What a College Football Player is Worth According to Market Value

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Business Insider recently released a study that estimated the value of a college football player if they were considered to be on the free market like you might see in the National Football League (NFL). The way that they were able to calculate the value was using the Collective Bargaining Agreement of the NFL in which the players receive 47% of the total revenue gathered. Business Insider then split the revenue between the players and the college and divided evenly across all of the players with scholarships (85 of them). The photo below shows the value of each player for bigger universities Continue reading What a College Football Player is Worth According to Market Value→

Oregon’s Measure 97

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We don’t only vote for Presidents. While we spend much of our time fretting over who the next President will be, we often neglect important local elections and legislative bills. This isn’t necessarily a problem but it is ironic that voters spend more time paying attention to headline grabbing presidential candidate debates and TV appearances than local bills that if passed, are likely to have more impact on their lives than the next President. In Washington this year, the potential bill getting most attention is Initiative 732 which would be the first statewide bill in the United States to place Continue reading Oregon’s Measure 97→

Did Shanghai Have a Housing “Bubble”?

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Like Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, Shanghai has been experiencing massive increases in housing prices over the past couple of years. Many salespersons are saying that it feels a lot like a bubble, but in a recent article by the Economist, it is noted that the sharp rise in prices does not match the local economic trends and that a bubble is a misdiagnosis of the problem. Instead, the real problem comes from a shortage in land supply. The city is a large contributor to China’s overall GDP and thus, most people living in the cities surrounding Shanghai will commute Continue reading Did Shanghai Have a Housing “Bubble”?→

Automobile Industry Feelin the Heat

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On Monday Ford Motor company announced that they will be shutting down production of their F-150 pickup truck for a week. The demand for these American cars has been dropping and Ford has been feeling the heat from it. Ford’s F-150 truck has been the best-selling model in North America and Ford has seen steady growth in the last six years. But Ford was forced to shut down one of its Kentucky plants for the next week and temporarily idle production of several other plants in the US and Mexico. Reuters.com reports that 13,000 employees will be effected by these Continue reading Automobile Industry Feelin the Heat→

This Tuesday, 10/25: Debate on WA Initiative 732 regarding a carbon tax.

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Where: McIntyre 107 When: 4 – 5pm, Tuesday 10/25 The Economics Department is hosting a discussion of WA initiative 732 which seeks to create a revenue neutral carbon tax in Washington state to combat greenhouse gas emissions. Advocates from both the ‘pro’ and ‘con’ camps will be speaking. Yoram Bauman, economist for CarbonWA.org and one of the founders of I-732 will speak in favor of the measure. Brandon Houskeeper from the Association of Washington Business will make the case against the measure.

President Obama Lifts Sanctions on Importing Certain Cuban Goods

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Get your Cuban cigars, get your Cuban rum. President Obama just last week lifted the restriction of bringing in over $100 of Cuban cigars and rum to the United States. This is the continued effort of improving the relations of the two countries as they slowly rebound from decades of economic stagnancy. Obama has continued to lift the trade embargo to not only improve the two’s relationship but also stimulate the economy between the United States and Cuba. The value of a fluid relationship will increase quite a bit as United States citizens will increasingly do travel and business in Continue reading President Obama Lifts Sanctions on Importing Certain Cuban Goods→

Does Your Vote Count?

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In light of the quote I included in a recent article about Gary Johnson (and in light of the creeping up date of November 6), “A wasted vote is voting for somebody you don’t believe in”, I sought to find reason behind this statement and ones similar to it surrounding the theory of voting. History would nudge us to believe that some votes don’t “count”. For example, in numbers of U.S. presidential elections the most popular candidate did not win. Why do some economists, specifically, choose not to vote and claim, “voting doesn’t pay”? Game theory states that your vote Continue reading Does Your Vote Count?→

Drug Abuse as an Externality

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In the past few months the Economist and Time Magazine have reported that there have been steps taken to develop Ketamine as an antidepressant. This drug is a schedule III controlled substance in the US that is usually used to start and maintain anesthesia. It was first produced in the 1960s for this use, but soon began to run through the “club scene” in the US, Hong Kong, and Canada as a recreational drug. In 2009 the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime recorded 6.9 tons of Ketamine being pushed through the illegal drug market. The drug could be helpful Continue reading Drug Abuse as an Externality→

Interesting Note on America’s Infrastructure

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The New York Times recently posted a short article showing how bad the infrastructure has gotten in the United States and the details are quite disappointing. In the photo below from the NYT, it shows how bad the public assets have gotten across the country. It is not a good projection, and it’s a reason that presidential candidates agree to put plenty of money into the infrastructure if they become presidents. There are some other disturbing issues from the aging infrastructure as traffic has gotten worse and worse as the infrastructure has aged. That photo can be seen below this Continue reading Interesting Note on America’s Infrastructure→

Economics of Nuclear Energy in the United States

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With the ever increasing concern of the effect of carbon-based fuels on our climate, the need for green energy is more prevalent than ever. So what is the most used green energy source in the United States? Solar? Wind? Hydroelectric? Actually, it’s Nuclear. Nuclear power plants provided about 20% of the United States’ total electricity last year, compared with 6% from Hydroelectric, 1.6% from Biomass, 0.4% from Solar, 4.7% from Wind, and 7% from “Other Renewables.” Nuclear energy provides the same amount of electricity as all other forms of green energy combined, 20% compared to 19.7%. Many other countries get Continue reading Economics of Nuclear Energy in the United States→