Post by dg on Feb 16, 2009 11:24:29 GMT -5
Nearly everyone gets a bit riled each time congress votes themselves a raise; and I think they should. When one is put in trust of the people's money, spending should be prudent and performed with thrift. Since each member of congress is well compensated for service at many times the pay of the average citizen, pay raises there should be sparse and far between IMHO.
And people are finally starting to get riled at some company CEOs; and again I think they should. Many large corporation CEOs take in over 25 million dollars in total compensation each year (1500 times the pay of the average worker in that corporation). And the other board members are doing quite well too, thank you very much. Like congress, the leaders of big business are the wolves in charge of the hen house, and use and think of the company as their personal larder. They even reward themselves handsomely in bad times -- even if they have to let go of a few thousand employees to do it (and/or receive tax payer bail out money). Time for a change in big business management as well IMHO.
But who is yet getting riled about the pay to professional athletes (besides me)? Professional athletes in the big leagues are getting paid many millions per year just to play a game! So what if they are good at it. It's just a d**n game. Entertainment is where a lot of big money goes. Actors and athletes of fame are getting paid like CEOs just to entertain the masses. People are terribly upset that we are using 800 billion dollars to help fix the economy; but who is complaining about the thousands paid per family for satellite or cable subscription bills just to watch movies or sports events. And why is it that professional athletes need to be paid millions of dollars per year to do what college athletes nearly as good do nearly for free? I bet the big leagues would be nearly as good if pros were limited to $5,000 to $10,000 per week. Don't try to tell me that no one with any talent wouldn't play for the money because there are a lot of minor leagers out there playing for a lot less.
Actors too. In the last season of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, Ray Ramano was paid something like 2.5 million dollars per episode. First, I don't think he is all that talented as a comedian/actor. Second, half hour episodes are only 12 minutes long after subtracting over 15 minutes for commercials and 2 minutes for header and trailer. Give me a break! That's 12.5 million dollars per hour!!Does anyone want to tell me that if top actor pay were limited to $100,000.00 per hour that no one with talent would do it? How about only $100,000.00 per week? (I'd love to make that amount per year).
The only way to make these numbers start heading down is by being more responsible consumers. Refuse to pay more than $20 per seat to sit in some cold football stadium or noisey basketball gym to watch a bunch of overpaid athletes play a game. Refuse to pay more than twice worth for consessions (bring your own). Refuse to pay over $20 a month for cable or satellite tv service. Let's have some consumer strikes for a change! United we can make changes. What we need is a consumers union!
In the old days, workers had no voice in the big factories. They worked hard long hours in bad conditions for low wages while the owners got filthy rich. Then unions came along and changed that somewhat. For the first time, workers had a voice in how things would be done. As consumers, we are totally at the mercy of big business -- just like the workers before the unions. Right now it is pay through the nose or miss out on all the entertainment. Time to turn things around. We need a union to negotiate reasonable prices for what we consume. Enough with the sky-high performer pay and the astronomical owner income. TIME OUT! Time to form a consumers union and to begin downward negotiation to reasonable salaries and reasonable profits. And while we are at it, time to start reducing the time allotted per tv segment for commercial interruption of programming. If salaries head down, these can head down too.
Yesterday, I watched a sports cars shop on tv sell 5 (FIVE!!!!!!) very expensive luxury cars to one famous basketball player in one minute. Yes, that's what life is like for today's top sports pros. It made me sick! It proves that pay is way too high for pro athletes in the major sports activities. Time for change! We have too many people living on the streets for any of this kind of nonsense! How can people focus on the meaning of life when there is such disparity between the rich and the poor as to how that life is lived?
I vote for higher pay to consumers via lower pay to the rich and famous! Consider some numbers just to get a feel for this situation ....
The NFL has roughly 55 x 32 players making an approximate 7 billion dollars per year. If baseball and basketball are similar, that alone comes to over 20 billion per year. Bring in the owners and concessions, and you are probably up to at least 50-100 billion per year. Now imagine adding in the acting side of entertainment plus all of the minor sports and other sports (NASCAR) activities. Probably over a trillion dollars combined! So were we to cut all these outrageous salaries to one tenth current value (such that the poor NFL player only would make a mere $350,000.00 per season), we could save enough money EACH YEAR to pay back the one time $800 billion stimulus package intended to jump start the economy. We need to pay more attention as individuals as to how we spend our money; and we need to develop negotiating power as consumers in order to reverse current trends which have clearly gotten way out of hand.
dg
And people are finally starting to get riled at some company CEOs; and again I think they should. Many large corporation CEOs take in over 25 million dollars in total compensation each year (1500 times the pay of the average worker in that corporation). And the other board members are doing quite well too, thank you very much. Like congress, the leaders of big business are the wolves in charge of the hen house, and use and think of the company as their personal larder. They even reward themselves handsomely in bad times -- even if they have to let go of a few thousand employees to do it (and/or receive tax payer bail out money). Time for a change in big business management as well IMHO.
But who is yet getting riled about the pay to professional athletes (besides me)? Professional athletes in the big leagues are getting paid many millions per year just to play a game! So what if they are good at it. It's just a d**n game. Entertainment is where a lot of big money goes. Actors and athletes of fame are getting paid like CEOs just to entertain the masses. People are terribly upset that we are using 800 billion dollars to help fix the economy; but who is complaining about the thousands paid per family for satellite or cable subscription bills just to watch movies or sports events. And why is it that professional athletes need to be paid millions of dollars per year to do what college athletes nearly as good do nearly for free? I bet the big leagues would be nearly as good if pros were limited to $5,000 to $10,000 per week. Don't try to tell me that no one with any talent wouldn't play for the money because there are a lot of minor leagers out there playing for a lot less.
Actors too. In the last season of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, Ray Ramano was paid something like 2.5 million dollars per episode. First, I don't think he is all that talented as a comedian/actor. Second, half hour episodes are only 12 minutes long after subtracting over 15 minutes for commercials and 2 minutes for header and trailer. Give me a break! That's 12.5 million dollars per hour!!Does anyone want to tell me that if top actor pay were limited to $100,000.00 per hour that no one with talent would do it? How about only $100,000.00 per week? (I'd love to make that amount per year).
The only way to make these numbers start heading down is by being more responsible consumers. Refuse to pay more than $20 per seat to sit in some cold football stadium or noisey basketball gym to watch a bunch of overpaid athletes play a game. Refuse to pay more than twice worth for consessions (bring your own). Refuse to pay over $20 a month for cable or satellite tv service. Let's have some consumer strikes for a change! United we can make changes. What we need is a consumers union!
In the old days, workers had no voice in the big factories. They worked hard long hours in bad conditions for low wages while the owners got filthy rich. Then unions came along and changed that somewhat. For the first time, workers had a voice in how things would be done. As consumers, we are totally at the mercy of big business -- just like the workers before the unions. Right now it is pay through the nose or miss out on all the entertainment. Time to turn things around. We need a union to negotiate reasonable prices for what we consume. Enough with the sky-high performer pay and the astronomical owner income. TIME OUT! Time to form a consumers union and to begin downward negotiation to reasonable salaries and reasonable profits. And while we are at it, time to start reducing the time allotted per tv segment for commercial interruption of programming. If salaries head down, these can head down too.
Yesterday, I watched a sports cars shop on tv sell 5 (FIVE!!!!!!) very expensive luxury cars to one famous basketball player in one minute. Yes, that's what life is like for today's top sports pros. It made me sick! It proves that pay is way too high for pro athletes in the major sports activities. Time for change! We have too many people living on the streets for any of this kind of nonsense! How can people focus on the meaning of life when there is such disparity between the rich and the poor as to how that life is lived?
I vote for higher pay to consumers via lower pay to the rich and famous! Consider some numbers just to get a feel for this situation ....
The NFL has roughly 55 x 32 players making an approximate 7 billion dollars per year. If baseball and basketball are similar, that alone comes to over 20 billion per year. Bring in the owners and concessions, and you are probably up to at least 50-100 billion per year. Now imagine adding in the acting side of entertainment plus all of the minor sports and other sports (NASCAR) activities. Probably over a trillion dollars combined! So were we to cut all these outrageous salaries to one tenth current value (such that the poor NFL player only would make a mere $350,000.00 per season), we could save enough money EACH YEAR to pay back the one time $800 billion stimulus package intended to jump start the economy. We need to pay more attention as individuals as to how we spend our money; and we need to develop negotiating power as consumers in order to reverse current trends which have clearly gotten way out of hand.
dg
