The Success of the Jeep Wrangler

With roots dating back to World War II, the Jeep Wrangler has become one of the most iconic cars in American culture. Starting off as a small two-seater vehicle, the Wrangler has grown into a sought after big SUV, earning the title of #1 Most Wanted Car in 2017, according to CarMax. The Jeep is one of America’s favorite cars, so how did it reach this popularity?

A large part of this is the Wrangler’s heritage. Still resembling the original Willys Jeep, used by American troops in World War II, the Wrangler taps into the patriotic sentiments of car buyers. For instance, one Wrangler owner can be quoted as saying, “The brand means a lot to me. My grandfather was in WWII, so I feel the connection to the brand through that.” 

The Wranglers only close competition, Hummer, is no longer in production, meaning the Wrangler reigns supreme with an excellent approach angle and ground clearance, necessary to drive the SUV over rocks. This is another part of the Wrangler’s identity, a rugged and tough machine, which can be driven practically anywhere.

However, what is likely the biggest appeal of the Wrangler is its customization capabilities. The doors and ceiling of a Wrangler can pop off like legos, giving owners the opportunity to make their Jeep the very own. The aftermarket customization industry for Wranglers alone is big and estimated to hold a decently sized share of the 41.6 billion dollar off-road industry. 

In total, the Jeep Wrangler’s success can be attributed to both its circumstances and the way it is marketed to consumers.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2018/02/21/jeeps-big-gamble-staying-the-course-with-the-new-wrangler-jl/#7b12664d34f0

https://www.cars.com/articles/ultimate-jeep-head-to-head-wrangler-rubicon-versus-grand-cherokee-trailhawk-1420692461207/

How Warmer Winters Will Impact The Ski Industry

Ski areas in coastal mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, whose winter temperatures hover around freezing, are in danger of being significantly hurt by rising temperatures. California has already warmed up by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950 and is on track to rise by over 9 degrees if current rates remain constant. Since 1970, the snow line in the Sierra Nevada has risen as high as 1,500 feet and is only set to speed up. 

For most ski resorts, a 100-day season is required to stay profitable, and a large portion of this is attributed to the Chrismas and Spring Breaks, which happen to be at both ends of the season. This means that as the season shortens, the most profitable weeks for ski resorts will go away, leaving many resorts struggling financially. On average, the ski industry sees around 7.5 million skiers a year, generating 1.6 billion dollars in revenue. In low snow years, these figures decrease by 1.3 million, and 100 million, respectively. 

In order to combat the seemingly inevitable drop in snow levels, many resorts are beefing up their man-made snow production capabilities. For instance, Squaw Valley, a resort in Lake Tahoe recently invested nine million dollars into snow production. According to Daniel Scott, a Climatologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, if current emission rates remain constant, around 103 ski resorts will have to shut down by the 2040s. 

While climate change will surely impact ski resorts, it is not too late to take action, as any small changes one makes may be the difference in being able to enjoy a power day with his or her grandchildren.

Sources: 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/article/How-ski-resorts-in-California-are-preparing-for-13785547.php#photo-16492313

https://www.hcn.org/articles/recreation-ski-resorts-prepare-for-warmer-northwest-winters

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/climate-change-is-taking-a-toll-on-the-20-billion-ski-industry.html

Cost of the Death Penalty

      Through our human history, there has always been a punishment of the most heinous crimes. This punishment is the death penalty. In the United States, the death penalty is a legal way to punish someone by death for a capital crime. Now the death penalty is controversial in terms of ethics, but it is certainly not good economically. The death penalty is an extremely expensive process. In California, the cost of death row is "$114 million a year beyond the cost of imprisoning convicts for life".
   California has only executed 13 people since 1976. This means that California on average pays 250 million dollars per execution. That is outrageously expensive given that these are criminals. Why should the taxpayers have to spend their hard-earned money on paying to kill a criminal?

   Other people just wonder why it costs so much money to be on death row. It costs so much money because to convict someone and sentence them to death they need to be on death row for 15 to 20 years. This is the length of the extremely long appeals process. The process must be this long because under the law it is hard to sentence someone to death. There needs to be a second trial with new witnesses and additional costs. Along with more witnesses, they have to find more jurors and it is an especially long process because death row cases must be done more carefully.

   Overall it would be beneficial economically to get rid of the death penalty so that taxpayers do not have to pay extra money to a criminal. When money is not spent on the death penalty the government can spend the money on schools or infrastructure. That would be more beneficial than killing a guilty man.


“High Cost of Death Row.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Sept. 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28mon3.html.

Forgiving Student loans could boost the Economy

   As we are nearing the 2020 Presidential Election, candidates are discussing ways to better the United States. One of the more recent ideas were from Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. If either of them were to become president they would want to get rid of the student loans that were taken out by students for college. Elizabeth Warren wants to get rid of "$50,000" of student loans per student and Bernie Sanders wants to forgive all student loans. Although this concept sounds outrageous there might be some benefits to the plan.

   Lawrence Yun from the National Association of Realtor's chief economists even thinks that it would be beneficial to the housing market. Over "1.5 trillion dollars" are locked up in student loans and if some of that burden was gone people would buy homes at a younger age and would be able to spend the money and stimulate the economy. He also said that student loads delay home "ownership by 5 to 7 years". This relief would allow people to go out and buy homes and boost the economy.

   Even after all of the benefits, the plan might still create more debt. But many politicians suggest that they shift the weight of the burden more on the upper class who can afford to pay more taxes. This way the people can get educated and can stimulate the economy without worrying about paying for their college.

   Overall as the next election approaches it is important to consider the new ways that the United States could adjust our economy to better the entire United States. With more consideration and thinking there might be a way for more citizens to become better educated while staying under budget.

Arnold, Chris. “Economists Say Forgiving Student Debt Would Boost Economy.” NPR, NPR, 25 Nov. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/11/25/782070151/forgiving-student-debt-would-boost-economy.

How to Make Money on Instagram?

Recently, when I log in Instagram, I notice that ADs are coming to the top of my pages more frequent than before. Sometimes, I hear people talk about how popular Instagram posters are making money from their posts. I wonder how they make money on Instagram and start some research in this topic.

There are 5 business models to make money on Instagram.

1. Make money from sponsored posts
Cooperate sponsorship, a form of marketing in which a corporation pays for all of some of the costs associated with a project or program. Marketers would give money to influential posters to help advertise their products. By knowing what your audience like, posters can make cautious of their posting concepts and prefer cooperate with companies that sell products similar to their interests.

2. Sell other people's products
Affiliates can make money through continuously promoting the products and linking a promo code in their posts, making sure that viewers would be encouraged to purchase the products.

3. Sell poster photos and virtual products
 Artists can make money from selling their photos to big brand companies.

4.Sell own physical products
 You can be a seller and sell your products directly.

5.Sell drop shipped products
Drop-shipping is a business model in which one can run a store without having any inventory. If consumers decide to purchase your products, then you can make products based on their needs.


References:
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/make-money-instagram

Stanford Alumni Generate $3 trillion in Economic Impact Each Year

Why Stanford University is becoming more and more popular over the years? When my family first moved to California, we wondered what makes Stanford the most wanted to go school for many students. I've heard of several tech companies were established in Stanford campus, but is still questioning about the impacts of Stanford.

According to the recent study by Stanford University, "companies formed by Stanford entrepreneurs generate world revenues of $ 2.7 trillion annually and have created 5.4 million jobs since the 1930s" (Beckett).

It's really amazing that one university can support so many jobs and creates huge revenue for the market. In class, we discussed several revenue models that companies used to generate benefits. Stanford is an expensive university but also is known for the most generous university to provide students resources and low-income students free tuitions. It's not only a school for education but also a school that knows the most profitable revenue model.

Stanford's revenue model->
Stanford encourages students entrepreneurs and creates profits from all kinds of business.

Stanford understand that it's important to not rely on one kind of business, but on multiple businesses. Multidisciplinary learning or multidisciplinary business can help to boost individual and companies' growth. As we learned in class that amazon, google, facebook are creating multidisciplinary markets to increase their revenue model. Stanford is applying the same rule!






References:
https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/october/innovation-economic-impact-102412.html

The Effect of torrenting games

(finally I get to show off Persona 5 ;) )

We have all been there. Downloading music for free from websites such as YouTube, going onto some websites to read comics for free without purchasing them, or torrenting games for free from websites. Yes, all of these are technically illegal and some might say that they are hurting the game developers and all the people who worked hard to produce the game as well as fans that actually paid the full price to play the game which is true; it is not fair to them or is it moral for people to rip them off.

So it might sound surprising to you when I say that companies actually benefit from people pirating their work as it creates a bigger fandom base or people consuming their products. In the report taken back in 2014 by the EU commissions found out that "illegal downloads of video games do not affect sales" and figured out how these illegal actions were really affecting the market.

This by no means meant to be a message to say, "Go and pirate all the games you have been wanting to play!" No, that is not my intention at all. It is quite interesting to see how there researchers saw a positive trend to the market though as they successfully converted "illegal users to paying users". Some tactics companies uses are extra bonuses on their purchase of the game through legal means such as character design books, merch, and special features in games to list a few.

The gist of the whole situation is that, "there isn't enough data to show that there is a financial loss for companies when European copyright law is violated" in contrast to how illegal consumption of games lead to increased legal consumption; where there is positive growth.

As mentioned earlier, people that fall in love with the game and want more of it tends to lean toward supporting the companies that produces it and actually start to pay respects to it by legally purchasing them from then on. Most people have the fear of trying out new games for they are afraid of ending up not liking it, and wasting a lot of money for it but these illegal practices allow players to try out new games without a lot of consequences... if they are careful enough that is.

Source: No evidence that piracy affects video game sales – EU Commission
The actual study

A tragedy in an online shopping

Two weeks ago, China's online shopping software, Taobao, had a serious incident. (I explained what Taobao is in a previous article, and you can directly understand it as the Chinese Amazon).

A video blogger with 550, 000 followers named "passer-by A" (his video was posted on a website called Bilibili, which can be understand as Chinese Youtube) discovered that one seller on Taobao had mislabeled the price of an orange and accidentally changed the price of an orange from 26 yuan per 5,400 grams to 26 yuan per 4,500 jin (1jin=1/2 kilogram).

According to people's common sense, it is impossible to get only 26 yuan for 4,500 jin of oranges. However, the video blogger did not choose to remind the owner or leave the purchase page. Instead, he led ten thousand fans, each of whom bought a lot of oranges. Tens of thousands of orders a night, involving up to 7 million yuan. 

However, the video blogger and his fans also know that tens of thousands of orders, each with 4,500 jin of oranges, are absolutely impossible to deliver, so he directly led his fans to complain about the store. According to Taobao's rules, if a complaint is successful, the buyer will receive compensation from the seller, so each person received 400 yuan in compensation. When Taobao sellers set up the shop, they will have a deposit of 100,000 yuan, which can be used to pay compensation to buyers. However, the compensation of 400 yuan for each 10,000 people is obviously not enough, so the sellers need to pay their own money to compensate these buyers.

Unable to bear the burden, the store posted a statement directly on his Taobao store, basically saying that it hoped the video blogger and his fans would bypass him and forgive him for his previous technical mistakes, and that he was unable to pay the compensation amount. But the result was ther'es so many unsolved complaints so the orange shop forced to close. 

It was the most serious episode to date, but the video blogger's actions were not uncommon. Taobao often has promotions large and small, so a group of people get together to study each offer and snap up the coupons together, causing the seller to lose money. Like the same shops selling oranges, lots of online seller manage their online stores with just a few workers, so there are also many stores wrong price of the product, or wrong promotion price, cause many people gathered together to buy the goods. The problems exposed by these incidents are still the imperfection of Taobao's policies, and there is no solution to this situation so far.

health insurance: too expensive?

According to the definition in Investopedia, health insurance is "a type of insurance coverage that pays for medical, surgical, and sometimes dental expenses incurred by the insurances".

According to a report released by Bankrate, most Americans can't afford even a minor emergency, with only 39 percent saying they have the village light to cover the $1,000 needed in the event of an accident. Health care costs have become one of the causes of rising poverty, and people need to borrow and borrow money to pay for the costs that are supposed to keep them safe and healthy. The cost of health insurance for American families is now more than $20,000, an exorbitant cost that is driving more and more Americans out of the insurance market.

Here are some specific examples:
-An employee at Walmart works 32 hours a week and earns only $10 an hour, so he makes only $20,000 a year, leaving him with no money to pay for the company's health insurance benefits.
-A worker named Susan DeVolid had just more and more medical bills after a heart attack, and his family had quickly exhausted their savings and racked up $8,000 in debt.


References:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/most-americans-cant-afford-to-pay-for-even-a-minor-emergency_n_5a68e67ae4b0022830090e5b

Starships... are meant to fly?

Starships, based in San Francisco, is a robotic food delivery company that has becoming popular in college campuses as of recent. With their busy schedules, students often resort to delivery food for their meals but as mentioned before in my "Instant Food" blog, the usage of food delivery apps are not so optimal.

Starships has a better appeal to the market as they "operate from early morning till late at night, rain or shine, traveling at a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour, a fast walking pace designed not to scare people on the streets". They are safe to be around and more efficient! There is no need to worry about these robots running into places and getting lost for they use "sensors, cameras and radar to navigate the streets; artificial intelligence and premapped locations help the bots to know where they are".


This has been tested and been successful thus far in various of college campuses such as George Mason University. These robots are so successful that they are even changing the delivering groceries in England; not as much as the impact they have on universities but quite significant none the less.



With these demands of food delivery meeting up in college campuses, Starships continue to flourish and maybe someday, dominate not only the food delivery industry but other places where delivery is needed as well.



Source: Starship Technologies Raises $40 Million To Expand Its Food-Delivery Robots On College Campuses

Economics of Climate Change

We all know about the recent and serious warnings about climate change (if not, there are some helpful links below). Globally rising temperatures, melting ice caps, and warming oceans (along with ocean acidification) are all extreme environmental effects of this issue. Since these facts are not enough for some to become very worried, there are also major economic impacts as a result of the effects of climate change.

Estimates on these impacts show that they will begin to cost the U.S. from $296 billion to $540 billion (Martinich & Crimmins). Property and infrastructure damages, declining human health and productivity, and increased demand for energy due to lack of reliable power generation are all examples of this, along with disruption in trade as a result of the other countries that will be heavily affected. Agriculture, infrastructure, and tourism are among the most endangered sources of revenue for the United States that will be harmed directly by climate change effects, along with businesses.

Another source lists facts about the "economics of climate change," among them the points that low-income countries will lose larger shares of their economic outputs than others; the price of renewable energy is falling (meaning it will be more beneficial to use these sources as alternatives); "damages to the U.S. economy grow with temperature change at an increasing rate."

Extreme weather patterns, not completely linked to climate change but definitely affected in some ways, also cause extreme damages to the land and, therefore, to the economy, such as the fires (such as the many recent ones in California) and hurricanes. Because of these patterns, insurance companies will raise premiums, making insurance unaffordable to more people. Another current issue caused by rising sea levels and other natural extreme weather is immigration: "since 2008, 22.5 million people have been displaced by climate-related or extreme weather events" (Markham).

These are only a few examples of the economic impacts of climate change. Solutions are currently being searched for, with the UN, the Paris Climate Accord (from which President Trump announced the United States would withdraw), and multiple climate change summits. Hopefully, people (especially skeptics) will become better educated on the massive and irreversible effects from an economic standpoint, if they are not fully convinced by an environmental one.

Source Links:
- https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/06/20/climate-change-economy-impacts/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0444-6
- https://www.brookings.edu/research/ten-facts-about-the-economics-of-climate-change-and-climate-policy/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/sunday/immigration-climate-change-trump.html
- https://www.thebalance.com/economic-impact-of-climate-change-3305682

Climate Change Links:
1. UN: https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/
2. NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
3. IPCC: https://www.ipcc.ch/
4. GlobalChange: https://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change

how do youtubers make money

With 1.58 billion audiences, YouTube is the second largest online search engine after Google. I'm sure you've all seen YouTube video and have some favouraite Youtubers. More and more young people want to set up their own channels on YouTube, one of the reasons is that Youtuber can make a lot of money. For example, a Youtuber with 13 million followers made more than $10 million on YouTube; a six-year-old boy made $11 million by regularly reviewing toys; and a Youtuber who played Minecraft made $16.5 million by just playing games. So the question is, how do these Youtubers make so much money?

The first, and most obvious, is that youtubers make a lot of money from advertising. The first step for youtubers to make money on video is to join a YouTube partnership program that allows YouTube to pay youtubers for their views. Youtuber's revenue model is $3 to $10 per 1,000 viewers, and if they receive additional ads on top of that and insert them into their own video, YouTube gets a 45% cut and Youtuber gets a 55% commission.

In addition to direct or implicit references to advertising in video, viewers will sometimes see links to products in video descriptions that are part of affiliate marketing between youtubers and retailers, in which advertisers pay youtubers for clicks on product links.

You should also often see an entire video filled with ads, and youtubers using that video to introduce a single product launch or campaign. This is because these brands sponsor the Youtuber's channel, again, based on the number of hits to video, but this way the revenue of sponsoring video is higher than the above mentioned revenue.

Many youtubers have made video of "how Youtuber makes so much money", and they all mention that a large part of it is from advertising revenue. However, in order to win the trust and love from these brands and retailers, the first thing is to make a high quality video and has a certain base of audience in the channel.

reference：
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/how-much-do-youtubers-make-14743540
https://learn.g2.com/how-much-do-youtubers-make

Risk Pooling and Self-investment in Baseball

Baseball is a lucrative sport. Players get to play the game they love, for thousands of fans, and they can get paid up to an incredible $20 million every year.

That's if you make it to the national league, though. And the newcomers to baseball have to prove themselves in minor leagues, being paid a not-incredible $8,000 a year. These minor league players are essentially lottery tickets: if they get lucky and make the majors, they can earn millions of dollars. But most players don't. They stay in the minor leagues, at least making more than minimum wage, but not by much.

Luckily, some players have a solution: risk pooling, hosted by a company named Pando.

It goes like this: any number of players make an agreement, and if any of these players make the major leagues and earn a certain amount of money per year (say, $30 million), that player gives back 10% of his salary into the pool, $3 million in this example. Pando takes 10% of that money ($300,000) and the rest is distributed equally amongst the players. This contract runs until the major league player's career ends or they pay $20 million.

What's intriguing is that there is essentially no downside: either no players from the pool make the major leagues and everything is the same, or a player makes it big and pays a fraction of their salary to help their former teammates.

What's more intriguing is that some people refuse this deal because of its connotations. Pando is essentially taking these minor league players, major league hopefuls with so much confidence that they'll make it to the World Series someday, and telling them to consider the chances that they'll stay in the minor leagues for the rest of their career.

Another possible issue is the idea that these insurance policies may encourage players to be less competitive, since they don't need to try so hard to make a lot of money. They could even work to make someone else advance to the major league so they earn their portion. Then again, with such confident players, what player would sabotage their own chances to help another's?

According to Pando's CEO, 140 players are participating in 25 income pools, and three have made it to the major leagues. And of those 140 players, enough players are projected to make the major leagues that the collective salary is estimated to be $250 million dollars, meaning $25 million flows back into the pool for the rest of the players.

Source

Thanksgiving: The Recent Trends

Thanksgiving has been celebrated in the United States since before we even were united as a country. Today it's a significant holiday that grants time off from school and work, requires a whole lot of shopping, and is followed up by major shopping events (Black Friday and Cyber Monday). How does the holiday affect the average consumer?

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the average cost of a dinner for ten people in 2018 was about $48.90. This was a 22 cent decrease from the previous year. This may be due to a change in the price of the most expensive item, the turkey, which saw an average price drop of 3%. Around Thanksgiving, the demand for turkey increases. This seems like it would drive the price of turkey up, but it actually goes down as the agricultural industry prepares for the massive increase in demand each November. Turkey is actually at its lowest prices in November and December, right around Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner time. However, in 10 years, the per-pound price of turkey has risen 50 cents.

Consumers are also spending their money on airfare as people fly to see their families. The amount of passengers flying on U.S. airlines during the twelve day Thanksgiving period has been increasing each year. In 2018 it was about 30.6 million people, an increase of 5.7% compared to 2017. One of the busiest travel days tends to be the day before Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is the day right after Thanksgiving when many stores slash their prices in hopes of attracting customers. In 2017, about $2.9 billion was spent on Thanksgiving, and about $5 billion on Black Friday. However, Cyber Monday, a similar retail holiday, brought in $6.6 billion. Clearly, this time of year brings an increase in consumer purchasing behavior. The average American spends $175.65 ($10.51 up from the previous year) per person on Thanksgiving, largely due to travel costs.  Though the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner is decreasing, the cost of the holiday overall is on the rise.

Source:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/the-economics-of-thanksgiving/
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/the-economics-of-thanksgiving-dinner/383046/

weather-sensitive products

Does the weather affect product sales? The answer is yes. For example, umbrella sales are much higher on rainy days than on sunny days, and students buy more stationery before school starts. When consumers buy products, they will always consider the practicality of the product, that is, what they need to use at what time. In this process, they often take the weather into consideration and buy relevant useful things in the right weather. The weather determines what consumers eat, what they wear, where they go on vacation, and what products they use. The overall sensitivity of the U.S. economy to the weather is 3.4%.

While consumers take the weather into consideration, producers must also take into account how the weather affects the sales of products, and then change the price of products accordingly to carry out promotion activities in different time periods. In the United States alone, the weather has affected three trillion dollars worth of private businesses. Here are some specific examples:

• Bravissimo, a lingerie and conversion retailer, finds that its conversion rate rises whenever the sun shines, so it USES real-time weather information to show ads on sunny days. After three months of advertising, their revenues have risen 600% and conversion rate rose to 103%.
• In Spain, Coca-Cola used thermal-sensitive technology to change the price of vending machines. The higher the temperature, the lower the price of the drink, and the more people bought their drink.

The following chart shows what happens to a product's sales when it goes up or down by one degree Fahrenheit:

References:
http://www.weatherunlocked.com/media/1096/the-complete-guide-to-weather-based-marketing.pdf
https://www.adwordsrobot.com/en/blog/how-weather-influences-product-sales

Remember Bitcoin?

Around our sophomore year of high school, a company called Bitcoin blew up. At one time, very few people thought Bitcoin would ever make a serious impact on let alone the economy but the world. It was mainly viewed as a hobby or a "dream" rather than a real investment opportunity. However, because of its popularity in 2017, stories have changed. 

Bitcoin has impacted in economy in many different ways. For example, it eliminated the need for middlemen in financial transactions. One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it does not require an intermediary, like traditional currency does. Meaning, rather than a bank or central institution watching over transactions, bitcoin manages the transactions themselves. This worried banks, because it eliminates the needs for their services. 

It also removes barriers to entry. "Cryptocurrencies" have enabled citizens like entrepreneurs to invest in business ventures. Rather than convincing banks to invest in their projects, they an use Bitcoin. As you can guess, this totally complicates regulation. Companies like Bitcoin is potentially a huge challenge to regulate due to their structure. A currency company similar to Bitcoin, called Silk Road, created a massive "black-market" where users could buy illegal items without consequence. Luckily the FBI shut it down, but it does not stop new potential companies to do the same. 

Although Bitcoin has ultimately crashed, according to the stock market, cryptocurrency companies are in the end, dangerous. Being more vulnerable to cyberthreats, online fraud, and a system that could be shut down, you are better off investing in stocks that are wired around real U.S. dollars. 

https://www.technobuffalo.com/5-ways-bitcoin-affects-the-economy

How Teen Birthrates Affect Economy

In America, the rate of teen childbearing is unusually high. U.S. teens are two and a half times more likely to give birth as a teen compared to teenagers in Canada, and around 10 times more likely than countries such as Switzerland. Why is this? Teen births demonstrates variation in income inequality across the United States and developed countries. This can explain a sizable share of the geographic variation in teen childbearing. 

34% of young teen mothers earn usually earn neither a college degree or a high school diploma. And less than 2% of teen mothers earn a degree by the time they turn 30. Why does this affect the economy? Because teenage pregnancy significantly correlates with less education, which leads to a loss of earnings. This effects the economy negatively as a whole. 

The country's lost earnings from an increased number of highschool and college drop outs add up. it was estimated in 2012, that it can add up to billions of dollars of losses, mainly due to increased public health care costs. 

Although the U.S. nationwide teen pregnancy rate is dropping, the rate of teenage motherhood remain highest in states that promote abstinence- only policies. This provides insufficient and misleading information about their reproductive health has which negatively impacts the 

economy and the nation as a whole. 

https://thinkprogress.org/teen-pregnancy-negatively-impacts-the-national-economy-cc2901eaf705/

Disney and its Remakes

Recently, Disney has been coming out with multiple live action remakes, such as Dumbo, The Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan (2020), The Little Mermaid (2020), and most recently, Lady and the Tramp. Though I am a huge Disney fan, what is Disney’s motivation? 

One of the biggest reasons is money. While Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast earned more than $1 billion each, when audiences demanded original films from Disney, their original movies (such as A Wrinkle in Time, Tomorrowland) still fell short of $1 billion. It would be logical for Disney to turn to their established brands so they can target their audience with nostalgia using characters from their childhoods. People are more likely to see films with familiar story lines and faces. 

In the box office, familiarity rules as people want the classics and what they know. Disney can survive this way because it has become a part of our culture, and it becomes something that older adults want to pass down to their kids and grandkids. Thus, they will continue to crank out the remakes until people become uninterested and their revenue drastically drops, but the chances of that happening? Unlikely.  

link
link

pet economy

As more and more people keep pets, the pet economy has been mentioned constantly. Millennials are a big part of the demographic driving this economy, willing to spend a lot of money and time on a pet, even more than on their own medical bills. When choosing a house, people also think more about whether they can keep pets or provide a good living environment for pets. There are more and more beauty parlors, hospitals and entertainment facilities for pets. Retailers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and inventors are clamoring to win a leadership position in the U.S. pet economy, with sales projected to exceed $75 billion this year. This is not the only year,  as statistics show that people have been spending a lot of money on pets, the pet economy is now growing more dramatically. Here's some data in 2015 that show how much people have spent on their pets:

• the U.S. Pet Industry generated $221.1 billion in total economic activity
• increased total value added by $102.3 billion
• the Pet Industry supported over 1.3 million U.S. jobs that paid more than $60 billion in salaries
• the Pet Industry and its suppliers and linked service providers contributed almost $14 billion

According to a report posted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), the annual consumer spending up to over $77 billion on by pet parents on their pets annually. These include the manufacturing of pet supplies, toys, pet pharmaceuticals, grooming, boarding, and other services.

The statistics below are also gathered by APPA from various market research sources that show total US pet industry expenditures:

What is the cause of this phenomenon? Maybe more people tend to enjoy their times with animals, a pet is also endowed with more "human" attributes, followed by healthy pet food and nutritional snacks will become the market consumption upgrade, spend a lot of money on these services then is unable to avoid.

References:
https://www.americanpetprofessionals.com/tag/pet-industry-impact-on-the-us-economy/
https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp

Later Start Times?

Waking up in the morning at 7am can be a huge struggle for teens in this generation. With increasing homework, competitiveness, and once-in-a-while all nighters is putting stress on high-school-age children. 

While some argue that delaying school start times would just cause teenagers to stay up later, however research does not support that idea. Six studies, two of which were randomized control trials, showed that delaying the start of school from 25 to 60 minutes corresponded with increased sleep of 25-77 minutes per week night. In simpler terms, students were waking up later, while still going to bed at the same time. 

Although this might seem like "a dream" in highschool, there are obviously costs to pushing back start times. For example, delaying start times does mean extending school till later. With later school end times, this results in later after-school activities which may interfere with parent's work schedules and run into evening hours. For activities such as football and soccer, outside sports, the instillation of lighting may be necessary. Other costs such as public transportations for most likely low-income families may be an issue. It has been estimated that increased transportation costs would most likely be $150 per student per years. 

Although this may seem like an issue, the added academic benefit of later start times would add up to about 2 additional months of schooling, which would be around $17,500 to a student's earnings over the course of a lifetime. Clearly, the benefits out-weight the costs. To an economic national scale, delaying start times to 8:30 or later would contribute to around $83 billion within a decade. As measured through car crash mortality and increased student lifetime earnings. 

So, the question I have is, is Los Altos Highschool ever going to take this into consideration?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/upshot/the-economic-case-for-letting-teenagers-sleep-a-little-later.html

Farmers vs Tarriffs

American farmers have been struggling ever since President Donald Trump's trade wars with other countries. We are now facing billions of dollars in potential losses, as data shows from the U.S. Government statistics. Specifically crops such as corn is facing a huge downfall. 

The Agricultural Department stated that farmers planted a bigger corn area than analysts estimated. This pegged crop yields that also exceeded expectations sparking the biggest drought since 2013. You might not have realized this dilemma while buying produce at local stores, however the decline represents a potential loss of almost $3.5 billion for U.S. farmers. 

Manager of the research team at CoBank, a $138 billion lender to the agriculture industry, Tanner Ehmke stated "This is a huge disappointment for farmers that have already been struggling with a lot of uncertainty with this corn crop, trade wars and what have you. A lot of people were banking on the opportunity to sell at much higher prices." 

Crashing corn prices are one of the main causes for the huge farm debt which is estimated to be around $437 billion dollars. Lower prices could add to grower stress, and also push Trump to announce further aids to farmers as he unfortunately seeks re-election next year. Although Trump may have been a main cause for this issue he has announced $28 billion worth of financial help. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/u-s-farmers-stung-by-tariffs-now-face-a-3-5-billion-corn-loss

Questions Kids Ask

In AP Psych, we learned about the developmental stages while growing up. Ages 2-7 represent the preoperational stage, a period of time where children are too young to perform mental operations and use intuitive instead of logical reasoning. I remember being around this age learning about money and how it was actually paper. I continued to ask the question the obvious question, “If we need more money, why can’t we just print it?”

Turns out, it doesn’t work that way. If a country attempted to print more money, it wouldn’t make them richer, it would only raise prices and lead to hyperinflation. In 2008, developing countries such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela attempted to fix their economies by printing more money. Instead of allowing their economies to grow, printing more money caused prices to rise by 231,000,000% in a single year. To put this in perspective, an item priced at 1 Zimbabwe dollar cost 231 million Zimbabwean dollars a year later.

So, if printing money won’t solve the issue, what helps an economy grow? The answer lies in basic economics we’ve come to learn over the past semester. In order for an economy to grow, the production of goods has to increase, and they have to be successfully sold. This stimulates the economy creating a constant flow of money going in and out. This is also why when people save their money and do not spend it, it can lead to an economic recession. If nothing is being put into the economy, nothing can result.

However, there is one country that can get richer by printing more money, and that’s us, the United States. This is because other goods around the world are priced at US dollars. Therefore, if we want to buy more to stimulate our economy it is possible. If we were to print too much money though, that would lead us into hyperinflation. We just have a little bit more wiggle room than other countries given our economic state and success.

For those countries desperate to improve their economies and cannot just simply print more money, they avoid hyperinflation by allowing governmental control over prices. Laws are passed to keep certain things at low prices to keep them available to all.
The economy is constantly rising and falling, and it’s up to us as consumers to keep it stable. Buy what you can, reap the utility, and stimulate the economy!


Sources:
http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-dont-poorer-countries-just-print-more-money-107633

University strike from UK

Universities across the UK are facing widespread disruption after tens of thousands of lecturers and other staff walked out on strike in protest over pay cuts, increased pension costs and deteriorating conditions.


Union leaders reported a strong show of support on Monday for the industrial action, which will last eight days and could extend into the new year with a second wave of strikes if staff demands are not met.
Pickets had been set up at 60 universities that are taking part in the action, and the University and College Union (UCU) said talks were under way with other institutions about being balloted again to join further action in the new year.
More than 40,000 lecturers, technicians, librarians and other academic and support staff were taking part in the action, but the UCU said it had been processing requests from 3,500 more workers seeking to join the union since the strikes were announced three weeks ago.
University employers said they were doing everything they could to minimise the disruption to the million-plus students affected by strike action and urged the union to focus on continuing talks to find a resolution.

Will Electric Trucks Change the Truck Industry?

Four days ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the creation of a new electric pickup truck, named the Cybertruck. Any potential disadvantages of buying an electric truck were accounted for, as the Cybertruck will be sold at price margins resembling similar size gas-powered trucks, such as the Ford F-150 or Chevy Colorado. Furthermore, the Cybertruck has impressive performance ratings, the highest trim model going from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than 2.9 seconds, and with a towing capacity of over 14,000 pounds. The Cybertruck blows away any concerns about its performance as an electric vehicle, as it can outrace a Lamborghini, and also tow more than a GMC Sierra. 

Given its statistics, the Cybertruck is a feat of engineering and can appear to be a superior product to other consumer trucks, and has already received over 200,000 orders in just a matter of days. So will the Cybertruck transform the truck industry? The immediate answer is no. The Cybertruck will enter production in 2021 at the earliest, and the production of the vehicle is still very uncertain. However, many mainstream car manufacturers, such as Ford and General Motors, are also already planning to create their own electric trucks. For instance, Ford has even been in the process of designing an electric model of the popular F-150, which is set to release in the 2022 model year. General Motors even has designated factories for future electric truck production. Given that even big players in the American car industry are also shifting their trucks to being electric, it is more accurate to say that Tesla isn’t necessarily making an impact, but rather that Tesla’s creation of the Cybertruck is more of a byproduct of the car industry’s shift to electric.
Sources:

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29890843/full-electric-pickup-trucks/

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28083788/hummer-gm-electric-suv-rumor/

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/perspectives/gm-electric-cars/index.html

The Economics of Curbside Pickup

The retail industry, especially grocery stores, are huge businesses - they made $674 billion in the US in 2017. However, this comes at a cost, very close to this revenue; the profit margins of these stores tend to be very thin. Therefore, retailers are doing whatever they can to receive more business from customers.

One approach is the offering of curbside pickup, where customers order groceries online or on the phone and then pick them up outside the store, similar to how one would order Starbucks or meals to-go. Grocery store chains like Publix and Kroger have started to offer this service recently, but one notable chain is Walmart. Not only do they offer curbside pickup for free, but they've also advertised it during the Golden Globes award ceremony to promote it.

It's pretty obvious why consumers would want to use curbside pickup - it saves time, it gets what they want, and it saves a lot of hassle of having to find the food. But it's also appealing to retailers - it's much cheaper and more profitable than the other convenient alternative, delivery. It's expensive to hire someone to find groceries, take them outside, and then load them on a truck to drive to customers's doors.

Consumers also enjoy curbside pickup more than delivery - delivery trucks can get stuck in traffic, causing the delivered products to melt or limp or wilt, and if the consumer notice there's something missing or incorrect in the order, it's easy to correct it with curbside pickup than with delivery.

Although consumers tend to be demanding when it comes to the promptness of the curbside pickup, it sees clear results: according to Jaron Waldman, CEO of Rakuten Ready (a key developer of technology for curbside pickup apps), customers who receive their order in two minutes or less are four times more likely to order again with the retailer than if the order took ten minutes or more.

Source

The Cost of Prison

In our society, we accept that a person who has committed a crime may be sent to prison. To ensure safety, imprisonment may seem like a necessity, so there are government-run federal prisons. However, there are also private prisons which are run by a third party that is contracted by a government agency. How much does it cost to run these facilities, and what are the unseen costs?

Prisons are funded by taxes. The cost per inmate can vary between states. In New York, it costs about $60,000 to incarcerate one person. Other states like Indiana have lower costs per inmate, around $14,000. Private prisons can make the incarceration industry lucrative-- privatized prisons make up over 10% of the corrections market, turning over $7.4 billion per year. However, prisons can get free labor from the inmates, as jobs such as working in laundry, the kitchen, or sanitation are offered to inmates. Instead of having to hire outside employees to do these jobs, prisons can use inmates. There is some debate about the ethics, considering inmates work long hours and can be paid as low as 86 cents per day. Some may argue it is generous to pay them at all, while others say they should be paid higher wages. In any case, it cuts down costs for the prison.

Prisons cost the taxpayer money, but there is also a cost to those they imprison. There are visible monetary costs, such as parole fees that ex-convicts must pay after release. Life after prison can be extremely difficult for many felons. The unemployment rate of formerly incarcerated people is 27%. This is largely due to the common policy that companies have of refusing to hire someone with a felony conviction. This labor market punishment creates a counterproductive system of release and poverty. It is detrimental to the formerly incarcerated, but also employers and taxpayers. Companies are restricting their potential workforce by ignoring a large group of potential laborers. It can also be difficult to find housing after prison because of a similar policy by landlords of refusing to rent to ex-cons. A person may have to settle for lower quality or more expensive pricing because of their limited options. All the costs of being incarcerated may lead to re-imprisonment-- for example, a person may not be able to pay their parole fees because they cannot find employment, which sends them back to prison and perpetuates this horrific cycle. Recidivism can also cost the taxpayer-- in Oklahoma, every 1000 prisoners released costs the Oklahoma taxpayer an average additional annual cost of $554,010. All in all, from an economic viewpoint, it's better if released prisoners stay free.

Sources:
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html
https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system