Capitalist cities have many amazing attributes, such as our major league sports stadiums. It is one concrete, if you will pardon the pun, measure, proof of capitalistic success. When looking at the success of capitalism, the fact that entertainment can involve such incredible amounts of money is just another example of capitalism over Shariah-compliant finance. Where is the Istanbul Astrodome?
Ataturk Stadium, Istanbul |
Seattle just agreed to its fifth (or sixth) major league stadium in 36 years: Domed, Husky, Safeco, Quest, Husky (again) and now the new one, to be named. That is roughly one every six years. I guess that the days of multi-purpose stadiums is over. Baseball has one, football has one, college football has one, basketball gets one (never mind we already have the Seattle Center Coliseum which I did not count) for a city of 500,000, perhaps 750,000 in the metro area.
None will be used for sports more than 15 or 20 days a year. There is no way that the activity intended for the stadium can be paid for by that activity. Therefore, taxpayers must be mulcted to pay for it. These cost hundreds of millions, so bonds are created (debt) to pay for it.
Quest Field was rejected by taxpayers so the billionaire beneficiary of taxpayer largesse paid for another bi-election and bought an approval. Kaching!
Today the lawyers and bankers create projects that cost unbelievable amounts, and finance them with bonds, paying for things with money they do not have. Credit is created with the bonds, and although credit buys the project (tunnels, stadiums, mass transit) it is actual money earned by workers that is mulcted to pay off the bonds in the years to come.
The great accomplishment of capitalism was to get beyond the usury laws, and then to fractional reserve on money, then fractional reserve on credit. Slavery was no longer necessary, since slaves died and their value ended, but "the people" and their children and grandchildren can be obliged to work to pay for what was built today. How so? They must pay in labor tomorrow for what people today agree to. The debt is created in credit, but must be paid by productivity, time spent actually working.
The politicians and their consultants and the war profiteers who build the stadiums all get wealth defined as privately aggregated financial instruments, and power today, drawn from our grand kids' potential. What cannot go on will end eventually. The crash is relative to the heights achieved.
But obliging future generations for a sixth stadium today will benefit them tomorrow. That is speculation, since future generations cannot vote. Why not simply pay today for what you can afford today, especially when it come to entertainment? And isn’t it a bit disingenuous to build a stadium for a future generation and give them the bill for it, while taking the profits today?
If you are one of the few people in the last 2000 years to get to visit Rome, you no doubt visited the Colosseum. What an impressive structure, still standing nearly 2000 years later! What vision and foresight the Imperial Romans had to build such a structure. How did they pay for it? They paid for it with the loot from the sack of the Jewish Temple in Jersusalem circa 70AD. Read Josephus on the unspeakable horrors of the inmates of Seige of Jerusalem. Nothing before or after ever written is as horrifying. But that influx of treasure was enough to build the Colosseum.
The Colosseum complex included a jail for people to be killed, and at various points was used as a prison. This is a recurring theme, rarely noted, in stadiums. When the Japanese were rounded up in WWII they were taken to the brand new Puyallup fairgrounds as a temporary prison. In various places in the world, when there is civil unrest, stadiums are used as prisons. Seattle will soon have at least six.
French Jews Heading to the Stadium |
"The second massacre happened at the Gatwaro Stadium (Rwanda) located on the main road in Kibuye town. As with the people who gathered at the St. Jean Church and Home Complex, those who congregated at the stadium were told to go there by government officials. Once there, they were not allowed to leave. Without food or water, the captives ate grass. On April 18, Gendarmerie Nationale soldiers; Gitesi Police; Interhamwe fighters and armed civilians surrounded the stadium."
Let's look at Ataturk stadium again: $140 million. Looks good enough for a football game, and no doubt could be paid for today with money today. Wouldn’t work very well as a prison. If you want to give something to future generations, how about you pay for it too? In any event, let's not tally something we have not paid for as "wealth."
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