RS 4: "The Pot Republic"

                Eco-cronics…oops I mean economics within the marijuana industry is a growing concern to the American economy. This blog post is my economic opinion about “The Pot Republic”, a PBS video that explains the economic effects from the legalization of marijuana in California. The legalization did not just have an impact on potheads across the country; rather it provided new age medicine to patients in need and gave birth to a new market of grossing revenue.

                When people mention California today the first thing they associate it with is Marijuana. It has become so popular that California is now known as a “green” state rather than a blue (democratic) or red (republican). Weed has taken over the state and ironically it has a positive upshot for their economy. The cost-benefit that comes with medical marijuana are saving towns money by laying off police officers and allowing marijuana to be grown. This means the secondary effect will generate even more jobs because the demand for growers, distributors, regulators, and dispensaries opening up a gate way to gross millions of dollars in revenue from this plant. The market is there, the demand is high and the supply, the weed, is much needed.

                It sounds too good to be true that the west coast economy has boomed since this plant/weed has been legalized for medical purpose but there is even more money to be made potentially across the nation. Marijuana is still considered a narcotic at the federal level making it completely illegal for sales or possession. That is the gimmick in this situation, because the government frowns upon the idea to sell medical marijuana to patients in need because the laws are too grey confusing the general public for whom qualifies for a prescription. Legally or illegally, marijuana is still the highest profitable drug; even more than cocaine, ecstasy, heroine etc. Personally, I do not see why the government is restricting this window of opportunity to steer our economy in a positive direction by fully legalizing marijuana. It helps us as a country grow economically as a whole potentially erasing some of our national debts and increasing our medical knowledge for future expectations.

                I do not know if everyone agrees with me on this but there have been pot heads in America forever. From the 20’s the 50’s we all know the 70’s and especially today. I do not think any time soon the world is going to put down the ganja because it doesn't even kill anyone unlike alcohol and cigarettes. With that said, the future expectations for this market reflect an industry that is going to grow like wildfire. California once impacted America’s economy during the time of the gold rush, but economists now respect California to be “the new green rush”. This is the place to sell green to make green and I can see this coming to the east coast before we know it.

                 I personally have been following the effect marijuana has on the economy and this help me comprehend an even better understanding. Medbox, a marijuana dispensary company recently entered the NYSE, with an IPO worth pennies. The company sells marijuana out of dispensaries across the nation, as well as vending machines located in a large number of public places. When the medical marijuana laws passed in over 16 states across the country this stock went from being worth pennies now up to $240.00 dollars. It was shocking to me and I was hooked ever since I saw this. The future marijuana holds for this country are prosperous nevertheless is highly dependably upon our government. I cannot pass the laws for marijuana but I think they should be highly evaluated because this video proves this plant has no harm for anyone, and will benefit all parties in the long run.     

RS-3 Whats Your Major

                Throughout life we are all faced with economic decisions, whether it be a mortgage payment or preparing for retirement securing a 401k. Either way these decisions are not the most important. According to Money Planet’s podcast “What’s Your Major”, the biggest economic decision in our lives is the decision of your major in college. This blog highlights my opinions after listening to this podcast about economically analyzing the majors median earning and their variation between the focus of studies; i.e. math, science, liberal arts etc.

                When you are a child we always think of scientists and the mathematicians as these men in white coats earning the big bucks; on the other hand writers and performers are looked down upon as tree huggers that don’t earn much at all. Well this podcast justifies our child hood perceptions because a national survey about undergraduate college majors reveals, petroleum engineering has the highest earnings per year at $120,000 while a psychology major is at the bottom earning a median of $30,000 per year. At the same time, it is not a surprise petroleum engineering earns so much money. When measuring the supply and demand of majors there are only 15,000 persons in the field of petroleum engineering in comparison to the 1.3 million persons that majored in psychology. Therefore the scarcity of petroleum engineers yields an economic trade-off for a salary increase. Money is always our concern in life, and it is always an influence in decision making.

                The podcast asked the question, “Would your potential median earning salaries influence your decision about your major?” I would answer this question as yes, but other factors must be included in this decision rather than just potential earnings. I would make a decision at the margin weighing out the costs and benefits. In my case, I have always been proficient in the field of math and I have always been involved with leadership. I thought that it would be in my best interest to major in accounting because I enjoy doing these things and I saw accounting as a growing field with lots of potential. Also I have been influenced by many professors here at Sacred Heart University preaching that “the work put in to become an accountant pays itself off with the fact you’re almost guaranteed a job once graduating with a promising high salary.” I though this decision to become an accountant would benefit much more than the cost of my time and dedication to become one. In contrast, there are people out there who would much rather live by the expression “Do what makes you happy”, this meaning that they would much rather major in something of their interest and not worry about a salary. They compare this benefit of happiness to the cost they would suffer if they were to major in something not of their interest.

"Plato"

                Overall, I would recommend any college student to listen to this podcast, Episode 485: What's Your Major? : Planet Money : NPR, before making any informed decision. It could change your value for education, and provide awareness for the costly decisions yet to come in the future. I would like to leave my readers with a quote to reflect upon:

"Do not train children in learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."

 - Plato

               

RS2: Plant Money's "Top of the Charts"

       This blog post is about Money Planets podcast, “Episode 473: Top Off the Charts”, which generally concerned the transformation of the music industry with correlation between new economic strategies of record labels/artists and their rise to the top of the Billboard 100 charts. Billboard has equations to rank the “Top 40”; data is based upon demographics, requests, plays, YouTube views, reputations, previous songs etc. These formulas no longer represent the “Classic Road to the top” because it is now much easier for artist to economize their marketability and recognition.

                This podcast could not have said better what the music industry is going through right now. They described it as a “fractured industry” that has no rules when it comes to who is at the top of the charts. Until about 2010 the music industry was stable but now it is over flowing with artist that have one hit wonders and songs that became popular years later after it was released. The podcast explains that traditional rules of the “Top 40” states that on average it takes around 3-4 months to hit the top of charts. Now it can take up to years for a song to hit the top but it hits the top because it is being recycled. I look at this to be economization within the industry because the way these artists are “recycling” their songs is by starting off featuring the song on television, commercials, and movies to give a large crowd a hint of their song. They keep replaying this song amongst this scheme until recognized. Icona Pop's song “I Don’t Care” of 2012 is a prime example where they featured the song on T.V. commercials and on a T.V. show with Snookie but still was unsuccessful; it was featured on an HBO series and an attractive character danced for a minute straight to this song, and then BANG! It became a top 3 hit over night in the month of July, 2013. I am not going to lie I love to jam out to that song but it beats me to me how songs by no name artists can linger for so long and then suddenly become recognized as one of the best.  

                The music industry is hurting because promotion and marketing must be timed carefully. Justin Timberlake is an expert within the music industry for over a decade and is precise with his timing. Back when he was with N-SYNC he sold 2.4 million CD’s in as little as one week, which is the most ever! Obviously this is much harder to do, but Justin provides a great economic outlook because he is a marginal thinker that hires sync experts whose job is to dissect his music into a science, engineering a song that is nearly guaranteed to be a hit. He spends money on this beneficial tool because the marginal benefit of nearly guaranteeing a hit that will generate the most sales in the end is much greater than the outcome of sales without this sync expert. It can also support the idea that information is costly because to access have to such benefits such as marketing and sync experts you must be willing to pay the price because they have been successful in the past generated more revenue in the long run.

                Overall, I agree with this podcast respecting that fact the “Top 40” music chart is “fractured” or in better words a mess because the music of this decade is unpredictable and without a meaning. Personally I do not have much respect for these no name artists because they must earn their recognition for years.  I do not mean that literally but I believe it is only fair if they are initiated by taking on the long climb to the top just like every successful well respected artist had to do in the past before their taste of the top. If I could have it my way I would still consider Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones the best because their songs have been around for more than 30 years and still going strong. I understand you have to past down the title of #1 eventually but atleast put it in good hands; not to up and coming musicians like Macklemore who do not know how to control the crown.

RS1: How to be a Genius?

"How to be a Genius" author David Dobbs

This blog post is my outlook on David Dobbs’ article, “How to be a Genius” published in the September 15, 2006 issue of the New Scientist Magazine. Dobbs’ idea was that geniuses are considered “normal” people who persevere to this level of expertise through the environment they associate themselves with. The article contains examples and information from the experts such as Mozart, Einstein and others whom are categorized as “genius”. Overall the majority of the article is focused on Dobb’s statement that “Geniuses are made, not born”.

Before reading this article I always assumed that geniuses were born a genius and always lived in a bubble isolated from society. Well it indeed turns out I was completely wrong. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University explains the correlation between extraordinary efforts and geniuses, " These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort." (Dobbs p.2).  He is basically defining the moral we were all raised with, you get out what you put in. It is a broad statement but I agree with his concept because he uses athletes, performers, artist, biologists and mathematicians to uphold his theory.

Max Delorenzo, UCONN Running Back

I can personally connect to this and the idea of environment with relationship to extraordinary efforts. Back in high school my friend Max DeLorenzo and I were the two individuals that excelled on the football field. We both possessed the same level of expertise and  were projected to go to a division one school since sophomore year of high school. Max set himself aside from others by investing all his time into football associating himself with those trainers, coaches, and mentors that would help him project his game to the next level. On the other hand, I did not have this same mentoring except my friends and mother which was more a means of motivation rather than education. More over, economically speaking I valued my time and invested it in extra curricular activities that did not help my game. I did not have the resources he had, nor the time and elitness Max was provided with. All in all, Max went on to earn himself a full  scholarship at UCONN leaving some to believe it was pure genetics but rather I believe his environment and coaches helped earned that scholarship.  

Yo-yo Ma, expert musician

Dobbs stated in the article, “A genius is 1 percent inspiration, 29 percent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 percent perspiration… Geniuses are made, not born” (Dobbs 1). Dobbs hit the nail on the head with his perception of what it takes to evolve into a genius because when you have talent you can be too overwhelmed with it and fade away from it. Encouragement is a key component to the mastery because the harder you are motivated to work the more you get out of it and you become more engaged. I took with me from this reading Yo-yo Ma's simple quote "fire in the belly". Everyone has fire within them but the mind is the belly in this sense digesting their environment and finally when you learn let out your flame like a dragon people will notice you catch fire. 

I thought this article was a great read and would recommend it to anyone that believes they are Mr. Smartypants or have no motivation. After reading this I feel enlightened with a new approach to life being dedicated, putting my time and work in as well as knowing in the back of my head if I do it right one day I can be in the 1% who is a genius.

 I would like to leave my readers with this picture to think about geniuses: