The Love of Money

Greed (noun) excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.

"The morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised. I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle." ---Charles Handy

I cannot resist giving my thoughts on the National Basketball Association (NBA) lockout. Yes, it is an opinion and perhaps a useless one at that. Normally, I would always side with the worker or employee, because I work for a company that has a Union present. In my fourteen years with the company I am employed with, I have experienced this company exaggerate and outright lie numerous times. In fact, twice in those fourteen years the union or employees had to take our employer to court to find the truth. In both cases, the courts or arbitrator sided with the union/employees and gave a stern lecture to our company. Oddly, had the company just been honest and forthcoming, they would have saved a great amount of money.

That said our union/employees understand something about the world. We understand that after 9/11/01 the world changed. Well, our world here in the United States changed. The economy became frail and weak. Americans no longer spent money as they were. This led to many other issues that led to the loan and housing bubble and a myriad of other issues. Our union/employees saw the big picture and we signed contracts that went years without pay increases. We agreed to more out of our pockets to help the company pay for our insurance package. It was a mutual effort to keep the company solvent and moving forward in a different economy than before 9/11/01. Moving ahead to 2011 and the employees of our company have made many concessions to keep others from being terminated or downsized. Many Americans have made great concessions in order to remain employed. Many have lost their jobs and unemployment is still high in our nation. Foreclosures are high and houses are just not selling as they did in the past.

The NBA players want to keep going as if nothing has changed. They forget that we are paying over three dollars for a gallon of gasoline. The NBA players want to make very few, if any concessions. They forget that the owners are having a more difficult time selling tickets. Americans need the NBA to lower ticket costs. The companies of America need to have lower advertising costs associated with televised games. However, the NBA players union and agents do not want to lose anything they have bargained for in the past. Yes, they made a few concessions at the negotiations, but it was so insignificant the owners said no. The battle here is the super rich against the rich and the rest of us pay the price. The average NBA player salary is between five and six million dollars per year. Many make less and many make more. It is difficult to process why someone making five million dollars per year cannot take a ten percent pay decrease. I guess they have adjusted their lifestyle to their income like the rest of Americans do, me included. Placing this into perspective, the average NBA yearly salary is equal to one-hundred years salary of a New York City Firefighter.

"I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing." ---Al Spalding

Today, the NBA union declined a “final” offer by the owners. I read the basics of the offer and I found it to be fair and reasonable to both parties. Remember, I normally would side with the players and the union. However, this declining of the offer has me switching teams. A fair and reasonable offer came their way and they walked away. Do they not understand that Americans have had to adjust the way we live? Gasoline alone has taken a large chunk of monthly spendable income. Employees, vendors, suppliers, nearby businesses and their employees are all financially hurting because one group of employees has decided that they should not be burdened by a weaker economy than in the past. They have decided that this is America’s problem and not theirs. The NBA players union has reared its ugly, greedy head. They have taken their ball and have gone home.

"The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life." ---Charles Schwab

"It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will." ---Sallust Sallust