THE GREAT INCOME GAP BETWEEN STARS AND TEACHERS OR NURSES

Are Stars Justified¹ to Obtain High Incomes?
Are you aware of an expanding group of TV alcoholics² emerging among your peers, or so called sofa potatoes, enjoying channel surfing, fascinated by star pursuing, chewing up gossips in the circle? The unparallel boom of entertainment and sports industry serves as the best example of the endurable rule; demands create markets, and markets ensure incomes

No matter in domestic or foreign market, athletes and entertainers are being paid extremely high, toward which people harbors a contradictory³ attitude. On the one hand, there was a feeling of imbalance when seeing those stars driving BMW fleeting⁴. On the other hand, in order to watch their stage performance, most people definitely will buy the tickets regardless of price.

The prosperity of entertainment and sports circles was, actually, hard to imagine in the old days when dramatists were debased to low status and athletes were fed on no more than spiritual grains. However, the opening policy utterly⁵ transformed people's lifestyle by providing rich abundance of bread and warm clothes. Therefore, more and more lay people no longer felt content with material wealth, and their desire to fulfill⁶ both material and spiritual needs creates the market, which is part of the reason for the stars' high income.

In contrast with ordinary professions like nurses, doctors and teachers, a higher admission threshold is laid in the entertainment and sports circles. A charming face, elegant manner, strong constitution are indispensable qualities when an ambitious young man dreams about carving⁷ a name or at least making a living in this field. Due to the high cost to turn an innocent beauty into an fascinating film star, high incomes are charged to make up for his or her diligence and pressure suffered in this cruelly competitive circle. What's more, it takes the most precious time in their whole life. How can a pop star count on an ever-lasting career to support all the rest of his or her life? Energy fading away, brilliance⁸ never dazzles again. The day is bound to come when fame and fortune say goodbye to those pitiable out-of-date stars. In a word, their present high incomes may be set aside for future use. Therefore, the profession must be lucrative⁹.

Another fact also lends credence¹⁰ to this seemingly unfair phenomenon. Not confined to their own profession, those fashionable stars explore various approaches to enlarge their bank notes, which, in effect, bring about some positive side effects. Say, the high frequency of exposure to various media earns these pop stars a mass of passionate¹¹ and loyal fans, whereas, their enduring support, on the contrary, adds to the chance of charging an ideal transferal fee when hopping¹² to another club or company. On the other hand, modern citizens are eager to find a vent¹³ to release their working stress and the excitement in watching a sport game provides another ingredient for stars' popularity and high incomes. One partes demand always results in another's considerable benefits.

Admittedly, the expanding boom of these two industries proves their social value and the necessity of their existence, but that is not to say other ordinary professions are of less value. After all, the society's basic mechanism¹⁴ is built up by those less eye catching¹⁵ groups, who try to satisfy people's physical and mental needs; such as curing disastrous¹⁶ diseases, providing universal education. A career's inner value, however, can never be measured by secular¹⁷ banknotes. One is superficial, the other is profound; one is short termed, the other is long-lasting, neither can replace the other while both beautify people's daily life.

At last, stars are justified to obtain high incomes because there's not a fair scale available to make such a comparison. Every phenomenon has its reason to survive. We need sports and entertainment, therefore we pay for them, and that's it.