THERE is no rise in unem ployment, no hard times, no worries. What reces sion? In fact, things have never been better. There's no better time for a big league team owner to continue to act on the conditioned notion that the only patrons worth having are the wealthy foolish. Everyone else can get lost, and stay there.

And, as always, it sure helps if the commissioner of your sport actually serves as your CFO/agent/rubber stamp, a fellow happy to enable you to do anything in the pursuit of money.

There's really no great difference between Bud Selig and Roger Goodell. Both have demonstrated, through countless look-away passes, that the "steal sign" is always on, no need to step out of the box to look down for signals.

The Kansas City Chiefs this week announced that those wishing to purchase single-game tickets to the team's biggest-draw home games this season -- against the Cowboys and Steelers -- must be victims of an extortion. They must buy an equal number of same-priced tickets to one of the Chiefs' two preseason home "games," one against the Seahawks, the other against the Texans.

None of the Chiefs' six other home games will be attached to such a fleecing.

In other words, for two regular-season games the Chiefs are charging double. And that's cool with Commissioner Goodell. Yep, if there's any scalping to be done, the commissioners -- the Guardians of the Games -- now grant first crack to the team owners.

But if Goodell claims that the PSL stickups that are driving generations of Giants and Jets fans out of their seats and out of the new, never-wanted-nor-needed, luxury box-lined stadium are "a good investment" -- pure nonsense -- why would he put the stop to a comparative petty larceny in Kansas City?

In the Giants' case, the annual boost in ticket and parking costs is not enough, thus a 20-year ticket waitlist was wiped out in a few months. And the wait-listed were forced to reject an opportunity they had awaited for years. And that, too, meets with Goodell's approval.