From whence comes income? (Walter Williams)

Town Hall ^ | 04/23/03 | Walter Williams

[larryjohnson]

Consumers like you and me pay sports salaries by buying products advertised on TV games. Williams remembers the good old days when box office was king.

[Badray]

Those were only rhetorical questions, but thanks for the thoughtful reply.

In my own situation,. . . Well, we won't go there. I don't know who is monitoring these threads. hehehe

[JimRed]

I can play basketball, but my problem is with my fellow man, who'd plunk down $200 to see Jordan play and wouldn't pay a dollar to see me play. I'm also willing to sell my name as endorsements for sneakers and sport clothing, but no one has approached me.

Walter, God bless you; I'll gladly pay $10 for a best of 3 one-on-one with you! Now, I am a little younger, not 60 yet; and I did quit the smokes years ago.

I think maybe we could get folks to buy tix to watch us geezers sweat and pant if we can I.D. a good cause to support. Open to suggestions!

[T Lady]

It's rather obvious the letter writer in Dr. Williams' column is a graduate of the Democrat Socialist School Of Redistribution Of Wealth, having earned his Ph.D. in Classical Whining.

-Regards, T.

[geedee]

I'm currently reading Sowell's "Economics" for the economicaly impaired.

Please let me know what you think of the book. I've been looking for a "simple" economics manual so I can duke it out with some "liberal arts-obsessed libber-friends" of mine in a language they understand. They've been feeding at the "steal from the rich" and give to the poor trough for decades and we never talk the same language.

[Ciexyz]

I volunteer in a library and I regard it as a pleasant little refuge from the stress of the world. Librarians work among books in an atmosphere they obviously love. They aren't out in the cutthroat atmosphere of the corporate workplace, therefore they don't merit the same level of compensation.

Sorry to those librarians who feel they're highly educated but underpaid. THat's how the working world functions.

[pupdog]

As could I, but I believe that Mickey D is one of the largest beneficiaries of government largess, particularly in it's overseas operations. But beyond that, even if there were no subsidies to sports, what would Jordan make? Only $30 Million? Or $15 Million?

I don't know the exact answer myself, but I don't think this is a minor concern at all. Let me use another sports example to show.

Dave Winfield was baseball's first "Million Dollar Man" in (about) 1980. It's now 2003, and the top salary is, what, $35M/year? I think that's about with ARod makes, yes? Now, I haven't done the extremely rigorous analysis necessary to analyze what an equivalent 23-year translation would be, but just based on my scanning of possible factors (inflation, crowd sizes, advertising deals, media deals, etc), these current numbers aren't even close. Unless someone can present me with a good mathematical analysis to the contrary, current salaries are way beyond what we should expect to see if unrestrained market forces were the only determinant.

The problem here is that when this happens, people point at the free market as being the problem. We know that it isn't, and that it's the lack of one that is. But because these government-enforced unfairnesses continue (again, we're talking subsidies and other things created by the state, not any wealth-sharing BS), the philosophical foundation of the free market becomes undermined, and the problem deepens.

What I'd really like to see of conservatives is to see more time and energy spent on fighting against these state privileges. If we spent as much good time and energy on that as we (rightly) do fighting the left, I think we'd be in a much better position than we are now, and wouldn't have to worry about callers like the ones Walter mentions who, although their solution is wrong, and their biases off the mark, do still have a point.

[pupdog]

My mistake. Substitute "letter writers" for "callers".

[ggekko]

I was worried; I thought you might have been a librarian.

[Nat Turner]

I finished that book and its why they (the LIBS)HAVE to control the media and education system....

[kylaka]

Oh, Sowell's book is about as simple as it gets, and he wrote it that way purposely. I'm 3/4 done. Its taking me longer than usual, (I would normally knock off a book like that in 2 days), because I'm committing portions of it to memory. I read some chapters three times. When I'm done, I'll probably do it again in 6 months.

And if you haven't already read it, I highly recommend "BIAS", by Bernie Goldberg. Its an easy read, dead on, and funny as a bonus. I thought it a bit expensive ($25 in paperback) so I got it from the library. Bernie sticks it to Dan Rather bigtime, and gets the rest of the liberal press pretty good. He makes a pretty good case that Television media news takes its lead from the NY Times.

[geedee]

Thanks, I'll do that. I've heard a lot about Bias but I haven't read it yet.

[Badray]

You are right. There are so many battles on so many fronts. Too bad that the sheep will never bother to look past what they are told to see the real truth. The market will do it's job if enencumbered by government and other artificial forces (unions). If a ball player can earn $30 million a year, God bless 'em. What I object to is the team owner coming to me through the force of government to subsidize his payroll. That's why I no longer support any of the sports teams in town. They will never get a dime out of me again.

[Badray]

Nah, not me. Although I do have quite an extensive library of my own.