Charlotte

Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

Competitive balance is already strained, and employment ends it. Right now recruiting has at least some friction: geography, academics, tradition. Add open salaries and the richest 15 programs simply buy every roster, every year, with payrolls no one else can approach. The NFL has a salary cap and revenue sharing to prevent exactly this. College would have neither, just a bidding war. [ESPN](https://www.espn.com/) would love it: Alabama versus Ohio State every January, forever. Everyone else becomes a farm team. If you think the sport is top-heavy now, wait until payroll replaces recruiting.

Should billionaires be allowed to exist?

I taught fourth grade for 22 years. I bought my own classroom supplies, I worked summers to make rent, and I watched kids I taught grow up to be the engineers and nurses this country runs on. My pension is fine, I'm not complaining about my life. But I will never understand a world where my lifetime of actual, essential work is worth less than one year of some hedge fund guy's carried interest. My problem is what we signal to children about which work matters. When the culture says the highest status belongs to whoever accumulates the most, we shouldn't be surprised when nobody wants to teach.