at the instant 'affiliation' with the mega-rich athletes. I get the whole 'labor vs. management' angle, but surely the majority of people are capable of looking past that onion-skin-thin similarity between blue collar interests and those of world-class ultra-wealthy entertainers? (the proof of the pudding being in the tasting, t'would appear I'm off-base on that particular assumption...)
Never did understand the impetus, as a whole, to take-take-take from 'management' or ownership simply because a group(union) is capable of doing so. I often see rationales like 'If it can be negotiated at the bargaining table, it's automatically fair and therefore beyond reproach' bandied about when I get into conversations about collective bargaining agreements. The same argument goes for, say, my being 6'2" with superior hand-to-hand fighting skills which I then use to 'negotiate' a better deal with the 5'1" 95lb barista when it comes time to (not) pay the bill? Of course not. Bah, I'm going off on another tangent ;-)
At some point, We The (little) People want the billionaires who figured out how to earn their wealth to be in direct control over it. How much better is the world for Roger Federer's mega-bucks being used (in some small part) to dig wells in Africa? How much worse off would humanity be if, for example, all of those charitable contributions of his were run through an organization like the Red Cross, or the Clinton Foundation (cheap shot, sure...)?
If Bill Gates builds a hundred billion dollar empire with guts, grit and gunpoint diplomacy, and then he decides the best thing to do with it is to give it all away, shouldn't we begin our analysis of his actions as 'those of a reasonable, brilliant businessman who sees a LOT further down the board than the rest of us mooks on most things that interest him'? Ditto if he decides the best thing to do is put his money out on the wheel for another spin or three, no?
I never did understand the idea of giving labor so much control over large business interests. If labor is so business-savvy, in the aggregate if not in every absolute case, why does the phenomenon of ultra-rich tycoon (whose endeavors advance the interests of EVERYONE as they reach for the summit of success) even exist? I want Donald Trump deciding what to do with his billions; I don't want his cashiers and doormen deciding the fates of tens of thousands of their fellow employees.
This isn't to say I disagree with collective bargaining as an idea or institution, or that I think people shouldn't be inclined to side with labor in such disputes. But the blind class warfare phenomenon here is something straight out of Marx, and needs to be recognized as such even if such recognition doesn't ultimately change public opinion.