The 'where are they now?' files

[Corndog]

Players generate revenue through ticket sales, merch, prize money, tv revenues etc etc etc and they should be paid accordingly. As daft as it is to be paid that much for kicking a ball they're actually being paid for the money they bring in to the club, not their value to society.
What I do begrudge is the fees paid to agents by clubs. I also wished that more of the money generated at the top of the game filtered down to grassroots. Unfortunately it just provides further proof of how trickle down economics is a load of bollocks.

Of course, that’s all true but it’s still a ridiculous outcome.

[Corndog]

Possibly… probably sub-optimal…. but what’s the alternative?

Should society just let Corndog decide what he thinks is important? Corndog could write down how much he thinks goods and services should cost according to his value system and then we’ll all just follow that? Would that be better? No unforeseen circumstances under that scenario?

Well in 2025, we don’t really have a good proven alternative to capitalism at scale but perhaps in the future we will.

Obviously autocracies and planned economies don’t work well for everyone and tend to be worse, but that’s all besides my original point which was simply pointing out how ridiculous the outcome is.

[Tatterdemalion]

Sure. It’s of course depending on your perspective of what is good for society.

I don’t think it is an optimal outcome for a society (not the optimal allocation of resources for social good)when you end up paying people to kick a ball around to the degree that they get in a week what an essential worker like a nurse gets in a year.

I don’t think it’s optimal in the context of many countries struggling healthcare systems or in many cases stagnant real wages for many public roles that are actually more important to how society’s function.

I think it would be better if it were the other way around but even if it wouldn’t be, the extreme disparity in earnings between premier league players and the average person is pretty gross.

You can say but it’s what the market decides which may be the “optimal outcome” from an economic perspective but that’s not always the same thing as maximising social good.

I do love what you are saying, but when it comes to optimality the sad point is that there are lots of nurses - who have few other options than working for the NHS - and few footballers with real talent who have the option of signing for a number of clubs. The net result is that nurses have little bargaining power individually (which is why unions are needed, for those of you who doubt), whereas players with talent have lots of bargaining power because their talent is rare and they have a number of suitors. Unfortunately within that calculus, what society needs is secondary. Not saying it's right, just the way it works.

[fidget]

Tax wealth not work.

If the super rich can't afford to pay more taxes on their wealth maybe they should learn to live within their means like they're so fond of getting their proxies to tell the rest of us. That cunt Simon Jordan bangs on non stop about how footballers get paid too much while he chums around with cunts like Richard Tice who wreck the country for profit.

[Paul12]

Tax wealth not work.

Fred and Bob earn exactly the same amount as each other but Fred spends all his income whilst Bob saves as much of his as he can. After a while, these savings make Bob wealthy. Why in this example is taxing the wealth considered the sensible thing to do?

[Catrin]

Fred and Bob earn exactly the same amount as each other but Fred spends all his income whilst Bob saves as much of his as he can. After a while, these savings make Bob wealthy. Why in this example is taxing the wealth considered the sensible thing to do?

Because the money that Bob saved also made money and that income was not taxed fairly, so Bob is wealthier than he should have been.

[Norbs]

Because the money that Bob saved also made money and that income was not taxed fairly, so Bob is wealthier than he should have been.

Bob saved so he could retire early as he had a family history of dieing young and the state don't recognise that. Bob spent his savings through his 60s while Fred saved nothing and stopped spending any money

[Catrin]

Bob saved so he could retire early as he had a family history of dieing young and the state don't recognise that. Bob spent his savings through his 60s while Fred saved nothing and stopped spending any money

I don't think Bob would be rich enough to be affected by a wealth tax.

[frank the tank]

I don't think Bob would be rich enough to be affected by a wealth tax.

[frank the tank]

I agree with the "tax wealth not work" point.

The disparity is getting wider and wider. Zoom out over 50 years and it is getting so ****ing wide. And if it continues then society is ****ed. There is so much wealth generated. The outcome of the disparity is lower and lower living standards in so many ways. Biggest examples are home ownership and the public health system. The outcome of the home ownership issue in about 40 years time will be a large percentage of the population subject to market rents and basically ready to be further screwed over. But tell the idiots that it is foreigners that is causing the fall in living standards and they won't be angry at the real cause.

The Fred and Bob argument above isn't really the example of "tax wealth". Bob actually inherited a lot of wealth and assets because he was the beneficiary of a trust so was subject to no inheritance tax. All of the rental income went back into that trust in a really tax efficient way. Bob then paid himself dividends as opposed to a salary.....so he was subject to less tax and national insurance. And that is just scratching on it.

Bit of a divergence from the point of footballers wages. Sky tv has been good in a big way because the product of football has become much better. So the money generated by football has got bigger and bigger. What is the societal impact over time though? Well the result is that the average working class fan is priced out of attending a game. And they will need multiple subscriptions at +100 quid a month to just watch their team (legally). It started with just the premier league that was on sky tv. Then the lower leagues eventually went onto it as well. But that is ok....the average fan can still watch European football on terrestrial tv....and of course international football will always be available. Nope **** you.....make em pay. Also, ram it down their ****in throats until they choke on it. Nations league. A load of ****e but it will generate some money. World club cup.....****in bring it on. The result over time will be less and less people being able to afford to consume football. The masters of it will then generate more and more to make up the shortfall in consumers and the overall quality will decrease. As someone mentioned above, it doesn't trickle down. Policy is the only thing that can fix this.....of policy dictated that the players "only" earned a maximum of 100k per week, do you think that the product would be that adversely impacted?? I'm not sure it would be to be honest. And the money left over would (could) result in making it more accessible to more people....

[badpiggy]

I'm definitely in the tax the **** out of the mega wealthy camp but part of me does worry that it's both disincentivising for the hyper capable and ambitious and/or that they'll always find ways around it. I also think that a lot of this is emotional based on the justifiable disgust people feel at many prominent billionaires who are publicly known. Names are obvious. ****pigs who spend 400m on yachts etc. Like, where the **** are the Musk Cancer research centres? Where is the Jim Radcliffe spinal injury foundation? I'm just picking two of the more obvious cunts there. If they were a bit more altruistic and less egonamaniiacal and obviously dishonest, then I might FEEL differently but probably not think differently.

[Norbs]

I don't think Bob would be rich enough to be affected by a wealth tax.

Everyone is taxed on interest on savings already, it's closing loopholes that will mean the wealthy are taxed on increases in their wealth.

At what point is Bob wealthier than he should be? If he's saved hard and has income from his savings then that's a **** situation

[frank the tank]

I'm definitely in the tax the **** out of the mega wealthy camp but part of me does worry that it's both disincentivising for the hyper capable and ambitious and/or that they'll always find ways around it. I also think that a lot of this is emotional based on the justifiable disgust people feel at many prominent billionaires who are publicly known. Names are obvious. ****pigs who spend 400m on yachts etc. Like, where the **** are the Musk Cancer research centres? Where is the Jim Radcliffe spinal injury foundation? I'm just picking two of the more obvious cunts there. If they were a bit more altruistic and less egonamaniiacal and obviously dishonest, then I might FEEL differently but probably not think differently.

Agree in principle but imo there shouldn't be Musk cancer research centers and the like......there should just be cancer research centers.....funded in part by taxes collected from the likes of Musk.

The argument that the rich will **** off to somewhere else is what international co-operation is for. But that has gone tits up in a big way......which enables the super wealthy to keep on trucking. Follow the money

[Kenneth]

There's no such thing as hyper capable people, the concept of a genius is just some weird homoerotic fantasy. There are relatively fine margins between the abilities of human beings and the idea of exponentially more rewards for people towards the top of the range is perverse.

The idea that money is achievement is prevalent but is a symptom of our social order, not the cause of it. Actual human achievements (democracy, literacy, penicillin, going to the moon, etc) we're not the result of singular geniuses motivated by unimaginable wealth. It's hard to justify one human being possessing twice as much of the world's stuff as another, never mind hauding a billion times more. The idea that the construct of property rights is so sacred that we allow some to plunder and millions to starve is utterly perverse. Not only is it moral to tax them to oblivion, it would be morel to tear them limb from limb if needs be. Viva the revolution!

[badpiggy]

There's no such thing as hyper capable people, the concept of a genius is just some weird homoerotic fantasy. There are relatively fine margins between the abilities of human beings and the idea of exponentially more rewards for people towards the top of the range is perverse.

The idea that money is achievement is prevalent but is a symptom of our social order, not the cause of it. Actual human achievements (democracy, literacy, penicillin, going to the moon, etc) we're not the result of singular geniuses motivated by unimaginable wealth. It's hard to justify one human being possessing twice as much of the world's stuff as another, never mind hauding a billion times more. The idea that the construct of property rights is so sacred that we allow some to plunder and millions to starve is utterly perverse. Not only is it moral to tax them to oblivion, it would be morel to tear them limb from limb if needs be. Viva the revolution!

You've just read Helen Lewis's book, I take it