Population Grows As Well As The Problems

So there has been great debate about school parking for students who drive to school. There are many school parking lots that cannot handle their current size of students who drive. This has led to parking lotteries for spaces, some are first come first serve basis, and the rest of the students are left parking in the streets.

When the students have to park in the streets, the issue of safety comes into play, as some are left with long walks to school. The residence of the neighborhood do not like that the students park in front of their houses, and all around the situation is just a mess.

This mess with parking will continue to grow for a lot of schools and neighborhoods. Those that aren’t worried about this, because they aren’t currently faced with the problem should realize that eventually they will be. Odds are as the population grows so will the number of students who drive to school.

Solutions should be looked at now before it is too late. Some school districts are needing excessive funding to create new parking lots, that come at the expense of the taxpayers in that district. In my opinion, the sooner we look into the possibility of this becoming a problem, the better off we will be.

So with the safety of our students and our taxpaying dollars at hand, one should definitely think about this when looking for schools for your children and neighborhoods to live in.

How Low Can You Go??

So the question is how low can unemployment really go, and the answer is really that nobody knows. However, there are two things that most economists agree upon: That they would like an economy where everyone who wants a job can find find one, and that in order for this to happen, some people must be unemployed along the way.

We are taught that there is a balance of the natural rate of unemployment to help offset inflation, and if the rate of unemployment falls below the natural rate, then inflation would occur. The funny thing we are finding out, is that no one really knows what that magic number actually is.

There are benefits to having a low jobless rate, like that it could bring higher wages and more opportunity to those’s who have a tougher time finding employment than everyone else, like former prisoners who have been reformed, or with less skilled workers unemployed, companies might be more willing to hire a less skilled worker and train them up to their standards.

In the past there has only been been three times, since 1970, that the unemployment rate fell to less than 4.5%: late 1990’s, 2006-2007, and last year. It should be noted that inflation never flared up during these times. There is talk that the sensible strategy is to just wait and see how low the unemployment rate can go without causing any problems. After all, how easy can it be to try and guide a $19 trillion economy?

The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

Have you ever heard of the James Beard Awards? Well if you haven’t, then you do not know that they are like the Oscars for the culinary world. The James Beard Foundation was established in 1990 in order to recognize culinary professionals and their achievements and excellence in their field, and emphasizes the foundations mission to celebrate and honor the diverse culinary culture through programs that educate and inspire. There are 23 awards for a wide selection of different categories within the culinary industry, and each award has it’s own committee that is made up of volunteers that are professionals in the culinary world. The voting begins around the middle of October, and close on different dates , however December 1st is the close date for the restaurant and chef criteria and other categories, and after a series of test and votes within, the finalists are announced in the beginning of May.

This year is different from past years, because the foundation for the first time is advising the people who nominate and vote for the winners are to add  a new set of criteria for those nominees to meet. The new criteria is that the nominees must also possess and demonstrate “the values of respect, transparency, diversity, sustainability, and equality.”

With this new criteria, there is a jump in the nominees that are women from 27% last year to 40% this year. It is stated that this yeas list is more egalitarian and culturally diverse. With that being said, some restaurants that were heavy hitters among the critics didn’t make the cut due to proven or perceived violations to this new code.

Needless to say, it has been challenging for the committees to sift through this years nominees and make their selections. The foundation has been criticized for not taking enough action against race and gender imbalances in the restaurant industry in the past. The foundation will not strip anyone of their past medals if they are found to have violated the new policy. However, this year instead of striping the medals from those who have faced charges of sexual harassment, abuse, or worse, have been banned from voting forever, which is huge considering that the past winners make up the bulk of the 600 or so voters that vote for the finalists and the winners. So far this new policy is limited to just the cases where there has been an investigation or public exposure.

So as you can see good behavior gets rewarded and the bad get punished.

Mind “The Gap”

Jeff Sommer states “the daytime is for losers. Overnight is where the big money is made in the stock market-not by trading, but by getting a good night’s sleep.” Catchy…right?? His article is related to “The Gap” in the market. “The Gap” is noted as the difference between returns from when the market closes to when the market opens. It has always been there and has never truly been explained. It is stated that returns can be straightforward; it is based on the prices at the opening of the market to the prices at the close of the market. However, there is another set of returns, a.k.a. “The Gap”, and those are the difference in price from the close of the market to that of the market at open the next day.

Bespoke Investment Group analyzed all of the returns from the first exchange traded fund in the U.S., called SPY, and noticed that almost all of the price gain came from outside trading hours. They also stated that if you bought right before close and sold when the market opened the next day that you would have a cumulative gain of 571%, and if you bought at the open and sold right before close you would have been down 4.45%. That’s not saying that every day was a winner, and this was over a span of 25 years.

Although Jeff’s advice is to buy and hold because the price at open is normally higher than that at close the day before, trading after normal trading hours is still risky due to the erratic changes in price that can occur. That’s also not saying that money cannot be made during normal trade hours as there are many that make a living of of this and quite a few that have made a lot of it too. In the past year, the rising stock market has been historically better during the day and short-term trade has been very profitable.

The theory behind “The Gap” could be as simple as that there are very few people that trade when the market closes, so orders tend to build up overnight, and in a rising market, it produces an upward surge in price, making the open price higher than the closing price of the previous day. However, during periods of extended decline of the market, overnight sell orders can cause prices to fall and be lower the for open the next business day.

All in all, the mystery of “The Gap” still remains to be 100% answered, and more studies will be to to try and figure out this mystery, so if you are going to do any trading whether you choose to trade during normal hours of try Jeff’s approach, just note that not every day is a good day, make sure you understand the risks involved, and try and gain as much knowledge as you can before making your move.

What is Bitcoin??

For most of the world Bitcoin can be very confusing. There is no actual Bitcoin coins like you see in the media and in the picture. However Bitcoin is a digital token that can be sent electronically from one owner to the next. The smallest amount of Bitcoin is called a Satoshi, which is  0.00000001 of a Bitcoin. Even more confusing, there is a payment network named Bitcoin, in which the actual Bitcoin is stored and moved.

So what exactly is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a digital cyrptocurrency that anyone around the world can buy in virtually any amount they wish. Bitcoin is run from a network of computers around the world that keeps track of every transaction made. All of these computers are constantly updating all the transaction which is known as a blockchain.

Some people use Bitcoin and other cyrptocurrencies as a means of investment with high payouts if the take off, or as previously stated, making payments from one user to the next, as it is quicker to transfer large amounts of money through Bitcoin than to do so internationally, which is literally comparing minutes to weeks. Bitcoin itself has a dark side to it as it started to soar when drug dealers started to take payments on the black-market website called the Silk Road, however there is just a small percent of  all transactions that are considered to be illegal. If you are interested in buying Bitcoin the world offers many different exchanges, with Coinbase being the biggest one in the United States.

The price of Bitcoin is just like that of the stock exchange, and fluctuates constantly. There is open-market bidding on Bitcoin exchanges that cause the price to go up and down.

 

All in all, there is plenty of opportunity to make money off of Bitcoin and other cyrptocurrencies, however, one should treat it just like any other investment and learn exactly what you are investing into, understand the risks you are taking, closely monitor your investment, and make sure you financially ready to take said risks.