Trump's legal battle.

To the allegations of hush money, Trump submitted a not guilty plea. Donald Trump, the former president, has been charged with 34 felonies, including violating election laws and falsifying company documents.He is accused of paying Stormy Daniels a hush sum of money prior to the 2016 election. Daniels also alleges having an affair with him. Trump intends to run for president in the upcoming election and claims this is a democratic consipracy to interface his elections. 

Although hush money payments are legal, the prosecutor claimed that Trump falsified his business's record and violated election laws by hiding the payments, which is against the law. If he is found guilty, each charge against him carries a four-year prison sentence.

This case may also have an effect on his chances of receiving the Republican presidential nominee and on his career in politics.

 

N.B.A. Blames Economy for Hiring Freeze and Budget Cuts

The N.B.A., citing “economic headwinds,” instructed league office staff on Tuesday to reduce expenses and significantly limit hiring for the rest of the fiscal year. The memo was sent by Kyle J. Cavanaugh, a league executive, and David Haber, the league’s chief financial officer. The memo said the N.B.A. was “facing a very different economic reality than just one year ago.” It continued, “We are seeing significant challenges to achieving our revenue budget with additional downside risk still in front of us.” The N.B.A.’s next fiscal year begins in October, roughly lining up with the start of the 2023-24 regular season. The NBA spokesman did not address which league initiatives would be affected by the cuts or layoffs. The changes come just before the N.B.A. playoffs and a day after the league noted setting a record for attendance and sellouts for the 2022-23 regular season. On April 1, the league and the players’ union announced that they had tentatively reached a new collective bargaining agreement that would go into effect next season. During negotiations, the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, an executive vice president in the union, told The Times that players wanted “more of a partnership” with the league, including the sharing of more of the N.B.A.’s revenue streams. Last year, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver said the league expected to take in roughly $10 billion in revenue for the 2021-22 season, between sponsors, television deals, attendance, merchandising and other revenue streams.

link: N.B.A. Blames Economy for Hiring Freeze and Budget Cuts - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Impacts of War on Yemen's Already Unstable Economy and the Integrative Recovery Approach

In 2014, the rebel group Houthis overtook the Yemeni government in a show of anti-Western sentiment. Since then, 14 percent of Yemeni civilians have been displaced, with countless others dead at the hands of terrorists. This post seeks to outline the impact of these atrocities on people's livelihoods and provide several possible solutions.

Hanna et al. (2021) find that nearly 60 percent of the countries 377,000 deaths have been caused indirectly by lack of access to food, water, and healthcare. Out of these deaths, most of them are children. If the war continues until 2030 (meaning that international intervention is a failure), then there will be an estimated 1.3 million deaths.

Hanna et al. (2021) recommend several strategies to fix the problem in the long term, including the Fragmented Recovery and the Integrated Recovery approaches. In this model, they posit that the Integrated Recovery model is ideal and should be pursued. Where as the Fragmented Recovery approach focuses on symptoms rather than root causes, the Integrated Recovery approach addresses the systemic causes underlying the conflict.

The Integrated Recovery approach involves including more women in the solution making; engaging the international community more effectively; better connecting the public and private sectors; and investing in key Yemeni economic sectors to boost productivity.

The integrative approach has the possibility to improve the lives of women and reduce poverty, which will prioritize sustainable peace and focus on the root causes of the conflict, namely weak institutional governance. While ambitious, Hanna et al. (2021) believe that it is the solution to fix Yemen's worsening social and economic situation.

https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/assessing-impact-war-yemen-pathways-recovery

NFL Draft

It is no secret that the NFL Draft is a major event for many athletes and tourists. The economic impact this event has on its hosted area is quite astonishing. This draft will take place in Kansas City for the year 2023 and it is expected to see around 350,000 visitors during this period. The city is expecting to see 62 million dollars spent on accommodation, 6 million on transportation, 17 million on foods and beverages, and 8.6 million in general business spending. With high numbers such as these, it has cities like Kansas City considering hosting events in the future like possible World Cup games. Large sporting events have a huge start-up cost, although the overall benefit of these events outway the initial costs. The overall economic impact of major sports events is continuously showing positive outcomes. More visitors to cities means more profit for local businesses and corporations. This is again good for the cities, but it also raises the question of where this money is going. On the exterior large cities might seem nice, although low-income neighborhoods are abundant within these same areas. If large cities were to take more sporting events like World Cup games into consideration would we see a change in something like this or would it only create more problems? It is easy to only focus on the large amount of money that is to come from hosting events. Therefore, there has to be a cost-benefit analysis done when looking to have large sports performances come to your city. There is a great economic benefit when hosting things like the NFL Draft, although many cities choose to keep away from the continuous flow of tourists. 

Source:

• Palmer, T. (2022, November 2). NFL Draft, World Cup each expected to generate $100m-plus in economic impact. KSHB 41 Kansas City News. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://www.kshb.com/sports/nfl-draft-world-cup-each-expected-to-generate-100m-plus-in-economic-impact#:~:text=%E2%80%94%20Both%20the%202023%20NFL%20Draft,according%20to%20Kansas%20City%2C%20Missouri.  

Chat GPT and the Economy

We have all heard by now about the artificial intelligence chatbot platform, Chat GPT. It has been quite a revolutionary development in the AI industry, but what impacts does/will it have on our economy? Many fear that the program will replace some jobs or even industries. However, it opens doors to completely new industries. AI Chatbots can lead to improvements in sustainability, education, science, entrepreneurship, and personal finance. 

It is unknown how large the effect will be, but it is undeniable that we will definitely see a change in our economy due to this technology. However, it is also important to make sure chatbots are used ethically and that any biases are eliminated from systems. 

https://innotechtoday.com/chat-gpt-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-ai-economy/

Elite Women Changing Basketball for Themselves

Women's basketball has never been big in todays society. Whether it is NCAA or WNBA, there has always been a big difference between its partnered men sports. As March Madness comes to an end, we have  witnessed a shift in women's basketball as it continues to get bigger and bigger. 

Well before last weekend, it was clear that the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament of this year would go down in history. Discussions over the best player have been blooming. The level of play is really high. Most significantly, there are more viewers than ever before.It’s worth celebrating that viewership for women’s basketball is skyrocketing, even though eyes on the men's game has declined.

ESPN said viewership for the women’s Sweet 16 was up 73% compared to last year, averaging 1.2 million viewers per game. Elite 8 viewership was up 43% for an average of 2.2 million per game.

Not only are more people watching the women's game at home, but it will also cost more money to attend the women's Final Four in person than the men's Final Four. The lowest price for tickets to both women's games on StubHub as of Thursday was $428 before fees, while the lowest price for both the men's games was $68.

Meanwhile, secondary market prices for the women's semifinal and final in Dallas this weekend more than doubled compared to 2022 figures, according to ticketing technology company Logitix. The price per ticket for the semifinal was $367, up 120% over 2022. And the price for the final was $351, up 103% over the prior year.

Secondary market prices for the men's semifinal was down 26% from last year to $819 and down 28% for the final to $415.

The demand for women's sports is increasing, which is fantastic and shows that if you invest in it, fans will come.

Social Security Benefits Cut Off

     Social Security Benefits are forecasted to runout in 2031. Social Securities are paying out more in benefits than it is collecting in pay roles and interest. As the baby boomers continue to age there are fewer people working and fewer people paying into the system. The trust fund is going to run out cash for the system in about ten years. If this happens, everyone that relies on social securities checks will have theres cut by about 23%. So, do we need to raise taxes or cut benefits or higher the retirement age to help this foreseeable crisis?

    Politicians have not been looking into this whatsoever. Apparently it is way too far down the line to focus into for a parties four year term. Economists say the sooner we focus upon this crisis the sooner it gets solved. The later we got focus upon this crisis the worse it will get and the harder it will be to solve. 

    Most economists suggest not to look into something directly, but to look at all aspects. For example, instead of cutting out a big chunk of retirement (401k), cut a little from retirement, raise taxes a little and increase payroll. Maybe you even decrease benefits from upper class people. If wealthy people already have a lot of money in their retirement, why do they need social security?

To conclude, Social Security benefits and medicare is something retirees rely on. We cannot just take that away from them. This matter needs to be dealt with sooner than later.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167378958/social-security-medicare-entitlement-programs-budget

UK firms report surge in orders amid signs of economic recovery

 Demand is rising for UK businesses, raising hopes for economic recovery following what could be a recession by the end of 2022. A survey of more than 900 businesses by the Institute of Directors revealed growth in all industries, raising the possibility that the economy will perform better than expected in the first quarter of 2023. 50% of businesses report that order books are in better shape now than they were at the end of 2022. Despite regional variations in annual inflation rates, this high demand could result in inflation remaining higher than anticipated. The UK avoided entering a technical recession in the second half of 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics, despite the economy contracting by 0.1% and increasing by 0.1% in both the third and fourth quarters. The UK economy has remained largely flat since early 2022 despite revisions, and it is still 0.6% smaller than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/31/uk-avoids-recession-as-economy-stronger-than-first-thought-at-end-of-2022

PlayStation 5 Sales Dominate the Competition

 PlayStation 5's are one of the most popular and fast selling consoles of today's current generation of consoles. The sales for Sony's console are only increasing as they start to become more available in general stores. Although sales are starting to climb, PS5 sales at, 32 million units, are still behind PS4 sales that were sitting at 37 million units in the same time period.

    The early shortages of the gaming console showed just how high the demand was for it, and how much more production would be needed for the console. Now with more production sales have dramatically increased with 7.1 million consoles sold compared to the 3.9 million in the previous year's quarter. The PlayStation 5's success is no surprise, as the PS4 outsold every other gaming console, including the Xbox One, at a rate of 2 PlayStation's to 1 Xbox. The estimates for console sales were PlayStation 4's at 117 million, Xbox One's at around 51-58 million, and Nintendo selling around 114 million since the year 2017.

    Sony's consoles are one of their strong suites and will more than likely continue to dominate competitors for a couple of years with the PlayStation 5. The Xbox Series X is not being as sold out as bad as the Xbox One, but is down 12 million units currently. Although it is important to note that Xbox does have over 25 million subscribers to their Xbox game pass. With this in mind the gap will probably only increase as time goes on and more bundles and discounts come out for the PlayStation 5.

It’s 32 Million PS5 Sales To How Many Xbox Sales, Exactly? (forbes.com)

    

The Fall of Credit Suisse

     Those of us in America have most likely already heard about the collapse of SVB bank, but this was not the only financial institution who hit a roadblock, as the global investment bank Credit Suisse also ran into hard times. Unlike SVB, Credit Suisse is still operating, but only after massive help from the Swedish central bank, and after being bought out by UBS Group AG (another large bank based in Sweden). In the end, over 15 billion dollars in bonds will be defaulted on. While the cause of this financial trouble is not 100% known, this article takes the controversial view of placing the blame on government regulations, specifically a drastic increase in the money supply and the adoption of low interest rates (sometimes even negative) for too long of a period. As the article states, the central banks set the stage "for a collapse by creating untenable economic conditions in the form of an artificial boom fueled by a drastic increase in the money supply," combined with, "The SNB’s [Swiss National Bank] near-fifteen-year suppression of interest rates," leading to, "all kinds of financial absurdities, such as negative-yielding 50-year government bonds, 0 percent unsecured corporate bonds, and near–0 percent mortgages." These policies, "have resulted in Swiss markets pricing themselves upon the lowest rates seen in five thousand years." The house of cards starting to collapse in the second quarter of 2022 when Sweden started to see a rise in their CPI, causing them to finally raise their interest rates and trim their balance sheet. Now, less than a year later, "with interest rates having barely risen above 0 percent from the previous negative percent rates, economic growth is pointing toward imminent recession, and the country’s second largest bank just required a central bank–sponsored rescue." Unfortuanatley, the author also doesn't see this as a one-off issue, stating that, "The dissolution of Credit Suisse is far from the end of this business cycle’s financial crisis, as negative interest rate policies were not unique to Switzerland, having been implemented across Europe and in Japan. Other 'too big to fail' megabanks will likely face the same fate as Credit Suisse, pushing central banks to intervene in order to provide just enough moral hazard to ignite another artificial boom." 

https://mises.org/wire/credit-suisse-collapsed-because-government-intervention-not-despite-it