Loved Schill as a ballplayer.  Can’t stand his politics. 

Why no questions regarding his obvious hypocrisyabout accepting public funding when he is a “small gov’t” repub/teapartier? 

 You obviously don’t understand the difference between receiving investment funds, and bailing out a failing business, better known as throwing good money after bad. In fact it legitimizes his standpoint, that the business failed and didn’t receive a bailout. He made enormous personal investment, which has now destroyed everything he ever had. There are winners and losers in business. RI deserves what it gets for not doing due diligence in it’s investment, then torpedoing the business with damaging public statements. Try thinking with a rational mind instead of like a partisan hack.

Stick with your core principels and don’t change when it appears that an opportunity is available to exploit someting you did not believe in. If you believe in small government that does not give hand outs, that is OK believe in it regardless.  I put this chump in the same class with Scott Brown.  He voted against the Health Care Bill but his daughter is a benefactor of it.  What a hypocrite.

Worse of all is the arrogant atitude this man has displayed, knocking everything and everybody.  Fools suffer1

Your missing the point. Small government encourages business growth through funding and credits, large government wants to control everything a company can or can’t do. Every civilization in the history of this world that has adopted large government or communism for that fact has either failed (Russia, because they run out of money) or has oppressed it people to the point where they do not contribute or leave for a better life somewhere else (China, Cuba, N. Vietnam) and are willing to die trying.

Moron liberals even on this site—geez.

Sports and life–sometimes the same, sometimes different.  Through sheer force of will, Schill made things happen on the ballfield that were incredible.  Believing in something is important, but believing in the right thing is even more important.  At his core, I think Schill believes in the right thing, but with his fortune gone he’ll find out whether his core will endure.  I pray it will for his and his family’s sakes.  God bless.

Pointing out extreme examples does not help your argument, especially Vietnam, which has progressed to an admirable modern-day economy.  The U.S.S.R. failed because it was woefully mismanaged and they drowned themselves with runaway defense and counter-intelligence spending in response to us instead of spending that money on social reform to placate a disgruntled populace.  Well, the social reform part is not entirely true as under Gorbachev a lot of reforms were attempted, but conservative party elements were afraid of change and eventually brought about an insurrection.  Also, Bolshevism is not synonymous with socialism or communism despite having elements of both.  China is not a great example either as their government has become more moderate (comparatively), but they’re still a ‘communist’ state and have shown immense economic and social growth.  The only unfortunate part of that is that China has also gained a huge amount of influence on our own market and we have lost a great deal of active industrial capacity.  For Cuba, Cuba I will give you, but Cuba has a very different history and set of circumstances and it is arguable to say that without draconian measures the Cuban state would have collapsed years ago, especially without outside support.

Anyway, the point being is that all states need to learn to moderate between socialist and capitalist influences as capitalism can not and should not be trusted to run everything in a society.  I do not want public services, health care, and societal upkeep tasks to be for profit businesses.  A nation has a responsibility to maintain the general welfare and well being of its citizenry and only by way of government do the people maintain any oversight into that role.  We all can vote for or against elected officials who support policies we approve or disapprove of, we have no such right with private business.  I can hold a public official accountable who fails me, I can not do that with a corporation, in fact, that corporation’s goal is to do as little as possible for me while receiving the most it can from me.  I do not want that to be the motivation for everything in a society as it quickly creates antagonism and selfish divisions.

Still, I do not want government to run everything either as that also creates a monopoly of power.  When there are no private citizens capable of challenging government then government is also in danger of becoming corrupt and once that happens it’s the same as a corporate run nation as my voice is meaningless.

In short, and all rambling aside, we have a lot to learn about being moderate from successful European nations and even from former ‘lesser’ nations such as China.  Some of those changes will be hard, or even ‘un-American’, but I believe that America is not so arrogant as to forever cling to failed or inadequate policies.  This is not the 1950′s and we are not the best in the world at everything that we do.  Other countries have become more cohesive wholes by cooperating more and moving away from the sense of take as much as I can while doing as little as possible.  Yes, we still need some of that, that spirit of competition and to seek to be better than others, but we need to make it more about accomplishment and the goal of achieving more for society and less about personal greed and ambition.

P.S.: For Schilling in particular, he was hypocritical to do this as his politics are to avoid ‘handouts’.  However, if he is actually holding himself accountable monetarily and not hiding behind the shield of corporate personhood I must respect him for that.  I might not agree with the man’s politics, but I can at least respect someone who works to correct his failings.

Comments like this really don’t help anyone, all they do is breed antagonism and that’s a huge part of the problem.

Schilling doesn’t make much sense in this interview; it would have been nice to have anyone from a business writing perspective on with D&C.  

1.  He says they told the state they were going to default, then was surprised that he received a default letter from them when they actually defaulted.  Who tells a senior creditor that they will be in default, doesn’t get any written assurances that they’d not notice them for default, then is upset when they do?  Either Schilling is showing his nievity, or he is making this up (or likely fudging it).  

2.  He says he gave the state a check and then said “don’t cash this.”  But, again, he doesn’t put it in writing.  Who does that? He says his lawyers participated in that conversation – but what lawyer would say to a client “yes, you are in default, but its OK to give a check to the lender and tell them orally not to cash it without providing anything written, or getting any written assurances.”  It just doesn’t make sense.

3.  He was behind in payroll by at least 3 weeks.  Had he done that in MA, he’d be personally liable.

4.  He says that the state wanted equity in a renegotiation over the terms of the (admittedly in default) loan.  He acts like that is a big deal.  Why wouldn’t he sell equity?

5.  Why couldn’t he get any equity investors other than the state?

6.  He says that no investors would be junior to the senior debt holder, especially when the senior  holder showed an unwillingness to be a partner.  First, you entered into an agreement with the state – of course junior lenders would be hesitant to be junior to an entity that isn’t a repeat player and is hard to predict.  Think of that before you enter into senior agreements with the state.  Second, junior lenders lend all the time – on less favorable terms, of course.  What law firm in Boston or Prov hasn’t done a series B deal?  Third, why not sell equity again?

7.   Why would he put all his eggs in the basket of trying to get tax credits for a few million instead of just selling off some of the equity?

None of it makes any sense.  Its all fictionalized rationalizations from a man who just doesn’t really know what he is doing.

This isn’t about politics.  Its about hubris. But, its the man’s money – he can lose it anyway he wants.  I suppose this was a little less fun than how Dykstra lost his millions.  

The core problem was that they hired an expensive staff, built out a expensive workplace, and paid out expensive salaries for a company that showed no true history of showing it could be a sustainable business. That’s why it failed right, because their business model wasn’t sustainable?

They should hired younger (cheaper) talent, kept a team of 12-35, provided shares and performance compensation rather than bloated salaries (look, if all your employees have families, you gotta pay them at a much higher rate).

They took one giant leap when they should have taken several smaller steps. But that takes time, hard work, and a long-term view/strategy.

What an absolute coward.  Chafee’s public statements had nothing to do with private capital “backing out” of any deal (if that even existed).  The state of Rhode Island had contractual obligations to his company, regardless of what Chafee said in public, and they had to honor those commitments and any private capital knows that.  If the private capital was really intent on investing in 38 Studios and thought it was a good investment, nothing Chafee said would change that.  Schilling is a coward looking for a scapegoat because he’s a failure and wants someone else to shovel some blame on.

I’m glad Schilling lost whatever tens of millions he did.  That’s how the vaunted free market that Schilling holds dear actually works.  When you’re incompetent and reckless with your company, it dies.  Welcome to the free market and reality.

And we all know that Schilling gets a huge pension from MLB that cannot be touched by any bankruptcy court and surely has many millions of dollwars stashed away to live comfortably for the rest of his life.  The fact that he’ll only have 3 or 4 vacation homes around the world instead of 10-15 shouldn’t make anyone cry about his future.  He’s a millionaire who blew a bunch of his own money because he thinks he’s smarter than he actually is.  Boo frickin hoo.

Save your sympathy for the hundreds of his employees that he blindsided and who actually have to worry where their next meal is coming from.

 Obviously need to learn to read….from the article, copy and paste…

On criticism that he, as a conservative, was hypocritical for taking money from the government:
“I’m not sure where my stance and opinion in that we need a smaller
government, I’m not sure how that correlates to this. … The program was
there for local businesses to use. In a sense, we were a dream company
to use them, because we were local. That money was literally coming out
of the budget into our company, going right back into the local economy.
Our employees live in Rhode Island, spend the money in Rhode Island.
And 99 percent of the tax credit money was for payroll and development.
So, all that money was spent locally, for rent and all the things that
you do to keep a company running.”

Love the casual implication that non-christians are the ones who “hate” him and that we’re inferior for doing so because he’s above all that :D Also the total lack of understanding about why people find it ironic that a “small government” conservative would take money from the government to fund his private company :D This guy’s hilarious :D

I disagree in part to what you say. Most of the staff were the heads and Sr level developers from the most successful company’s out there with several shipped triple A games. Collectively they made $11 Billion. That level of experience is viable for what they were building. There were a fair amount of Jr people on staff too. I personally know a handful of them. They were actually better than some people I’ve seen in the industry at 5-10 years though. Everyone was really smart there. His biggest flaw was hiring on staff too soon. They had several people on staff from day one that typically come in at the end of the production elsewhere. I know at least 2 people who have been on staff since the beginning that normally come in like 1-2 yrs before the game ships. 

We got our fill of Shilling here in AZ because he was always parading his Aryan family around like they were the cast of The Sound of Music, and he couldn’t just talk baseball. He always had to share his political beliefs, which were always along the line of, “government never helps, it just screws things up”…”it was real men who built this country and they didn’t need the government’s help to do it”.

If he truly believed that, why go into business with the government…because the guy’s a self-serving hypocrite. He got to play out his childhood fantasy of being a vid game king, and now a 1000 small creditors are left holding the bag. Just like the casino operators on Wall Street, it’s all someone else’s fault…this time the governor’s.

What’s this 2004 quote he’s talking about?

It’s sadder still because the ‘self-made man’ of history is apocryphal at best.  Corporations and large scale business ventures have almost universally benefited from some sort of government aid or consideration since the foundation of our nation.  When someone claims it was ‘real men’ who built this country ask for examples.  There are plenty examples to the contrary, a country-wide railroad network built on government grants, free or reduced cost land to homesteaders, government funding of canal systems in favoritism of particular entrepreneurs, tariff acts to protect certain businesses from foreign goods, government investment in agricultural science and subsidizing of certain crops, Reconstruction subsidies, and the list continues.

Anyone who thinks that before the New Deal there was no government aid is ignorant at best.  If they don’t agree with government aid, that’s one thing, but to claim the government never aided anyone in previous centuries and that every successful person was simply a hard worker is absurd.  That more than anything else bothers me to no end, the government has always played a role in the private sector.  Don’t like it, fine, but you can’t deny it as it happened.

Another “conservative” bloviating blowhard. And, wow, he really looms large in his own legend. Hilarious how he pretends to be humble by pretending to take responsibility for his mistakes, yet forgets to mention, among many others, that he fired his employees by EMAIL! 

What a self-aggrandizing douche. Also, he tries to make himself out as so brave for facing a lifestyle that will remain about a thousand times better than the average American. 

Ah, la fin d’une semaine agitée est enfin arrivé! abercrombie paris  l’ai verrouiller les portes sur un bureau encombré encore, mon esprit vagabonde vers les choses qui demandent mon attention ce week-end. Il me tarde de tout échapper aux voix exigeants … échapper aux eaux du lac à travers la ville. Ce serait comme le ciel à plop moi sur le siège arrière d’un bateau, et de regarder la chute de mouettes et de plongée comme les vagues bercer me calme pour dormir. Yep, je peux presque entendre le bruit de leur éclaboussures lorsque le cliquetis de métal prévient moi sur le fait que j’ai laissé tomber mes clés.

wake up nitwit

va te faire foutre , grenouille

Big deal. It sucks that the tax payers are on the hook, but at least Schilling borrowed 70 Mil with 30 already in. At least it wasn’t one of these “Green” companies that just get the money handed to them because they are politically connected…