Never mind. Or, in the words of Merrill Lynch & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Thain, "Our clients have been caught in an unprecedented liquidity crisis. We are solving it by giving them the option of selling their positions back to us." ...more

August 13, 2008

In new television ads running in Tampa and nationwide, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama talks of learning "values straight from the Kansas heartland" from his mother and grandparents, and boasts that he "passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent." ...more

July 8, 2008

ON IRAQ Then /From Obama's campaign Web site: "Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months." ...more

July 8, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) -- As the American economy slowed to a crawl and stockholders watched their money evaporate, CEO pay still chugged to yet more dizzying heights last year, an Associated Press analysis shows. ...more

June 16, 2008

United Airlines scrapped its latest attempt to combine with US Airways and create the world's largest carrier, formally backing away Friday from a deal that likely would have meant fewer routes and higher ticket prices for consumers. ...more

May 31, 2008

No one knows for sure what lies ahead. Are we likely to head full tilt into an all-out recession, or will it just be an inconsequential business slowdown? Whatever the scenario, this is the time to think smart and make good career decisions. ...more

February 24, 2008

So is your son or daughter having Special K as an after school snack? And do you know we're not talking cereal? ...more

February 20, 2008

So is your son or daughter having Special K as an after school snack? And do you know we're not talking cereal? ...more

February 20, 2008

While it is unusual to rethink the need for positions once one is well into the recruiting process, the new director positions certainly warrant deeper study than apparently took place; Kudos to the commissioners for taking a second look. Most likely, when this all shakes out, one of two things will happen: either we will not add the directors or adding them will be greatly delayed. Citizens adeserve more information about justifications for this major move, especially with the smaller-government-cut-expenses environment we live in. Speaking of expenses, the monetary cost of the new director positions has been routinely misrepresented, in print at least, because only salaries are mentioned. Employee benefits, perks, office space, equipment and the inevitable support staff-executive assistants, clerks- makes $1,000,000 a more accurate guesstimate of the annual cost. In addition, there are also significant startup costs associated with recruiting and situating them. Besides monetary costs, adding a layer of management results in a deterioration of communication from the bottom to the top. Information is filtered as it goes up the chain of command and often never reaches the top person. Generally, this means that the county manager will be less aware of negative information. ...more

February 9, 2008

As the CEOs of the three University of South Florida regional campuses, we write to respond to the editorial, "USF Can't Achieve Greatness If Branch Campuses Run Amok," (Our Opinion, Jan. 11). ...more

January 25, 2008