Student Loans and a bullshit Education system

So in the last 3 years, basically since I left the education system in this country, the vast majority of people in the United States have noticed that Student Loans are a bigger problem than people originally thought.  Anyone that graduated around the year 2000 figured out that they were paying down their student loans for over 10 years.  Now, when you graduate from college, your creditors usually give you about 10 years to pay off the loans.

Think about that.

If they average person graduating from college was given 10 years to pay off something, they are about to turn 33 when they pay off their 4 year education.  10 years of earnings to pay off 4 years of learnings.  What is wrong with this picture?

This graph above shows that the education system has ousted Capital One, Mastercard, Chase, Visa, AMEX, and every other credit card company for being the burden on a 20-something's earning potential.  Now, what's interesting is that I was starting a job right around the time that these two lines crossed.  It's as if upon entering the workforce, everyone in the "adult" world woke up and figured out that anyone who graduated college or was graduating college in the coming years would be overpaying for the same education that was given in years prior.

This graph above is a graph that I remember seeing in my college class titled "Work, Jobs, and Income".  Surprisingly, none of those things actually get better after taking this class.  It was sort of like a cooking class where instead of cooking food, you'd look at the dirty dishes leftover from years ago and examined what was causing the fungus to grow so fast.  Now, what this graph doesn't show is that even though the high school graduate earns less over time from the college graduate, it does not factor in the costs of college.

Consider the fact, that college loans MUST be repaid.  They are never forgiven and must be paid back.  Suddenly, that blue line dips below the $0 barrier and puts you anywhere from $-15,000 in debt to $-200,000 in debt.  Now, I've heard sadistic stories of what kids are now paying for a college degree.  The fact that people are paying TWICE WHAT I EARN IN A YEAR is disgusting.  What's also disgusting is that more and more jobs are demanding a college degree that used to not require a college degree, thus forcing a vast majority of our future money-makers (aka kids) into getting these loans.

This graph above illustrates that there are even further financial benefits to getting a Bachelor's degree other than an Associate's degree.

If you are the kind of person that thinks, "well I'll just rise above the rest and get a Doctorate, an MBA, or a JD, or some other advanced degree, I have a task for you.  Step 1 is Go to Google.com or Bing.com for all you Bingers out there.  Step 2 is type into a search bar "Is An MBA" and look what comes up...

Now any idiot can tell you that an MBA is hard.  But what's shocking about all of this is that it's all brand new!  If you picked up a pamphlet that said "Is An MBA Right For You?" at a university, I would advise that you check the date at which it was printed.  MBA's are graduating and they're degrees aren't paying the same dividends that an MBA would pay 10 years ago.  So if you were to ask me, "Hey Mark, what do you think about getting an MBA?" I was say No, it isn't worth it.  I won't get into a top school.  I'd probably end up dropping out and wasting money.  Plus if everyone gets an MBA, won't I need to have something else that they don't have to be competitive?

There is one semi-solution to this overpaying for college degrees and advanced learning: STEAL IT!  Or find a way to learn for Free-Thousand dollars.  Khan Academy.  Codecademy.  Lynda.com.  The Library and $10 for late fees.  iTunes U.  I just listed 4 major learning portals that are pennies compared to a university's bill.  The picture above is Khan Academy creator Salman Khan.  I've been to the website and it's awesome that this exists.  Theories drawn out, explained in 10 minute videos, with little to no distractions.  Children are learning from Khan Academy at a young age.  Want to hear FREE lectures from Top tier Universities?  iTunes U.  Want to learn some software?  Lynda.com (it requires a subscription)  Want to learn how to build some apps for your iPhone and do coding for computers?  Codecademy.  Guess what?  ALL OF THOSE THINGS CAN MAKE YOU SMARTER AND RICHER!  I really wish I was wearing a suit with question marks all over it while yelling that.

After that tirade I feel like Will Hunting when he's arguing about Gordon Wood with the long-haired guy.

I hope you enjoyed.  Now if you excuse me, I have to go earn some money to pay down some debt.

Dave Ramsey Is Going To Ruin The World!, and other outrageous claims

I was listening to a Dave Ramsey podcast last week in which he went toe to toe with a young financial writer from Fool.com, over a headline that stated Dave Ramsey Offers Dangerous Financial Advice. 
Now after listening to the whole podcast, I realized that I didn't seem to understand what the problem was.  Dave was audibly upset that his credibility was being ruined by a blogger who, although seemed to be only a couple years into his job, was correcting some of the things Dave was saying/tweeting to his followers.

To be clear, there are some things that Ramsey has advised and said/tweeted that are a bit suspect.  However, he is a tough man who is hard to extrapolate an apology from or even change his opinion on certain matters.  I didn't bother with the math on this tweet, because I'd suspect it's correct.  I think it's just one of those statements that get people arguing over investing and futures and market volatility and all that garbage.

The exchange between the men seemed unneeded.  All that needed to be said was 'Ok, sorry, I screwed up, I'll change whatever you want me to change' from either party.  But because pissing contests don't end in that fashion, we just get two people arguing and no one really winning.

What I started to realize was that even our elders are adapting to an age where anything negative about them becomes an instant attack.  It's as if every single blog post or tweet or comment with a negative connotation, all of the sudden has teeth that pierce skin and leave someone for dead.  Are we unable to accept ANY comments that people disagree on?  I'll be the first to say that I've made Yelp posts that go over the top on some things that make restaurant owners and operators react negatively.  There was a whole Kitchen Nightmare's episode about owner's that illustrated the fact that some people cannot take any comments on anything negative about their business.

If I were the guy that wrote for the Motley Fool that titled something "Danger Advice from Finance Guru Dave Ramsey", and having the knowledge of what to expect when I sent it out to the Interwebs, I would've asked someone, "Hey is this title too much?".  That's really all that was needed.  Anyone could say, "Well, it might be a little too harsh.  How about 'Questionable advice' or 'Risky' or 'Harmful'?"  But then again, most blogger's don't have an editor to do that.  Whether or not the writer has an editor is irrelevant, it shows that he didn't even question his own writing before sending it out or thinking about reactions to the piece.

If you did a quick Google search and typed in 'Dave Ramsey Arguments', you would see almost every single post involving the tweet from above.  There is one here that includes 5 things the writer disagrees with but it stems from the 12% argument.  This post about credit cards made the argument that rewards cards are useful for travel.  No offense to that writer at MSN Money, but I have 2 rewards cards and they haven't paid any real dividends.  Also, why would I question about going to Detroit or Guatemala?

There a couple more things that go back a couple of years that include the 12% solution.  I don't really care about what money turns into what money over the course of 60 years.  Does anyone get pissed when they turn into an old miser about not having an extra million sitting in their retirement account?  Wouldn't you just be happy to have over a million dollars if you stayed alive that long?

Here's what has worked for me being a poor 20-something working Dave's plan:

• $1000 in savings is fine.  I also put into it per paycheck, but in small amounts.
• I froze/cut-up/hid my credit cards that had the high interest rates to curb my spending habits, leaving only one to my disposal.
• I said "NO" to my friends sometimes when they wanted to spend the money that I didn't have.
• I work overtime if it's available.
• I make cheaper substitutes and go for the cheaper lifestyle: Cable is more expensive per month than Hulu+ and Netflix - Make the smart choice; I own a Keurig but I buy regular coffee by the pound and have it ground to the fine blend instead of paying $7 for 12 cups of coffee when I could buy 50+ cups for $9; I started cooking more often; I go to a $10/month gym and bought a rope to skip since that's even cheaper
• I sell things I no longer need/use: movies, books, jackets, anything goes up on craigslist.

Guess what?  These changes are all working, and if I didn't have a certain brother to introduce me to Dave Ramsey, I'd probably be dead broke and probably in even worse debt.  

Before I go, I hope for the rest of our sanity that people learn to take negative comments instead of thinking they are attacks on their credibility or worse.  We all have backbones, right?

Day 26: How Would You Spend $1,000,000 dollars if You Had Such a Thing?

Ok.  So let's figure out that I have $1M in cash to spend, and not the usual $600,000 because of that after-taxes bullshit.  Okay, so here we go.

I'd take about $400,000 of it and put it into some sort of savings situation where I could live off of dividends and build some wealth.  Leaving me $600,000.

I would pay off all of my debts, which would be around $13,500 from school loans and roughly $3,000 I owe various people.  So that leaves me with about $584,500.00.

Over half a million with no debt, cars and stuff paid off, and still things to do.  I think I might do some travelling and knock off some destinations that are on my Thrillist.  I would consider doing some serious traveling, maybe visit Dorado Beach, maybe visit Refugia Chiloe, Iceland's Luxury Hotel, definitely will do some traveling with AirBNB.com, especially if I can get places to stay like this. 

And I think I might even go to an Ideas Island.  Yes, it's a real thing.

Given that all that traveling might take me about a year to successfully do, I would put the cost probably close to $100,000.  That would be if I did A TON of traveling too.  Who knows where I could go with so much time and money.  If I flew everywhere foreign, the trip to Chile and Iceland would probably cost me around $15,000 together.  The private Idea Island costs $1000 to charity, plus getting to and from the island, which would probably run about $5000 to be serious.  The trip to Dorado Beach could be the most expensive coming in at $1200 per night.  So for a month, without the trips with AirBNB, I would looking at about $30,000 if I didn't go anywhere else other than those 4 places.  Maybe closer to $50,000.  So that leaves me with about $530,000 to be fair.

With that money, I would continue to travel far and wide suing AirBNB.  I would search for any and all places to stay for maybe two to three nights per place.  I would travel all through Europe.  I would travel to portions of Asia and South America.  Maybe stop in to see my In-Laws in Ecuador.  I would also absolutely want to visit down-under Australia as well as New Zealand.  I would surely visit some of the places I wish I could see, like Zihuatanejo Mexico (the destination famous from Shawshank Redemption):

As I'm looking at some of these places, I am becoming so in love with AirBNB.  I would love to stay in the Frank Lloyd Wright houses for a couple weeks.  I would love to visit historical places of significance, as well as all around the world just soaking in everything.  To travel to some of these places, I would probably expect to spend close to $150,000.  I'm not including food since that's just too hard to calculate.  

I would try my best to pick up as many languages as possible.  Meet as many people as possible.  Soak up as much of this world as I could.  I would check in with family and friends every so often as to see what I'm missing or what they have planned for their futures. I would check on my investments to make sure that I am making some money while burning through a good chunk of it.

Then when I get tired of travelling, and get homesick, I'll come home.  I'd come home and make sure that I had enough money to move someplace and push myself into doing some of the things I wanted to do: like writing, maybe some acting, or standup.  I'd make sure that I would feel like I needed to succeed, so I'd have to put a larger chunk of money away so that I couldn't touch it for a while.  

Actually, if I documented most of this travelling, I would've made a pretty successful travel blogger. I would not spend money on cars or houses or whatever people would do to make them seem hood-rich. I certainly would not buy everyone in my family a brand new car. I think having the first step be putting away a ton of money in dividend paying investments is the safest way to make this journey enjoyable. I'm not a fool, so I know that money will come and go, but experiences, memories, and friendships will go a long way. So if I spend through a majority of the $400,000 I had left to myself, I'd dedicate it to obtaining a craft and becoming a jack of all trades and a master of one main craft.

Day 16: My Views on Mainstream Music

Mainstream music is still good.  That was easy.

To be more honest about it, I do still like to listen to the radio every now and then.  I don't know if there is this new Id, if you can call it that.  But people now feel obligated to save certain technologies because they are being phased out by other ones.  When people heard that tape-decks are no longer going to be put into manufactured cars, I'm guessing that it would seem very hipster to go out and buy a bunch of tapes now.  But there in lies a power of something being considered "hipster".

For instance, Beck put out a new album this year.  But I bet you haven't heard any of the songs on the radio.  Why?  Because he released it as sheet music instead of something that can be pirated and bought for $.99 on iTunes.  It seems like Beck is being super-hipster in this sense because you have to learn how to play music or have friends that know how to play music in order to hear his new songs.

But with regards to mainstream music, I think that because of so many artists now going into techno-dance beats, they are losing their original touch.  I listen to podcasts more often, which I think is what is going to happen to more and more artists who want to get their music out there.  Tiesto, Dyro, Pretty Lights, Afrojack and so many other DJ's can put together a solid hour of music in a week and then have millions listen to it through their ipods and smartphones.

I don't think mainstream music, as an industry, will be able to last the way it has.  The structure has to dramatically change or else no one will be able to make any money from it.

Going back to what I think will happen with most musicians, I think that we will see a shift in musicians having more control of their product.  I also feel like since there is a market out there for people to pirate music, I think we will see more and more people choose between music they want to pirate and music they want to purchase.  It's like if you walk into a subway and hear a musician play a song you like, you'll throw in a dollar but if it's not a song you really enjoy, you still will listen for free.  May not be a complete theory.

As I was writing that last sentence, I thought of an idea which could be a potential money-maker.  It involved music, people, a website, and micro-purchasing of music.  It could be worth something.  I'll have to talk it over with people that may or may not know something about how to get it started.

Quick Food Blog: Changing Habits

So I made some changes in my diet that I think may change my body weight trajectory.  Along with doing the 30 day crunch routine, which I will be posting about shortly, I eliminated adding half & half to my morning coffee.  I started using Almond milk instead.  It doesn't help that I've been grabbing a McDonald's coffee and 2 cookies during my mid-morning break at work.  But I haven't been to a McDonald's or fast food drive-thru for anything else in quite a while.  I think that's a big step.

I've found myself going to the Lambert's Grocery store during lunch to either grab a salad or a deli sandwich.    But that's only when I don't bring my lunch to work.  It's even cheaper than anything I'd order at McDonald's too.

I'm also trying to eat more black beans.  I tried making a black bean hummus for me to snack on.  It's so god damn delicious.  My parent's love it.

I also went to my local health food store and picked up a couple of things that I think are delicious.  Pederson's Natural Farms Uncured Cherry Smoked Bacon.  Holy crap is this amazingly good.  I cook two slices at a time and use the left over grease in the pan to fry some eggs.  The bacon doesn't shrink like Oscar Meyer bacon does, it's free of all the bad stuff that normal bacon contains and the taste is amazing.

The only troubles I find with shopping for healthy natural foods is the price.  I'm sure that as more people begin to buy brands away from corporate, manufactured foods that aren't healthy, the price may go down.  But I also like the idea of cooking with better ingredients.

Day 2 of 30 Day Challenge - Where I'd like to be in 10 years

This is quite a conundrum.  Usually I stay away from such topics because I never know what the future holds and I either get upset or I struggle to find out what I really want in life.  Most of my goals are things like a 30 day challenge, not a 10 year goal.  I know that when I was 16, I didn't think I would be here.

So, let's work backwards.  Ten years ago, when I was 16, I didn't have much on my plate other than working weekends at a gas station and playing on the JV Basketball team.  I earned $8 an hour and was driving around my parents spare car (96 Mercury Sable if memory serves correct), which was named Blue Bird.  I remember that being a sophomore in high school, I was definitely not into schoolwork.  I zoned out all the time, I listened to a lot of Black Sabbath and other rock-n-roll bands, all while doing my homework.  In fact, the desk I'm sitting at is the same one that I did all of that homework on.  I'd listen to Pink Floyd albums and never get sick of them.  My goals at the time were pretty much to finish my homework, go to basketball practices, and then figure out my social life after that was finished.  I think since I was good at math, I had the idea that I'd want to be accountant.  I do remember, I was very much into cars.  I did have model cars, and at one point, I was so full of teenage angst that I carved/drew into a cork board the words "I WANT TO WORK ON CARS AND THAT"S ALL".  My mom still brings it up when we talk about my future.

Now, at the age of 36.  Here's a quick list of things that I would absolutely want to have or have done:

• done at least one open-mic comedy session
• finish one of the many scripts/screenplays/stories that I've started and put aside
• a very well-paying full time job that I would not regret starting or getting into
• an attractive wife or a steady-girlfriend
• be debt-free for at least one year
• regularly driving a car that is from the 21st century (i still have yet to do this)
• been on an unforgettable vacation (been on 3, but I like vacations)
• I guess I would want a kid at this age, mainly because I'm great with kids and I'd like to someday have kids
• have driven en exotic car, maybe once
• have at least joined an Improv group or some sort of acting group
• still have a consistent Internet presence
• live in a city instead of a suburb
• still be in contact with my college friends
• be a Mr. T (meaning a jack of all trades and a master of 1)
• still have the ability to cook the way I do now
• lived in one other state than Mass.
• Either be my own boss or have a boss that I really like to work for
• not working for Bank of America
• not having a drinking problem
• pretty much in good health
• having my job for me and not the other way around
• be a best-man
• I pretty much want to be a successful comedian

That last one is the real way I feel about my future.  I want to be the guy that you see in the credits of a funny TV show or a funny movie that makes someone else be a comedian or writer.  I'd love to be an SNL writer but I just don't have the background and don't have the gusto to pick up my life and take a giant risk of moving to NYC without any real help.  My mom is a teacher.  My dad is an electrician.  I don't know anyone in show business and knowing that gets me down.  So with this blog post, I will just list my wanted achievements for the next 10 years and strive for what I think I can do.

See you tomorrow!

The Red Sox Offseason according to Me.

Well hello there MLB offseason.  I didn’t see you after the World Series where the Giants won.  Mainly because I was too focused on other things like Lebron’s explosiveness in Miami where they still can’t sell out an arena.  Or maybe the great shows like the League, Always Sunny, The Walking Dead, etc. were just too much to pass up.  To be honest, I was just too damn busy with work and stuff earning money for the holiday season.

So as of right now, I am a little concerned for the Red Sox.  Mainly because of the things that have occurred in the last 60 days or so regarding the team ownership.

1. Re-Signing Big Papi – I liked Big Papi when he was hitting home runs in the playoffs but there is no way that he is still doing it now.  We have to remember that there was a steroid era and that Ortiz might have been juicing and might’ve had a little extra kick.  I’m not so sure that there could be a rekindling of such a main aspect of the championship teams.  Ortiz just isn’t as good as a player as others out there.  I’m sick of hearing about how he is thought of as the best player in the clubhouse and is loved so much by pink hats and yada yada yada.  I don’t think spending the $12.5 Million on him was a good idea.  He plays a position that is meant for lazy people. 

2. Not Re-Signing Victor Martinez – Letting one of the only good hitting catchers go to a team that is in the Central is awful.  Did we just put our destiny in the hands of a guy who has a history of getting hurt, hiding those injuries, and then hitting only .248 after never playing a full season?  This being Jarrod Saltalamacchia.  And we didn’t want to pay an extra year and $12 M for a stud catcher WHO CAN CATCH A KNUCKLEBALL AND HIT FOR POWER?!?!?!?!  This might be the downfall for the catcher position on the Red Sox.  Oh, breaking news, we might be interested in Rod Barajas.  Jesus H. Christ.  I think I might throw up if I see him in a Red Sox uniform. 

3. Not knowing the Opening Day lineup like I used to – We paid for Bill Hall.  We paid for Mike Cameron to pass kidney stones.  We paid for players who I didn’t know existed.  If you asked me who was playing catcher after V-Mart and Tek, you would not get an answer.  We had 4 hurt catchers last year.  Our entire team was just an hospital ward last year.  Then we go out and say we want Rod Barajas.  I suspect we just like getting players from Texas.  Think about it.  Barajas, Salty, Max Ramirez, the list goes on.  Any more of this junk shipping over from Texas would lead to be an absolute garbage heap. 

4. Buying Liverpool FC and not buying Mark Teixeira – If money were an issue, which it isn’t, I could understand.  But this is why I don’t like the John Henry group right now.  It’s like they love to acquire things that will make them money, but they don’t want to buy players that will win championships.  The first thing wrong with their strategy is that John Henry has to approve everything before Theo makes a move.  Sickening.  It’s like there is nothing stopping them from becoming this group of buyers that are going to spread out their portfolio and then make money off of it.  I am not a baseball fan that was meant to be treated like a bottom-line.  Remember the days when you would go to any event near Boston and people would start a “Yankees Suck!” chant?  Do you think John Henry and Co. want us to start singing Liverpool’s fight/drinking song?  I don’t think so. 

Here is what we should do to throw off the Yankee’s entire season.

1. Offer Derek Jeter a Contract that the Yankees Won’t – I’ve been hearing this from Clark Booth and Shaughnessy, that they should just take a chance and offer Jeter the money that the Yankees won’t.  The Red Sox should make an offer for 3 years, $60 Million and then maybe toss in a player option for like $17 Million or something.  Throw incentives at him.  Give him the keys to the Jet/Helicopter/Speedboat/Whatever John Henry owns and bring him to a town that will love him because let’s be honest, every Red Sox player is just secretly jealous of Jeter because Nomar didn’t pan out like we all thought he would.  Also, there is no reason the Yankees shouldn’t be offering him bigger money since they just gave A-Rod a 10 year deal worth $275 million after he admitted to cheating with steroids.  The Steinbrenners will be the laughingstock of baseball if they let this happen.  I’m rooting for it.  To me, I think the Steinbrenners are Sonny and Fredo Corleone without Michael Corleone and Cashman can play Tom, the little errand boy who really has no control over anything.  This has to happen just to bring back all the fans that NESN and the Red Sox lost in the past season.  Screw Beltre, sign Jeter and move him to 3rd.  We could have the best middle infield in the history of the sport!  Just imagine it and pray to God that Theo and John let make it happen.

The Problem with all 4 Major Sports and The Dollar, Part 1: MLB

I was recently talking with my Dad, among other people, about the problems that MLB, the NBA, the NHL, and the NFL.  It seems to me that they are all having money trouble and seem they don’t know why.  Being a commissioner of a billion dollar organization might seem great on paper, but there seems to be the underlying theme that if you can’t handle money, then this is the job for you!  I haven’t seen people with so much power be so careless with this many millions of dollars scramble to save their asses while still trying to be greedy.  From the No Benjamin’s League, to the No Fun League, the Major League Boondoggle, and the kNuckle Head League (see what I did there), all of the leagues are in jeopardy of falling into a deep dark pit that is unsustainable and highly unfavorable to fans, like myself.

To kick things off, let’s start with the league that isn’t playing right now, or in my opinion, shouldn’t be playing right now:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL (BOONDOGGLE)

Most of their trouble began with the steroid era and the $100+ million dollar contracts that were handed out to players who you’d think “WHY IS WORTH THIS MUCH?”  Bud Selig, God Bless Take Him, has been the worst commissioner I have ever seen.  I mean how hard is it to order how an All-Star game will end?  Alas, I’m not here to talk about that stupid incident or the dozen of other things that have crossed his desk and left a skidmark on the game of baseball, I’m here to talk about the financials of the MLB. 

Let’s start a list:

1. Unsustainable contracts and ludicrous team revenues – The Yankees are a Billion dollar team right now.  They are the only team in the MLB that does not have to pay for food vendors.  That’s right, they can make their own food and sell it their fans at a profit.  However, the Yankees just got beat by a team that only spend $55 Million this season on team revenue compared to their $215 Million.  This, however, does not stop the Yankees from going out in the off season and purchasing every player that they want off the shelf for money that no one else can shell out.  Sorry, to all those teams that seem to compete very well with sub $100M budgets but the Yankees will be purchasing your star players within the next year or two.  That means that Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, Albert Pujols, Adam Dunn, Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, and Ryan Howard are just among the elites that could end being in pinstripes or leaving their respective teams for $150M+ contracts.  Now, they can’t all end up there, but they will be in contention with each other just to get the opportunity to play in the shoebox known as Yankee Stadium.  It does kind of bother me, as well as other baseball fans, that the Yankees can NOT win a World Series and then decide to clean up a Free Agent Market at their own will and have no one to regulate it at all.  It is the downside to a free market system.  Spend all you want and screw the teams that can’t afford it.  They used to have a system in place which allowed teams to franchise their star players and keep them on salary.  But alas, in a Supreme Court case, Flood v. Kuhn, baseball soon began its Free Agent market after realizing that Baseball was Interstate Commerce and thus violated its Anti-Trust exemption.  This event did cascade the Scott Boras’ of the World, the Super Agents, the Holdouts, the large contracts, and George Steinbrenners of the world.   Which leads me to the other part of the problem.

2. Teams Not Paying Players – Many of the signs of this point to teams like the Florida Marlins, San Deigo Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics and many other teams that can afford to pay for players, but have been hoarding the league-sharing profits from teams like the Yankees just to build giant stadiums instead of elite squads.  That report for Deadspin about the financial records of the baseball teams who have millions in storage only to build stadiums and rob cities of their tax money is only the tip of the iceberg.  It reminds me of when I was younger and people in Boston were making bumper stickers saying “Save Fenway Park”.  At the time, I knew little about the financials about baseball and how tax money went into stadiums.  Now that I think about it, saving Fenway was probably the best thing for Boston.  Sure we may be only to sit about 35,000 people, but we still manage to win and compete.  But the fact remains, if teams are going to compete they have to be able to pay players.  It won’t work with a league wide profit sharing agreement, but it will work with a salary cap and salary floor.  Meaning, that teams have to meet a certain payroll, much like what the NHL has.  There was a point in the MLB where the Red Sox could’ve traded Manny Ramirez for the entire Florida Marlins and it would’ve been financially okay.  That’s when you know there is a problem in baseball.  George Steinbrenner may be praised for paying his players handsomely for talent, but at what cost to the fans?

3. How Much for those That? – Looking at this link, I see that Fenway Park is a pain in the ass to visit if you like to do see baseball games live.  The Red Sox lead the league in Fan Cost Index, which is how much it is for a family of 4 to buy tickets, park, get 4 hot dogs, 2 beers, 2 programs, 4 sodas, and 2 adjustable caps, at the awesome price of nearly $350.  Add in the fact that the parents will drink more than 2 beers, or the children will want more than a hot dog over the course of 9 innings, which could be about 4 hours now, depending on whether the Sox are playing another AL East team.  As far as this statistic is concerned, buying an HDTV and splurging on the season pass on your favorite team is really what you should be doing instead of putting up with the crap of dragging someone to the ball game and paying through the ass. 

4. The Super Stadium/Ball Park/Museum/Shopping Center/Hotel – I can’t exactly remember which book it was that I read it in, but one economist (Bradbury?), was talking about how when the Rogers Centre in Toronto opened, is right around the time that baseball stadium attendance blew up and ticket prices were growing like crazy.  It was also around the same time that Ronald Reagan began cutting taxes for the rich like crazy.  The Rogers Centre is part Hotel, part ball park, and part mini-mall.  Now think about what each of those cost separately.  Include land, taxes, licenses.  Then think about adding about $100+ Million for players.  Maybe another $30 Million for administration costs.  Then add in the fact that your tax dollars paid for about 80% of that, over the course of X amount of years at a rate of interest maybe just below the discounted rate for being a hometown team.  Now think about how much a company might charge to make a profit for 50,000 people to fill that 81 times a year.  Add a retractable roof to your costs, as well as heating and air conditioning.  Then add grounds crew.  Sounds like a hell of a time doesn’t it?  And your city might’ve paid for about 80% of it. 

5. Health of Their Product – Let’s face it.  162 games plus 18 playoff games does not make sense.  Derek Jeter holds the record for most playoff hits among other postseason stats.  Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t be holding those records if the playoffs weren’t 7 game series a piece.  He’s played in 147 games.  Reggie Jackson played in 77 games.  Babe Ruth played in 41 games.  In 1980, Playoffs were a best of 5 series.  A reasonable amount of games added to the regular season of play.  No doubt that the Divisional series were either 3 or 5 games series.  That’s a max of 15 games additional.  Now we can’t have a playoffs unless there is a minimum of 15 games.  The most embarrassing about playoff stats is that Carlos Beltran has 60 less plate appearance than the Babe, 50 less than Gehrig, and the 90’s Yankees are all over the hitting statistics for the playoffs.   I’m sure if Babe Ruth played in 147 games in the post season, he would’ve shortened his career.  Want a real stat, Ruth hit 15 HR in 167 Playoff Plate Appearances.  It took David Justice 4 times as many at-bats to do that.  There’s a trend here.  More playoff game statistics means that players aren’t lasting as long as they could have.  The season starts in April and goes until November now.  It used to end in October.  END IN OCTOBER.  I don’t want to watch baseball all year long.  Wrestlers wrestle all year long and they end up dying at 50.  They don’t get an offseason.  Think your Jeter’s, A-Rod’s, Pujols, Halladay’s, Sabathia’s, and other All-Star caliber players are going to withstand a year round season with no time to get healthy and stay healthy?  I don’t think owners see it.

Prognosis: Looking at their record of waiting until the 11th hour to settle CBO’s and Players Association arguments, it doesn’t bode well for the MLB.  Their commissioner is a slouch, who I thought I remembered saying he would leave baseball in 2009, which I was happy about, seeing that I would be out of college and thinking “Man, the economy sucks, but at least Bud Selig isn’t running the MLB anymore”.  Nope.  I was wrong.  Bud just loves to screw up everything.  Between Players using drugs, Teams robbing Cities of their Revenue to build a ballpark, and having their sport still not reviewed on instant replay is the reason  why I think baseball will not recover as well from the this recent money crunch more than anything.  Baseball has lasted a lot of things, but a deadball era at this time would do a number on everyone, seeing that MLB is part of so many moving parts in the machine of the American economy.  I’m not going to say that Baseball will sink into entropic states and be put at a standstill, but something has to be done.  Something will be done.  I just don’t know what.