Cracks in Japan

If you're like most Americans, you have probably missed the news this past Monday morning that the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has called for snap elections and a dissolution of the current government body that has previously given him stern opposition.

In effect, he is seizing the moment of higher approval ratings that are currently hovering above the fifty percent mark and put him in a much better position to make this move than his thirty percent approval ratings just months ago. So what has changed? He is finding the opportunity in the North Korean threat, which has propped up his approval despite an economy that is in deep trouble.

Japan's annual debt is currently over twice its own annual gross domestic product. This means that Japan has to continue borrowing and use its own quantitative easing variation of the program in order to keep up the illusion of a functional economic health.

Essentially, the world's governments are all doing this. They are borrowing from each other with money they do not have, treating each others' debt as assets. So we are all essentially stuck holding each others' IOU notes that on which we can barely pay the interest. The problem with playing this global game of musical chairs is that sooner or later the music will stop... and there will be no chairs.

Every time the governments borrow, print, and dilute money; they are in fact devaluing the currency each country uses and its people earn. Therefore, these measures are going along a curve of continuously diminishing returns. As a result, there will come a time when these measures will become completely ineffective. And that's when the music will stop.

Japan, with the highest ratio of debt to GDP, will be one of the first, if not the first country to fall in this setting. Shinzo Abe, being the proponent of monetary easing measures, is seeking to consolidate power and reduce opposition, as his Monday power move has proven.

In America, we will likely be the last nation to feel the impact of this global wave of deflation. The reason is once the dominoes begin to fall, all foreign countries' biggest capital holders will transfer their wealth to the United States market, as it is seen as the most stable. But this will ultimately prop up our assets only to fall the farthest and in the most painful devastating fashion.

That is why Japan matters, why foreign economies we have ties with matter - our economic well being is intertwined with the countries whose debt United States lists as assets. We must recognize that the troubles we are seeing in armed conflicts across the world and natural disasters that devastate other countries are not just "their problem", it is in fact our collective problem.

So do not be deceived by the skyrocketing Dow Jones and S&P 500 in the next few years. These events occur because of the money coming in from foreigners to temporarily avoid the calamity that their nations are enduring, one that will ultimately come our way in the end.

For now, the market will be a good place to keep your savings and retirement. But once the music stops, the only assets that will be safe are defensive ones, whose value doesn't fluctuate based on paper currency.

Woe is Boxing

Professional sport of any kind is a basic distraction from real life, which so many of us use to relax, deflect stress, and blow off some negative energy. Boxing, in particular, is a working man's (and woman's) sport where competition by way of the fist and movement achieves victory. Two combatants bruise and injure each other for 12 rounds on canvas in order to achieve supremacy and respect by the end.

When you are the Boxing governing bodies, you want to promote a genuinely worthy fight like the one we saw last night between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. Two complementary style fighters in top form, slugging it out for the undisputed championship of the world. There's just one problem, as is with any sport where judges decide the winner, There are no definitive metrics to decides who wins or loses, unless a knockout is involved.

The general metrics we use to judge any fight are number of punches thrown, number of punches landed, percentage of punches landed, and the power punches version of the aforementioned three. But, the judges may override those figures based on more subjective metrics - the punches that landed more effectively or cleanly than others, who controlled or was more aggressive during the fight, and who was more stationary than their opponent. This is where the competency of the judge comes into play.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the enterprise of Boxing in a very questionable, if not altogether laughable, place. Spotty and inconsistent judging, promotional shenanigans, no regulations for champions to fight the top rated challengers, and a general apathy toward the ever increasing money the Boxing broadcasters charge the public. This is all a very dangerous recipe for the Boxing's governing bodies.

So what do they do? The promoters finally come up with a worthy and blockbuster fight where the top boxers in their division compete for the championship, 2 years after it was supposed to happen. The Boxing's governing bodies decide that it would be great to have a rematch (because they can fleece the public for even, even before the original bout starts. So they insert Adalaide Byrd into the judging panel as insurance, to make sure that the scorecard from the judges gives them a better outcome, in terms of getting a rematch.

After 12 rounds, of some of the best boxing we have witnessed in a while, last night the decision went to the judging panel. The result was a draw, which the vast majority of people who saw this fight thought was unjust. Gennady Golovkin controlled the fight and thrown, as well as landed, more punches than his opponent, Canelo Alvarez. Canelo landed some crushing blows, but they were too far and too few in between to even come close in making this anything resembling a close fight.

Teddy Atlas, the ESPN's boxing analyst and a very important voice of conscience in this once revered sport, is 100% correct. The Boxing authorities are corrupt and culpable in the decision, as they have appointed judge Adalaide Byrd to the panel, despite her glaring record of questionable scores in prior contests. Despite promoters asking her to be removed from the panel before the fight. If she is incompetent, she is the kind of incompetent that the Boxing authorities like - it appears her score for any fight can be bought.

In watching last night's post-fight ESPN coverage, I am incredibly saddened by the blatantly fraudulent corporate sellout comments by Stepehen A Smith. He is a child in a grown man's body, whom nobody taught that raising your voice does not make you right - it just makes you seem arrogant and self-absorbed. He started off deflecting Teddy Atlas' scathing criticism of the Boxing authorities by using this argument - "everybody here in Vegas knew that Golovkin will have to knock Alvarez out and that if it goes to the scorecards, he will not win the decision". Just because it is the truth, Stephen A Smith, does not make it right (no matter how much the deal between ESPN and Boxing is worth). He went on to sell the rematch and spinning this turd into how good it is for the sport.

It is the perfect setup because the Boxing authorities, and their money-receiving enablers, can use the lone judge as the professional scapegoat whom they paid - "Oh, it was Adalaide Byrd and her incompetence." But these Boxing authorities were responsible for not only allowing this judge on the panel, but insisting she stay there despite objections form the promoters. But Teddy Atlas is right, short of removing the human judges and using technology to computerize the scoring of punches landed and their power, we will never have a finite metric for a Boxing match decision. And the Boxing authorities are free to exploit this weakness for profit.

So where is the sport of Boxing today? It is in the same category as Figure Skating, where the judging panel decides the fate of the match. And at times like this, their decision runs counter to the reality we saw in the ring.

Last night we saw a fantastic fight, and I left last night with the following:

1. Deep admiration for Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez for giving us a great fight
2. Complete disgust with Adalaide Byrd, Stephen A Smith, and Boxing authorities
3. Empathy for Teddy Atlas and all those who are Boxing purists that ache for the sport
    

Nuclear Fear

By now we have all been sufficiently bombarded with the fear of a nuclear conflict on television and online, given the recent tensions with North Korea.

The North Korean missile program has recently been able to repeatedly and successfully launch intermediate range ballistic missiles, including a very dangerous launch over the Hokkaido island of Japan. Western intelligence agencies say that not only does North Korea now possess a missile that can reach parts of the continental United States, but that they have also been able to miniaturize their nuclear arsenal so that the nuclear payload can be delivered via such a vehicle.

On our home front, the president of the United States has not practiced effective international diplomacy to calm the tensions. In fact, he has only inflamed the situation when offering "Fire and Fury" as a means with which he plans to address the North Korean threat. We have a wide array of military assets in the Korean peninsula and have conducted military exercises with the South Korea as a show of force. None of this has worked, nor will work, to resolve the tensions.

The leader of North Korea, Kim Jung-Un, is following in his father's footsteps in attempting to flaunt his country's military in order to gain international attention and at times blackmail countries for economic concessions. However, with the escalated nuclear capabilities of the North, there is no longer an aura of invincibility for the US and its allies. There is, for the first time, substantial fear.

While we remember the days of the Cold War, when Soviet Union squared off with the United States, and its days of escalating Nuclear capabilities and countermeasures, this confrontation is quite different. In the days of the Cold War, both sides had professionals of distinguished integrity that held human life in highest regard, and intervened in order to preserve it.

One notable example is when the Soviet physicist, Andrei Sakharov, made a breakthrough in high yield nuclear ordinance in 1960. Despite demands from the Politburo for the most powerful bomb ever created, he intervened and convinced them to reduce the yield by half. As a result, he may well have saved all life on earth. While the bomb RDS-220 (commonly known as Tsar Bomba) had yield of half of the original design, the test detonation was still a devastating event that wiped out a village, was felt over a thousand miles away, and its blast wave orbited the earth thrice.

Such men of integrity and courage are rare. In fact, I am beginning to doubt that many exist anymore in today's world. I certainly doubt that there are any left in a repressive and dictatorial regime of the North Korea.

The End of Bullying?

In recent years, the effects of bully behavior in our nation's schools has become fully exposed with tragic consequences. We have seen news stories of children committing suicide, after a prolonged period of being subjected to bullying by their peers. Just this year alone in the United States the lives of Gabriel Taye, Sadie Riggs, and Mallory Grossman have been lost to consequences of bullying behavior.

But unless you're a child or a teacher, you don't really witness first-hand the extent of cruelty that children are subjected to. You are left only with second-hand accounts. But never fear, social media is here. Those second-hand accounts now appear on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. The bullies themselves, as well as bystanders who enjoy the spectacle, are posting their actions online.

In the United States, the schools are attempting to correct this behavior through raising awareness and reporting measures. The theory is that once a bully is exposed, confronted, and the victim's suffering is brought to light, the likelihood of a repeat offense is less. The problem here is that these measures are built on a hypothesis that the community's stand on bullying behavior being unacceptable will discourage such behavior.

Let us dive deeper into what a bully wants to achieve. The vast majority of bullies inflict physical and mental pain on their peers in order to satisfy their sense of recognition among their peers and to highlight a difference between themselves and their victims for personal status of superiority. To a bully, the confrontation is a part of the action they seek in the process. Therefore, the reverse situation of a non-damaging confrontation inflicted upon a bully does not guarantee that his or her destructive behavior will cease.

Awareness and reporting are a great start, but they are by no means the solution. In Finland, a new system has been implemented with significant success. It is called kiusaamista vastaan, translated - against bullying. The concept is rather simple - it is to starve the bullies of the attention they seek. It involves significant training for the teachers and a new part of the curriculum that teaches students to engage the victim of bullying with caring positive attention and to ignore the culprit. Much more than sending a message to the bully, this program sends a message of support to the victim and deprives the bully.

This program involves a large amount of educators' time to implement, which works well with the Finnish education system. However, it would require a wholesale curriculum overhaul in the United States, where the teachers are forced by the system to be more concerned with the students' test scores, than they are with their mental and physical well being. In Finland, being a teacher is one of the more prestigious and lucrative occupations, for which the best of the best apply. In the United States, that's simply not the case.

But Finland is not the only nation finding success in combating bullying behavior. In China, the Beijing education authorities were severely disturbed a year ago when videos of cruel bullying incidents in schools began to surface on social media. The courts ordered the education authorities to take action in order to combat this problem. Their solution is a multi-step program that forces bullies to undergo military training (what we in the United States call boot camp), provide community service, and make speeches at schools regarding the evils of bullying. The punishment is levied in a court, just like a criminal offence, and the initial sentence has a term to it in months of service required. After the term expires, the court hears from the program administrators and the offender to rule on whether her or she is ready to rejoin their peers in civil society.

In my opinion, the Finnish solution sounds excellent but unrealistic for the United States education system in its present shape. As it stands, I am in favor of the Chinese solution and here is my reasoning. Bullying behavior is a clear and present threat to the physical and mental well being of the entire student population. As a result, we as Americans, have to extend the Bill of Rights to our children in schools and punish the offenders who infringe upon them. For adults, assault and harassment are punishable offenses that can be prosecuted in a court of law. We can do our future generations a service, by addressing these tendencies early on.

What do you think? Should we take the Finnish, Chinese, American, or a completely different approach? Leave your comments below, as I am curious to find out what creative solutions we an come up with.  

Don't Take Your Successes For Granted

One of the most incomplete, but wildly popular, sayings is that "experience is learning from your mistakes". 

First of all, let's dissect that statement. The term experience in the given context is defined as having acquired a certain degree in a practical skill as a result of repeated exposure (hands on or through observation) to the corresponding events. If experience implies learning, then the true measure of experience is defined by your successes in participation, not your failures. 

The only thing a failure will teach you is what not to repeat again. It is true that certain failures will create situations that force you to be resourceful and test you, some subsequently leading to success. But ultimately, you learn from your successes with respect to what works. 

As children, we know this to be true from a young age. From the time a child crawls, walks, uses a spoon, etc.; that child recognizes the feeling of success and repeats those successes in their continuous process of learning. 

As we get older, our goals and achievements become more complex and multifaceted. Some of these include purchasing a house, making the right investment, raising a child and advancing a career. The more items we have to cover in order to achieve success in any given goal, the more likely it is we will experience failure at some point on our way to achieving that goal. This, I suppose, is the reason why the aforementioned saying about mistakes being the source of our experience is so prevalent.

However, the greatest mistake many adults repeat is failing to learn from success. The reason for this is when we fail, we are forced to assess our failure and figure out where we went wrong, ultimately setting us on a more correct path to success. However, when we succeed, there is no pressing need to assess our success in order to figure out where we made the right choices and where other factors were in play despite mistakes. 

From personal experience, almost a decade ago, a potential promotion in an industry I love dearly fell into my lap. It is a position I earned specific graduate education for, accumulated the right industry background, and seemingly made the right impression with the company staff. Up until that point in my career, every single promotion that I had applied for, I received. It seemed so natural, that I could do no wrong, or so I thought. But despite having all the right credentials, scoring desirably on the personality assessment, and acing the interview; I did not get the job.

The job went to an external Software Development professional candidate who had no experience in the given industry. I was completely blindsided. After running through all the variations in my mind of how this could happen, the blame game, and pondering my future; I decided to research all the information on this matter I could get from my colleagues.

I discovered there were several factors that led to me being excluded from consideration for the given role. 

First, the organization I worked in acquired a reputation for promoting younger staff with limited experience to higher level positions, which made the parent company question the organization's choices. This made it less likely for me to be chosen for the role, as the local managers wanted to make a better impression with this particular hire.  

Second, I acquired the perception for being demanding of my co-workers. At the time I did not have a wife, kids or a house. I could immerse myself in work, and push as much of my energy as I could during the working hours. The adverse perception from my colleagues was that I would be as demanding of them in a more administrative role. This provided resistance from some of my colleagues, when asked by Human Resources how would I fare in this particular role.

Lastly, I was highly valued by all the department heads and my direct manager in a purely technical role. I was seen as a valuable technical resource with no viable replacement in the event of a promotion. Neither the upper management nor my direct manager wanted any part of having to replace me in the vacated position. This factor, contributed the heaviest towards this failure. 

Ultimately, I realized that in all my prior promotions and job offers, I succeeded. This never made me go through the same analytic process that I had to go through at this point in time. As a result, I always thought that my approach to getting the next job was without fault. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The mistake that I kept on making, despite the string of successes, was to focus on myself and project the person I thought the organization needed.

In reality, in order to get any job, I needed to focus on the organization, the role, and the specific profile needs of that role, in order to make sure I project the match the organization is looking for. I have been applying that principle ever since.

Most importantly, I learned not to take my successes for granted. I have learned to carefully scrutinize my successes, just as much as my failures, in order to separate where I was right and where I was lucky despite being wrong. 

I would advise everyone to learn from your successes. Go over the details of each and every step. You'll be surprised how much you can learn from them, when you stop taking your successes for granted. 

Maywheather, McGregor, Trump

When the thought of a Mixed Martial Arts fighter like Conor McGregor taking on a legend like Floyd Maywheather in a boxing ring for 12 rounds came up, a lot of sport enthusiasts laughed it off as if it would never happen. This is, of course, an educated opinion. A discipline like boxing is different and highly specialized than MMA, which is exactly as its acronym suggests - a mixed bag of disciplines.

But as the saying goes - "If it makes money, it makes sense." (Southpaw). This event is the ultimate display that hype over substance is king in this day and age.  Both Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather realize this fact and are ready to cash in on the gullible public. Because they can't convince the public that this is going to be a viable fight, they are resorting to building a culture of hate between each other in order to draw interest.

As if taken from the playbook of WWE's Vince McMahon, they have drummed up a blockbuster promotional tour in the biggest markets where they butt heads nightly in a vitriolic mudslinging contest and epic stair-downs. In order to convince the public to shell out $100 or more for an event that technically is almost guaranteed to be a snooze-fest, you have to try to convince the public that the fight is less predictable than it appears.

It all appears to be working, as interest in the fight has skyrocketed since the promotional tour took place. But the manner in which this has occurred, should remind us of the dangerous curve we have taken in our society as of late. The public is drawn into the dynamic between these two fighters with offensive homophobic, racist and misogynist screaming contests. Few are particularly concerned that it is wrong, because most of the public has dismissed it as part of entertainment.

Entertainment crosses over into everything. It has crossed over into the presidency and it has crossed over beyond the sport's basic definition and into an area of a freak show. It makes no sense that Donald Trump was able to successfully run for president, even less that he actually won. Much the same way, it makes no sense at all that McGregor-Maywheather is a viable fight. However, it will be promoted as such, simply because people want to be entertained and are in it for the shock value, regardless of the vile nature by which we get there...

My Weight Loss Approach

This is my weight loss approach, meaning it worked for me. The basic principles are the same for everyone, so calibrate based on how you respond - nobody knows your body better than you.

A few years ago, just after New Year's celebration, I woke up and looked in the mirror. What I saw was an unwieldy version of myself that didn't seem right. I was 250 pounds with spare tire and love handles. I was often short of breath even after a short period of strenuous activity, had a vicious acid reflux following almost every meal, and could comfortably sleep only on my side in bed.

I did quite a bit of research with respect to proper nutrition and physical training required to get where I wanted to be. I devised a three phase approach that would introduce each aspect of a lifestyle change into my daily routine. I knew that for this lifestyle change to be permanent, these phases had to be reasonable enough to be performed every day, yet effective enough to keep me moving towards the target weight and shape I desired.

1) Nutrition. It doesn't matter how active you are or how much time you spend at the gym, if you are sabotaging yourself by eating unhealthy and/or overeating (even healthy food will harm you, if you eat too much). Before I revamped my daily nutrition, I was eating in excess of 3,500 calories daily. Nothing was off limits and bad habits like soda, fast food, and my favorite sin - ice cream; were near daily staples of my diet. After the adjustment, I started to keep a 2-to-1 protein-to-carbohydrates ratio. Majority of my protein is taken from low-fat and nonfat dairy, lean chicken, fish, egg whites and raw almonds. Carbohydrates are important too for daily energy and majority of my carbs are taken from fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I am now consuming between 1,975 and 2,500 calories, depending on that day's physical activity. I avoid most fried foods, full fat dairy, foods with added sugar, foods with high salt (and sodium) content, starchy carbs and limit my intake of lean red meat to twice a week.

2) Active lifestyle. Every move we make during the day burns calories and takes us closer to a healthier version of ourselves. As such, it is important to avoid laying on the couch to watch the television after work, spending the weekend at home and leading a mostly immobile lifestyle. Before I made the switch, the above statement largely described my way of life, aside from a trip to the bar or to eat. With the change, I plan my after work activity very deliberately. Whether it is going to the mall to get some steps in, the store to walk around and pick up a few items, or walking around outside listening to an audio-book; these are all net positive gains versus the couch potato lifestyle. There are other choices I make, such as taking the stairs instead of an elevator, walking short distances instead of taking the car and taking a leisurely stroll for a half hour at lunch time. The weekend and vacation are your opportunity to shine. I started going on hikes, zoos, pick your own fruit events, etc.; virtually any activity that requires me to walk for a prolonged period of time is on the table.

3) Gym. In order for anyone to effectively lose weight and keep it off, we have to build up and maintain lean muscle mass. Up until my moment of truth, I had an on and off relationship with the gym that had limited effect because I was still doing the same old full circuit workout that I got used to my freshman year in college. That workout was strenuous and ineffective. I trained every muscle group everyday, therefore breaking down the muscle tissue and not letting it rebuild completely.  It was incredibly hard, therefore I stopped doing it just after a month of starting the program every time. This all changed, when I applied the proper rotation and rest day approach. I now employ a four day rotation system. On the first day, I do 30 minutes of cardio, upper back and biceps. On the second day, I do 30 minutes of cardio, shoulders, chest and triceps. On the third day, I do abs, quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves. On the fourth day, I rest and recover. Each exercise involves 2 sets of 12 repetitions, with the first set being 85% of max weight and the second set being max weight to fail. This allows for a shorter more intense workout that is effective, while at the same time spreading it over 3 days to keep it easy enough to stick to continuously. All three days of activity are preceded with 6-7 minutes of stretches, related to the specific muscle groups that day covers.

The Result - 55 pounds lost within 6 months after starting this approach. And while I have gained back 10 of these pounds over the past few years, the weight I gained back is lean muscle mass and not fat.

P.S. This is an approach that worked specifically for me. Everyone's body and habits are different, and nobody knows you like you. I encourage everyone to educate themselves and tailor a custom plan that is specific and effective.