Mortgage Foreclosures, Bankruptcy, Lay-offs, and $100 Million Dollar Contracts.

As the nation (being Canadian I should say nations) slumps into an economic whirlpool, news of mortgage foreclosures, bankruptcy, lay-offs, and other financially and personally disastrous items have wreaked absolute havoc and encouraged fiscal responsibility among millions and millions of people who go to work every day hoping for the best.

Read the news on any day and you’ll find that you’re not alone. Someone else got laid off, someone else went bankrupt, someone else bought a house for $200,000 and has had it recently valued at close to half of that.

Keep reading and you’ll see that the economic crisis has drastically hit the major sports free agent market as well…particularly the New York Yankees who have managed to spend over $400 million dollars on CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Texeira over the next few years. Perhaps the Yankees can help bail out GM and Chrysler?

I love sports, baseball in particular. However, this type of free spending that is occurring (by specifically the Yankees) has made me really not like the state of baseball to the level that I didn’t like it after the 1994 owners/players battle.

It makes me envision the greedy evil millionaire cutting in front of the line at the grocery store in front of a poor single mother and taking the last loaf of bread that she saved up the whole week for and he takes it because he can and puts it in the freezer next to the other 10 loaves. Why? Because running low for him means 10 loaves. Because he can.

Because he has no regard for the state of the economic times—only his economic times. He is facing tough times too you know…he lost one of his $100 million in the stock market. Times are tough. Got to be frugal, get that extra loaf because you never know what might happen. You have to be prepared. Plan ahead. Only the strong survive. Maybe she should have gotten an education and a job or something. It’s not my fault.

Here’s a great article on the subject that summarizes the “Greed is Good” mantra that the Yankees are using in their attempt at getting the last loaf of bread.

Don’t get me wrong, the Yankees have made some attempts to be economically responsible by cutting some payroll. Andy Pettite, their potential 4th or 5th starter (on their team anyway) was presented a 37.5 percent cut in payroll if he wished to remain with the team.

Most of us couldn’t afford a pay cut like that but let’s remember his 2008 salary was in the 16 million dollar range. Offer most of us a million dollars and we would jump at the chance to camp out on a stranded island with 15 strangers for 40 days for the slim chance that we would even have the opportunity to bring home the money.

Andy Pettite rejected the $10 Million Dollar job offer for 2009. Stop and read that sentence again, think about where you work, how much you make, and how much money you would have to be offered to reject the offer with so much economic turmoil surrounding us.

I really wish I could reject a $10 million dollar job offer. We all do. I wish I could play baseball a little better and perhaps look a little more like a movie star and have a trophy wife too. We all wish something.

It is life that some folks are more fortunate than others.

That won’t change. However, after reading through the news and seeing this article in the middle of the sports section kind of makes me wish it wasn’t rubbed in the face of all the hard working people who would love to take a trip and drive down to see the New Yankee Stadium and drop a couple hundred hard earned and saved dollars for the chance to see the team play but honestly can’t afford it, but get a loan to do it anyway.