John Arnold

@santobrah There were services in which you sent dollars via PayPal to another US account and 30 minutes later someone would deliver Pesos to you in Argentina like it was DoorDash.

@johnarnold 2016 was 25:1. Brought stacks of USD. Fascinating dual tier payment economy.

I was last in Argentina in 2014. The official exchange rate then was roughly 8 Peso : $1 but if you had cash you could get 14 : 1 on the street. I did a double take when I saw the exchange rate today is 1487 Peso : $1.

Across Argentina’s successive currency changes since 1970, a total of 13 zeros were removed: 1970: 2 zeros 1983: 4 zeros 1985: 3 zeros 1992: 4 zeros

Back then the largest Argentine bill was 100 pesos, or roughly $7. If you wanted to buy anything, including the great leather goods there at a fraction of US prices, and not get hosed on the official exchange rate, you had to pay with a stack of the equivalent of $7 bills.

@abramona Only 2 more chances to see Messi play at the highest level.

@johnarnold You’re welcome to come back and watch the semis here, John. A stake is still a stake :)

@Nerland87 @akidderz @guardian I was responding to question about top 100 lists of players (constructed in any fashion) being relevant to national team success.

@johnarnold @akidderz @guardian Transfermarkt is pretty amazing. You need to do an adjustment for position, age, and contract if you are being precise, but it tracks the market well. Obviously, I don't need to justify why prices are great to you.

@akidderz @guardian What else is a better metric for how far a team will advance in WC? The correlation is pretty high.

@BruceGoose007 @guardian Funny that Brazil had 9 and this team was considered their worst in many years.

@johnarnold @guardian Safe to say Brazil choked relative to the other countries with top players making it to the round of 8 and beyond?

Top-100 counts are a bad national-team metric. Italy had four and missed the World Cup. Turkey had three and finished last in the US group, even after beating a rotated US side. Pulisic had 17 goals and 10 assists for Milan and somehow missed the list. The US still lacks truly elite talent. Fair enough. But “zero top-100 players” tells us at least as much about soccer’s prestige hierarchy as it does about the USMNT.

The most recent @guardian rankings of 100 best soccer players in world with national team affiliation: US - 0 Spain - 14 France - 10 Brazil, England - 9 Portugal -8 Argentina- 7 Netherlands - 6 Germany - 5 Italy - 4 Belgium, Turkey - 3 5 countries inc Norway - 2 12 countries - 1

Jones Act is based on idea that higher shipping costs are worth paying to preserve the capacity to build and crew ships in wartime. If the tradeoff was real, maybe. Instead, we've ended up with the worst of both worlds: higher costs, but still without the shipbuilding capacity.

“By then, Thompson was in deep financial ruin. He couldn’t bear to tell his family the scope of his losses, so he texted his therapist and indicated that he was planning to take his own life.”

>$30 million of capital per job created. This is a harbinger of factory automation. via @FoxBusiness

@LSUtigerTrack Funny how so many of the headlines before the WC were negative in nature but it's been such a good event in reality. I'm shocked how many casual or even previously non-fans are watching significant parts of the tournament.

@johnarnold John, thanks for all of your efforts here, particularly in getting Houston involved. Did you imagine the success it would be for the US and North America? And very sorry people turn this into a political issue, as some people just don’t seem to have the discipline not to do

The World Cup was exactly what America needed, at exactly the right time. In an era when nearly everything divides, sports has a unique ability to unite. The World Cup is special because it is one of the few events where we are not rooting for a city, a college, or a pro franchise. We’re rooting for the country. Moments of shared identity like this are rare, but they matter. During this month, people who disagree about almost everything else can wear the same jersey, root for the same outcome, and debate the same Balogun red (bad call). Americans found a moment to come together and root for the country as one. More than 33 million watched the last US game, an audience larger than that for the college football title game or the deciding NBA Finals game. And that was for a round of 32 game. Against Bosnia. The audience will be bigger against Belgium tonight. So much of entertainment is personalized today as we all watch a different show at a different time on a personal device. But the World Cup is best viewed in a crowd, in a community, and hence dozens of cities have created public viewing venues. Hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of cities will attend a public watch party at a park or random stadium tonight, just to be able to passionately chant “U-S-A” in unison and celebrate collectively. The tournament has also given millions of visitors a chance to experience America beyond the headlines. They have come for soccer, but they leave having experienced the cities, food, culture, stadiums, and even gas stations. They’ve also seen the extraordinary diversity that defines the US, reflected even in our own team. They see a nation different from the headlines that often dominate international news and they share these stories with their communities. That’s the real value of hosting an international tournament and comes at an opportune time. At the same time, many (most?) Americans have a multicultural identity. For them, rooting for the US does not preclude rooting for another team, or several. It’s a chance to reflect on what makes one an American without losing family ties and personal history. The World Cup gives Americans a different perspective. We’re accustomed to being the favorite. We have the largest economy, the leading military, and the most successful companies. What we don’t have is the best soccer team, at least not on paper. This month we’re reminded what it’s like to be the scrappy underdog, trying to compete with the big dogs like France, Spain, and Argentina. When you're the favorite, winning is merely meeting expectations. When you're the underdog, every win is a step forward. For a country that so often occupies the role of the favorite, we seldom have the chance to appreciate incremental progress. Whether we win or lose tonight (and we will win), this tournament has been a huge success and has illuminated the path for the next 4-year cycle. Americans were ready for a reason to cheer together. The US Men’s National Team has given us one.

@RateGame_Sports Opening 8. Middle game 3. Endgame 9.5.

@johnarnold What would you rate it out of 10?

Experiences > Goods

@BrandondelPozo @reasonpolicy Generally agree, but too often once something is approved or becomes the standard with a lowered evidence standard, it becomes very difficult to change it even if higher quality evidence contradicts the initial belief.

@johnarnold @reasonpolicy John, this also calls for rigorous mixed methods work in the science around the implementation and de-implementation of practices, as well as mixed methods work about what practitioners and patients believe/do and why, and what causal models should be interrogated with RCTs etc.

For nearly 50 years the standard of care for joint sprains has included rest, ice, and ibuprofen not bc rigorous evidence showed that worked, but bc that made intuitive sense and seemed to help. Now there's good evidence those actually impede recovery. Add it to a long list of medical reversals, whereby a practice that was once widely adopted is later shown to be ineffective or even harmful. Promising theories, observational evidence, underpowered studies, and early experimentation can generate important hypotheses. But they do not eliminate the need for rigorous randomized trials, regardless of the financial or professional incentives to move faster. Once ineffective or harmful care becomes embedded in standard practice, it is very difficult to overturn. There is a role for regulatory flexibility and clinical experimentation when patients have unmet medical needs. But neither eliminates the need for rigorous evidence to ensure that the medical system is actually helping patients.