Banks are running up against some odd new competitors these days. Big box retailer Costco is advertising mortgages. Wal-Mart has issued its own debit card. Amazon is offering loans to merchants in its online marketplace.

“Small Market, Big Heart” tells the story of the Sacramento Kings and their fans’ fight to hold onto the team. But the 80-minute documentary — packed with NBA archive footage and interviews with Kings’ executives, local politicians and sports entertainment personalities — isn’t from the NBA offices or an established production company.

Congratulations Sacramento. You finally got the economic recovery you’ve been asking for. 

It’s not as big or fast as you had wished for, but give it time. It should get stronger as we move toward 2014.

On a morning in April, eight representatives of local banks and credit unions walked into the Sacramento Metro Chamber headquarters to discuss the region’s lousy credit situation.

When Dr. Dena Davidson graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Optometry in 1995, she thought her income expectations were pretty reasonable.

Joining the 1 percent really isn’t that difficult.

Jeff Michael, 42, is the director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific. 

The past few years have seen the biggest social upheaval against the banking industry in this nation’s history, and Capitol Hill lawmakers responded with 848 pages of legislation that liberal critics deride as weak and many conservatives call a job killer.

While much of the local and national talk around pension reform is directed at public employees, the biggest current changes are occurring in the private sector.

The Federal Reserve calls it Operation Twist, named after the 1961 Chubby Checker hit that sparked gyrating hips in dance halls across America. That was also the first year the Fed embarked on a mission to purchase long-term Treasury notes in an effort to drive down interest rates on long-term loans.