If you really want to read more about this seemingly impossible
competitive scenario, read this, from our local newspaper:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y1EA1249D

I don't understand it. My kids don't understand it. No one I talks to
understands it. Yet, it's happened. And a fair number of small motels
are in grave danger because of it -- including ours.

How is this =really= different from WalMart jumping in and crushing all
the local stores? Think for a moment.

It's city-owned. This means it's paid for with taxpayer money, and
profits go back to the taxpayer (in the form of lower taxes). Every
citizen is a shareholder of this business. (Skip for a moment the
question of whether they are willing shareholders). Other than the fact
that it's owner is a municipality, this is a business just like any
other business. It is competition just like any other competition. If
you wanted, you could put together fifty million and compete with them.
That is capitalism.

It may appear that the fact that it's city owned would give it an unfair
advantage, inasmuch as the city is also the legislative body entrusted
with making laws, and they could make laws favorable to their own
business, and put other businesses at an unfair disadvantage. But what
is unfair about that? Big (independently owned) businesses do this all
the time - it's called lobbying and buying votes. I don't think for a
minute that WalMart isn't close and tidy with the municipalities in
which it plants itself, getting tax breaks that smaller businesses could
only dream of. They can do this because they are big, and the
municipaliaites want the added commerce that such a big business will
bring (and the added taxes on those other businesses that the added
commerce would bring) Yes, it's an illusion, but it's one that
taxpayers buy into.

I'm sure there is a sense that city-owned is "too close" but lobbying is
"okay capitalism" but I don't really see it that way. I see it as
simply a matter of size, and what 600 pounds buys a gorilla.
Unrestrained capitalism does this. They get the keys to their own cage.
Your city owned hotel just does this more blatantly.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
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