The Significant Medal Inequality of the Olympics

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As predicted in a recent CD post, there was a significant amount of "medal inequality" in the 2012 Summer Olympics, see the country shares above of the total 962 medals that were awarded this year to athletes from 85 countries.   Note the amazing similarity between the shares of adjusted gross income earned in the U.S. in 2008 and the country shares of Olympic medals awarded this year, in both cases by the top 5, 10, 25 and 50% of "participants" or "earners."

The average person seems to understand how "medal taxes" and "medal redistribution" would undermine the competitive process that is essential to the success of the Olympics, but then that same person often seems to accept progressive "income taxes" and "income redistribution," without realizing that the "tax and redistribution" process can undermine incentives to work, produce and invest that are essential to the success of the market economy.  

The Best Movie I've Seen in Years

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If you haven't yet seen the movie "Searching for Sugar Man," I highly recommend that you do so, it's excellent.  It's got a 96% Tomato-Meter Rating from movie critics on RottenTomatoes.com and a 96% audience rating, which is almost unprecedented for a movie to rank so highly on both measures at the same time.  Watch the trailer above, and here's a synopsis: 
Searching for Sugar Man tells the incredible true story of Rodriguez, the greatest 1970s rock icon who never was. Discovered in a Detroit bar in the late 1960s by two celebrated producers struck by his soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics, they recorded an album which they believed would secure his reputation as the greatest recording artist of his generation. In fact, the album bombed and the singer disappeared into obscurity amid rumors of a gruesome on-stage suicide. But a bootleg recording found its way into apartheid South Africa and, over the next two decades, he became a phenomenon. The film follows the story of two South African fans who set out to find out what really happened to their hero. Their investigation leads them to a story more extraordinary than any of the existing myths about the artist known as Rodriguez.
You can see Rodriguez on The Letterman Show tomorrow (Tuesday) night, and see him live, here's his touring schedule.

Markets In Everything: Eyesight for the Blind

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Bloomberg -- "Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain, according to a study that may lead to new prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people.  The technology moves prosthetics beyond bright light and high-contrast recognition and may be adopted for human use within a year or two, said Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the study’s lead author. 
“What this shows is that we have the essential ingredients to make a very effective prosthetic,” Nirenberg said. Researchers haven’t yet tested the approach on humans, though have assembled the code for monkeys. 
Nirenberg and co-author Chethan Pandarinath first monitored healthy eyes to determine the set of equations that translate light received by the retina into something the brain can understand. Then, they used special glasses to create a similar code and deliver it to the eye, which they had injected with a virus containing light-sensitive cells. The cells received the code and fired electric impulses, which the brain could interpret as images. 
Nirenberg’s research “is basically giving vision back to a system that doesn’t work,” said Aude Oliva, a principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who wasn’t involved in the research. “I’ve never seen, and other people have never seen, this quality.”
No foreseeable barriers should stop the movement into humans now that the technology has been created, Oliva said. Nirenberg said that if researchers can come up with adequate cash to fund clinical trials, she hopes to soon adapt the technology." 
MP: In the midst of all of the gloom and doom we hear about daily, the pending fiscal cliff, talk of a double-dip recession, The Great Stagnation, etc. we still hear inspiring stories like this on a regular basis, a confirmation that technology, innovation and ingenuity march on, and deliver advances that make the future ever-brighter all the time.  It's a demonstration that our "ultimate resource" - America's human resources,  human capital and entrepreneurial talent - are still strong, and the vitality and dynamism of the U.S. economy will prevail.  The U.S. economy has experienced 33 recessions since around the time of the Civil War, and has successfully emerged after each one into a new cycle of growth and expansion, and there's no reason that this last recession and the current expansion will be any different.

As one example, when we look back on the period of U.S. history from 1870-1900, nobody describes that period as one of seven severe economic recessions, or a period when the U.S. economy was in recession 179 months out of 336 months, or more than half of that time period.  Instead, when we reflect on that period today, we think of the many amazing, game-changing inventions that emerged during that era despite the tough economic conditions, including the typewriter, air brakes, tungsten steel, barbed wire, telephone, internal combustion engine, phonograph, moving pictures, a longer-lasting light bulb, player piano, machine gun, gas-engine motorcycle, radar, gramaphone, contact lenses, escalator, zipper, bicycle frame, vacuum cleaner, zeppelin and the radio.  Likewise, a hundred years from now people will look back on this period of history more for its innovations (3D printing, iPhone, iPad, robotics, nanotechnology, advanced drilling technologies for oil and gas, and prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people, etc.) than for the fact that we went through the Great Recession, which in comparison was relatively mild compared to the severe, recessionary conditions of the 1870-1900 period that included a five-year and a three-year recession.   

HT: John Sturges

Markets in Everything: Research Validation Service

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Science Exchange, in partnership with the open-access publisher PLOS and open data repository figshare, announced today the launch of the Reproducibility Initiative – a new program to help scientists, institutions and funding agencies validate their critical research findings.
“In the last year, problems in reproducing academic research have drawn a lot of public attention, particularly in the context of translating research into medical advances. Recent studies indicate that up to 70% of research from academic labs cannot be reproduced, representing an enormous waste of money and effort,” said Dr. Elizabeth Iorns, Science Exchange’s co-founder and CEO. “In my experience as a researcher, I found that the problem lay primarily in the lack of incentives and opportunities for validation—the Reproducibility Initiative directly tackles these missing pieces.”
The Reproducibility Initiative provides both a mechanism for scientists to independently replicate their findings and a reward for doing so.  Scientists who apply to have their studies replicated are matched with experimental service providers based on the expertise required.  The Initiative leverages Science Exchange’s existing marketplace for scientific services, which contains a network of over 1000 expert providers at core facilities and contract research organizations (CROs). “Core facilities and commercial scientific service providers are the solution to this problem,” said Dr. Iorns. “They are experts at specific experimental techniques, and operate outside the current academic incentive structure.”
See related Reuters article here, which highlights the issue of why there is a need for research validation:
"Last year, Bayer Healthcare reported that its scientists could not reproduce some 75 percent of published findings in cardiovascular disease, cancer and women's health.
In March, Lee Ellis of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and C. Glenn Begley, the former head of global cancer research at Amgen, reported that when the company's scientists tried to replicate 53 prominent studies in basic cancer biology, hoping to build on them for drug discovery, they were able to confirm the results of only six."

Ten Tuesday Afternoon Links

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1. The "Van Indicator" Signals Economic Recovery  -  "How can we tell how small businesses are feeling? Find out how many vans they’re buying (90% of vans are purchased by businesses). Van sales were up 32% in July over last year, a greater increase than every other vehicle type except sports cars."

2.  Average sales at U.S. car dealerships are expected to rise to an all-time high of 805 vehicles this year, as the number of U.S. dealers remained flat the first half of 2012. The average sales are on pace to top the previous record set in 2005.
3. The number of U.S. craft breweries increased this year to the highest count in 125 years. It's the fastest growth rate since Prohibition ended, almost one new brewery every day.
4. Update on NYC's pizza wars in today's WSJ.  Cutthroat competition brings prices down to as low as 75 cents per slice.  Can't we get a similar pizza war in DC? 
5. The oil and gas boom brings scarcity of workers in small towns in Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota as many businesses and government agencies now struggle to find enough workers. Reason? Most able-bodied people can double or triple their income in the oil patch.
6.  The Costco in Bellingham, Washington, has become exceedingly popular with Canadian shoppers to the dismay of locals who are claiming "gridlock" in the aisles. 
7.  419 Economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, Sign Statement in Support of Romney's Economic Plan to Create Jobs and Restore Economic Growth.   
8. Report: 46% Of U.S. Bank Account Holders Will Use Mobile Banking By 2017.
9. New York to London in an hour: Hypersonic WaveRider aircraft to be tested Tuesday.

10. Shale Gas to the Climate Rescue: Development of global shale gas could be the best way to achieve cuts in CO2 emissions.