Most partially or fully publicly financed professional-sports team stadiums are scams and grand larceny against the public. But owners of these franchises know full well how moronic many politicians and some members of the general public are apt to be about these scams because they're blinded by the "glamour'' of professional sports and want so much to believe in the chimera of "economic development'' from them.

The latest example is the new stadium being built in the desperate sucker city of Hartford.

See this story.

But such is the triumph of hope over experience, that officials in Providence will probably be open to another proposal by the owners of the Pawtucket Red Sox.

The stadium scams are a bit like the state lotteries -- another income transfer from the not-rich to the very rich. But at least gambling is voluntary, unlike taxpayers paying rich people for stadiums.