Helping Pittsburgh Escape Financial Ruin

An almost addictive component of my morning regimen is to drink a cup of coffee and read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. One item that jumped out at me this morning was the announcement that the YMCA has sold naming rights to PNC. My initial reaction was a tinge of outrage that such a venerable institution would succumb to corporate self-promotion. The outrage was very short lived as I navigated through the paper on my reading journey. Several local news items piqued my attention and I enjoyed the Leonard Pitts Jr. op-ed piece "Is it because Obama's black?" Across the page, I wandered into the editorial "The Road to Stability." Having digested the editorial opinion, I was suddenly engulfed in a light bulb moment. Social realities exist everywhere. The city of Pittsburgh need only utilize the social reality of corporate lust for name recognition to help ease some of the city's financial burden.

What if, the Mayor and City Council entered into a collabrative effort to sell naming rights to all of the city departments? Is the Blackwater Police Bureau unreasonable? The Teamster's Department of Public Works seems reasonable. With the number of departments available, naming rights could be a virtual economic landfall. Mayor Ravenstahl could be the auctioneer at a public auction for naming rights. With the proper marketing strategies is place, the non-profits could be induced to allocate some of their "non-profits" in naming rights.

There may continue to be a short fall in city revenues. But, it seems to me to be a better alternative than begging the state for additional revenue and bemoaning the necessity to raise taxes. I'm just sayin'.

Are you Stimulated?

Some numbers just escape my ability to comprehend. I know that a million is a whole poke. I can't, for the life of me, imagine a billion anything, a trillion, forget it. I have seen varying numbers related to the dollars being spent on the "economic stimulus." Having done no actual research of my own, I will accept the accuracy of the reported dollar amounts allocated to stimulate new jobs. If the unimaginable figure of $787 billion has been spent to "create or save 1.7 to 2 million jobs, why do I not feel stimulated? If my math is correct, each job saved or created cost the taxpayers $393, 500. Please raise your hand if you feel stimulated.

Assuming an employment rate of approximately 147 million, the overall increase in employment is about one per-cent. Pardon me if I am not feeling stimulated. Throwing in costs of employment, doesn't it seem just a little exorbitant that each of the jobs cost us $393, 500? According to the United States Department of Labor, the employment-population ratio increased 0.2 per-cent. Please raise your hand if you are feeling stimulated. I know that I am not. I'm just sayin'