"The Age of Distraction," LeadStories.com

The Age of Distraction

While there are those who chase the latest diatribe uttered (with no cognitive filters) by Donald Trump or the latest photos of the outfit worn by the transgendered Caitlyn Jenner, real stories go under-reported. The fascination with the latest sensation would make sense if there was nothing of importance to report on; if there was nothing monumental that is taking place. But of course there is!

The fact that more than $1 trillion is owed in student loans; that these loans are made by private banks with government guarantees; that they cannot be written off in personal bankruptcy proceedings; that they are larger in the aggregate than home mortgages; and that they carry high interest rates, is an important story.

A minor reform, such as reducing the interest rate of these loans to the level enjoyed by commercial banks (less than 1% as opposed to 5%-9%), would offer an economic bonanza! The extra money not spent on interest payment could be used for increased discretionary consumption. No, this will not bring down the financial industry! No, this isn’t a socialist reform that would destroy capitalism; instead, it’s a reasonable suggestion already offered in the US Senate by Elizabeth Warren a long time ago. Why isn’t it a headline story?

You don’t have to be a tree-hugging environmentalist to realize that yes, there is a real story in closing down all coal mines in America. Stop talking about the loss of jobs—we are killing these laborers day after day by expositing them to devastating ailments (and by the way, who’ll pay for their treatment?). Start talking about technological innovations, from solar to wind energy, whose inception has been American but whose eventual execution (and the jobs associated with it) has been outsourced overseas. Yes, this is a story worthwhile putting on the front page!

What has been the cost-reduction of solar panels in the past 12 months? Does it therefore make sense to produce these panels here, in the US? Should there be government subsidy? If not, what other subsidies are worth discussing? Is there a built-in conflict-of-interest between consumers (rate payers) and producers (energy and utility companies, private and public)? How can we align their interests and ensure cheaper and less hazardous energy production and consumption?

No, energy isn’t sexy, not as much as watching the cleavage of this or that starlet; coal-mining diseases are ugly and afflict the working poor, so putting front-page photos of the latest victim isn’t sexy as well. But guess what, without talking about the real issues—no, not those I designate as real, but those that can be dealt with and solved with a bit of public input—we’ll never be out of the rut in which we, the 99%, find ourselves. Occupy Wall Street’s 15-minutes-of-fame may be over, but its message is not! It’s our responsibility to keep it alive rather than be distracted by few billionaires whose ego is so inflated that they can relate only to each other. 

Raphael Sassower (Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)

“The ‘other’ side of the NFL’s story,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, September 19-25, 2014, 27

The NFL’s Other Story

While the airwaves and print media recycle their outrage over the revelations of domestic violence perpetrated by Ray Rice against his fiancé at the time and Adrian Peterson against his 4-year old son, the focus has shifted from the alleged crimes themselves to the NFL’s cover-up.

Reminiscent of US Presidents’ own cover-up stories that ended in impeachments and the Catholic Church’s sordid history of protecting priests’ acts of pedophilia, the media reflects public outrage.

Will this storm be as quickly forgotten as the storm about the long-term debilitating effects of injuries suffered by NFL players? Will the concussion controversy be swept under million-dollar settlements with retired players or clever marketing campaigns?

As these scandals come to light, and regardless of how they’ll be eventually settled, they also shed light on the NFL itself as one of the most successful financial enterprises in the American entertainment industry.

To begin with, though race and class issues have been raised in media explanations of the behavior of NFL players, we are dealing here with millionaires, after all. The lowest NFL contractual salary per year is $375,000 (with an average of $1.9 million). Even if the average playing career of NFL players is short, this is a handsome compensation.

When we direct our ire at Commissioner Roger Goodell, we should remind ourselves that his annual compensation exceeds $44 million—not bad for the so-called sheriff of football. You’d think that for that salary he could have the courage to deal with criminals among his flock. Can we expect some moral courage as well, or is this too much to ask of a millionaire?

But with all of this money flowing, what we forget is that the NFL is a non-profit organization with strong players union. For devout fans—NFL games attract more viewers per game than any other sport—these facts might not be known. Non-profit? With an estimated $9 billion in annual revenue, how is it conceivable that the IRS would recognize such an organization as non-profit?

We know that the Church of Scientology has had its run-ins with the IRS, because of its dubious claims of religious practices. Is the NFL the new American religion? Does the worship of athletic celebrities warrant non-profit designation? I’m sure some clever lawyer made the argument that allowed for this ridiculous designation, but does that mean that game tickets are tax-deductible?

From a business perspective, this non-profit status is fascinating—who wouldn’t want to shelter profits in a similar fashion?—but not nearly as fascinating as the communal, even socialist, rules governing the league.

Last Sunday, there were three big upsets in the league: the Chicago Bears defeated the 49ers in their new stadium south of San-Francisco, San Diego defeated the 2013 Super-Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, and Cleveland defeated the New Orleans Saints. How is that possible? Why is it that on any given Sunday, any team, even the statistically worst one, can beat the best?

The NFL is the model of real competition, the one Adam Smith already envisioned, and the one economists theorize about. If any participant team in the football market can beat anyone else, there must be some fairness in this game. How is fair play in the NFL guaranteed?

Though not government-imposed, there is league-imposed salary cap on all teams, so that the best and the worst cannot outspend each other. This way rich owners cannot skew the results of games by buying all the available talent in one year (the way it’s done in baseball, for example).

This imposed equality—socialist if I ever saw one—is an accepted, unquestioned feature of the game of billionaires (one of the worst teams in the league, the Buffalo Bills, was just sold for $1.4 billion). Would these same billionaires agree to such caps in other markets? Would they agree that fair competition requires strict regulations and enforcement, even unions?

Instead of reciting Adam Smith’s cliché of Invisible Hand—unbridled competition despite monopolistic tendencies and barriers to market entry—we should recall his more nuanced and insightful Impartial Spectator. Focusing on morality, Smith insisted that our conscience be our guide, that our moral sentiments can ensure fair dealings with others.

As we delight in the socialist-framed competition of the NFL, we may also want to encourage owners, players, and fans alike to think in moral terms about their moral responsibility on and off the field. Celebrity status comes at a price, and so are the expectations of millionaire athletes: they are role models to young viewers and future players. As such, domestic violence, drug abuse, and DUIs should be fully excised from their daily diet.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He co-authored with Jeff Scholes Religion and Sports in American Culture (2014). He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com