How does the NFL Impact our Economy?

 How Does the NFL Impact Our Economy?

Jeremy Skoug

Football is by far one of the most popular sports to watch in America. Every Sunday is greeted by parties where people get together to watch their favorite team. At the end of the season most of the country watches the Super Bowl and all the interesting ads that come with it. As such a popular pastime for so many people, it’s no surprise that the NFL has an enormous impact on our economy. In fact, the NFL generates the highest revenue out of any league in the world, as you can see in the visual below.

As you can see, in the 2015-16 season, the NFL brought in $13 billion, which is $3.5 billion more than the next highest league, and $7.7 billion more than any foreign sports league. The NFL is also growing, as in the 2018-19 season they generated around $15 billion in revenue. With this large amount of revenue, the NFL brings money to the local economies of all 32 teams and creates thousands of seasonal jobs at the stadiums. The NFL has TV contracts with Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN, all of which amount to almost $5 billion of annual revenue. The average NFL city in 2011 generated $5 million per game, bringing tourism to even the worst teams in the league. The NFL pays every team the same amount of money from TV contracts, so even bad teams will still bring money to their organizations. Ticket sales, concessions, and merchandise also provide a source of revenue to teams with the die hard fan base that most teams have regardless of their record. Then the Super Bowl comes around which is a must-watch for any sports fan. Companies spend millions of dollars for ads to be played during the Super Bowl, and these ads are seen by millions of people across the country, bringing business to these companies. Some people who aren’t sports fans will watch the Super Bowl just for the ads. And with a price tag of over $5 million for a 30-second ad, it makes sense that these ads have to be enticing. Super Bowl 54 had 99.9 million viewers--that’s almost a third of the entire population of the country. With that many people viewing ads, businesses are bound to make more money, which increases the GDP and consumer confidence. 

The NFL also creates thousands of jobs throughout the country. Not only does every team have players, coaches, and team staff that make money, they also have seasonal workers at the stadiums. These consist of part time concession workers, janitors, security guards, ushers and more. It is estimated that the league creates about 110,000 jobs in NFL cities between the around 4,000 part time workers each stadium employs and the local hotel and surrounding business owners. An NFL team is a very big contributor to a local economy. Football games bring tourists to not only the stadium, but lots of restaurants and other businesses in the area. When these businesses make more money, they grow and hire more workers, helping to work towards full employment and increasing demand as more people make more money. According to an article by Mazin Ali, a Cleveland steakhouse gets 5 times the business on a Browns game day. This results in them doubling the wait staff, so more part time workers are making money. In addition to this, if you watch football, you know that the Browns are generally not a very good team. The referenced article was written in 2019, when the Browns were 6-10. The year before that they were 7-8-1, and before that 0-16. This is a team that does not usually have success, but they still bring in $63 million a year and always sell out. 

When looking at the overall economy, it is important to consider the money that is brought in by professional sports leagues, because they are really just big businesses. The NFL is the most profitable league in the world, and it brings a lot of positive economic changes to cities with a team, as well as the country as a whole. 

Works Cited

Ali, Mazin. “How American Football Affects the U.S. Economy.” Financial Services, 16 Sept. 2019, cyberbooks.co/nfl/.

Coster, Helen. “Super Bowl TV Audience Rises Slightly to 99.9 Million Viewers.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 3 Feb. 2020, www.reuters.com/article/us-football-nfl-superbowl-ratings/super-bowl-tv-audience-rises-slightly-to-99-9-million-viewers-idUSKBN1ZX2LI.

“The Economics of the NFL.” Etonomics, 27 Nov. 2019, etonomics.com/2019/11/27/the-economics-of-the-nfl/#:~:text=The%20sheer%20scale%20of%20audience,of%20sports%20in%20the%20USA.

Kutz, Steven. “NFL Took in $13 Billion in Revenue Last Season - See How It Stacks up against Other pro Sports Leagues.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 2 July 2016, www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nfl-made-13-billion-last-season-see-how-it-stacks-up-against-other-leagues-2016-07-01. 

How War Impacts the Economy

 How War Impacts the Economy

By - Caden Rachwal

Warfare has a huge impact on the economy. There is a decline in the working population, there can be loss of buildings and businesses, rise in debt and also there is disruption to normal economic activities. In many cases war leads to inflation. In turn when the inflation rises, people lose their savings that they have built up. To give an example of when war impacted the economy by creating inflation would be when during the Civil War, the confederacy printed money to pay their soldiers which made the value of money in the economy to decline. Inflation will often wipe out people’s entire savings.

 

War also can cause a rapid rise in national debt. The reason that the debt increases is because in an effort to win the war, countries will end up borrowing more money than they normally would. World War One and World War Two caused a lot of national debt for the United Kingdom. After both of these world wars, the national debt rose very sharply. At the end of World War Two, the national debt rose to 150 percent and by the early 1950s the national debt was up to 240 percent.  The reason that the debt was so high for the UK was because they borrowed money from the United States during World War Two and then after the war was over they started to pay these loans back. Since the United States was not involved in the first two years of the war, they did not lose as much money because they were able to sell weapons and supplies to the UK during the first two years. Another thing to make a note of would be to note the opportunity cost of war. If the government spends 300 billion dollars on weapons and on military spending, that is 300 billion dollars that could have been spent on healthcare or education or put back into the economy to benefit the country in other ways. For brief amounts of time, war can boost the domestic economy. It provides full employment, higher economic growth, increased rate of innovation because the military is inventing new and better technology, and it also will boost domestic demand. There are other ways how warfare can impact the economy, but these are the most common and influential ways. 

Works Cited

Pettinger, Tejvan, et al. “Economic Impact of War.” Economics Help, 10 Mar. 2020, www.economicshelp.org/blog/2180/economics/economic-impact-of-war/.

says, Bill Hendrick, et al. “Confederate Inflation Rates (1861 - 1865).” InflationData.com, 13 Nov. 2019, inflationdata.com/articles/confederate-inflation/. 

Is Social Security Running Out?

 Is Social Security Running Out?

Patrick Merkel

Is the benefit plan going to go broke before our generation is able to take advantage of it?

Social Security has long been a program that retired Americans rely on for a basic level of monthly income. Created in 1935 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it created provisions for retired Americans to receive about $17.50 per month. Today, that number is up to $3148.00. In 2020, the Social Security Administration distributed over $1 trillion to about 65 million people, and those numbers are only going up. The issue is, the number of people supplying Social Security with funds is a decreasing proportion of the population, and the number of people receiving benefits is an increasing proportion. The groups were 62% and 16% of the total population, respectively, in 2018. Driven by the retiring of the Baby Boom generation, they are projected to be 57% supplying and 23% receiving the funds by 2060. In addition to the number of people collecting benefits, people are collecting them for longer. When FDR created the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 1935, the age for full retirement benefits was 65. The life expectancy was only 63 for women and just 59 for men, meaning most people didn’t even live long enough to claim their benefits. In 2017, the life expectancy for women was 81 and 76 for men, which means that on average today, people claim their benefits for 10-15 years. Because of these reasons, the SSA estimates that reserve funds, not to be confused with immediate funds explained below, will run dry by 2035 if no changes are made. 

The Social Security program is funded mainly through two taxes. The first is the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), which taxes workers’ incomes at 6.2%. Employers match this tax for a total of 12.4%. The second tax is the Self Employed Contributions Act (SECA), which is for those who are self employed. They are taxed the full 12.4% (although many can deduct 6.2% from this as business costs). They are flat taxes and only tax income up to $142,800. These taxes are the immediate funds, received and paid out again, and will not run out so long as FICA and SECA are in effect. The money from these two taxes is paid out to the beneficiaries of the Social Security program on a pay-as-you-go system, meaning money we pay today to the SSA is paid out or invested today. The taxes we pay to Social Security are not stored in an individual account for when we retire. If the SSA collects more money than it pays out, the surplus is invested through the Social Security Trust Fund into US Treasury bonds, earning interest. These bonds have a low yield, but are extremely safe. This trust fund makes up the reserve funds, which are invested to earn a return. In 2019, the Trust Fund brought in over $80 billion in interest on the bonds. Historically, the full interest from the Trust Fund was re-invested in bonds as well. 

For many years, the SSA collected more money than it paid out and was able to put the surplus money into the Trust Fund, or the reserve funds. In other words, the immediate funds covered the full cost of the benefits being paid out, and no reserve funds had to be spent. But in 2010, the immediate funds collected were not enough to cover the total cost of the Social Security program. Some of the interest from the Trust Fund had to be used to cover the gap between the income and the expense. While not ideal, this was still a sustainable system, as some of the interest could still be reinvested in bonds, growing the Trust Fund. At the end of 2019, the Trust Fund had reached a high of $2.9 trillion. However, 2020 changed this. This past year, the gap between the money collected and the benefits paid out was too large to bridge with just the interest on the bonds. The SSA had to reach into the Trust Fund, or the reserve funds, to pay for the program, as depicted on the graph where the dashed line is equal to the red area in 2019, signaling an inability of the interest to bridge the gap any longer. This is only sustainable for the next 15 years, at which point the reserve funds will run dry. This does not mean that Social Security will be out of money, but it does mean that the SSA will not be able to cover the scheduled benefits entirely; it is estimated that at that time the SSA will only be able to pay between 76-79% of the scheduled benefits from the FICA and SECA revenue (the blue area of the chart). 

This almost happened just one other time in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s when the Trust Fund dropped to just $24 billion ($64 billion adjusted for inflation). In 1983, Congress reformed the program with changes such as increasing the age at which one can claim full benefits and increasing the percentage of taxes paid to Social Security (raised from 5.4% to the current 6.2%). 

The SSA must implement some changes to the program if it is to continue operating at full capacity. While many facets of the program could be altered, there are two changes that stand out. First, the tax ceiling should be increased. Currently, only the first $142,800 of income is taxed for social security, while anything above this level is not taxed. This ceiling is adjusted annually for inflation, but if the ceiling were raised higher than the inflation rate, more payroll taxes would be collected. At the same time, if the tax rate stayed constant, those who are struggling to make ends meet would not be affected; only those who make over $142,000 would be affected. Second, the SSA should slowly raise the age at which full benefits can be claimed. This will be unpopular with the ages that will have to wait an extra year to claim their benefits, but it will provide valuable savings for the Social Security Trust Funds. If implemented correctly, each group of people born in a particular year would only wait one extra year before claiming full benefits. Even if these two changes prove to be insufficient in solving the underlying issues, they will provide the SSA with the time it needs to more effectively reform the system to reliably provide the benefits people depend on for many decades to come. What do you think of these changes? Are there others that could be more beneficial?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund (Image only)

Works Cited

DeWitt, Larry. “The History And Development Of The Social Security Retirement Earnings Test.” Social 

Security, Social Security Administration, Aug. 1999, https://www.ssa.gov/history/ret2.html.

Epstein, Lita. “How Secure is Social Security?” Investopedia, DotDash, 26 Nov. 2020, 

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/120415/how-secure-social-security.asp.

Folger, Jean. “Why Is Social Security Running Out of Money?” Investopedia, DotDash, 15 Oct. 2020, 

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/071514/why-social-security-running-out-money.asp.

Markowitz, Andy. “10 Myths and Misconceptions About Social Security.” AARP, AARP, 22 Sept. 2020, 

www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2020/10-myths-explained.html.

Sigalos, MacKenzie. “How Social Security Invests Its Money – and Why It May Run out of Cash Really 

Soon.” CNBC, CNBC, 1 Dec. 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/12/01/why-social-security-may-run-out-of-cash-really-soon.html.

“Trust Fund Operations.” Social Security, Social Security Administration, 

https://www.ssa.gov/history/ret2.html.

How bad are cigarettes for our country?

 How bad are cigarettes for our country?

Leo Desidero

Everyone knows that cigarettes are expensive, unhealthy, and cause many problems for people in the United States. No matter how bad something is, there is always a benefit for having it. 

Cigarettes are a piece of paper wrapped around a plant called tobacco. Tobacco contains a seriously addictive substance called nicotine which is what keeps smokers hooked to them. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? It wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the other chemicals inside cigarettes. In fact, a chemical called arsenic is used in cigarettes. Arsenic is a chemical primarily used in rat poison. In your body this chemical disrupts the movement of ATP which prevents the body from making energy. This is what gives some smokers that relaxed and calm feeling when smoking. Other chemicals such as benzene, hexamine, and butane are all found inside the little piece of paper. All these components sound bad but what can they actually do to your body? Around 70 of the 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette cause lung cancer. Smoking can also tighten vital arteries in your heart which can cause heart disease. These side effects can lead to easy deaths. The amount of deaths worldwide related to tobacco usage are presented in this graph. 

Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health and can easily lead to an early death. However, cigarettes are very good for the economy. Cigarettes are very expensive. The average cost of a pack of cigarettes around the country is $6.28. Combine that with 35 million Americans that smoke regularly and you have yourself a good amount of money. The United States makes roughly $12 billion dollars per year from cigarettes alone. This contributes to our economy. Philip Morris of Philip Morris International stated, “smokers are doing their country a huge favour by boosting tax revenue, dying early, and not drawing a pension.” The manager of a big time tobacco company congratulated his customers for killing themselves for the country. To delve deeper into that topic, chemotherapy is a very expensive procedure that does generate more money as well. It can go as high as $12,000 per month. Cigarettes are a big part of the economy and really make money for our government. The American Tobacco Company held a monopoly in the United States for a brief time. In 1890m, the company developed smoking tobacco and quickly took over. It was unmatched in its business. It had complete control over the tobacco industry. In 1911 the company was disbanded by the government. 

Cigarettes are a mixed bag for the United States. They create money and jobs but also kill lots of people and cause people to lose lots of money. To actually come to a definitive answer, cigarettes are okay for our country. Cigarettes are a tool of self harm. No one makes you smoke cigarettes and waste your money except for you. Cigarettes have been around for a long time contributing to lots of our communities money. 

Works Cited

“Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults in the United States.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 Dec. 2020, www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm#:~:text=In 2019, nearly 14 of,with a smoking-related disease.

“Deaths.” Tobacco Atlas, 21 Nov. 2018, tobaccoatlas.org/topic/deaths/.

“Health Effects of Smoking.” American Lung Association, www.lung.org/quit-smoking/smoking-facts/health-effects/smoking.

Jr., Robert W. Carter. “American Tobacco Company.” NCpedia, www.ncpedia.org/american-tobacco-company.

Kmietowicz, Z. “Tobacco Company Claims That Smokers Help the Economy.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), BMJ, 21 July 2001, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120774/#:~:text=Smokers are doing their country,the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Bitcoin

 Bitcoin

By Ethan Warbelton

In the world of stocks, bonds, real estate, and gold investments, one option has popped up in the last century or so: cryptocurrency. It all started in 2009 when Bitcoin was released, and since then, countless other companies have tried to launch cryptocurrencies of their own, but none of them truly stand up to Bitcoin. As you can probably tell, Bitcoin has no physical appearance, just all ones and zeroes collected in a digital wallet. It doesn’t sound very special, does it? Well, Bitcoin actually has many perks compared to normal money!

Firstly, it's completely decentralized, free of any governments or financial institutions-- if you want to trade, transactions are made peer-to-peer-- you send the bitcoin straight to the person you’re paying. This means that there’s no big transaction fees, and they can be done in minutes. Another perk is security and privacy-- with no central authority, there’s nobody to spy on your transactions, and fraud is much less common. Of course, this privacy also means that Bitcoin has been used for more illegal transactions, which is one of the main complaints on the platform.

As mentioned above, Bitcoin is also traded and invested in frequently, just like stocks. I won’t lie, I don’t think I’m personally ever going to invest in Bitcoin-- it’s an extremely volatile market! Just on January 11th, the price has plummeted more than 20% per Bitcoin. Still, Bitcoin is predicted to grow just as it has been this past year. Ever since Covid, the price of Bitcoin has more than quadrupled in price, now worth almost 35k dollars each. 

Cryptocurrencies likely aren’t going away anytime soon, so if you’d like to, consider investing in one! Who knows, it might boom just like Bitcoin did, and leave you a millionaire… just don’t get carried away and invest everything into it, or depend on Bitcoin investments to really pay off strongly, as it always has the chance of crashing and burning. 

(Also, it feels lIke I should mention that you don’t need to buy a whole Bitcoin to invest, you can just buy a part of one. Good luck!)

Works Cited

EBR, Editor. “What Is Bitcoin, and What Are the Reasons behind Its Rising Popularity?” The European Business Review, 23 Nov. 2020, www.europeanbusinessreview.com/what-is-bitcoin-and-what-are-the-reasons-behind-its-rising-popularity/.

Lill, Dominic. “Dominic Lill.” Entrepreneur Business Website Talk Business Small Medium Business Advice Tips SME Success, 10 Dec. 2020, www.talk-business.co.uk/2018/03/26/why-is-bitcoin-so-popular/.

Monica, Paul R. La. “Bitcoin Plunges More than 20% in Three Days. It's Now in a Bear Market.” CNN, Cable News Network, 11 Jan. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/investing/bitcoin-prices-plunge/index.html.

“Open Source P2P Money.” Bitcoin, bitcoin.org/en/.

Preparing to buy a house

 Preparing to buy a house 

Written by: Joe K. 

Buying a house is one of the most important purchases, and the most expensive purchase, that people will make in their lifetime. Preparation is key for making any big purchases like this. To begin you will obviously need to save money, build your credit score, determine your budget and stick with it to aid you.

Saving money is super important to buying a house. Almost every mortgage requires some kind of down payment. The minimum is 3.5% of the asking price for an FHA home loan. Down payments range from $5,000 to $25,000 because you have to pay 3-5% of the loan and 2-5% for closing costs too. If the asking price of a house is about $250,000 you will need a $12,500 down payment and $7,500 in closing costs. Which totals to $20,000 that you would need to have up front. Planning for a big investment, such as a house by saving up money early on will help a lot in the buying process. In addition, if you don’t put 20% down for a down payment you will most likely need to buy mortgage insurance, which can make the entire process more expensive.

Secondly, knowing and improving your credit profile is an important thing to consider when buying a house. Your credit score is what determines if you are eligible for a mortgage. Also, your credit score can have an impact on your mortgage rate. The higher your score is, the lower mortgage rate you will receive. Most mortgages have a minimum credit score between 580 and 620. Knowing your credit score and improving it is hugely important because it can be guaranteed that it will be harder to pay off your new house with a mortgage in full. Meaning, you would most likely have to take out a loan for your house. The lower the interest rate the better because it will be easier to pay it in full quicker.

Like we talked about in class plenty of times, having a budget and sticking to it is incredibly important. A budget will help you to stay on top of saving money so that you are able to afford your house and the down payment as well. You can use an online mortgage calculator to estimate affordability. Calculators can help you to determine your monthly payment based on a number of factors. This includes the home price, down payment amount, interest rate, loan term, and other monthly mortgage expenses like homeowner’s insurance and property taxes. Once you have figured out what you can afford within your budget you can then estimate how much to save for your down payment and closing costs.

Saving money, knowing and building your credit score, and sticking to a budget can help prepare you to buy a house. Saving money allows you to pay for the down payment and closing costs easily. Following a budget will help to save money and make sure you can still afford everyday expenses. Budgeting also helps the ability to buy a house in a timely manner. Finally, high credit scores make taking out loans of any kind easier, and also allow for lower interest rates, which is why it is so important to build your credit score as soon as possible.

Works Cited

“8 Things You Can Do Now To Prepare For Buying A House.” Mortgage Rates, Mortgage News and Strategy : The Mortgage Reports, 2 Dec. 2020, themortgagereports.com/68062/8-things-to-do-now-to-prepare-to-buy-a-house. 

“Determine Your down Payment.” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/process/prepare/determine-your-down-payment/#:~:text=In%20most%20cases%2C%20you%20need,down%20at%20least%2020%20percent. 

The National Debt and How to Fix it

The National Debt and How to Fix it

Written by: Will Nysse 

The national debt is currently higher than it’s ever been and that will remain true until we make some sizable changes in the economy. Before we tackle how that can be done allow me to explain the national debt a bit. As you likely know, a national debt occurs when a government is running a deficit for an extended period of time, that is to say that the government spends more than they collect in a given fiscal year. The national debt as of writing this post is about $27.8 trillion. Why is that? 

There have been multiple factors: one being politics. It has been politically trendy in recent years, especially through the previous administration, has been to push for tax cuts or increasing government spending, and general expansionary fiscal policies. When executing these policies, the economy grows. However, continually enacting policies of this nature can cause the economy to stop growing due to things like inflation. Cutting taxes and increasing government spending both contribute to the deficit because cutting taxes decreases government collection and increasing spending speaks for itself. 

Beyond how the debt was acquired, who it is owed to is another issue. The debt is owed in two parts, the debt held by other countries and that which is held by the public. As it stands, the debt held by other countries sits at around about $6 trillion, led by China, Japan, and the UK. The rest is held by the US public through government bonds. Given this information it can be said, both logistically and economically, that the only way to really start chipping away at the debt is through contractionary fiscal policy.

This would entail increasing taxes and/or decreasing government spending. If the government collects more to offset its expenditures then the debt could soon take a turn towards improvement rather than the continue on a seemingly endless track of deficit spending and increasingly irreparable damage. I won’t get into the political repercussions of increasing taxes, or decreasing government spending for that matter, although that is likely a big reason for such policies not being enacted. I think it’s very possible to eventually start getting the debt to decrease using these methods, but we’ll likely hit $30 trillion before anyone really is able to do it.

Works Cited

“ACCOUNT CENTER.” Government - Welcome to the Government Section of TreasuryDirect, www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/govt.htm.

Amadeo, Kimberly. “The US Debt and How It Got So Big.” The Balance, 6 Apr. 2020, www.thebalance.com/the-u-s-debt-and-how-it-got-so-big-3305778.

Amadeo, Kimberly. “Why You Should Care About the Nation's Debt.” The Balance, 24 Aug. 2020, www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-national-debt-4031393.

Investopedia. “National Debt.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 29 Sept. 2020, www.investopedia.com/updates/usa-national-debt/.

Staff, Investopedia. “Expansionary Policy Definition.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 14 Dec. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/e/expansionary_policy.asp.

How Covid has affected the Music Industry

 How Covid Has Affected the Music Industry in the Economy

Emily Haight

A lot of people got many things they were looking foward to taken away from the Coronavirus, one of them being concerts they bought tickets for. As the result of social distancing and quarantine, the live concert revenue was shuttered. Whether you were going to see Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Maroon 5, or any other famous artist as the extensive list continues, I bet you were upset to get the cancellation tweets from disappointed artists. Not only was this saddening for yourself, but it was saddening for the artists performing live as well. In addition to the collapse of the live music industry for artists, the mass amount of individuals who work alongside them also suffered. Many retail stores in the selling of merchandise for said artists, as people weren’t going to end up going to their concerts. In smaller instances, covid also affected the individuals that played at local bars and venues. The music industry was hit hard by covid, and is still continuing to struggle, the live performance being the biggest “causality”. weforum.org explains that, “A six-month shutdown is estimated to cost the industry more than $10bn in sponsorships, with longer delays being even more devastating.” 

Connecting the music industry to the economy, it’s globally worth over $50 billion, including the two major income streams of live music and recorded music. 50% of the revenues are from the sales of tickets to live performances, so you can see how much of an impact the coronavirus had on the economics of the music industry. In addition, in part due to the inability to promote new albums or songs on tours, many artists have postponed releasing much of their music. In the future, when the pandemic is resolved, the growth forecast for live music is expected to be less than usual, “one survey shows that, without a proven vaccine, less than half of US consumers plan to go to concerts, movies, sports events and amusement parks when they reopen.” 

During this pandemic period, some consumers have subscribed to more music services like Spotify Premium, many have opted out of subscriptions under financial pressures. Similarly many artists have held online meet and greets to talk to groups of their fans, but many would rather pay to see them in concert, face to face. Hopefully, with the vaccine created and being administered to many, we will see a change back to normal, and many of us will get the chance to see the live performance we bought in person tickets for.

Works Cited

“Change the Tune: How the Pandemic Affected the Music Industry.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Dec. 2020, www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/18/how-the-pandemic-affected-the-music-industry.

Written by      

                  Stefan Hall, Project Lead. “This Is How COVID-19 Is Affecting the Music Industry.” World Economic Forum, www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/this-is-how-covid-19-is-affecting-the-music-industry/.

ago, Music - 8 months, et al. “10 Ways the Coronavirus Will Change the Music Industry.” Okayplayer, 23 Dec. 2020, www.okayplayer.com/music/ways-the-coronavirus-will-effect-the-music-industry.html.

The NBA Losing Money

 The NBA Losing Money

Aiden Burkemper

The NBA lost a lot of money with the shutdown and loss of fans in the stands during the 2020 NBA season as according to sports.yahoo they fell 1.5 billions dollars under the projected revenue. According to ESPN they lost about 10% of their revenue, which includes 800 million lossed in gate receipts, 400 million lossed in sponsorships and merchandise as well as 200 million deemed net negative impact. In the previous season they made almost 9 billion dollars in revenue so that is a lot of money to lose out on especially when the NBA should be gaining more and more money each year rather than losing it. 

This isn’t just a problem of last season but will also continue to be a problem for this season as players were not exactly ready to get back to playing seeing as the championship just wrapped up in october. Before the leagues announcement to start the season on the 22nd of december it was projected that they would lose anywhere from 500 million to 1 billion in revenue. Because Christmas is such a huge event for the NBA and the Christmas Day games usually bring in upwards of 500 million dollars each year which the league was luckily able to capitalize on starting just before the holidays. However making this decision could cause some long term effects later on during the season. With the early start to the season the quality of play has been ok at best as many of the teams that played in the bubble are coming back from a very short offseason which is causing fatigue and because of this could lead to decreased viewership. We have already seen some injuries such as Ja morant who likely had some fatigue after playing in the bubble. Without Ja morant playing for the grizzlies this will likely decrease the viewership of their games with no real star on the court for them. We have also seen teams rest their players in these first few games which isn’t something that we usually see at the start of a season but because of how short the offseason was teams like the heat and the lakers who made it all the way have had to rest their stars in games in order to keep them from the high risk of injury. 

The fatigue isn’t the only thing looming over the NBA season that will lead to decreased production of money for the league but the loss of fans is a huge deal and according to CBS sports could cause a 4 billion dollar loss this year because of how much money they bring in with fans. With covid still threatening the league and the continuation of the league, they will have a big decision to make. The league will have to decide whether or not it will be worth it to try and let fans in sooner rather than later if they want to minimize the loss in profits. 

With all this loss in money it brings into question the consequences it will have for the league and while there is no way of truly knowing all the effects I can say that it will almost 100% affect the salaries of the players. Right now in the league top tier players are making 30 to 40 million dollars a year. And with these new big contracts being handed out this offseason for even smaller players such as Kyle Kuzma who signed a 3 year 40 million dollar deal and Luke Kenard who signed a 4 year 64 million dollar deal both players at best are 4th options on their respective teams if that. For the bigger players like Giannis who just signed the supermax which gives him a 5 year 228 million dollar deal and the Contract extension for Rudy Gobert making him the highest paid center ever. Just the Supermax contract extension will eventually lead to over 50 million dollars a year. You just have to think how with the loss of all this money how will the NBA be able to pay for these contracts. This could lead to pay cuts for players and could potentially send the salary cap inflation rate backwards in order to eventually balance out the loss of money before they are able to increase the salary cap again. Just ten years ago some of the best players were making only 20 million dollars. Those 16 million dollar a year contracts for the player like Kuzma and Kenard could turn into 7 or 8 million a year, this could be the direction we are heading in if the NBA cannot figure out how to move forward to make the most profit. With all of these speculations for the economy in the NBA one thing is certain the NBA has some major decisions to make when it comes to how they continue whether that’s bringing back fans or something else.

Work Cited:

Gough, Christina. “Total NBA Revenue 2001-2018.” Statista, 27 Feb. 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/193467/total-league-revenue-of-the-nba-since-2005/. 

Helin, Kurt. “Why Did NBA Swing toward Christmas Start, Shorter Season? Money.” ProBasketballTalk | NBC Sports, 26 Oct. 2020, nba.nbcsports.com/2020/10/23/why-did-nba-swing-toward-christmas-start-shorter-season-money/. 

Michael Kaskey-Blomain Oct 31. “NBA Fears That Starting 2020-21 Season in January Could Cost League up to $1 Billion in Losses, per Report.” CBSSports.com, 31 Oct. 2020, www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-fears-that-starting-2020-21-season-in-january-could-cost-league-up-to-1-billion-in-losses-per-report/. 

“Report: NBA Came in $1.5 Billion under Revenue Projections in 2020.” Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo!, sports.yahoo.com/report-nba-came-in-15-billion-under-revenue-projections-in-2020-135356538.html?guccounter=1. 

Wojnarowski, Adrian, and Zach Lowe. “NBA Revenue for 2019-20 Season Dropped 10% to $8.3 Billion, Sources Say.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 28 Oct. 2020, www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30211678/nba-revenue-2019-20-season-dropped-10-83-billion-sources-say. 

Young, Jabari. “NBA's Return by Christmas Appears to Be on Track despite Covid.” CNBC, CNBC, 5 Nov. 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/despite-covid-19-challenges-nba-december-return-on-track.html. 

Why do Colleges Keep Raising their Prices

 Why do Colleges Keep Raising Their Prices 

Sydney Fohr

We all see the effects of college, it allows us to separate ourselves and move our way into getting our dream job, but there is a side effect that we all know about and fear the most… it’s not the amount of studying, and it’s not the hard classes, it’s the price to be there and the debt that can occur once out of college. An astounding 14% of all Americans are still in student debt, that's about 44 million Americans. So why are colleges so expensive? There are a few reasons such as an increase in demand, lack of state funding, and the need for more workers such as teachers as well as money to pay them. 

The demand for a college education has risen dramatically since 1985 and for good reason. With technology getting more and more advanced and an increase in highly educated people is needed, about 35% of jobs require at least a bachelor's degree. College used to be very affordable back in the 1900s and in 1987 according to Business Insider for 4-year tuition it was as low as $3.2k, now in 2018, it has increased to up to $10k or more. It is a very simple explanation, with the more demand for a product in this case college, then the price will need to increase leading to the mass amount of money needed to attend schooling nowadays. 

As well as the high demand for a new figure to learn people, there is a reduced amount of funding towards colleges. With less money, the colleges can do fewer things such as investing in people like teachers. To compensate for the loss of money they charge students even more money. According to the CBPP “States cut funding deeply after the recession hit.  The average state is spending $1,598, or 18 percent, less per student than before the recession”. In 2018 around 19.6 million college students were meaning that colleges are missing out on millions of dollars and therefore need money in different ways. Making the students themselves pay for this difference is easy because a lot of them need to go to college and don’t have a choice. 

To give everyone an equal chance to learn what they need there are a lot of courses in college. There will always be people needed to teach those courses. Surprisingly there is a lot of staff, there is about one member of staff for every 18 students and when you think about that it's quite a lot of staff. With this many people working there is a great amount of money going towards their pay. According to ZipRecruiter the average pay for a college professor is about $54,340 which is a lot of money especially for how many of them there are. Colleges aren't left with many options, if they cut the pay of the teachers a lot would stop working for them so the best option is to keep increasing the price for the students. 

The college will only keep getting more and more expensive as time goes on how it is, with more jobs requiring a college degree students will keep coming. With the high demand and high amount of college professors, money is very tight and in high demand. Although colleges want the best for their students they also want to make money and for that to happen they must raise tuition. 

Works Cited

AbigailJHess. “US Student Debt Levels Set a New Record in 2018-Here's How Much the Typical Borrower Owes.” CNBC, CNBC, 28 Dec. 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/12/27/student-debt-levels-set-a-new-record-in-2018-heres-how-much-the-typical-borrower-owes.html.

“College Professor Annual Salary in Wisconsin ($54,340 Avg: Dec 2020).” ZipRecruiter, www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/College-Professor-Salary--in-Wisconsin.

Hoffower, Hillary. “College Is More Expensive than It's Ever Been, and the 5 Reasons Why Suggest It's Only Going to Get Worse.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 26 June 2019, www.businessinsider.com/why-is-college-so-expensive-2018-4.

“Recovery: Job Growth And Education Requirements Through 2020.” CEW Georgetown, 7 May 2020, cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/recovery-job-growth-and-education-requirements-through-2020/. 

How Small Businesses have been affected by COVID

  How small businesses were affected by COVID

Ally Walby

Overall small owned restaurants have been affected negatively by the global pandemic, COVID-19. The economic impact of covid has caused small businesses across the country to close their doors. Many families within the past 9 months have decided at one point or another, to stay inside due to the ongoing pandemic. As a result of the virus, less people shop locally nowadays, leaving small and/or family owned places with little to no business. Small businesses are a major part of the U.S. economy yet nearly a quarter of them remain closed. There are numerous concerns for small business owners during this period of time. Some of those concerns include, cash flow shortages, increased stress and worry, decreased revenue, concerns of a second wave, and lastly customers being unaware of businesses that have reopened. 

Spring shutdowns were detrimental to small business owners in the year of 2020. As you can see in the above graph, nearly 100,000 establishments that were temporarily closed during the pandemic, are now closed for good. Parts of the economy are starting to recover and thrive once more. While small businesses are struggling economically and reporting the need for stimulus and economic aid in order to survive. 

All together many small businesses within the U.S. will need to make extreme changes to their daily operations in order to survive the pandemic. They’ll have to think about protecting not only their customers but employees as well, adjusting business models, attempting to appeal more to those who shop online for extra income, investing in new technological accounts, etc.. Unfortunately most of the small businesses in America with slim margins will be unable to, and/or have little money to invest new business models and technologies that they will need to survive. 

Works Cited

“7 COVID-19 Struggles Small Businesses Are Facing and How to Overcome Them.” Due, 15 Nov. 2020, due.com/blog/small-businesses-struggle-in-pandemic/.

AliciaAdamczyk. “7 Months into the Pandemic, Small Business Owners Don't Know How Much Longer They Can Hold on: 'We Are in Survival Mode'.” CNBC, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/10/15/small-businesses-are-in-survival-mode-as-the-covid-pandemic-drags-on.html.

Arnsdorf, Isaac. “Thousands of Small Business Owners Have Not Gotten Disaster Loans the Government Promised Them.” ProPublica, www.propublica.org/article/thousands-of-small-business-owners-have-not-gotten-disaster-loans-the-government-promised-them.

Bartik, Alexander W., et al. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Outcomes and Expectations.” PNAS, National Academy of Sciences, 28 July 2020, www.pnas.org/content/117/30/17656.

Dua, André et al. “US Small-Business Recovery after the COVID-19 Crisis.” McKinsey & Company, McKinsey & Company, 7 Aug. 2020, www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/us-small-business-recovery-after-the-covid-19-crisis#.

Fairlie, Robert W. “The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: The First Three Months after Social-Distancing Restrictions.” NBER, 6 July 2020, www.nber.org/papers/w27462.

Sraders, Anne, and Lance Lambert. “Nearly 100,000 Establishments That Temporarily Shutdown Are Now out of Business.” Fortune, Fortune, 28 Sept. 2020, fortune.com/2020/09/28/covid-buisnesses-shut-down-closed/.

My Personal Experience with Budgeting

 Title: My Personal Experience with Budgeting

Written by: Gavin S. 

Earlier this year, my personal finance class discussed budgeting and how it is a versatile and effective financial tool. I heard about how budgeting not only allows you to save for the future but also spend in the present. However, I brushed this knowledge aside, because I believed that this information wasn’t applicable to me. My finances weren’t that big, I didn’t have a job, and I just didn’t really need to budget -- or more specifically, I just didn’t care enough to research one.

I like to think I have a good social life. On the weekends, I’m either with my girlfriend, with my friends, out to eat, or hanging out. All these things equate to spending money. And for someone with no job, this is a dangerous lifestyle. For at least the past 6 months, I’ve been living paycheck-to-paycheck. My paycheck? The $10 weekly allowance my mother gives me (and it’s not even weekly, it’s spotty at best). This lifestyle has left me asking to borrow money from friends, getting even more money from my mom, or just having no money at all. 

So when the Christmas card money came, I knew I had to hang onto it. I was pretty sick of living destitute and desperate every week, waiting for the refreshing $10 allowance that sometimes never came. So, I decided to institute my very own budget. I didn’t go with the 50-20-30 Rule, because 1) I don’t have any bills to pay off and 2) I don’t feel like calculating the percentages. Thus, I settled with the idea of “paying myself first.”

We learned that paying yourself first means that you put away a percentage -- usually 50 -- of your paycheck/earnings. For people with jobs, this typically means that you direct deposit 50% of your paycheck into your savings account. For me, this meant that I tucked away the money into a little wooden box I have on my dresser. When the Christmas card money came, I divided it in half, threw one pile into the box, and the other half into my wallet. While it was a new experience, I was excited to see what would happen.

Now, the money in the box has grown to $73 and a handful of cents. I only have $8 in my wallet, but I did just spend $20 in Milwaukee, $10 at BW3s, and $7 at McDonalds. And those are just the expenses I remember. Basically what I’m getting at is: this budget thing works. I have plenty of money saved in my trusty box, and I still am able to spend my money as I please. It’s great.

But let’s broaden the context for a second. According to Willis Tower Watson, “18% of workers earning a salary greater than $100,000 are living paycheck to paycheck.” Likewise, Charles Schwab says, “59% of adults in the US admitted to living paycheck to paycheck in 2019.” Clearly, there’s a problem. Americans are choosing not to budget, and it’s hurting them. With no savings, they’re forced to live paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, they’re dealing with a lot more finances -- and stress -- than I was. This tells you that budgeting is seriously needed today in America. Debt and financial illiteracy is a serious issue. 

Learn from my case. Budgets really work! They worked for me (even with no job), so why couldn’t they work for you? The only thing stopping yourself is you; and you seriously don’t wanna end up like the 59% and 19% of Americans struggling today. So, please, budget.

Works Cited

Mint, /. “40 Financial Statistics for 2020.” MintLife Blog, 21 Sept. 2020, mint.intuit.com/blog/financial-literacy/financial-statistics/.

How to Protect Yourself and Assets Against Inflation

How to Protect Yourself and Assets Against Inflation

By - Caden Rachwal

Inflation is the general rise in price level in the economy over a certain period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. In the United States, inflation is calculated by using the consumer price index which is put together by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Inflation is really important, especially when you are on a fixed income. Even though the prices of goods and services will be increasing, you will still be making the same exact amount of money putting you at a disadvantage financially. To give an example, let’s say that you have a fixed income and you have a net income of $2,000, and you have $1,800 dollars in expenses per month, as inflation increases eventually your expenses will outweigh your net income. Right now with the savings account interest rates being so low, if the average inflation rate is 2 percent per year, you would actually end up losing money if you decided not to invest that money in something other than just an old fashioned savings account. 

There are three simple ways to protect yourself against inflation. The best way to keep up with inflation and even be able to beat inflation is to invest in the stock market. Companies make money by selling their products, when the inflation rate goes up, companies are able to sell their products for more money which can end up helping the investors that have invested in that company. Another good thing to invest in would be stocks from companies that are necessary for people to purchase, such as household products, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. Since consumers have to purchase these goods, the return on this investment is very good. The second way to beat inflation and keep up with inflation would be to invest in Inflation Protected Bonds. These bonds pay an interest rate and also are adjusted for inflation. This is a very secure way to keep up with the inflation because there is no way to end up losing money when investing in inflation protected bonds. The final way to keep up with inflation is to invest in hard assets. When inflation rises the price of hard assets will also rise. That is why many people will invest in gold and silver when there is a fear that the inflation rate will rise. However it is safer to invest in ETFs instead of gold because gold can end up being risky. While gold will be included in the ETF, there will be other commodities involved making it a safer option than putting all of your eggs into one basket. 

Works Cited

Fernando, Jason. “Inflation Definition.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 18 Nov. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inflation.asp.

“Inflation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Dec. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.

Robert FarringtonRobert Farrington is America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert™. “How to Protect Against Inflation Eating Away Your Returns.” The College Investor, 17 Oct. 2019, thecollegeinvestor.com/6425/protect-inflation-eating-returns/. 

Having a High School Checking Account Is Very Important

 Having a High School Checking Account Is Very Important

Written by: Hans E. 

During high school, it is important for kids to have a checking account at some point during their schooling. This is important because kids will realize how important it is to save money and start to track your savings and spendings. Kids will have to learn how to split their paychecks so that they are saving money and still have money going into their savings accounts for the future. 

This graph shows the average amount each age group has in their checking account. Now this chart could be way off for our age group, however, it is a very large age group with peoples’ ages ranging from possibly 15 years or younger to 35 years old. Obviously the older you are, the more likely you are to have more money in your checking account because you can work full time and make more money than a high school student with a part time fast food job. Yes there are plenty of jobs out there for part time high school students that pay very very well, and there are also plenty of jobs that students work that may not pay that well. Now the issue with trying to find the average amount in a high school students checking account is that some kids may not have a job and earn money from their parents from doing work around the house or maybe even doing well in school and getting good grades. Other students may have a job and not be able to work a whole lot and only earn a little bit of money. Other students may have the ability to work more hours during the week and earn more money. Wages play a huge part in this as well. Obviously the more you make an hour the more money you will make in the long run and vise versa. However, there could be a student with a high paying part time job where he makes $10 an hour and only be able to work, let’s just say, 10 hours a week. There could be another student working a minimum wage $7.25/hr job and be able to work 25-30 hours a week. Now student one would be making $100 a week before taxes and student two will be making $181.25-$217.50 a week before taxes. Student one with the lower income will learn more lessons with saving money and spending money because he doesn’t make as much as student two does per paycheck. Student one will have to budget his money more and will have a harder time making decisions on spending his money. Student two however, may not learn as much because he has a lot more money available to him and he’ll be able to put money into his savings account and still have a pretty decent amount of money put into his checking account. This will allow him to buy more wants/needs or buy nicer more quality products. Going off of this, it is important for high school students to have checking accounts while they are still in high school because it can teach them very, very valuable lessons about spending and saving money based on the amount you make each paycheck. Students will learn how quickly they can spend money and eventually they’ll be able to get an idea of how much money they spend each week or month and compare that to how much they make and how much they actually save each paycheck or whatever period they chose to look at. 

Another reason why it is important for high school students to have a checking account is because it can allow them to start investing money. This is a very valuable lesson because kids will learn another way to help themselves make some more money on the side. This can help them greatly in the future because when the stock market is up, the more money you have in stocks, the more money you can make just from having your money in stocks. Now the issue with this is, some students may be very very busy and forget to check up on the market and their stocks to make sure they are doing well and making sure they are not losing money. The most popular mobile app for investors is Robinhood. Currently this is the most trusted and most popular app used by mobile investors. Now obviously there are pros and cons to using this app just like any other website or app out there that involves spending and earning money. The three biggest pros to using Robinhood for mobile investing are: no account minimums, a streamlined interface, and cryptocurrency trading. This means you can have as little money as you want to in the app for investing. You could have as little as a penny in the app to invest if you wanted to. Since Robinhood uses a streamlined interface, it is very easy to use and there are functions there for you when you may need or want them. Having this ease of use is very very important because it helps with efficiency and the ease of use. The more efficient and easier an app like this is to use, the more likely more people will download and use the app. On the other hand, the three biggest cons are: no retirement accounts, no mutual funds or bonds, and limited customer support. With Robinhood not offering retirement accounts, people can’t invest money in a retirement plan to help them save up enough money so that they can retire when they please. With no mutual funds or bonds, if a company you are investing in for some reason goes bankrupt or loses a bunch of money and you lose money you invested in their stocks, you can’t get that money back in return as a result of that company or stock going downhill. With there being a limited amount of customer support, it may be hard for you to get in contact with someone on the customer support staff at Robinhood to get any sort of help you may need. This can be a major downfall for the company and may turn people away because some people rely on a strong customer support system so that they can easily be put in contact with someone if they need help. 

Works cited

Davis, Chris. “Robinhood Review 2020: Pros, Cons & How It Compares.” NerdWallet, 5 Dec. 2020, www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/brokers/robinhood. 

Moon, Chris. “Average U.S. Checking Account Balance 2019: A Demographic Breakdown.” ValuePenguin, ValuePenguin, 2 Dec. 2020, www.valuepenguin.com/banking/average-checking-account-balance.