If we want to bring more of a balance to the world’s finances, we will individually have to stop supporting the people and organisations that we feel don’t deserve/need (already extremely wealthy) or are not acting ethically with the wealth that they have.
Here I want to discuss a few examples of how large corporations drain money from your average working class person for their own greed or to simply give it a select few of already wealthy individuals such as athletes, singers, actors/actresses and so on and what we can do about it.
First, I would like to discuss soccer. This sport along with many other popular sports seem to be getting out of control. Soccer players in the world’s most popular leagues are getting paid ridiculous money, with some earning up to $500,000 a week. Where is this money coming from? It’s coming from your average Joe who buys an over-priced jersey and spends more than a days salary on a ticket to watch his favourite team play. It also comes from television providers that overcharge for sports packages and once again it is your average working class person who is forced to pay out for this if they want to enjoy watching their favourite sports.
These systems are imbalanced and it is a small few people drawing up the blueprints and making the rules that we (don’t) have to follow. They have the illusion of power and until we stand together and refuse to be a part of such unfair systems, it is going to continue. We need to ask ourselves, is this benefiting the few or the many? Do I really want to support these systems that give players like Christiano Ronaldo hundreds of thousands of dollars a week so he can spend tens of thousands on clothes and other over-priced items while there are people who don’t even have access to clean drinking water and are dying as a result. Personally, I don’t want to support such systems like this in which money is flowing from the working class up to the people who already have enough and don’t need it.
What do you think would happen if a large enough percentage of people decided that they would no longer be a cog in these unfair systems and, using our example of soccer, stopped paying such ludicrous prices for jerseys and tickets to watch the game? Well there would be quiet stadiums for a few games and then they would be forced to reduce the price of the tickets, we could literally decide a fair price to pay. With the internet and social media that we have available today, there is no reason that we can’t get together and make these changes. The exact same thing would happen with the jerseys, they only charge so much because people are paying it.
Another even more ridiculous system is pay-per-view fights in boxing and UFC. Here we can see the illusion of power in full swing. The promoters and event organisers are under the illusion that what they have (the fight) is worth more to the viewers than the viewers are worth to them. A fight is worth absolutely nothing without people watching it yet they expect people to pay anywhere between 25-100 dollars to watch it. What would happen if we all got together and refused to do so? The fight would be a huge failure and the greedy promoters would suffer a big loss. They would then be forced to re-evaluate their business strategies. They can earn more than enough from television advertising alone to hold any big event and make decent profit, anything else is just pure greed. It would only take the boycotting of one fight to wipe this pay-per-view nonsense off the face of the earth for good. The fighters would take a big hit in their pay check, instead of earning 50-100 million dollars, they might only earn 5- 10 million instead. If that isn’t enough for them, they can always get a 9-5 job like the majority of people.
Imagine what could be done with all of the money that would be freed up if we brought a balance back to this planets finances. Instead of it all flowing up to the 1%, it could be used to help the poor. All we have to do as individuals is to be more mindful of where our money is going and make a conscious decision not to support these imbalanced systems. Change will happen when enough people wake up and realise that they are an intrinsic part of the financial system that benefits a select few while leaving the rest to scavenge off the left overs.
Disclaimer – I used these two examples as I enjoy watching these sports, I am not saying that I want to see them fail which they will not. It is the greed that it clearly evident in them that needs to be dealt with.