The Yankees' New Stadium
Corporate welfare
As is wellknown, groundbreaking is happening today for a new stadium for the kings of baseball, the New York Yankees. The Yank's franchise is one of the 10 most valuable in professional sports up there with Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, the NY Rangers hockey team, and the shitty Washington Redskins.
It is a $1.2 billion stadium, of which the taxpayer is to foot the bill for $400,000,000. Let me ask you this. In most cases the owners of these teams say if you dont build me a stadium I'll move my team, or, in the case of the new Washington DC baseball team, I wont move my team there unless you build me a stadium. Do you think the Yankees would have left New York. Not a snowball's chance in hell.
Workers has blogged about this before, about how the benefit-cost analysis of these stadium deals show that it cost between $100,000 and $1,000,000 for every job that the a stadium will create in these 'blighted' parts of town. ("Blighted", in Manhattan, where land is going for up to $1,000 per square foot? !).
The taxpayer (the worker) gets scammed again through the machinations-as-usual of the state-capitalist system. What if you dont even like baseball (say prefer hockey or tennis), why do you have to pay for someone else's sports megaplex? What if, say, you just wanted to pay lower taxes instead? The wonders never siese.
* state-capitalism: where certain businesses are in cahoots with the government, instead of competing on an even playing field without special favors from the government. these special favors can be taxbreaks, import tariffs, research subsidies, and/or anti-monopoly action against their competitors. it is the unorganized all (the taxpayer: you and me) who pays for the special favors these special interests are granted. that is why, as you will see often in this blog, in most cases it is best to have a government which does only the necessary (defense - not war - and the court system and very little else) in order to keep the state-capitalist system abuses to a minimum. at the local level with a smaller population base, government can provide police fire medical emergency service, roads, sewers and water; more than this viz Yankees Stadium, is an invitation for abuse.
As is wellknown, groundbreaking is happening today for a new stadium for the kings of baseball, the New York Yankees. The Yank's franchise is one of the 10 most valuable in professional sports up there with Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, the NY Rangers hockey team, and the shitty Washington Redskins.
It is a $1.2 billion stadium, of which the taxpayer is to foot the bill for $400,000,000. Let me ask you this. In most cases the owners of these teams say if you dont build me a stadium I'll move my team, or, in the case of the new Washington DC baseball team, I wont move my team there unless you build me a stadium. Do you think the Yankees would have left New York. Not a snowball's chance in hell.
Workers has blogged about this before, about how the benefit-cost analysis of these stadium deals show that it cost between $100,000 and $1,000,000 for every job that the a stadium will create in these 'blighted' parts of town. ("Blighted", in Manhattan, where land is going for up to $1,000 per square foot? !).
The taxpayer (the worker) gets scammed again through the machinations-as-usual of the state-capitalist system. What if you dont even like baseball (say prefer hockey or tennis), why do you have to pay for someone else's sports megaplex? What if, say, you just wanted to pay lower taxes instead? The wonders never siese.
* state-capitalism: where certain businesses are in cahoots with the government, instead of competing on an even playing field without special favors from the government. these special favors can be taxbreaks, import tariffs, research subsidies, and/or anti-monopoly action against their competitors. it is the unorganized all (the taxpayer: you and me) who pays for the special favors these special interests are granted. that is why, as you will see often in this blog, in most cases it is best to have a government which does only the necessary (defense - not war - and the court system and very little else) in order to keep the state-capitalist system abuses to a minimum. at the local level with a smaller population base, government can provide police fire medical emergency service, roads, sewers and water; more than this viz Yankees Stadium, is an invitation for abuse.
posted by Cameron Weber at 10:11 AM
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