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Budget Crisis Rhetoric: Part II
Creators Syndicate ^ | January 18, 2011 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 01/18/2011 12:55:08 PM PST by jazusamo

 


We all know not to take politicians' rhetoric at face value. But not enough of us have yet learned not to take media rhetoric at face value either, even when it appears in what looks like a "news" story, but is actually a disguised editorial on the front page.

For example, a front page story in the January 14th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle began: "From Eureka's waterfront to San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, California's redevelopment program has transformed polluted and blighted areas across the state into thriving destination spots and commercial districts for nearly 60 years."

This reads like a commercial for something— and it is. It is a political commercial for continuing to spend taxpayer money on California's "redevelopment" programs costing billions of dollars, despite a budget crisis brought on by a record-breaking state deficit.

An accompanying "news" story on an inside page of the same newspaper has a headline that says: "Cut is a Threat to Affordable Housing in S.F." The opening sentence says: "San Francisco has built thousands of affordable housing units thanks to redevelopment funds, which Gov. Jerry Brown wants to eliminate."

The idea of "affordable housing" in San Francisco is a joke— a very bad joke. This same newspaper, just a few years ago, mentioned a graduate student looking for a place to rent in San Francisco, who was "visiting one exorbitantly priced hovel after another."

Massive government intervention has made San Francisco one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. Creating token amounts of taxpayer-subsidized "affordable housing" does not undo the over-all damage that politicians have done by their severe restrictions on building.

Before the era of massive government interventions in the housing markets, beginning in the 1970s, San Francisco housing cost about the same as housing elsewhere in the country. After the environmentalists and others pushed for heavy-handed government restrictions on building anything anywhere, San Francisco housing prices rose to become more than triple the national average.

As for "redevelopment" and its alleged benefits, you can make almost anything look like a big success just by pouring enough of the taxpayers' money down a bottomless pit.

Subsidizing one particular location can indeed improve that particular location. Who could have doubted it? You could air-condition Hell if you spent enough money.

I have seen bananas growing in the Bronx, subsidized by the taxpayers' money. They were probably the most expensive bananas ever grown, because the Bronx is not a place where anyone would grow bananas to sell in a competitive market.

If "blighted" areas could be turned into showcase shopping malls or industrial parks at a cost that made sense, why would private investors not do it and make money on the deal?

Are investors just not as smart as government bureaucrats? Or is the difference that investors are spending their own money and stand to lose big time if the costs exceed the benefits?

To "redevelopment" agency bureaucrats costs are just things to conceal with lofty rhetoric and creative book-keeping. After all, it is only the taxpayers' money.

Where do all the customers and all the money that they spend come from to create what the San Francisco Chronicle calls "thriving destination spots and commercial districts"? They come from other places.

In other words, we are not talking about creating wealth. We are talking about transferring wealth from one community to another, with no net increase— and doing so at a cost of billions of tax dollars.

Years ago, John Kenneth Galbraith argued that there was not enough government spending, compared to private spending, because private businesses advertised and the government does not.

Nobel Prizewinning economist George Stigler pointed out that the government advertises all the time— only it is not called advertising. So-called "news" stories like those in the San Francisco Chronicle repeat the party line of government bureaucrats and serve it up to the public as information, rather than ads.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: sowell; thomassowell
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Budget Crisis Rhetoric: Part I -- link below:

Honest Answer To Gov't Woes Is Bankruptcy

1 posted on 01/18/2011 12:55:10 PM PST by jazusamo
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
*PING*
Thomas Sowell

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Recent columns
Honest Answer To Gov‘t Woes Is Bankruptcy
A Republican Showdown?
Mascot Politics

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to or removed from the Thomas Sowell ping list…

2 posted on 01/18/2011 12:58:07 PM PST by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo
Please bump the Freepathon and donate or become a monthly donor!

3 posted on 01/18/2011 1:02:13 PM PST by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo
You could air-condition Hell if you spent enough money.

I have seen bananas growing in the Bronx, subsidized by the taxpayers' money. They were probably the most expensive bananas ever grown, because the Bronx is not a place where anyone would grow bananas to sell in a competitive market.

simply genius...and not the gubmint wil-e-coyote genius either...

4 posted on 01/18/2011 1:29:44 PM PST by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: jazusamo

“So-called “news” stories like those in the San Francisco Chronicle repeat the party line of government bureaucrats and serve it up to the public as information, rather than ads.”

“Words mean things”. Thanks for the ping jaz.


5 posted on 01/18/2011 1:57:32 PM PST by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will, they ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: jazusamo
You could air-condition Hell if you spent enough money

Potential tagline material

6 posted on 01/18/2011 2:01:12 PM PST by r-q-tek86 ("It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't stop and think" - Dr. Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

PING for later.


7 posted on 01/18/2011 2:01:55 PM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: jazusamo
In other words, we are not talking about creating wealth. We are talking about transferring wealth from one community to another, with no net increase— and doing so at a cost of billions of tax dollars.

My favorite line of the article.

8 posted on 01/18/2011 2:03:33 PM PST by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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To: Gilbo_3
I see we are on the same page


9 posted on 01/18/2011 2:04:46 PM PST by r-q-tek86 ("It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't stop and think" - Dr. Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Why couldn’t this great man have been President instead of the Fraudulent One?


10 posted on 01/18/2011 2:10:53 PM PST by OB1kNOb (You are free to choose your actions, but never the resulting consequences.)
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To: Gilbo_3; r-q-tek86
You could air-condition Hell if you spent enough money.

That may be what Zer0 and his Dem thugs are trying to do with the money they've been spending that we don't have, I'd guess some will be winding up there.

11 posted on 01/18/2011 2:17:53 PM PST by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Sergio

Agreed. I love how he states things simply and precisely in so few words and everyone understatnds it.


12 posted on 01/18/2011 2:21:46 PM PST by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Gilbo_3

I wanna Bronx Banana !


13 posted on 01/18/2011 2:32:45 PM PST by EDINVA
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To: jazusamo

I will always remember the young woman riding the cable car with me, while I was visiting SF. She was paying $1700/month for a studio with no heat or air.


14 posted on 01/18/2011 2:44:37 PM PST by razorback-bert (Some days it's not worth chewing through the straps.)
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To: r-q-tek86

thanks from a pic retarded FReeper...


15 posted on 01/18/2011 3:18:50 PM PST by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: Gilbo_3
It's really pretty easy. First you have to find a photo that is on a web server. Some people use Photobucket or if you have access to your own server, you can link it from there. You can also right click on a photo and get its properties. Then you use the html code:

<img src "photo's properties here">

So as an example, the photo I posted came from a Google search. To post it I pasted its properties in like this:

<img src="http://www.sundriesshack.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Wile-E-Coyote-Genius.gif">

Take a look at HTML Sandbox for more help.

16 posted on 01/18/2011 3:47:41 PM PST by r-q-tek86 ("It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't stop and think" - Dr. Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Bump!


17 posted on 01/18/2011 4:35:15 PM PST by bayouranger (The 1st victim of islam is the person who practices the lie.)
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To: OB1kNOb

Because social conservatives won’t vote for anyone unless they repeatedly reinforce their goals, to the exclusion of anything else.

And anyone that does so tends to lose the moderate Democrat vote, for they begin to fear government intrusion into things they don’t want government intruding into. (that’s not saying that they don’t like/want government intrusion, though... they just want it for *their* pet agenda)


18 posted on 01/19/2011 2:17:01 AM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: r-q-tek86
been awhile since i tried, but ive parked a few picks on the net now, so here ya go...


19 posted on 01/19/2011 7:19:10 AM PST by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: Gilbo_3

I love that dog.


20 posted on 01/19/2011 9:05:50 AM PST by r-q-tek86 ("It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't stop and think" - Dr. Sowell)
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