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Oct. 13, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Happiness Quotient
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Lebanon on the brink --- and why it matters
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Caroline B. Glick:
Olmert's parting blows
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The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Often customers looking for our competitor accidentally enter our store. Can we just serve them without comment?
Jonathan Tobin: Jewish pundit quiz on next year's news
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Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Apples, Honey and You
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Sept. 24, 2008
Greg Crosby: Home for the Holy Days
Ethel G. Hofman: Rosh Hashanah Favorites: Old-fashioned taste, reduced calories
Sept. 23, 2008
Caroline Glick: Liberalism or lives!?
Michael Ledeen: Dear President Ahmadinejad
Sept. 22, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I gave a check to a local merchant, but it hasn't been cashed in months. Probably they lost it. Do I have to tell them?
Diana West: We are losing Europe to Islam
Sept. 19, 2008
Rabbi Berel Wein: On harvesting success
Caroline B. Glick: It is time to act
Sept. 18, 2008
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Craig Gordon: Was SNL hilarity too much for Hillary?
Sept. 17, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: The Whole World Is Watching
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By Linda Gassenheimer: East meets Southwest in this quick meal: MEXICAN-ASIAN TOSTADOS
Sept. 16, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. : Into the fire
Everything's Relative : Your Official Jewish Guide to the 2008 USA Presidential Election
Sept. 15, 2008
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by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Enabling risky behavior
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A day that will live in ... accommodating Islam
Sept. 11, 2008
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Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein: Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped
Sept. 10, 2008
Jonathan Tobin: There's Something About Sarah
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Who needs Chili's when you have these? Recipes for Mexican that taste great and are dietetic!
Our commitment to freedom
Sept. 9, 2008
Daniel Pipes: Must counterinsurgency wars fail?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.:
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
Sept. 8, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : How far must one go to help somebody out of a contract?
Barry Rubin: Waiting For Something
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
July 20, 2005
/ 13 Tammuz, 5765
Robbing the poor to build a rich man's stadium it's just plain wrong
By
John Stossel
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Politicians want to build palaces for rich people. OK, they not
palaces they're sports stadiums but the difference is subtle. In
recent years, New York politicians have talked about a football stadium, a
basketball arena, and two new baseball stadiums. All four projects would
require financial help from the government, for the stadiums, nearby
facilities, or both. Why? Why should they get our money?
If the wealthy owners of sports teams want new stadiums, let
them build them with their own money. They're not entitled to our money.
Just as cities take people's homes so rich corporations can do
what the politicians call "urban renewal," telling the courts economic
development is a "public use," sports tycoons argue their stadiums are in
the "public interest." Their politician friends tell voters that a stadium
will "bring jobs," be "good for the city," "pay for itself."
Bunk. Study after study finds stadiums cost far more than they
return.
"Assume it did create a thousand jobs," economist Mark
Rosentraub, author of "Major League Losers," told me. Then a $170-million
stadium costs $170,000 for every single job. "You could have done better
just saying to the people who would have been hired, here's $50,000 start
a business!"
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Subsidizing stadiums isn't capitalism it's big-money
socialism. When the government subsidizes a stadium, it takes your money,
decides for you what form of entertainment is worth funding, and makes you
bear part of the cost of someone else's business.
Most wealthy team owners would not talk to me about their
subsidies. But Jerry Reinsdorf of the White Sox did. He told me the
government "had to" fund his stadium. "I couldn't have" raised the money
privately, he said. "You have to pay it back."
Welcome to the real world, Jerry. Students get loans and pay
them back. So do homeowners and small business owners. You want a ballpark?
Build it with your money.
"You mean, if somebody walks up to you and hands you money, you
shouldn't take it?" asked Reinsdorf. "The fact is, I was offered this
stadium by elected officials."
Bingo.
Reinsdorf got his stadium after James Thompson, then governor of
Illinois, leaned on some legislators. When the park was built, the governor
threw out the first ball. Thompson and Reinsdorf are friends from law
school. Cozy.
It's Robin Hood in reverse. Politicians take money from
taxpayers and give it to people like Reinsdorf and George W. Bush. (Years
ago, Bush, along with his fellow owners of the Texas Rangers, got taxpayers
to build the team a stadium.)
I confronted Governor Thompson: Wasn't he just taking money
taxpayers were forced to give the government and giving it to a rich friend?
"It wasn't our tax money," he said. "I mean, the whole baseball
field is built on the hotel/motel tax. Chicagoans don't pay hotel/motel tax.
Guys from New York like you pay hotel/motel taxes. What a great deal."
Not for the out-of-towners, it isn't and not for the Chicago
businesses where they might have spent the money. Thompson's reasoning is as
muddled as the fallacy in economist Frederic Bastiat's story of the broken
window:
In a small town, an idiot breaks a shop window. He's called a
vandal, until someone points out that a window installer now must be paid to
replace the window. The window installer then will have enough money to buy
a new suit. A tailor will then be able to buy a new desk. And so on. The
whole town apparently gains from the economic activity generated by the
broken window. Of course, if this made sense, cities should hire people to
run though town, breaking windows.
But it doesn't make sense. It's a fallacy because the
circulating money is seen; what is not seen is what would have been done
with the money if the window were still whole. The shopkeeper, instead of
paying the window installer, might have expanded his business, or bought a
new suit or a new desk. The town is worse off because of a broken window.
Subsidizing stadiums is equally foolish.
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