There have been a lot of news and opinions about how the economy is effecting the Super Bowl.

One of my favorite radio programs is on at 7:55 AM on channel 970, Earl Pitts, great american hero.

Earl has a way of bringing complex issues to where I can understand them.

As Earl would say "Take the economy and how it is effecting the Super Bowl." Now I can't begin to espouse the wisdom of Earl Pitts as well as he does, but as the Super Bowl Chauffeur, I have some Earl Pitts views.

This mornings Tampa Tribune ran an article interviewing the "little people" and what they thought about all the rich and famous coming to Tampa to party and "spend their money."

Debate continues about income distribution and whether to increase taxes on the rich and pass it down to the middle class. Conservatives argue that it is the rich that provide jobs for the middle class.

Here is what I can tell you as the Super Bowl Chauffeur. As we were driving yesterday, my team owner's wife told a friend in the car that the NFL had canceled one of their two owner parties. The friend asked why, and the owner's wife speculated that they felt it would not be in good taste to have two parties with economic conditions as they are.

Add this Tribune article earlier to the mix. It reported that private air reservations for corporate planes were dramatically off. Corporations were coming, but on commercial flights instead.

Also reported were fewer employee award trips and dealer/distributor trips.

So we might say, oh poor souls, they can't party as much and they have to fly like the rest of us.

Here is what it has been like in the street with all of my fellow $7.50 hourly (my pay not including gratuity) wage earners.

By Wednesday of this week 50% of all of the drivers had been laid off. On Friday, another 50 drivers laid off. On Saturday, another 30 drivers laid off.

At the private airports that have no corporate jets arriving, the men and women that refuel the jets are out of work hours and tips. Extra staffing was not needed because of the low reservation count. Overtime hours for the air traffic controllers vaporized.

Waitresses and waiters assigned for the second owner's party were canceled.

I don't have a degree in economics, but I can see what is going on in the street, literally, because of the rich not spending money. It is not because they don't have it to spend. It is just considered "poor taste" to spend it.

As my friend Earl Pitts would say, "Wake up America!"

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Rick Frissell ~ 813-340-6828 Cell