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Buzz Bissinger Doesn’t Understand Economics

posted by Shawn Hoffman, on July 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am, in category Uncategorized

This is just too horrific to pass up. J.C. does a very good recap.

I understand that the NY Times generally has a very liberal, often populist, slant. But this isn’t even populism, it’s just pure nonsense. He goes on a rant about player salaries, and suggests that this year’s all-stars should take 10% of their wages and donate it to the workers who are being laid off from the Chicago Tribune (of all places).

Then, after acknowledging that player salaries are simply a function of industry revenues, he fires off this piece of fascinating insight:

Zimbalist believes that professional sports, like other industries, will have little choice but to pare down if the economy continues to falter. ÒI think the salaries in all of the sports follow revenues,Ó he told me. ÒThe longer and deeper the recession, the more sports industry will feel it.Ó

I for one canÕt wait.

Really Buzz? You can’t wait for a long, deep American recession, just so Major League Baseball players will be slightly less rich?

I don’t even get it.

Feedback? Write a comment, or e-mail the author at shawn(AT)squawkingbaseball.com

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on July 29th at 01:21 am
Jeffrey Davis said:

“I understand that the NY Times generally has a very liberal, often populist, slant…” Uh, what’s liberal or populist about wanting workers (even highly paid ones) to make less money? Why lead with that non-sequitur? Or why not say, “I understand that the NYT generally has a very pro-business, often patrician, slant…”? Then the rest falls into place.
on July 29th at 12:45 pm
squawkingbaseball said:

Jeff - he’s pushing for a radical income redistribution from the rich to the not-so-rich. That’s a populist agenda, although most populists will generally make somewhat more sense than Buzz did. The Times has always been very liberal, which is why this article makes sense for them in theory. But in reality it’s just nonsense.
on July 29th at 04:19 pm
Walter said:

The NYT isn’t “liberal” or “populist”, it’s an entity trying to achieve readership. Their only slant is they do what they think is best to do in order to increase readership. To that end, they publish nonsense stories like this, that might attract attention, but offer no substance. The NYT might be trying to market itself to “liberals” or “populists”, but any real “liberal” or “populist” publication would never publish this garbage.
on August 7th at 01:43 am
hazel said:

Even if this were real, substantial populism, it’s idiotic to target baseball players who have risen through the ranks on mostly luck and grit and twelve-hour bus rides, or worse from the slums of the dominican, to rise briefly to fame, and then fall upon blown-out knees, clutching shoulders and elbows no longer worth the surgery that kept them running. And if you’re redistributing, instead of to the Tribune’s staff (speaking of non-sequiturs), how about you redistribute into a pension or health care plan to keep these people from destitution when their bodies are no longer up to the task?

Instead you could, for instance, target Loria or Selig and their parasitic ilk.
on August 12th at 02:32 pm
Brandon H said:

How much do we think Bissinger makes? 100, 200, 300k a year? I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly certain he could ‘live comfortably’ off of a portion of that salary. I’d suggest then, that if he wants to wave a flag, he better know what he’s standing for.

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