I attended a baseball game last week at the still relatively new$1.3 billion Yankee Stadium, subsidized handsomely by taxpayers. Itincludes a Metro North rail station so people can get to the gamesmore conveniently. Across the Hudson, the brand new Jets-Giantsstadium, another billion-dollar-plus goliath, just opened with aspecial rail link for fans, connecting into the city paid for byyou know who. But coincidentally the New Jersey governor blocksconstruction of a new rail tunnel into the city which would serveeveryday commuters trying to earn a living.

In Michigan, the state university has just added 10,000 seatsand skyboxes to its football coliseum costing a quarter of abillion dollars, while nearby Detroit contemplates letting swathsof its debilitated urban core go back to seed. At the University ofFlorida, an institution not to be confused with any Ivy Leagueschool, the athletic director and his coaches have three privatejets at their disposal to help recruit player talent and thewomen's softball coach makes $250,000 a year. That’s all nice in astate where housing values have declined precipitously and thebiggest private employer runs a giant theme park. Meanwhile, citiesaround the country still pay off costs on stadiums dating from the1970s, which have been demolished and replaced by new taxpayersupported facilities.

At the same time, we note attendance for the MLB and the NFL isslipping and the most expensive seats go begging. Part of thereason is excessive ticket prices—do team owners realize we’re in2010 not 2007? But of course, that’s the problem. These stadiumswere conceived in the “anything goes” pre-housing bust times wherecheap debt and ever rising values could finance anything, includingour pleasure domes. Like recently completed condo towers and officebuildings, their economics let alone reason for existence has beenupended by now apparent realities. These stadiums will go down withHummers and McMansions as the most telling evidence of ourcollective sociological madness and the skewed priorities, whichhave put the U.S. in our monumental debt rut. Just spend andborrow, buy more and bigger, and distract yourself by payinghundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars to attend sportingevents, while the country ebbs into a sink hole of less.