If you drive through my neighborhood of North Central Phoenix, you’ll see plenty of little signs entreating you to support the seven proposed bond issues to be put to a vote in the March 14 election. But if you drive through other neighborhoods of the city, you’ll see few if any signs. Supporters and opponents will have planted huge placards at major intersections, but you’ll see the little yard signs – “Support the Bonds” – only in the most prosperous of neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
This little datum actually tells you all you need to know about the bond campaign: In large measure, it is welfare for the rich.<\/p>\n
I’m not playing a class-envy card. I despise welfare in all its forms. I can sympathize with the plight of the poor, and I can even volunteer my time and my money to help them. But I think it is vile to use force to steal wealth from honest, innocent producers in order to confer it upon people who have not earned it. But if this is vicious and wrong when done for benefit of the poor, how much worse is it when the recipients are among the wealthiest of the city’s residents?<\/p>\n
The actual purpose of the bond issue – and of the Trolley and of the recidivist reconstruction of the Civic Center and of all the other so-called ‘investments’ downtown – is to provide free upscale amenities for the use and enjoyment of rich Phoenicians and their out-of-town visitors. There are miserly little bribes to other constituencies beneath the vast Christmas tree of bond programs, but the overwhelming amount of money will be spent to amuse and enrich people who are already laughing all the way to the bank.<\/p>\n
Almost a year ago, I wrote about how these corrupt ‘investments’ are carefully target-marketed to the most corruptible kind of investors<\/a>. And this is the first and biggest benefit to the rich of the bond issues: The bonds themselves. They will be underwritten by a politically-connected investment firm, and they will be purchased by politically-wired investors. Even though the city’s property tax receipts will surge this year, making Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you drive through my neighborhood of North Central Phoenix, you’ll see plenty of little signs entreating you to support the seven proposed bond issues to be put to a vote in the March 14 election. But if you drive through other neighborhoods of the city, you’ll see few if any signs. Supporters and opponents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-56","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-general","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/47\/corporate-welfare-in-phoenix\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":0},"title":"Corporate welfare in Phoenix","author":"Odysseus","date":"January 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arizona Republic brings us another glowing puff piece on the beauty, the splendor, the wonder, the power and the glory of the forthcoming Trolley system:Funny thing about \"knowledge workers\": They don't like to drive. That's one of the reasons Thomas Gorny decided on a site along the future light-rail\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1470,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1470\/making-movies-wrestling-with-science-commerce-and-art-to-sell-the-idea-of-a-unique-and-distinctive-phoenix\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":1},"title":"Making movies: Wrestling with science, commerce and art to sell the idea of a unique and distinctive Phoenix","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't think I'm done with this yet, but it's coming along. I mentioned last week that I've been making a movie in all my spare time. I've got about two weeks in the project by now, most of that lost to rendering and FTP. I may start over again\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1655,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1655\/not-all-neighborhoods-feeling-a-downturn\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":2},"title":"Not all neighborhoods feeling a downturn","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me in yesterday's Arizona Republic (permanent link): \u00a0Not all neighborhoods feeling a downturn There are neighborhoods in the Phoenix area where the housing downturn is barely discernible. How can that be? News reports are full of doom and gloom stories. Defaults, foreclosures and interest rates are up, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":643,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/643\/if-the-sheep-are-going-to-be-sheared-anyway-is-it-wrong-to-sell-spectator-seats\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":3},"title":"If the sheep are going to be sheared anyway, is it wrong to sell spectator seats . . . ?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Comes news today that we are that much closer to two new Food Stamps allocations to Major League Baseball. The count so far this year is three Welfare-addicted baseball teams moving into two brand new, taxpayer-funded stadia. If you read nothing but the Arizona Republic, you would never know that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3369,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3369\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-teaching-home-sellers-how-to-pay-attention-to-marketing-techniques-tactics-and-results\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":4},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Teaching home sellers how to pay attention to marketing techniques, tactics and results","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This started out at a response to Jeff Brown in John Rowles' \"dinosaur\" post, but it grew to take on a life of its own. Jeff Brown:Sellers, at least in my experience, have been excellent at discerning one thing \u2014 who produces results.Oh, would this were so! I can take\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/33\/you-heard-it-here-first\/","url_meta":{"origin":56,"position":5},"title":"You heard it here first…","author":"Odysseus","date":"December 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The newspaper accidentally tells the truth about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to ram the Downtown bond issue down voters' throats.While it remains unclear who will emerge as winners or losers when neighborhood leaders and developers begin hashing out future building heights in the Camelback Corridor, one thing is certain: supporters of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}