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" I'm not aware of any fast food franchises who's facilities are subsides by US dollars. But, in this day and age, I could be wrong . . ."

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? It's still a lot more than the whopper flopper will ever make.

Williams nails it again. Jordan is rewarded by the market for his talent. So was Ray Kroc. How many Jordans and Krocs are there? Not many or they wouldn't earn what they earn.

Supply and demand determine prices. Librarians are among the most chronically unhappy and cranky professional group I have ever encountered. The reason is that while librarians are highly educated and have mastered some arcane skills there is little demand for their services and they therefore tend to be very poorly paid.

Baseball players, by contrast, have skills that are extremely rare and are in high demand. Very few men can hit a major league curveball. In the total scheme of things it is a trivial skill but it is nevertheless very rare.

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.