Money. Just saying it feels good. It rolls so smoothly off the tongue that come close to the “-ey”, you just want to scream “monAYYYYYYY.” It’s why this class has been my favorite class. I love telling people

“Yeup, my class has got the word money in it. I know, pretty cool.”

But in all seriousness, my understanding of money was naïve to say the least, before I took this class. I never understood the real value of money –only that I had to spend it wisely and have a lot of it. So, it wasn’t until after taking this class, JOUR 469 (or 467), I finally began to understand the real value of it.

It’s quite funny when I think about the fact that it was on my first day of class I learned that all the value (gold) that money(US) once had, was gone. I wondered how in the world this country could run on money with imaginary value. My professor explained that if you close your eyes, click your feet and just pretend –voila, it actually began to make some sense.

I started by becoming very conscious of money. Knowing where all these imaginary dollars went — grocery stores, Starbucks, liquor shops and Panda Express. I thought that if the Treasury lost the value of the dollar, then I might as well make my own value for it. So I did. But I always came to the same conclusion: that money was merely a form of exchange to receive some beneficial service. Also, that I could never have enough of it, because I was (and am) always running out of it.

Money then began to sink its feet deeper into my mind and put me deeper into desperation. In distress, I thought to myself: why should money hold so much power over our daily lives? The truth as I came to see it, was that every single person was on the borderline of being in debt. A single dollar had the capability of being the tip of the ice berg into debt while also being the single source out of it.

We all have the ability to live within our means, but it’s the option of being abundantly wealthy that drives our motivations and inspirations into the heavens or drags it into hell. And that’s what I mean by being borderline in debt: money holds more value than gold or imagination; it holds our decency as people.

If out of a blue day a coffee shop decided to raise its price for a small coffee by a dollar, you best believe people are going to be upset. Not just because they have to give more for that same cup of coffee, but because now they receive a little less for $3. Yes, Mr. Treasurer needs to back the dollar, but Jerry isn’t worried about that. He’s worried about his job, his family and his survival.

Now imagine in sequence all the people in the world who can’t afford clean food and water, the people who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and then those who can’t afford to get educated. For them debt is something their born into and it only continues to grow as they resort to harder ways to become wealthy.

Now imagine myself. A guy, who at one point knew just as much as nothing about money, but is lucky and fortunate to get an educated understanding this money driven world a.k.a. globalization. . I’ve landed quite a handsome debt in dollars, but it holds no bearing on the infinite value of living in a world that relies on money. Which is why education should be above all else and never to be restricted or exploited by the role of money. Money if imaginary only relies on the will of the people and therefore assumes the responsibility of empowering the people, not the other way around. If we are to continue living in this world controlled by money, then education should be at the very least free, accessible and without debt.

Through all the pain for a bigger gain, for a wider eye and a better mind, I’ve enjoyed this class thoroughly.

Thanks,

Every year the cost of tuition goes higher and higher and yet I have personally never understood why tuition is high as it is (USC). My mama always told me to get the bang out of the buck and always figured that his made the most absolute sense, –so shouldn’t universities, institutions handling millions of dollars, be doing the same? Maybe that’s just the uneducated and confused, yet hopeful and concerned citizen talking in me. But, man wouldn’t that be nice.

Take my school for example. We have a cafeteria, two libraries, five parking lots, 23,653 employees, million dollar club fund raisers, $35 million donation from Dr. Dre –etc.. Now some of those things listed do make a profit and some don’t, but regardless I believe that USC has all the possibility and even responsibility to utilize these things in a way that runs the school as efficiently as possible. Obviously USC has to pay the 23,653 employees so they pay those who work for the school and allow them to feed their families, pay the bills etc.. Or maybe, NOT.

Featherbedding. It’s a word I just learned today. It means having more employees than needed. Without a doubt, this school has killed a lot of birds (). But it’s not just employees –it’s facilities, programs and organizations that are funded by the university. Who gives the university $40,000 each year? Me, damn it. Am I being crass? Well, I’m sorry if I feel that my money should be used more efficiently to provide me with a return more comparable to what the leaders of the institutions are receiving. The leaders are people who I refer to as the teachers, the administration, USG, counselors, –the utmost needed people to protect and serve the ideals of an efficient institution.

The thing here is Jerry, that man Nikias, President of USC, takes home at least a million dollars and that’s where I’d like to be, see? That’s why I’m paying this school (Sallie Mae* actually) and I will not feel apologetic for not willing to pay for services, programs and organizations that I have no interest in and provide no benefit. Would you do that? See the problem here, is USC along with many other schools have become less transparent in connecting tuition (investment) to returns. Tuition now includes payment for school concerts, construction, celebrity appearances etc.. And frankly, I could care less for all of that, but god allows for differences and so I’m sure there are people who love seeing Jason Derulo and Diplo, which is … fine. But tuition, like any other transaction, should only be to pay for the service—the education, and all those who service directly to provide it.

If you’re getting the picture Jerry, what I’m wondering is, why can’t universities do away with all of that and simplify their financial obligations towards a way that makes everyone happy? Happy means lower tuition, more savings –oh, I do pray that’s what Walmart had in mind.

“Tuition is expensive, school is hectic and the future is a blurring. So let’s simplify the picture and look at it one frame at a time.”

– Willis Parker

Sallie Mae* – A formerly government sponsored enterprise that that assists in the furthering of college debt

Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, debuted on the Nasdaq exchange on April 17 with a 19.1 percent jump, the eighth-best debut for a U.S. listed tech stock this year.

Weibo shares rose from the subscription price of $17 to as high as $24.28. The company sought to raise $380 million by selling 20 million shares for as much as $19 each. But underwriters could only find demand for 16.8 million shares at $17, generating $287 million for the company.

Weibo, launched in August 2009, is China’s largest social media platform with 144 million active monthly users.

Though it remains unprofitable, losing $38 million last year and another $47 million in the first quarter of this year, its revenues jumped to nearly $68 million for the three months.

The Shanghai-based Weibo was missioned with a fundamental challenge: progressing from a microblogging phenomenon in China to an important member of the international social media industry.

As Weibo celebrates Wall Streets’ s welcoming waters for it, it’s always at conflicts with censors at home, putting in doubt whether the firm known as the “Twitter of China” may eventually be dismantled by government interference.

A series of detentions of influential online commentators may have hurt Weibo’s user numbers. A study released in this January by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper and East China Normal University in Shanghai showed that the number of Weibo posts have fallen 70 percent since its peak in 2012, after the government required users’ real names before posting content.

Chinese government stipulated a series of policies – requiring real names on social media in early 2012 and introducing new laws prohibiting “rumor-mongering” last September – after the Facebook- and Twitter-fueled Arab Spring protests swept through the Middle East.

However, the opportunity for Weibo remains tremendous with China’s more than 600 million Internet users. But people argued that the harsh online censorship in China could hurt Weibo’s healthy growth, especially as it competes against Wechat— the mobile messaging app launched by rival Tencent Holdings Ltd that has became increasingly  popular in part because it is private by nature.

The China Internet Network Information Center, a state-run agency tracking Internet statistics, said in its annual report released in January that while growth in Weibo dropped 9 per cent in 2013, mobile messaging services witnessed explosive growth, with apps such as WeChat adding more than 78 million new users.

 

 

As the expense of college increases, with a seemingly less significant return on investment, students and parents have started to question if it’s really worth it.

 

Graduates still earn more than those with only a high-school diploma. Former college students aged 25-32 who are working full-time still earn about $17,500 more than their counterparts without degrees, according to the Economist. But still, 42% of graduates are in jobs that require less than a four-year degree, and 41% of graduates from the nation’s top universities could not find jobs in their field. These are shaky outcomes for an investment that will set students back as much as $60,000 a year.

In some ways, the college bubble is similar to the housing bubble, which came crashing down in 2007. Poor risk assessment played a role in both situations. Homebuyers were able to obtain a loan that they had no way to repay. And students’ parents are co-signers for their loans, which makes it hard to determine the ability of the actual borrower to repay the debt. Also, both big houses and a college education exist as part of the American Dream to the national collective: everyone has a right to a home, and an education is an investment one cannot afford to pass up.

Companies such as Upstart, Pave and Lumni have developed a plan to reduce student debt: they are giving future scholars the option to sell “stock” in themselves rather than obtaining a traditional loan. Two congressmen, Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Petri (R-WI) have introduced legislation that could make this process more legitimate by setting out its terms, according to Slate Magazine. Their Investing in Student Success Act defines the maximum length a contract can last (30 years) and puts a limit on the future income a student can owe (15 percent). The debt is paid off each month in proportion to students’ earnings, so the amount they owe for a particular month depends on their salary at the time. Their ‘worth’ as an investment package depends on factors such as standardized test scores, job prospects and credit history. But although this method was designed to breach the inequality gap, the students that look like the best investments are usually the ones who grew up with more opportunities. To take this into consideration may result in another conflict about affirmative action, which would mirror the debate going on in colleges today.

Although this method addresses a way to avoid future debt, new graduates are already facing loans that they don’t have a way to repay. To help this group, the nonprofit organization Student Loan Justice is pushing to have the bankruptcy law changed to put restrictions on how and for how long lenders can chase debtors. Currently, student loans are more difficult to expunge in bankruptcy proceedings than credit card debt. Since it was founded in 2005, the nonprofit has gained a large social media presence with chapters in all 50 states up on Facebook.

 

 

 

The Olympic games are becoming increasingly more expensive to host. The final operating cost for the 2008 Beijing games was $40 billion, compared the $15 billion spent on the previous Olympics in Athens. In the 1980s and ‘90s, the cost was even lower. The spending for the 1992 Barcelona games topped out at $9.5 billion and the Seoul Olympics cost the government $4 billion.

But for all its investments in sporting venues, security and housing for the athletes, host countries are not experiencing much long-term gain. Sochi was the most expensive Olympics to date, but the Russian government has no plan for the village. It is out of the price range of middle-class Russians, and the wealthy can easily fly to more established tourist locations such as Europe for skiing or the Turkish beaches in the summer. The venues from the Athens games are crowded with weeds, and the stadium in Beijing is now little more than a Segway track for tourists.

So why do countries continue to fight for it? The Olympics exists in popular imagination as a utopian ideal. Every government competing for the bid seems to think their country will prove the exception to the trend. Some nations use the games as an opportunity to revitalize a bad part of town, such as London and Atlanta. In Atlanta, the effort was largely a success; but nothing really changed for the neighborhoods surrounding the renewed downtown area. They are still considered an urban blight. The British government claims that the $15 billion investment paid off, and cited a study conducted by a team of consultants as proof. But according to NPR, the government funded the study, and Max Nathan, an independent economist in London, said it’s too soon to tell if hosting the Olympics paid off in the long run.

Highway to Sao Paulo airport

Already the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro are facing some roadblocks. Brazilians protested the amount of government spending on the Olympics and the upcoming World Cup when education and health-care are suffering. Construction projects are also running behind schedule due to a shortage of skilled workers. And the roads and airports are insufficient to handle an influx of tourists, according to the policy journal Americas Quarterly. For example, visitors are already recommended to leave their hotels five hours before flights from the Sao Paulo airport, due to choking traffic and long lines at the airline counters. Athens suffered from similar problems with infrastructure but was able to pull together an international airport and walkways for pedestrians that had been in the works for 15 years. Like the ancient city before it, Brazil may pull off a great Games, but it remains to be seen if its economy will fall to a similar tragic fate.

 

 

Growing up, my mother, who worked at a Quincenera shop in the historic fashion district, always took me and my brother with her to work. I remember the streets of Pico and Maple lined with taco trucks, or loncheras, during lunch hours. People used to call them “roach coaches.”

Now, you often see food trucks lined up in front of corporate buildings during lunch hour to serve white collar workers. Now they’re referred to as “gourmet food trucks,” serving up trendy fusion cuisine for a fraction of the price.

How did this crazy make-over happen?

The recession following the 2008 financial crisis created an increased demand for quick quality food on a budget. Trailblazers like Chef Roy Choi revolutionized the industry when he introduced the iconic Korean-Mexican tacos. Kogi was founded in 2008, right at the beginning of the recession and right after Choi was fired from his cushy job at Rocksugar. The business struggled at first, but by 2009, Kogi had 36,000 Twitter followers and generated 2 million dollars mostly off of $2 tacos. People were waiting in 2 hour lines to get a taste.

Aside from the food being delicious, the key secret to the rise of Kogi was social media. The only way people could track down Kogi was through Twitter, and with Choi’s zero marketing budget, social media became a powerful weapon to spread the word. Today, there are thousands of “gourmet” food trucks that run Los Angeles. These new emerging food trucks are serving the demand of the new privileged poor consumer.

However, some people believe the food truck craze is getting out of hand, turning into a mini-bubble in its own right. Hiller says the scene has become too saturated with inexperienced band-wagoners without culinary backgrounds. In addition, the increased regulations and higher prices are creating new barriers to entry. High demand for food trucks has driven the leasing prices way up since “everyone is doing it.”

Food truck culture is spreading across the US to cities like New York and Washington D.C. It will be interesting to see whether food trucks are just a fad or the real deal. Want to learn more? Here is a cool infographic that sums it all up.

Maybe you haven’t noticed a change to the offerings at your family dinner table or the prices at your favorite restaurant, but meat prices have skyrocketed recently mainly due to droughts in recent years in Texas, America’s biggest state for cattle. Experts have cited the most devastating drought Texas ever saw in 2011, the driest year the state has experienced. But 2011 wasn’t the last of the drought, as Texas has experienced several other less severe droughts since as well as the rest of the southwest region. When adjusted for inflation, the price per pound for ground beef has hit $3.55, a 56% increase from just 2010. This drastic weather has dramatic reprecussions that all of America is now facing.

 What this drought means is that feed prices have gone through the roof, which in turn means that cattle ranchers are now forced to raise fewer cows. So, less cows being raised, that surely isn’t enough to see the highest prices for beef in 30 years is it? But there are more problems causing these prices increases, mainly due to emerging countries and economies like China who are now eating more beef. Meaning, the decrease in product (cattle) is corresponded with new, emerging economies. David Anderson, an agricultural economics teacher at the University of Texas A&M explains the surge in demand for emerging economies like China “One of the things that happens that we see in people everywhere: When their incomes go up the first thing they do is they upgrade their diets, and so that usually means eating more meat.” 

When you look at all of these factors in play, it’s a simple equation of a shrinking supply, higher demand, translating into record-level beef prices. But it’s not just beef that is seeing prices climb, according to CNN all other cow products like eggs, milk, and butter are being effected as well.

With the grilling and barbecuing season about to begin, you might be seeing more chicken, pork, or fish instead of those tasty cuts of beef, as it looks like these record prices are here for the longterm. Experts are predicting that high demand overseas will stay at a constant, so unless California, Texas, and the southwest region see some unexpected summer rain, be careful before selecting your protein.

Sources: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/14/302858835/drought-increased-demand-contribute-to-high-beef-prices

http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/14/news/economy/beef-prices/

 

The Mexicans dominate the drug trade. To eliminate it would shrink Mexico’s economy by more than half, according to Global Envision, the website for humanitarian agency Mercy Corps.

But it always wasn’t that way. The Mexicans have operated drug cartels since the 1990s, when the United States began to restrict marijuana. But it was the Colombians who reaped the profit as they cornered the valuable cocaine market. The drug is produced from the coca leaf grown in the Colombian jungles. The Colombians then shipped it from the ports into the Caribbean to the U.S. All that began to change when the U.S. government began to crack down on the overseas route, forcing cartels to smuggle drugs up through Mexico and Latin America. It was more difficult to spot drugs coming across the border than flying over the islands. Thus, the Mexicans gained more power in their negotiations with the Colombians.

They gradually began climbing the value chain, or taking over jobs from their partners. They cut out the middlemen who moved drugs from South America to the U.S. They also seized Colombian cocaine labs and transferred the materials to their own labs in Honduras and Guatemala. Thus, while marijuana helped the Mexican cartels gain a foothold in the drug trade, it was cocaine and its growing demand in the U.S. that boosted them to the top of the food chain.

In 2006, Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon made his intentions clear to wage a war on the drug trade. He deployed over 3,000 troops to destroy crops and gather information about the cartels. But his efforts had unintended consequences as they actually increased drug-related violence. The cartels could have been trying to intimidate the government, which their continued kidnappings and theft at Pemex, a state-sponsored oil company, seem to suggest. The government crackdowns on drugs also increased their scarcity power, which led to more brutal competition among the cartels for access to the product.

The War on Drugs is now acknowledged as a failure, and Mexico’s new President Peña-Nieto is trying to attract foreign investment to expand legitimate business in the country. In December, he signed a controversial law that allows foreign companies to drill oil in the hopes that it will help Mexico boost its output. Oil is Mexico’s biggest legal export, but is of course second overall to marijuana and cocaine.

Mexico and the U.S. are still figuring out ways to break the corrupted backbone of Mexico’s economy. While two U.S. states have passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana, Peña-Nieto opposes this as a solution. According to the Brookings Institute, a think tank dedicated to public policy, authorities should target the middle management of the drug cartels rather than the kingpins and the foot soldiers. The middle layer is harder to replace and does not foster as much violence for leadership roles. But while the two governments negotiate solutions, the demand for marijuana and cocaine remains steady, and entire towns carry out their day-to-day activities under the watchful eye and funds of the drug lords.

Who would have that one of the world’s most popular smartphone companies just a few years ago is now asking itself if it wants to stay in the handset market?

Blackberry has gone from the smartphone that everyone must have with its clever BBM messaging system, where blackberry users could message each other similar to what we now have with iMessages for the iPhone. According to  newly appointed CEO John Chen, Blackberry may be forced to reexamine the types of products it will offer with its dwindling share of the US and worldwide smartphone market. This statement should come to no surprise to the American public who have moved on to iPhones and Samsung phones, and with Blackberry occupying a measly 2% of the smartphone market. 

In an attempt at cutting the cost for the Blackberry, top executives have teamed up with Foxconn, where they will revamp productions on their newest line of phones. Previously the smartphone company had most of its products manufactured on the United States and Europe, and with the move to China, labor costs should help alleviate their $5.9 billion loss in the fiscal year.

Signs of hope?

With a cheaper phone, Blackberry will now be able to compete in the global market, with the iPhones somehow struggling in this area due to higher cost of the phones outside of the US. The reason for the higher cost internationally is because iPhones are not subsidized elsewhere like they are here. Meaning Blackberry is attempting to attain a bigger grab on the low-end devices with their smartphones and tablet. This is something that Apple has been very clear about not doing. But Blackberry’s new game plan does not stop their, along with other phone companies, they plan on tapping into the auto-entertainment as well as healthcare systems. But perhaps the biggest breakthrough for Blackberry is through the messaging that once saw the smartphone hold 50% share of the market during its peak. In the new BB-10 phones, users can now use eBBM, which is a messaging system that does not user the internet like iMessages, but Blackberry’s private network, which also heightens security measures.

One could look at Blackberry’s performance in the past fiscal year and determine that the marketplace has decided that its phones can no longer be the success it once was, but with a new CEO who has begun streamlining the company in order to compete with the smartphone giants,  I think it’s too soon to write off Blackberry… for now.

 

In an ideal free market system, the law of supply and demand decide prices and foster competitiveness. However, artificial forces like agricultural subsidies can upset that balance. The US farm bill is a unique ombnibus, multi-year bill which aims to outline the Fed’s overall stance and policies in the agricultural sector. It is also renewed roughly every five years in order to tailor the bill to the political climate of its time. In theory, agricultural subsidies serve to provide a safety net for farmers whose livelihoods depend on unpredictable weather and fluctuating commodity prices. Although this logic seems sound, especially to Keynesian supporters, these subsidies have been accused of overly compensating already well-off farmers and industries.

The farms in the US are no longer the humble small-town family owned establishments, but huge-scale billion dollar corporations, earning its name: agribusiness. Ever wondered why a Big Mac costs more than a salad? Agricultural policies have immense influence over the overall health of American citizens, as they dictate which types of food are cheaply and widely available. Currently, five crops control the subsidy market: corn, cotton, rice, soybeans, and wheat. Unfortunately, these commodities only makes fast-food and processed options more affordable than healthier alternatives like fruits and vegetables. For instance, corn is the most highly subsidized crop in the US, which explains the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup—which is cheaper than sugar—in the ingredients of an average American’s groceries. In addition, these main commodities are produced almost entirely from big agribusinesses. As a result, much of the subsidies are disproportionately fed to the large commercialized farms.

Origins of these powerful players in the agricultural sector goes back to the Nixon Administration. Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture at the time, adapted a “get big or get out” mentality for farmers, focusing his policies on large-scale industrial farming. Butz’s aggressive policies not only fostered the growth of megafarms, but these farms now needed its seed, fertilizer, and pesticide providers to operate on the same large-scale level. As a result, biotech firms also grew to huge corporation to what is Mosanto today, a multi-billion dollar global corporation.

Critics of the bill include small to mid-size farms, health organizations, the World Trade Organization, and the former President George W. Bush, who served in office at the time of the bill’s passage. Bush publicly opposed the legislation, and vetoed it more than once. He believed the bill was too generous for already well-off farmers, and he was right. From 1995-2010, the top 10% of qualifying farmers collected 74% of all subsidy payments. The subsidies are also paid per acre, meaning the largest farms receive the largest checks. In addition, the only cap the bill really imposes is to farmers who make more than $750,000, or $1.5 million for married couples, which means a couple in the upper-echelon of society can still receive federal assistance.

The key actors who run the oligarchy of agribusinesses are Monsanto, ConAgra, and Cargill, and they dominate the farming industry, producing approximately 98% of America’s food supply. Major food manufacturing corporations are also a major special interest group. It is in these corporation’s best interest to keep their commodity crop’s prices low to gain a high profit return. Popular brands like Kraft, Mars, and Coca Cola were also amongst the top spenders in lobbying dollars. Coca-Cola uses high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient in its sodas, Mars need large doses of sugar to mass produce its famous candy bars, and Kraft needs dairy farms to keep milk prices low.
The agricultural subsidies result in overproduced commodities that are “dumped” to developing countries, and although this may seem like a form of aid, it drives local farmers who can’t compete with the highly subsidized American growers out of business. If the current commodity crops continue to be subsidized and agribusinesses control the market, there will be a continuing trend of higher sales of processed food, proliferation of toxic pesticides, erosion of land, monopolization of market, and etc.

Bill Ayres, Co-Founder and Executive Director of WhyHunger, writes in his Huffpost piece that the 2014 Farm Bill did eliminate billions in farm subsidies, reducing them by 30 percent. Perhaps this is a step in the right direction, but we will have to wait and see if Washington can withstand the army of lobbyists hired by the agricultural elites.

But for now, my college budget has my diet looking like this: