HEROES REALLY ARE CHEAP

America loves to spend its hard earned money on sports stars but it is a waste. The average sports professional in the NBA alone makes 5 million dollars a year and for what? Where does this money come from? Of course you and I pay these people their wages even in these tough times.  This should be no surprise to most of this blog's readers. With that being said I ask you to think who was the highest paid US athlete for fiscal year 2012?

If you guessed Floyd Maywether JR at 85 million dollars you would be right. So what do we get for investing large amounts of money on this talent? We get a rap sheet including 5 different domestic battery charges in which four victims were women. Please be my guest and view Floyd’s record on the following page link-  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Mayweather,_Jr.

If you are a parent consider never allowing your children access to anything this thug is involved in. However, as alarming as Mayweather’s actions are, our poor investment choices go on from there. Since 1985 sports teams have been building new stadiums across our vast country. How do they afford this massive expense? I will tell you that taxpayers cover most the costs and have spent around 4 billion dollars to finance our sports team’s new stadium addiction. Owners have figured out all they need to do is threaten a city with relocating and the saps (you and I) will pay the extra tax. Read this interesting article about stadium spending- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/in-stadium-building-spree-u-s-taxpayers-lose-4-billion.html

I am not saying Americans can’t enjoy sports but why at such a high cost? Keep in mind the real heroes like teachers average 50,000 dollars a year in 2011. Now who has a greater impact and vested interest your child’s future; Johnny Sports stud making  5 million per year who couldn’t care one bit about what is going to happen to our youth or that teacher at your kids school making ends barely meet but cares so much about the future of our children? So I will ask again, why spend 4 billion on stadiums and 85 million on women beaters? Just another Opportunity lost…………..

Here are some additional sources for this blog-

Mayweather money earned in fiscal 2012- http://www.therichest.org/sports/forbes-highest-paid-athletes/
Salaries in pro sports- http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ycn-10423863

The Congo Money Pit

The United States spends more than our fair share of money on the UN and its agenda but we are achieving nothing.  In 2010 we spent 7.7 billion of our tax money on UN initiatives. What are the projects we are funding? If you are curious and want to know there is a giant list of what we spend on international efforts, go to this website for a breakdown of 2011 expenses-http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rpt/2011/c54362.htm.

My reason for investigating what we spend on the UN is because of a story I read- http://world.time.com/2012/11/26/defining-peacekeeping-downward-the-u-n-debacle-in-eastern-congo/?iid=gs-main-mostpop1

The Democratic Republic of Congo, like many of its African neighbors, is under a state of civil war. The UN effort to help this country is a joke and in shambles.  The story I read basically outlines how the M23 rebels took the 2^nd largest city in Congo, called Goma, while UN peacekeepers watched and did not fire a shot. The story also tells of a time where a different rebel faction was trying to get the UN force to leave Pinga, after seizing control of the town, but they would not leave. The rebel force even went to the tactic of decapitating human beings from a rival tribe to try to get the UN to leave. The brave UN force, rather than stop the rebels from the heinous act, just stayed locked safely in their compound watching the murders from a far. The story goes on to site other examples like this and also notes corruption with the peacekeepers selling weapons to rebels for gold.

My interest in this story is what are we spending on this mess and does it justify the expense. In 2011 the United States spent 455 million dollars in the Congo. This is the largest expense we have for international spending. Now ask yourself these questions. Did you know we spent this massive amount of money in the Congo? Would you have approved spending our money like this especially after reading about what a mess the operation is?

This 455 million dollars that we spent in Congo should have been spent at home in the states. I live in a major US city where poverty is rampant. We have a road system, like many other cities, in bad need of repair. We have horrible education standards and many of our young flunk out of school and turn to street violence. You and I pay taxes to help with these domestic issues yet half a billion of our dollars go to, and no disrespect to Congo, help others when we can’t help ourselves.  So I will end this by saying call your senator or rep and ask them when will they take action and realize this is another Opportunity Lost……

List of all Rep and Senator Numbers- http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm