Quote of the Day

The money produced by art has not disappeared. The issue is not that the people of the world value television less than they did in the 1990s. The reality is that the people with the most money have devised, at every turn, new and more bulletproof ways for them to make and keep more money, and for the people who make things to make less. This is the eternal story of labor and management; it just has hot people in it, in this case.

—Kelsey McKinney at The Defector

This grows out of a discussion of the precarity of the financial situation of Emmy nominated actress Sydney Sweeney, despite her being the latest, "Big thing," finds her financial situation uncertain.

There is, of course, more money than ever going into entertainment, it's just that the parasites, managers, executives, brothers-in-law of the executives, are extracting a greater proportion of the product of their workers than ever:

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In 2021, Endeavor mogul Ari Emanuel made $293.7 million in stock awards. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made $246.6 million in total pay. Disney Chairperson Bob Iger took home $45.9 million. Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings made $38.2 million; his co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, also made $38.2 million. I do not care that some of this money was made in “options” or “bonuses” or the other kinds of ways that rich people hide how they pay themselves. That’s how much they made; that much money, which might have gone anywhere and to anyone in the way that money does, instead wound up stopping with them.

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But Sweeney isn’t one of those people. She comes from a family that could not afford to financially support her at all when she finished school. She will not have the luxury of relaxing as her inheritance pours in. Everyone deserves to be able to take six months off to have a baby. Everyone. The fact that Sydney Sweeney cannot is a reminder that the reason American workers do not have paid family leave is also the reason each generation has more nepotism babies than the last. We do not tax rich people enough and they do not pay their fair share; the fact of that, over decades, has intruded upon and warped every aspect of American life. Sweeney has to work, like everyone else, and has to do so for whatever she can get, and she has to do it knowing that what reaches her was the absolute minimum figure that people who are paid much more than her had determined that she would be willing to take. She’s not alone.

The money paid to Sydney Sweeney is for a service which has value.  The amount of money paid to Emanuel, Zaslay, Iger, or Hastings is completely out of proportion to the value that they provide.

There is a f%$# load of dead weight in our system, and it is not that kid delivering pizzas or that home health aid changing sheets.