$38,500

I often speak with a friend about disparity in this country. We debate our feeling about different issue and I play devil’s advocate. Although every word he speaks oozes with truth, I attempt to challenge his thoughts as well as what may be my own. I guess in essence the devil’s advocate within me is the philosopher within me. How does the tree make a sound if you cannot hear it? How would you even know that the tree made a sound? If you’ve never been to space, how do you even know it exist? If you’ve never seen the world, how can you be sure that it’s not flat?

This morning I heard on the radio that tickets to join in on Obama’s birthday celebration were $38,500. Thirty eight thousand five hundred dollars. Who buys that ticket? Does anyone actually pay that amount for a ticket to the celebration? $38,500 is the salary that millions would lie and cheat to have before tax. $38,500 would buy Governor Spitzer a month with a classy prostitute. $38,500 would be a down payment on a nice home. I’d imagine that the average person wouldn’t spend $38,500 on a wedding. Most college students probably have about $38,500 in loans. I hear this the day after I hear the rumor that Soldier Boy purchased a $55,000,000 jet for his birthday. Yes, that is six zeros and no your life’s earnings do not add up to that much money.

People complain about the amount of money that entertainers are worth all of the time. I try not to think about it so much because I feel like I can’t come up with a decent solution to the problem. Change the American mentality and make people more humanistic? Convince evil heartless people to love more and do good deeds? I can’t help but wonder what people think when they watch the news. When filthy rich people watch the news and see that a person is facing life in prison for a robbery, does the person that buys the ticket to Obama’s birthday celebration think, ‘I would have given that guy $20,000 not to kill all those hostages.’ Probably not, unless they were related to one of the hostages.

If we lower the amount of money that Lebron James makes to be comparable to a high end doctor’s salary, does that lessen the disparity? What about those wealthy families that have been wealthy for generations that Lebron James couldn’t even hang out with? Those below the radar millionaires & billionaires that don’t provide entertainment. What about Lebron’s agent and the owners of Lebron’s team? What about the people that write Lebron’s checks, how low/high should their salaries be? How high are their salaries now though they don’t get the attention that Lebron gets?

I guess in part it’s difficult to come up with solutions to the problem because I don’t have enough information about the problem to begin with. Like a math problem with missing information.

Ebony is 3 years old. Ebony has a sister name Karen. How old is Karen?

Well, I’ve asked a lot of questions, so I’ll let you think on those.

Newsflash: Facebook profits soar thousands, thousands of Facebook users starve to death.