Long gone are the days of actually celebrating Thanksgiving day by spending it with family and friends while giving thanks for the things that we already have to fill our lives and homes. Thanksgiving day unofficially marks the start of the holiday shopping season. After the Turkey is carved and our stomachs are full, we can’t resist but to power on our computers or to waddle our way to the mall to score those great Black Friday deals that we have had our eye on all week. However, if Black Friday shopping didn’t satiate our spending fever Cyber Monday is sure to satisfy that final craving.

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are considered the busiest sales day of the year. The general trend of previous years resulted in Black Friday usually holding the higher sales figure in total revenue generated, but surprisingly Cyber Monday arose as the greater overall contender for 2015.

While Black Friday generated more total revenue, its sales numbers actually fell 10 percent when compared to last year’s. The total revenue for 2014 was $11.6 billion, whereas this year it only generated $10.4 billion. In addition, $2.74 billion of those sales were in online transactions with $905 million in mobile sales through iOS (Apple) and Android devices (PracticalEcommerce.com).

In regards to Black Friday sales, the Associated Press reported, “Electronic commerce increased by 14.3 percent on Friday compared to last year’s figures.”

Cyber Monday, on the other hand, surpassed the forecasted $3 billion in sales that was predicated for the shopping day. The Adobe Digital Index, which determines its numbers based on collected and anonymous data from 200 million visits to 4,500 retail websites, calculated that Cyber Monday sales generated a total of $3.07 billion, with 26 percent or an estimated $799 million completed through mobile transactions. In total, Cyber Monday sales rose 16 percent when compared to last year’s numbers. Additionally, Adobe Digital Index reported that out-of-stock items broke record levels on Cyber Monday. It is determined that thirteen out of every 100 product views resulted in an out-of-stock message, which is twice the normal rate. (TechCrunch.com).

The main take away from these findings? More people are opting to shop online as opposed to traditional stores and sales via mobile devices are on the rise.

Experts believe that online sales will continue to climb this shopping season. Chris Christopher, whom is the director of consumer economics at IHS consulting, has revealed that between the months of November and December of this year there will be an estimated 11.7 percent jump in e-commerce sales, which would total to about $95 billion.

Sources:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/94777-Sales-Report-2015-Thanksgiving-Day-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday

http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/01/cyber-monday-beat-forecasts-with-a-record-3-07-billion-in-sales-26-from-mobile-devices/#.ahdvta:bP2p

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/1129/Why-did-Black-Friday-sales-suffer-this-year

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This quote is proven to be true in the case of a Canadian couple, filmmakers Jen Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin who spent 6 months eating nothing but discarded food out of dumpsters, a decision that they made after seeing the large amount of edible food wasted just because they were not up to the consumers’ standard of being “fresh”.

“We found 18-foot Dumpsters all the time filled with food, and the majority of that was because it was near the date label, but rarely past it,” said Baldwin, who spent 6 months hunting for discarded food inside dumpsters and behind wholesale warehouses. Food waste is a very serious issue in the United States. It is the largest single source of waste in the country, beating out other waste products such as plastic and paper in landfills. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, more than 20% of what goes into municipal landfills is food, with food waste weighing at a total of 35 million tons in 2012.

Surprisingly, most of these food waste were thrown out by farmers and warehouses. It turned out that there are specific rules and regulations that are put in place by grocery stores that the farmers have to follow. For instance, after visiting a peach farmer here in California, Rustemeyer and Baldwin found out that the farmer has to throw out between 30 to 70 percent of his peaches because they were rejected by grocery stores due to cosmetic issues such as it not being of a particular size. Supermarkets tell farmers what diameter, length and curvature that their produce has to be before actually accepting them. And what happens if the produces are not up to standard? They become food waste.

Food waste also impacts the economy significantly. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the typical American family throws out about $1,600 worth of food each year, in a country where nearly 18 million households struggle to put food on their table. The United Nations estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, making for a total of about 1.3 billion tons of waste a year. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, in the United States alone, about 40 percent of all food, worth an estimated $165 billion, is wasted. Especially during holiday season, whereby household waste increases by more than 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day every year.

In conclusion, the next time you decided to toss out that bag of mixed greens that has been sitting in your refrigerator just because it looks wilted, think about how you’re negatively contributing to our economy.

People call it the French version of 9/11. Paris, just like terror-shrouded Sinai and Beirut, occupied the latest global headlines when the capital of romance turned into a living hell last Friday. Shootings and bombings swept the city in theater, stadium, restaurant, and street corners, leaving hundreds of civilians dead and wounded. If the Charlie Hebdo shooting was infuriating and revolting, there is something more agonizing and heartbreaking about the Paris Black Friday. It brutally mirrors the perplex and twisted nature of political, economic, and religious conflicts, both local and global, in our modern world.

Other than spreading extremist fundamentalism and terrorism around the globe, the ISIS is nothing like al-Qaeda, the mastermind that left a permanent scar on the soil of America. Apparently, ISIS has a much more ambitious and clear plan – it shows strong desire for land and it desperately wants it now. With its ultimate goal of establishing a powerful caliphate, the militant group even envisioned a tempting plan to reshuffle the order of world financial and monetary system. It sounds just like other absurd conspiracy theories on the market at the first sight, but how the ISIS theoretically articulated and defended its own vision of the new financial order explicitly reveals its devouring ambition of conquest.

In a lengthy propaganda video released in early September, the ISIS fiercely condemns the global dominant position of United States dollar, accusing the U.S. Federal Reserve of enslaving the world economy and the greenbacks of being “evil and unchecked.” Instead, the ISIS proposes a bold alternative: replacing paper money with its own legal tender money called gold dinar. Full of iPhone-commercial-style shots boasting of its modern and state-of-the-art mintage, the video purports to show the superiority of gold standard and challenges the status quo of U.S. dollar as the reserve currency used by many countries. The ISIS also claims that it’s now collecting its oil revenue only in gold, even though most of oil money is still paid in the U.S. dollar.

(A screenshot of the ISIS propaganda video. Source: The Economist/YouTube)

Whether the gold currency remains legal is left to question, not to mention its practicality as commodity money. People has abandoned precious metals as money long time ago and implemented financial systems around paper money for centuries. In fact, the world hasn’t abandoned gold standard until the U.S. brought the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold to an end in 1971. In theory, pegging the dollar to gold can guarantee price stability and prevent inflation in the long run, however, the history has proven that’s not quite accurate.

While most economists nowadays agree that gold standard is a bad idea, recent political debates around the revival of gold standard merely reflects the dissatisfaction towards the Federal Reserve’s power of setting the interest rates and printing money. The gold standard can explicitly limit the size of the economy and the flexibility of government monetary policies. When the central bank needs an easy monetary policy, it will be restricted to do so because the money is linked to how much gold it has – any over issue of paper money can risk bank runs or even the collapse of the economy.

Looking back through the history, precious metal was replaced by paper money, and today paper money is gradually being replaced by checking accounts and credit cards. In his Night Journey, the Prophet Muhammad was awoken by an archangel, received revelations from the God, and envisaged a caliphate ruled by the Koran, but he has probably never imagined the evolution of monetary systems. Whether it’s the 7^th century or the 21^st century, there is no point of going back to the time when we link our economies to precious metal. If there’s any benefits in maintaining such system, it has simply become obsolete and impractical to fit in our modern world.

The president of Catalonia, Artur Mas continues to fight for the region’s independence from Spain. Despite the Madrid based court voting against the independence movement, Catalonia has proceeded in its plans of break away. The regional parliament of Catalonia has already voted to begin the process of achieving independence from Spain. In a vote in the regional parliament, Catalan lawmakers voted 72 to 63 to a plan for independence from Spain by 2017. The Spanish Prime Minster, Mariano Rajoy, promised to halt the move for independence by appealing the decision in Spain’s Constitutional Court. “Catalonia is not going anywhere, nothing is going to break,” Rajoy said in a nationally televised address.

Inspite of opposition, the Catalonian region continues to proceed with its plans. This could spell trouble for both the parties, with Spain coming worse off. The Catalan region has long been the industrial heartland of Spain – first for its maritime power and trade in goods such as textiles, but recently for finance, services and hi-tech companies. It is one of the wealthiest regions of Spain – it accounts for 18.8% of Spanish GDP, compared to 17.6% contributed by Madrid. Secession would therefore cost Spain almost 20 per cent of its economic output, and trigger a row about how to carve up the sovereign’s 836 billion euros of debt. On the other hand, Catalonia would immediately become a prominent nation. It would have a gross domestic product of $314 billion (£195bn), according to calculations by the OECD, which would make it the 34th largest economy in the world. That would make it bigger than Portugal or Hong Kong.

Amidst all this, one of the big losses will come to the sporting world. Currently, football’s greatest and popular team Barcelona belongs to the Catalonia region. It competes in the Spanish Premier Division, with teams representing other cities from Spain. Barcelona won the division title last year. The partition of Spain, which will spell the end of this teams participation in the league will bring dissapointment to both factions, economically and socially. Barcelona generates $680 million from just the sale of tickets for the division’s games. Furthermore, the team would loose out on television streaming of the division games. Although Catalonia would have its own league, Barcelona and other teams present in the division would no longer be in the elite league. It would end up competing with weaker teams that would be added to the league, making the league less challenging. This would lead to great dissapointment amongst the fanatic supporters who are certainly less likely to be interested in the new division. This could spell further trouble for the Catalonia party. Towards the west, a new Spain would mourn the loss of one the prestigious football teams from its competition. It is less likely to be viewed as an elite competition itself. The exit of Barcelona leaves only two good teams, both from Madrid, making the competition predictable. Certainly viewership will decline in this region.

Lastly from global point of view, the departure of Barcelona will bring an end to the century old rivalry between two of the greatest ever teams: Barcelona and Real Madrid. Also called the El Classico, the game goes beyond football. It stretches back to cultural differences that orginated a century ago. The heat in this match is the reason why it has accumulated the most viewership for any game. With an audience of about 1 billion people, the absence of this game is what will hurt people and profits. Loss of intensity and passion will meet declining viewership and merchandise sale.

An avid follower of the sport, I understand the split of Catalonia only from a footballing point of view. The rivarly between these two teams is what defines football, and obviously brings the money. They play each other this weekend, so I will be enjoying the las few between them.

Links:

http://time.com/4102619/what-catalonias-vote-for-independence-means-for-europe/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11179914/Why-does-Catalonia-want-independence-from-Spain.html

http://www.livesoccertv.com/news/13639/barcelona-vs-real-madrid-economics-how-much-el-clasico-2015-is-worth/

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/standoff-puts-catalonia-s-independence-plans-in-jeopardy-1.2435341

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/09/22/what-would-catalan-independence-do-to-la-liga-barcelona/

http://time.com/4109615/catalonia-spain-independence-court/

It’s easy to bemoan the capitalistic bend of the holidays: before the Thanksgiving turkey has settled in their bellies, many Americans are already stamping their feet in lines outside of Walmart and Target, ready to trample over their fellow man for a discounted plasma screen.

But there is a brand of capitalism designed to satiate the better angels of our nature: social entrepreneurship.

For an example of this, take Macy’s “Shop For A Better World” site, which is about as direct a mission statement — and a plea — as one can hope to find.

Fairwinds Trading, a social enterprise that funds artisans in developing countries, partners with Macy’s to supply consumers with “gifts that give hope.”

Browsing the site, you’ll find “Heart of Haiti All-Horn Salad Servers” (for $42), or “Rwanda 10th Anniversary” woven baskets ($50-$60).  This may seem pricey, even for “culturally expressive” gifts, but consider that the artisans (that is, the Rwandans and Haitians making these salad servers and baskets) receive half of the wholesale price and suddenly, that price doesn’t seem so outlandish. In fact, spending that extra $20-$30 could leave you feeling pretty darn good.

And here you have the draw of social entrepreneurship. Because if you or your loved ones are going to be serving salad anyway, why not make sure you’re making the world a better place doing it?

The appeal of social entrepreneurship is that it blends traditional capitalism with solutions to societal problems big and small, like providing water to drought-stricken areas of the world or funding SMEs in Haiti. Through social entrepreneurship, start-ups blend business with creativity and create “shared value” — that is, not just economic value, but value to society.

But as widespread as the practice has become, social entrepreneurship lacks a clear definition. Wikipedia (which itself could be considered a social enterprise) defines it as “the attempt to draw upon business techniques to find solutions to social problems.” So, Kiva, which provides micro-loans to small business owners in developing nations, is a social enterprise, as is Fair Winds Trading, the company that supplies Macy’s with its Rwandan woven baskets, and (according to ashoka.com), Susan B. Anthony is a prime example of a social entrepreneur.

Wait, huh?

If that last example caused you to furrow your brow, you’re not alone. And that may be one of the problems confronting social entrepreneurship: if you can’t really define it, how do you know a good (or poor) example of it? How do you know if it’s working?

One way to look at it is that the consumer isn’t just purchasing a solution, but a story. For example, when you provide a $25 micro-loan with Kiva, not only do you get to personally select your borrower (each borrower is screened by Kiva and has a biography on their site), you get regular updates on how their business is going. It’s not just the appeal of lending money to a needy or deserving, but anonymous, business owner that draws people to Kiva, it’s that you get to ensure Judith from Kenya’s success by helping her buy cereals to sell at the market.

But not only can a good story convince a consumer to open up her wallet, in the case of Sejin Kaleb Oh, founder of Gravity LA, having what he calls a “higher purpose” can keep a business owner motivated.

Gravity LA is a pretty traditional clothing retailer, selling a handful of tees, pullovers, and tanks that are “reputable” and “sweat-shop free,” according to their site.

But click on their “about us” section of their page and you’ll find the following:

“GRAVITY LA was founded on December 21, 2013 to raise money to support those that are willing to leave their comfortable homes and venture out into the unknown and dangerous to bring hope, life, and love to those that are desperately in need of it.”

How do they do this?

According to Oh, they take a percentage of whatever profit they make and donate it to charity.

That’s pretty much it.

And as close as his charitable donations are to his heart, Oh doesn’t set a percentage, so he doesn’t advertise one, and even he says the purpose of the shop isn’t exclusively to raise funds for charity. But what these donations do give him is a cause to answer to when the going gets tough — as it often does for entrepreneurs.

“It’s the story of why I exist, or it’s the story of why Gravity LA exists,” said Oh.

“If you’re just out there for money,” Oh said, “you’re in the wrong business. Because you don’t really see any return on it for years. It’s really that purpose that keeps you going. And really, I don’t know how companies do exist without a story like that or without kind of purpose driving them. I think it’s vital for the life of any business.”

Tucked away in the quiet Arts District of downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) stands the aged brick alleyway of Daily Dose Café, which once served as the primary railroad passage to deliver goods in the city; however, it now operates as a local gathering place for the growing community of entrepreneurs, artists and young professionals settling in the area. A cluster of photographers stand at the entrance of the pathway setting up their camera equipment and preparing for a photo shoot, where a group of twenty-something year olds chat and sip their iced coffees at a nearby table. The image of downtown Los Angeles has radically changed within the last few decades. The Daily Dose Café and Arts District are prime examples of the changing socio-economic and physical landscapes that DTLA has undergone in recent years.

Timeworn structures ranging from the historic  on Broadway to the old, abandoned warehouses and factories that are scattered throughout the downtown area, especially in the Arts District, are being revitalized and transformed into lofts, hybrid industrial (HI) living and work spaces, restaurants, and bars to appease its latest residents. The redevelopment projects and revitalization efforts to repurpose these existing structures and urban neighborhoods would be considered one of the primordial stages of a process known as gentrification.

The newly renovated Clifton’s Cafeteria which reopened in September 2015 as a bar and restaurant.

Certainly there are both positive and negative sentiments that could be shared regarding the issue of gentrification depending on whom you ask. Dana Cuff, a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of California at Los Angeles, has stated that there are two problems that arise when gentrification occurs. The first problem that Cuff highlights would be housing affordability, and the second would be compromising the overall character of an existing neighborhood as a consequence of the method. Cuff has noted that individuals who own property in a neighborhood that is undergoing gentrification will always perceive the process positively, but those whom are renting or looking for new housing will experience the negative effects of the process. The practice of gentrification challenges the concept of social justice within a city amongst its residents. Gentrification leaves the lower-income residents in the city with no other option than to relocate, as they are now unable to afford the higher living costs of the area. As a result, this in turn causes individuals and families to either become homeless or are forced to transfer to higher crime rate neighborhoods that may leave them more susceptible to gang and street violence.

A few positive features often upheld regarding the justification of gentrification are that it can boost a city’s economic standing as well as establish a platform for the city to ultimately flourish. Gentrification generates jobs and property-tax revenue for a city. Cities and public figures are attracted to the concept of gentrification because it can guarantee monetary advances for the city. Loretta Lee, a professor of Human Geography at King’s College, disclosed the appeal of financial gains that gentrification presents for a city. Lee stated that gentrification aids in a city’s effort to garner tourist dollars, new residents and investors in the universal scale of capitalism and competition amongst cities. It has also been noted that gentrification reduces crime rates within cities as greater numbers of law enforcement are usually recruited to generate a sense of safety for its newest residents.

Both the positive and negative effects of gentrification could be experienced extensively within the City of Angels; the redevelopment process has even extended beyond the constraints of the central downtown area. Gentrification is occurring throughout the entire perimeters of Los Angeles County. It can be observed to the north of downtown around Echo Park and Silverlake, to the east around the Boyle Heights area and to the south and west near USC and Koreatown. There have been numerous articles published in recent years that investigate the latest desire that many young Americans possess to move to the golden coast. The New York Times recently published an article stating that many east coast natives are choosing to relocate to Los Angeles for the opportunities that are arising in the business, technology and creative industries. The influx of new residents wanting to settle in Los Angeles can be perceived positively as it will enhance the city’s economic standing, but it begs the question as to where the new occupants will reside. Therefore, there have been public hearings held at the Los Angeles City Hall recently regarding the proposal of investors and developers to begin improvement projects to the area east of downtown in hopes of transforming nonoperational factories and warehouses into hybrid industrial living and work spaces.

According to the demographics provided by the 2013 Downtown of Los Angeles Demographic study, which was published by the Downtown Center BID and the United States Census Bureau’s demographics for Los Angeles County, there are approximately 52,400 individuals that reside in downtown. Of these residents, the average household income figure is $98,700. The 2013 average household income amount is a huge increase when comparing it to the city’s 2007 average household income figure, which was around $54,000 (“Big Numbers and Big Money in Downtown Survey”). These statistics would indicate that neighborhoods in downtown have become primarily middle and upper class individuals and families. Higher housing costs would clearly create a large disparity between the type of individuals that would be residing downtown, and it would force those whom do not make enough income to move out of the area.

Gentrification is a part of our country’s past, present and will undoubtedly continue to be present in its future, and traces of gentrification can be identified in any major city within the United States. While some entities, such as civic leaders, encourage redevelopment efforts and gentrification as a measure to improve a city’s value, there remains a faction of others, such as low-income renters, whom oppose the process. Therefore, as citizens, we must truly evaluate at what cost we are paying for this change and to determine if it is really worth it both socially and economically?

Sources:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/gentrification-in-l-a-isn-t-about-hipsters-becoming-your-neighbors

http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/big-numbers-and-big-money-in-downtown-survey/article_16ec53d8-cda8-11e0-94dc-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/style/los-angeles-and-its-booming-creative-class-lures-new-yorkers.html?_r=0