David Cay Johnston looks into the government handouts around a $250 million project to revitalize a mall that should have never been built:
When the Monroe County industrial development agency gave [developer] Congel’s plan initial approval I asked for its due diligence. The county provided a thin report stating that if taxpayers finance the restoration Medley Centre’s sales would grow from $30 million annually to $420 million.
The report cover states that Congel commissioned it. Judy Seil, director of the agency which gives money to companies, confirmed that Congel paid for the report. Still, she insisted, the report is the county’s due diligence.
That’s how corporate socialism works. The poor may have to pass a drug test to get benefits but rich applicants write their own ticket.
The whole thing is worth a read.
Mino
And it is most blatant on the local level. Citizens United will amplify this exponentially.
c u n d gulag
Yes, after all, if we didn’t privatize the gain, and provide social WELFARE for the losses, our great “Job Creators (all kneel… Let us pray for them… All rise!)” won’t be able to create any of the jobs that should start raining down on us like manna from Heaven any day now.
Any day now…
I SAID, “ANY DAY NOW!”, you feckin’ rich motherfecker’s!
cathyx
If you revitalize it, they will come.
dr. bloor
Wait, Curt Schilling operates out of Rochester as well?
Used to work at the McDonald’s next to that mall a million years ago. That thing was a disaster waiting to happen from Day One.
Egg Berry
Dead malls have been a ‘thing’ for a while now. It’s amazing that local governments still fall for stuff like this.
chopper
ah, the invisible hand milking the public teat.
Woody
Cold, hard cash + tax breaks aplenty now in exchange for fantastic promises later? With no real consequences should these promises fail to materialize?
This was done on a statewide level in MInnesota in the 90s – Northwest Airlines totally swore it would revitalize Duluth with a smashing maintenance base if it could only help itself to $838 million of the state’s dollars.
Monorail!
MattF
@Egg Berry: I think it’s pretty well established that the smart thing to do with dead malls is tear them down and start over. After all, real estate developers are, in theory, the heroic risk-takers in our society– and, every once in a while, you lose one.
bemused
Johnston wrote about the study on how well states monitor corp tax subsidies a few months ago, good read.
Terrified FUIGM rightwingers constantly complain that SS, Medicare, food stamps or any policies that benefit poor or middle class are turning the US into a socialist, communist, fascist country. Other than a little rumbling about subsidizing rich football team owners to build stadiums, they pretty much ignore corporate socialism. They are more pissed off if their neighbor gets a couple of dollars more in food stamps or a few more weeks on unemployment.
We’re all socialists.
kay
The most amazing part to me is, some companies are actually collecting state taxes from workers, and those taxes then don’t go to the state, they go back to the employer.
It’s mentioned in the article, as “2700” companies are doing this, but there are two in this COUNTY who got that deal.
How many of those workers know that the taxes they are paying “to the state” are actually going right back to their employer?
PurpleGirl
A dead mall in the making: The Shops at Atlas Park in the Glendale section of Queens. Old industrial site taken over by a development company. They build four new buildings around a square with a fountain, lawns and benches and renovate an older building in one corner. Glendale is a middle middle and lower middle income area. Private single family homes, some two family homes; apartment buildings near larger roadways. The shops originally rented get the reputation of being expensive, although they are comparable to many stores in the Queens Center Mall. The main anchor stores are Borders and Steinmart. The developers are Republicans connected in a big way to Pataki and the MTA (one being a former board member). One bus line passes the mall, and the MTA changes the routes of two others to pass the mall. The developers miss a payment or two on their mortgage and the mall sold in a bankruptcy sale. The original owners don’t renew the Steinmart lease and the space is still empty 2 years or so later, and Borders closes. Several smaller chains decide to close their outlets there — Coldwater Creek closed their store about 6 months ago.
I had liked the outdoor ambience but the new owners took out most of the park benches. I guess they don’t understand the Florida feel the original owners had wanted for the place. (It reminded me a lot of the Meisner Park Shopping Center in Boca Raton.)
Deadmall.com is a neat site.
beltane
@kay: There is absolutely no difference between an employee’s “taxes” going straight into the employer’s coffers, and the medieval manorial system where a percentage of a serf’s income went directly into the coffers of his lord.
Davis X. Machina
I for one celebrate that the day has finally arrived when the means of production and distribution own and run the people.
Hey, wait a minute…
beltane
@Davis X. Machina: Why do you hate us for our freedoms?
Villago Delenda Est
@Egg Berry:
It’s not that amazing when you realize that local governments react to who makes the most noise, and real estate interests are very good at making noise. Most Americans have little to no interest in local government, which means that those who show up (the realtors) get heard.
kerFuFFler
@chopper:
Luv it !!! (Did you make that up or has everyone but me heard it before?)
PS Very strange—-my comment, as submitted, had exclamation points after “Luv it”. When they did not appear in the thread I attempted to add them in through editing but they still did not appear. Are exclamation points banned? !!!
kerFuFFler
This story also reminds me of how Bush (As governor?) got some city in Texas to build a stadium for his baseball team. After it was built, the value of his team went up, he sold it and basically pocketed the profit from the public outlay of cash. Grrrrr!
Villago Delenda Est
@kerFuFFler:
Actually, it was before he was governor, he sold his shares off before he ran for the office.
But the entire thing was quite controversial…the stadium partnership got the city of Arlington to condemn the property of the Curtis Mathes TV clan who were holding out for more cash from the partnership for their land.
Dulcie
@kerFuFFler: That was Arlington,Texas – home of the Texas Rangers. They also used eminent domain to steal hundreds of homes in the area in order to build said stadium. The free market at work!
Jennifer
Same as it ever was.
Real estate developers are the “city planners” in most places, because no matter what development plan the city might have – one that’s been drawn up to accomodate intelligent growth, taking into consideration traffic and services – it all goes out the window as soon as a developer shows up with a special pleading.
Hell, quite often, the city council or board is mostly developers to begin with.
So we all get to underwrite bad planning, and then we get to pay to address the problems it causes. It’s a win-win! For the developers, that is, because by the time the problems with their rapacious development becomes apparent, they’ve already made their buck.
ThresherK
@Egg Berry: Dead malls.com!
It’s left for the archaeologists to ponder this point in our history. (edit) These edifices are too young and ugly to be of pedestrian interest (compared to any reclaimed downtown pedestrian place), and too shabby to last until they’re of any historical interest.
Plus there are so many of them they can’t all possibly be interesting except in the “Why did the Coconut Grove / Iriquois Theater / General Slocum catch fire” sense.
PurpleGirl
Is my comment #11 about an almost dead mall still in moderation? It was hard to tell the story without using company and few peoples’ names.
jefft452
@beltane: “There is absolutely no difference between an employee’s “taxes” going straight into the employer’s coffers, and the medieval manorial system where a percentage of a serf’s income went directly into the coffers of his lord”
There is one difference
When there was a war, the lord had to go fight in it, not the serfs
Evolving Deep Southerner
@kerFuFFler:
If not, they should be.
West of the Cascades
The Congels are some of the greediest, sleaziest, and most despicable human beings in the state of New York, and that’s saying something. Robert Congel is even worse than Scott Congel based on his efforts to suck New York and the City of Syracuse for every cent of corporate welfare to build the boondoggle that is Destiny USA.
jefft452
@kay: “The most amazing part to me is, some companies are actually collecting state taxes from workers, and those taxes then don’t go to the state, they go back to the employer”
Tax farming,
That’s what Lavoisier got his head lopped off for
A few years ago, I thought we needed another Roosevelt, I think its too late for that
We need another Robespierre
gaz
Their sales would grow from $30 million annually to $420 million annually?
Short of using the $250 million to build a meth superlab there is obviously no way that kind of gross increase in profit is remotely feasible. Furthermore, it does not take a business major to determine that. Somebody got bought. This whole thing smells.
ETA: You’d think that they’d at least lie better than this.
jefft452
@Evolving Deep Southerner: “If not, they should be.”
You should write that with more emphasis
xian
@Mino: another good thing about UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep. In Brooklyn,to build the Nets stadium, the team and the city decided that the current house prices were too high and that the owners would get fair value of ten years prior. Oh and a promise to build a few dozen “middle income” units in the condo complex that’s part of the development. Here in Rockland, we’re struggling to find out even how much the county agreed to pay for a stadium for a minor league team. And don’t get me started about Miami’s supposedly poor team.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@jefft452:
If not, they should be. Cocksuckers.
gaz
@Egg Berry:
In this case at least, I don’t think this was a matter of the local government being conned. The figures outlined in that blurb atop are about as convincing as your average Nigerian real-estate scam. To say they were fooled would require someone to believe that these government officials are as dumb as a bag of hammers, rather than merely corrupt. I’m betting on the latter.
gaz
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Ahh, the Deadwood approach to emphasizing a point. =) hehehe
Suffern ACE
@gaz: Oh I totally agree. This isn’t a case of the Springfield monorail. Unless the town board is filled with county officials who are optimistic that they’re only one mall short of becoming a magnet for a population boom. It’s expensive to revive malls after people decided they don’t want to shop there any more. They will end up paying the rents of the new tenants by the time this is over.
Phoenix Woman
Hey, totally O/T driveby, but it’s for a good cause.
If anyone here wants to help WI residents use the ballot box to evict Scott Walker, his plan to privatize deer hunting in Wisconsin is the most potent weapon in the arsenal, but a lot of the target audience has yet to be reached with this news.
To help do radio ads: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/30/1096044/-WI-Hunters-vs-Walker-Where-Your-Money-Goes
To help do Facebook ads: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/30/1096002/-WI-ACTION-Deer-in-the-Spotlights-
For ammo to use with friends and family:
http://savewideerhunting.info/
Stuck in the Funhouse
OT
When Clowns Conspire
The wingnut hamster cage gets fired up, in hopes for demise of the hated ACA individual mandate at the hands of the right wing monkey wrench crew on the SCOTUS
Ideas “percolating” among senate wingnuts, is just another way of describing a proposed tax cut for rice people, that will somehow be described as fiscal pixie dust to pay for a ticket to the theater of the absurd.
Featuring, ACT 2, “on how do we wriggle out of the mess we are in, from the mess we created”. In this case, some cya with voters who will now want the nice things from the ACA, completely free of charge. And the solution, as always, will end up with richer rich folks and a lick and promise for mo trickle down economics. Or, might I say, Corporate Soshulism.
hahaha. Disorder? at the wingnut clown convention? Say it ain’t so, Gracie.
No shit sherlock. Even Betty Cracker’s birdbrain chickens nose that.
Yuppers. There is at least one republican with a brane.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: Hey, Zandar, the president is once again telling Congress to GET TO WORK. I wonder why the only place I hear about it is Daily Kos? Notice how none of the major networks cover his weekly addresses, much less most of his speeches.
Suffern ACE
@Stuck in the Funhouse: I doubt they’ll do anything. Voters have told them that they were happy with the healthcare system they had prior to ACA and whi cares about the growing number of uninsured. It’s not a right, you know.
GregB
Every penny of Curt Schillings’ corporate welfare went back into the economy, unlike the money from food stamps and unemployment which go into the fat bank accounts of the poor and don’t make it back into the state coffers.
jefft452
@Evolving Deep Southerner: well played sir
cckids
@kerFuFFler:
I found out the other day, they aren’t banned, they are apparently rationed. You can use ONE! at a time!, any more & they disappear.
The mysteries of FYWP, forever & ever evolving.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@cckids:
They only come in pairs. One pair at a time.!!
edit – at least from my end of the tubes.
Ben Cisco
@gaz:
I feel compelled to point out that the two need not be exclusive.
bemused senior
Off topic, but related to economics and yesterday’s “all jobs statistics all the time”:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/06/employment-report-graphs-construction.html
He has pointed out for a while that the “seasonal adjustment” is off kilter because of the early warm weather. This has been a theme in a lot of the housing statistics in this great source of your daily dose of econ stats.
kd bart
America loves the NFL. America loves Socialism.
MikeJ
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Notice too that he wouldn’t go on the record under his name saying anything sane.
J. Michael Neal
@gaz:
Teddy Cullinane: [broadcasting on the radio] I’ve never seen Crash so angry. And frankly, sports fans, he used a word that’s a no-no with umpires.
Millie: [Annie snaps off the radio] Crash must’ve called the guy a cocksucker.
gaz
@Ben Cisco: I won’t argue there. =)
burnspbesq
Johnston is an ass (he’s the Matt Taibbi of the tax world), but this piece is spot-on. The best thing I’ve seen from him in a long time.
kerFuFFler
@cckids: Thanks for explaining it to me! ! ! ! :D (I tried writing the word thanks with ! in between all the letters but it did not come out. The rule must be more comp!icated than that after all.)
Bubblegum Tate
@Woody:
I like the way Snrub thinks!