Without Much Strain?

This story contains a number of jaw-dropping assertions.  I was hoping it was an ironic parody, but the New York Times doesn't really have enough self-confidence to be ironic.  It's just painfully earnest, shading over into earnestly painful.

Excerpt:

When city leaders and state legislators agreed last year to fund roughly half the $1 billion cost of a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings, they attached the usual strings for such projects: It had to be architecturally iconic, employ steel made from Minnesota iron ore and offer at least a few cheap seats. 

So... Minnesota has a total population of 5.4 million souls.  Minneapolis has a population of just under 500,000, if you count the surrounding cities like St. Paul.  They need a $1 billion football stadium?  Really?  And taxpayers need to pay for half of it?  That's $2,000 per resident of the Minneapolis metroplex.  For a sports stadium that will be used, at most, 30 times per year, even counting monster truck shows.  The state is going to hit up taxpayers $1,000 per resident of the city to pay for a football stadium.  That's not $1,000 per fan, that's $1,000 per resident, in tax money.

That's the NYTimes' idea of "saving"?  Well, at least they have cheap seats.  Which will be scalped to rich people anyway.  Because the poor folks would prefer to have the money than the cheap/expensive seat.

I guess it's okay, though.  Knowing that they are using locally-mined, free-range artisanal iron gives folks a warm glow.  Because you should make sure and create giant, dirty mines as near as possible to where you live.  Oh, and the bathrooms will all be lit with $25 LED bulbs, too.  So that's something.

I guess Nick Gillespie just isn't a football fan.  Because he doesn't get it.

Seriously, the NYTimes is demonstrating a pretty remarkable support for crony capitalism here.  There is no conceivable "stimulus" justification, and the environmental justification is nonsense.  This is a giant waste of money, a giveaway from taxpayers to highly profitable large corporations.  And a perfect description of the program of the Democratic Party in the U.S.  Also the Republican Party in the U.S.

Nod to MK, who notes:  "I'm in the wrong business.  If a small amount of carbon is worth $500 million, I should set my hair on fire and sell the right to put it out on Ebay!"

The Crony Index

Which companies are the biggest rent-seekers?  Or, is it which companies are the BEST rent-seekers?

Either way....the Crony Index!

With a nod to Zachary B.

Reaming Romney

I don't always find the New Yorker to be very good reporting.  I subscribed for years, but the bias and outright fabrications of the new regime were just too insulting to readers with an IQ over 80, so I bailed.  But, occasionally, they get something right.  Like this.  Excerpt:

  Romney now seems to fancy himself a small-government zealot, who promises the end of the culture of entitlement. Yet even as he assails people on Medicaid and Social Security, and those who receive the earned-income tax credit, for being “dependent upon government,” Romney has had strikingly little to say about another prominent group that’s “dependent upon government”: the many American companies whose profits rely, in one form or another, on government assistance.

Here's the hilarious thing:  when you lefty goofballs write stuff like this, the mask slips a little.  You jabber about George Bush being all "libertarian."  Really?  Then why is the above paragraph true?  There is nothing libertarian about crony capitalism.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  So if the above is true, and it is, then stop calling Romney, Bush, and the other corporo-statist extremists libertarians.  It's absurd.  Even a steaming pile of ideology-baiting ordure like the New Yorker can get it right, sometimes.

Excellent Point: US Becoming More Like Russia

So, an excellent point:

"Polls tell us that the teenagers who in the 1990s dreamed of becoming rich in business now aspire to be public servants. Many view public service as a source of fast and easy cash. As long as this incentive exists, purges will be useless — unmasked thieves will only be replaced by others."

Strangely, this claim was made, not in the WS Journal, but in the Washington Post.

Even more strangely, the claim was made by one V. Putin. Who ought to know how profitable public office is. (Note: I changed "oligarchs" to "rich in business," so as not to give it away...)

The layers of hypocrisy here almost cover the long sharp prickles of irony.
The disturbing thing is that in a crony capitalist system, it is the "businessmen" who make the most from "public service." Check this article on Warren Buffet, who has made a fortune by telling President Obama to invest in companies Buffet himself owns.

Excerpt: Consider Warren Buffett. Often seen as a grandfatherly figure above the rough-and-tumble of politics, Buffett appears to be immune to the folly and excess of finance as well. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, in a house he purchased in 1958 for $31,000. He made a fortune for himself and his investors at the business conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway through the humble-sounding approach of value-based investing. He uses folksy expressions: “You don’t know who’s swimming naked,” he said during the height of the financial crisis, “until the tide goes out.” He frequently takes to the nation’s op-ed pages with populist-sounding arguments, such as his August 2010 plea in The New York Times for the government to stop “coddling” the “super-rich” and start raising their taxes.

But this image does not always reflect reality. Warren Buffett is very much a political entrepreneur; his best investments are often in political relationships. In recent years, Buffett has used taxpayer money as a vehicle to even greater profit and wealth. Indeed, the success of some of his biggest bets and the profitability of some of his largest investments rely on government largesse and “coddling” with taxpayer money.

The US is not in danger of becoming a socialist country like Russia WAS. The US is in danger of becoming a corrupt crony capitalist country like Russia IS. Warren Buffet, oligarch.

Regulatory Capture Video

KPC friend Susan Dudley on regulatory capture. Nicely done, ma'am!

Me, Lebron & the TicketCity Bowl

Our latest piece is up at Grantland.

Money quote:

In sum, we have a system where the games are not designed to produce the best on-field matchups, the competitors often lose money but fight fiercely to participate, outsiders and observers complain vehemently, and the organizers amass and waste a great deal of money with little oversight.

Welcome to capitalism, American style. Get back to us when you’ve found a better system.