How about athletes and entertainers?
How about them? They don't steel there money, they get their money because of the demand for what they provide. Why should you get to cap their salary?
They should be paid less not because they are stealing their wages or because the current system allows them to earn that much, they should be paid less because the system doesn't need to pay them that much. If baseball player salaries are capped at (I don't know the number, say $150k), there will still be millions of athletes that will pursue the job. Same with singer, actor, entertainer, etc. Those jobs are extremelely pleasurable, so even if wages are cut the supply of athletes/artists won't be cut meaningfully. It may in fact be improved because we'd have entertainers pursuing their art more for love of the art than to make some dough.
Who doesn't want to play professional baseball?
And if athletes salaries are capped most of the savings would just go to the even richer owners (for other entertainers its similar if a bit more complex), or are you going to force price controls in addition to wage controls?
Admittedly, I haven't thought through the whole thing yet, but the basic idea if that entertainers and athletes don't need to be paid much, and we will still get quality sports and entertainment. In athletics, there could perhaps be price controls on events, something under monopoly laws since most people have one team to support in their area, and the owners could make their money based on their team winning. Each owner shares some kitty, but the teams that do well get more. As for entertainers, they can make their money in LIVE performances - anything digital (DVD, CD, etc.) should be free game and cost whatever the packaging costs.
These are just ideas, open for discusssion and improvement, but there must be some way to lower the cost of sporting events and entertainment, and maintain the quality of both, due to the huge supply of people willing to be athletes and entertainers, and the huge supply of rich dudes that want to own sports teams for the prestige factor. They don't NEED to get paid well, they will do it anyway. |
