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Uppity Wisconsin - Progressive Webmasters

« John Nichols: What Soglin Did To Attract Progressives | Main | Another Madison Problem: Hiring and Retention at City Hall »

February 07, 2011

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Kris

Uh, no. Conservatives would say that the Packers are like any other charity and that the free market and capitalism and smaller government puts more money into the hands of the people, who are then free to donate it to causes they support, like the Packers.

Paul

Thoughtful and logical point Kris, but it fails to recognize the Packers success. A charitable venture might survive, but it should not be able to compete in a capitalistic marketplace.

Kris

Well, with revenue sharing and a salary cap, the NFL is certainly not a capitalistic marketplace, is it? And while I'll rail against socialism and communism in government, I have a hard time doing so with the NFL, because, frankly, when it comes to football, apparently I'm a huge hypocrite ;-)

Paul

Kris....thank you. That is the point. There are some things we all love, especially our teams and then all the rules go out the window.

Kris

I get that, but it does continually offend me that conservative philosophy is painted as heartless, when in reality conservatives can be all for supporting non-profits and charities and the like - the difference is we believe we, rather than the government, should support them.

Peter

Kris, aren't "we" supposed to be our government? I would contend that modern conservativism has enshrined amongst its "principles" that organized wealth determines what our government does, be it tax favoritism, corporate subsidy, war-making for profit, and big business-focused market distortion. Were we to really have a functional democracy, "we" could make our choices on a public scale, democratically, instead of by virtue of who has enough disposable wealth to support a charity. On a somewhat related topic, charities are just that, charities. They are not entities that can largely target root causes of problems. Not that the Packers fall into that category, but the point is still relevant to the overall idea being expressed here. Free market slavishness is not the end all and be all of economic policy or democratic governance.

Nate

Actually the Packers have a real tie to socialism. In the early 1900's in addition to Milwaukee, Green Bay was the other main front on Sewer Socialism. The Green Bay Packers were a general extension of the socialist mood of the times.

Does any one really believe that if the Packers were an extension of the capitalist mood of their times, they'd be in Green Bay today. Wisconsin owes a debt of gratitude to the socialist visionaries of the early 20th century.

Rick Esenberg

Wrong! http://sharkandshepherd.blogspot.com/2008/01/green-and-gold-are-not-red.html

kris

g**amn Commies...

Hiawatha

I don't have all the facts on this Paul,
but it is worth noting that the Packers are by average age are the youngest team in the NFL.
http://www.packers.com/news/releases/2008/01/02/3
Scroll to the bottom of the page.

The Giants are truly a Great team.
I wish I could say it was a good game, but reality is that it was ridiculously cold.
It was a terrible game for both teams.

Hiawatha

Here's another interesting fact Paul,
According to the USA Today Salaries database,
The Packers had a total payroll this year of $ 97,653,823 .
The New York Giants had a total payroll this year of $ 75,755,388 .
The New England Patriots had a total payroll this year of $ 117,963,182 .
http://asp.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/salaries/totalpayroll.aspx?year=2007

I must point out though that the stats of your post indicate Median salaries, not average.
That's not bad, but it's only a piece of the whole picture.
Brett made $11,000,000 plus a $480 bonus ( xmas ?? ) for a total of $11,000,480 .

Hmmm... is there a mathematics statistics expert out there who can tell us more about this subject??

Craig

Lets be clear here - yes, the team was founded as a non-profit corporation. They are hardly a beacon of socialism. The team initially sold stock to get the necessary capital to operate. They've sold more stock several times to raise capital. You don't buy this stock to make a profit, you buy to be part of the team.

Being a conservative, I think the model works well in the American free enterprise system. Rather than begging for a government handout, Lambeau went to the private sector and sold investors on his idea. They all knew the stock would not appreciate, but they also got part ownership of the franchise. To those investors, that ownership stake is the highest return on their money.

Aside from the stock stuff, the Packers make hundreds of millions of dollar per year. They do so because they are part of a monopoly - the NFL. All in all, the Packers built from capitalism from the ground up.

There's one other basic tenent of free market capitalism you that is being distorted. If you own something, you are under no obligation to sell no matter how much you are being offered. No one has to sell anything.

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