabinowitz said. “Because of it, I don’t know what equipment to buy for my business. But in the long run, I do believe in America and in the economy.”

Daniel Kirsch, 61, vice chairman of Home Interstate Bancorp in Signal Hill, is also looking at the stock market but has decided, “I’ll wait for it to drop even more.”

Kirsch, who puts his net worth at more than $2 million, said he is also thinking long and hard about purchase of “big ticket” items. And he has decided, “I’m not sure I’m interested in buying anything more from Europe. I’m better off buying a Cadillac than a European car.”

“I try to control my spending at all times,” said Sheldon Andelson, the 55-year-old multimillionaire chairman of the board of the Bank of Los Angeles. “I’m bullish about real estate, but I’m not concerned about tax changes affecting my investments. I never invested for tax-shelter purposes; if there are tax benefits as well, fine with me.”

He added, “If suits go up $20, I’m not affected, nor if automobile prices go up. I don’t know how much a half-gallon of milk is. But interest rates affect me--that’s a number I look at.”

Sumi Kozawa, 70, has with her husband, Frank, run the Tokio Florist in Silver Lake since 1929, when the flowers were grown on leased land along Los Feliz Boulevard, which is now residentially developed. In those days, she recalled, it was a good day when the business took in $5.50. But “Money is tight now,” Kozawa said. “People don’t have the money. I know we don’t.” Both she and customer Frank Suto, 59, were skeptical about proposed tax reform. “I don’t think it will benefit anyone but high-income people,” said Suto, who is self-employed.

But Murad Safar, 45, a West Los Angeles businessman, sees a silver lining. He recently invested substantially in a downtown showroom and started a wholesale costume jewelry business.

Strolling through the Glendale Galleria on a recent afternoon, he explained, “Gas prices have gone down” which, he reasoned, means that “a woman with a few extra dollars walking into these boutiques will be able to buy. I’m very optimistic. She’s looking to her beauty.”

Nearby, Cheryl LeBoeuf, 33, of Glendale, a registered nurse, was shopping for invitations to her December wedding. “We plan to buy a house within a year,” she said, “and if we can afford it, we will.”

“You always expect the first months of the year to be slow, but by May it starts picking up,” said Joe Valdez, who immigrated with his family from Monterrey, Mexico, when he was 12 and who has run Motor Masters auto repair shop in Los Angeles for 16 years. “Not this year . . . . You go to the dealers to buy some parts and they’re talking about how slow business is, too.”

Jerry Buckley and Jayne Woodrow didn’t really know what to expect when they opened Woodrose, their antique and collectibles shop on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank in May. Others along “antiques row” in the 3500 block of West Magnolia had told them summers are usually quiet.

“We’ve been doing OK so far,” said Woodrow, 36, who was in interior design in Vancouver, Canada, before moving to Los Angeles earlier this year. “We’re not getting really big spenders yet. People are buying mostly little stuff--silver, sterling especially, has been doing real well. Maybe it’s because the price of silver (on the metals market) is up again. Or because new silver items cost so much.”

She and partner Buckley, 39, also have their share of dealer-customers who, Woodrow said, “have given up on having a retail store. I know one man who had a shop on Melrose for 17 years and he closed up. He said when he started, his rent was $150 a month. Today it’s $2,600 and he said it was too much overhead. He made money over the years, but now he’s just doing (antique) shows.”

Immigration attorney Tony Bueno, 52, a native of Los Angeles, said he sold his entertainment complex, Casa Camino Real on Washington Avenue near downtown, late last year because he found it too difficult to be in two businesses at once. But Bueno made an unnerving discovery recently while searching the Washington-Pico area for a new building in which to set up his law office.

“You can drive up and down the streets here and all you see are ‘building available’ and ‘for sale’ signs,” he said. “We must have looked at 40 to 50 buildings and every one had some kind of small manufacturing industry that has just gone out of business. They’re all closing down and you wonder where all those people will go to work.”

With the dipping dollar, shopping abroad isn’t the bargain it was a year ago but Los Angeles shopkeepers who buy and think in yens and pounds say they have been largely unaffected by the undulatory dollar. Alan Crump, who only two weeks ago opened Crump’s, a stiff-upper-crust British boutique in Sherman Oaks, observed of the rise in the pound to $1.50, up from $1.04 some 18 months ago: “That probably had a lot of effect on the price of cars and airplanes . . . but not a lot on a jar of marmalade.”

“My customers are expatriate Britons or Anglophiles shopping for bone china, Irish linens or English tea, and when they find those things . . . they will pay more for it, for the snob value, if you will,” Crump said.

In addition, other importers said, distributors are anxious to keep the peace with wholesalers who, in turn, don’t like to upset their retailers. So there is a tendency at each level to absorb the minor ups and downs of international currencies without turning price tables into a daily yo-yo.

Although American buyers of Japanese-made automobiles have experienced a recent series of price hikes, at least one Californian is profiting from the continued appreciation of the yen against the dollar.

He is Corky Rice, co-owner of a Budget Rent-A-Car franchise in Beverly Hills. Rice’s speciality is renting exotic automobiles. And his customers this summer are mainly Japanese tourists taking advantage of the immutable yen.

“A year ago,” he said, “we were seeing hardly any tourists from Japan, and those we did get wanted the cheapest cars on the lot. Now I’m getting a ton of international business, the Japanese are about 25% of it and they want the high-line cars--Ferraris and Mercedes, the Cadillac Eldorado convertible, the Corvette . . . cars that are untouchable (because of cost) in their countries. Also, anything with big engines because our gasoline prices are nothing compared with theirs.”

He added: “Business is up 20% over last year, with a lot of overseas tourists doing to us what we did to Europe a couple of years ago.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Garry Abrams, Beverly Beyette, Paul Dean, David Johnston, Beth Ann Krier, David Larsen, Gary Libman, Lynn Simross, Jeannine Stein and Ursula Vils.