1of10Charnatives

When he's done with football, he should seriously consider a career in journalism or as a writer. His story is powerful and heartbreaking, but he also told it with exceptional skill. Football is far from this young man's only talent. One of the most moving things I've read in a long time.

Do the profits get paid to a private owner or owners? No. That is the germane point here. Thanks for clearing up details, but for purposes of our discussion, my point was costs socialized while profits are privatized is the problematic model.

Back to the city, which is why I brought them up as the example.

The team Tepper and his organization fielded last season succeeded in bringing my interest in the team to by far it's lowest ebb in any point in it's history, including the Season of Pickles. There will always be a place in my sports heart for the Panthers, but in my youth I ate breathed and thought Hornets basketball, but I am here to tell you that year after year of mediocrity will cause me to look for other interests in life. Some admire the soulless sports zombies of places like Cleveland, mindlessly rooting for competitive excrement year after year, but I don't. Life is short. Professional sports needs me as a fan, I don't need it. If it gives me a reason to watch, I will. If it doesn't, I won't. Add to this my utter distaste for government subsidy of highly profitable private business, and if Tepper wants to move a losing organization to someplace foolish enough to sacrifice their children's future in order to provide a billionaire with tax breaks and tell themselves it's a good idea with a lot of nonsense about economic impact, then I say good riddance. Prove to me you can win, then I might care whether you go or stay.

I would be perfectly happy with government subsidies for NFL teams if they were all like my second favorite NFL team: The Green Bay Packers. You want socialized costs? Fine, let's socialize the profits, otherwise GTFO. But that will never happen since everyone knows socialism of anything is a horrible idea. I mean we can all see what a horribly run organization the Packers have always been. Lord knows they could learn a thing or two from a model of privately owned sports success like the Browns. Now everyone who hates socialism voluntarily withdraw from Social Security, Medicare and any VA benefits you might have from serving in the military before presenting your counterarguments, lest ye be guilty of naked hypocrisy.

Incentives can be an important tool when used properly. However, the economic impact of the Johnson and Wales campus which was opened in Charlotte at roughly the same time as the Panthers began playing here is far more verifiable than any similar impact by the team. To take that idea one step further, pretty much any credible economist will tell you that small businesses are far greater job creators and engines of economic growth in aggregate than big businesses, which just seem impressive because a few of them can point to impressive individual numbers, yet the same politicians who are inclined to honk on mightily about the virtues of small business consistently penalize them by voting for tax incentives for big businesses like Google and the Panthers. When cities and states reward big businesses with tax breaks, they put smaller businesses at a competitive disadvantage to behemoths like Amazon et al. If capitalism has a single underlying principle, it has to be that FAIR competition in the marketplace is good for everyone. Don't like your cable provider? The way the industry has effectively roadblocked competition for generations is a case study in what lack of real competition winds up looking like. The reality is that every time government subsidizes big businesses, it is working against your economic interests as a consumer and unfairly giving greater advantage to those businesses that least need it, and inefficiently utilizing said incentives in a way that actually leads to suboptimal outcomes for job creation and economic growth. If tax incentives are to be used as a tool of government policy (and whether they should or should not be is really a seperate discussion), the arguments that are backed by actual verifiable data and math say such incentives should be almost exclusively directed towards smaller businesses, not multinational behemoths and sports teams. That these organizations have perfected the art of extracting incentives from governments at every level points not to sound government policy, but the effectiveness of lobbying (read:legalized bribery) and their mastery of the use of the prisoner's dilemma to play one city or state off another to extract the largest concessions possible.

noted.

That Verge guy seems to really know where his towel is.

Great plan. I'm all for it. Given that he's the person who decides starters and playing time, I wonder what Rhule thinks of this idea.

You're confusing socialism for capitalism. The government favoring one business over another via tax breaks is, by definition, socialism.

Please run for public office. I would give my left hand for an elected official as honest as this statement. Alternatively, I would be willing to watch 4Corners eat a handful of live bees.

Top shelf defenses almost always have more than one highly effective pass rusher. There is nothing to suggest anyone besides Burns is likely to fit this description this year. Our secondary could be top shelf, but the linebacking corps seems overall pedestrian (something I'm fine with for the moment btw, given our huge needs in areas much more relevant to winning), and looking at our DL overall, it does look promising, but I'm not ready to label it top shelf just yet. Let's see how they actually play.

Tax incentives for "economic impact" is socialism under another name. It is the government favoring one business over another. Sports teams are just the most visible portion of a corporate world that has learned to use the prisoner's dilemma as an effective tool to extort funds from the public purse. Prisoner's Dilemma Definition (investopedia.com)

Sports stadiums should never have been publicly funded to begin with. All major sports leagues are private businesses and extremely profitable ones at that. Why scarce public dollars should ever be spent to subsidize facilities for these teams is just the most obvious proof of our distorted priorities in a sports obsessed culture. Before anyone puts forward the tired economic impact arguments that have been trotted out ad naseum in the past, they should know these arguments have been largely debunked by economists as not being backed by any hard verifiable data. If you can't back it up with hard math, it's an opinion. Ask yourself this: How much money do you want taken out of the state budget for roads, your kids schools and public parks in your town to build a sports stadium for a team where every recognizable public figure associated with that team makes way more than you do?

I see your new country music and I raise you The Avalanches: Frontier Psychiatrist.