Monthly Archives: February 2011

Hi John,

Please add Mary Woods ’92 to your jasper jottings list.

All the best,
Neil O’Sullivan ‘90

P.S.: Mary, you might want to e-mail John your maiden name.

[JR: Thanks, Neil. Much appreciated.]

O’Sullivan, Neil (MC1990)

Woods, Mary (MC1992)

# # # # # posted 2011-02-22 20:44

RE: Skating rink in VC

Dear Jasper John,

Do you ever take your ideological blinders off and think of the positive possibilities of government projects like the Van Cortlandt Park skating rink right near Manhattan College? Surely there will be talented ice skaters among future students at Manhattan who would not have had the chance to develop their inherent skills if not for the nearby rink. Think of an Olympic champion from Manhattan College and not the loss of a place for another high rise or high priced restaurant or strip joint that free enterprise might have put in its place,

Where I live private enterprise has built an ultra-modern gambling casino while downtown needs more development to put it mildly. Gambling addiction has become a major problem which the government needs to address while the public sector is already scraping for funds to keep the roads paved. Please think about the long term ramifications of your libertarian policies. I do not think you would really like the outcome.

Sincerely yours,
Donald M Stebbins
BS 1961

[JR: (1) Wow, when I first saw this email, I thought maybe even DMS was going to agree with me. But then, reality set in and it was not to be. (2) The problem with Socialists is they can always find the beneficiaries of their policies, but they can't, won't, or don't see those that are being penalized. Because the cost of this skating rink is divided up by millions of people, we don't see those penalized by it. I can only say "Broken Glass Fallacy". 250k$/25M NY taxpayers = a few cents each. But maybe they'd rather spend their money the way they see fit. Rather than have it extracted by force by Bloomberg for a rink that has not made economic sense in the past. (3) "Downtown development" -- could it be that high taxes make development "uneconomical". If, for example, Detroit zeroed out it's taxes and relied on fees for services, I'd bet you'd see a "gold rush" there. But, Gooferment thinks it knows best. (4) Gambling, like drug addiction, can't be "addressed" by government. Unless you let them just kill the addicts. (5) And, "paved roads" are a struggle because providing services to people is NOT what Gooferment wants to do; reward friends, punish enemies, and feather nests. Why doesn't Disney World have trouble paving its roads? (6) I'd like to try some little L libertarian policies. I think it would be great.]