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June 20, 2007
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. ~Russel Baker
Posted by snackeru at June 20, 2007 08:49 AM
Comments
:-)
Posted by: STM at June 20, 2007 12:18 PM
Ok. Shane you can shut down or go all nuclear on us and all, but man I use your site to get to other sites. For the life of me I can't remember Oracle of Cheese's URL, but I know it's one click away from your site. Bring back the links!
Posted by: Freealonzo at June 20, 2007 12:54 PM
No! It has all blown up! All is lost!
Ha ha! The universe it mine to command!
Posted by: Shane at June 20, 2007 01:22 PM
That's a bummer.
Jeff T.
Posted by: Jeff T. at June 20, 2007 09:42 PM
Greet Machine is the BOMB
Posted by: chapman at June 20, 2007 10:04 PM
I love it when Shane loses it like this. :)
Posted by: Cheesehead Craig at June 21, 2007 07:27 AM
toying with the masses again eh??
Posted by: zooomx at June 21, 2007 08:25 AM
Yes, long time readers will recognize a pattern here. I think this is the third time I have blown everything up? I'm just having fun.
Posted by: Shane at June 21, 2007 08:31 AM
yeesh, i go away for few days and shane's blown it all up.
Posted by: CJ at June 21, 2007 01:16 PM
Strib now says Viking stadium to cost over a billion dollars. Where's the Greet Machine analysis when you need it?
Posted by: Freealonzo at June 21, 2007 01:26 PM
Freealonzo,
You alarmist. The Strib actually says it is under 1 billion dollars.
"That would bring the total cost to $995 million - that's 99.5 percent of the way to $1 billion."
Posted by: Tim R at June 21, 2007 02:20 PM
But there are pretty pictures!
https://www.minnesotamomentum.com/graphics.csp
Can the purple "Build it" buttons be far behind? Worked for the Twins...
Posted by: Snyder at June 21, 2007 03:15 PM
Future historians will look back on this past decade with amazement. Communities that were hard-pressed to keep their schools open or police on the beat nevertheless spent billions of dollars on stadiums and arenas for use by professional sports teams. Even mediocre athletes were paid more for a single season than the average hard-working taxpayer would earn in a lifetime. The average taxpayer, who was taxed to build sports facilities and support players’ salaries, could not afford to walk through the turnstile and watch a live game. The U.S. is in the grip of a massive public spending spree on professional sports. How bad is it?: New facilities costing almost $500 million [each] have been completed or are under way in Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Nashville, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington, D.C. and are in the planning stages in Boston, Dallas, Minneapolis, New York, and Pittsburgh. Major stadium renovations have been undertaken in Jacksonville and Oakland. Industry experts estimate that more than $7 billion will be spent on new facilities for professional sports teams before 2007. Most of this $7 billion will come from public sources.
Nationally, subsidies to professional sports facilities are costing taxpayers approximately $500 million a year. That figure understates the true cost, which would take into account the inefficiency, lost employment opportunities, and income redistribution effects caused by sports stadium subsidies. This sizeable public investment is being made for an industry that is puny compared to almost any other sector of the U.S. economy. For example, annual sales reported by Sears Roebuck & Co. are approximately thirty times the entire revenues of Major League Baseball. Chicago, home of five professional sports franchises, derives less than a tenth of 1 percent of its personal income from professional sports. Indeed, there isn’t a single county anywhere in the U.S. where professional sports accounts for more than one-half of 1 percent of that county’s private-sector payroll.
All available data suggest that continued public investment in sport stadiums is madness. Sports subsidies don’t produce economic benefits sufficient to justify their public subsidies. At best, they are an inefficient and unfair way to attain such “intangible” benefits as civic pride or urban identity. They unfairly burden those who don’t follow professional sports or who can’t afford to watch live games. There is a way to stop the madness.
Posted by: Ucan'tstopthetruth at June 22, 2007 09:58 AM
I got some great news in the mail yesterday:
The official New Ballpark Groundbreaking will take place on Thursday, August 2nd at 5:00 pm with a free concert and other activities scheduled. The ceremony will start at 7:00 pm.
Make sure to save the date and come celebrate our new Twins ballpark! Whoo hoo!
Posted by: Snyder at June 22, 2007 10:10 AM
What kind of loser would you have to be to attend a ground breaking ceremony? Some sort of mindless, friendless nerd! If a bomb went off at this event, pocket protector sales would plummet. How embarrassing.
Posted by: groundbreaking at June 22, 2007 10:41 AM
Groundbreakings are fun! The University of Minnesota had a great turnout last fall for the football stadium groundbreaking.
What kind of friendless, needs-a-life loser keeps making up different aliases (after having already been outed twice) to keep whining about an already-decided issue to an audience that could give a hoot what he thinks, STM?
Posted by: Snyder at June 22, 2007 11:54 AM
Groundbreakings are fun!
Really? I guess we'll have to take your word for it.
What a loser.
Posted by: Iamembarrassedforyou at June 22, 2007 12:33 PM
Happy Autumn! Today (6/22) is the first day of fall. The days just get shorter from here on out. How was your summer?
Posted by: Brian Maas at June 22, 2007 12:34 PM
Seeing as how I'm getting my new Twins ballpark in three years, who's the loser?
Posted by: Snyder at June 22, 2007 12:41 PM
Actually, today is the first day of summer.
Posted by: Jeff A at June 22, 2007 04:13 PM
First day of summer must have been on December 22nd, when the days started getting longer. I don't know.
STM, I like your take, but let me counter: That rant didn't take into account the excitement of your fellow Greet Machiners into its analysis. If nerds like us are willing to go to groundbreaking ceremonies, imagine the passion we have for this topic! Seriously, our passion for this topic is certainly worth a few dollars to the economy.
Imagine this: think of how annoyed you are about this topic...well, that is about one-tenth of one percent of our passion FOR this topic. The work that has been done by Greet Machiners over the past ten years in favor of sports facilities (specifically the Twins ballpark) is far more than you can imagine. I think you take us too lightly. I think you are just a johnny-come-lately that doesn't have true passion about anything. Misguided in your eyes? Sure, that may well be. But, we stand for something. And, as the saying goes, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
And, if this doesn't frame it up for you, you also need to understand that the Twins Ballpark is not even close to the top of the priority list in the lives of Greet Machiners. This site is filled with hard-working family men that also give to their communities in ways you may not understand. We have good heads on our shoulders and are proud to serve those we love. So, if America is being brought down by public spending on sports facilities, it is far outweighed by the intangible benefits derived by those who are served by those loyal to the cause of the Greet Machine. A Twins ballpark may be the reason we are here, but it is not the reason we are HERE.
Posted by: Derek at June 23, 2007 10:21 AM
Interesting Article on the Strib.
Did a great plan turn greedy?
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1265790.html
Nothing we haven't all talked about before though.
Posted by: Tim R. at June 25, 2007 09:11 AM
You see Derek, the problem is this; you and your “friends” poked a sleeping bear.
Our society doesn’t need a ball park. Our community doesn’t need a ball park. Our businesses, our “urban core” and most of us citizens don’t need a ball park.
You want a ballpark. The construction unions that will line their pockets with payroll dues want a ballpark, the smiling baby kissers, who need to prove their worth, want a ballpark. Carl Pohlad wants a ballpark.
All of us that don’t need a ballpark couldn’t care less if you got one. But of course, you couldn’t get what you wanted without imposing on the rest of us. We were originally happy to ‘live and let live,’ while you pursue your little ballpark and whatever else you need to make yourselves happy and leave the rest of us to our own pursuits. Nope, in order to get what you wanted, you had steal from the rest of us (or at least support the process) and then rub our noses in it after the fact.
The bears are partly responsible for this, because we fell asleep. The consequences will be the lack of any real community progress going forward as the bears attempt to make up for this transgression in other areas (no gas tax? No increase in education spending? Etc… ring a bell?). The ripple effect of “payback” from this frivolous tax for a stadium will punish legitimate community improvements for decades. But hey, as long as you’re happy about your stadium.
Posted by: Whatsinitforme? at June 25, 2007 09:20 AM
Our society doesn’t need a ball park. Our community doesn’t need a ball park. Our businesses, our “urban core” and most of us citizens don’t need a ball park
Where's that dead horse? Let me polish up my boots here. Of course we don't need a ball park. This is a luxury that may of us believe increases the overall community's standard of living more than the tax "punishment".
Posted by: Tim R. at June 25, 2007 11:02 AM
That's fine. The revenue stream needed to support essential community services is only so deep. The choice to divert some towards a "luxury" has already been made, as well as the decision to underfund essentials as a result. There are several principals in play here. One is; "rationalization," which is what you chose to do to make yourself feel better about your position. The other is; "cause and effect," which describes the reason what will subsequently happen to us that we all must live with now as a result of this diversion towards a luxury.
Posted by: dp at June 25, 2007 12:19 PM
I don't suppose any of Greet Machine "faithful" will break ranks and start calling a "spade a spade" where Oputz is concerned, even if it does prove out he was trying to rob LPII blind and as a result, has to severely restrict the "public amenities" in the stadium to pay for his faux paw.
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1267132.html
Posted by: herecomesthetruth at June 25, 2007 12:58 PM
