Friday, October 07, 2011

Con Games and Scams

Just a Two-bit Grifter

Before dropping out of the presidential race Attention Whore Sarah Palin did one last scam. She appealed to her benighted followers through her money machine, SarahPAC, to giver her cash and convince her that they love her so so much. She took the money and dropped out. I wish I had a sucker list to tap for free money that is as gullible as hers. Caribou Barbie may be the most successful con artist in history because she never even been arrested.

My Rowdy Friends
Zygi Wilf has a net worth of $1.3 billion; he owns the Minnesota Vikings football team. Alex Spanos has a net worth of $1.1 billion; he owns the San Diego Chargers. Both men want brand new pleasure palaces for their teams and both want taxpayers to carry a heavy part of the bill.

The Chargers are looking for an $800 million dollar monument with a retractable roof (because, heaven know, the weather in San Diego is so iffy). They expect local government to carry the bulk of the expense, some $500 million.

The Vikings plan on spending up to $1.2 billion for a place to play their eight home games per year. They want taxpayers to carry $600 million, or more, in the cost of the building.

The arguments are always the same:
  • Appeal to Penury. They need a new stadium "to stay financially competitive." (It ought to be funny watching billionaires plead poverty. It's not.)
  • Appeal to Passion. The community has to show its love for the team or we'll leave. (The traditional gold-digger's song; see Sarah Palin above.)
  • Appeal to Fairness. The Dallas Cowboys got a new publicly financed stadium, I deserve one too. (Two wrongs don't make a right.)
Free Money
The Federal Reserve Bank is run by bankers for bankers. One of their many, many (many, many) tricks is loaning money to big Wall Street banks for virtually nothing which the banks turn around and loan to the Federal Government for a fat profit. If the Federal Reserve loaned these trillions of dollars directly to the government it would take a serious bite out of the federal deficit.

But, the Federal Reserve Board is in on this scam to feed free money to their buds.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On the first item, in other worlds, this would be regarded as theft or fraud. In US politics, I suppose it is considered business as usual. And, since she is so religious, I suppose she has already asked for forgiveness for breaking one of the precious commandments in taking the $ under false pretenses.