I fly entirely too much. In the past year I’ve probably flown around 75,000 miles. That’s comparable to flying from New York to Miami around 70 times. Throughout this sick amount of flying I have flown on pretty much every major US airline that I can think of. As a result, I have gathered a great depth of information when it comes to how the airlines differ, and which are really better than others. I think it’s about time I disseminate this valuable information.

In what follows I will focus on what I consider to be the three major airlines: Delta, American, and Continental. But before doing so, I will briefly discuss what I consider to be a few notable, but less significant airlines, including Jet Blue, Song, US Air, and United. I have flown a few others, but they aren’t significant enough to mention.

Jet Blue is a great place to start, because they are currently one of the most (and only) profitable airlines out there. The reason for this is probably because they’re pretty good. The tickets tend to be reasonably priced, they fly to most significant cities, and the flights are about as enjoyable as a coach-seated flight can be. They equip each seat with a little TV so that the time goes faster. Song, operated by Delta airlines (see below), is basically a Jet Blue copycat that got it a little bit better. They offer more than just TV – they offer a variety of music selections, games, and pay-per-view movies. Song also offers food for sale, while I think Jet Blue gives you a snack without paying for it. Although the Song flights tend to be a little nicer, I no longer fly Delta when I can avoid doing so (as explained below). But Jet Blue isn’t bad at all.

Then there’s US Air, or “USeless Air” as some like to call it. They’ve got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Their service is terrible, it’s next to impossible to use frequent flyer miles with them (because everyone is using theirs, knowing that US Air recently filed for bankruptcy protection), and they don’t fly many places direct. So stay away. As for United, they worry me. They worry me because they associate themselves with US Air. It isn’t unusual to get a flight on US Air that is also a flight for United, or vice-versa. Moreover, United runs into most of the same problems that US air does. They recently unveiled some odd and seemingly meager attempt at staying afloat through having a “discount” airline called “Ted”, trying to copy Jet Blue and Song. Yet, Ted doesn’t offer the same fun or amenities that Jet Blue and Song offer. So after flying Ted once, I really didn’t see the point.

Of course, the problem with all of the discount airlines like Jet Blue, Song, and now Ted, is that none of them have a first-class cabin. This is fine if you don’t intend to fly first class, but if you do, then they’re strictly out of the question: no amount of fun and games in coach can trump the pleasantness of the first-class cabin. If you have the means, I strongly suggest you purchase first-class tickets. In talking about the three major airlines, I will touch upon their first-class difference, as well as their general pros and cons.

Let me begin with Delta. Never, ever, fly Delta. It might be tempting if the Delta ticket is a little cheaper than its competitors, but you get what you pay for. For a moment, I will take a slight regression in order to explain my most recent negative experience with Delta, and the one that has led to my decision to fly them as little as possible in the days to come.

I was scheduled to fly back from LA to JFK on Delta this last Thursday evening, on a 3:45 flight. I had a first-class ticket. So I got to the airport with plenty of time. As the boarding time approached, it came and went. Around 3:30, the plane got there, the passengers from its previous flight got off, and the staff began cleaning and preparing the airplane for the next flight. They said it would run around a half hour late, to now depart at 4:15. Fine, I can deal with a half hour delay, as this is fairly average when it comes to flying.

But then they called my name to come up to the counter. The woman there informed me that there was a problem with this plane. In particular, there was a problem with the engine. She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how long it would take to fix, but since I had paid for a first-class ticket, I was given the option to walk to a nearby gate and take a flight to JFK that was boarding immediately. The problem, of course, is that I would have to sit in coach. She then promised that I would at least have a window or aisle seat. Since it’s a 5+ hour trip, this makes a big difference. But out of the fear of not knowing how long it would take me to get home, I took her up on the offer.

When I arrived at the other gate, they gave me my seat. Turns out they were out of window and aisle seats after all, and I got a middle seat. But the news gets worse before it gets better: the airline staff informed me that there was not time to switch the luggage to this plane, so they would be delivering it the following day. No huge deal, since I would be returning to my apartment; there was nothing in there so utterly vital that I couldn’t wait a few hours after waking up to get it.

So I suffered on the 5-hour flight in the middle seat thinking, “Well, it could be worse, that flight might be like 3 hours late, or canceled all together if the engine is broken beyond repair.” Of course, I also went without dinner as a result, since I didn’t have time to bring any food on the plane. They feed you in 1st class, but not in coach. No dinner for Dan! (By the way, the reason there was a flight boarding when my original flight was supposed to be boarding was because that flight was 4 hours late – it had engine trouble too. Two planes going to the same destination on the same day with engine trouble? Makes you wonder whether or not Delta’s fleet of jets is on its last leg, doesn’t it?)

Upon arrival at JFK, I nearly ran to the baggage claim, where I spoke to an agent, informing her of my situation and attempting to fill out a luggage claim form, since my luggage was not on the plane. She said that I should wait to make sure that they didn’t switch it onto this flight. I told her that I was sure they didn’t switch it, but she made me wait anyway. 40 minutes later, I confirmed that I was, indeed, right. Surprise, surprise – my luggage wasn’t there. She then asked me if I wanted to fill out the form or just wait for the flight I was suppose to be on to unload its luggage, as it had just landed.

“ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?” I thought. I had suffered in a middle seat and had no meal for saving approximately 30 to 40 minutes? I was livid. I told her that I had waited long enough, filled out the luggage claim, and went home. The next morning at around 11am, I was woken up by the buzzing at my door, which was the luggage delivery. I rushed downstairs to push the door buzzer, but pressed it, what must have been about 5 seconds too late: the delivery guy had left. I immediately called up Delta and told them to send him back, but they informed me that he had already left the area. Apparently, he must have a magic van, because in 3 minutes, you can’t get very far in New York City. So they then told me that it would be delivered between 2 and 6pm. So I got to sit around my apartment all day and wait for it to be delivered, rather than spend more time with my girlfriend who I hadn’t seen in 2 weeks and would again be separated from in 3 days.

About 40 minutes later my phone rang. I was indisposed at the moment, so I let it go to voicemail. It was the delivery guy, having wanted to try to deliver the bag again. I called him back rather immediately, but again, somehow he had managed to get too far away in the 5 or 10 minutes that had passed. So now I had to wait until 6pm, and I did. But after 6pm passed, I became even angrier, and called up Delta again. They told me that apparently he had lots of deliveries, and he couldn’t get to mine, so now it would be delivered sometime after 9pm.

So let me get this straight: I purchase a first-class ticket on Delta, end up in a middle seat to save 30 minutes, and am forced to sit around my apartment until after 9pm for the entire day to get my luggage? Are they are out of their mind? Do they honestly believe I will ever fly Delta again if I can avoid doing so? At this point, I told the woman that this wasn’t going to work for me, as I had plans that evening, so I gave her my girlfriend’s address, who was throwing a party that night. At around 9:30 that evening my luggage finally came to her apartment. Of course, the delivery guy didn’t have the decency to walk it up two flights of stairs, but called me from downstairs to come and get it. Service with a smile.

So never, ever fly Delta. Their first class, incidentally, is also the worst I’ve been in while flying. The food is mediocre, at best, and the wine is undrinkable. Another reason not to fly Delta is their frequent flyer program. They recently changed the rules so that there are some flights considered “premium” flights, which cost twice as many miles to book. For example, if you want to fly out of New York City on a Thursday or Friday night, to anywhere in the continental US, it will now cost you 50,000 frequent flyer miles instead of 25,000. Realize, you can fly anywhere in the world for 50,000 miles on other airlines. I once tried to book such a flight from NY to South Florida using frequent flyer miles from Delta, but ended up purchasing the ticket for around $200 instead of sacrificing 50,000 precious frequent flyer miles.

But enough about Delta. Let’s talk briefly about American. I used to really like American. They have lots of flights out of La Guardia, and they generally have good service. But recently I got annoyed with American, because they stubbornly refuse to upgrade you to first class, even if you have Platinum status (like me). A few weeks ago, the first class cabin was virtually empty, and I was forced to use “upgrade stickers” to be upgraded. This is unacceptable, as even an airline as crappy as Delta upgrades people to first-class until the cabin is full.

I have finally come to decide that Continental is the best airline out there. I intend to pledge my allegiance to Continental in the days to follow. They fly to as many locations as American or Delta, but their service is better. They also have the newest airline fleet in of all of the major carriers. Finally, their first-class is far superior to the other major airlines. Their food in first-class is significantly better than the slop that American or Delta tries to feed you. Continental actually gives you menus for the five-course meal that awaits with four options for the main course. The one drawback of Continental out of New York City is that you have to go to Newark airport. It’s a decent airport; the problem is that it’s kinda far. But then, it isn’t really any further than JFK, so if you’re flying a significant distance, you’ll probably have to drive that far anyway to go to JFK.

I didn’t mention much about coach for the major airlines because, quite frankly, coach is coach. They’re all mediocre, so if you’re flying coach, consider the various characteristics I mentioned above to determine which to travel. I’d say either Continental (due to the best chance to be upgraded and for more frequent flyer miles) or Jet Blue (for their TVs). Of course, if you’re going first-class, go Continental.

That should about do it. Now you know which airlines are the best and which are the worst. If there’s anything I want the readers to take away from this evaluation, it’s that Delta is terrible and Continental is pretty great. Of course, if you need to consider other options, now you can do that too through the other discussion above.

How do you think I’ll handle not sleeping in my apartment for 2 ½ months?

About two weeks ago I was flying 1st class from Miami to LA. I was pretty amused about being on this flight. After all, what better place to meet famous people than in 1st class on a flight from Miami to LA? Sadly, neither city must have had any parties going on that weekend, as there was squat in terms of famous people on the flight. However, there was a rather interesting set of people sitting behind me.

Behind me there was a rather attractive blond woman. She was with her child, a baby of probably a little over one-year old. Next to her was her Latino nanny. This blond woman was clearly rich, as you could tell just by looking at her. There’s little doubt that her husband is loaded, as she looks like trophy wife material. Indeed, she must not be doing too badly if she can afford to have her nanny with her in 1st class during a transcontinental flight.

What I found particularly interesting about this pair wasn’t there mere existence: it was their relation to the child. The child’s mother was extremely disinterested in the child. In fact, during the entire 6-hour flight, there was not a split second during which the mother held her child. Instead, the child was in the arms of the nanny for the entire trip.

I found this rather unsettling. It actually made me rather ill to see a woman treating her child this way. I can’t help but wonder what the point of having children is if one is just going to let someone else raise them, which this woman was clearly doing through this nanny. Even beyond the flight itself, in the waiting area, the nanny was caring for the child like a good mother would, while the mother was being her disinterested self.

Surely the idea of someone else raising one’s child is not a phenomenon unique to contemporary society. Throughout history those with more money than they knew what to do with hired people to help them take care of their children. An obvious example of this would be royalty, who surely had their servants do as much as possible when it came to raising their children.

I think, however, today it is becoming far more popular today than it was in the past. The contributing factors to this are obvious. On one hand, the upper class and upper-middle class is becoming wealthier, so that they can afford nannies more easily. But what I think is even more relevant is the fact that women are less interested in raising children. While this isn’t the case for all women, due to the relatively recent women’s rights movement, a woman spending all or most of her time helping to raise a family has become seen as degrading. Instead, most women gladly accept the help of a nanny, because they see the job of raising children as more of a burden than a pleasure. Even most women who are not wealthy enough to afford a nanny would certainly agree with this point.

I suppose it’s a strange situation. On one hand, the women’s rights movement did some really great things. It gave women greater opportunity to do things that before were forbidden. It guaranteed equality for men and women in a number of situations. Really, it enhanced women’s dignity in general, as discrimination against women is now strongly condemned. Of course, it didn’t come without a cost.

The children feel this cost. With more children than ever being enrolled in day-care at a very early age and through the enhanced usage of nannies, children are being raised by others. This is particularly noteworthy because it constitutes a significant historical paradigm shift. While in the past there were instances where people had others raise their children for them, these days it is becoming the rule, instead of the exception.

At this point, the vast majority of children under 18 years old will grow up having been mostly raised by people other than their parents. If they all seemed to be doing great, this might not seem like such a problem. But most people in their right mind would agree that the youth of today is rather lost. If it isn’t materialistic urges that guide them, then it’s sex, violence, and drugs. Although it is probably impossible to devise an a priori argument of causation in terms of children being raised by those other than their parents and turning out badly, it sure seems like an interesting coincidence. But I have a theory.

One of the great things about parents is that they have parental instinct. Historically, most parents would do anything to help their children. They would sacrifice their time, money, or even life, if it meant a better future for their children. This is what parents did. Yet, today, many parents won’t even sacrifice their tennis lessons, much the less their time, money or life. We are in a time when many parents no longer care about their children more than themselves, and that’s a little bit scary.

It isn’t scary because selfishness is evil, because in theory, it isn’t. It’s scary because children can’t raise themselves. When parents have a child, there is a kind of unwritten contract that must exist for those parents to take on the responsibility to make sure that the they does whatever is in their power to ensure that the child grows up as best as their means allow. The great thing about this conceptual contract, is that the parents have something at stake themselves – if they end up having kids that grow up to be wonderful adults, with whom they have cultivated a great relationship, then the children have a similar conceptual contract to help their parents throughout old age.

But today, this contract is null and void. For starters, most parents don’t expect their children do to a whole lot for them in old age. As a result, they work harder to make more money now, so they can be self-reliant at that time. And this might be fine, if the cost weren’t so high. But now there is no one with anything at stake raising these kids. Sure, a nanny is concerned about her salary, but it’s only a job. She can get another if she doesn’t do a great job, and surely, she will only do the minimum amount necessary to ensure that she remains employed, as this is human nature, since the job is rather dead-end, with no incentive to work harder towards advancement. And at a day-care, those taking care of the children might have to worry about 15+ children, so each child is hardly getting the same quality care that they’d get with a two-on-one parents-child relationship.

So what’s the answer? I don’t find one to be particularly clear. We certainly can’t just tell women they can’t work anymore, nor should we. One might argue that men should step up to the plate and begin taking care of children becoming what was historically known as maternal figures. But this doesn’t seem quite fair either, as neither sex seems like they should have a priority when it comes to cultivating their own life or career over their children’s.

I think that the only possible situation is one where both parents give up a little. Perhaps one parent should work a part-time, or less involved job, while the other works a full-time, but not extremely intense job. For example, neither parent should work a 60-hour per week job, nor should more than one work a 40+ hour per week job. The details of this can be hashed out amongst the couple.

But mostly, our society’s values need to change. The act of raising a child should be seen as honorable and vital to our advancement as a society. If people don’t want to raise children, then they shouldn’t have them in the first place. This is what I kept thinking when I would glance back at that woman on the plane’s child in her nanny’s arms. If we as a society don’t want to raise children, perhaps we should just stop reproducing and allow our species to die out. At least then it would merely be a fade out, rather than a violent collapse, which is what we will continue to head towards as long as children aren’t be properly raised.

Why don’t most of the 8 million residents of New York City realize what a low quality of life they have and move out?

I’m in Southern California on business for approximately the next three of four weeks. I arrived exactly a week ago, and I’ve been enjoying Los Angeles and outlying areas ever since. This weekend, I have been staying in Westwood, a rather nice section of Los Angeles. I’m staying at the oh-so-trendy “W” hotel, where I am typing this journal entry right now, by the pool.

This morning, after waking up, I walked a few blocks to a section of Westwood near my hotel where there are various shops and restaurants. During that walk, I passed by a church of Scientology. It was packed. There were cars everywhere, and apparently their Sunday service was just getting out. What I found interesting about this was that there were children leaving the service. I suppose that when I think of scientologists, I always think of adults, but I guess I had never thought about parents raising their children to be scientologist.

Obviously, raising children as scientologists is no different than raising children as Catholic, Jewish, or any other religion. This is merely the act of parents raising their children with the same religious values that they believe. It is something that I plan to do; thus, I must find it a morally acceptable action. Yet, due to the fact that I think that Scientology is false, I found it unfortunate that these children are being raised to believe this religion.

Of course, I am a staunch advocate for freedom of religion. And if people weren’t allowed to raise their children to have any religious beliefs they choose, then freedom of religion would be fatally damaged. So while it bothers me, I suppose that I can’t really complain when I see parents raising their children within a religion that I believe to be false.

I couldn’t get past it though. As a result, I began to question my original premise: Is it, in fact, morally acceptable to raise one’s children within one’s own religion? Maybe I took this claim for granted a bit too fast. And realize, I’m not questioning if it’s morally acceptable for certain people to raise their children within certain religions; I’m questioning whether it’s acceptable for any people to raise their children within any religions.

The answer to this question isn’t simple. Think about what happens when parents raise their child to have certain religious beliefs. Imagine that you have a child. You go through whatever initial rituals are necessary, since the time of birth, for this child to be a participant in your religion, like baptism, communion, etc. for Christianity. Before the child is at an age to make decisions for him/herself, s/he is told by his/her parents what the correct religion is, and what s/he should believe. As a result, if s/he never thinks about it once s/he gets to an age where s/he can finally make decisions for him/herself, s/he may take the veracity of this religion for granted.

This is bad. Religion, if unquestioned, becomes worthless. Faith is only meaningful if tested, as those who never question their faith have no substantial reason to believe. Moreover, giving parents the freedom to indoctrinate their children in a specific religion actually damages the very principle that freedom of religion stands for: these children may grow up never to experience true freedom of religion, because they might just accept what they were originally taught, without ever questioning it.

So what can be done? Clearly we can’t disallow parents to raise their children within a certain religion. But at the same time, it seems like bad things can happen if they do. So what’s the answer? The answer I find plausible is one which most people assume is the prototypical threat to freedom of religion: religion in the schools.

I think that in elementary through high school, there should be courses periodically taught that explain all major religions to children, in an objective format. Religions like Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Scientology, Atheism, etc. should all be explained in an objective voice. By educating the children about various religions, when adults, they will have learned about all religions, and will be knowledgeable enough to decide, for themselves, whether or accept the religion of their parents or to deviate from this religion and pursue something else.

Religion has become such a private and touchy subject in our culture that people almost never talk about their religion with one another, unless they happen to know that their religion is the same as the person with which they are conversing. Most TV shows and movies also fail to really address religion in such a way that they educate their viewers on religion. Thus, school is really the only viable way to educate people about religion, so that they can make a well-informed decision about what to believe.

And don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that parents can’t discuss what these children learn in school about religion and continue to preach their own religion. But at least now the parents’ voice won’t be the only that their children hear speak about religion. Indeed, I would suspect that if religion was taught in schools in the way I describe, this would also lead to our society being far more tolerant of religions that different from our own – another important principle behind the freedom of religion.

So there you have it. We should bring religion into the schools. Ironically, this would enhance the freedom of religion that our constitution guarantees. It would also help people to have more information with which to evaluate what religion is right for them, from a very early age. I think that religion is really important, and by bringing religion into the schools, it would only deepen and enrich the way religion exists in our society.

Why are people in California so much better looking than anywhere else in the country?

Having graduated college and moving into the “real world”, the way I see life now is a little different. It isn’t quite right to say that before being on your own that you do not have any responsibilities, but now if one fails to take these responsibilities seriously very bad situations can arise. For example, if a college student decides not to study for a test, then s/he might receive a failing grade. Life goes on. Yet, when someone in the “real world” decides to blow off work, s/he could be fired. You might be able to get another job, but it won’t be immediate, so suddenly, you might have trouble paying your bills or making rent. This is the kind of thing that I am talking about when I say that the responsibility is different.

So with this new outlook on life, one cannot help but see his/her options differently from before as well. As mentioned earlier, you can’t just do anything you want, as the consequences of acting in a certain way can be far more serious than they were when you didn’t have full responsibility for your own life. Suddenly sporadic behavior is difficult.

Indeed, one can’t just change his/her mind in regard to certain aspects of his/her life. Relationships are a great example of this. If you’re married, “breaking up” with your significant other now involves divorce, which includes dividing up the assets, lawyers, and courts. Deciding you want to change careers isn’t like dropping a class. You have to be able to convince a future employer that they should hire you despite your lack of experience, and also have a good story for why you are changing careers. And you had better work somewhere, or you’ll starve.

As a result, although it wasn’t so important before, stability suddenly becomes a very valuable commodity. Before being on one’s own, it didn’t much matter if you quit your job and got a new one – your parents were supporting you. It didn’t much matter if you broke up with your significant other – it was just a school fling anyway. But now, once you’ve developed these stable situations, especially in relationships and employment, it’s a big deal to change them; it’s a rather daunting task.

I think that this is why so many people end up in careers that they aren’t particularly crazy about. Sure, there’s the fact that some people don’t have as many options as others due to poor education, intelligence, or other debilitating factors in the employment market. But by-in-large, it’s unlikely to think that there aren’t a lot of people out there might have been happier with their jobs had they “followed their dreams” in regard to doing what they wanted to do. At the very least, one would imagine that they’d then be working in an industry that they found more interesting, even if the exact job wasn’t quite right.

So this puts stability in an interesting place. On one hand, it’s great. What can be better than living life comfortably? Being in a stable life situation is to say that you have enough money to live life with reasonable comfort (though not necessarily extravagantly) and you don’t particularly detest anything in your life. Yet, this isn’t really happiness either, is it? Stability is simply a place where things are at least tolerable. That’s quite a bit different from a place where things are wonderful.

Stability can act as a sort of a trap. I suppose one can equate this with the well known concept of “settling” for what one can stand, but isn’t that crazy about. I think that this has some interesting applications to analyzing why the most successful people are the way they are.

My theory? They aren’t as risk adverse as the average person. Whenever someone is willing to jeopardize his/her stability, that’s taking a rather significant risk. What if you quit your job in hopes of doing something different, but that doesn’t work out so well. Are you going to go crawling back to your old employer and beg for your job back? Will they even take you back at this point? What if you divorce your husband/wife only to find out that there’s no one out there as good as s/he was? Making a change in one’s life involves substantial risk, and this is why stability traps most people.

But think about people like Donald Trump. Although I hate to use him as an example, mostly because I think he’s an asshole, he has been moderately successful in making money. Yet, there were times in his life when he was broke. He’s had quite a few ups and downs throughout, but no matter what happens, he’s always willing to take risks to try to reap greater reward. One might imagine that when Donald Trump bought his first apartment building, he could have probably retired with a couple million in the bank after 10 or 20 years. This is some pretty good stability. But he was willing to shake up that stability in order to build a real estate empire.

So does that mean that everyone should quit their jobs and chase those dreams they’ve always had? Of course not. Most people would fail. It takes a lot more than just the will to do something different to actually succeed in it. But what it does mean is that people with talent for that “other thing” probably shouldn’t be all that scared. Calculated risks often pay off. I think that the view of stability is that it’s unique and hard to obtain. Although it isn’t extremely easy, even if you do take a risk and fail, you can probably still manage to get back to a pretty good place eventually, though it might take some work to get there.

I suppose, over the past two years or so, I’ve just thought about how dangerous stability can be. It can lead to stagnation. And even if we aren’t willing to shake up the really important things in our life, shaking up the little things probably isn’t going to do much harm. And I suspect stagnation is a worse fate than instability anyway.

Why can’t planes just be on time?

A few weeks ago I read a headline that I did not find particularly surprising: The New York Yankees had once again been forced to pay a huge “luxury tax” due to the fact that their roster had a salary well above the league average. My suspicion is that most people would advocate what the luxury tax does. It attempts to even the playing field for baseball teams, since some owners are willing to spend more money on their team than others. Instituting a penalty on a team discourages owners from having as a roster that is much more expensive than others.

This seems strange to me for a number of reasons. First, why not just call a duck a duck? Why these round about ways to promote salary equality? If Major League Baseball is so concerned with having one team spending a disproportional amount compared to another, then take a lesson from the NFL and put a limit on how much each team can spend. What sense does it make charging an owner some seemingly arbitrary amount of money over and above what they are already spending.

Let’s think about what this does: it penalizes owners for trying to have the most competitive team. In baseball, most think about the Yankees when they think about teams that spend a lot on their players. But some might be surprised to know that the second most expensive roster this, and last year, was that of the Boston Red Sox. Of course, during all of the fanfare and celebration for their World Series win, no one ever complained about the fact that their roster was disproportional to the rest of the league. Their owner paid a substantial amount of luxury tax too.

Perhaps the most perplexing part about the idea of a luxury tax is that it doesn’t actually work. Both the Red Sox and Yankees are paying a luxury tax this year But the fact that they have to pay one doesn’t faze them: Their owners still make so much profit off of the teams that this tax is a drop in the bucket to them. I cannot begin to comprehend how much Red Sox paraphernalia was sold last year to every fair weather Red Sox fan in the world. There’s little doubt that the owner made millions upon millions upon millions of dollars more as a result of their winning the World Series than he would have made if they hadn’t. And sure, he had to pay, say, a million dollars luxury tax. Big deal, right? I hardly think that this little tax is would have led to him decreasing the amount he spends on his roster the following year. And it didn’t. Having such a large payroll paid off, literally.

What I find most disturbing about the luxury tax is that it is, quite frankly, un-American. The luxury tax is un-American because it is anti-capitalist. Now if baseball were the French of Chinese pastime, this wouldn’t matter. But it’s the American pastime. How can we stand for this?

Let me take a few minutes to explain why it’s anti-capitalist, as a few factors lead to this conclusion. First, it is anti-competitive. As mentioned above, you literally penalize owners for trying to make their teams the most competitive. Competition, of course, is the heart of capitalism. But this, as I see it, is just the tip of the iceberg.

To see the major way in which the luxury tax conflicts with capitalism, one must think of baseball as a business. After all, it is. Major League Baseball is like an industry, and the teams are like the separate firms in the industry. The expenses for these firms result from their players’ salaries, the stadium, the workers, and advertising. The profits for these firms result from their ticket sales, merchandise sales, advertising revenue, and concession. The product, of course, is the quality of their baseball team.

So like any other firm, each baseball team must create a budget and expectations. They decide that if they wish to spend a certain amount of money on certain expenses, then they can derive a certain profit. As the Yankees and Red Sox have demonstrated in the past years, those teams who spend the most are likely to have a very high quality product – they have very good teams. Because these teams are good, their fans are more apt to show their pride in being a fan of their team, so to buy more merchandise, or to attend more games, buying more tickets.

But now, moving back to the firm/industry analogy, let’s think about some other industry, like cars. Imagine if there were 26 different car manufacturers in the U.S. These manufacturers all have different expenses. A few of these manufacturers have very high expenditures, because they’ve hired some of the best engineers in the industry, and they also spend more on their products, as they are of higher quality. Suddenly, the government steps in and places an extra tax on these couple of car manufacturers, because their expenses are well above average. Could you imagine?

There would be a huge public outcry. In the real world, these car manufacturers might be Mercedes or BMW. Suddenly these two firms are taxed more than any other firm, simply because they are willing to produce a higher quality product? Of course, on one hand it shouldn’t bother them too much, because their higher product sells very well, and they are still able to make more profit than any of the other firms, despite the tax. This is exactly analogous to the situation in baseball.

How can Major League Baseball get away with this? I can’t possibly be the only person to have ever come to the realization that the luxury tax is a socialist scheme. It stifles competition by hurting teams that cultivate better players. It’s also paternalism at its worst. These Major League Baseball owners are all millionaires and billionaires. I think they’re intelligent enough to decide how much money they want to spend on their team. And if someone else wants to spend more to have a better team, then that’s a risk they will have to take by spending less.

This just all bothers me. Even a salary cap would be slightly fairer than a luxury tax. Why penalize an owner for wanting to have a more competitive team? That’s like slapping your child when you find how that s/he is striving to be the High School Valedictorian. It just doesn’t make sense.

How could anyone still watch American Idol?