David Sirota: Yankee Stadium - the house that taxpayers built

[OhioChick]

Friday, May 22, 2009

Somewhere, probably in a basement, the next great documentarian is scavenging YouTube for clips of congressional inquisitions, Wall Street perp walks and CNBC rants for a future Oscar-winning film about the times we're living through. I'm hoping this future star calls her film "Wall Street II: Cataclysmic Boogaloo," and more important, I'm hoping she gets footage of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, preferably wearing a top hat and monocle.

Even amid CEO testimony, Bernie Madoff grimaces and Rick Santelli diatribes, nothing better captures the moment's destructive greed than a billionaire politician using the municipal office he bought to defend charging $2,500 a ticket to a new Yankee Stadium he forced the public to finance. If there is a single act showing how kleptocracy and let-them-eat-cake-ism are systemic and local rather than momentary and exclusively federal, Bloomberg turning the House That Ruth Built into the House That Taxpayers Built is it.

Foreign oligarchs use guns to confiscate citizens' wages. American oligarchs rely on government to give theft the aura of legitimacy, and Manhattan's richest man is no exception. As an investigation by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat, documents, Bloomberg used various public agencies to extract between $1 billion and $4 billion from taxpayers and then spent the cash on a new stadium for the Yankees, the wealthiest corporation in sports.

The move followed a Bloomberg-backed 2005 initiative giving infamous investment bank Goldman Sachs $1.6 billion in taxpayer-financed bonds to construct its new headquarters - and amazingly, this encore rip-off is more spectacular. Mimicking tax cheats' deliberately complex transactions, the city owns the stadium, leases it to an agency, which then leases it to a corporate subsidiary, which then leases it to the Yankees. At the end of the Ponzi scheme, the team is permitted to use the taxes it already owes to pay off the mortgage on its new chateau.

New Yorkers might be celebrating if these giveaways delivered verifiable returns to taxpayers. But Brodsky's report notes that "there is little in new job creation, private investment, or new economic activity" from the expenditure. Taxpayers don't even get affordable seats. According to Newsday, they get a stadium charging the highest ticket prices in baseball - $2,500 for "premium" views (since reduced to "just" $1,250) and $410 for a family of four in the cheap seats.

Like Wall Street firms insisting that trillion-dollar bailouts are a small price for economic stability, Bloomberg first justified everything by saying taxpayers "put next to nothing" into the stadium. (In fairness, a media-mogul mayor who is the planet's 17th wealthiest man may genuinely believe a few billion is "next to nothing" - but, for comparison, it's more than all the devastating cuts to police, firefighting, school and infrastructure budgets that he proposed in his budget).

Then Bloomberg offered the same laissez-faire paean that financial CEOs cite in opposing executive pay caps. "Don't ever think sports is anything but a business," he said, joining bankers in selectively forgetting that arguments for free-market "business" ring hollow when government is propping up said "business."

If this tale of the House That Taxpayers Built was some anomaly, it might be vaguely funny. But while Bloomberg sets milestones for avarice, the bailout-ism he espouses is the norm.

In Washington, "The Obama administration has broken all records in the distribution of taxpayer dollars to American businesses, primarily banks, automobile manufacturers and insurance companies," reports the Huffington Post. At the local level, lawmakers trip over themselves to throw giveaways at corporate campaign donors.

In the new Gilded Age, socializing risk and privatizing profit has become the standard - as American as General Motors, Bank of America and, yes, the New York Yankees.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/21/ED4L17ONA7.DTL

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. The House That 'Roids Built.

[belpejic]

3. Haha. So true.

A-Roid, Roidger Clemens, Android Pettitte, Jason Giambroid, Kevin Broid, Chuck Knobroid, the list goes on. And I like the Yankees (though I like the Phils better). NYC taxpayers should be feeling seriously ripped off at this point. I watch the games, and the stadium always seems half empty. The old one was always full.

[suchadeal]

2. Free enterprise isn't

Never has been.

[sabrina 1]

4. How many times has Bloomberg changed

parties now?

First he was a Republican, then he switched to being a Democrat and then claimed he is an Independent. To him, everything is a 'business', most of all Politics. Sad he sees only the 'business' side of sports.

Nice phrasing from David Sirota regarding the times we live in:

In the new Gilded Age, socializing risk and privatizing profit has become the standard - as American as General Motors, Bank of America and, yes, the New York Yankees.


And it will stay that way until the apathetic American public realize that their government is supposed to work for them, not Wall St. and start making demands instead of turning a blind eye to the outrageous bail-outs of failed institutions. It just doesn't make sense. And so far, there seems to be no consequences for the thieves who brought the country to this point and no demand for accountability.

We so need politicians who work for the interests of ordinary people. I wonder how much more it will take before we throw them all out and restore some democracy in this country? Maybe never, maybe the great experiment is over after all, failed because of greed ~

[Daveparts]

5. Baseball is a sport

Run by Billionaires for the amusement of millionaires. Their sky box mentality illustrates their dislike for the average fan. When they proposed tearing down Yankee Stadium I thought sure why not then we could tear down the White House and the Capital and move them to Virginia.

I used to take my family to major league games but when the ticket prices for one game equaled a family pass for six flags for the entire summer that was the end. Not just that but six bucks for a coke and seven fifty for a beer? Served to you by surly help who act as though they resent you making them serve you.

I've been watching the Cubs on WGN since I was ten years old but each year they cover fewer games so that you'll subscribe to MLB TV. But while the game has stayed the same the coverage has become absurd. Fox is the worst, I won't watch a game on Fox, endless chatter mind numbing sound effects, repetitive instant replays of foul balls for god sake. It's a frigging foul ball I don't need to see it twice.

If you watch a game on ESPN classic, they don't talk constantly they don't brow beat you with mindless facts and bain trivia. they let you watch the game.

But as baseball enjoys $100 tickets prices and MLB TV they forget that ten year olds like I once was can't watch the games anymore in prime time. So instead they watch soccer, and maybe and owner or two will open the door to the sky box only to find out that they're alone in the stadium.

[classysassy]

7. Wrigley field

I remember when you could sit out in the bleachers for a buck,the beer and peanuts were affordable,the players would sign their autographs without asking for money.Jack Brickhouse,hey,hey,its a homer for Ernie,those were the days.

[Uncle Joe]

6. I vaguely recall hearing, that the newer stadium had fewer seats than the old stadium

for the regular fans while having more expensive box seats for the rich and famous.