There’s only one thing more depressing come October than the end of baseball season: the sight of an empty ballpark. All those vacant seats, the hot-dog concessions closed, the field empty, and the gates padlocked until the following spring.
It’s a bitter scene for baseball lovers. But it’s an economic conundrum for cities, too.
“A large percentage of most facilities built in the last 25 years have been financed with public money,” says Patrick Rishe, an associate professor of economics at Webster University. “That creates a problem, because whether you’re talking about football, or baseball in particular, what else are you going to do with those facilities?”
There’s an extensive debate among economists about whether public financing for stadiums is ever as good a deal for cities as sports fans would like to believe. But at least this much is certain: the economics of empty stadiums are grim…..
Progressive Field in Cleveland may have come up with the best solution yet to the empty ballpark. Last year for the first time, the team converted the field into a vast winter playground. The Indians laid an ice track around the field for skaters and built a snow-tubing hill from the bleachers onto the outfield. “Snow Days” drew to downtown Cleveland last winter about 50,000 people who otherwise would have been bundled up at home. And because Progressive Field sits nestled in the city’s downtown (when it was constructed in the early 1990s, planners intentionally spurned surface parking lots), the event fed into the surrounding entertainment district and restaurants.
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1. chris h. is a member of Team Keefe! Posted: October 10, 2011 at 06:13 PM (#3958346)Really? Is there actually a debate on this? I thought economists had pretty universally concluded that they aren't a good deal at all, but I may not be remembering correctly.
The surrounding entertainment districts aren't that close to Jacobs' Field, nor are they family friendly, so I doubt their was much "feeding" going in.
Well, AT&T wasn't built with public financing, but its construction has been a pretty huge boon to the area around the ballpark. It's really revitalized what was a sort of bad neighborhood. It's also used year-round, with Opera, concerts, football games and other events at the park.
So to the larger question of whether new ballparks can provide a big economic impact, I would say yes.
Nats stadium is near absolutely nothing other than a McDonald's. It's a long walk to get to get to anything resembling a night life (I guess the hipster part of Eastern Market is the closest neighborhood). But they've had posters up for years showing how awesome the area will be in the future ("Coming soon!").
IIRC, Florida's stadium is surrounded by a parking lot and nothing else. I'm less certain about Citizen's Bank Park but I think it is also is fairly removed from anything.
NYS is near stuff, but nothing that's really appealing or interesting or that I would go to if NYS wasn't there. Haven't been out by Citifield in a long time, but I don't remember much around there either, although I rarely explored the area.
So to the larger question of whether new ballparks can provide a big economic impact, I would say yes.
I was living in San Francisco prior and during AT&T's construction, left just before the inaugural season. It wasn't so much sort of a bad area as sort of an empty area, in my memory. It's not like it turned around a Tenderloin, or the area immediately north of Candelstick. I've been there since, and it's definitely been a boon to the area, but I don't know if that exception proves any rule. Regardless, it wasn't public, so even if my memory is off, I'm still wondering which of these publically-financed new parks has been an economic boon.
Haven't been out by Citifield in a long time, but I don't remember much around there either, although I rarely explored the area.
No need, there's nothing there. I mean, Quuens is there, and people live there, within walking distance, but, that's really it.
My sis who lives in DC says that area is supposed to be the next gentfrified area. Seems like it has a lot going for it being on the water. I can see a case for a publicly financed stadium being a catalyst for that kind of development and turning around an area that for some reason has a market impediment. But yea, overall they're not good investments and most cities don't even do a good job maximizing the development utility (i.e. the parking lagoons).
No. American political and economic history in the last 30 years has consisted of little more than the public treasuries being looted, in one way or another, to further enrich the already rich. The stadium shakedowns are a prime example; making it worse is the fact that the baseball-playing facilities were only one part of the giveaway -- the owners leveraged the seats and the baseball field to get bars, malls, restaurants, and the functional equivalent of inner-stadium apartments (luxury suites) built for them.
And so now if you want to go to a baseball game, you can't simply pay a baseball game's price; you have to pay an add-on cover charge for the bars, malls, and restaurants at the stadium. On top of the extra taxes you have to pay to help build the park.
All that public money for bread and circuses. Truly an appalling episode in the nation's history.
Wrigley stands out to me, in that it's actually situated in a neighborhood, and the bars don't suck. Moreover, there are actual cool places to go not too far away. This stands in stark contrast to The Cell, which has a great view of Chicago and not much else.
Some cities have their stadiums bunched up together, and I never really understood the point of that. Philly, KC, PBurgh and Detroit all do this, and there's not really anything going on save for the stadiums. Well, in Detroit, you're not too far from Slow's BBQ. But, otherwise, there's not much.
You don't have to build two sets of parking lots and you have the same easy highway access.
But its stupid because baseball should be a sport for downtowns, without a huge parking lot, while football should probably be in a sea of parking.
(**) Beyond psychic harm.
Nationals Stadium is right next to the metro so you just hop on the metro and go wherever you want. No real need for a night life neighborhood there. But they do have the beer garden next to the park after games.
The stadium in Pittsburgh had some stuff near it and was a rather easy walk to the rest of the city but I will say the rest of the city reminded me of a revitalized suburban downtown area. I stayed in the area I believe they called the Strip or something like that and the place was a ghost town with not a lot of shops, restaurants, and bars.
All the studies that the teams paid for have shown that stadiums are a boon for the area. No independent study has shown that however.
Correct. As part of the deal, Moores got control of a lot of the real estate around the ballpark area, but PETCO didn't "revitalize" the Gaslamp. Downtown SD was doing fine without the ballpark; you don't need a fancy baseball stadium to gentrify/yuppify/commercialize a downtown area. Some of the people I know who dealt with LL during the PETCO beatdown were part of putting many of those earlier plans in play.
One reason the Chargers, about whom the town as a whole cares more than it does the Padres, are having trouble getting a new stadium is that PETCO hasn't really brought the huge benefits, including the Padres spending more money on players, that we were told it would. That and CA's massive debt (along with municipal debt) have put the Chargers in play for LA (along with the Raiders, Rams, Vikings, and Jaguars).
*new name as of last week
Yes. The area around Key Arena suffered the almost simultaneous loss of the Sonics and the other major tenant, the Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team of the WHL. Restaurants snd bars in the area lost 50% of their sales:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nba/2009404613_keyarena01.html
I don't know that I'd go that far. The right stadium in the right area definitely has potential to build a local economy.
The real issue is that most of these complexes are built in crappy neighborhoods because the land is cheap and there aren't many special interests fighting the construction. If the West Side Stadium had passed, it almost certainly would have revitalized that area of the city a bit. It doesn't take much for a neighborhood to explode in Manhattan.
Ehhhhhhhh that's a little odd to say. I lived on 10th avenue and 29th street when this stadium was being discussed. I'm not sure what sort of revitalization this area needed at that point that wasn't already being brought about by the galleries, clubs, High Line, and Chelsea.
And that kind of organic, small-business development that asks nothing of anyone other than users is infinitely superior to the corporatist-cum-socialist "development" exemplified by pro sports in the United States.
Writ more broadly, the former is the kind of thing our economy should be all about; the latter is the kind of thing that's driven the economy and country into (**) the ground.
(**) Or "much closer to" for the insistent.
ATT is just fantastic in every way, and if I recall correctly I had South-worthy chicken and waffles at a hole in the wall within walking distance.
You must have been at the Hampton Inn or somewhere else in the tiny no man's land between the Convention Center and the actual Strip. The Strip is the all-purpose shopping area that gets incredibly crowded on weekend mornings, it has tons of restaurants and more dance clubs than anywhere else than probably the South Side. Although this is limited to Penn Avenue and part of Smallman Street.
The North Side, where PNC Park and Heinz Field are, is basically what all these other cities have in mind when they envision things cropping up around the stadium in a nondescript area. There's a couple big office buildings that ensure the area isn't desolate in the middle of the day, some condos, and about fifteen sports bars. Then across the river you have the actual downtown which has everything, although nothing except restaurants is open after 4:30 PM.
Of course this is the area where Three Rivers Stadium already was, which never led to much of a downtown feel itself.
CitiField is in the middle of Flushing, but nothing you'd want to go to, per se.
You must not be in the market for bargain auto parts, cash only!
Citi Field is not in the middle of Flushing ... in fact, it's not even technically in Flushing. It's actually in Flushing Meadows - Corona Park. It's also not even in the middle of anything. As pointed out above, it's surrounded by parking lots, next to a highway, bordered by the Iron Triangle of chop shops...
I've been dying for them to put something -- ANYTHING -- fun or safe to do around Citi Field. I'd be glad to spend my money there. Right now there is only McFaddens which (surprisingly) isn't horrible.
But you are comparing it to doing nothing. If the government spent $500-$800 million building a factory or some development or giving incentives to new companies to move in, or just regularly dumping money out of a helicopter, the neighborhood would probably be a lot better than with a stadium.
So to the larger question of whether new ballparks can provide a big economic impact, I would say yes.
I was living in San Francisco prior and during AT&T's construction, left just before the inaugural season. It wasn't so much sort of a bad area as sort of an empty area, in my memory. It's not like it turned around a Tenderloin, or the area immediately north of Candelstick. I've been there since, and it's definitely been a boon to the area, but I don't know if that exception proves any rule. Regardless, it wasn't public, so even if my memory is off, I'm still wondering which of these publically-financed new parks has been an economic boon.
AT&T is also really close to downtown, a ton of people live all around it, and it doesn't have miles of parking lots cutting it off from the rest of the world. AT&T is really an ideal situation (in many ways). I think the question is if a stadium with all the normal problems can revitalize an area for the long term all year round.
EDIT: I see the rest of the thread has more or less cited all these factors as impacts.
Yes, I think Denver is usually the crown jewel for downtown ballpark revitalization proponents. Baltimore to a lesser extent. Cleveland used to be, but a lot of the momentum from the Jake has died off. Problem is, so many cities didn't really do what those cities did and instead built parks in the middle of nowhere with no real chance for ancillary development.
That's right of course, but I do think there is the effect of getting suburbanites to spend their money downtown. While its true that stadiums often just suck up entertainment dollars that were being spent elsewhere in the metro area, I do think there is a benefit to having those dollars sucked up by the central city instead of the flung out suburbs.
I think that's right. In the three cities I have lived in - Columbus, OH, Washington, DC and Kansas City - multipurpose indoor arenas have all been very successful in being a catalyst for area development. Whether the public subsidy was worth in a cost/benefit analysis, I can't say.
What's the benefit? I suppose it depends a lot on what city area we're talking, but you'd think a downtown area would be more able to product equivalent spending than the suburbs.
(*Anyone read Field of Schemes, btw? Is it good?)
How? A lot of suburbanites only come downtown for events, and while they're there, they eat and drink and maybe shop. That's the one thing downtowns have going for it that suburbs find difficult to replicate - as centers for events and "the place to be." Without a game or concert or event, Joe Suburb will just eat at the TGI Friday's down the street.
Queens. It's QUEENS. My knowledge of Queens extends to Astoria, and sort of Forest Hills.
McFadden's always sucks no matter what. The charm of Wrigleyville is that the bars are actually halfway decent. Well, some of them, at least. Alright, fine. Lucky's has huge sandwiches.
They're trying to half-ass the L.A. Live concept and tie the complex together a little more, but because the city is already ridiculously compact, there's not a ton that you could add.
bitterly
just like the national media
- the improvement in downtown on ALL sides of the stadium since it was built is unbelieveable - LOTS and LOTS of places to go to after the game right close to the ballpark and downtown was a lot of old broken down buildings and only the club at the hilton - and don't ask me why they had a Hilton downtown in 1999 - i guess SOMEone besides dollar stores did business downtown
there is now expensive apts/condos on the freeway side of the ballpark that were old abandoned warehouses and tenements.
The usual horsh!t. "Republicans asserted today the world was flat. Democrats claimed it was round. In other news..." If you put a stadium in a busy urban area, you can surround it with things that people will want to go to anyway, and you can create that kind of district at a fraction of the cost of a stadium
I guess I don't understand why money spent in a city is better than money spent in a suburb.
Right, and the reverse is true about AT&T Park. It's not like people suddenly went out and started spending money at restaurants and bars in San Francisco when AT&T went up. Just that a chunk of them started spending more of that money around Third and King and less of it on Union Street or wherever they'd been spending it before. Study after study shows no net effect, just substitution.
In San Francisco anyway, this is silly. Rush hour is coming IN to the city on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and it's been that way since long before AT&T showed up. I can see how the Nats stadium could plausibly draw money from Virginia and Maryland to the District that wouldn't otherwise have come, but I'll believe it when I see proof of it.
When you are the mayor or on the city council or are even just a resident of the city, isn't it obviously better when money is spent in your city than in some other city?
If the $1,000,000,000,000 "stimulus" was seen as a good idea, then it's kind of odd for people to get so fired up about spending $500,000,000 on a new stadium that will last 20-30 years and keep or attract a major pro sports team. At $500 million per new stadium, the "stimulus" could have paid for 2,000 new stadiums. Neil deMause, et al., have done some great work analyzing these deals, but when it comes to inefficient government spending, new stadiums are the proverbial pee in the ocean.
Cities need revenue. Suburbs don't need revenue, they have tons of revenue from property taxes.
I don't think that the positive effect of a stadium is necessarily soaked up by a substitution effect. Obviously, if you hold the number of people coming into the city on a given night constant, then substitution will dominate. But why should that be so? If a city creates more attractive neighborhoods for living/going out, then the number of people choosing to live or go out in that city can increase. Choosing to spend Friday night out is a choice that I make based upon the cost of going out, the convenience of going out, and the fun I expect to have. Why would "nights out per person" be a constant among different metro areas, why wouldn't that be a malleable number, and why couldn't well-planned development increase that number under certain circumstances?
Seems to me the problem lies in the quality of the the stadium and associated development, not in the fundamental concept.
When awesome or even perfectly cromulent stadiums trigger none of the development of which you speak, how on earth can that not be a problem with the fundamental concept?
Seems to me the problem lies in the quality of the the stadium and associated development, not in the fundamental concept.
Right here in DC you've got a counter-example to Nats Stadium in the MCI / Verizon Center, which was built with private money on land owned by the city, and leased to Abe Pollin on very favorable terms. Whatever you may think of the overall social impact of gentrification, there's no question that the Verizon Center has strongly contributed to the overall economy of the Chinatown neighborhood.
What? Suburban residential property is generally taxed at a much higher rate than urban property, b/c they lack the commercial tax base.
If anything, the exact opposite of your statement is true.
I've seen cites for some of the specific stadiums above, and I've seen cites to studies that analyze stadiums in aggregate. But I don't see any evidence that no stadiums ever work.
More broadly, if they don't work, why? How is a stadium any different than any other sort of planned government stimulus? If you accept that stimulus spending can work (which we all do) then why are stadiums so obviously different?
Healthy city-centers lead to healthy metros. Detroit has some really nice affluent suburbs, but that's not what people think of when they think of the metro, they think of the dying city center. Downtowns are the engines for the metro. As mentioned above they also require more revenues as they have higher costs associated with greater crime, more poverty, greater transit needs, older infrastructure, etc.
All that's happened there is that things that used to go on downtown and that would be going on downtown but for the arena, are now going on 10 blocks to the east.
As to DC capturing money spent by suburbanites, there's a better way -- slapping a commuter tax on the suburbanites who come in to work in the city and use its public services most of the day. That method has the additional advantage of staying in the city treasury, as opposed to being siphoned off by Abe Pollin and now Ted Leonsis.
The bottom line is that virtually none (and probably actually none) of these deals are arms-length transactions driven by economics. The teams don't pay typical rent on the building, they don't pay typical property (or use) tax on the building, they don't pay the true cost of the land the building's constructed on, and they get roads built that are constructed solely to make it easier for people to get to their private business. And part of these subsidies go into the pockets of athletes who don't need the money and blow most of it on stupid #### -- many of whom have no real tie to the city and spend little time there other than playing in the subsidized building. Tax money was taken from people who don't care a whit about basketball, and put in the pocket of Antoine Walker to gamble away.
I like sports as much as the next guy, but the adult in me understands fully that these projects are corporatist giveaways to crony capitalists.
Healthy city centers are economic engines (e.g. NY, Boston, San Fran, Chicago). Unhealthy city centers are burdens on the surrounding areas.
They are concentrations of political corruption and waste. A permanent dependent class maintained to support the political machines that dominate urban politics.
Suburbs general have far more competitive politics (not one party dominance) and smaller governing units, so can't get away with the same levels of theft, fraud and waste.
To take your example, Michigan would undoubtedly benefit if Detroit disappeared. Any additional tax dollars directed there would just be squandered.
100% correct.
You also have to recognize the benefit to the governing class. Politicians benefit greatly by having a ton of public spending with juicy contracts they can direct to politically connected firms. Not to mention plum jobs in public stadium authorities, and freebee tickets and other soft graft.
OK so now Snapper is a little dark for me. But I will still stand by his earlier, less conspiratorial remarks.
I hung out with my friend to get his car, but I myself had walked to the game from downtown Arlington, where I work (at the university). I am the only person who ever does this. Until you get within about a mile of Cowboys Stadium and complete blight takes over, downtown Arlington is actually both pleasant and on a decided uptick. I don't know if it's pure coincidence, but since the Stadium went up, about eight or ten restaurants have moved into downtown. The university is building its own basketball stadium and surrounding it with retail and residential development. There's certainly some kind of synergy between the excesses of the stadium district and the revival of the downtown, 2-3 miles away. It's hard to pin down, because it's not entirely related to people coming in for games and then leaving; business persists when there's no game on, maybe just because people are developing a sense that Arlington might be OK to visit (a sense that was totally absent in the years after the Ballpark was built). Before the A&M-Arkansas game a week ago Saturday, downtown Arlington was full of Aggies consuming lots of chicken and pizza. Many of them stayed the whole weekend and went to Six Flags or the baseball games. A town full of Aggies is possibly a mixed blessing, but it might beat total urban decay.
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm legitmately curious - what percentage of publically funded stadiums have legitmately helped revitalize or economically stimulate the area surrounding it? My point is, if such revitalization works 10% or 15% of the time, that's the opposite proof of what you're looking for. The argument isn't "It never works, ever", it's "If it works one or two out of every ten times, how is that an argument to go for the eleventh time?"
If you accept that stimulus spending can work (which we all do) then why are stadiums so obviously different?
I'm not an economist, but that strikes me as two widely different types of stimulus. Too different as to be properly used as comparison, probably?
It's not a conspiracy, it's a bunch of individuals and groups acting in their own best interest.
If you're a political leaders who's support is based on delivering gov't programs, benefits and jobs, you need to ensure a continued supply and demand for those programs, benefits and jobs.
Political machines have always worked that way. They need to control the economic resources to control the voters. It explains their close ties to unions. They want to control the money.
The best stimulus is for infrastructure projects that can lead to more development. Stadiums are not bridges or roads that lead to more economic activity.
The other question is why should the stadiums get tax breaks in the form of bonds issued by the local authority. The bonds are tax free and are at a lower interest rate. I don't agree that cities or counties should fund stadiums (or really any other development zone), but why should everyone else in the country support them by giving them a tax break.
I think this is code for Black people vote for Democrats.
Not really. Stadiums benefit from a multiplier effect. You don't just pay to go out to the game, you pay to have drinks before hand. Stuff like that.
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm legitmately curious - what percentage of publically funded stadiums have legitmately helped revitalize or economically stimulate the area surrounding it? My point is, if such revitalization works 10% or 15% of the time, that's the opposite proof of what you're looking for. The argument isn't "It never works, ever", it's "If it works one or two out of every ten times, how is that an argument to go for the eleventh time?"
Well, the position would be that these can work, but they obviously don't work in all circumstances. With a big sample of past projects to work from, you can review and borrow what was successful in the past to increase the odds of success in the current project.
I just dont see how stadiums are any different than all stimulus. Terribly inefficient? Check. Money siphoned off into the pockets of those with political influence rather than reaching the pockets of those who need it? Check.
The only difference with a stadium is that the ugliness is more transparent/draws more media attention. But this is the seamy underside of all public investment. It's been around as long as there have been cities and governments building things in cities.
You can disagree about whether or not government should be paying for those things at all--Ron Paul and friends certainly would--but it seems beyond question that on the list of things government pays for that its citizens require on a day-to-day basis, a stadium has to be pretty much at the bottom of the list.
See, but "don't work in all circumstances" implies that it works in most, maybe half, and in no way is that true, or even close.
I just dont see how stadiums are any different than all stimulus. Terribly inefficient? Check. Money siphoned off into the pockets of those with political influence rather than reaching the pockets of those who need it? Check.
Well, your "WE ALL THINK STIMULUS WORKS, RIGHT" was transparent enough in the first place, there was no real need for this follow-up.
I am admittedly unsure how I feel about government-sponsored stimulus, but I am not yet convinced the types of stimulus that come from stadiums is similar. Your examples are simply sound bites/talking points.
Yeah, and furthermore, I don't think it's particularly hard. A new stadium should:
1. Be located in a walking neighborhood with space/zoning for a number of restaurants/services
2. Be in a somewhat depressed area that would benefit from increased investment
3. Be well-served by public transit
4. Be in a scenic location that people will want to go to during the summer
I think most metros have an area that would fit the bill.
Edit:
Wait, that was supposed to be snark? People legitimately don't think that public stimulus works? Really? Is Paul Krugman going to have to choke a bitch?
The only difference is the final product. I think all big work projects are inefficient. Including those done by large corporations. Government one are worse. When you build a stadium, you are basically building a factory for a private company, something the government should not do. A local sports team does not provide a lot of good jobs, so the government does not get its money back. The owner makes out like a bandit.
Seriously, what's with the roads? When did that become the archetype of "efficient" stimulus spending? You know who benefits from roads? The guys who build roads. And the car manufacturers who make the cars who drive on the roads. And the town whose influential state senator arranges for the exit to be placed right by it's downtown. Etc. Why are roads useful? Because they encourage people/goods to go from point A to point B, which means there's more economic activity because doing generally = spending/creating. But you can engender the same effect with an attraction at point B that encourages people to drive from point A to point B, even if there's no new road. And encourages them to go out to eat an extra night a week before the ol' ballgame, encourages them to buy merchandise at the stores. Encourages the developer to build condos near the stadium - 'Home Plate Apartments - Downtown Living at its Finest!'. Encourages Whole Foods to put a supermarket in nextdoor, where all the yuppies (who would have moved to Boston or San Francisco) shop, because now they live in the Home Plate Apartments because Metropolis has a sports team and new condos and it's cool, y'all. So then there's a Whole Foods and mommy and daddy think, you know, we don't need to move to Suburbville to raise Junior, we can buy all the pesticide free apple juice we need right here in Metropolis. And so on and so forth.
Public works are public works, whether a stadium or a road. We don't "need" a stadium but we don't "need" 99% of the #### that we consume and produce in an economy. Maybe it would be a little better, optically, if we weren't actually handing these fantastically rich people a check for eleventy billion dollars, but make no mistake, your road or your high-speed train does the exact same ####### thing, only with slightly more subtlety.
And the joke of it all is: this is entirely necessary and better than all the other options.
Governance is a #####.
2. Be in a somewhat depressed area that would benefit from increased investment
3. Be well-served by public transit
4. Be in a scenic location that people will want to go to during the summer
The Ballpark and Cowboys Stadium fail on all four counts :)
Oddly enough, the one "shovel-ready" project that used Obama-era federal stimulus dollars in Arlington was improvement of access roads around Cowboys Stadium.
I just can't see how comparing stadiums and roads works here.
What's been established in this thread and other stadium threads is that stadiums generally fail to increase economic activity.
My point is: isn't that true for all public works? Don't most public works, including roads, rails, etc, fail to have the predicted effect?
The question isn't whether stadiums are generally inefficient and fail to meet the predictions made by those shilling for them, the question is whether they are LESS efficient than other types of projects that the money would realistically be invested in.
To its credit, Washington avoided the easy way out by building a park next to RFK and instead followed the Denver/Houston route of using a ballpark as the basis for ancillary development. D.C.'s problem is that the place opened just as the economy took a nosedive, and many of the planned projects had to be deferred. There are some apartments and office/retail space nearby (the Department of Transportation and Booz Allen Hamilton are close to Nationals Park), but for now the nightlife and entertainment aspect of the neighborhood hasn't fully developed. It will get there eventually, but it's not going to become a LoDo overnight.
Agreed. But the rush to get new ballparks as a source of team income led many franchises (and communities) to ignore some of those items, especially the first, so that they wouldn't be left as a Tampa Bay or Oakland.
No, it's code for urban political machines don't give a #### about improving the economic condition of poor blacks, whites, hispanics, etc., except narrowly through patronage programs and jobs that they control.
It's the same system as when it was Irish and Italian bosses running machines that relied on poor white votes. Race has nothing to do with it.
The machines need poor consituents they can control. When the white ethnics started moving out of urban areas after WW2, the machines shifted to wooing minority voters. It's a major reason machine politicians always favor lots of immigration, even if it depresses wages for their constituents.
Machine politics needs dependent voters in order to work.
First of all, TARP was a loan and was paid back. Second, under your system, everyone would only get $1, not $1 million. Your math is off. If all of TARP was given to people, everyone would get $2000 or so.
***Iirc the month payment on a 200k mortgage jumps from 1,300 to 2,000 a month when the interest rate goes from 5% to 10%. No wonder there were so many defaults.
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