The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do

According to Mark Cuban, it's to: "Bust your ass and get rich."

As he points out, profits aren't a zero sum game. Entrepreneurs and businesses create wealth while governments and charities simply transfer wealth. I may not like the guy, but I generally agree with a small qualifier - he goes onto say:

Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes , your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be “what a great problem to have”, and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you.

The people aren't supposed to work for the government, the government is supposed to work for the people, but meh, I'll take what I can get. Read the whole thing.

"And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I'm boating."

The best sarcastic comment of the day (Detroit News) made in response to Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) - recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee who said: "Climate change is very real ... I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes."

Made particularly amusing by recent reports of US Congressional Jet purchases (Politico). Private jets of course, spew 4x the amount of greenhouse gases than flying commercial (Newsbusters).

Gary Shilling: Recovery in '10, Slow Economic Growth to Follow

Not good news (InvestorInsight via PaulKedrosky):

Beyond the current recession, the worst since the 1930s, lies years of slow growth, as we've discussed in past Insights. The next economic recovery, which will probably start around mid-2010, will likely be so subdued that it may not feel like the recession has ended. And economic growth in the bulk of the next decade will probably be slow -- so slow that it will force the federal government to take continuing actions to prevent high and chronically rising unemployment.

An ounce of prevention, isn't cheaper than a pound of cure?

That's according to the non-partisan US Congressional Budget Office (via ABCnews and GregMankiw):

Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.

This has obvious policy implications given how much we've generally all been engrained with the idea that prevention is easier/cheaper than dealing with bigger problems that result.

Exercise makes you fat?

First the bad news - what exercise doesn't do according to Time Magazine:

Could pushing people to exercise more actually be contributing to our obesity problem? In some respects, yes. Because exercise depletes not just the body's muscles but the brain's self-control "muscle" as well, many of us will feel greater entitlement to eat a bag of chips during that lazy time after we get back from the gym.

What it does:

In addition to enhancing heart health and helping prevent disease, exercise improves your mental health and cognitive ability. A study published in June in the journal Neurology found that older people who exercise at least once a week are 30% more likely to maintain cognitive function than those who exercise less. Another study, released by the University of Alberta a few weeks ago, found that people with chronic back pain who exercise four days a week have 36% less disability than those who exercise only two or three days a week.

Here's my bias: I'm pleased to say that I've lost nearly 2" of my waist and 20 lbs (now at 163 lbs) in the last 18 months to the point that I've gotten some definition in my abs for the first time since I was 12. Of course the study probably explains why most of those losses have come from being in China where foraging for food is substantially less convenient and I worked out hard for about an hour a day. Coming back, a recent strategy I've adopted is to drink more water and eat more meals (but less at each meal) to quench my appetite and I think it's working.

More reasons to be pessimistic about the Chinese economy

Martin Hutchinson points to the risks that the Chinese economy faces in the Asia Times (via AsiaBizBlog)- one that is beginning to scream "bubble":

China is thus much more like pre-1941 Japan than post-1950 Japan and its economic inefficiencies are correspondingly greater. Because of those economic inefficiencies, the chances remain high of a meltdown far before China has achieved Western living standards. [...]

The amount of foreign capital tied up one way or another in the Chinese economy is now so great that a Chinese market collapse would have global repercussions in an already weakened financial system. Furthermore, it is by no means certain that China would quickly resume its role of global growth engine; Japan didn't, after all.

China could be different - it always has been. But at some stage, the mysterious Chinese economy and its thoroughly opaque banking system must respond to the same constraints that affect the rest of us. Chinese economic policy has been more stimulative than ever before, its bank lending more reckless. If China's run of apparently miraculous immunity from normal economic forces is finally about to end, the result will not be pretty for any of us.

To add to the delightful news, Paul Cavey in the WSJ echoes some of these points but also raises the issue of debt financed growth: "But don’t be fooled: China’s impressive headline GDP rate masks an important fundamental shift. Its growth is now fuelled by cheap debt rather than corporate profits and retained earnings, and this shift in the medium term threatens to undermine China’s economic decoupling from the global slump."

ChinaStakes notes complaints that state owned enterprises (SOEs) are supplanting private firms who have to deal with the taxes, difficulty in finding financing and insider markets that SOEs do not. Finally, ChinaStakes also points to the growing influence of the underground economy that is supplanting the influence of even some state owned enterprises in some cases.

Robert Hefner: The Grand Energy Transition

While Hefner advocates a national energy policy, I'm unconvinced. As he points out, government does a horrible job at picking favorites so I'm not sure how this would be different. While I suspect he's right about natural gas given that we're finding it practically everywhere (not in the US with over 3000 Tcf's but an abundance in China, India, South America, Northern Africa and some parts of Europe), not only does this create substantial incentives for a transition but there remain unknowns as to what the optimal path of implementation will be.

This said, he brings up a good point that nearly all energy policy of the past has been akin to religion with governments repeatedly attempting to play favorites. Even US military policies have essentially subsidized the price of oil by projecting stability in much of the middle east and global trade routes to say nothing of the coming carbon tax / cap and trade schemes being concocted. Have a watch - it's definitely worth at least the first 5 minutes to get the gist of what he's saying but if you're like me, it will be fascinating and you may find the optimism enough to watch the full panel discussion (Fora.tv @ the Aspen Institute, h/t Paul Kedrosky):

The One Thing you can't get away from in China

People. I've had more than one colleague ask me if I get scared in Canada walking around without a single person in sight (though these are some of the same people who say they've seen ghosts but I digress). Nothing quite illustrates the point that you're almost never alone in China like this story, though it's almost surprising it doesn't happen more often (ShanghaiDaily):

A UNIVERSITY student was sentenced to three years' prison for accidentally killing a woman when he landed on her while trying to commit suicide by jumping from his 7th floor dormitory in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Delightful Diseases Animals Can Give You

From the delights of worms in eyes to Marburg (PopularMechanics via Instapundit). As you can tell, I miss Cody.

Is China playing with the numbers again?

From FT:

But the latest set of first-half numbers provided by provincial-level authorities are far higher than the central government’s national figure, raising fresh questions about the accuracy of statistics in the world’s most populous nation.

I think it's a given that they're being massaged, it's just a question of to what degree.

China: Prostitutes considered more trustworthy than Government Officials

There isn't much more I can say about the world's oldest profession as it applies in China (ChinaEconomicReview) - though at the moment I've forgotten which profession that is. If there's a silver lining in all this, it's that surveys like this are not only allowed but are allowed to be published (though if you click through, you'll note there's still some spin over the results).

Another Funny/Sad Look at Healthcare Markets

Entertaining look at serious subject matter (ClubforGrowth):

For more factoids about US healthcare compared with other systems around the world, have a look at two good commentaries - both hosted at Hoover - one by the late Milton Friedman on how to cure healthcare and the other on more recent facts of why the US system isn't as undesirable as some suggest.

Productivity Bit: View a Problem from a Distance to be More Creative

From the Scientific American:

It’s also possible to induce a state of “psychological distance” simply by changing the way we think about a particular problem, such as attempting to take another person's perspective, or by thinking of the question as if it were unreal and unlikely. In this new paper, by Lile Jia and colleagues at Indiana University at Bloomington, scientists have demonstrated that increasing psychological distance so that a problem feels farther away can actually increase creativity.

Makes sense (and also not particularly earth shattering): increasing objectivity makes it easier to formulate solutions. Read on.

Somewhat Wrong: The Exclusive White Swan Barbie

One of those "only in China" stories. The White Swan is a government owned hotel in Guangzhou that clients stay at from time to time. One of the unique draws of the hotel is that it's close to the US consulate and as a result, it's often used by hopeful American parents who are coming to China to adopt babies. Personally I find the hotel to be old and somewhat dated. Apparently this is a giveaway to new parents (via AllRoadsLeadtoChina):

Unlike Richard at AllRoads, I'm not sure (or maybe I'm just hoping) that it has any wider teaching moments.

A Pivotal Moment in the Birth of the Space Industry?

According to VentureBeat, pretty exciting if true:

The commercial space industry has seen some interesting developments over the past weeks. Statements last week by members of President Obama’s human spaceflight review committee (The Augustine Commission) suggest that commercial providers may be taking a significant role in how NASA accesses low Earth orbit and how missions beyond low Earth orbit use orbiting “gas stations”. At the same time, two commercial space companies, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, have received significant investments from well known funds (more on that below), suggesting that capital markets see a fundable new industry developing.

I'm going to guess that private businesses are going to make space travel and exploration considerably cheaper. You can even now send up a half pound satellite into space for a rock bottom price of $8,000 USD (Slashdot via Instapundit). Personally, I'm hoping for space elevators with the recent developments in nanotubes (ScienceDaily).

Productivity Bit (or More of a Reminder): What's Old is New Again

There's no substitute for hard work. It's the single largest driver as a factor in lifetime achievement according new scientific studies as quoted in the Boston Globe. But what I think is the real news here is the fact that there are "new techniques for reliably measuring grit in individuals."

Stick a Fork in Her, The Gray Lady's Dead

Paul Carr, formerly a tech journalist at the Guardian (but now at TechCrunch), points out the problem with journalism today:

And yet, I argued back, after camera phone dude helps us establish that the plane has crashed, who can we trust to tell us why it happened? While bloggers can own the first five minutes of any breaking story - a plane crash, a fire, a burglary - it’s always going to be the professional reporters who own the next five days, or five weeks. They walk the streets, work their contacts and - yes - trawl the blogosphere for eye-witness reports, and then take all of that information, analyse it, follow it up and ultimately provide an account of events that readers can trust.

Or at least this is what they used to do. If that were still how journalism works then the unpaid bloggers wouldn’t have a hope of competing. But unfortunately, thanks to a succession of journalistic fakes and the constant tabloidisation of the press, that trust is gone. Why should someone - either an advertiser or a reader - be prepared to pay for a newspaper when they can get the same old lies and fluff from the blogosphere?

It's a simple reminder that at the heart of all commerce is trust above nearly all else. Of course, that some journalists display jaw dropping levels of contempt for their readers/viewers (BelowTheBeltway) can't help either.

Saturday Afternoon Chuckle

If you hadn't seen it yet, this video made the rounds last week. Everyjoe: "Thanks to Chris Brown and some awkward dancing, this wedding march is probably the most fun ever":

I wasn't going to post it because I didn't want my best man duties for a wedding at the end of August get any more awkward than it could potentially get. But then CollegeHumor posted the parody in under a week (h/t Anchoress who calls it part of the genius of American Culture): "Someday, when I fall out of love, I hope my divorce is this much fun" (I think they even used the exact same soundtrack):

Productivity Bit: Make Instructions Clear, Simple and Easy to Read

If they're clear, simple and easy to read, instructions are more likely to be followed - at least according to the Scientific American. Not earth shattering by any means, but it's interesting to see how the principle was proven:

Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz wanted to see if they could motivate a group of 20-year-old college students to exercise regularly. They gave all the students written instructions for a regular exercise routine, but they used a simple yet ingenious method to make the how-to instructions either cognitively palatable or challenging: some received instructions printed in Arial typeface, a plain font designed for easy reading; others got their instructions printed in a Brush font, which basically looks as if it has been written by hand with a Japanese paintbrush—it is unfamiliar and much harder to read.

A corollary may be that we can be encouraged to do more complicated tasks by breaking them down and making them seem easier... something that's definitely applicable to websites (which in turn is something I'm spending a lot of time on lately).

John Stossel: "A Minimum Wage Equals Minimum Jobs"

I couldn't put it better myself. Read on at Reason.com. It's sad how we slow we are to recognize the rather predictable effects of price floors and price ceilings.