Do not throw the arrow which will return against you.
Kurdish Proverb
Congratulations, Gold Medalist Ryan Lochte!
Sports Quote of the Day:
"[Ryan Lochte] works hard and he’s not afraid to throw up!"There is something awesome about the Olympics, and I relish watching the spectacle. The US Women's basketball team found itself rattled by the inspired second and third period play of unlikely Croatia, the same team that just days earlier in Turkey got beaten nearly 2-1 at 109-55. They finally broke the game wide open going away in the fourth period 81-56, but there was a stretch where the Croatian women seemed to continually knock down 3-point shots while the US women were making one unforced error after another. Then the equally strong US women's volleyball team got an unexpectedly strong challenge from South Korea, losing a set before closing out the victory. Earlier in the day I followed the men's cycling road race where British Mark Cavendish was expected to win gold, but failed to place.
- Strength Coach former Strongman competitor Matt DeLancey
What really surprised me about the widely hyped 400 IM battle of defending world champion Ryan Lochte and record Olympic medalist Michael Phelps. I think the story was that Phelps initially leaned against making the commitment to repeat in this event. In a stunning development, Phelps, the defending Olympic champion who seemed to be conserving energy for the final in his heat, just barely made the final cut.
I am still confused why NBC didn't cover the final live (I was watching the event via Youtube and my ISP on my PC and had NBC muted on my cable TV; I think NBC was running some interview segment at the time). I know that they wanted to save the final for prime time ratings, but given the fact of the Internet, I got at least one email notification about the results.
Perhaps not being in the center of the pool near Lochte affected Phelps' performance; during the first 100, Phelps was a strong second to Lochte, but as Lochte started his second 100 (one of his stronger strokes of the medley), he began stretching his lead on Phelps, and Phelps was clearly struggling as other swimmers began challenging him for the second spot. It was clear at that point, short of a collapse, Lochte was going to win and the only question was who would place after him. In fact, he won by over 3 seconds, just behind Phelps' record. And his coach thought Lochte could have done better on his freestyle leg...
"A lot of people say that Michael is inhuman," Lochte said. "But you know what? He's just like all of us. He trains harder, though." Not anymore. Lochte — a born-again health nut who eats right and tosses tires in his strongman routine — worked harder in the last four years.I have to say--there's nothing more all-American than a good work ethic... Congratulations, champ!
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
- Miscellany: 7/19/12: Mark Perry of Carpe Diem posted a video follow-up on the Nathan Duszynski story, the 13-year-old whom tried to start up a hot dog stand to kick in some money into the family budget and/or save money for a future car and college. There really aren't any new developments on the story, i.e., Duszynski is still selling his cart. There's additional context; we meet his parents and hear about their medical condition; there is an empty city hall suit talking about how a 13-year-old selling hot dogs constitutes "unfair competition" for brick-and-mortar restaurants a couple of blocks away (now do you understand why I talked about food trucks?) There is a nice little comment in there about crony restaurant connections on the city council. Nathan is talking hopefully of getting some economic liberty reform legislation passed through the state legislature. (Presumably he thinks that he can't get the issue resolved locally.) I have zero patience with "rules are rules" people standing behind restrictions AGAINST the benefit of consumers. You pass a corrupt law, and you claim virtue because you discriminate equally against all portable competition?
I used to watch Letterman during the early Leno/Letterman late night wars (I stopped watching late night years ago; Letterman's political jokes, almost always at the expense of GOP politicians, have a nasty, insulting edge to them. Leno tends to be more even-handed and funnier.) The reason I'm mentioning Letterman is because (at least while I was watching) he routinely did jokes about hot dog vendors (he loves to joke about how often they change the water). I've been in NYC on 2 or 3 occasions; I think the last time was when I think NYU was hosting ICIS (International Conference on Information Systems, an academic conference in MIS). I don't recall seeing any street vendors, but I was curious about what it takes to be a street vendor in NYC. I found this tidbit:
Vendors on city streets (as opposed to outside park areas) don't have to pay rent for specific spots; their only real estate expense is the cart permit the city requires them to buy. Theoretically, that'll put you back just $200 a year. But since the city caps the number of food vendor permits at 3,100, far below demand, there's an extensive black market. Some companies buy up the permits for dozens of carts and then lease them to individual vendors at highly inflated prices. Average vendors make $14,000 to $16,000 a year after they've paid for their (likely illegal) permits and received a few tickets. They can be fined anywhere from $250 to $1,000 for being parked on the wrong street, being stationed too far from the curb, setting up illegal cart "extensions" that increase their shelf space, or any number of other violations. The city doesn't regulate where vendors can set up shop, as long as they're on streets where vending is allowed.
"To sell food on the street you must obtain both a food vendor license and a permit for the Food Unit (Cart or Vehicle) from the Department of Health."
The Slate article goes on to talk about the black market in permits because of the artificial shortage (some parties scoop up available permits and resell them at an inflated price). As a free marketer, I just have to shake my head in disgust.
Here's this interesting discussion from the Street Vendor Project: "We encourage you to join our community, which has a great tradition of bootstrap entrepreneurship. But we recommend you first do a lot of research into what is involved. There is a reason most vendors are recent immigrants with few language skills. Vending is very hard work and you will likely not make much money. For every beautiful day when the streets are teeming with people, there are many days of rain or cold when you will be lucky to break even."
But here's the point: other than a more complicated permit process and finding an available street spot, it would be easier for Nathan to operate his cart in NYC than in Holland, MI! And take my word for it--there are a lot of restaurants in NYC that manage to survive the onslaught of food carts.
- Miscellany: 7/25/12: "HR 459 Audit the Fed Passes": Anthony Wile / Daily Bell, "Auditing the Fed Is a Sideshow: Who Audits the Auditors?". I have to say that reading Daily Bell columns at times is an acquired taste; for example, I am a natural skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories. I tend to adopt Ockham's Razor ("Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate"), or more specifically, Hanlon's Razor, i.e., never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Ron Paul's op-eds are often published by the Daily Bell, so I find it interesting that the columnist would question arguably one of the most significant legislative accomplishments of Congressman Paul's political career.
"An audit of the Federal Reserve would be nice but really it wouldn't change anything. In fact, it would likely prove a kind of sideshow from reality, which is that monopoly central banking should simply be abolished." It's more like turning on the light at night to expose any bugs in the kitchen: you have to expose the problem to motivate the reason for a change. Ron Paul has made no secret of what he thinks about the Fed in his book "End the Fed". Milton Friedman and every free marketer (including myself) believes the same. But given the fact that Fed Reserve chair "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke calls the bill a "nightmare scenario", as the Daily Caller quotes, suggests that this audit has teeth in it.
"The reason to audit the Fed is to find out what "they" are up to. But we already know that. A limited audit examined transactions during 2008 when the world's financial system froze up. It found the Fed had loaned out more than 16 trillion dollars, almost interest free, to the "too big to fail" banks." No. The purpose of an audit is to independently attest to the statements of Fed's operations, including comprehensive disclosure of all salient facts. The first audit was, as mentioned, limited. I think there are serious issues of the Fed meddling with international banks, which go beyond legislative mandate. Audits also promote accountability.
"Eight co-sponsors of the legislation actually voted against the bill and most of them, when contacted, refused to explain why." It's no secret that the Senate Democrats and President Obama dislike the bill. None of them want to risk the Fed's existing loose money policy.Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Blondie, "Call Me"
