Not too many years ago, any teenage sports fan with a part-time job could easily afford Dodger or Laker games here in Los Angeles. Today, a few hours at the ballpark or arena is a big financial decision for working people - it could easily cost two hundred dollars for a family of four to enjoy a day at the game.

Am I just grumpy and feeling nostalgic for the good old days? No, I'm angry because the absurd spike in ticket prices is a market distortion caused by spendthrift executives wasting other peoples' money. And I hate waste.

I expect frugality in my business partners, and chose Kinko's owners who showed a history of saving money - if they were not careful with their money, why would I expect them to be careful with mine? Today, when I buy stock in a company, I view that company's executives as my business partners, and I hold them to the same standard of frugality.

I've written in the past about Manhattan's opulent restaurants, crowded to capacity at lunchtime as executives treat each other to lunch on the shareholder's dime. I also find it outrageous that people brag about their $2,500 Lakers tickets. Companies purchase expensive tickets because they are tax deductible - those fancy skyboxes are taxpayer-subsidized entertainment.

That's right: We can't afford daycare or school lunches or pre-school, but we can subsidize luxury skyboxes. Don't let anyone tell you that such entertainment is necessary to conduct business, because it isn't. In fact, the business use of luxury entertainment seems highly suspect. How poor a salesperson do you have to be if you need to offer such expensive gifts? What kind of customer demands such things?

This kind of entertainment has no business purpose, costs the taxpayers money, and makes sports events too expensive for local fans. As an op-ed piece in the New York Times points out, the main reason tickets have become so expensive is because companies bid up the prices by throwing shareholders' and taxpayers' money around.

According to authors Richard Schmalbeck and Jay Soled, "Over the last two decades, the average ticket price for a Chicago Cubs game has increased 265 percent, more than four times the inflation rate."

Current business-entertainment deduction rules encourage waste. The authors call them "...little more than an excuse for corporate executives to consume luxury items at a discount, distorting markets and cheating the public out of substantial tax revenue."

I don't like anybody wasting money, whether it's the government or a private company or a child that hasn't learned the value of his or her allowance. It just rubs against the grain. Schmalbeck and Soled recommend a fixed $50 deduction for luxury tickets, and I see the logic of their idea. Not only would this bring ticket prices back to a more natural market level; it would also help executives remember their responsibility to spend the company's money wisely.