Jester said:
how do you expect them to attempt to argue against it? obviously they make a ton more, but you spend money as you can... so 24% rollback affects you. we earn money to spend it, not horde it... so being "responsible" is relative to the amount that you make, so i would argue anyone taking a 24% hit is going to have to change the level of spending that is "responsible."
read above... when your salary is X you spend based on X, not on 0. again, i'm pro owner, but this isn't really fair. any normal guy with a high-paying job would have the same exact issues...
again... you make X dollars you spend accordingly... you buy a nice house because (shocker here) real-estate is a GOOD investment to make when you have a lot of money... when suddenly your income stream is gone, that house is a problem for you.
.
Actually, we don't earn money just to spend. We pay down our mortgages, put money into RESPs for the kids' college fund, we make RRSP contributions for our retirement, we pay for life insurance to protect our families, etc etc etc.
What is left over is there for spending.
Now, if a player's average career is 5 years (the span roundly quoted), and he knows this going in, and he makes 1.3m per year, he has earned 6.5m over the course of his hockey playing days.
However, the players have been saying they need to make as much money as they can, because their careers are so short.
That doesn't mean, "I need to make as much as I can to live the high life for five years," that means "I need to make as much as I can to survive in my non-playing retirement.
Therefore, the player should not be taking on a mortgage that can't be comfortably paid off within five years, and should be watching his family's cash flow to ensure that a large portion of after tax, after agent commissions money is socked away to ensure that his family is set for retirement and/or emergencies(he could get injured tommorrow, and then no more contract renewals).