The Commonality of Trump, Sanders and ESPN

An unlikely trio?  But consider:  shares of Disney are down more than 3% in the premarket today.  

We think that because Disney shareholders are almost always subscribers to cable television and subscribers have awoken to the fact that each and every one of them pays about $6 a month to receive the ESPN signal, whether or not they watch even a moment of sports, a wave of proactive consumerism has tainted the Disney logo.  (Did you know you pay $72 a year for ESPN?)

This disaffected feeling is sweeping the markets.  No secrets anymore.  So all of us can see that Google just awarded one of its top executives $190 million in stock.  We can all see companies earning nary a penny paying the CEO five or six million or more.

And so the comparison to Trump and Sanders, last night's New Hampshire winners.  It's not that they are so good.  It's a wave of consumerism sweeping the markets and the political scene, too.

The Daily News ran this photo of the cop
on disability.

And it doesn't help to see news reports of a NYC cop who injured her knee during her 13th year on the job, was awarded a lifetime pension of $66,000 (plus benefits) and now compete in triathlons. Triathlons!  This exposed the same week NYC council members raised their own pay:  from $112,500 a year to $148,500 a year.