In the Bleachers: Bench-clearing brawl!!

Oh, these modern sports stars with their greed and their violence. I know, it's so funny.

But let's stop laughing for a minute and try to think through the logic in this cartoon. The author is apparently upset that sports teams build stadiums with taxpayer money. I'm upset with that too! Teams totally shouldn't do that!

It is, however, the teams that are building the stadiums, not the players. The players are just employed by the teams. Therefore, the teams, not the players, are saving money at the expense of the taxpayers.

Moreover, were the players to return their bonus money, they would be returning it to the teams, not the taxpayers. And so the result would be that the teams would save even more money, at the expense of both their employees and the taxpayers. The point being, this cartoon is very stupid, as is the popular mode of thought that led to it.

But oh, look. On top of all that, it's acting as a metaphor for the current banking crisis and bailouts. Why that makes it, um, even stupider?