This hurts me.
I don't want to write this again.
I've written it before.
Here's why libertarians shouldn't support The Texas Rangers baseball team in The World Series.
Waaaay back when George W. Bush was just a pup, he was the front man for a group that bought The Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush brought a 2% share of the team using borrowed money. ($600,000.00) They wanted a new ballpark.
Bush's buddies could've built a new ballpark themselves, but why should they? You were there for them. Bush threatened to move the Rangers out of Arlington. His cartel spent about $125,000.00 campaigning for a 1/2% increase in the Arlington sales tax. The voters approved it. Bush and Company then trampled property rights, seizing land via Eminent Domain.
That's right. They stole the land on which the ballpark was built.
All in all, the Bush gang profited from a total subsidy of $205 million dollars.
(Did he send you a thank-you note? Me neither.)
They had paid $86 million for the Rangers.
They sold The Rangers nine years later for $250 million.
The team still stunk.
So what was different? Why the added value?
It was all in the stadium that YOU bought for them. The $164 million dollar profit was $38 million dollars less than the money that we put into the team ! ! !
My arch-nemesis Dr. Ralph likes to refer to the Iraq war as one of history's worst "bait-and-switch" deals.
The following is also David Cay Johnston's "Free Lunch", pg 79:
"What followed (after the Rangers purchase) was an early indicator of Bush's extraordinary success at marketing. Bush is arguably the greatest salesman of our time, having sold not just friends but political opponents on a war costing more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives with the kind of pay-no-attention-to-that-pool-oil-under-the-engine polish that used car salesmen only dream about."
Ok, they stole the land, they built a mega-stadium on the land, sent you the bill, and then sold the whole thing to Nolan Ryan and kept the overage.
Why do we put up with this?
I think it's because Juvanal said it best, somewhere around 100 B.C. Give us bread and circuses and World Series appearances, and we'll support anything.
I don't want to write this again.
I've written it before.
Here's why libertarians shouldn't support The Texas Rangers baseball team in The World Series.
Waaaay back when George W. Bush was just a pup, he was the front man for a group that bought The Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush brought a 2% share of the team using borrowed money. ($600,000.00) They wanted a new ballpark.
Bush's buddies could've built a new ballpark themselves, but why should they? You were there for them. Bush threatened to move the Rangers out of Arlington. His cartel spent about $125,000.00 campaigning for a 1/2% increase in the Arlington sales tax. The voters approved it. Bush and Company then trampled property rights, seizing land via Eminent Domain.
That's right. They stole the land on which the ballpark was built.
All in all, the Bush gang profited from a total subsidy of $205 million dollars.
(Did he send you a thank-you note? Me neither.)
They had paid $86 million for the Rangers.
They sold The Rangers nine years later for $250 million.
The team still stunk.
So what was different? Why the added value?
It was all in the stadium that YOU bought for them. The $164 million dollar profit was $38 million dollars less than the money that we put into the team ! ! !
My arch-nemesis Dr. Ralph likes to refer to the Iraq war as one of history's worst "bait-and-switch" deals.
The following is also David Cay Johnston's "Free Lunch", pg 79:
"What followed (after the Rangers purchase) was an early indicator of Bush's extraordinary success at marketing. Bush is arguably the greatest salesman of our time, having sold not just friends but political opponents on a war costing more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives with the kind of pay-no-attention-to-that-pool-oil-under-the-engine polish that used car salesmen only dream about."
Ok, they stole the land, they built a mega-stadium on the land, sent you the bill, and then sold the whole thing to Nolan Ryan and kept the overage.
Why do we put up with this?
I think it's because Juvanal said it best, somewhere around 100 B.C. Give us bread and circuses and World Series appearances, and we'll support anything.
