Are footballers overpaid?
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Except that that's a generalization that's not true in most cases The US's most prosperous period was in the Bretton Woods era from 45-73. We had very few rich people, and they weren't very wealthy compared to today's standards, especially since taxes were high and asset values were much lower. Yet economic growth was the highest in our history, unemployment and poverty were at their lowest, and the middle class was very large. Since then we went on a deregulation and tax-cutting binge, which did get us unsustainable short-term growth in the 90's and 00's and saw unemployment rise, the middle class shrink, and a few wealthy billionaires make a lot of money. Economic policy comes down to politics and which group you want to help out the most.
If you guys in the UK raised taxes for footballers you could raise a surprising amount of money to help pay off the fiscal deficit. Of course that would make England a less desirable place to come to for foreign players, but then again, English clubs would probably just pay higher wages (I don't see clubs in Spain and Italy being able to match them financially in the next few years).
actually i am a communist
teams should be owned by the fans and run as a club rather than a business, the problem is without state support it would be virtually impossible for a big team to be taken ove rby the fans.
all i'm saying is in this society footballers wages are the least of our worries, only football fans pay for them (unlike say Bankers where every tax payer has paid for them)
this is exactly the kind of thing capitalism does, value is determined by whatever people are willing to pay- as opposed to use value
Well that's what we're talking about, it's from a social standpoint. Also, since their wages are paid for by the fans, some of us do think that we should consider a wage cap or something of the sort to control them. It's not fair that ticket prices and TV deals keep getting more and more expensive and there's nothing we can do about it because we're fans. It's not like we can just boycott the league, you can't do that if you're a normal fan. So they can keep raising the prices. It's not fair, and ultimately the fans should have a big say in the matter. The problem is wage caps hurt one country and the players would just leave for another. But if you could get all of the major leagues in Europe on board it would be great. Business ruins sports, but the good thing about sports is that they are more than a business and if the fans/league decide to do something about it, they can. Which is why in America, despite being the most capitalist country in the world, we have a very strict salary cap system in gridiron football, basketball, and hockey. It almost happened a couple of times in baseball but the players striked (even though they make more than the athletes of any other sport in the world on average).
---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 PM ----------
Yeah but we're not consumers, we're fans, it's different. You can't boycott your team because of ticket prices. If you're a loyal supporter you're not going to stop going to games or watching them on TV. The powers that be know this and they can continue to jack up the prices on everything. It's unfair, and there will always be the plastic corporate crowd that love to buy tickets. This is what has happened to the NBA more or less. Ticket prices are out of control and only get worse since it's now an event of the wealthy. Do you know how much Super Bowl tickets are? Thousands of dollars. The Super Bowl is now a corporate event and none of the real fans can actually afford to go. I bet the NBA finals are just as bad. That's what makes football great is that it hasn't gotten this bad yet; for example, I hear that teams give out their tickets to the most loyal fans. And World Cup tickets are extremely cheap, considering how expensive they could be if we let the market determine their price.
The more business/the free market controls the game, the worse it becomes. The more the fans/league gets involved, the better it gets (generally). The fact that the teams in football are clubs and not franchises (like in the US) is a testament to how much better the sport is if it ultimately comes from the fans and real social structures, not just businesses trying to operate on a profit. In American sports you can lose your team just because the owners would make more money moving it somewhere else. Can you imagine if ManU moved to London because they could make more money?
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I haven't read the full thread so i'm not sure if this has been mentioned already but i've just seen a Facebook group/like - "Soldiers should be paid more than footballers"
In one sense I agree with this , British soldiers being away from their families , putting their lives at risk on the frontline. I acknowledge that these people should be paid more than they are but let's say for example we use a footballer who is on £100K + a week , how is the Government supposed to pay each member of the armed forces that kind of money?
In response to the actual question , I do not think footballers are overpaid and why should people care if they are anyway?
Once again it's the Club v Country row!
In one sense I agree with this , British soldiers being away from their families , putting their lives at risk on the frontline. I acknowledge that these people should be paid more than they are but let's say for example we use a footballer who is on £100K + a week , how is the Government supposed to pay each member of the armed forces that kind of money?
In response to the actual question , I do not think footballers are overpaid and why should people care if they are anyway?
Once again it's the Club v Country row!
America is the most capitalist economy in the world, please. Your highest growth was in 1945-1973? No it wasn't:
Income tax is already at 50% for the highest band, and how naive to say we'd just pay them more. Do you really think Milan, Madrid etc. wouldn't take that opportunity with both hands? And it's not just footballers, we'll never risk losing our banking sector by heightening tax even more. But this is way off topic about capitalism, socialism ideals. Will make a new thread.
America is the most capitalist economy in the world, please. Your highest growth was in 1945-1973? No it wasn't:socialism is a social idea, it doesn't produce anything near to what capitalism will do. If everyone's equal in society, then there's no incentive for the business leaders, talented and intellectual people to bother expanding more. As a result, we become much less well off, especially compared to other countries. Go research every communist state in history, and show me one where you can honestly say you'd rather live there than in a capitalist country.
Income tax is already at 50% for the highest band, and how naive to say we'd just pay them more. Do you really think Milan, Madrid etc. wouldn't take that opportunity with both hands? And it's not just footballers, we'll never risk losing our banking sector by heightening tax even more. But this is way off topic about capitalism, socialism ideals. Will make a new thread.
:Facepalm:
That chart is measured in terms of 1992 dollars. I've attached an accurate one, and used print screen from this site: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27529344/real-gdp-growth. Real GDP growth from 1945-1971 was on average 5.76% annually. From 1971-2003 it was 0.31%. Please get your facts straight.
As for your logic on invention, it's simply untrue and the greatest inventors are not motivated by profit, they are motivated by going down in the history books. There's a lot of research that shows the folly of correlating economic incentive with innovation. You are right that capitalism enables the fast implementation of these ideas into mass-produced consumer products through its economic structures, but the idea that if taxes are raised it will kill innovation is absolutely absurd.
Your idea that higher taxes=socialism is also really frustrating...do you seriously think the US was a socialist country from 1945-1971? How do you define a socialist country? Do you think a country with moderately high tax rates for the wealthy and a relatively normal sized state is a socialist country?
As far as 'capitalism vs. socialism,' would you rather live in Sweden or Haiti? I take it Sweden must certainly be a socialist country by your standards, and I know where I'd rather live. The majority of the capitalist coutnries today that are wealthy are so because of a big head start that involved conquest, colonialism, and slavery. You are simply picking out the few wealthy nations that have dominated poorer nations to gain them their prosperity and ignoring the vast majority of the capitalist world, which lives in dire poverty.
As far as researching communist countries, I've studied the Soviet Union quite a bit, and standards of living were very, very high for the time period. I would much rather have lived in the Soviet Union from 1950 to the late 1970's than been a poor uneducated black person in the US during that time period. Certainly more than a poor farmer from Panama during that time period.
My chart is fine. It's just indexed against a certain point to show GDP comparatively through the years better. Funny how you say my chart is invalid for being measured against 1992 dollars, when yours is measured in gold terms and 1929 terns.
No, all business is motivated by profit. Why are you going to bother creating a new product if you're not paid for it? Sole motivation is history books? Nonsense. Maybe there's some there, but the majority of people aren't going to do anything for the sole sake of some historical fame.
I didn't say America was socialist.
You're ignoring the fact that a socialist system wouldn't work in any of those countries either. Go look at every emerging economy right now. China, India, Brazil etc. All adopting capitalist ways from their communist regimes a few years ago. Within a few years of changing system they're reaping the rewards. You're also comparing two things that have way more variables than the economic system they operate. A better comparison would be: "Would you rather live in a capitalist UK or a socialist UK?" Admittedly we have socialist tendencies like all country's, but I'd rather be towards the capitalist side than socialist side any day.
Again, there was racial intolerance in the USA. So again, your comparison is useless because the welfare of a black person in the US in that time was irrelevant to the economic system. You're twisting my arguments to make it seem like capitalism is failing those poor country's, even though socialism would fail anyway. All of these country's miss at least one of the vital features for economic growth: Land, Education, Health. How do you ever expect a socialist system to prosper when they can't get on the initial step to create growth so they actually have some money to spread around?
Also, I created a thread for this argument.
No, all business is motivated by profit. Why are you going to bother creating a new product if you're not paid for it? Sole motivation is history books? Nonsense. Maybe there's some there, but the majority of people aren't going to do anything for the sole sake of some historical fame.
I didn't say America was socialist.
You're ignoring the fact that a socialist system wouldn't work in any of those countries either. Go look at every emerging economy right now. China, India, Brazil etc. All adopting capitalist ways from their communist regimes a few years ago. Within a few years of changing system they're reaping the rewards. You're also comparing two things that have way more variables than the economic system they operate. A better comparison would be: "Would you rather live in a capitalist UK or a socialist UK?" Admittedly we have socialist tendencies like all country's, but I'd rather be towards the capitalist side than socialist side any day.
Again, there was racial intolerance in the USA. So again, your comparison is useless because the welfare of a black person in the US in that time was irrelevant to the economic system. You're twisting my arguments to make it seem like capitalism is failing those poor country's, even though socialism would fail anyway. All of these country's miss at least one of the vital features for economic growth: Land, Education, Health. How do you ever expect a socialist system to prosper when they can't get on the initial step to create growth so they actually have some money to spread around?
Also, I created a thread for this argument.
I can't be arsed to read all the previous pages, but I'll give you my input;
I believe that footballers are not overpaid. Yes, they get a lot of money for what they do, but, the money comes from a rich businessman, that usually has a lot more money than they know what to do with it. A common argument is that footballer's should get the wages of a soldier, and the soldier that of a footballer, but that would never realistically happen, as the money for the soldiers has to come from the government, so if soldiers were getting 100k+ a week, the country would just go into a MASSIVE recession. Footballers can't help that people like Roman Abramovic have billions more than they need, so they do just give it out. And back to the soldier comment, lots of clubs have weeks every now and then, where the players give a good amount of their money to the NHS, Soldiers or what ever. In an ideal world, the money would go to the people that do more for the country, but it's not an ideal world, it's a commercial world.
/rant over
I believe that footballers are not overpaid. Yes, they get a lot of money for what they do, but, the money comes from a rich businessman, that usually has a lot more money than they know what to do with it. A common argument is that footballer's should get the wages of a soldier, and the soldier that of a footballer, but that would never realistically happen, as the money for the soldiers has to come from the government, so if soldiers were getting 100k+ a week, the country would just go into a MASSIVE recession. Footballers can't help that people like Roman Abramovic have billions more than they need, so they do just give it out. And back to the soldier comment, lots of clubs have weeks every now and then, where the players give a good amount of their money to the NHS, Soldiers or what ever. In an ideal world, the money would go to the people that do more for the country, but it's not an ideal world, it's a commercial world.
/rant over
OK I'll leave the argumentation for the other thread, Joel, but yours measures GDP, not GDP growth...clearly GDP now is higher than it was in 1970, because that's what the US economy does...it grows. My chart shows, however, that the RATE of growth was much higher during the Bretton Woods era, even though people in America today would consider that a "socialist system."
Also, as far as inventors go, you didn't read my argument. The inventors and scientists themselves invent and discover no matter what...I remember you used to have Einstein in your avatar...do you seriously think he came up with the idea of relativity for economic incentives? Great thinkers do what they do not because they're paid, they do it because they love it. As far as businesses go, yes, they implement these ideas and produce them on a mass scale for consumers. They do so very quickly and efficiently, and no one is disagreeing with that.
How this process is achieved though, is a different story, and the fastest industrializing countries in the past half of the century (USSR from 1953-1970 or so, Japan from the 50's to the 70's, Korea in the 80's and 90's, China in the 90's and 00's, India in the past two decades) used extensive state intervention in the process that took different forms depending on the country. They didn't do so by just 'letting the market run wild,' they usually had very tight financial controls and a state that took a heavy hand in directing where the economy was going, whether or not it was 'large.'
But I've said too much already.
Also, as far as inventors go, you didn't read my argument. The inventors and scientists themselves invent and discover no matter what...I remember you used to have Einstein in your avatar...do you seriously think he came up with the idea of relativity for economic incentives? Great thinkers do what they do not because they're paid, they do it because they love it. As far as businesses go, yes, they implement these ideas and produce them on a mass scale for consumers. They do so very quickly and efficiently, and no one is disagreeing with that.
How this process is achieved though, is a different story, and the fastest industrializing countries in the past half of the century (USSR from 1953-1970 or so, Japan from the 50's to the 70's, Korea in the 80's and 90's, China in the 90's and 00's, India in the past two decades) used extensive state intervention in the process that took different forms depending on the country. They didn't do so by just 'letting the market run wild,' they usually had very tight financial controls and a state that took a heavy hand in directing where the economy was going, whether or not it was 'large.'
But I've said too much already.
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