I've just got a renewed membership at Gold's Gym here in Omiya. From last Friday I stared going. On Friday I did back, Saturday I went to Tokyo and did chest at the Shibuya location. Sunday I took off, simply because when I showed up to the gym around 9 p.m. it was already closed. On Monday I went and did legs, and yesterday I went and did my shoulders.
The Leg workout was pretty crazy. I must say that right now I'm really feeling it. It has been awhile since I really worked out my legs that hard, and they are quite sore.
Exercising your leg muscles is extremely important of course, since they are much more primary to your locomotion than any upper body exercise. I think also in terms of abs and weight loss they are absolutely crucial.
I've started to track my calories using a program that has a pretty good database of foods, even those found in Japan. I am also recording all my workout on the exercise App for my iphone.
I can already see some fantastic results even after being back at Gold's for less than 1 week. First, I am sleeping much much better. The muscle fatigue means that despite any attempt to think and stay awake my body is simply naturally tired and therefore unable to do so. The sleep is much more restful and complete than it would be otherwise. There is no easy comparison between sleep from one period and sleep from another, this is especially true if you are comparing the experience of being asleep. But, upon waking up you know very well the difference between having achieved REM sleep and not having achieved a significant amount of it. That difference can be recorded in a app like sleepclock, which uses the iphone gyroscope to gauge when you enter and exit REM sleep.
I'm getting a handle on my diet as well. Simply recording the food you eat can have a huge effect on what you put in your body. Do you really want to write down that you ate X quantity of fried chicken or doughnuts?
The next step is drinking enough water, which is itself aided by that diet app. It has a nice graphical interface that records your water intake. You want to make sure that it fills up, so it actually graphically represents the empty water glasses that you didn't fill, and there is no text, so you really get a nice visual effect of your water consumption.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
USA CORPORATE LAW/POLITICS, regulating contributions through shareholder approval.
After "Citizens United" you had a situation where corporations can contribute unlimited sums to elect candidates that are favourable to their firms. This has the potential to corrupt the political process in the USA. One solution is to have the shareholders pass resolutions requiring 75% shareholder approval for any campaign funding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15bogle.html?src=rechp
This article argues for just such an approach.
I see a couple of problems. Firstly, even though this is coming up in the case of Home Depot, it is unrealistic to believe that sufficient votes can be gathered to approve such resolutions in a majority of companies. Moreover, insofar as the contributions can be said to improve the finances of the company by electing candidates who are favourable, it seems that that executives can legitimately claim that they are acting to benefit their corporations, and hence are protected by the business judgement rule. Would shareholders want to handcuff management when it is apparent that funds might be usefully spent electing a pro business candidate? To take a simple example. Suppose that there are two candidates, one proposes increasing taxes on fuel, and the other does not. If you are the CEO of an oil company you obviously have a duty to shareholders to oppose the candidate who is going to decrease your profits. Most large shareholders will realize this and act accordingly.
In addition, this might suffer from the same problem with regard to executive pay. It is rare that shareholders can successfully pass restrictions on executive pay despite there being almost universal benefits for doing so.
Having re-read the case I have to conclude that there has to be some merit to the decision. For example, various media companies are linked to certain businesses. A good example is General Electric owning NBC. If they can use their media wing to promote policies that favor the company as a whole, I don't see why other businesses can't do the same. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that prior to Citizens United those elected to both the Senate and the presidency favored big business over the average citizen. It is only in Congress that you have something approaching effective representation. Therefore, I don't see this decision as making a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. More importantly it is unfair for some companies to have influence through ownership of media to spend unlimited amounts, whereas others cannot. It is additionally true that there is currently a breakdown between traditional media, and new media which uses the internet. There is no longer a clear distinction between owners of media and users.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15bogle.html?src=rechp
This article argues for just such an approach.
I see a couple of problems. Firstly, even though this is coming up in the case of Home Depot, it is unrealistic to believe that sufficient votes can be gathered to approve such resolutions in a majority of companies. Moreover, insofar as the contributions can be said to improve the finances of the company by electing candidates who are favourable, it seems that that executives can legitimately claim that they are acting to benefit their corporations, and hence are protected by the business judgement rule. Would shareholders want to handcuff management when it is apparent that funds might be usefully spent electing a pro business candidate? To take a simple example. Suppose that there are two candidates, one proposes increasing taxes on fuel, and the other does not. If you are the CEO of an oil company you obviously have a duty to shareholders to oppose the candidate who is going to decrease your profits. Most large shareholders will realize this and act accordingly.
In addition, this might suffer from the same problem with regard to executive pay. It is rare that shareholders can successfully pass restrictions on executive pay despite there being almost universal benefits for doing so.
Having re-read the case I have to conclude that there has to be some merit to the decision. For example, various media companies are linked to certain businesses. A good example is General Electric owning NBC. If they can use their media wing to promote policies that favor the company as a whole, I don't see why other businesses can't do the same. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that prior to Citizens United those elected to both the Senate and the presidency favored big business over the average citizen. It is only in Congress that you have something approaching effective representation. Therefore, I don't see this decision as making a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. More importantly it is unfair for some companies to have influence through ownership of media to spend unlimited amounts, whereas others cannot. It is additionally true that there is currently a breakdown between traditional media, and new media which uses the internet. There is no longer a clear distinction between owners of media and users.
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