A Dead Man's Earning Power

It was recently reported that Michael Jackson's family is suing for almost 2 billion dollars in money lost from future earnings that he would have made had he still been dancing his tootsies off on stage, or crooning into a studio microphone that would digitize his voice into infinity and beyond.

The scofflaw doctor who injected him with a lethal dose of sleepy-time is already doing his time in prison. He closed his Beverly Hills practice to dope Jackson on his world tour for a mere $150,000 a month. Therefore, he can't be fleeced for anything from the Jacksons or AEG, as certainly his legal fees far surpassed his salary, which he never even received.

Actually, Dr. Whatshisname should take his lead from the Jackson family and sue them and AEG for loss of future earnings as a would-have-been Beverly Hills doctor had he not-have-been a Michael Jackson tour doctor. Not to speak of his pain and suffering for this fatal error in judgement and lack of doctor smarts. After all, how much fun can it be for a man accustomed to Armani suits and a clientele of A, B, C, and D list stars to be in a Federal pen?

Please, people of the legal world. Have you all gone insane for even hearing this case of the Jackson family? Didn't MJ have a life insurance policy and if not, wouldn't that have been his oversight or that of his management? Is it the tour company's fault that he was a drug addict, an open secret in the music industry long before his "come back tour" which ended up being his "bye bye pre-tour movie?"

And just because he blew all his previous earnings on schlock for Neverland and lawyer's fees for little boy toy accusers, whose fault is that? If we all have karma, and we are the prime movers of this karma, who can be at fault for the mess left in his wake except himself, unless one wants to blame his parents, the usual suspects.

I really do wish MJ's children well, as they are innocent players. And it must be truly painful for his relatives to lose a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle. But the greed-fueled desperation of the Jackson elders is the very same greed they showed when they pushed a hugely talented and very small boy, little Michael, into the spotlight for the fulfilled prophecy of big bucks. The neurosis of that world is what curtailed his future earnings and not the profit motive of AEG which is, after all, a thriving business American style - all about the money, not the honey.

If this is the trend, then Vincent Van Gogh's descendants should sue every art auction house, collector and museum in the world for the future earnings he did make, which never went to his namesakes, let alone the poor devil himself. Now that would be fair.