Minor League Baseball Players are being Neglected

When hundreds of people in a “business” are making below the federal poverty line, then you would think that business would be doing quite poorly. Think again. Major League Baseball (MLB), which has heard the narrative that it is dying due to lack of interest from the younger demographic and the idea that is somewhat of a boring sport, is doing quite well at the moment. According to the Washington Post (WP) article linked first, “baseball has in recent years parlayed renewed popularity into record earnings, leveraging apparel and media demands into $9.5 billion in revenue last year; its 30 franchises averaged $23 Continue reading Minor League Baseball Players are being Neglected

The State of the Venezuelan Economy (Part 2)

Two weeks ago, I discussed the state of the Venezuelan economy. Today, I’d like to provide some information about how it got there, and what it might lead to in the future. When Hugo Chavez took power in 1999, he brought in his own ideology that is known as Chavismo. Chavismo is essentially left-wing populism that, like other with other Socialist regimes, is very hostile to private business. Hugo Chavez was president for 14 years, and during that time he implemented a huge number of regulations, taking control of big businesses and centralizing decisions to the government. Small private businesses Continue reading The State of the Venezuelan Economy (Part 2)

There’s Another Candidate?

In light of the debate last night between America’s two dominant parties, I wanted to talk about the man who didn’t get to make it to the stage. Yes that’s right, there is still someone out there fighting. The man is Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate. The two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, a state that usually votes democratic, claims that most Americans are in fact libertarians but just don’t know it yet. In his interview with Stephen Dubner, Johnson tells listeners his biggest problem, “Right now, 65 percent of Americans don’t even know that I exist”. But Continue reading There’s Another Candidate?

Advertisers and Social Media: The Endless Struggle

Facebook is under considerable scrutiny from angry companies that use its platform to advertise to its users. What has them upset is Facebook’s two-year long deliberate embellishment of the reported length their users spend watching ads. By not counting video views of less than three seconds, Facebook’s metric overestimated how long users watched ads on the site. This allowed Facebook to charge firms more to advertise on its platform than it otherwise could have en route to generating $5.2 billion in ad revenue in the first quarter of 2016. Companies are understandably upset because the length viewers watch ads on Continue reading Advertisers and Social Media: The Endless Struggle

The Benefits in the Long Run of Investing in On-Site Child Care Outweigh the Costs

As of 2015, America’s workforce was made up of 53.2% men and 46.8% women, and over the past 20 years, this 7-10% gap in genders represented in the workforce has remained fairly consistent. There has been a lot of research done as to why this gap between involvement exists, part of it is due to there being less women in the manual labor, science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, while another aspect is the ever so present gender pay gap. The causation of the gap in gender in the workforce is multi-dimensional though, often the focus of the conversation is set on identifying the Continue reading The Benefits in the Long Run of Investing in On-Site Child Care Outweigh the Costs

Argentina Eyes on Macri

In Buenos Aires all eyes have been on newly elected Argentine president, Mauricio Macri to fix the inflated state of the country’s economy. Macri was elected in December and promised Argentina’s citizens that he would curb inflation. But 8 months later there were reportedly tens of thousands rallying in front of the presidential palace in an “anti-Macri demonstration.” Some labor leaders and citizens are angry at the trajectory of the economy and for good reason. INDEC, the national statistics institute, stated that prices went up by 4.2% in May and The Wall Street Journal reported that unemployment rose to 9.3%. Continue reading Argentina Eyes on Macri

Nuclear Futures Seem Dim

The Chinese city of Liangyungang seems to have a bright economic future ahead of it. As a vibrant city on the eastern coast of China with easy access to Taiwan and Korea Liangyungang is a rising center of industry, foreign trade, and tourism. The Chinese government recently released a statement to the residents of Liangyungang that they are planning on constructing a new nuclear power plant within city. Needless to say, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan the residents of Liangyungang are worried about their own futures. The need for this nuclear power plant is clear, as most of Continue reading Nuclear Futures Seem Dim

Surprising Statistics Among Voters in Support of Trade Agreements

The New York Times recently came out with an article outlining some interesting statistics about voters in the United States supporting trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is most interesting because both major-party candidates actually oppose the trade agreement that was established by President Obama. In the article, the NYT outlines that the point that Republicans tend to be pro-trade but since the Republican candidate Donald Trump is so anti-trade, the R’s are staunchly against these trade agreements. However, younger voters still strongly support trade agreements such as the TPP and overall voters polled either support trade Continue reading Surprising Statistics Among Voters in Support of Trade Agreements

Who is Worth More to your Autonomous Car?

This past week, the US Department of Transportation released safety guidelines to auto manufacturers regarding the production of autonomous and semiautonomous cars. This is broken down by the New York Times here. One of the points that caught my eye was the “Ethical Considerations” section, and an example it gave, “should a car be programmed to better protect its occupants or other drivers in a crash?” In this situation, the autonomous car supposedly would have to be able to calculate the worth of the people inside and outside the car, and then based on those values, make a decision on Continue reading Who is Worth More to your Autonomous Car?

How Much it Will Cost to Stop the Zika Virus

The World Bank has stated that it estimates that Zika will cost the world $3.5 billion dollars in 2016. Although as of June 2016 there have only been 341 confirmed cases of Zika among pregnant women in the US, there are more than a million people who are infected in Brazil. What factors go into calculating the cost of an enormous, widespread virus that also has many externalities on the economy, and how is this calculation done? The methods of putting a price tag on an epidemic involve extrapolation, history, statistics, science, and many other methods. The first piece of the Continue reading How Much it Will Cost to Stop the Zika Virus