Footballers and movie stars are unreasonably overpaid. The undeniable truth is — the average fire-fighter bravely works on unrelenting 48-hour shifts, rushing to scenes of trauma and witnessing horrific accidents enough to cause long-lasting emotional distress, while, most importantly, saving lives. The annual salary of an enduring fire-fighter is about £50,000, a chunk of which disappears in taxes and essential living expenses Not a lot remains for his aspired annual transatlantic or oriental holiday, let alone allow a reasonable saving.
In contrast, a moderately successful professional footballer is pampered with a 7-figure salary, enviably referred to, in the ‘million’. One wonders what becomes of such gains. Sociologists and psychologists researching into the lives of these ‘sports celebrities’ found that the majority of about 60% of this money goes towards the ‘dream house’, 21% in elevating lifestyles, 13% in savings, 4% on fast cars, and a mere 2% towards the wellbeing of the society and socio-economic status of the country. So much for altruism.
The story of movie stars is as remarkable. Robert Downing Jr, a recent top-of-the-charts star of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is reportedly paid a ludicrous £57 million — about a thousand times of what life-saving doctors and fire-fighter earn in a year!
Take a moment to imagine this scenario. Let’s say our hard-working school-friend, Joe, now working tirelessly in a hospital, saving lives, takes home £60,000 annually. And remember the other classmate spending his time in the gym and fashion walks, now a popular actor, spends a third of his days on movie sets and exotic locales, and in a bad year does over a million.
The comparison doesn’t encourage a scholarly and ‘honourable’ living — when saving lives has an exponentially less market-value than putting on a smart entertaining stage act. So I justifiably conclude:
“A man with a helmet protecting his country or a woman wearing stethoscope saving lives should be paid more than the man kicking around in his studded shoes or another momentarily playing amusing acts.”
