There's No Crying in Baseball: A Economic Rant

So obviously if you're a human being in this country with any kind of knowledge outside of your nose you know we dealing with tough economic times. I am completely sympathetic to this, not least of which is because my company has really felt the burn, but there are several things that just push my buttons about the whole thing. What follows is the most structured attempt possible at conveying my disgust at certain areas of shortsightedness.

1. How dare the news spend the first 15 minutes discussing rising unemployment, falling stocks, and general dooms day stories, only to follow it with news that Phillies "star" Ryan Howard is getting $59 million for three years. For what?!? Hitting a ball???! That's absolutely absurd, and it's even more absurd that the media or Phillies organization would report that as acceptable.

Let's take this a step further. Why should celebrities, sports players, and even newscasters receive these huge paydays while the rest of the country suffers? Everyone's getting on big business and corporations to cut their huge paydays. Why isn't anyone talking about celebrities taking cuts? I can't stand it! Somehow we've become a society of such moral neutrality that we continue to reward someone that's "work" consists of spending 20 hours a day pampering themselves or playing with a ball. In my opinion it's practically a mortal sin that Howard would take that kind of payday while there are families in this country losing their houses, out of work, struggling to care for their children. 

Madoff runs off with peoples millions and gets to go back to living in his penthouse, while some of his victims spend the rest of their lives working, their nest egg and dreams destroyed. Joseph Heller once wrote , " For war there is always enough. It's peace that's expensive." It's the same thing here. For the rich, there is no limit to their amassing wealth, it's those in need that are doomed to remain victims. As far as I can see, if sports players and celebrities can still make that kind of money, than there's no excuse for not bailing out middle America. There's obviously enough discretionary money left in the country to do that. In fact, I'll take it one step further with this particular point. I say, instead of focusing on Wall Street, maybe we should be focused on cutting the over inflated salaries in Hollywood. 

2. This complaint isn't far removed from number one. Why does it seem so difficult for the media to understand that continuing to tell the public how bad things are only serves to make it worse? If you are charged with reporting the news, you should do so responsibly. "Yes, things are bad, but here's what we as nation need to do to improve things." If I sat in front of  the television all day and listened to everything they say, I'd never go out and spend a dime either. If I lived in middle America, I might not even leave my house. Short of preparing for the Apocalypse I probably wouldn't do anything.

If everyone- especially the media- would look at the bigger picture they'd see spreading panic isn't conducive to improvement. Say I live in middle America, I shop at Walmart, eat at local restaurants. Watching the news I continue to hear how bad things are. Now I'm starting to panic. I'm not going to spend what little discretionary income I have. In fact, I'm probably gonna cut back how I spend in general. I'll stop going out to eat, start buying generic brands at the supermarket.

Down the street at Bob's restaurant business is slow, cause it's not just me that stopped eating out. Less business means Bob's is over staffed, so Bob has to start laying people off. But less employees doesn't cut enough of a dent in expenses. And those employees and their families won't be coming in to eat. They can't afford to do that. Before you know it Bob's is out of business. Which not only affects the remaining employees and Bob, but impacts the vendors who supplied Bob's restaurant. 

Mass hysteria breeds mass hysteria. If we don't want more layoffs we should continue to encourage people to create the need. Supply and demand. Jobs are cut when demand and need don't exist. As far as I'm concerned any stimulus plan that relies on giving people money to spend, to jump-start the economy, is bound to fail. People will continue to save the money or will spend it on necessities. If we want things to get better we need to start with more constructive news reporting. The media will drive us into a depression.

And another thing. From my observations, people are still going out to dinner, still have large shopping orders at the supermarket, and are still going to the mall. Now, I'm not saying things aren't bad, but what I am saying is they aren't as dire as the media projects. Sensationalism is a dangerous thing.

I think that's probably enough of a rant for one night.

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