Can China Rule the Olympics?

The problem with academic economists is that they tend to see the world through a production/consumption lens. So, just as it is "wrong" for the US, with just 5% of the world's population, to consume 25% of the world's resources, it is also somehow "wrong" for the US to consume almost 30% of the medals with its tiny population relative to the world. This leads them to believe in redistribution based, as you say, on factors that have no bearing on performance, one of which, individual desire, counts for the most.
Steve Kindel

That might be the most ridiculous model for predicting the number of medals to be won in the Olympics that I could possibly imagine. The economic rise of a nation will directly translate into athletic prowess? Nonesense. If that were true, then where is India in the Olympics? China and Russia produced fantastic athletes even when they were both dirt-poor.

This kind of analysis is the same useless pablum that PwC brings to the Fortune 500. They get paid enormous sums of money to either repeat the obvious on behalf of corporate management, or come up with starry-eyed, ridculous schemes that make no sense and can never be implemented, but feed their consulting coffers.

There is an old military expression: "Stay in your lane."

I am as liable to take heed of the sports commentary and insights of some doughy, pencil-pushing number-cruncher, (setting amazing infallible computer models to one side), as I am to solicit the investment advice of the star QB of the local high school or to inquire of George W. Bush his opinion of the better guitar player: Jimi Hendrix or Alex Lifeson.

Seriously, do these dorks not have something better to do with their 'knowledge' of the dismal science?

Will this have a positive or negative effect on drilling for oil in downtown Bangor, Maine?????

Same comment, I read this and said "who cares" out loud. Then read the comment and had to send.

Who cares?

Estimating an accurate count of medals won at the Olympics by looking at economics is as silly as saying that the foreclosures in Boston will increase 20% if the Patriots lose the Super Bowl again.