Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Managing budgets in NY and Barbados

Great ride in, after tightening the freehub on the rear axle that I obviously didn't do well enough when I replaced the cassette. The new computer is going to greatly improve my performance because I can read out my speed and force myself to maintain it.

Year to date I'm at 2,452 kilometers of biking vs. about 4,900 potential kilometers. Moderate winds, but sunny and really nice overall.

Listened to This American Life on the way in. Great show on how New York state called in the same gent who fixed New York City's budget in the 1980s to fix the state's. The politicians didn't like his no nonsense approach to balancing budgets and his recommendation was rejected. This was contrasted with Barbados, which adopted a US dollar peg in the 1990s, then got the trade unions and company management to agree on how to work together for the sake of the entire country. Granted, Barbados with only 300,000 people is easier to manage than the state of New York, but they got it done.

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