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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (317153)	12/24/2006 7:46:46 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575916

re: But in the case where athletes are getting $2 million per year... How long is their career?

To: Elroy who wrote (317153)	12/27/2006 11:31:58 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1575916

Well, the government already forces well paid people to accept less than their pay via taxes. That's not exactly the same thing. Not that I'm happy about high income taxes, but taxes at least have the justification that they are needed if we aren't going to have anarchy. Reasonable, or even slightly unreasonable taxes go less in the direction towards totalitarianism then outlawing person A, to pay person B, over a certain amount. If a class of workers are getting paid significantly more than they require to do their job, there is waste in the system. To the extent that I even understand what you mean I believe I disagree. How is it waste? But in the case where athletes are getting $2 million per year and 99% of them would play for $200k per year Most of them don't play for all that much more than the $200k figure you mention. If you include minor leagues and lesser leagues (A, AA, AAA baseball, NBDL, IBL, ABA, WNBA, AHL, ECHL, UHL, CHL, NFL Europe) the average player makes less than $200k. If you just consider the majors, well a lot of players make minimum which is $477,000 in the NFL, 380k in baseball. It was 180K in the NFL but it recently was raised to 450k. And the NBA has a minimum of $398,762. Also remember a lot of players earning these minimums (and some earning a lot more) have very short careers, and many (esp. those with longer careers, and esp. in the NFL) pay for their time in the league with chronic debilitating injuries. But in the case where athletes are getting $2 million per year and 99% of them would play for $200k per year, it seems there is potential for some good old fashioned cost savings. Not (to the extent you want costs to be reduced) without violating both individual contracts and collectively bargained contracts. In any case I don't see any appropriate role for the government in forcing such cost savings at the expense of individual liberty. And even ignoring liberty and considering just economics wage and price controls rarely work out as well as their proponents think they will.