All in the same boat: negotiating for big money.

It’s all selfish greed.

I love the NBA. Anyone who knows me already knows this about me. I can tell you my favorite players, teams, games, playoff series, coaches, owners, and the opposite for all of those things that I hate.

What I hate right now is the NBA lockout. It’s a standoff between super talented and rich athletes in their twenties and thirties, arguing about money with super wealthy owners who or so uber rich that they pay two dozen of these millionaires salaries every year. Here is a quick rundown of some pertinent statistics on the subject: The average NBA player’s salary last season was 5 million dollars for 82 games. That number is down 5% from 2006, when player salaries peaked.

NBA jersey sales were the highest they have ever been this season. Despite LeBron James being considered almost league wide to be a villain, his was the most sold. Ticket sales across the board were the best ever. The ratings for the playoffs were a 15 year high, and the ratings for the finals were the highest since 1998, when some bald guy from Chicago played in Salt Lake City.

Despite all of that revenue, the NBA’s owners claim to have lost 300 million dollars this past season. In a year when everything goes their way, league parity is very close, and the talent level is possibly as full as it’s ever been, they claimed to have lost over a quarter of a billion dollars.

Obviously there is plenty of doubt in regard to that claim, but with the NBA collective bargaining agreement up (note: why is it cool for millionaires to have collective bargaining rights, but for teachers it’s socialism?) the league office has instituted a lockout on the 2011-12 season. They want players to take a 40% pay cut. The players are willing to take a cut, but nothing close to 40%.

They should tell the owners to stick it. They are the product. No one goes to a game to see Mark Cuban, nor should they. The players should tell the owners and general managers to stop giving 7 year contracts for $80 million to players who get winded at drive through windows.

Regardless it is tough to root for one side or the other. I find myself leaning toward the players case. If you’re rich enough that those guys don’t seem rich to you, then you probably have things going pretty well for you and should complain less about your life.

In the end, this is all about getting my season back. The product isn’t really the players, it’s the game they play and the spectacular level at which they play it. And it’s the greed of those who already have so much that deprive the fans of what is best for them.

Do I need to explain the analogy?

Democrats and Republicans are bickering back and forth and both trying to win; not for the sake of the people, for the sake of party. Several Republicans have called for the party to let the nation default on its debt, so as to help the chances of ousting Barack Obama in 2012. The same Republican party that comically touted the theme “Country First” in the 2008 election. At least it would be comical if it weren’t so sad.

Here is where the analogy takes flight. The Democrats are a lot like the players–not talented, mind you– but rich, greedy, and the lesser of the two rich greedy evils. They should tell Republicans to stick it. Tell them that instead of living in a country where a teacher makes less money than someone would working at a call center that doesn’t even require a GED. Tell them that the United States is pulling out of the two endless wars that cost $12 billion a month. Did you know we spend $20 billion annually air conditioning Iraq and Afghanistan. Twenty billion dollars. And we have to defund medicine, education and NASA.

The mere premise of trying to lower taxes right now is either tragically ignorant or wickedly greedy. I voted for Barack Obama so we could fund the country. Invest in American interests instead of foreign wars without end. But to pull American programs to give further tax breaks– when tax rates are already lower than under any Republican in history– to people making over $250,000 a year honestly sounds like intentionally harming America; aka treason. Think about how much money $250,000 is my poverty laden readers. Imagine getting paycheck every 2 weeks for $9,615. Think about the money that these people have, and the real need that America has. George W. Bush passed those tax cuts in 2004, and they are still in place. If the jobs were going to trickle down, they certainly would have done so by now, so it’s time we stopped accepting that nonsense as a valid economic plan.

Now the Democrats are hardly worth fighting for. They will make more concessions than the NBA players by far. The most recent proposal had no new taxes, which is also known as funding, but had hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to American social programs. No cuts to military spending. No return to the tax rates of the 1990′s– America’s most wealthy decade. Instead, we defund America so that the teams of slime balls and douche-bags in Washington can score political points.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had people in charge who just wanted to do what was best for the fans?