NFL Protests affect Papa John's Sales

The Papa John's CEO, John Schnatter, came out last week and commented on the NFL kneeling protest and talked about how he is blaming the NFL for mishandling the protests which has decreases the sales recently.  This in my opinion is a big problem with the NFL because Papa John's is the NFL's biggest pizza sponsor and if they this keeps up I feel like Papa John's will eventually try and move away from the NFL if these protests continue to occur.  Even the ratings of the NFL games has decreases by 5% during the first five weeks and down 18.7% from 2015.  NFL is going to need to figure out what to do with the protests because if companies keep feeling like the NFL is going to affect their business and sales numbers than many will try and stay as far from the NFL because they do not want their sales number to decrease.  Roger Goodell should begin handing out fines in my opinion to the players who kneel during the national anthem to try and finally put a halt to the protests.  The players need to see that them kneeling is doing more bad than good, it is causing problems with the number of viewers each week and the merchandise and ticket sales that have been decreasing from week to week.  John Schnatter made a good mood going public with his own opinion about how the protests is affecting his business in a bad way and needs to try and get the NFL to make some type of change.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2017/11/01/papa-johns-ceo-blames-nfl-declining-sales-due-mishandling-anthem-protests/821368001/

October jobs report in U.S. reveals healthy economy, but wage growth disappoints

The creation of new jobs is always a big political battle of which party can do the best. So far during the month of October 261,000 jobs were created which is down from the predicted 310,000. This isn't a big deal to economists because of the hurricane damage through the month of September possibly holding up the creation of jobs in some parts of the country. Economists even say the country is doing better than industry expectations which is good news for now. One problem found during the month of October is the wage growth rate is down from 2.4% to 2.8%. Which is big news as the fed is reportedly planning an interest rate hike in December to combat inflation pressures. It will be interesting to see what the month of November brings as many changes are being put into place for the countries economy.


https://russellinvestments.com/us/insights/market-week-in-review?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIopy2oLO61wIV2IqzCh2wnQI8EAAYASAAEgIjLfD_BwE

Regulators begin to tackle the craze for initial coin offerings

After Floyd Mayweather made the first celebrity endorsement of cryptocurrency via Instagram in July, “stox.com” (an online prediction market) went on to raise $30 million, some of which went straight in to Floyds pocket. As of November 1^st, the SEC warned those affiliated of the unlawfulness of some of these promotions if the celebrities fail to report compensation numbers.

                  Over the past 12 months, $3.3 bn has been raised in more than 200 ICOs, which is the new rage compared to IPOs according the Coinschedule, a data provider in cryptocurrency. A former securities regulator stated, “Regulators have never seen a new financial product explode with the speed and velocity of ICOs.” Supervisors in China and South Korea have already outlawed ICOs due to a heavy tie to gambling cultures. Legally things are complicated surrounding these coins. A University of Pennsylvania Wharton School professor addresses that the SEC argues that the technology is irrelevant; when tokens are used to raise funds, they are securities. ICOs are initially used to raise funds but have been akin to produce raw finances for projects which bring to question the treatment of such money that can be used both ways.

                  The challenge here is to convince the SEC that these tokens are in fact “utility tokens” that initially raise funds but are now seen as investments, watching values skyrocket. A company, Tezos (coin logo above), had raised $232 million to finance another blockchain, but one with a sophisticated governance system that killed bitcoin. Ironically the company has become a token-financed system that ran into many governance issues. The company is currently in a public quarrel with the head of the foundation and how it should be run. The founders are facing suits from an ICO contributor who is accusing breaches of security law. Other block chains  have now taken action to prepare for such issues, Blockstack will not be like Tezos by launching without pre-sale and installing a discount. Only time will tell if Blockstack will solve the breach issues or join Tezos as suit-stricken block chain oriented firms.

https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21731157-they-raise-difficult-legal-questions-regulators-begin-tackle-craze

Housing Market

Although investor confidence went through the roof after President trump election and there was a spike in the labor market and stock market. The housing market didn't get the same economic spike like so many other industries. With Trumps anti immigration law labor has become scare for construction companies leading to higher prices of housing. Also the new tax plan looks to cut deductions for homeownership which could also cause a spike in housing prices. scarcity of material and more expensive building permits have also hurt the housing industry. These high prices on homes has hurt consumers confidence of the market. hopefully The housing market bounces back.

U.S. ends fiscal 2017 with $666 billion budget deficit

The trump administration is pushing a tax cut bill because they believe that the economic growth we are experiencing could pay for it and continue to push the economy forward. In 2017, the US has already increased the budget deficit by 3.5% (80 billion) of gross domestic product. The outlays of this increase were dedicated to social security, Medicare, and Medicaid along with spending on spending for hurricane relief. Therefore, it is important to pay attention the effects of a tax cut in the economy. Although income will rise as an effect, businesses will suffer. 

We know that the tax cut will increase the US deficit. However, the trump administration is confident that economic growth will offset this deficit. As we have learned in class, tax cuts increase income and propensity to consume, but raise interest rates causing investment to crowd out. Although raising income is a good thing, we have also learned that business growth (investment) fluctuates more than other factors for the economy which means that this variable affects growth more than anything else. I hope that this tax cut does not crowd out investment as much as to create consequences from which the economy suffers.

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Las Vegas Travel Bookings Decline After Shooting

Since the shooting in Las Vegas travel to the area has dropped pretty significantly, the min factor obviously being that many feel it is unsafe immediately following the shooting. Although some companies also have pulled marketing due to the shooting which also would impact their overall sales. MGM expects their sales to decline about 5% in the 4th quarter for 2017, they also argue everything has returned to relatively normal even though airlines are still down 10-20% in overall bookings to Las Vegas. So for airlines the questions is really is when will it go back to normal? What should the airlines do to speed up the progress, personally I would lower prices to fly to Las Vegas and/or offer package offers with casinos that are also being hit by this lack of traffic. Only time will tell how Las Vegas's tourism industry recovers.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/travel-bookings-to-las-vegas-decline-after-shooting-1510356782

Disneyland shuts down cooling towers over Legionnaires' cases

Disneyland in LA was forced to shut down two cooling towers after an outbreak of legionnaires disease (a disease caused by Legionella bacteria and can be found in water systems) Health officials stated that 9 people developed the disease when they visited the park back in September. According to Dr. Pamela Hymel, chief medical officer for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, “the towers were shut down after Disney was contacted by the county health care agency on October 27 about increased Legionnaires' cases in Anaheim.We conducted a review and learned that two cooling towers had elevated levels of Legionella bacteria," Hymel said. As of right now, the towers will remain shut down until they are verified to be free from contamination which could take up to two weeks.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/12/health/disneyland-legionnaires-anaheim/index.html

As digital payments spread, the cash lobby raises its voice

Many companies have pushed toward consumers using plastic or their smart phones to make payments because it is safer, cheaper, and more convenient, they argue. Companies in the cash industry, however, disagree and are fighting to keep cash as the preferred form of payment. These companies depend on cash for the livelihood of their business and want to keep cash around. The article points out that the cash production isn't in trouble exactly because the value of currency help by the public has been rising as a percentage of GDP in the U.S. A survey by the Federal Reserve revealed that Americans had an average of $59 in cash at any given time.  Why is cash continue to be popular? Some point to the low interest rates that have created little incentive to put cash in banks. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change in future years with forms of digital payment continue to grow in popularity.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/11/news/economy/cash-digital-payments/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom

An optimistic economic outlook despite low Trump approval ratings

Americans have the most positive view of the economy since 9/11, but Trump's approval ratings are the lowest of any post-WWII president.  Across both political parties, 68% of Americans see the economy headed in a positive direction.  Meanwhile, Trump's approval ratings dropped to an almost unprecedented 36%. 

The discrepancy between economic outlook and presidential approval has occurred for the last three presidents at certain times in their presidencies, but the two have an undeniable correlation.  Views on the economy generally affects presidential approval, and presidential approval generally leads to more positive views on the economy.  The current discrepancy could indicate the public view of the economy as unrelated to the president, further decreasing the likelihood of reelection.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/09/politics/trump-approval-economy/index.html

The global economy is booming. Here’s what that means

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/the-global-economy-is-booming-heres-what-that-means.html

The global economic health has been in continuous growth, according to International Monetary Funds forecasts, due to strong global economies. Fewer countries have fallen into a recession this year, which is the lowest level in decades. What this means is that more countries have increasing GDP’s and their trading and industrial activities are increasing which is leading to an overall healthy economy. Torsten Slok, Chief International Economist for Deutsche Bank, says ‘the economy has never been in better shape”. We are going to see fewer countries falling into a recession. However, Slok says that just because the future global economy is predicted to keep growing this doesn’t mean that the stock markets will also have a promising growth. The global economies biggest risk to its recovery is inflation, which is low, but shows signs of picking up in the upcoming years. The rise in inflation could ultimately lead the Fed to increase interest rates faster than what the market is expecting which could cause the stock market to slow down its growth.

            A healthy global economy could lead to many promising things such as higher GDP for countries and more favorable trade overall. This favorable trade would help decrease the amount of recessions throughout the world, which is a huge reason why a global economy would cease to grow. The result would be that many more countries will have an overall higher standard of living because of a decrease in unemployment and an increase in disposable income and output, which could lead to more consumption. This healthy global economy could also lead to a lower trade deficit which leads to a lower cost of borrowing and increased capital to make more investments in business ventures, manufacturing plants and infrastructures. All these factors are helpful in a growing global economy, because the world economies are more intertwined operating more and more like one big system.