As the world turns, the rich get richer. Such is the inevitability of the systems we all use. The more wealth you have, the more you will gain access to. It is unsurprising to me that we saw more monopolistic moves from companies like Netflix in 2025. While this may be the most high-profile monopoly (potentially) forming, we see it everywhere. From Rocket Lending attempting to take over mortgage lending, to Capital One acquiring Discover for $30 billion.1 We have seen an escalation of the amassing of wealth.
Unfortunately, we see it in sports too. Particularly in baseball and world football. Of course, depending on the country, companies and entities have to work hard to get into ownership for soccer. There are also some other avenues available for you to earn money in European competitions or even parachute payments to grow your club (in success or struggle). Making the wealth disparity feel less daunting at times.
However, you have none of that in Baseball. Baseball has seen the Dodgers, Mets, Yankees and Phillies engage in an arms race. Each of those teams spending more than $300 million in tax salary in the 2025 season.2 An arms race where there has been one clear winner. The Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers won their 2nd Championship in a row this year. Without losing many players going into next season, they seem favorited to repeat it again.
The Dodgers getting Shohei will be the Babe Ruth legend of our generation. It is truly unfathomable how the Angels could not put a team together to win with him and Trout.
A brief history lesson. There are three distinct periods of substantial wealth inequality. One of them occurred in the United States. The Gilded Age was a period of United States history from 1870-1900 that allowed for rapid industrialization and rampant corruption to form some of the biggest industrial monopolies ever seen. Spearheaded by ruthless “robber barons” like Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt, we saw the richest 1% own a quarter (25%) of all assets. The solution to this at the time was addressing labor conditions, giving labor collective bargaining power, and breaking up the monopolies through anti-trust. Currently (or as of 2023)3 the top 1% of Americans hold an estimated $43 trillion in value. Which would be around 30% of all assets in the United States.
I say all of this, because much like you should hate the Dodgers, you should hate the Billionaires. Anytime you see the gas price go up? Billionaires. Anytime you see your grocery bill go up? Billionaires. RAM prices surge? Billionaires. It is not an exaggeration at this point. They are robbing us everyday of our lives, because what they have is not enough. Even though, it is (quite literally) worse than it has ever been in the United States. This is a product of the rapid digitization, lack of privacy regulations, lack of anti-trust follow through, and regressive lobbying efforts by companies to get predatory labor conditions back. The enemy of the people is money. The people who stand for only their own financial gain, are enemies of the people. We need to carry this spirit into the new year and remember that inaction will only make this worse.
Support movements near you to fight for higher wages, and shop local when you can. Any action, no matter how small, can make a difference. Our “team” in this fight is each other. We are more likely to be homeless than the next Jeff Bezos. So make sure that you plan to support efforts, causes, and people that will help us and not Jeff Bezos.
Sources
1 – https://fintechmagazine.com/articles/how-capital-one-and-discover-forged-us-33-5bn-merger
1.1 – https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/orders20250418a.htm
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