I am going to try this one more time/other post disappeared: I finished reading my friend, Dwindy1's post about where the money is going to come from in the future. I wish to expand and expound on HIS post.....true, things have gotten out of hand...........can we afford to go to the games, even watch them on the telly anymore??
The saying "money is the root of all evil" is always given for the reason for all ills....BUT even this is misquoted. The quote should be and is "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil". I have always believed this quote came from the Bible and came from Jesus..............I don't know anymore, but I do believe even this is wrong; it should state "GREED IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL". Greed is not love, it is never being satisfied with what one has, whether it be love, money, land, autos or any other material possessions.....humans always have and always will want more.....danm the cost!!
Prime exanmple of this GREED is the salaries paid and demanded by professional athletes. Wide Receivers and Quarterbacks, Pitchers and Hitters, Point Guards and Power Forwards receive more money than the Gross National Product of some nations. Since Free Agency it has gotten completely out of hand; salaries have gone from "next to nothing" to "Oh my God, he is being paid what!?". Another example is the amounts of money being thrown a draft picks, who have never even played a quarter, an inning or a period. Look at Atlanta's recent pick...Ryan might be the highest paid QB who hasn't done nothing yet....at least til next draft. Course, one can't totally blame playerseither...all the owners are complicit in this also.....they are always bidding and outbidding each other for the talents of the players they think will be the ones to lead them to victory, damn the cost!!
I have no real problem with Free Agency as a rule.....previous to it players received the least the owners could pay............most were real cheapskates in all areas. Now, most owners seem to have more money than brains, or, they find a way to pass the costs on to us, the fans, one way or another. Try to get a cheap hotdog and a beer at any stadium in the Nation; just try!! Add in the prices of the various clothing items we buy under the au####es of the MLB, NFL, NBA or the NHL!! You see where this is leading??
Point is, can we blame the players?? Yes and no. It is human nature to be greedy...we want what others have, no, that is not true; we want more than what the others have. Keeping up with the Joneses is a human past-time, from the lowiest illegal alien strawberry picker in California to the highest paid CEO in a New York City Boardroom. Greed has led to the majority of most wars, also the world expansion of the human race.
Witness the "discovery" of the New World by Columbus. He was searching for a sea route to the East Indies so that he and the King and Queen of Spain could profit from the ####e Trade. We all know that Columbus died broke, but Spain, after gold was found in the Americas became wealthy....greed killed off the Incas and Aztecs eventually. Then the French and English became jealous of Spain's wealth, we know the outcome of that....eventually. Even the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia was brought about by greed, the Virginia Company was hoping to find gold, thus profiting mightily,
So, you see, GREED is the root of all evil....human nature has brought us to the point that we can't even afford ourselves.....it affects us all, from the price of gasoline to the price of the strawberries picked by that lowly illegal alien in California.
Hello.....that's my opinion.......Why always blame the players, who wouldn't give to make what the pros are making? Why do we keep buying lottery tickets and gambling? We want more and more.....we are greedy!
fuzz, I sure do agree with you here. Greed for money and material possessions seems to be "all the rage" in this day and time. I've seen people that do volunteer work and live on meager means be criticized as lazy because they are not concerned with material wealth. Stange world we live in now days.
I dont blame a man for getting his, but there has to be rhyme with reason. Dont seem to see it any more. The country is going to hell, but we still got sports! Cant afford to go to a game, but I still got a TV!!!
fuzzboss
As the great Gordon Gekko said from the movie Wall St ...... greed is good it's what set this nation apart from all others ....
Suffice to say that until corporations in any form actually think about anything other than the bottom line they'll be forever seen as nothing more than the inherent problem behind the country's ills.
Be it politically or economically.
And there's no one man who exemplifies greed more than Rex W Tillerson of Exxon Mobil.
If in our own way we can't stop obsessing with materialism and show some concern for our fellow human beings then it doesn't set us apart. If anything it just emboldens us just to carry on as we are.
Cboy: Thanks for coming by. Agreed....reason has gone the way of the dinosaurs-extinct! How much money can one person, even one family, spend? Reason "our" country was settled was greed, then living room. By killing off Native Americans, we attained that, now what?
Justan/Top: Thanks for coming by.......how much is too much?? So far the corporations and their leaders haven't found out yet...What happens when the bottom falls out of everything because no one can afford anything?
Fuzz you already know how I feel about Greed But I cant be mad at them its (our / fans) fault they can get that kind of money if everyone stopped going to games and stopped watching it on tv things would change in a heartbeat but you and I know its never going to get any better probably just get worse to the point only the rich will be able to go to a game .
I enjoyed reading your take... I've got to say that I believe there will come a point, one way or another, where the upward spiral will be broken. I base that on the nature of things. Everything on this earth is cyclical. How long it takes to complete the cycle is the question. In our experience there have been times when people were afraid the economy was going to collapse and yet something happened that made it possible to avoid that outcome. I'm thinking we are being shoved to the brink of a collapse once again. Is there something that will head this off again? If so, we'll continue to spiral upward and the cycle will be longer. If not, it might not be a pretty picture, and I'm not just talking about sports...
News just said oil hit another record today. When is this news? This is everyday. On the plus side...Hell, there aint no plus side!!! Dwindy: Im with you on this.....
Kelly: Thanx for coming by. I dunno...watching sports on TV is different, I think. ourse ads pay for it all, in hopes that we'll buy the product, so......
Lets do it!...Saw a funny sight...Huge biker wearing a ton of leather covered with tatoos...On a Vespa!!! The dudes belly was bigger than the scooter! LMAO!!!!!....But he was getting 100 MPG!..Wonder who was laughing at who??
JW: Thanx my friend. That may be the only answer, but we do need the products that are adverised on the telly, so........I wonder........if everyone boycotts the games, would that have an impact? Same thing....drive less, purchase less, make do.
Dman!! Thanks for coming by and reading. Your post gave me the idea, so thanks for that too!
Wonder when it will end, more importantly how will it end? I think we should bite the bullet and boycott what we can...drive less, buy less (and buy ony American when possible), find other means of entertaining ourselves....wishful thinking??? Probably. Thanks again.
Cboy....news says that Missouri has the "cheapest" gasoline of all the states....California is the highest.....Makes no sense, but Pgh area went over 4 dollars today; ours remained at 3.89 for the most part....tomorrow?????
Fuzz: $3.86 down the road a bit. On the freeway its $3.89..It will be 4 here by weekend..Hide and watch!!! And it will keep going up as long as we pay it, but how do I get to work? Fly in my jump-jet???
I think it is time for no recreational driving....I wonder what would happen to the "powers that be" if no one went to work for one week. with or without pay, without pay would be better cause of taxes lost. About half of our fuel cost here are taxes, Federal and State.
fuzzboss
It'll never be enough until something drastic has to happen.
Hell we're in the midst of a fabricated pretext for a war that now has become anomaly as to what this administration has been about right from the friggin' start a sham !
I've just also found out that my brother's platoon whilst out on patrol came under attack and he lost three of his comrades. With another three of 'em injured. So someone tell me why the f*#k are we still there ? It's not as if we've done anything to improve the way of life for the Iraqi's and at the same time what the hell have we to show for it ? When someone can give me a clear and concise answer without any of the bulls*it that this bunch of morons are trying to lay on us is ridiculous.
Although I support the troops...I don't support the war...there was never an exit strategy....no strategy of what to do when Sadam was gone.no strategy as to governing the country. No one, NO ONE, read the history of this region....These countrie were formed with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire following WW I,mostly by the British. There is a passage in "Lawrence of Arabia" that speaks to this issue....countries were formed without factoring in tribal "homelands". The British tried to maintain order for years and gave up......Bush and his "advisors" think things changed.....HAH!
Further, I think Bush was led down the proverbial "garden path" into this thing and had to now espouse things untrue to sort of "save face" for not only himself, but his administration. Bad war....actually is Sunni's against Shittes...been so since..........
Same bull happened in Yugoslovia with the death of Tito...no strong leader....no control equaled Bosnia, Albania..etc and "ethnic cleansing".
Fuzz along with the greed comes a loss of perspective by the rest of us. Our good friend Half baked pointed out in one of his blogs that a player was playing for a seemingly paltry salarey of 2.5 million. Sounds like peanuts until you figure as a normal worker with a good paying job of 50k a year you will work for 50 years to make that amount. Perspective is everything.
qoutdaddy! Thanks for the visit...You are right, we do tend to lose that. When compared to higher amounts, seems someone not making the huge money is being "cheated". I could take a million and live comfortably the rest of my life....
Buying scooters is a good way to save gas but you put your life in danger with sharing the roads with the Soccer moms in their Gas Guzzling SUVs.
Back in the late 80s or early 90s I once made a statement about the crazy salaries the pro ball players were starting to demand. " The only way they deserved that kind of salary was if they could walk on water and raise the dead" .Then it was only a million or two.
Today I would think they deserve that kind of salary if they could create another universe, Raise the dead and walk on water. Only God and Jesus can do that so they don't deserve that kind of money under any circumstance.
The other problem is playing ball is probably the only thing they can do. If they had to work like the rest of us saps, we would probably end up supporting them on welfare.
We are in that quagmire for an ideaology that the US and its allies can be the policemen of the world. Not so. You would think we learned that lesson in Vietnam. Didn't happen.
It would be nice if we took over Iraq for the oil but that did not happen. If you look back in history (and Fuzz is the master in that category), this area has been at war with each other since the beginning of mankind. Nothing we can do or say will ever stop it. No use wasting our troops or resources any more.
The only possibility will be at the end of the Tribulation and that will be for only a thousand years.
Photogr! Thanks for the read. Really appreciate it. Many ways to save gas....biggest is just slow down. Instead of 70, do 60. Course I feel that the price increases are being artificially generated......produced at the wellhead, sweet crude is something like 50 dollars a barrel. Same as the "oil shortage" of the 70's, which I remember vividly....while anchored out in the bay near Bayonne, N.J. were at least ten Supertankers at any one time. Also, thanks for the props about the history....have read a lot of it over the years, course the wife says a lot of it I was there at the creation of it!!
Tribes of Arabs, Hebrews, Huns, Africans have been battling each other and others since time began.....they will never "peacefully" coexist unless forced to; an outside force cannot effectively do it......At least with Saddam there was no civil war......course he was a brutal heathen....killing any opposition (much like we did with the American Indians)....go figure, who is right?
And you are right....I'd gladly pay a ball player that high salary when he creates an alternate universe that is as clean as this one used to be, he would not be even required to walk on water.
Thanx again.
Mr Fuzzboss I have a hypothetical question for you. I'm not saying that's how it should be or that it could be worked out to be like that but let's just say that players made from 100,000.00 to 1 million a year. Under whatever conditions. Let's just say the NBA was no profit.
Now do you think the players would play any less hard or be any lazier than some do and are right now? I don't. Some would still strive to win titles because that's who they are and some would just use God given talent to get by.
They always say "money can't buy ya happiness.."..I always say "Iffit can't..ya musta been a mizerable sob fromda git-go.."
Not to nit-pick or play semantics..but it still comes down to money bein' da "root" of all evil...as you said fuzz, "how much money does a person need"..?
photogr
That's what tends to happen when you've got so called experts that couldn't lace their own damn shoes. But they're telling us what's best for a country that they have no knowledge of. Let alone the probitive value of this act of wantoned futility that've cost the lives hundreds of thousands.
Nique: Thanks for visiting.....I agree with your idea.....some still play for "the love of the game", many do not. Ones in it for the money will probably just do enough....same as everybody.
Stevoin! My man......nit picking allowed. Give me a MILLION and I'll live more comfortably than I ever have....but, that's just me......Just don't understand SOME people, I mean...how much is too much? Jay Leno's autos, Exxon-Mobile's profit margin.....course shareholders need money too! Ah well....it will never end.....sports is just a micro-organism of what is occuring in the whole world.
It's funny, but you know that Greed does feed from need............Does anyone remember the crazy offers that were being given to the IT (Information Technology) guys just before Y2K? To save corporate America when we thought the systems were going to crash.
One IT person in particular showed me a want ad that offered a BMW as a signing bonus........LOL!
EQ! Thanks for reading! I think it was worth saying.....I know nothing will change cause everyone has the same "need". I kinda remember people looking for techs to save the computers too......I wonder if the bubble bursts, will the greeders get burned......probably not, but the rest of us poor saps will......Thanks again.
I am an old #### living in Southwestern Pennsylvania, about 60 miles or so southwest of Pittsburgh. AND I MEAN AN OLD ####!! Served over 35 years in Law Enforcement as a Police and Corrections' Officer.
.JPG)
