I certainly bring up professional athlete salaries. Given that they produce absolutely nothing of value beyond a marketing opportunity, they're all overpaid for very little real work. It's not like they're curing cancer. Actors? Memorize some lines, and have lesser-paid minions tell you how they should be repeated.
All that's really happened is that a class of people have managed to market themselves to a section of the population - sports stars, actors, CEOs and politicians. They've made themselves superstars, and unfortunately, sufficient numbers of people believe in the legends that they can ask for whatever excess they like and get it.
If having Jack Nicholson in your movie guarantees at least $20 million more in box office revenue than someone nobody has ever heard of, they're creating value.
Likewise, a professional athlete plays on a sports team. That sports team generates millions of dollars a year in television contracts. Hundreds of people are employed both at the stadiums at which they play as well as at the television stations that air the games. Millions more are made from merchandising, jerseys, hats, etc from the sports team. Hundreds more are employed making and selling those products.
And yes, they also become marketing machines. Yet that marketing machine sells products and people are employed at those companies that make and sell those products.
The ripple-on effect of a super-star professional athlete like Michael Jordon or LeBron James generates wealth for tens of thousands of people.
> They've made themselves superstars, and unfortunately, sufficient numbers of people believe in the legends that they can ask for whatever excess they like and get it.
So, if that's true, they are compensated for excelling at self-marketing, i.e. for having a valuable (in our society) skill and not for others' perception of "created value"? I personally have no problems with that and don't find it objectionable.
I certainly bring up professional athlete salaries. Given that they produce absolutely nothing of value beyond a marketing opportunity, they're all overpaid for very little real work. It's not like they're curing cancer. Actors? Memorize some lines, and have lesser-paid minions tell you how they should be repeated.
All that's really happened is that a class of people have managed to market themselves to a section of the population - sports stars, actors, CEOs and politicians. They've made themselves superstars, and unfortunately, sufficient numbers of people believe in the legends that they can ask for whatever excess they like and get it.