Fair is Fair

Major League Baseball made a major league mistake in its financial proposal to its players. They peeled back the rind covering their greedy fruit. The proposal was this: players with minimum salaries would keep about 47% of their original salaries this year while the multimillionaire stars would lose more than 77% under a sliding scale.

I'm going to make this very simple. This proposal is only fair if the owners (all multimillionaires) agree to reducing their net income by 77%. Unlike the players who would simply lose income, the owners would have to use the 77% to help our country during this pandemic.

And if they claim their 77% on their taxes as donations, then the players would have the equal right to claim their loss of income as a business loss.

I'm going to assume the owners of the other three major professional sports leagues will not make the same mistake baseball owners did, treating their WORKERS so shabbily.

The Last Dance    By Tom Meschery

     “We grow small trying to be great.”

             David Hockney

So what if it was the truth. I like my heroes in the sky where they belong

not down here mucking around on earth with the rest of us shmucks.

Remember Jordan lifting off behind the free-throw line, his tongue flapping,

to win the dunk contest? I swear to God, I nearly pissed myself. So do I really

give a shit if he was a martinet, or that he gambled stupidly, or that he needed

to blame teammates for his own failures as a human being? There are enough

knuckleheads in the world I don’t need another one. But, there sure as hell

are not enough heroes, already too many of them outed by the media

for their peccadilloes. I’m guessing David Hockney came to his conclusion

by looking into the universe, perhaps watching some distant star over-heating,

explode into fragments. That’s sort of the way I feel about Jordan now

after watching The Last Dance, breaking into the smaller components

of his life, becoming another same-o-same-o dude I encounter every day

crossing the street, dodging traffic, heading for the deli for a quick lunch

before back to work. You know, like the guy sitting at the desk next to me.   

What's Enough Wealth, Tom Brady?

This morning I read that Tom Brady is generously not costing the Tampa Bay Police Department whatever it takes to guard the waters around his 30,000 square foot mansion

Wow! I'm so impressed.

Which brings me to the subject of superfluous wealth. I'm betting there are a great number of Tom Brady's in the United States of America who are so rich, a 30,000 foot home seems, well, reasonable.
I'm thinking of a number of star athletes, and owners of teams. But rich athletes represent only a fraction of the uber rich in our country - all of whom, I dare say, live in comparable mansions.

I asked one astonishingly rich man once why he needed to live in a 40,000 square foot mansion. He had a wife and only two kids. His answer was, "I don't need to, I chose to." My incredulous silence prompted, "And because I earned my money and can do what I want with it."

Wow! I was so impressed.

This is the mindset of the Rex Rich, the 2% of the wealthy that control 98 % of our country's bucks.
It is sadly the mindset of most people who accumulate a great deal of money; they earned it, no one has a right to tell them how to spend it.

I'm not sure such a mindset will ever change, no matter what political party rules our country. Donald Trump and his greedy minions represents merely a more grotesque example of the superfluously wealthy.

But here's a hypothetical:  What would happen to Tom Brady and his  family if he had to live in a more modest dwelling, say around 5,000 square feet, in an ordinary gated (I can see the need for gated if you were a well known athlete) community, no lack of amenities, room in his backyard for a pool and patio. Perhaps not a tennis court. Would Tom Brady and family suffer greatly? And what if Tom Brady's mindset was a deep desire to use his wealth to help society? Over and above his tax write off foundation, all the wealth he really does not need for a happy, carefree life? And what if all uber wealthy professional athletes followed Tom Brady's lead?  And what would happen if all the other non-athletes of great wealth, follow the lead of the professional athletes? What if, for example, Bill Gates said, "I can live happily on four million dollars a year. And every bit of money I earn above that I'm going to spend on making our society a better more ethical place to live for all the people?

Wow! Then, I'd be really impressed.


Of what is truly important in a materialistic world, I offer to  all this small poem:

In the Mountains on a Summer Day

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

                        Li Po
                        Translated by Arthur Waley