Bombshell Report: Mets owners in much worse financial shape than claimed

This article in the New York Post has uncovered that Fred and Jeff Wilpon are in a much greater financial bind than they said last week.



As a Mets fan for nearly 40 years, I have learned to never take the Wilpons at their word. If its true that the Mets are 700 million dollars in debt, then the Wilpons may indeed be trying to sell the Mets outright at the highest possible price.



May only wish is that the next owner has extremely deep pockets and would refuse to play second fiddle to the Yankees.



That would be a Mets fans dream.



The New York Post reports that the New York Mets owners are in a much tighter squeeze than they are letting on, The Post has learned, and they may be forced to sell a controlling stake in the team.



Fred Wilpon and his ownership team have been shopping a minority stake in the Amazin's to Wall Street titans and other deep-pocketed investors for at least three months, said a source who was approached.



Potential investors stand to get little or no say over the team, despite the high debt load and hefty asking price. "Why would I put up a couple hundred million and get no rights?" said one prospective buyer who passed on the offer.



Wilpon said Friday in a conference call announcing that the owners were seeking to sell a 20 to 25 percent stake that "it is prudent for us to explore our options at this point," implying that the process had just begun. In reality, the process has been going on for months, sources told The Post.



The team, owned by Sterling Equities, which is controlled by Wilpon and his son, Jeff, is worth between $750 million and $1 billion, once source said.



Forbes last year pegged the value at $858 million.



But the team has roughly $700 million of debt, and that should be subtracted from the valuation when calculating what an owner's stake is worth, sources said. Using the $858 million valuation and the $700 million in debt, a 25 percent stake in the free equity amounts to just $39.5 million -- not the $200 million asking price.



While Sterling's 60 percent stake in its cable network, SportsNet New York, could be worth hundreds of millions, it cannot be used to attract minority investors to the team, sources said.



Sterling would have to distribute any proceeds from the sale of its SNY stake to lenders under the terms of their credit agreement, according to three sources close to the situation.



Also, it cannot borrow any more against the team or SNY under the loan agreements, said a source with direct knowledge of the team's finances. The Wilpon family already raised more than $200 million this summer by borrowing against the Mets and SNY, sources said.



The Wilpons have been trying to replace roughly $750 million they lost by investing with convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, a source said. In addition, they are now in settlement talks with Irving Picard, the trustee for the Madoff estate, who claims Sterling is a "net winner" that withdrew $48 million more from two Madoff funds than it invested.



Looking to raise several hundred million but hemmed in by debt, the Wilpons may be forced to sell a larger stake than they wish.



"If they can't find a buyer, they will need to sell a majority stake six months from now," said a source.



The Mets declined comment.

There are different kinds of fronts that are created for different reasons in different places. Different situations and conditions in different places call for a formation of different fronts.



This post will be mainly discussing the two fronts that communist would be dealing with in different situations. The United Front and the Popular Front.



The idea of the United Front is thought to have originated from the Comintern who declared in their 1921 congress that a united front is "an initiative whereby the Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.”



The Popular Front was created to fight fascism and is more broad than the United Front, allowing liberal and bourgeois elements to join the front in order to fight a common enemy. The Popular Front was highly criticized by Leon Trotsky because he claimed that only United Fronts could be progressive and that Communist collaborating with liberal elements was betrayal of the working class. Big words from a man who was a liberal class champion before the Bolsheviks made it clear that they would be the winning force and Trotsky party jumped opportunistically again as it is explained here (1). And better explained here by Lenin (2).



I see a popular front as essential when fighting a imperialist army or trying to overthrow an oppressive dictator etc. For those who are opposed to popular fronts out right; I'd like to point out two great examples of why and when the Popular Front is needed.



One historical example would be in China when the Japanese invaded in 1937. Sometimes the coalition is referred to as a United Front, but seeing as there were pro-capitalist elements it was technically a Popular Front. If the communist and the Nationalist forces had never coupled with some Soviet volunteers and war lords to create a Popular Front then the Japanese would have easily smashed all forces separately. All the different groups knew that they had to join their forces together to defeat Japanese imperialism. China today would be either a US or Japanese colony if it wasn't for the Popular Front.



But China also teaches us another very important lesson when it comes to any kind of Front. The need to keep your ranks and stay an organization within the front. After the Japanese were defeated the civil war continued but it was keeping their ranks and their party together that allowed the communist to rise as the main power in China (after the long march the communist party gained a lot of respect from the people of China and after they showed their strength in the war against imperial Japan the communist were seen by the people as the party of and by the people) after defeating the Nationalist KMT.



A more recent example would be the situation in Palestine. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a organization that is geared towards nothing less than the liberation and a free state of Palestine. They have joined with many forces through the years to fight the oppressive and imperialist puppet state of Israel. If it wasn't for the formation of these Popular Fronts joining their resources and armies together to fight the Israeli army then the Israeli's would have invaded and destroyed Palestine a long time ago. If they would have stayed Utopian purest like most Trotskyist would say they should have done and only formed United Fronts and only allowed communist, anarchist and socialist elements join then the Israeli Army would have played simple divide and conquer and the Palestinian people would be mostly extinct today.



Now that we have discussed why and when it is needed to create Popular Fronts let's talk about why and when it is needed to build a United Front.



The conditions arise only after the contradiction is primarily between the masses (poor and proletarian peasants and the working class) and the bourgeois (capitalist class, national bourgeois and petty bourgeoisie). A United Front is created when communist and other working class groups (anarchist, and other revolutionary working class movements) need to join forces to fight conservative and/or liberal elements. One example we can see is the United front between the ELN and FARC-EP. The two left-wing guerrilla armies have a common enemy in the neo-liberal government and have joined forces to combat the Colombian government.



Mexico is a place that could use a United Front, the EPR had suggested such a United Front with the EZLN but in a amazing betrayal of the Mexican people the EZLN refused the alliance. This keeps both groups smaller and less able to overthrow or even combat the current Mexican government. If these groups were to create a United Front then there would be a real possibility of destroying the current government.



To put it simply; different times call for different measures. It is always important to recognize the current contradictions in your nation and to organize and act accordingly to fix the current contradiction. If your nation is being oppressed or occupied then it may be needed to create and organize a Popular Front. If the main contradiction is between the people and the government and/or between the working class and bourgeois classes then you may need to create and organize a United Front.


Written by: Dustin Slagle

(1) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch04.htm#4._

(2) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/x01.htm

Florida Ruling Requires Government to Stop Implementing Obamacare

From Cato at Liberty

As I continue digesting Judge Vinson’s ruling, I notice two key things beyond the facts that the “individual mandate is unconstitutional”:
1. In performing his severability analysis — determining which parts of the overall legislation survive — the judge threw out all of Obamacare:

In sum, notwithstanding the fact that many of the provisions in the Act can stand independently without the individual mandate (as a technical and practical matter), it is reasonably “evident,” as I have discussed above, that the individual mandate was an essential and indispensable part of the health reform efforts, and that Congress did not believe other parts of the Act could (or it would want them to) survive independently.

I must conclude that the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit. The individual mandate cannot be severed. This conclusion is reached with full appreciation for the “normal rule” that reviewing courts should ordinarily refrain from invalidating more than the unconstitutional part of a statute, but non-severability is required based on the unique facts of this case and the particular aspects of the Act. This is not a situation that is likely to be repeated.

2. In discussing whether to issue an injunction – a judicial command to do or refrain from doing something — the judge determined that his declaratory judgment in this context was the same as an injunction. That is, a federal court saying that a piece of legislation is unconstitutional is effectively the same as a decision mandating the government to act:

Declaratory judgment is, in a context such as this where federal officers are defendants, the practical equivalent of specific relief such as an injunction . . . since it must be presumed that federal officers will adhere to the law as declared by the court. [Quoting a D.C. Circuit opinion written by none other than then-Judge Antonin Scalia]

In short, if I read the opinion (plus this final judgment) correctly — quite apart from both the lofty philosophical principles I applaud Judge Vinson for adopting and the nitty-gritty technical details of his individual mandate analysis — Obamacare is dead in its tracks.

Now, Judge Vinson himself or the Eleventh Circuit (or even the Supreme Court) may issue an emergency stay of this or any other part of the ruling, but as of right now, the federal government must stop implementing Obamacare.

NB: The New York Times and Washington Post report that Judge Vinson has already stayed his own ruling pending appeal, but this is an incorrect reading of the opinion, for the reasons stated above. Moreover, the court’s docket, which is now closed for the day, contains no such stay — nor has plaintiffs’ counsel received notice of one.