This morning before I left for work, we had on Good Morning America. And on it, they were talking about a man who had been signed to a team, baseball, for 13 years for $325 million dollars. What??? I wasn't sure if I had heard that correctly, and again, they said it, $325 million dollars to play a game for entertainment. Then, they talked about some other players who had also signed large contracts in the last few years, including one that stood out to me. A-Rod. He was signed to the Yankees for however long for $200+ million dollars. He was found to be using performance enhancing drugs and had been suspended this past season. With pay. How is that possible I wondered. Why would a player who knows the rules and clearly broke them, be paid to not play. At the end of that segment, Robin said, "Good for him." Like this was some sort of major accomplishment to be the highest paid player of all time. It didn't make sense to me.
Thomas and I talked about this the whole way to work. What the hell is wrong with this picture? With these salaries going up and prices rising for tickets, I don't understand how we as a country can afford to do this. There is much talk about how our economy is in the shit can, but I don't believe that. We pay people to entertain us for nearly a billion dollars a year in salaries for these teams. Cheap seats at the events usually run about $200 a seat and they are still selling out stadiums. Wow, that's a lot of money to be spending for the people who can't afford it. We pay in the billions of dollars in movie entertainment every year. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing the next Hunger Games as well as the last Hobbit movie, but, so are a lot of people. We still have lines at Starbucks in the morning and all little coffee shops for that matter. We are so worried about having everything that we could possibly want that we are forgetting that we are in a bad economy.
With all this money that is being spent, I am still unnerved by those who don't want to raise the minimum wage, saying that it's only the uneducated people who make minimum wage and they don't deserve to make any more than that. Wow, that's a bold statement. I know that where I live, there are many companies whose secretaries only make minimum wage. What about the paralegal who does all the research for an attorney who only makes $9.00 a hour so her boss can charge $250 an hour. Hardly seems fair to me. There are millions of people who make only the minimum in our country. They aren't uneducated and they certainly aren't all working for McDonald's. Now I do see how this could affect the small businesses' of our country. Some can only barely afford to pay the small amount of help that they have. That would be terrible if those had to be let go because their employer can't afford to keep them, but I think that isn't going to be the whole case. Now, we have large, billion dollar companies who say that paying their employees enough money to be able to pay for their rent and food will make the prices of their product go up, and I don't believe that. It would mean a loss in profit for these companies. Oh wow, so instead of only making 12 billion dollars like we had projected for the year, we will only make 9 billion. That would be tragic I'm sure. Poor you, CEO of multi-billion dollar company who won't have the 12 million dollar bonus at the end of the year... you will only get 6 million. Yep, I see how terrible that would be for the economy.
Then there is still the issue with our healthcare. Last night, a friend came over and was telling us that he went online to the healthcare.gov website and found a plan that would be only $282 a month. Wow, that doesn't sound unreasonable. But wait, the deductible is $10,000. So how is that affordable? I mean the whole idea of having insurance is to give us coverage, but when you have to met the deductible, you're paying for the whole visit anyway. What about those who don't really have health problems and only get sick once or twice a year? I have heard time and time again, this is Obama's fault, and I have to tell you, that's not the case. True he did make it required, but, the healthcare and insurance companies are the one's who say how much your plans will be. They are one's who set prices and make the decisions. It wasn't Obama who told the insurance companies that they could charge whatever they charge. It's easy to blame the one came up with this. I know, there are many who do, but, he didn't set the parameters for it.
During our drive, we also talked about how there are many Republican governors who are trying to get rid of unions. They have been heard saying that it's bad for our economy, and they go after the teachers unions and the firefighter and police unions. The steelworkers unions and coal miners unions have all been targeted. What strikes me as strange, why aren't they going after the player's unions, like NFL and the baseball players union and the basketball unions? Oh wait, it's because they bring in so much money in taxes for the city, county, state that they are in with each game. What if they strike, we can't have that, do you know how much money they would lose in tax revenue for those games that aren't being played? Once again, it's in the millions. We can't lose that money.
Do I say these things because I'm poor and I have nothing better to do? Well, I am living with my parents and we have been trying to save money on the meager salary I do make as well as Thomas's income, and yes, I live below the poverty line. It's not easy, and I will be glad when we have our own place again. But I don't say these things for that reason. I say them because I see a problem with this and I have no way to doing anything about it, except for being the one who says something about it. I don't see players standing up and saying that's way too much money for me to make for entertaining people. I don't see the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield saying we should be helping people, not making it harder for them. I certainly don't see any actors saying wait, it's a movie, it's nothing big like saving a life. Nope, and you won't see it. You don't see the officer who talks the person off a bridge get a reward or a bonus for that. You see him treated like shit, because he/she wears that uniform. You don't see the firefighter who saved the kitten from a burning house get anything special from that act of heroism. You see him as someone who was just doing his job, and he doesn't deserve anything special from it. Yet, they are ones who deserve that bonus. They put their life on the line to save others daily and they get nothing, not even death benefits for spouses or pensions.
We have such a skewed idea of who deserves to be treated like royalty, and who actually is. It's a sad sad thing for me to see. There are so many who have put their life on the line for others and will never get due recognition yet, we see those who are really good at playing a game, or acting and we see them as some sort of group of demi-gods, who are above the rest of us. They make up such a small few that it's strange we don't do anything about it. Greed has taken over our world and turned it into a place that I don't want to raise my daughter in. But I will. And I will not let this defeat me, it's just something that I don't understand, but I will continue to try to raise awareness of it. Just sitting here, writing, hoping others will feel the same way and maybe, just maybe, we can make this a better place for our kids. That is all... :)
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