Week 5: A Little Help From My Friends

Last week did not exactly go according to plan. While I had every intention to perform a week of body-building exercises, life caught up with me a little bit, and it came to pass that I did not quite have the time.

The problem here was not that I didn't work out at all - I did. The problem was that my workouts have gradually reconfigured themselves to being once a day, rather than twice a day. The reasons for this are relatively organic. I joined a gym, which means I reacquired access to a wide array of high-quality strength training devices. This is good. The gym, however, is conveniently located next to my office, which means I am very inclined to hit the gym immediately after work.

These combined facts have provided me great incentive to do my strength training in the afternoons. This would suggest that I wake up early for cardio, but as we have seen recently, that doesn't ever quite pan out for me. The solution that developed was thus: both strength and cardio training in the afternoon and a half-hour extra sleep in the morning.

Having said all that, I successfully completed my cardio training from last week, and replaced the rigorous and comprehensive strength training with a sort of hybrid of last week's arms exercises and my "matrix" workout.

This afternoon, I have an appointment for a fitness assessment. I am going to postpone developing this week's workout plan until I have a better idea of what the assessor will say. But, still, I shouldn't leave you hanging. Here is my anticipated week 5 of training:

Monday:

• Strength assessment (max all muscle groups?)
• Cardio assessment (work out to VO2-max?)

Tues, Thurs:

• No strength training (rest)
• Long and easy cardio: 45min run

Wed, Fri:

• Arm weight circuit (triceps, biceps, back, shoulders)
• Ab circuit (4x50 mixed crunches)
• 30-40 minute cardio: fartlek, if possible.

Saturday, Sunday:

• No strength training (rest)
• No cardio (rest)

As you can see, it's a bit of an easier week. I feel that I need one more week to suss-out how my body is feeling and to figure out the right balance of strength-versus-cardio. Once it's over, I will have a better idea of how to structure my long-term plan.

The specifics of that plan will unfortunately have to wait for one more week. I want to figure out the feasibility of training for the kinds of things I'd like to accomplish in the near future. How exactly I go about that will depend on all the things I plan to figure out this week. More on that, I suppose, next week.

Mises Versus Rothbard On Mathematics and Economics

Within the community of adherent to the "Austrian school" of economic thought, there exists certain members of the community who are willing to accept only the Rothbardian conception of things. Unfortunately for all of us, these folks believe that Rothbard is the only post-Mises economist whose theories accurately capture, modernize, and improve upon the Misesian praxeological tradition. They will not tolerate any other point of view. They adhere to this point of view with a rabid dogmatism better befitting a religious fervor than an intellectual pursuit.

They also happen to be among the most vocal members of the Austrian school community. Consequently, there is a widespread idea that Rothbard's views are the same as or are improvements upon Mises' views, and that all other notions within the school are either wrong, "confused" (to use a term common among a particularly noteworthy Austrian school adherent), or bad in some way.

Now, it's one thing to believe the above, state the position, and defend it intellectually and civilly. It's quite another thing to shout down all opposition, to publicly berate those holding opposing viewpoints, and to be so intolerant to questioning that the rest of us get turned off to the conversation long before any truth presents itself.

In the following blog post, I will highlight one example of Rothbard's views being a rather paler send-up of Misesian praxeology, to the point of being - in my opinion - extremely mistaken, wrong, confused, and bad. In doing so, my hope is to break down some of the religious reverence some hold over Rothbard's views.

Why? Because no intellectual pursuit can ever hope to be advanced if the assumption is that it was fully and perfectly developed in 1959. If Rothbard was correct about everything and it's unacceptable to question him, then we are no longer talking about a study or a discipline, we're talking about a religion or a cult. (Yep, I said it. A cult. Pretty rich, if you ask me.)

Rothbard On Mathematics In Economics
Murray Rothbard, supposedly the great palladin of Austrian school economics and its last great innovator, rejected all forms of mathematics in economics. However, in saying so, I'm not really doing justice to complete and utter disdain Rothbard held for not just mathematical economic models, but even using mathematical notation to express logical ideas.

In Man, Economy, and State, Rothbard writes (footnotes eliminated for brevity):

The suggestion has been made that, since praxeology and economics are logical chains of reasoning based on a few universally known prem­ises, to be really scientific it should be elaborated according to the symbolic notations of mathematical logic. This represents a curious misconception of the role of mathematical logic, or “logistics.” In the first place, it is the great quality of verbal propositions that each one is meaningful. On the other hand, algebraic and logical symbols, as used in logistics, are not in themselves meaningful. Praxeology asserts the action axiom as true, and from this (together with a few empirical axioms—such as the existence of a variety of resources and individuals) are deduced, by the rules of logical inference, all the propositions of economics, each one of which is verbal and meaningful. If the logistic array of symbols were used, each proposition would not be meaningful. Logistics, therefore, is far more suited to the physical sciences, where, in contrast to the science of human action, the con­clusions rather than the axioms are known. In the physical sciences, the premises are only hypothetical, and logical deductions are made from them. In these cases, there is no purpose in having meaningful propositions at each step of the way, and therefore symbolic and mathematical language is more useful.

It is difficult to see where in this paragraph Rothbard made any correct statement about mathematical logic.

First, there is Rothbard's claim that the notation of formalized, mathematical logic is not in itself meaningful, whereas verbal statements are inherently (i.e. "in themselves") meaningful. For Rothbard to simply leave these claims standing without proving them is to have failed at the requirements of a praxeologist. One cannot simply state that one's own method is inherently meaningful while the method of one's contemporaries is not. One must prove it, or at least provide a compelling argument why this is so.

So, I will counter with the following argument:

• Rothbard claims that all verbal propositions are inherently meaningful.
• If I can establish one verbal proposition that is not inherently meaninful, I will have demonstrated that Rothbard was wrong.
• The following proposition is not inherently meaningful: If this sentence is true, Rothbard was an Objectivist.[Note: This is an example of Curry's Paradox. For further discussion regarding the meaninglessness of paradoxes, see this Stationary Waves post.]
• Therefore, Rothbard was wrong.

The reader may find it particularly pedantic to disprove Rothbard in this way, but I find it important to use this particular line of reasoning, since it is the only one Rothbard himself thought valid.

As to the allegation that the symbols of mathematical logic "are not in themselves meaningful," one could make the same claim about letters of the alphabet. That is, in the philosophy of language, we generally accept that words have specific definitions. That Om means "peace" in Hindi and "mango" in Bangla is a fact that essentially boils down to the fact that one community of people agrees that the associated noise means one thing, while the other community agrees that it means another thing. That is, the sound Om is not in itself meaningful, and is in fact quite meaningless in English.

But Rothbard isn't merely suggesting that mathematical logic clouds the issue. In fact, he states in the above quote that "If the logistic array of symbols were used, each proposition would not be meaningful." In Rothbard's view, merely using mathematical logic notation to express an idea at all is "not meaningful."

We may as well argue that the English language is the only "meaningful" way to engage in dialectics. Who would ever make such a claim?

To this absurdity, Rothbard offers only one defense:

Simply to develop economics verbally, then to translate into logistic symbols, and finally to retranslate the propositions back into English, makes no sense and violates the fundamental scientific principle of Occam’s razor, which calls for the greatest possible simplicity in sci­ence and the avoidance of unnecessary multiplication of entities or processes.

Rothbard calls the expression of ideas in a language other than verbal exposition a violation of Occam's razor (which, by the way, is hardly a law). By that line of reasoning, Human Action violates Occam's razor by virtue of its being a re-worked English-language version of Mises' Nationalokonomie, especially if read by a native English speaker who must translate the German text into English-based thoughts in order to understand them. Indeed, Man, Economy, and State itself began as an update to Human Action and could likewise be dismissed as a violation of Occam's razor.

But this is ridiculous!

Mises On Mathematics in Economics
The question arises, is this really praxeology in the Misesian tradition? Did Mises feel this way about mathematical economics? Some say yes. Let's take a look at what Mises did say.

In Human Action, he writes:

The mathematical method must be rejected not only on account of its barrenness. It is an entirely vicious method, starting from false assumptions and leading to fallacious inferences. Its syllogisms are not only sterile; they divert the mind from the study of the real problems and distort the relations between the various phenomena.

This is from a section of the book entitled "Logical Catallactics Versus Mathematical Catallactics." While this is a damning passage indeed, right away we notice that Mises is not attacking the use of the mathematical expression of ideas, but rather the mathematical method as it pertains to solving economic problems.

In other words, Mises would never childishly attack mathematical expression as being "inherently meaningless." Mises had great respect for mathematics and science. He simply felt that logical catallactics were a more appropriate methodology than mathematical catallactics.

And please note: Mises makes no reference to verbal logic. This is important because the use of mathematical logic is still an example of logical catallactics. This fact must be underscored several times over. The particular language used to express logical ideas does not impact the validity or "meaningfulness" of the logic itself. Whether we notate our dialectics using the Queen's English, mathematical notation, or street Bangla, we may freely engage in logical catallactics so long as we follow a logical chain.

Mises found three methodological problems with mathematical catallactics. The first problem was the use of econometrics as a tool of economic theory. As Mises put it:

Statistics is a method for the presentation of historical facts concerning prices and other relevant data of human action. It is not economics and cannot produce economic theorems and theories.

He further states that "The arrangement of various price data in groups and the computation of averages are guided by theoretical deliberations which are logically and temporally antecedent." In other words, a theory must be developed prior to the application of a statistical model.

This, however, is a far cry from condemning the use of mathematical symbols at all, as Rothbard did.

Mises' second objection to mathematical economic theory was rather complex, but I shall try to summarize it succinctly. First, Mises remarks that supply and demand equations implicitly assume the existence of money to arrive at a particular price or cost. One objection to this is that it ignores the case of non-monetary transactions and barter. But this first objection is merely a lead-in to a greater problem with mathematical economics, which is the (mathematical) assumption of (mathematical) continuity:

On the other hand prices--if this term is applicable at all to exchange ratios determined by barter--are the enumeration of quantities of various goods against which the "seller" can exchange a definite supply. The goods which are referred to in such "prices" are not the same to which the "costs" refer. A comparison of such prices in kind and costs in kind is not feasible.

Note that again this is not a problem with the notation of mathematical logic. Continuity is an assumption of calculus functions. The problem is not the symbolism used, but rather the theoretical assumptions.

Mises' third objection to mathematical economics is unique only to those mathematical economists who prefer to explore mathematical equations outside the particular context of economic theory:

The characteristic mark of this third group is that they are openly and consciously intent upon solving catallactic problems without any reference to the market process. Their ideal is to construct an economic theory according to the pattern of mechanics. They again and again resort to analogies with classical mechanics which in their opinion is the unique and absolute model of scientific inquiry. There is no need to explain again why this analogy is superficial and misleading and in what respects purposive human action radically differs from motion, the subject matter of mechanics. It is enough to stress one point, viz., the practical significance of the differential equations in both fields.

Conclusion
Thus, we see a large discrepancy between the views of Rothbard and those of Mises with respect to mathematical economics. While both economists were critical of mathematical analysis in the context of economics, Mises' objections were methodological, while Rothbard felt that mathematical notation itself is inherently meaningless.

It is important to stress this difference because Mises' views were epistemological in nature. He felt that mathematical models were inappropriate for tackling the abstract problems of economics.  Rothbard did not even address this point, but rather simply dismissed mathematical logic notation because he himself felt it was meaningless.

It is possible to come to the correct conclusion for the wrong reasons. Rothbard correctly adhered to a logical catallactic methodology, as well he should have. Yet, he quite incorrectly chose this methodology only because he himself didn't understand the meaning of mathematical symbols.

It is akin to claiming that the world is round based on the notion that "flat is a meaningless concept."

There are two important takeaways from this discussion:

1. This is one point of many on which Rothbard's views are wildly and importantly different from Mises' views. That is, Rothbard and Mises were not engaged in the same reasoning. Rothbard's work is not a "continuation" of Mises' work, nor is it in any way an "improvement" upon it.
2. This is one point of many on which Rothbard was not just wrong, but ridiculously wrong.

This second point is especially important because if we do not note important shortcomings in the theoretical works of famous Austrian school economists, the praxeological tradition will evaporate into the haze of cultish dogma.

Booing Politicians

I'm all for booing politicians.

By now, you must have already read that Mitt Romney was booed three times during his speech at the NAACP. (I'm choosing not to provide a link to any of the stories because, frankly, they're everywhere and I have no reason to believe one report is better than any other.)

Setting his politics aside, I think there are two good things about this event.

First, it's good that people boo politicians when they disagree with them. Politicians are not particularly good people, and I don't think they deserve much respect. They lie, cheat, steal, and then vie for reelection. Booing is natural. It states, "We know what you are, and we don't like you. Go away." This needs to be stated regularly.

The other good thing about this event is something that reflects well on Mitt Romney. We could have all anticipated in advance that a Mitt Romney speech delivered to the NAACP would be unpopular among the audience members. We can expect that the NAACP will be more supportive of the Obama agenda than the Romney agenda. Even beyond racial allegiances, the NAACP is historically a democratic-leaning organization, and I don't think I'm being particularly controversial in saying so.

I think it is absolutely commendable that Mitt Romney gave a "please-elect-me" speech to a largely hostile audience. Really, this is the way elections should work in a democracy. Candidates should not simply stage big events among their existing supporters, trying to create the illusion of a bandwagon in hopes that undecided voters will join to be part of the crowd.

Instead, candidates should regularly deliver speeches to audiences of people who hold differing views. You know, the point is to persuade other people to change their minds. I'd like to see Barack Obama deliver a speech to the Tea Party or something. You know, conduct some outreach, communicate, change some minds.

Too little of this sort of thing happens these days.

Frequent Testing Is Key To Blood Glucose Control

Under the headline "Patients Prefer New Diabetes Technology," Susan D. Hall of FierceHealthIT covers new research on the impact of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology on type 1 diabetes patients.

Ms. Hall reports that "patients say they're happier" with pump + CGM technology, as compared to multiple daily injection (MDI) therapy.

Considering my own experience with insulin pumps, faithful Stationary Waves readers would expect me to read this kind of article with a critical eye. I readily concede that many patients prefer pumps over MDI therapy, and that it is the right decision for patients who have this preference. But, I must reiterate, that at this point I do not prefer pump therapy. MDIs work for me, at least at this point in my life.

It is therefore interesting to note the following excerpt of the story:

The study found little difference in blood sugar control between those who give themselves multiple insulin shots a day and those who used insulin pumps. However, those who used the pumps along with continuous glucose monitoring devices, were able to better control their blood sugar.

Pumps were found to offer no significant improvement in BG control. This is consistent with my experience.

More importantly, CGM technology actually had a good impact on blood glucose control. This is consistent with my largely anecdotal experience, too. It seems to me that my BG is better controlled when I test more often.

But why just leave it at a gut feeling? In the below graph, I have actually graphed my average daily BG (blue) alongside the total number of tests taken (red), by day:

As you can see, there is a visual indication that when my number of daily BG tests decreases, my blood glucose itself seems to increase.

Not satisfied, I did a simple linear regression of one variable against the other. This confirmed the observation: I found that (setting aside all other factors), the number of times per day I tested my blood sugar was inversely related to my average BG by about 0.105 mmol/L (at the two-sigma confidence level).

That is, each test decreased my blood sugar on average by about 0.1 mmol/L. Not bad, considering I ignored all other factors.

Now, there are some problems with this. For example, I am more likely to test more often when I am experiencing hypoglycemia, as per maintenance recommendations. So that may explain a significant part of the impact.

Still, the results, combined with the graph and the findings of this new study seem to indicate that the better we diabetics can monitor our blood glucose, the more control we have.

Who Pays For A Botched Job?

Yesterday, The New York Times reported on the FDA's recent decision on pain medications. Summarizing the FDA's conclusion, the Times writes as follows:

The Food and Drug Administration, overriding the advice of an expert panel, said Monday that it would not require doctors to have special training before they could prescribe long-acting narcotic painkillers that can lead to addiction.

But the agency said companies that make the drugs, like OxyContin, fentanyl and methadone, would be required to underwrite the cost of voluntary programs aimed at teaching doctors how to best use them.

Emphasis mine.

Let's Add Some Context Here
When pharmaceutical companies engage in programs designed to teach doctors how best to use their own products, they are engaging in a practice called Detailing. Detailing is an industry term. Typically, the pharmaceutical sales rep - perhaps accompanied by a small team of subject matter experts - schedules a ten-minute appointment with the doctor, summarizing the product's best practices, mechanism of action, and prescribing recommendations.

It has long been the opinion of critics of "Big Pharma" that detailing is one of the ways Big Pharma distorts the scientific information and misleads doctors into believing something that is not supported by the evidence.

Is this true? That is tough to say. There are inherent conflicts of interest here. The pharmaceutical companies have every reason to make their products look as good as possible when they're visiting prescribers. On the other hand, doctors have every reason to more favorably weigh information coming from a sales rep with whom he/she has a good working relationship than when that information comes from outside sources. In general, I think it's safe to assume that the reps - whose job it is to make drugs look good - present only a good case for their drugs. I think it's also safe to say that doctors have more incentives to listen to Detailing than to spend all their free time scouring the clinical literature for all new drug information.

The Plot Thickens
In other countries - Canada, for example - government agencies, and quasi-government agencies (such as CADTH) engage in counter-detailing practices. They call this Academic Detailing, and during these sessions, government bureaucrats schedule appointments with doctors to provide similar detailing.

However, rather than pushing specific products, these detailers push cost-effectiveness research and so-called "evidence-based medicine."

Proponents of this kind of detailing suggest that it offers a more objective voice than doctors might get from Big Pharma. However, we must not pretend that it is objective information.

Suppose a very expensive - but very effective - new drug hits the market. Big Pharma's detailing projects will naturally promote the drug's efficacy among doctors. Government detailers, on the other hand, will present the opinion that, while the drug is very effective, a patient still gets "acceptable" therapeutic benefits from the next-cheapest medication.

Now the doctor must choose between the most effective medication and the one that makes economic sense to the government. The cost evaluation is no longer being done by the patient. The doctor makes the ultimate cost decision.

Is this fair? Shouldn't patients have a say in the matter?

Looking Forward
As you can see, just because the government provides the information doesn't mean it hasn't distorted the healthcare landscape. But that is Canada. What about the United States?

This recent FDA decision indicates that the government does not want doctors to have to educate themselves about pain medication prior to prescribing them. This seems ludicrous, doesn't it? I would speculate that the FDA's rationale has taken into account the fact that doctors would pass this cost on to consumers, the largest of which is the Federal Government. The government doesn't want to pay more money, so they are insulating themselves from the cost.

There is also a long-term game at play here. Pharmaceutical companies are already engaged in Detailing, therefore the FDA's decision doesn't actually cost Big Pharma any additional money.

Instead, the FDA has set a precedent for Detailing. While the government may not be able to afford additional training for all doctors in the country, it can certainly earmark funds for grant recipients who are willing to conduct "Academic Detailing" on behalf of the government.

We know this will happen because it already happens in every other rich country in the world. To use more inflammatory language, the "Death Panels" will be going door-to-door, visiting every doctor in the country, "teaching" them the government's message about which drugs to prescribe and which not to.

I reiterate: This already occurs in other countries. This is not pure spook stuff. It happens all over, and it will happen here. What we're seeing with this latest development is merely the early roots of CER and "evidence-based medicine."

Arthur Brooks Says We Are Already Europe

In this Wall Street Journal op-ed, Arthur Brooks makes his claim that America is not "becoming Europe," but rather that it already is.

In 1938—the year my organization, the American Enterprise Institute, was founded—total government spending at all levels was about 15% of GDP. By 2010 it was 36%. The political right can crow all it wants about how America is a "conservative country," unlike, say, Spain—a country governed by the Spanish Socialist Workers Party for most of the past 30 years. But at 36%, U.S. government spending relative to GDP is very close to Spain's. And our debt-to-GDP ratio is 103%; Spain's is 68%.

Mr. Brooks is also refreshingly realistic about the American psyche:

We're not literally moving west any more, but in the Tocquevillian tradition our lives are directed less by Washington politics and more by everyday jobs, church socials and soccer practices. As the leader of a think tank dedicated to public policy, I would love it if Americans were as obsessed with policy as I am. But let's be realistic: Most people don't have the time or inclination to contemplate the potential damage each government-spending predation—each tiny political sellout of our values—could cause.

This is the first policy pundit I've ever heard actually acknowledge what the so-called "independent" or "swing" voters really are: completely disinterested in politics and ill-inclined to become more so.

Like Mr. Brooks, I too believe that this apathy is "a charming part of the American DNA." I think our collective disdain for corrupt politicians makes us particularly able to handle their gross abuses of power. But - also like Mr. Brooks - I believe for that to happen, we have to actually invoke our disdain. At a certain point, we have to care about the millions of corrupt Washington D.C. Americans who are bleeding the rest of us dry.

Think it'll happen? I don't think it'll happen except by secession. 

Week 4: A Week Here, A Week There

Finally I am starting to feel my body get somewhere. The persistent exercise is starting to bring me back around. This begs the question: what happened?

Sure, I blogged about how my exercise regimen had diminished three weeks ago, and I guess it is a pretty accurate story. Still, there is something about hindsight that changes a person's perspective on things. Looking back at it now, I cannot help but be surprised that my body had fallen so far, so fast. Part of this is because when I left Ottawa, I was in the middle of making some very interesting progress with respect to running. I was coming off of long winter of cardio machines, and teaching myself how to run fast again. As tends to be the case, when a person dedicates time and effort toward a specific fitness goal, the goals on the periphery tend to fall behind. Therefore, as I was increasing the intensity of my daily run, I was losing upper body muscle mass more rapidly than I understood at the time.

When I arrived here, and found myself ill-equipped for runs as far and as intense as mine had been in Ottawa, it happened that now both my cardio and my strength training were suffering. I lost a lot of ground, and did so without really noticing.

However, if you've been reading the blog for the past month (and really, who isn't reading the blog these days, am I right...? *cue chirping crickets*) then you know that I have been very persistent with this exercise business lately. Now, at last, on my fourth week of maintaining patchwork training regimen, my body has clicked. My muscles are growing. My energy levels are returning to normal. I'm sleeping through the night again. Food seems appealing. I have all the tell-tale signs of a body returning to its normal, healthy, fit state.

And I'm still a long way from being done.

Week 4: Hitch Your Wagon to Kelechi Opara
So long as we're patching together a training regimen week-by-week, why not pull from all available sources? Sure, I'm an endurance athlete, a distance runner, and I love to run. But the fact of the matter is that even runners need upper body mass, and as I said in the previous section, I've lost a bit too much.

If mass is what I want, then why not pull Week 4's training regimen from a source of wisdom tailored specifically to that goal? That resource is the fantastic Bodybuilding.com, and the regimen is a week's worth of lifting workouts from Kelechi Opara.

Follow the link above for the routine's specifics. I will summarize:

• Day 1: Legs
• Day 2: Back/Shoulders/Abs
• Day 3: Chest/Triceps/Calves
• Day 4: (Rest)
• Day 5: Legs/Abs
• Day 6: Back/Shoulders
• Day 7: (Rest)

Add to that a hefty dose of classic Stationary Waves cardio training, as follows:

• Day 1: 60min light cardio
• Day 2: 40min fartlek
• Day 3: 40min run
• Day 4: 40min fartlek
• Day 5: 40min run
• Day 6: 40min run
• Day 7: (Rest)

Voila! A somewhat interesting Week 4 lies ahead of us. If I like how I feel after a week of body-building, I might continue on. We shall have to see. This is the beauty of not training for anything specific - anything goes. Train however you feel like training at the beginning of any particular week. Variety is the spice of life.

I know what you're thinking: Body-building? On Stationary Waves? That's crazy! But it's not crazy. Any part of the body can atrophy. Any aspect of fitness can fall behind the curve. Strength training is an important component of anyone's workout regimen. Sometimes, to climb your way over a plateau, you have to pull from sources from which you don't ordinary draw.

We Need More Of This

The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful story about two boys who fail to make the top baseball team.

Lamenting the hyper-competitive nature of American youth athletics, the author correctly points out that "Today's athletic tracking squeezes out not only average players but those who might excel later, after they hit adolescence."

This is a real dilemma. Like me, most Americans have a well-honed spirit of competition that keeps life interesting and sports robust. So we tend to embrace the idea that children should be taught how to lose gracefully, even if that means being the worst at something sometimes. But just because Little Johnny doesn't make the team in 201X doesn't mean he might not be able to make the team in 201X+1, right?

The problem the author faced was that her sons were nearly trapped into a second-rate baseball tier after just one failure. That's not exactly how things are supposed to work. Kids shouldn't have to suffer through inferior coaches and lousy rec-leagues just because they didn't succeed the first time they tried out, right?

So she devised a novel solution. She created a new team for her sons, with the more intense training and competition of the bigger league, but without directly competing with that team. The results speak for themselves: all the kids who didn't make the "A" Team greatly improved their baseball skills despite losing every game that season; and four of them went on to make the "A" Team next year.

When people lament competitiveness in sports, it really turns me off. Competition is the whole point, it's part of the fun! By exposing her children to failure, hard work, and ultimately success, this woman has given them a lifelong gift that modern parents often underestimate. It's not "how you play the game" that counts, it's how emotionally capable you are of winning or losing.

Many parents paralyze their children by shielding them from loss and teaching them that competition is bad and doesn't matter. These parents should take a lesson from the author of this article and instead teach their children that losing once doesn't automatically mean you have to lose forever, and that victors win precisely because they work hard.

Diabetes and Exercise Part I: Preparation

Introduction
Today I thought I would kick off a new series of blog posts in which I intend to share information about Diabetes and Exercise that I have collected over the past few years.

When initially diagnosed with diabetes, patients hear a chorus of voices instructing them to exercise regularly, stay healthy, and of course watch what they eat. This advice sounds identical to Type 1 patients and Type 2 patients, despite the two types of diabetes mellitus being radically different conditions. As a result, much of the diabetes advice out there tends to paper-over the important details that differentiate the two. It results in some good soundbites, but also a great deal of confusion on the patients' part.

At least, that was my experience. As a result, much of what I know about diabetes and exercise so far is the result of my own reading and self-experimentation. That may not sound like a ringing endorsement of what I am about to write, but unlike the authors of the soundbites in your diabetes pamphlets, I embrace the fact that all bodies are different. Therefore, the most important thing to take away from this series is that each patient needs to exercise, observe, and carefully evaluate ever new exercise activity's impact on his/her body and adjust accordingly.

In short, no one set of "rules" will fit your own specific case. You need to become a "tinkerer" when it comes to figuring out what your body can do. The aim of this series is to share my own experiences with "tinkering," in hopes of helping you figure out how to do it yourself.

What You Need To Get Started
Any discussion of diabetes and exercise logically begins with a brief lesson on exercise physiology. However, I thought it best to delay that lesson for the time being to focus on more practical matters. If you're going to take on a new exercise regimen as a diabetic, you will have certain unique requirements that other people who exercise do not have to worry about.

Know Your Numbers
First of all, throughout this series - and elsewhere throughout my blog - I will be referring to various values for blood sugar readings. We in the United States measure those values in milligrams per deciliter, while those of you in other countries measure it in millimoles per liter.

A simple Google Calculator search will provide you the conversion directly, but if you'd like a bookmark to go back-and-forth between conversions, here is a handy online calculator for you.


Emergency Sugar
The first thing you need is an emergency source of sugar to protect you in the event that you experience hypoglycemia.

Let's start at the elementary level and answer the question that the absolute-beginners might have at this point: I thought lowering my blood sugar was the point - what's the problem with hypoglycemia? It's true that we aim to decrease our blood sugar with exercise, but keep in mind that lowering it below 72 mg/dL (4.0 mmol/L) sends the body into shock and creates a risk of potentially fatal seizure.

More to the point, as your blood sugar falls below the normal range, you will experience impaired mobility and cognition, and will begin to be less-able to help yourself. If this happens, you need sugar fast, and that's where your emergency stash comes in.

The recommended approach for treating hypoglycemia is to ingest 15mg of fast-acting sugar, wait 15 minutes, then test to ensure your blood sugar is back in the normal range. Repeat as many times as it takes to get you back to normal.

What works? Lots of people use candy (such as LifeSavers), and some people chew dextrose (pure sugar) tablets. I was a competitive athlete years before ever having to think about diabetes, so I prefer using sport gels, such as my personal favorite, Hammer Gel:

It should go without saying that if you experience exercise-induced hypoglycemia, you should stop exercising for the rest of the day.

Insulin
I haven't needed this one myself, yet. We'll get to the issue of exercise-induced hyperglycemia in a subsequent post, but for now, you should simply be aware that some people need to carry insulin with them in the event that their blood sugar increases dramatically to dangerously high levels. If this happens, a corrective bolus of rapid-acting insulin will be required to return your body into a safe state of being.

You can help avoid this by never exercising when your blood sugar is above 288 mg/dL (16.0 mmol/L), or when there are ketones present in the urine stream. If you are new to all of this, then you will get a feel for this stuff as you go.

Blood Glucose Meter
If you are worried about hypo- or hyperglycemia, you should take a blood glucose monitor with you when you exercise and test if you feel unwell. Fair disclosure: I skip this step myself, because I have done enough historical testing before and after workouts at various times of day and at various points before and after meals to understand what I am capable of.

But that is a level of experimentation I necessarily had to engage in. If you are less experienced, it is worth getting some blood glucose data behind you so that you can exercise in an educated manner.

A Spreadsheet
I have a spreadsheet that tracks my blood glucose readings. Various vendors make software that facilitates this, but I find a simple Excel spreadsheet or Google spreadsheet document does the trick just fine.

When you test your blood sugar, no matter how regularly, you often see a different picture when you're "in the moment," taking each reading one-by-one than you do when you collect all your readings by date, time of day, and relevant activity (before meal, after meal, before exercise, etc.) and go searching for trends.

When it comes to exercise, you will have to start assessing the impact of different kinds of exercise, and different levels of exertion, on your body and blood sugar. As we will see in subsequent posts in this series, the impact of exercise may be immediate, or it may be delayed up to twenty-four hours in the future! As you start out, these impacts seem erratic and unpredictable. So the better-informed you are and the better-aware you are of short- and long-run trends, the better you will be able to control your blood sugar with exercise.

Additional Tips For Starting Out
A few more things to keep in mind as you start out exercising with diabetes:

1. For now, don't make radical changes to your diet. We diabetics have to tightly control what we eat to ensure that we stay healthy and keep control of our blood sugar. That means you will have to resist a lot of fitness-industry pressure to radically alter your diet in accordance with current fads. You may eventually choose to alter your diet according to what works best for you. But starting a new exercise regimen is a big change for your body. If you make two big changes at the same time, you are changing two variables, and it will be difficult to determine which of the two had a more relevant impact on your blood sugar. Change one, then change the other; don't change both at the same time.
2. It is always a good idea to let someone else know where you're going. If you go for a walk, a run, a swim, a bike ride, whatever, take the time to let someone know what route you're taking and how long you think you'll be. You will probably not get into trouble out there, but if you do, you'll be glad that you let someone else know where to go looking for you.
3. If you work out with a friend, let them know how to help you in an emergency. I wear a Medic-Alert dogtag and I always take time to let people know that if they see me pass out, they need to put sugar under my tongue and call an ambulance. Nine words that require less than two seconds to state could save your life some day: "Put sugar under my tongue and call an ambulance." Simple as that.
4. If you have an insulin pump, turn it off.

In my next article in this series, I'll cover the physiological effects of exercise and what that implies about your blood sugar. Until then, give exercise a try and see what you can learn on your own!

India Proves That More Socialist Healthcare Is Never Enough

While many a US leftist insists that healthcare reform "had to happen" and that the system "needed" some kind of massive, sweeping, federal legal overhaul, those of us who have a longer cognitive time-horizon understand that there is no "endpoint" to socialism. Reformers of the US healthcare system will never be - and can never be - satisfied, no matter what the reform actually looks like.

Progressives have long been critical of the ACA because it stops short of publicly financed healthcare coverage for all human beings within US borders. An individual mandate is insufficient. A subsidized health plan for the poor is insufficient. Socialists will never stop, because there is always some increased level of socialism somewhere around the bend. So, while it may be the ACA today, it is universal, single-payer healthcare in the long run. And if you think they will stop there, don't fool yourself.

Case in point, India has a public "option." India's socialist health system professes to offer "universal" health coverage to the billions of starving, dying, and desperate poor throughout the country. Everyone else in the country patronizes the private healthcare tier. Why die if you have the money to save yourself? The short-run lesson here is that when public "options" are forced to compete with private healthcare, the private system always wins. The social "safety net" kills people. We see the same thing in the United Kingdom. (Moreover, India is host to a growing healthcare tourism industry and some of the finest doctors in the world. But note: this is only true in India's private healthcare system. Their public system is useless to the point of being deadly, and everyone knows it.)

But, as I stated in the lead-in to this post, "universal" socialist healthcare is not enough for leftists. Leftists always want more socialism, regardless of how much socialism already exists within their borders.

This is evidenced by yesterday's news that India plans to "give free generic drugs to hundreds of millions" of people. The point: "free" healthcare isn't enough - people have a right to "free" pills, too! Western European nations - and their tagalong baby sister, Canada - have long been calling for and in some cases supplying "free" daycare. Socialism doesn't stop, no level of socialism is sufficient to placate its true believers. They always want more.

Now, in this case, there is a larger political story playing out. India and China have been ignoring Western pharmaceutical patents for years now. For us free market types, this is actually a great thing. Patents stifle innovation, distort markets, and drive prices far higher than could be drawn under free market conditions; same as any other form of corporate welfare.

But we all know that India and China aren't interested in promoting laissez-faire capitalism. The real reason they have opted to ignore Western patents is to allow their own domestic generic drug manufacturers to make a lot of money copying patented medicines and selling them on the cheap. If you don't have to conduct any research and development of drugs, then any schmuck with a chemistry degree and a raw chemicals supplier can become a generic drug mogul in weeks, especially if there aren't any patents standing in your way.

So India and China don't want capitalism, but rather they want to promote their own domestic generic drug manufacturing industry. Oh, and by the way, many raw chemicals needed for the production of pharmaceuticals are produced in... India and China! Serendipity.

The one-two punch of ignoring pharmaceutical patents and subsidizing the generic drug industry (for, that is pricely what "supplying free generic medications" is, a government pill subsidy) is a significant blow to branded pharmaceuticals companies. Now they understand that any medicines they develop will quickly be copied by generic competitors in India and China, and sold directly to those same governments in a disgusting, literally incestuous act of cronyism.

No private firm can ever hope to compete with these tactics, which are already quite common in Canada (which hosts a large domestic generic manufacturing industry), are increasingly common here in the United States. So-called "Big Pharma" is shrinking fast, unable to find reliable ways of generating profits via the production of actual medicine. They have to resort to lobbying for protection. In no time at all, they may well become quasi-government labs.

Conclusion
I think we're headed toward a massive shortage of medications and, as Paul Gregory pointed out a couple of days ago, a complete and utter halt in the development of new drugs. Brand pharmaceutical companies may well become a thing of the past. The major players will expand into the generic drug space, moreso than they already have. The entire industry will be a creepy government racket.

It's a real shame, but not a big surprise.

Happy Independence Day

Screw the critics. This will always be my favorite day of the year, the greatest holiday of them all! Celebrating individual liberty and independence from tyranny is something that should be done by all human beings the world over, not just US citizens.

I hope your Independence Day is full of freedom and happiness. :)

ACA: One More Time, For The World!

I had thought I could put this topic behind me a bit, but a recent conversation has inspired me to summarize my key arguments against the individual mandate. I summarize them here.

Does The ACA Give Healthcare To The Poor?
By far, the most ubiquitous argument in favor of an individual mandate is that it will provide healthcare for the poor. This is a false claim, for the following reasons:

First, poor people are the ones foregoing coverage, hence poor people are the ones who must pay the penalty described in the individual mandate. This is exactly analogous to charging a starving person a fee for not buying food. In other words, it does not solve the monetary problem.

Second, the total number of doctors, hospitals, diagnostic machines, pharmaceutical products, and hours in the day have not changed. This means that expanding the total number of insured persons simply means that there are more people in line for the same number of products and services. Wait times and prices both increase (the result of an increase in total demand). (As we shall soon see, the individual mandate puts indirect pressure on the healthcare system such that there will soon be fewer doctors, drugs, and medical practitioners, but we can ignore this fact for the sake of this discussion.)

Does The ACA Reduce Healthcare Costs?
Another claim in favor of the ACA is that "we had to do something" or else rising costs would bankrupt the system. This claim is false, for the following reasons:

First, rising healthcare costs is not a uniquely American problem. Healthcare costs are rising in every country in the world, period. Therefore, adopting another country's healthcare payment scheme does nothing to address rising costs.

Second, a key cost driver in the American healthcare marketplace is the fact that doctors deal with insurance companies, not patients. Because patients are insulated from the direct costs of healthcare, they have no incentive to price discriminate or search for the best deal. As is the case in all socialized healthcare systems worldwide, expanding coverage in fact encourages patients to go wherever the line is shortest, i.e. emergency rooms. They therefore clog emergency services with non-emergency cases, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars - if not millions - per year.

Third, by capping certain fees, the ACA reduces the ability of both insurers and healthcare providers to earn profits. This results in reduced incentives to provide services, i.e. a net loss of supply, less healthcare to go around. Reduced supply means higher prices; here I invoke the Law of Supply.

Fourth, and worst, the ACA further institutionalizes the relationship between doctors, insurers, and government subsidies. This creates stagnation and prevents the system from undergoing any sort of market-based change. No one will reduce prices or increase supplies except by government mandate.

Is The Passage Of The ACA An Act Of Democracy?
This is an interesting one. One faithful Stationary Waves reader, CH, suggests that the passage of the ACA is an example of our democracy in action. This claim misses the mark for the following reasons:

First, the people did not vote on the ACA, so we have no real idea about the extent to which they supported it. This is not legislation by the people, this is legislation by government bureaucrats. Obama himself did not even draft the legislation; it was drafted in committee by a small number of policy wonks and forced through Congress by parliamentary tactics. Nancy Pelosi famously declared that we had to pass the legislation in order to find out what was in it. That which is unknown can never be legitimately endorsed by the public. There was no public choice involved.

Second, the fact that a mandate exists indicates that the public by and large does not behave in accordance with the law as written. Therefore, rather than creating a penalty for anomalistic behavior (as a law against murder does), this law creates a penalty for market behavior that a large number of Americans regularly engage in. Mandates that enforce activities that large numbers of people do not choose to engage in are not examples of public choice. At all. Period.

Third, in order for the ACA to have survived judicial review, the interpretation of the law itself had to be radically changed by the sitting Chief Justice. That means that the law as written and understood by the government was unconstitutional, and was only found to be constitutional upon reinterpretation by a handful of judges who played no role in the drafting of the legislation.

Conclusion
So, as we have seen, the ACA is:

• Bad for poor people,
• Bad for reducing healthcare costs, and
• Antidemocratic

I cannot think of another instance in which the arguments in favor of a piece of legislation were so spectacularly weak, except perhaps for the Patriot Act. As I mentioned previously, the one argument that cannot be addressed by the above is the childish notion of "but mommy I waaaant it!"

And, indeed, all "discussion" with those who support the law tend to boil down to that notion, the idea that they just want it, and they don't care to justify why. When the cost angle is destroyed by facts, they switch to the poverty angle; when the poverty angle is destroyed by facts, they switch to a civic duty argument. When that fails, they return to costs, and circle continues. They do nothing to support their position other than move the goalposts around and around and prevent any one concept from being discussed long enough to be disproved.

Hopefully, this post makes some sort of headway, although I concede that it probably does not.

Week 3: Broadening Horizons And A New FRIO!

I Received My New FRIO This Week
On Friday, I received a prompt shipment in the mail: a brand new FRIO Insulin Cooling Case much like the one you see below:

I'm incredibly excited about this. This case means a new level of freedom for me. Until now, I've been somewhat paralyzed during the summer months by the fact that if I spend any significant time walking around outside (say, while shopping or hiking or at a picnic), I have had to either stuff my insulin in an ice chest and carry it around with me, or just accept the fact that my insulin is going to decay in the heat and soon become useless.

Neither prospect was particularly appealing to me, of course. So I finally made the sane decision of investing in a FRIO. I'm really glad I did.

These cases are kind of amazing. The main envelope is filled with little crystals which turn to gel when you soak the FRIO in cold water. The gel acts as insulation, and more. As the gel slowly dries out, it creates an evaporation feedback loop inside the case, which acts to cool the insulin. It sounds unlikely to be very cool, but in fact it has been keeping my insulin very cool. I'm impressed.

Furthermore, the cooling action apparently lasts for over 40 hours in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Pretty awesome. I highly recommend this to any diabetic. They are seriously cool products.

Week 3 Workout:
Working out was a bit of an extra challenge this past week, because I was out of town on business. Nevertheless, I managed to stay on top of things. I brought my resistance bands with me, which I did make use of. But Austin was incredibly hot last week, so most of my workout time was spent in the hotel gym. Rather than running outside in 100+ degree heat, I decided to try out some elliptical training.

Unlike my use of the elliptical machines during winter training, this past week I tried out a tempo "run" and a fartlek workout on the elliptical. Finally, I capped the week off with a long "run" on the recumbant bicycle yesterday. I can report that all of these workouts were highly successful. While my legs didn't get much of a workout - consequently, these machines are not to be considered good replacements for actual running - I was able to increase my heartrate, get my lungs working, and get some excellent cardiovascular workouts in over the week.

So, yes, it was highly successful as a cross-training week.

More importantly, I reminded myself of the value of taking a more relaxed, less-regimented approach to working out. I am not really approaching my summer training with a "plan" this year, because I am not training for any race in particular. Not only am I focusing more of my efforts on music this year, I am also in the middle of a major geographic relocation. Therefore, racing isn't a major priority right now.

Nevertheless, working out once or twice a day never stops being important for me. Not having a regimen means I am forced to get a little creative with my weekly plan, or risk falling into a rut and doing the same thing over and over again. That's not healthy.

These past weeks, and continuing into this week, I have had the freedom to try things out virtually on a day-to-day basis and see how I like them. It's been fun.

So, let's keep it going this week.

The Week 3 Plan:

Strength Training - Tues, Thurs: See last week's killer workout.

Strength Training - Sat: Let's do something lighter one day this week. How about 4 sets of 50 jumping jacks, 50 crunches, 40 push-ups. Try to do 45 push-ups this week, if you can. Just see how it goes.

Cardio:

• Mon = 45 minute light run
• Tue = 30 minute fartlek workout
• Wed = 45 minute light run
• Thu = 30 minute fartlek workout
• Fri = 45 minute light run
• Sat = 60 minute long run
• Sun = Rest

Do take that rest day this week.

What I've Been Trying To Say, In One Paragraph

This is from Paul Gregory's recent piece on Forbes.com. Here is everything you need to know about socializing the US health care system:

Ninety five percent of the new drugs coming on the market are developed for sale in the United States. They are paid for by American consumers, while other countries, such as Canada, Germany and France, free ride at our expense. The United States is the last major country that allows the market to set prices high enough to compensate pharmaceutical companies for their R&D investments. Obama Care will increasingly control pharmaceutical prices as costs rise and federal and state funds fall short. Major pharmaceutical advances will stop (How well will government labs work?), and the rest of the world will lose along with Americans.