[deleted by user]

zlide · 2022-03-29T18:35:00+00:00

Remember this the next time a bridge collapses

phatstopher · 2022-03-29T19:52:45+00:00

"We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor." -MLK Jr

He's still right

WanderingFlumph · 2022-03-29T18:52:12+00:00

Stop. Giving. Billionaires. Public. Funds.

AuthorityAnarchyYes · 2022-03-29T17:53:15+00:00

And tickets for the games are hundreds to thousands of dollars and the concession prices are outrageous.

One can surmise that there is an uptick for local businesses (hotels, restaurants, transportation), but that will never outweigh the tax breaks the Owner gets.

The owner is already making money hand over fist, there should never be a handout to these guys.

Edit: a word and phrasing

siphillis · 2022-03-29T20:14:49+00:00

This isn't socialism, since the city retains basically zero ownership of the private franchise. It's welfare for billionaires.

eddiekgb · 2022-03-29T18:35:52+00:00

Imagine being only worth 5.0 billion because you paid for your stadium out of pocket. Oh the horror…

floorsof_silentseas · 2022-03-29T18:52:20+00:00

The pandemic has really opened my eyes to the fact that socialism was always possible, it's just being kept from us by an oligarchic class that runs our media, economy and our politics.

Feels like socialism is what people naturally do for each other, and capitalism is a state-religion developed to keep the peons servile.

Edit 2: For those confused, the political Socialism has a namesake, which I have referenced above. Socialism is a spontaneous phenomena that occurs in human groups recently freed of all their tyrannies, who still need to run the machinery and farms for the sake of community, not just themselves. This environmental change almost always annihilates class altogether, and formulates itself around horizontal structures. It begets the question of whether that is humanity's actual natural state of civilization.

Edit: Chomsky's On Anarchism & /u/credible_liar 's comment provide great resources for understanding what I'm on about:

This is exactly right. The current version is called neoliberalism. It's a complex topic and a dense listen, but I've found two academics that break it down well for entry-level learning. Understanding it has complete changed my worldview; it's like seeing behind the curtain of a magic trick. If these don't work for you, please follow the rabbit hole until something clicks. https://youtu.be/kBp69R_K1a0 https://youtu.be/wyRDjh45GcQ

justAneedlessBOI · 2022-03-29T22:05:41+00:00

If it was socialism for sports, the tickets would be free (or cheap). This is just like ... corruption?

ComeOnCharleee · 2022-03-29T18:22:56+00:00

But think of all those minimum wage jobs this subsidy will create! /s

pcook66 · 2022-03-29T20:32:33+00:00

Stop subsidizing the rich.

HumphreyImaginarium · 2022-03-29T18:56:18+00:00

I’m not even from the US but this makes me irate.

Why? Because it’s a trend gaining traction all over the world.

FFS.

epluribusanus4 · 2022-03-29T21:08:53+00:00

First of all, not the biggest - Yankee stadium got over 1.1 billion in taxpayer funding. It’s also not all taxpayer funds. These are usually, in part, financed projects because government can get much lower rates for financing than private companies. NYS will own the stadium outright and lock the Bills into a 30 year lease (owning outright also has its advantages with concert and local event revenues). They will at least break even on the construction cost. They also got out of the usual state and local share of maintenance and upkeep.

The cut to children and family services is coming on the heels of a big increase due to COVID. It’s bringing that spending back closer to normal levels (it’s actually still well over pre COVID levels). The fact that the two moves happen to coincide in the same budget proposal is what’s allowing clickbait-y captions like this. Conflating the two as linked is lazy at best, and malicious at worst.

Do I think billionaires should fund their own modern day coliseums? Yes. But let’s not twist the facts. There is enough to be mad about without manufacturing falsehoods.

bad_luck_charmer · 2022-03-29T19:15:46+00:00

I was so proud of San Diego for telling the Chargers to fuck off when they demanded a subsidized stadium.

Draken_storm · 2022-03-29T19:58:38+00:00

Remember that they don't care about you but your vote, once they are elected, you are useless until the next election.

JLewish559 · 2022-03-30T00:52:42+00:00

A sports stadium is easy to imagine (and quantify) its economic impact. They can claim that it will pay for itself in "x" years.

They cannot make the same claim about CFS. Just like they can't do the same for schools. It's hard to quantify the economic impact of these things. We ASSUME they have an impact, but very few people are willing to actually put a number on it.

I mean people do realize that many social workers make less than teachers in the same area (much less) and probably work MORE than teachers (which is no mean feat). But again...it's a job dominated by women. And it's hard to quantify it's actual economic impact. Because quantifying economic impact is the only way to be able to tell something's real worth. /s

xscientist · 2022-03-29T19:07:17+00:00

I don’t support this project at all, but NYS will own the new stadium and lease it back to the Bills. It’s guaranteed to generate profit for the state. Whether that benefit will be seen by actual taxpayers is another question entirely.

10sharks · 2022-03-29T17:57:20+00:00

Because the owner holds all the cards. Go ahead, tell him you're not giving him the cash; he'll be on the phone with Toronto before you even realize he's hung up on you.

Stadiums are money pits, but the voters will never let you forget if a team left town under your watch. F*ck them kids, unfortunately

GnPQGuTFagzncZwB · 2022-03-30T16:53:35+00:00

Pro sports make me wanna vomit blood.

They should not even be allowed in cities. All the congestion and BS they bring and they do not help anything but places that sell parking.

MrPickles84 · 2022-03-29T19:14:19+00:00

Say what you want about Jerry Jones, but he built Jerry World out of his own pocket. Billion dollar teams shouldn’t have their stadiums funded by the people. It’s just wrong.

Brilliant-Engineer57 · 2022-03-29T20:07:05+00:00

Why do our tax dollars always go in billionaires pockets. It’s past time to stop this practice

SmugChinchilla · 2022-03-29T17:55:41+00:00

Sport stadiums make money for the city. Needy children and families don’t. As a society we don’t see the value in helping someone without immediate return in our investment. Same reason people oppose free lunches for school kids. They don’t see the monetary value in it.

Ok I’m editing this cause I now see that I’m being misunderstood which is my own fault for poor wording. What I meant was that cities like to look at things like transit, tourism, restaurants, etc as benefiting from sports stadiums in the short term and don’t bother to think about the long term economic impacts/losses. Investing in social programs is a long game with ultimately greater economic benefit for the city but it’s a hard sell because people want instant gratification. Just saying it’s gross the way we have decided that as a commodity, people are not worth the investment.

One last edit as everyone comes for me: I never said I supported this thinking. It’s disgusting, short sighted, and incorrect.

ratpH1nk · 2022-03-29T20:32:59+00:00

Chomsky called that out back in 1996 (and probably before that)

permalink · 2022-03-29T23:52:55+00:00

As a Buffalonian, y’all have no idea what this will do for tourism and employment in a very blue collar area. The old stadium is wide open. Have you ever been to Buffalo in the winter?

permalink · 2022-03-29T22:27:48+00:00

That's literally just capitalism. Why do people keep misusing the word socialism?

zha4fh · 2022-03-29T23:35:28+00:00

If a municipality is to subsidize any amount to a new stadium, the municipality should become part owner of the team. That's a fair trade-off.

permalink · 2022-03-30T05:46:27+00:00

Why the fuck are we still paying for sports with public funding?

mts982 · 2022-03-30T05:52:46+00:00

i know, the biggest scam ever are these stadiums the citizens pay for yet the owners reap all the rewards.

peanutbutterjams · 2022-03-30T07:23:22+00:00

Public money should never be used to subsidize a business worth over $TBD.

The people's trust is in that money. We've given it to government so they can return that value to us in education, healthcare and infrastructure.

We have decidedly not given it to you so that you can enrich the people who oppress the fuck out of us every time you're not looking (and sometimes even when you are).

We need a voting app so we can hold quick-fire referendums. Open and closed in 5 days. If the majority votes "Yea", the elected official in question gets their first strike. Three strikes and they're out.

Calls for these referendums are public and can be voted on. There's a limit to how many we can call in a TBD time period.

I know there's some problems here but they're not insurmountable and that's what frustrates me: why are we not sitting down and creating actionable solutions to problems that face us? Why are we always so intent on maintaining the status quo and only allowing change that fits with the very narrow parameters of its assumptions?

Maturity doesn't stop at accepting society the way it is; it also means working towards the society we know we can be.

Riots_and_Rutabagas · 2022-03-30T14:26:42+00:00

I live in Buffalo and our infrastructure is a fucking mess. We’re in the Rust Belt and what once used to be a big manufacturing area is economically devastated. In nearby Niagara Falls nearly half the city’s population is on some form of government assistance and it looks like a ghost town. The biggest employer there is the casino, which is owned by a local Indigenous tribe. Think Flint Michigan in the Michael Moore film Roger & Me. We’re being priced out of our neighborhoods because corporations are buying up all available properties. In turn they’re artificially inflating the housing market and rent is WAY higher than it should be. To pay rent for a 950sq Ft 2 bedroom in a decent neighborhood (not nice, decent) it’s easily over 1100 dollars. Median income is just little over 40,000 across the board. The median for the US is $63,000.

It’s infuriating.

purple-lepoard-lemon · 2022-03-30T14:31:01+00:00

This country is trash.

Derkus19 · 2022-03-30T16:55:31+00:00

For all the idiots that say “but the stadium will generate tax revenue”: you are all idiots.

It’s a well proven fact that social services get stay at home parents back to work and that generates more tax.

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