. >> i will steal one from pat's camp, mastercard, ma, had a great year when people were not spending and spending picks up a little they have a fantastic 2010 and look for a 50% gain. >> pat do you like that? >> well, i did like it at 50. a few years ago. and 230, less excited. >> okay, and tobin, your prediction, please, best stock next year. >> well, yeah, auto like the arms dealer to the cell phone, the smartphone revolution, the year 2010 of the mobile internet and syna, these guys sell chips and touch stuff to all of these guys including the tablet from apple, an arms dealer type. >> and gary b., like it. >> it is a stretch and needs to make and all-time high and i don't see 75%, next year. >> pat, your prediction? >> apollo, a great pick a couple of years ago and a for profit education company, university of phoenix and high unemployment and lots of people are going back to school and stock battered downed by short sellers and 11% free cash flow yield and worth 9500 -- >> you predicted this in '07, and it was the best stock of all the bulls and bears, and so you got it again an

. >>> retailers are hopeful for 2010, especially after a new report by mastercard saying retail sales6% for the 2009 holiday shopping season. joining me now, rick newman, chief business correspondent with "u.s. news & world report." hey, rick. >> hi, chris. >> i don't want to ring on anybody's parade but it's up from what was a dismal year the year before, right? >> right. that's just by one measure. we will get more numbers over the next couple of weeks over a couple of different sources and those might be a little lower. some people think overall retail sales will be up by about 1% or flat. i mean, this is just a ho-hum outcome frankly. i think the headline is it's not as terrible as it was last year when it went down by 3 1/2% or 4%. and we talk about 1%, 2%, or 3%, it doesn't sound like a big difference but a couple of percentage points mensz billions of dollars of spending and thousands of jobs and it could mean the difference between life and death for retailers and other companies that are sort of on the edge. >> and there's a couple of things at play here. one is we say what's

i lived in mastercard prior to coming here where i lived in massachusetts prior to coming here. and i have friends who are as involved and remained as cuff. other that is i and i contained in an area of tennessee. >> mm-hmm. >> and i'm not familiar with teaching at the university. i haven't been involved in that. but one thing that i did understand from my experience in mastercard, was that the charter schools have a commitment, too, provided professional development to other schools in the community sfotch what happened they learned about the alternatives that you're talking about in terms of time and crushes and fompe the district -- how do they influence the rest of the district? host: i think -- caller: to move forward. host: that's a great question. guest: i think these days most of the influence is in providing healthy competition but really one of the reasons charter schools were started in the united states were to be armed and licenses. i think the problem has been that the systems have by and large been rant to see what's going on here. on the charter side. we have som

they're both mastercard and the bank told they could not do because of a federal law, the new federalaw. why should i be penalized if i keep they zero balance. if i pay off my credit cards, why should i be penalized as far as my credit rating is concerned? guest: you are not being penalized in terms of your credit rating. i assume you are talking about closing one of the accounts and having your credit score change. fico scores are an algorithm that is designed to predict whether you will pay your bill. it has nothing to built with anything else except a mathematical probability of whether you pay your bill. part of that is your payment history. that is a large part of it, actually. credit utilization is another part of it. when you close a card, your credit record still stays on the record for a very long time. we are talking 7-10 years. it remains there and it will not penalize you. it has a small affecting the only reason it would have a large effect is it the car has a high credit limit and you were using most of your credit and you removed the credit limit set your spending a lot

they're both mastercard and the bank told they could not do because of a federal law, the new federal. why should i be penalized if i keep they zero balance. if i pay off my credit cards, why should i be penalized as far as my credit rating is concerned? guest: you are not being penalized in terms of your credit rating. i assume you are talking about closing one of the accounts and having your credit score change. fico scores are an algorithm that is designed to predict whether you will pay your bill. it has nothing to built with anything else except a mathematical probability of whether you pay your bill. part of that is your payment history. that is a large part of it, actually. credit utilization is another part of it. when you close a card, your credit record still stays on the record for a very long time. we are talking 7-10 years. it remains there and it will not penalize you. it has a small affecting the only reason it would have a large effect is it the car has a high credit limit and you were

for nan tuck et a movement that could delay construction of a proposed wind farm off cape cod, mastercardked view of the sun ridse. that will not exist if the cape cod wind turbine project is built. the turbines will be visible to the tribes and on martha's vineyard. read more about that in the washington times. gainesville, florida. on our line for independents what do you think of the irs regulating tax prepareers? caller: i think the question is more complex than posed but number one the irs doesn't need -- but the idea is a good idea because what's happening, i've prepared my own taxes and gone to the irs and sat down with them and represented myself and came out there but i had all my stuff. i had all the stuff together. so number one, the irs can help. second thing is what's happening here is -- i'm not going to say their name on the show but there's an industry that preys on poor people and my gants and people that don't speak the english language very well. they have locations on corners, and they are sort of like a bank. they will give you a free, i don't know, some kind of a fre