TRIATHLON AND ECONOMY

There are many links between how good a country practices a sport and economy.  We posted related subjects: “How to think clearly to create champions.”  It has to do with the way of thinking attached to “somebody that produces something.” It is no so much about money in itself, which it is a by-product of thinking clearly and working hard most of the time (in Mexico we have the organized crime but that is something else, we speak about real people).

Just hours after Yale professor Robert Shiller won the Nobel prize for economics Monday he told the Associated Press: "The most important problem that we are facing today...is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world."… At first glance that sounds like good news for the wealthy in this country, but Reich disagrees. "The rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy because [then] the middle class has more purchasing power and could help it grow," he says.

Related: "We have Become a Nation of Hamburger Flippers": Dan Alpert Breaks Down the Jobs Report

Inequality is also a political choice, according to another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz. In a recent New York Times blog he blames the rise of American inequality on underinvestment in infrastructure, education, health care and social safety nets.

Reich offers his own prescription to reduce inequality:

• Invest in education and job training
• Upgrade the nation's infrastructure
• Reform the entire tax system, including sales & payroll taxes, to make it more progressive
• Constrain Wall Street's gambling behavior
• Increase the minimum wage and earned income tax credit to help move people out of poverty

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/income-inequality-enemy-economic-growth-robert-reich-142150436.html

We recently had the last games to classify to the Soccer World Cup. The USA gave another chance to the Mexican Team to classify by winning against Panama; the Mexicans will play two games against New Zealand for the pass to the World Cup because of the USA win on overtime.  This brought an unusual commentary from the TV announcer (Martinolli), who points out the attitude of the one that does not know how to produce something (the majority of the cases bring the problem of how to work and make a living from it).  The winning attitude is teachable and necessary to obtain goals but it is also in the culture; unfortunately, the culture can deceive us:

"It is because of the USA that we are being placed in the playoff ...BECAUSE OF THEM , NOT DUE TO YOU..NOT ANY OF YOU in the green shirts ....IT WAS THEM!!.NOT YOU!..THEY DID IT!!!!!NOT YOU! remember this forever..... KEEP THIS CLEARLY IN MIND FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES! You do NOTHING for the shirt, you do NOT put the effort, you have NOT placed us in the playoffs, you HAVE NOT placed us in the WORLD CUP ..YOU WOULD NOT HAVE KEPT US ALIVE....IT WAS ESTADOS UNIDOS, NOT YOU! NOT YOU AND YOUR ARROGANCE/CONCEIT.....NOT YOU AND YOUR INFAMY....NOT YOU AND YOUR MORONS/PUNKS....
....
"IT IS A FAILURE.....and UNDESERVED -to go through to the playoff- WE HAD NO ARGUMENTS to earn the playoffs, THE USA, WITH SUBS , WITH MANY SUBS as the visiting team shows us once again what the USA is all about ....how to play the game with dignity, how to approach the sport..MExico is a horror, just terrible....A FAILURE..........THE USA HAS SURPASSED US ..They are better than Mexico in SOCCER ....THEY EVEN HAVE THE LUXURY OF PLAYING THEIR SUBS and KEEPING US LIVE.... I hope our coach wears the pants and resigns. He has failed as coach...."

 http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-soccer-announcer-translation-2013-10#ixzz2hwJEppUf

 

How to teach those “morons punks” that Martinolli points out is our task.  The problem is that Martinolli is the first one that speaks about it publicly, and most likely he will be put on the shadows for a while after what he made public and nobody wants to see/hear.  Thanks Martinolli!  It is not related to soccer exclusively.  It is related to our culture that permeates all our sports.  It is related to our poverty that is not only in our spirit but in our pocket (that hurts the most for sure).  I like the proposition made by Reich on how to fight inequality which it could be apply to sports:

Team Oaxaca offers his own prescription to reduce inequality in triathlon or any sport:

• Invest in education and technique training
• Upgrade the nation's infrastructure
• Reform the entire tax system, including sales & payroll taxes, to make it more progressive
• Constrain Wall Street's, Triathlon National Federations and ITU gambling behavior  
• Increase the PRICES FOR COMPETITION and give extra money based on results to help move athletes out of poverty