Forum Post: What About with the Stratospheric Sallaries of Hollywood Actors and Pro Athletes?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 15, 2011, 8:16 p.m. EST by andy2007
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When we want a better and just society, I think it will be fair to complain about to the astronomic sallaries of many actors, actresses and pro athletes? What about the obscene salaries of pro athletes and "Hollywood people"? It is fair for society that many of them don't have have any education or any real talent? Why not complain and protest that???
These people are productive and earn their money through their talents. In the case of sports stars, they have a very limited lifespan at the top of their game. Actors too, often fade quickly - particularly starlets. They are paid highly because their works are seen by very large numbers of people, who each contribute a little.
A good chunk of finance though, is not a service. It's a game of extracting just a little bit of someone else's productivity over and over. Now, sure that's fine in the sense of an actual banker who assesses and makes loans to worthy people, and indeed even investors like Buffet who choose to place their equity over the long term with productive companies.
But trader's are essentially parasites who bet on herd movements. They pay themselves from their wins, and their clients lose from their losses. Hence the 'Heads I win, tails you lose' line.
These people argue that they create liquidity. So what? They're still only trying to game a system by buying something before someone else wants it. If you want sound investing, then you have to ensure that investments are made for the long term, and not for the next microsecond.
People will willingly pay a sports star or an actor for their services. The financial market tries to make sure you have no other choice.
Ideally, the tax code would be revised to discourage speculative trading and encourage investing. Investing is very important. It assigns capital to worthwhile businesses and it looks closely at balance sheets, income statements, and other factors. Traders just care about momentum and direction.
Instead of watching football on tv, go play a game with your neighbor. If you want to see a good drama go to your local universities play and buy indie films. Rome did the same thing of setting up icons to distract people from the fact they were little more than indentured servants. I think the gig may be up.
Lynch them too!
I don't recall anybody from the sports industry or Hollywood working hard to send American jobs to China and thereby destroy the middle class and the American Dream. Well unless you count Reagan of course.
i work in the "entertainment industry" and know some folks who work in sports. the mainstream media sensationalizes the salaries of actors and athletes (who, as myne pointed out well, have a very short work lifespan etc) to distract from the obscene salaries and profits of the corporations (and their CEOs) who are really the ones making the actual ridiculous wealth in relation to entertainment and sports.
the major media conglomerates are the ones we should be paying attention to when looking for the manifestations of these issues as relates to "entertainment." they are also owned by mega-corporations who own much of the means of production (for example, NBC and universal studios are owned by general electric: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric
the vast majority of steadily employed (even well-known) actors, screenwriters, TV producers, etc are paid fairly well, but do not make obscene amounts of money. to say nothing of the hordes who do this professionally and as their only job and make a working-poor wage. the few really rich stars are in the tiny minority, got lucky, and in many cases give that money back through philanthropy or at least put it back into the economy by forming production companies (small businesses) that create jobs, etc.
the focus on the "stars" (in either entertainment or sports) is a huge distraction; this is how celebrity culture keeps our attention away from the systemic issues that are really important, and focused on individuals and personalities. movie stars are not the problem. the people who run GE are. if you want to look at unethical salaries in the entertainment industries, look at the people who run networks, movie studios and own sports teams.
You bring up a valid point.
The customers are willing to pay the price demanded by the owners. That sustains the obscene salaries. Are they deserved? Well in this system they are since the market will bear the prices. If people didn't go to the games, buy the sponsers products or didn't subscribe to the cable channels the prices would come down very quickly. But as a society we're addicted to all that crap so it won't happen IMHO.
So in that instance the customer has so control in theory. In the case of teh banks it is much harder. One very important mandate of a bank is to provide for the equitable distribution of capital in the community. Instead we find ourselves in a situation where the banks are concentrating capital and then taking a lot of for themselves in the form of bonuses and fees. People have virtually no options to counteract what amounts to robbery.
That is one big reason why OWS started.
What about the studios and the owners that have the citys build venues
If we had a just tax system I would care.
Irrelevant. Please focus on the real issues.
Part of the problem with sports is that corporations again have taken over. Instead of focusing on families and the average joe, the major sports are catering to corporations by creating so many luxury boxes. Again there must be people out there willing to pay these prices in order for these things to keep costing so much. If people didn't go, they wouldn't be able to charge so much. Instead I'd rather go to a minor league game or a college game.
you should focus less on the salaries of other people, and more on your quality of life and how functional the systems (education, health, etc) you interact with are.
someone else being rich does not make you poor. believing that is a fundamental mistake of economics.
This is contrary to what Adam Smith asserts, that for "ever rich man there will be 500 poor men..." at least! Hollywood does impose itself in the global industry and in doing so devalues the arts of acting and film making. Television is worthy of scrutiny, as it should be a public service, not a venue for corporations pushing their production consumption economics.
yes, some countries do it like that; they end up with 20 stations and nothing good on.
if my neighbor is rich, that doesn't stop me from coming up with a new idea in the world, a widget that people want and will buy. after people buy many widgets, i'll even create a job and hire someone else to make widgets with me. this is new wealth created in the world - i didn't take it from the super rich guy. just as he didn't need to take my wealth to get rich. we all have human capital and the capacity to grow wealth. the pie is not a fixed size.
You can protest that simply by not attending their movies or athletic events. Their salary is truly based on performance. When they stop getting "asses in the seats" their salary tanks ( comparatively). Wall St executives and executives of publicly traded companies walk away with multi-million dollar 'severance' packages when they are FIRED from their jobs. This is at the expense of the deposit customer, 401k holder or consumer, IE: YOU, without your consent, the board members make these deals.
I was thinking about that. How is it that our economy is doing so poorly and yet people will pay outrageous amounts of money for baseball tickets and concert tickets? How did we get to the point where it's normal to expect to pay $60 or more to see your favorite band play? I guess it's all the 1% who go to these events?
yes and some people save their money to see these bands play, these athletes play and actors act. My question is, what happened to all of that being cheaper?