Letters: Could PSU leadership survive Sharktank?; Trump can’t be trusted
Could PSU leadership survive Sharktank?
“Sharktank” is a popular TV show in which entrepreneurs try and convince investors to invest in their projects. The entrepreneurs answer questions about projected revenues and costs. On May 21, PSU leadership made a presentation to our board asking approval for $700 million to renovate Beaver Stadium. The bottom-line university projection over the 30-year timeline is $10.39 billion in revenue and $10.35 billion in costs ($40 million profit). With such a razor-thin difference, one would expect our trustees to be especially wary of assumptions used for this projection. Not so, the trustees voted 26 to 2 in favor with only six trustees asking substantive questions. And even though this is by far the biggest investment decision in PSU history, the chair attempted to limit the time for trustee questions to two minutes. Would the board be more inquisitive if they were personally financing the project ($20 million/trustee)?
Our PSU leadership would face a far different environment in Sharktank than our “rubber-stamp” board. Shark questions: Is the university, not football, legally responsible for the bond? Is it just a fortuitous outcome that revenue (barely) exceeds project costs? Given sky-high borrowing costs, would a delay in financing be fiscally prudent? Could football revenues collapse due to another COVID? Could the university ask the state for a $50 million subsidy while facing a $100 million annual academic deficit? Shark Kevin O’Leary (“Mr. Wonderful”) would say, with so many uncertainties and minuscule profit, “I am out.”
Trump can’t be trusted
Donald Trump has been described as a present-day Svengali, using his impressive skills of persuasion to control the thinking of gullible voters. Another literary analogy is the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who charmed the rats of Hamelin and led them into the Weser River where they all drowned.
The meaning of “pied piper” today is any person who amasses a blind following through charisma and/or false promises. Like the rats of Hamelin, the unsuspecting followers often reach a tragic end. How many of Trump’s blind followers have ended up in disgrace, in jail, or in bankruptcy?
The legend tells that the Mayor of Hamelin promised to pay the piper for ridding the town of the rats, but then reneged on that promise. In retaliation, the piper led the children of the town into a dark cave. How much of America will be led into a metaphoric dark cave if we believe Trump’s rosy promises and give him another term?
Ironically, Trump resembles both the piper and the mayor who reneged on his promise of payment. Promises that Trump has reneged on include payment to workers (just like the Mayor of Hamelin), “infrastructure week,” lower drug prices, release of his tax returns, a better health care plan than Obamacare, higher taxes on the wealthy, federal deficit reduction, paid maternity leave, ending the opioid crisis, keeping manufacturing jobs at home, and many more too numerous to mention here.
Like the Mayor of Hamelin, he just can’t be trusted.