C.ounting C.ash Sabathia

[Skaught]

Disgusting. 7 years / 140m.

2008 Team Payrolls
No. Team Payroll
1. New York Yankees: $209,081,579
2. Detroit Tigers: $138,685,197
3. New York Mets: $138,293,378
4. Boston Red Sox: $133,440,037
5. Chicago White Sox: $121,152,667
6. Los Angeles Angels: $119,216,333
7. Chicago Cubs: $118,595,833
8. Los Angeles Dodgers: $118,536,038
9. Seattle Mariners: $117,993,982
10. Atlanta Braves: $102,424,018
11. St. Louis Cardinals: $100,624,450
12. Toronto Blue Jays: $98,641,957
13. Philadelphia Phillies: $98,269,881
14. Houston Astros: $88,930,415
15. Milwaukee Brewers: $81,004,167
16. Cleveland Indians: $78,970,067
17. San Francisco Giants: $76,904,500
18. Cincinnati Reds: $74,277,695
19. San Diego Padres: $73,677,617
20. Colorado Rockies: $68,655,500
21. Texas Rangers: $68,239,551
22. Baltimore Orioles: $67,196,248
23. Arizona Diamondbacks: $66,202,713
24. Minnesota Twins: $62,182,767
25. Kansas City Royals: $58,245,500
26. Washington Nationals: $54,961,000 $1,895,207
27. Pittsburgh Pirates: $49,365,283
28. Oakland Athletics: $47,967,126
29. Tampa Bay Rays: $43,820,598
30. Florida Marlins: $21,836,500

Let me know when MLB wants to put a salary cap in place. How the HELL is a team able to even compete with a 200m payroll? Yeah yeah I am all in favor of the Tampa Bay cinderella stories for a 44m payroll. Enough is enough. I am becoming more and more disenchanted with MLB every off season with this crap. Throw steroids on top of it.

Hey New York.....why dont you do the country a favor and bail out the automakers while you are at it.

[Rocharis]

go phillies~

[Vilnius]

Without a hard cap, or meaningful Tax of 5:1 or higher, nothing will ever change in New York.

[Tuck]

Hey New York.....why dont you do the country a favor and bail out the automakers while you are at it.

http://giantmecha.com/uploads/the-bailouters.png

[Skaught]

how the fuck do you compete if you are the Pittsburg Pirates? Re-activate Willie Stargell and Dave Parker? WTF.

Baseball and a salary cap should be taken in the same light as the BCS system needing a playoff system. What a joke.

[Skaught]

OH MY BAD!

The deal is 7 years 161m (for a player who plays every 5th game.)

[Andilith]

How sad... if only New York actually got any fucking money from these bastards.

[Etherin]

How sad... if only New York actually got any fucking money from these bastards.

QFT.

In fact, one of these high paid douchebags is actually going to play for another country during some off-season tournament, that USA is playing in.

WRU revenue

[DrHealGood]

Baseball is still around?

[Nymrod]

How sad... if only New York actually got any fucking money from these bastards.

Actually the point was made by my economics 101 teacher in college that professional athletes in reality create much more revenue than they earn. I didn't commit the math behind it to memory, but maybe someone else here could explain it.

If you want to bitch about greed in the sports world (which is a very valid topic) - point the finger at Steinbrenner (owner), not at Sabathia or A-Rod (player). I don't think Steinbrenner has spent his entire life putting in full time practice/working-out 7 days a week, yet I will hazard a guarantee that for every dollar he pays out to Sabathia or A-Rod, he's making more than a dollar, with less effort.

I would even go so far as to say that the paradigm of "the harder you work, the more you are rewarded" that is so ubiquitous in this culture enjoys a rare example in professional athletes that you would be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

[Quick]

No salary cap in baseball is one of the bigger reasons I really have no interest in watching baseball.

It gets boring seeing the same teams over and over again make it to the playoffs.

[DrHealGood]

Actually the point was made by my economics 101 teacher in college...


Cartman: Ma'am, I need to clear out your giggling stoners and your drum-cricle hippies RIGHT NOW, or soon they're gonna attract something much worse!

Elderly Woman: Ooooo.what's that?

Cartman: The college know-it-all hippies.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/103815

:cheers:

[Harthin]

I don't blame an athlete for getting paid as much as they can. If I could get my paycheck to be $160,000,000 for 7 years of work, I certainly would.

However, I can hate the system that makes it possible for a person to make that kind of money for playing a game. Yes they train hard, etc. but not to the point where they should make $20+ million a year.

[Nymrod]

However, I can hate the system that makes it possible for a person to make that kind of money for playing a game. Yes they train hard, etc. but not to the point where they should make $20+ million a year.

Hate the system. Agreed 100%. I'm personally of the opinion that nobody should make that much - especially not while 50% of the population of Earth lives on less than 2$ per day. I doubt there is much you could say to get me to believe that Warren Buffet works billions of times harder than the guys in Florida who work 14 hour days, 7 days per week when possible, to make 45 cents per 32 pounds of tomatoes that they gather one by one.

[Quick]

Hate the system. Agreed 100%. I'm personally of the opinion that nobody should make that much - especially not while 50% of the population of Earth lives on less than 2$ per day. I doubt there is much you could say to get me to believe that Warren Buffet works billions of times harder than the guys in Florida who work 14 hour days, 7 days per week when possible, to make 45 cents per 32 pounds of tomatoes that they gather one by one.

Since you're against the free markets, even with regulations, then what type of system are you for?

The idea that someone shouldn't make more than someone if they work less hours in a week.. what is that? Some branch of communism? Your example seems to assume that the person picking tomatoes and Warren Buffet have the same education level and the same work experience.

[Nymrod]

Since you're against the free markets, even with regulations, then what type of system are you for?

The idea that someone shouldn't make more than someone if they work less hours in a week.. what is that? Some branch of communism? Your example seems to assume that the person picking tomatoes and Warren Buffet have the same education level and the same work experience.

The main problem that I have with the free market is that in practice, it is not free. Sure, they tend to be close to free where small business is concerned, which usually just means that they can't compete with those who have ways to get around the free market. I mean you don't have to look much further than the (late) auto bailout.

Sure, in this case they were attempting to avoid market discipline under the guise of saving US jobs (which is ironic considering these same companies built redundant, unused plants in various countries for the explicit purpose of threatening US jobs and reducing wages worldwide), so it may not be the quintessential example, but it is an obvious one.

My example doesn't assume that the picker and the investor have the same education level or same work experience. It also doesn't assume that it's right that one was born into a situation where obtaining education was impossible, lest his family starve, and one was born into wealth. We westerners are quick to abhor the fact that a professor in India won't interact with or 'touch' a farmer or another 'untouchable', yet we seem to have no issue with (or even recognition of) our own class divisions.

I don't have any personal qualms with Buffet (in fact it is commendable that he is planning on giving his fortune to charity) however it is a bit upsetting that he is worth several dozen million times more than I am, and I'm in the top 1% of the world, income-wise.

Without getting into what type of system I am for (as it would likely be met with ridicule stemming from traditional beliefs rather than logical discourse) - let's just say my view of what the world should trend toward stems from the question "If your consciousness was to be assigned to an entirely random person - how would you like the world to look first?"

[DrHealGood]

Your extreme examples make convenient arguements. By your logic, that asshole that sat beside me though all my classes in elementary, middle and high school and fucked off, skipped classes and cut up while he was there should make the same salary as me who studied hard, payed attention and worked for every damn thing I have.

I've seen too many people given every advantage possible and piss it away. I don't buy this idealistic "everyone would be equal given the same opportunities" horsehit. I've seen it proven untrue time and time again. Human nature is the path of least resistance. The most reward for the least amount of work. Some defy that and are rewarded accordingly. And in a free market, their reward trickes down to the rest of us in the form of jobs, pay, benefits, their taxes, etc etc.

In free markets you're rewarded for taking risks and hard work. If you want to do your 8 hours then go home and play Xbox, that's your business. Don't begrudge those that work 12-18 hours a day and go out on a limb.

And more on topic (damn I hate to NOT hijack a thread completely) athletes make a fuck ton of money. Too much probably, but they're a commodity. Plain and simple. They fill the seats, make others a lot of money and provide a service to thousands of people at time. Fucked up? Maybe. But apparently millions of people are ok with it every time they buy a ticket or a concession at the stand. And don't think these athletes just wake up one morning and go pro. This is an entire lifetime of discipline, practice and training to hone those skills to the level where they can obtain this paycheck. While most people were eating ding dongs, watching Survivor and drinking beer, this mother fucker was in the weight room, at the batting cage or otherwise focusing on his goals. Same for business owners. Great sacrifice, great reward.

[Nymrod]

Your extreme examples make convenient arguements. By your logic, that asshole that sat beside me though all my classes in elementary, middle and high school and fucked off, skipped classes and cut up while he was there should make the same salary as me who studied hard, payed attention and worked for every damn thing I have.

I've seen too many people given every advantage possible and piss it away. I don't buy this idealistic "everyone would be equal given the same opportunities" horsehit. I've seen it proven untrue time and time again. Human nature is the path of least resistance. The most reward for the least amount of work. Some defy that and are rewarded accordingly. And in a free market, their reward trickes down to the rest of us in the form of jobs, pay, benefits, their taxes, etc etc.

In free markets you're rewarded for taking risks and hard work. If you want to do your 8 hours then go home and play Xbox, that's your business. Don't begrudge those that work 12-18 hours a day and go out on a limb.

And more on topic (damn I hate to NOT hijack a thread completely) athletes make a fuck ton of money. Too much probably, but they're a commodity. Plain and simple. They fill the seats, make others a lot of money and provide a service to thousands of people at time. Fucked up? Maybe. But apparently millions of people are ok with it every time they buy a ticket or a concession at the stand. And don't think these athletes just wake up one morning and go pro. This is an entire lifetime of discipline, practice and training to hone those skills to the level where they can obtain this paycheck. While most people were eating ding dongs, watching Survivor and drinking beer, this mother fucker was in the weight room, at the batting cage or otherwise focusing on his goals. Same for business owners. Great sacrifice, great reward.

I think you missed the whole point of my ideas. I'm not in favor of rewarding less work. The thing that is most appalling to me is that the hardest working people are the least rewarded - and that is practically universal. Sure, some people manage to break class barriers based solely on hard work (which is a great advantage this country has over many others) but that is the exception, not the rule. One example of this exception is professional athletes, and I defend them in this thread on the basis of that hard work.

[DrHealGood]

The thing that is most appalling to me is that the hardest working people are the least rewarded - and that is practically universal.

The "hardest working" people are typically unskilled labor. That just doesn't hold any value. If the only thing you can do to earn money is perform an action that any other person the planet with a pulse can do you're not going to rake in the cash.


Sure, some people manage to break class barriers based solely on hard work (which is a great advantage this country has over many others) but that is the exception, not the rule.

And that's the beauty of the free market that you have a "problem" with. It's worked pretty well for a very long time and it's made many people very rich and given lots of people opportunities they otherwise would have never had. And if you screw up, have a bad plan or otherwise you're out of the game. Right up until these bailout shenanigans. And if I'm not mistaken, 87% of the population is right there with you that it's bullshit.

[Nymrod]

The "hardest working" people are typically unskilled labor. That just doesn't hold any value. If the only thing you can do to earn money is perform an action that any other person the planet with a pulse can do you're not going to rake in the cash.

And that's the beauty of the free market that you have a "problem" with. It's worked pretty well for a very long time and it's made many people very rich and given lots of people opportunities they otherwise would have never had. And if you screw up, have a bad plan or otherwise you're out of the game. Right up until these bailout shenanigans. And if I'm not mistaken, 87% of the population is right there with you that it's bullshit.

Unfortunately for most of the people who "screwed up", had a "bad plan" or "otherwise", the answer is usually "otherwise" where "otherwise" means they were born into a dead end. If you were born into a long line of Mexican corn farmers and all of a sudden you can no longer sell your corn on the Mexican market because of sharp undercutting from ever-growing US tax-payer-subsidized imports - then when your family is starving, the only friends you have to otherwise bail you out are also starving because they are sugar farmers, and sugar exports from Mexico to the US are sharply limited by the NAFTA "side letter agreement" - would you feel that you deserved this fate because you had a "bad plan"?

Look up some non-controversial numbers of the people that went from farmer to beggar or from beggar to corpse as a result of this - then compare the numbers of them with the "many" people who have been made very rich by the system that is in place.

The improvements in life that a very small portion of the world's population enjoy are not a result of a system that is designed around the polarization of wealth - they are the inevitable result of human progress - science and curiosity. Unfortunately, the fruits of human progress are becoming more and more privatized and polarized.

What would your life be like today if someone had a patent on "the chair" or "irrigation" or "fire" for example? How about if the descendants of that person took measures where possible to further polarize their position in the world?

[Capellowhat]

CC was a joke in Cleveland, glad that bum is outta here

[Ralen]

The improvements in life that a very small portion of the world's population enjoy are not a result of a system that is designed around the polarization of wealth - they are the inevitable result of human progress - science and curiosity. Unfortunately, the fruits of human progress are becoming more and more privatized and polarized.

What would your life be like today if someone had a patent on "the chair" or "irrigation" or "fire" for example? How about if the descendants of that person took measures where possible to further polarize their position in the world?


What would you do? You would buy the chair from the company that owns or licensed the patent for the chair. But here's the thing, for something to be patentable it means that it is non-obvious and could not be anticipated by a person of ordinary skill in its field of use. So your examples would pretty much not be patentable. I would argue that fire and irrigation were discoveries rather than inventions. And US patents only have a 20 year life-span. The only thing that can exclude others from having access to it over an indefinable period is a trade secret. And that's only as good as the security of the company trying to maintain the secret.

I personally believe that when someone comes up with an invention, they deserve compensation for the use of that invention. That's the whole point behind the patenting process ... you're rewarding someone's intelligence for coming up with a new product, process or use.

So you're argument is that the minute somebody comes up with an idea, that idea should be put into the open market? I'm afraid if there were no longer incentives to come up with better products and processes I'm not sure that the improvements we have all benefitted from would continue. I think the fact that you can sell a better product for more than an inferior one is WHY we end up with better products.

My personal opinion is that if you remove the patenting process from the equation you will cut research expenditures so significantly the whole thing falls down.


Edit to add the list of patent classifications: process, machine (apparatus or device), manufacture, composition of matter, improvements.