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May 25, 2013
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 The House That Taxpayers BuiltPosted on May 22, 2009
By David Sirota Somewhere, likely 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 importantly, 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 Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky 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 even 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. Advertisement 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.
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By ex-fan, May 27, 2009 at 1:46 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
This is my first summer without Sunday afternoon Yankee baseball in about a decade. I mourn the seats we enjoyed in the old stadium high up but behind home plate. I miss the folks we saw only on Sundays at the stadium. None of us could afford the $11,000 per ticket they wanted to charge (no more Sunday tickets; you had to buy all the games for that seat.) At those prices, it’s no longer just a game. I’m also angry that they actually reduced the number of seats in the stadium while upping the ticket prices. And someone told me they paid $11 for a beer.
Fortunately, I have my memories, but what, really, do we plan to tell the kids about the highjacking of the nation’s passtime?
Report thisBy Dave Schwab, May 27, 2009 at 4:36 am Link to this comment
If you’re tired of everything in New York being given away to billionaires, then you think exactly like Reverend Billy Talen, the Green candidate for mayor of NYC. Check out what Billy Talen stands for at
Report thishttp://voterevbilly.org/
By Tom Semioli, May 26, 2009 at 9:31 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
And Bloomberg will get re-elected…and the Average Joe on the streets of NYC will tell you “he’s a good mayor…” If folks paid as much attention to government as they do to sports/entertainment, this boondoggle would have never happened. Oh, by the way, A Rod is a hero again because he’s been hitting home runs and the Yanks are winning. The irony here is, New Yorkers think they’re smarter than the rest of the country!
Report thisBy liecatcher, May 24, 2009 at 12:36 pm Link to this comment
BILLIONAIRE BANKSTER BLOOMBERG BAMBOOZLES & BETRAYS BRONX
There is so much meat in this article that it’s hard to know just where
to begin my comment. After reading some comments I’ve decided to
start by recommending: “FREE LUNCH-HOW THE WEALTHIEST AMERICANS ENRICH
THEMSELVES AT GOVERNMENT EXPENSE (AND STICK YOU WITH THE BILL)”
, BY DAVID CAY JOHNSTON. That book took over 300 pages & gave
many examples of how the technique was employed.
As heinous as the theft of taxpayer dollars to build the new stadium is, it is even worse when you
find out about the destruction of public parks, homes & property confiscated to create the new stadium.
Now it is not only no longer affordable to we the people, but a beautiful park where people could go to & raise children in is gone forever.
Just like magnificent mountains destroyed by mountain topping KING COAL & also gone forever.
When David Sirota says:
“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.”,
he is giving a perfect description of FASCISM. However, you don’t have to be filthy rich to rob the poor or middle class,
you just have to be elected as a surrogate to do their bidding. E.G., the CLINTONS net worth skyrocketed to over a $100 million, the BUSHES $BILLIONS,
& don’t be surprised to see OBAMA’S fortune rise as well.
Another thing to keep in mind is that FASCISTS don’t discriminate on prey. Bernie Madoff preyed on everyone he could,
so it’s easier to hate him for being a thieving miscreant than a Jew. There are more Jews in N.Y. than in ISRAEL,
but that didn’t stop Mayor Bloomberg. Hitler murdered more gentiles than Jews. The WALL STREET BANKSTERS,
have robbed all of “we the people”.
And finally, if we think of “government” as an organiztion that controls / rules a political unit, then we have to conclude that
democracy has been dead for a long time & what we have now is certainly not: of the people , by the people , or for the people.
Report thisBy Shift, May 24, 2009 at 8:59 am Link to this comment
Just don’t go there.
Report thisBy Big B, May 24, 2009 at 8:29 am Link to this comment
Don’t feel bad good people of NY, for we here in the Pittsburgh area suffered the same boondoggle in the building of 2 new stadiums(and now a new area for the successful but unprofitable penguins). The people of Pittsburgh and Allegheny Co. voted down the use of public money to build two new stadiums, but amid the idle threats of the Pirates and Steelers ownership to move the teams from the area, the local politians caved and voted to finance two new stadiums(despite the fact that the city of Pittsburgh was at that time near bankruptcy, and was subsequently taken over by a state oversite board) And now a new venue for the Pens is underway, even though they have not turned a decent profit in over two decades.
Yes, the taxpayers of the Pittsburgh area were ripped off just like NY, and countless other cities with “publicly funded stadiums”. The problem is, of course, that no stadium has ever created prosperity for the local taxpayers. On the contrary, new stadiums create only further liability, with a variety of extra public services needed to maintain the new venues. But the biggest fuck you to the taxpayers is yet to come. Just think, in thirty years when these publicly funded stadiums are finally paid for, the teams and local politians will again demand new facilities, so as to keep up with the teams in other cities who just got new digs.
But the joke may finally be on them, for how many stadiums in future will be filled with paying customers when a “cheap seat” is $100? (oh, sorry NY’ers, you already pay that don’t you)
Report thisBy Outraged, May 23, 2009 at 10:21 pm Link to this comment
Re: G.Anderson
Your comment: “The hollowing out of this country continues, the day will soon come, when there is no longer anything to take from the people, and no amount of psychological manipulation or double talk can make a difference.”
I agree. Those of “conscience” should take note. THE PEOPLE are not the “ignoramuses” as they are so blatantly portrayed by the MSM, and other ideologues. It might be best for those who eschew this mantra, to take their “losses”...... and run for the border.
Report thisBy Eric L. Prentis, May 23, 2009 at 12:19 pm Link to this comment
The innocent European workers get bailed out so they don’t suffer economic hardship while here in the US it’s the b*stard bankers who caused this credit crisis who get bailed out with many trillions or taxpayer dollars, now that is the type “political freedom” (aka, getting a screwing) that Americans are “willing” to fight and die for, NOT!
Report thisBy G.Anderson, May 23, 2009 at 10:07 am Link to this comment
The hollowing out of this country continues, the day will soon come, when there is no longer anything to take from the people, and no amount of psychological manipulation or double talk can make a difference.
The crooks are in charge.
Report thisBy Cathy, May 23, 2009 at 8:15 am Link to this comment
Well, David Sirota, you are a hero, and I really, really wish New Yorkers would not let this man buy his way into a third term. We’re in serious trouble in New York—and not just the City—from all the corruption. Are we next behind California? One of the commenters on Bill Maher said last night that California has simply taken the lead in this—as they do in many things.
I’m sure you must have an inkling that if Bloomberg buys his way into this third term the next seat he will try to buy will be POTUS. Look at where Wall Street, Pharma and Insurance money got Obama? Slick, slick, slick.
Report thisBy TAO Walker, May 22, 2009 at 3:20 pm Link to this comment
Just as well let ‘em run, tame Sisters and Brothers. The sooner they get it all, the sooner it all will take them under.
Meantime, the Tiyoshpaye Way is still there for those who are sick and tired of being sick….and tired. It’s free, and your tormentors have nothing to keep you from taking it.
“Just dropped in to see what condition (your) condition is in.” Pretty much continung to worsen, if what’s still the ‘norm’ here on ‘truthdig’ is any indicator.
Hokahey!
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