Spending Gazillions

Many public companies who’ve received bailout dollars and which are also using sports sponsorships for marketing are under a lot of scrutiny these days. Bank of America and General Motors are among those businesses now on the public teat that are re-thinking their marketing strategies, and whether or not seeing their name in neon lights sends the right message to the public.

A CNN poll Tuesday morning revealed a 75-25 slant towards Banks NOT being sports sponsors.
I think that’s a little wrong-headed, because that money does trickle down to other things, and creates other jobs.

If the Bank of America/Yankee Stadium is suddenly without its namesake, where are the marketing fees going to come from? Who is going to step up and make up the difference in that stadium operating budget—without which, concessionaires, groundskeepers, office personnel, and a host of other jobs, are suddenly in jeopardy?

Some would say take that money—the money intended for the naming rights of a stadium—and use it to make loans in the community. A noble thought, and if the banks had been making good loans in the beginning, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

We’ve got to be careful about over-thinking these things.
Sports franchises must show a profit…and you can be pretty sure no government bail out is going to be waiting in the wings if the Houston Texans come up short a few million dollars at the end of a season.

If marketing-rights fees generate jobs, which keep the local economy pumping, leave well enough alone.

You know what really torques me?
In a time where we’re having to choke down more tax burden to bail out institutions that are deemed “too big to fail,” and our politicians are strewing billions of dollars willy-nilly like fishes and loaves that miraculously never run out (and they will…) we now have newly-minted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham I-Came-in-Second-Place Clinton wanting to rebuild the Gaza Strip…with your tax dollars.
$300-million, to be precise.

Has someone called the paramedics to check Mrs. Clinton for head trauma?
Has this woman been deprived of oxygen?

Would someone please explain to me why we’re looking down the barrel of a 1.75-Trillion dollar deficit that we’re going to be carrying for the next decade…and how anyone can justify spending a dime to rebuild a God-forsaken patch of 15 X 20-mile land in a part of the world that’s been ripped by strife and violence ever since Joshua led the Hebrews across the Jordan River?
I don’t get it.

There are plenty of Gaza Strips in the United States.
Pick Anytown, USA with a blighted neighborhood that’s 15 X 20, and let’s put our tax dollars to work rebuilding for our own people.
How far could $300-million go in say, Houston’s 4th or 5th Wards?

I realize the U.S. is trying to diffuse a delicate political conundrum in a corner of the world that affects many other dominos on the global table… However…it would seem a better use of American dollars to take care of matters at home for the near term. I am sure the Gaza Strip will be beckoning for a while, should we ever reach a point at which we’ve solved our own problems.

Of course the quickest way to get money to the Middle East: If the Gaza Strip was involved in Credit Swaps and derivatives. Maybe Mrs. Clinton could just establish a Gaza Strip Resolution Trust Corporation.

I know some mortgage wise guys in New York that could probably figure out a way to show Gaza Strip Real Estate is really not as risky as thought, and are willing to guarantee that risk by spreading it around among other friends.

Perhaps they could get the Syrians and the Iranians involved…spending their money on fixing the Gaza instead of lobbing missiles around that part of the world.

What do you call people who live in the Gaza Strip, anyway?
Gazateers…Gazateans...Gaza Strippers?

I know what you’d call the money used to rebuild that country:
Gazillions.