Money Makes the World Go 'Round

Lady Gaga made sixty-four million dollars last year. For those of you who are concerned about her welfare, however, don't worry. This year she's expected to make about one hundred million.

I've never listened to Lady Gaga, and have no idea if she's a talented singer or the beneficiary of some sort of elaborate artificial publicity campaign. I mention her just as an example - one of the most famous examples - of the celebrity culture that has erupted in our country in the last half century.

When I'm feeling cynical I think we have organized our society deliberately to reward most the people who do what is least useful to us. Lady Gaga makes more in a day than the woman who teaches our kids will make in a lifetime, more than the garbage collector who comes to my house once a week, more than the firefighter I hope never comes to my house, more than . . . . It goes on and on.

Lady Gaga makes us feel a little better about ourselves. Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez might hit my beloved Red Sox back into the World Series this year but (Here comes the blasphemy!) who cares really. I'd much rather have my trash collected reliably every Wednesday than watch professional athletes jump all over one another late in the month of October.

The star or celebrity culture rewards people at the very top of their professions out of all proportion to what they actually do for us. It's a product of mass communications, I suppose. Years ago people would go to hear their local singer, or comedian or watch their local sports team. Now it's all about what's happening nationally or globally, meaning again that we all hear the same singers, admire the same batters and pitchers, marvel at the same magicians and so forth. Meanwhile, our teachers, garbage collectors, firefighters, and other people who do provide meaningful services and products find their share of the commonwealth shrinking every year.

Let me cite a quick personal example of what is happening in our country right now. At the end of 1997 I took an early retirement option from the National Park Service, where I had worked for 25 years. I knew that taking the option would require that I get another job but what I didn't anticipate is that my health insurance premiums would grow almost as fast as my cost of living adjustments would. In thirteen years my net monthly payment has grown by about ten percent. During that same time inflation has eroded my purchasing power by about twice that amount. In other words, my pension is worth about ten percent less now than it was thirteen years ago. This year my actual annuity amount has decreased because the health insurance premium went up more than my COLA. I'm sure I'm not the only person with this problem, in fact am far from it.

What I'm trying to say in all of this is that our middle class is being eliminated bit by bit in favor of a culture that awards incredible amounts of money on a very few people while the rest of us are just supposed to watch and applaud. So best of luck to Lady Gaga, I don't really begrudge you the millions of dollars that are being thrust at you, but I wouldn't mind if the country I love took better care of the rest of us.

And now a word or two about the horrible events of last weekend in Tucson. People are right to feel despair that such a terrible act could befall Congresswoman Giffords, the other victims, and especially a little girl who never hurt anyone in her short life. Let us not rush to judgement concerning the shooter and his motivation, however. He will tell his own story in his own time. It does little good until that happens to sail into one another with accusations about inciting or fostering the killer's mindset.

I wrote about the death penalty a few weeks ago. If the perpetrator in this case is found to be sane and if he knew the consequences of his actions, then I'll just say, if we don't execute this man we should never execute anyone.