Do athletes make too much?

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Gracious Warrior

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This past weekend I was hanging out in Seattle visiting my sister. She took me all around the city sightseeing, eating, drinking, and all manner of other activities.

One of the things that struck me hard was the extent of the homeless situation in the heart of the city. For people who live in Seattle it's probably something they've become accustomed to. But to someone like me, coming from a relatively suburban part of New Jersey, the depth of Seattle's homeless problem was jarring and troubling.

One of the things that it made me think about was how much resources our society invests in frivolous things, sports being one of the big ones.

There are 10s of thousands of athletes in our country making millions of dollars essentially playing adolescent games.

I realize that the money that is directed Into sports is simply the result of free markets and people making personal decisions with their own money. And that's great.

But it still makes me wonder if our priorities as a society are messed up. We invest in child's games to the extent that the participants of these games get to live like royalty, while some of the biggest cities in our country are overflowing with homeless and starving people.

Maybe we can do better? Or maybe not?

I don't know. But I hope things get better in the future. The richest country in the history of the world should not have so many people in the streets living hopeless and destitute lives
 
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I agree that the US of A doesn't take good care of their poor tho,
If you don't like it, come to Canada where we are taxed to the gills.
 
Yes, I honestly we should pay you more for pointing that out to us. How about double?

 
Athletes are entertaining though. And we love to spend money on entertainment.

The solution of course was to have the homeless become entertainment. The bumfights creator was on the right track. We pay tons of money to watch athletes punch each other, yet we deny that opportunity to those who need the money the most by making bumfights illegal. Sad.

mmj3ewomsqe71.jpg
 
the real problem is both drugs, and the breaking down of the family. i think most homeless are either druggies, or didn't have family to help/support them.
 
on a side note, I figured out recently that there are videogamers who are millionaires. There are people who upload videogame walk-throughs on Youtube that are making crazy amounts of money.

I was playing through Batman, got stuck, found a guy with a walk-through that had 1.6 million subscribers. His vids have no commentary and each vid gets hundreds of thousands of views. This guy is making a killing just playing videogames. He might even be some 12 year old kid, who knows...
 
no they don't

they play in leagues that make mad revenu and since they are the product they deserve the biggest chunk of the pie

if you wanna be an athlete, don't be a fat blob
 
Absolutely beyond question.
Their value to society is not anywhere remotely close to what they make.

They'll be a million people rushing in to proclaim either:
  • "Of course they're worth it. You're worth whatever you can get. Supply and demand, yo."
  • "What, do you want to be like 1960 Communist Russia? Is that what you want?
Both are depressingly dim thinking.

The second claim makes the absurd insinuation that being like 2021 USA or 1960 Russia are the only options available. They most certainly are not.

The first statement is circular reasoning, completely devoid of any imagination.
Yes, our current economic system leads to top major sport athletes receiving astronomic pay. That doesn't mean everything the system does is good and right. On the contrary, it's one of many obvious, huge flaws in the system.
 
"Aint talking about rich, I'm talkin bout wealth. Shaq is rich, but the guy who signed his paycheque is wealthy"

-Chris Rock
 
VulcanNervPinch said:
Absolutely beyond question.
Their value to society is not anywhere remotely close to what they make.

They'll be a million people rushing in to proclaim either:
  • "Of course they're worth it. You're worth whatever you can get. Supply and demand, yo."
  • "What, do you want to be like 1960 Communist Russia? Is that what you want?
Both are depressingly dim thinking.

The second claim makes the absurd insinuation that being like 2021 USA or 1960 Russia are the only options available. They most certainly are not.

The first statement is circular reasoning, completely devoid of any imagination.
Yes, our current economic system leads to top major sport athletes receiving astronomic pay. That doesn't mean everything the system does is good and right. On the contrary, it's one of many obvious, huge flaws in the system.
Click to expand...
019cfa0c-cf28-4439-b354-6b214fd83aed-aoc_met_gala.jpg
 
Rygu said:
"Aint talking about rich, I'm talkin bout wealth. Shaq is rich, but the guy who signed his paycheque is wealthy"

-Chris Rock
Click to expand...

It's nearly impossible to effectively tax wealth as most of it isn't liquid, it's stocks and properties etc.

You can however tax income and the US doesn't tax it's highly paid anywhere near what the rest of the world does.
 
i really don't understand the argument for athletes making too much money. no one is being forced to pay the athletes the amount of money they make. they have appealed to the public, and the public have decided to put their money into sports. nothing wrong with that. people want to be entertained, and will pay money for it. it's no different than video games, porn, or other interests people have, that may not be, "beneficial" to society.
 
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