Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Greed.


What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

One of the things that continually confounds me is the greed that keeps popping up in the world like a rabid gopher.

Quite to the contrary of the famous line quoted by Michael Douglas's character Gordon Gekko, "Greed is good", (Wall Street, 1987). No Mr. Gekko, greed is not so good.

On Tuesday, December 20, the Transport Workers Union began a labor strike in New York City. During contract negotiations, the TWU rejected raise offers made by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Those offers were reported to be annual raises of 3, 4, and 3.5 percent. Another troublesome issue was the raising of eligibility age for a full pension, from 55 to 62.

Are these proposals made by the MTA fair? I don't know. I'm not up on labor practices, appropriate wages and so on. The point is, someone is being greedy. Either the labor union is asking for too much, or the Transit Authority is not offering enough. It's a very simple concept.

Greed.

Two more contract offers were made this week. One was for 40 million dollars, paid out over four years. I'd say that's bloody awesome!

Johnny Damon didn't think so. He rejected that Red Sox offer.

He preferred the offer made by the (spitting sound) New York Yankees, 52 millionfluckingdollars over four years.

Get this though, Johnny's agent, Scott Boras was asking for 84! Million. 84 millionbloodyflucking dollars for a seven year deal!

Greed.

Bloodyflucking greed.

Oh - by the way - Mr. Steinbrenner, you might want to give the MTA a phone call, I think they're a little short on cash.

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