Now, I’m not all about money. I probably would’ve been quite content to live in the agrarian days of yore when you’d go out and barter a cow for bags of seed corn. But as I was buying Christmas gifts and trying to ignore my bank account’s plaintive cries for mercy, I came upon a news article that made me just about drop my Santa’s beard.
The rapper Nas was recently ordered by a Los Angeles judge to pay monthly child and spousal payments of $51,101. Now, I’m not griping about the ex-spouses settlement. I’m sure she needs every cent (right down to that last buck). I just found it interesting that the judge concluded that 51 grand a month wouldn’t be too taxing for a hip-hop star to cover. Just pocket change, really. And that got me thinking: What a bizarre world we live in.
We as a society are so focused on pop culture and entertainment that we place an unwarranted amount of value on rappers’ and other celebrities’, uh, contributions. Meanwhile, teachers, soldiers and policemen (and hard-working writers, for that matter) just scrape by.
Sure, I know it’s that age-old question of supply and demand. They supply. We buy. Somebody ends up with gazillions in alimony. But my mind keeps running to the limping economy, skyrocketing prices, struggling families, anchorless young people and a nagging feeling that the value of things has somehow, somewhere, become slightly unhinged.
But then, what do I know? I still haven’t gotten a good offer for this cow.
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