Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
Poor economic decisions aside, what kind of society are we in when the absolute filthiest rich of the rich, people who can afford to pay hockey players millions of dollars a year as a fun hobby, are using appeals to the emotions of common people to massively profit from even more- whilst in the midst of one of the provinces most severe economic declines if not the most severe economic declines over the last 50 years?
I graduated business school and am a business person but just like everything else in life, balance needs to be struck here.
From a society perspective this is perverse to me. From a business perspective the current offer is not even worth reading or responding to. From a Flames fan perspective I still enjoy the Saddledome and don't really care if players have nicer showers. I'm comfortable with the concrete mezzanine and waiting a couple minutes to piss.
I dunno, there's just so, so, so much not to like about this at this stage of the game. I haven't even spent this post getting into my opinion on the literal clusterF that has been the Flames org handling of this entire process. I need a train wreck picture but I am too lazy. The fact that somebody hasn't been fired is amazing.
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I'd say that's a fairly narrow scope view on things. The city, province, other levels of government subsides or fund in numerous different fashions (taxes incentives for example) many companies with multi million dollar employees, business owners or public investors. It's how they attract business and help drive and attempt to diversify economy.
The debate can rage on about public funding of a Flames arena and whether that money should go to a worthy cause, and I'm not going to bother to venture down that path, other than to say you could likely spring that argument on anything the government funds outside of essential services, or on any company they give a tax break too.
I'm also not going to bother to debate whether there is value to the city on this project. All I will say, is that I assure you the city wants and also feels they need a new arena, and likely has a very strong desire for that arena to have an NHL major tenant in it. They may not feel that they want or need a project of the scope of Calgary Next, but at the very least, the city is motivated to have a new NHL scale hockey rink. The reasons can be debated, whether it's because they actually feel there is economic benefit (either direct or indirect) or simply a quality of life play for its citizens.
But I assure you the city sees benefit in a new rink. Which is why when this is all said and done, SOME form of public funding will get allocated to a new arena for the Flames, which is probably the strongest argument for the fact that there is value for them in a project like this, or else why would it consistently happen?