Breads and Circuses
So I’m sitting here having lunch on a business trip (in Indianapolis…nice little city) and I see on tv that an NBA player just signed an extension for $270M, 5 years.
How in the hell did we get to this point where guys who dribble a basketball get paid in portions of billion$? I don’t blame this kid. But how?
How in the hell did we get to this point where guys who dribble a basketball get paid in portions of billion$? I don’t blame this kid. But how?
But the same goes for those who pretend to be someone else in movies or on tv. Does this really contribute any productivity to our society?
Meanwhile our schoolteachers and veterans are barely scraping by. The things our society values really leave me scratching my head.
The reasoning goes something like this: these people help produce entertainment. Some of them attract more paying customers than others. Hence, there is supply, demand and quality. The business manager hiring them has to make a calculation regarding their salary. I guess they calculated that this particular player is worth that much to them.
People pay for entertainment because it helps them relax and take their mind off things. This increases the productivity of their work time because they had leisure. If they didn't entertain themselves, they may have had depression which would cause them to have less productivity. So, society is winning by having entertainment around.
Teachers don't have much of an impact. They teach a class of 20 or so people per hour. Compare that to the number of people that are affected by an NBA player or a movie actor. Obviously, the latter would have much greater impact and therefore value. Also, the supply of teachers is pretty much infinite but there are only so many popular NBA players and movie actors that people want to see play.
There is no free market for veterans, so, you will need to get rid of the state before those people get paid fairly for their work.
I agree, NBA players and actors should be dirt cheap due to the stupidity of what they do, but for some reason the masses are irrational and decided that they want to have those person in particular entertain them.
I know that my monetary contributions to professional sports and Hollywood are insignificant, but it is what I can do on an individual basis.
i do not understand how people sit and watch this crap
cheering as it they somehow have "ownership" into what some team of over-paid traitors are doing
i do not and never will understand
When the state takes from the productive and gives to the unproductive (presumably ones wanting the non-constructive entertainment), also known as wealth redistribution, the state creates natural selection pressure against the productive and in favor of the unproductive. Without the state, the unproductive may have gone bankrupt and died off or changed their ways, but with the support of the state they are able to prosper and increase in number.
Hence we can observe the apparent inexplicable waste of resources.
You said stuffed shirt politicians without saying useless blobs of sh!t a single time!
The political class rewards their garbage behavior with ridiculous benefits, then tax any progress we may have made in the PRIVATE SECTOR to pay for their GREED AND POWER OVER WE, THE PEOPLE.!
I can’t wrap my head around it. Does our society think this kid’s contribution is worth 100+ times more than my contribution? WTF? We’re talking 4+ generations of wealth. For dribbling a damn ball?!
My wife is a Nursing professor. There is little less competent than the operation of a modern college or university. Being an business executive and seeing what they do, is like being a professional athlete and watching fat smokers in electric carts cruising around Walmart, and then getting in a car with a "Union Proud" bumper sticker.
66 years ago(1958) my HS labs had equipment from the 1920s amd1930s, but my football gear was brand new! School supporters seem more interested in producing a few atheletes rather than educating for life. It really has not changed much.
Too true!
the priorities of our society are really, really f-ed up
I would like to have seen the negotiations with his agent. They were probably talking in whole millions, like handling poker chips, not even treating them as divisible.
Worse yet are college athletics, where a well-rounded person has no chance of participating, and are anything but amateur.
Owner's Ego. And it only had to happen one time.
Owner #1 (who has a crapload of money) wants a player (sport doesn't matter) and Owner #2 (who also has a crapload of money) has an ego that can't handle being outdone, so #2 ups the bid. Now #1 has his jockeys in a bind, so he ups the bid. Back and forth it goes until eventually one of the two owners blinks, and viola, the floor has been set. All future negotiations will use this transaction as a starting point.
Media advertising promotes this rubbish instead of promoting productive activities.
Pro basketball is even more boring than golf for spectators.
JMHO
On the flip-side, major events can bring people together but that isn't the goal.
Perhaps if people were encouraged to find something they do well and enjoy that instead ...
(Heading for my electronics bench to build an prototype integrated amp now.;^)
i've always wondered why some make it, some do not as i do not always see much of a difference
same with actors.
Next, we have the Economic concept of RENT. he is getting paid to ATTACH HIS NAME to an organization (he is collecting RENT).
Through hyper specialization of skills. Those will specific skills can ask for a huge premium.
Unfortunately, this is evidenced by the price of tickets simply skyrocketing.
The "fanatics" (fans) are funding it. The companies are "financing" it, so they can compete. This is an inversion of interest rates going down, helping mortgages and home sellers.
In this case, they struck a 5yr deal. It makes it sound bigger. And that raises the bar for the next big name.
funny how "regenerative farmers" aren't offered that kind of gig... (because we have not found a way to wrap a multi billion dollar entertainment industry around it)
Never missed it once.
All I hear are complaints about the debauchery / Satanist programming and commercials.
I ask; why are you still watching?
My mom (R.I.P.) stopped watching "The Boob Tube" in 1980, she'd rather read a book, she saw it coming way back then.
Kill Your TV
It's for you're own good.