The Way I See ItBy cj pollickSouth Ward School – Apparently the Pinellas County School Board has offered to sell the property to the City of Clearwater for $2.2 million. Holiday Shoppers Are Buying Due To Discounts - Major retail shops have experienced higher than expected holiday sales due to pre-holiday discounts. However, this trend may result in after holiday sales not enjoying the same deep discounts of previous holiday sales. Message to buyers: Enjoy the current retail store discounts, products may not receive lower discounts after the holidays. Unfortunately for retail shops at shopping Malls, the new holiday cash flow might not be sufficient to pay for overdue rent due Mall owners. Wall Street Journal had a report that stated there may be some shopping Mall failures due to major retail shop failures who might file for bankruptcy/creditor protection. Football Madness - Remember when Charlie Weis was mentioned as the savior of Notre Dame football? Well, after four years at the helm, Weis has a .571 winning percentage. This year he nearly lost to Navy, lost to a struggling Syracuse, lost 38-3 to USC and ended the year 6-6, not a good year for the Notre Dame faithful. In fact, Weis' winning percentage was lower than his two immediate predecessors who were terminated. Charlie Weis out at Notre Dame? There is growing support at South Bend to remove Weis and replace him with... Skip Holtz. Yep, the son of former Irish Coach Lou Holtz is being mentioned as a possible candidate for the coaching position. Not a bad move for Notre Dame; Skip Holtz has proven he can turn football programs around in four years, such as he did at East Carolina (currently in first place in Conference USA.) Of course, the move might not be a good one for Skip Holtz who will soon command a top level coaching job due to his well-earned success at East Carolina. Another Holtz at Notre Dame? Time will tell. On the other hand, Lane Kiffin is the new coach at Tennessee (another tough place to coach.) As most football fans know, Lane was ousted at Oakland by the rogue NFL owner who thinks he is the only bright fellow in NFL football. Nevertheless, Lane Kiffin is expected to name his father, yes, Monte Kiffin of the Bucs, as head defensive coach of the Vols. Lane and Monte Kiffin as coaches of the Vols-- not a bad combination. And then there is the BCS Football Ratings... a place where Oklahoma lost to Texas and ended being rated higher on the BCS Poll. The real insanity of this Poll is that Texas will not play in the Big 12 Conference Championship Game, Oklahoma will play Missouri. Texas will be left out due to a lower BCS ranking against Oklahoma. It gets worse for Texas, if the Gators beat Alabama on Saturday, the Gators will likely rise to the number two BCS ranking and Oklahoma (if they beat Missouri) will be the new number one rated team and play Florida for the NCAA title. Texas would likely play Alabama in another bowl game. People who do not support a college system may now support a playoff. Texas is getting the raw end of this BCS system and we would not have liked the same treatment if it was Florida. USF Men’s Soccer Team – The USF Men’s Soccer Team beat UNC Greensboro last Saturday to move-on to the NCAA Final Eight. This was a historic win for the USF Bulls soccer program which, only the week before, beat highly ranked Notre Dame to win the Big East Title. Go Bulls. Time Will Tell - President-Elect Obama has appointed Sen. Hillary Clinton to his Sec. of State cabinet position. Thus, Obama has selected his team of cabinet members that, for the most part, are Obama party-line loyalists. However, the selection of Hillary Clinton may cause more potential issues than other cabinet members. Why? It’s simple, Obama will not control what Hillary (or Bill) will do or say on issues where she differs with her boss. For example, remember when Hillary ran an ad where she showed a phone call to Obama at the White House at 3 a.m. The point Hillary was making was that Obama was not ready to be Commander-In-Chief of the US military. Clinton also said she was tougher than Obama in foreign affairs. She said that if Iran attacked Israel she would obliterate Iran. This was done to show how meek Sen. Obama would be when dealing with foreign leaders due to his inexperience. Time will tell if President Obama can control Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. Huge Pension Bailout? - There is a dark cloud in the horizon that is growing every day, it is going to be called the Great Pension Bailout of 2009 (after the last Pension Refom Act.) Millions of workers have been depending on company pension plans that, they thought, were fully funded until the day they would die. Of course, that is not true – far from the truth. The US taxpayers might end-up paying over $100 billion in government bailout funds to major corporations just to fund their deficient pension plans. The total pension plan bailout could cost over $1 trillion to ordinary taxpayers. It has been reported that 34 million workers depend on company pension plans for their retirement; the Big Three automobile makers are reportedly billions of dollars short on current pension plan benefits and the problem is getting worse. 340 of the top 500 companies in America are reporting deficits in their employee pension plans. Who is under-funded? Ford by $12.6 billion. Unisys by $1 billion. GM by several billion dollars. Goodyear by $4 billion. Brunswick by $300 million, and the list goes on and on of company pension plan deficits. Add the so-called Fiscal Stimulis Check Sen. Obama wants to give eligible taxpayers next year and the US federal deficit may become in the trillions of dollars. More than two generations of taxpayers, in fact, may be needed to pay-off the national debt (bailouts.) Yes, who could have imagined that hard-working Americans are being used to pay losses at major US corporations that reflected greed and bad management at all levels. Who will help the average taxpayer? No one. Don't count on Obama any more than Bush - - it is just more Washington politics where insiders get the grease and taxpayers get the bills. And some voters thought there would be change! |