How could we forget about George Orwell?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-04-28/
The Harsh Couch - 2015.04.28 Prachanda Path
wibbly
#1
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://theharshcouch.com/thc/2015-04-28/
Re: the McCool numbers on WA housing.
If I heard him right, he was talking $300k house bought in 2005 worth $700k (? he said “over 7”) today.
That’s an 8.8% unlevered internal rate of return.
In contrast, if you invested the same amount into the ASX S&P200 over the same period (1 Jan 05 - 1 Jan 15), your internal rate of return would be 7.5%.
The ASX S&P200 is not “as safe as houses” and normally the higher risk means higher return, but that’s more on an ex ante assessment than ex post.
In all, neither 8.8% IRR nor 130bps spread is highly offensive.
However, if you assume the property purchase was mostly funded through a mortgage, then the levered IRR on the property would probably be more offensive to the average punter, as the home owner gets the benefit of the price increase, while the bank just gets paid interest and repaid principal.
None of which saves the government from indictment on its remote communities policy.
Re: (now dead) Australians in Bali
Some segments of Australia population are now in the strange position of arguing that Australia should indirectly hasten the deaths of innocent Indonesians (by cutting aid, I’m assuming bluntly and possibly impacting health aid) because Indonesia killed two Australians who were caught smuggling pretty nasty prohibited drugs.
If you put the morality of the death penalty to one side, this is a really odd place to argue from. Even when you do take the death penalty morality into account, I don’t think it’s a highly defensible position and I’d rather follow Dr Gob’s sage thoughts expressed on the Couch on this (ie cutting aid harms the wrong people).
Regardless of the morality of the Australian position on this, I think Australia comes out of this whole affair looking bad, both to itself and to its neighbours.
I agree with the Couch view that Indonesia played Australia, ripping the band aid off as slowly as possible. And Australia played along, eagerly awaiting the national outpouring of grief and outrage.
Could the Australian government, media or public played it better, other things being equal? I don’t think they could have done much better than they did. To varying extents, they were caught in a bind of their principles, love for moralising at the barbaric Asians and love of self-referential drama.
Part justifiably righteousness, part indignant outrage.
That said, principles don’t choose their “heroes” and the principle of anti-capital punishment shouldn’t be mixed up with the potential beneficiaries of that stance (ie two convicted drug smugglers).
On a related note, why are fewer tears shed when Andrew Bolt’s offensive use of freedom of speech is curbed by the State through criminal laws than when an SBS sports guy tweets about the ANZAC tradition is curbed by getting fired (ie a matter of private contract, albeit with a government entity). There’s lots of room for debate on this, but rarely is the debate on the differences even started. Principles shouldn’t choose their “heroes”.
My views on Mayweather vs Pacquiao.
A tactically smart match by Mayweather (does he still beat his wife?), but not a great spectator event.
The Compubox stats were screwed up and I don’t trust them for this match.
However, I agree with the judges that Mayweather won.
I was going for Pacquiao, solely because I thought it would be better for the plucky Philippines economy.
(this week, someone described the Philippines as “Hong Kong’s Mexico”; I’d never heard this comparison before, but it works pretty well, other than it’s the Mexico for a good number of other East Asian and Middle Eastern economies as well)
Most of the punches Pacquiao landed were not scoring punches. Mayweather blocked many, while others were glancing blows that don’t get points.
Mayweather was very elusive and Pacquiao couldn’t find a way in for most of the fight. Mayweather could make Pacquiao throw a lot of punches but, as I said above, many did not score.
(discourse into boxing 101 follows, apologies if condescending)
If you’re orthodox, you spend 90% of your sparring and fighting against orthodox boxers and you are used to facing a left jab vs your left jab. Facing a south paw, you’re facing a right jab on your left jab and all your habits and usual tactics don’t work the same. It’s extremely frustrating because your usual habits and instincts often get you punched in the face (more than usual).
In many orthodox vs south paw fights, you see the orthodox boxer struggling to find a way to close the distance, get past the right jab to nullify it, then work the body or shorter range head work.
Pacquiao is a south paw, so this should have worked in his favour, even though Mayweather has probably been sparring with south paws for a long time in preparation for this much anticipated fight.
However, Mayweather played it smart and the fight was almost the opposite of the usual orthodox vs south paw fight.
Mayweather stayed on the outside and used his elusiveness, range and speed to keep Pacquiao at bay. So rather than Mayweather trying to get past Pacquiao’s right jab, Pacquiao was the one trying to get past Mayweather’s left jab (and right cross - see below) to work Mayweather’s inside ie Pacquiao was stuck in Mayweather’s outer range wanting desperately to get in. Pacquiao did get inside nicely a few times, but not often.
Something that served Mayweather nicely was his nice, clean and fast right.
Often when an orthodox puncher throws a right punch, it’s a big punch and you can see it coming. It has longer to travel, as it’s coming from the back (as an orthodox guy leads with left foot/left jab) and the boxer usually turns his hips into it. Often it’s telegraphed by the right hand assuming the pre-launch position and/or the right elbow raising up.
It also takes a lot more energy to throw than a jab due to the extra distance and body motion needed.
So the right cross is often also a higher risk punch as (a) your opponent is more likely to see it coming and can get out of the way, (b) you are often tempted to put a lot of power into it (particularly as you get more tired), which can leave you very vulnerable. You can sometimes end up off balance if you miss. You can be left very open to your opponent slipping the right and coming back with lefts to the body and/or a left hook to the head. As your torso has twisted to the left and your your ribs and often your head are wide open and presented to your opponent, you’re vulnerable to counterpunches.
On the other hand, when you’re fighting a south paw, a right punch can work well. It travels straight down the middle past the south paw’s right and often smacks the south paw nicely in the face before he can get his left into a block. But there’s a good chance you’ll screw it up, the south paw will see it coming and slip it, you’ll end up with your fist over the back of his shoulder and he’ll go to town on you with counterpunches.
Coming back to Mayweather - he has a very nice, clean and fast right.
He doesn’t slug it (ie go full throttle and end up over-exposed), but instead pops it and retracts it fast, keep his composure and readiness to punch again. The punch gets the benefit of his hip/torso torsion, so still has plenty of pop and hurts when it connects, even though it’s not a slugging right/knock out punch. It also returns very fast. He doesn’t overextend, so much lower chance of a miss and overextension. He’s also back in position to follow up very quickly. Lovely style, even though he is a wife beater.
While he didn’t rely on this too much in the fight, he did get Pacquiao with some lovely examples of this punch and that made Pacquiao wary. Making your opponent wary is a key part of the psychology of boxing - if your opponent has a good tactic, you want to make him too wary to use it much by using effective counter tactics early in the match.
Similarly, you will often try to smack your opponent with one of your hard and fast punches early (usually the right) so that he is wary of getting smacked that way again. Once you’ve done that, you can then fake that punch (eg move as if you’re going to throw it again) to scare him into defending, then hit him with something else.
Going off into even more of a tangent, the psychology and tactics is one of the lovely things about boxing. A boxing match is very, very much a game of psychology where you’re trying to control your opponent’s perception of the fight and willingness to attack you in different ways. You can exert some control over your opponent by fear and apprehension. You also need avoid him doing the same to you. When you’re really rooted and exhausted, you might put on a burst of energy leave you absolutely rooted and vulnerable, but you do it anyway because it can convince your opponent that you are full of pep and have a tonne of energy, so he gets defensive and too afraid to attack. You may frustrate your opponent and nullify his range game by repeatedly clinching, making him frustrated enough to make a mistake. If you’re an Irish Catholic who gets off on pain and the shame of failing to dodge a punch, you can grin wildly after taking a big punch to the head and keep on coming at your opponent, freaking him out and convincing him haed punches won’t work.
It’s a lovely sweet and sweaty science. It’s competition at a very raw and direct level. I feel that non-combat competitive sports are merely just overly polite and poor reflections of the paradigm of combat, trying to evoke the same primeval competitiveness but ending up a pale shadow.
We invent complex rule-based sports to dress the pugilistic urge up as something else. I prefer pugilism.
(Also, men invent complex rituals (ie sport) as sanctioned excuses to touch each other.)
Anyway, Mayweather’s popping right seems to be one of the elements that left Pacquiao bereft of ideas of how to close in. When he came in too close, Mayweather’s fast right would pop him before he could defend.
So, we ended up with a fight where Pacquiao stayed where Mayweather wanted him to be, desperate to get in but getting a quick right in the face a good number of times when he tried. Or he’d get in and Mayweather would be very elusive and/or cover up when Pacquiao first unloaded, then go straight to clinch until the ref broke them up, resetting the distance and leaving Pacquiao desperate to close in again. Frustrating for Pacquiao, perfect for Mayweather, who would then pick up points punching Pacquiao in ones and twos at longer range.
Most of the 12 rounds was like this and it’s not an interesting fight to re-watch.
In my view, it’s unlikely we’ll see a re-match. This fight was too boring and a re-match would be more of the same.
They are aging men.
Pacquiao has legislation to pass.