Will COVID-19 be the needle that finally bursts the sports bubble?

Congress was subsidizing businesses that keep people on the payroll. The Lakers don't earn $4 billion. They are losing money during this.

There was a subsidy available that they were eligible for. It's EXACTLY what Congress set up. They took advantage. Maybe it is gross, but then Congress did about $2.2 trillion of gross that is going to get tacked onto our national debt.

AFTER THE FACT, you are there with the tsk tsks, and shame on you outrage, because it suddenly became apparent to you what a shit show it was trying to rush $350 billion out there with a shitty process, toward something that would have taken tens of trillions of dollars to have the effect they promised when they were patting themselves on the back.

And you are going to tell me the Lakers should be ashamed of themselves for something they didn't design, for which they didn't realize would look so bad?

When that became apparent to everyone, they GAVE THE MONEY BACK.

 

Yes, AFTER THE FACT, when we were seeing stories about how miserably inadquate the program was, and HOW the banks chose who to give the loans to, it is a terrible visual. Which is why they gave the money back.

You seem to have it in your head that Congress set up a straightforward program of some sort to keep main street mom and pop owners and their 2 part time employees from losing their homes and having to stand on food lines. And now you think Jeanie Buss personally ran over a bunch of them to grab the money for herself.

That is just not what was set up, not even close, and it is not how many of these businesses that are getting the "shame on you treatment" were understanding the program. Their businesses are shut down and they are faced with either laying off people or paying people with no income coming in. PRIOR to it becoming apparent just how inadequate the program was, I am sure the paperwork or whatever the Lakers had to do for their bank was worth it to them. It would have been to almost any business taking a financial hit and being presented with an offer of a government subsidy -- the kind LOTS OF BUSINESSES happily avail themselves of when they are aware of them. They had already committed to paying their stadium workers during the shut down. And then the government unveiled a program that would subsidize that cost for them.

I am sorry, whatever Montgomery Burns thing you have in your skull is really ridiculous. They had no clue the money was going to prove to be THAT inadequate and people like you would be in pitchfork mode. And when the stories hit, and the tsks tsks started, THE GAVE BACK THE MONEY.

 

Yup.

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