From Gerard Vroomen (via Cervelo’s twitter account)
http://www.cervelo.com/en_us/news-blog/rider-blogs/article/anti-doping-idea-5-salaries-pensions/272/
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Socialsim is proven to fail 100 times out of 100. Last thing we need is a few retired mid-level cyclists on a witch hunt trying to find flaw in the past performance of others.
This wouldn’t really address where the real money is coming from…endorsements. No way to control how much they make / contract.
I’m not claiming to be a proponent of Vroomen’s plan. Just think its interesting and worthy of discussion.
Obviously, the top names make a lot from endorsements (Lance, Contador, Leipheimer, Cancellara, Boonan…but what about the 2nd and 3rd tier guys (think Chris Horner, Popo, Jens Voigt…etc.) Guys that make significantly more that the 300K limit proposed by Vroomen but aren’t the top guy on their team.
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Socialsim is proven to fail 100 times out of 100. Last thing we need is a few retired mid-level cyclists on a witch hunt trying to find flaw in the past performance of others.
Not saying that I agree, but how is this socialism? They dont all pool into a common per rider salary pension payout. They get what they put in as a deferred payout on an individual rider basis. Perhaps Gerard’s label of “pension” would be better as “trust fund”?
Knowing that if you can out someone and then you get a share of their earnings…that is pretty much socailist and brings out the worst in all involved.
I can neither confirm or deny that the hokey pokey is or is not what it is all about, in partial or in whole, but I can swear under oathe that the “bird” is indeed the word.
And LA only has 1 nut, so yeah, he is dope!!! By the way, anyone notice (other than my dyslexic ass) that DOPE is EPO’D backwards?
Interesting idea.
However, the UCI can’t even allocate moneys that they already have to people who contractually deserve it (there is a rule saying a ProTour team must put forward the salaries of their riders for x amount of time, or they can’t ride. When a certain team fell apart, the UCI refused to allocate the money that they already had to the riders).
Also, why would the cyclists sign up for this? Mario Cippolini is enjoying the millions he made… and everyone knows he’s dirty like a priest in a playground.
From Gerard Vroomen (via Cervelo’s twitter account)
http://www.cervelo.com/en_us/news-blog/rider-blogs/article/anti-doping-idea-5-salaries-pensions/272/
Fascinating idea! The same thing should apply to bike manufacturers. A large fraction of their revenues should go into a “consumer liability fund” and if they don’t get any consumer complaints the amount in the fund can be doled out over a long period of time. This has the advantage of preventing them from spending their profits on fancy cars, houses, women, drugs, and so on. If anyone is ever injured on one of their bikes, the other manufacturers get to split up the remaining revenues.
Tragically, 99.9% of Americans do not know the definition of the word “socialism”.
More tragically, an equal percentage refuses to look it up.
Hilarious is that most of these 99.9% of Americans practice “socialism” on a daily basis in one form or another…
Carry on.
Otherwise: Those Canadians are standing a few steps closer to communism (‘gasp’) than we do…
And anyone with half a brain would end most of it. The ONLY socailist things we SHOULD have is roads, sewer/water, military and power - and even then if folks dont pay they are cut off.
And anyone with half a brain would end most of it. The ONLY socailist things we SHOULD have is roads, sewer/water, military and power - and even then if folks dont pay they are cut off.
“No, no military for you!!”
Listen, all Government programs start out with good intentions, but like most Stevie Wonder songs, they don’t know when to end and go on for far too long beyond their usefullness.
Taking care of your own is one thing, but it’s just nature to let the weak get eaten.
I am from Cuba. My family left Cuba not because of one big event such as the revolution in 1959. We left shortly after a series of small incidents whereby my parents started to read the writing on the wall. SOCIALISM…COMMUNISM. I started my company is a capitalist country and in an economy in 1990 that allowed for those who take risks to be rewarded. Each year, especially in California, it has become more difficult to succeed because the government takes more and more from small businesses.
Gerard and I are friends, and the only part I agree with is this: “I know there are hundreds of reasons why it wouldn’t work…”
What would happen is that the best cyclists in the world will see early on that their talents will not be rewarded by salaries they can command, but rather they will be limited by some governing body, and if they even considered racing for the smaller salaries and some future pension, they would live in fear each day that their prerace meal is has been tainted in some way with a banned substance that would result in losing their job and also their pension.