Atlantic Yards House of Cards To Collapse?

From the New York Times July 1, 2007Official Sees Possible Risk in Big Project in Brooklyn By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and ANDY NEWMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/nyregion/01yardsxx.html

"Ever since it was proposed, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has simultaneously been the borough’s biggest, most controversial and least understood real estate development.
Critics have long suggested that the project is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the developer, the project’s promised jobs and subsidized housing a kind of Trojan horse for the thousands of high-end apartments that come with them. But the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation.

That debate may be revived because of a lawsuit that has wrung free hundreds of pages of internal documents from the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project. An analysis of the documents suggests that the Atlantic Yards behemoth — 8 million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena planned for 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn — may in fact be a delicate beast."

Another interesting report from Nicholas Confessore of the Times.

What does anyone really expect to result from eminent domain, corporate welfare, sports welfare and government involvement in economic planning and economic development? Why should this suprise anyone? Where were they when Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and many other libertarian economists examined these questions?

Millions of dollars of taxpayer's money and acres of private property will be taken from their rightful owners and given to Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards alias the Nets Arena, thanks to the veiled fist of government in New York City and State. Is it really suprising that rosy predictions underly this attempt to gain wealth through government rather than the market? If you substitute government planning for the market, then you distort economic decisionmaking. It is not enough to stop legalized theft such as Atlantic Yards. Let us abandon the failed notions of government planning and subsidy of economic development.

Abolish the Empire State Development Corporation and its local municipal counterparts.

Defend property rights. Support the Institute for Justice (http://www.ij.org/) and Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn (http://www.dddb.net/). Follow the story at http://www.nolandgrab.org/.

Remember that this legalized theft is done at the expense of taxpayers, property owners, and tenants in the name of the people.

Remember, that the New York Times is a partner of Forest City Ratner in the scheme I called Time$cam.

Dump Bloomberg, Markowitz and Spitzer. Vote Libertarian.

Richard Cooper, former Chair of the Libertarian Party of NY (2000-02, 2006-07) www.ny.lp.org

Barclays Bank Boycott To Protest Eminent Domain Abuse

http://www.ny.lp.org/news/2007barclays.htm
Libertarian Party of NY -- Press Release -- Barclays Bank Boycott To Protest Eminent Domain Abuse

Barclays Bank Boycott To Protest Eminent Domain AbuseLIBERTARIAN PARTY OF NEW YORK http://www.ny.lp.org/ 516-767-4688 Contact: Richard Cooper, State Chair nylibertarian@hotmail.com Gary Popkin, Brooklyn-Queens Chair www.Hardfire.net


BARCLAYS BANK BOYCOTT TO PROTEST EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE

Brooklyn, NY 3/19/07 New York Libertarian Party leaders Richard Cooper and Gary Popkin call for a nationwide boycott of Barclays Bank due to its participation in the eminent domain abuse scheme of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards. Barclays, a British bank with branches in America, agreed to pay the developer Forest City Ratner over $305 million for naming rights to the Nets basketball team’s arena over a thirty-year period. Libertarian State Chair Cooper notes that millions of Americans were outraged by 2005's Kelo decision of the Supreme Court upholding eminent domain transfers to private developers. The Libertarians offer an opportunity to demonstrate opposition in a material way.

Brooklyn-Queens Libertarian Party Chair Popkin dubs “…the Barclays participation in eminent domain is an outrage as a private enterprise disrespecting property rights.” Popkin notes that controversy was stirred in Brooklyn because of the sordid past of the British bank in the slave trade. He declares that “The actions of the bankers of centuries past do not taint the arena. It is participation in the eminent domain scheme that taints whoever participates in it.”

Cooper continues, “To Libertarians, corporate sports welfare and eminent domain abuse are legalized theft, stealing from taxpayers and landowners. Barclays chose to become an accomplice of Bruce Ratner. They should both bear the outrage of indignant Americans who favor freedom and justice.”

The Libertarian Party of New York has fought eminent domain that would have dispossessed St. Luke’s Pentecostal Church on Long Island and a neighborhood in New Rochelle to make way for an Ikea Swedish furniture store, besides the NY Times headquarters scheme that Cooper dubbed “Time$cam.” Cooper and Rev. Fred Jenkins of St. Luke’s will speak on the church’s victimization and how the Libertarian Party helped them at the state convention to be held Saturday, April 28th at the Radisson MacArthur in Holtsville, Long Island. –30-