http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/08/stephen-colbert-super-pac_n_1001186.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

I think your take on the Tea Party is an interesting one, as well. It’s the middle class turning on the poor. They want to squash single payer type health care, affirmative action, and, to be fair to them, a lot of programs that benefit the middle class, as well. It’s about the role of government to them. It’s rugged individualism, at it’s best, and, pooping where you eat, at it’s worst. The problem is that the movement is being guided by the Koch brothers and other folks who have very specific agendas as to where money should and shouldn’t go. So, it’s been perverted from something most people could at least get their heads around, into a sustained campaign to siphon money from programs that benefit the poor and middle class, and put that money in rich peoples bank accounts.

Back to what’s important, the National Basketball Association. I’m as pro union as it comes. Collective bargaining is a fact of life and, life since it’s inception, is better by far, than it was before. It’s the only tool to fight the tyranny that I described above. If fans had a union and could organize to the extent where no one paid a dime for anything NBA related once this thing was over, then, next time, maybe, we’d have something to watch once the Yanks were eliminated. In any negotiation one side or the other may have the moral high ground. In this dispute, it’s hard to pick a team to root for, but, the process has to play out. If you want those rights for miners in West Virginia (and teachers in Wisconson!), you have to give them to pampered athletes as well.

Robert Silverman: In today’s America, every political and economic dispute is resolved in favor of the moneyed few.

Earth to WoW: Everyone involved in this dispute is among the moneyed few. By the standards of the Occupy Wall Street folks, not a single NBA player even comes close to qualifying as one of the 99%. That in a nutshell is why I find it hard to muster much sympathy for either side. In a Goliath vs. Goliath battle the only people who lose are us, the fans.

“In today’s America, every political and economic dispute is resolved in favor of the moneyed few. From the much ballyhooed deficit reduction deal that was composed 100% of cuts to services and government agencies while asking nothing of our wealthiest citizens and corporations, to the anti-union and anti-worker legislation that has passed in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan, and at a time when income inequality in America is at its highest levels in history,the United States is a country where in business and in politics, the very rich invariably get their way.

This idea has finally reached the NBA, where the extremely wealthy individuals that populate NBA ownership have decided to use their muscle to change their financial relationship with players, in the image of the general American economy. It seems truer now than ever, as author William Rhoden notes in “Forty Million Dollar Slaves,” that “for all the wealth [that players] generate for the league in their comet-quick careers, [players] share will always be circumscribed — through bullying or forcible lockouts if necessary — by the dictates of the owners rather than by the widely praised American free-market system.”

http://wagesofwins.net/2011/10/04/cut-cap-and-profit/

No hard cap, no rollbacks of salaries, just a debate between the owners asking for a 51/49 revenue split (with economic incentives that could see it become a 49/51 split) while the players are countering with a 49/51 revenue split (with economic incentives that could see it become a 47/53 split).

I mean, for crying out loud, the players are coming off a deal where they got 57% and they’re willing to take 51% (with a chance for 53%). How can this not get done?

Mike Kurylo:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke-nba-20111005,0,4527585.column

This is as dumb a quote that I can imagine. Basketball players make more on average, because there is less of them per team. It’s like Plaschke doesn’t understand the concept of division.

You expected the corporate media to side w/the workers? Mikey…

“The NBA is not the NFL. Heck, right now, amid the major leagues’ thrilling late-season rush, the NBA is not even baseball. Yet the NBA’s average player salary of about $5.1 million equals the average salary of those two sports combined. The NBA players need to do the math, listen to the yawns, and look in the mirror. The NBA players need to take a pay cut and go back to work in a sport that will be healthier because of it. Under the old agreement, the players were making 57% of basketball-related income. After Tuesday’s negotiating session, the owners were talking about giving the players 50%. What happens if the players take that horrible pay cut? They will still be the highest-paid team athletes in American pro sports. Some of them will still make millions to spend their lives on a bench. The only thing that might radically change is that more owners might have more money to field better teams, increasing parity and popularity while ensuring survival.”

This is as dumb a quote that I can imagine. Basketball players make more on average, because there is less of them per team. It’s like Plaschke doesn’t understand the concept of division.

Anyways, I think I’m in the majority when I say that in the end all that matters is that this gets resolved sooner rather than later, regardless of which side “wins” (hint: it will be the owners).

Hopefully this gets sorted out within a week or two.

/late night rambling over

Typically, the Right takes an anti-union stance because unions distort labor markets – they exist to organize workers into cartels, raising their wages compared with the labor costs that would exist in a free market. The Left typically supports unionization/organization because they see it as a way to raise the standard of living for low and middle class workers who, in their view, deserve more than the greedy capitalists are willing to give them.

Collective bargaining in sports, however, operates differently. It is the workers (athletes), not the capitalists, who want pay at market levels and it is the capitalists (owners) who want distorted labor costs. Nearly every aspect of pro sports CBAs is designed to prevent players from getting paid their full market value. Examples include the draft itself, the rookie salary scale, max contract rules(years and pay), salary caps etc.

Thus, at least theoretically, one would think that the Right would support the players because they are the ones taking a free market stance and that they would also have the support of the left as they battle the oppressive forces of the owners. Instead, liberals hasn’t taken much of a stance in the debate since advocating for the rights of workers who are already millionaires has (rightfully) taken a back seat to the economic calamities facing common workers. The Right, instead of supporting the free market, seems to have taken a mostly hands-off stance in the debate, except to occasionally chime in in support of the owners, likely because the majority of the owners look like the Right and the majority of the players don’t.

So, even though ideologically the players union enjoys similarities with the entire political spectrum rarely seen in the labor movement, most common folk can’t be moved to care about this battle of millionaires vs billionaires.