Bill Ayers speaks out! An In These Times exclusive.

Helping Themselves

By Michael Atkinson

There may not be a more thoroughly ravaged national economy on the planet than Argentina’s—it’s a poster child for IMF wrack and ruin. As revealed in grueling, horrifying detail in Fernando Solanas’ 2004 documentary Memoria del Saqueo (shown here only in film festivals), the last 30 years or so have been a relentless litany of bureaucratic power grabs, political lies,… return to article

  • subscribe to print magazine

  • Zoom OutZoom In Reader Comments (1)

    Page 1 of 1 pages

    this after having sold every imaginable resource and service to foreign companies so that even the street signs have MasterCard logos on them—

    Shudder the thought.
    This may be a bit off the point or it may be right on it.
    I’m a lifelong St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball fan. Having lived in the area, having grown up with the team, I still cheered for them, though not living there anymore.
    In the recent World Series, I was dissapointed, like most Cardinals fans, to see them lose so quickly.
    But, now I’ve changed my mind. And I’ve changed it because I heard about the new stadium the state is building. Notice I said state is building.
    Big business owners are now owners of America’s pasttime. And in so doing, they’re not only running prices so high they’re also putting all costs onto the people who don’t even attend games.
    What I mean is the billionaire owners of the Cardinals decided they needed a new stadium (not enough luxury boxes!--I’m sick of that) and it should be built or we’ll move the team.
    Do they reach into their deep, deep billionaire pockets to build one? No. They rammrod a referendum down the Missouri citizen’s throats to finance it through increased taxes. uhm, I thought the “evil Democrats” raised taxes.
    Not only will the new stadium have more luxury boxes the general public could never afford, but it will have LESS SEATING for the average fan.
    At this last World Series there were only 5000 tickets available for the average fan to buy. And these were mostly standing room only.
    In a few years, when “economic realities” set in, you can bet there will be a ticket price increase.

    I know this is nothing like the horrible conditions in Argentina--but it’s another sign of corporate America doing whatever it wants and laughing all the way to the bank and/or the slap-on-the-wrist courthouse. Like the article says, it’s going unchecked here as I’m sure it was in Argentina.

    United States Posted by Neil on Nov 29, 2004 at 10:08 AM
    Page 1 of 1 pages
  • register a new account »Posting Security

    To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.
Also by Michael Atkinson
Popular Discussions