More Reasons to Hate Smokers...

First off, let me just say that I've never even tried smoking in my life. Never have - never will. I grew up in a house where both of my parents smoked (thankfully, they have long since given it up), so naturally I hated it from the get-go. They never smoked in our house, but they did outside around us and whenever we were in the car.

We all know secondhand smoke is bad for us... and it is receiving more and more attention. Many places are passing laws that ban smoking in public areas such as restaurants and bars. However, we haven't seen that in our area (yet). This is a real shame. There isn't too awful much to do in Parkersburg and Marietta compared to bigger cities--so going to eat at restaurants and going to bars are popular pasttimes among people in this area.

Nothing annoys me more than someone who smokes around others. Its not only annoying and gross, but harmful. But just how harmful is it?

According to a review by Joaquin Barnoya, MD, and colleagues that was cited in the above article, the affects of second-hand smoke (even from brief exposure) on the heart are up to 90% as large as the affects of active, chronic smoking.

"The researchers say that the effects of passive smoke are numerous and interact with each other, increasing the risk of heart disease. Here are some of the heart hazards that the review linked to secondhand smoke:
— Increased blood clotting ability
— Increased blood vessel wall abnormalities
— Higher risk of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)
— Lower levels of HDL "good" cholesterol (even in children)
— More buildup of LDL "bad" cholesterol in artery walls
— Higher blood levels of markers of inflammation that are inked to heart disease and blood vessel wall plaque buildup
— Increased source of cell-damaging free radicals
— Lower levels of antioxidants, which fight free radicals

Evidence about secondhand smoke's heart dangers has been growing since the mid-1980s, say the researchers.

"Secondhand smoke increases the risk of heart disease by [about] 30 percent, accounting for at least 35,000 deaths annually in the United States," they write."

And thats just the heart.

I don't know about you all, but I can't wait to see the day when I can walk into the Townhouse and actually breathe without breathing in ash from someone else's cancer sticks. If it were up to me, I would outlaw that nasty habit and be done with it.

Comments from either side?

Airlines Look to Make Big Changes...

Three of America's largest airliners made huge headlines across the country todays.

Firstly, US Airways and America West announced today that a merger between the two (which are the 7th and 8th largest carriers in the nation, respectively) would be made in order to unite the two struggling airlines into a larger, stronger one. The new airline would operate under the title of "US Airways" still. The merger will be funded by $1.5 billion dollars in capital from a variety of new investors.

"The goal of the merger is to stitch together two geographically distinct carriers with a history of financial struggles into a stronger airline that would compete better with lower-cost rivals such as Southwest Airlines Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp."

In the face of this news, Delta Airlines also made big news today with the announcement that it plans to cut costs by $1 billion dollars in order to achieve its goal of cutting costs by $5 billion dollars by 2006.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157060,00.html

"There is no area that will be safe from scrutiny," CEO Gerald Grinstein told shareholders at the struggling carrier's annual meeting.

According to John Malone, chairman of the Delta pilots union's executive committee, the pilots have done their part in reaching the goal by agreeing to a 32.5% pay cut last fall.

Delta shareholders also agreed to double the number of shares of company common stock to 900 million and reduce the par value of common stock from $1.50 to $0.01 per stock in order to give the airline greater flexibility.

In both cases, airlines are making decisions in order to keep out of bankruptcy and start churning profits in the face of rising fuel prices and competition in the low-fares market.

Welcome to the Summer edition of MariettaEcon

If you're new to blogging, just browse down the posts (and comments) made by my students this past Spring semester to get an idea of what it's all about. You are also welcome to sample some of my favorite blogs listed along the right hand side of the page.

Blogging is an opportunity for you to share your thoughts on world events with the rest of us. While normative statements are quite welcome, I would rather have you contribute positive statements that involve a bit of economic analysis. As you make your contributions, remember that you must include a hyperlink to the background material on which your posts are made.

Blogging deadline has come and gone

The deadline for blogs to count toward your grade was 9:00am April 24, 2005. You are welcome to continue blogging, but no points will be awarded for those posted after the above deadline.

Can UNC Survive

Can the UNC men's team survive losing it's top six scorers? They lost 4 to the draft and 2 to graduation. How will UNC recover from this loss. Their seventh leading scoring only averaged 3.7 points per game.
And what happened to these guys wanting to stay in school. Marvin Williams could have skipped college but he said he wanted to play college ball. He wanted to go to UNC. So much for wanting to play college ball. Yeah he played one year but he acted like he was going to stay longer.
Who will make the biggest impact? Felton, May, and Williams stock only went up these year while McCants dropped considerably. Honestly I believe Williams will be the best NBA player. There are many point guards in the NBA that can do what Felton does. May is a tweener. Not big enough for center not fast enough for power forward. McCants has the NBA attitude but he will just be average. Williams has the body like KG.
So where does this put Roy Williams and the UNC?

Reality TV Makes It Tough for Miss America

The craze of reality television has caused the ratings for the Miss America pageant to drastically decrease. The pageant has been completely dropped by two networks and is currently without representation by a network for the first time in history. Some analysts feel that viewers are so intrigued by reality shows that the Miss America pageant has become stale and out of date. Fear Factor has created a new form of the Miss America pageant where the contestants are asked to perform different tasks based on the show. Fear Factor Miss USA has received more viewers than the original Miss America. Miss America officials have began researching a new way to establish more viewers, which may include revamping the pageant.

Reality television has become the new trend for television shows and has been a difficult rival to compete with. Hopefully, the Miss America pageant will not have to stoop to this level in order to stay on the air.

Domestic Box Office down for 9th Straight Week

Overall business for the motion picture industry was down for the nineth straight week. The week's biggest opener, The Interpreter, debuted with a fairly strong $22.8 million. The other new release, A Lot Like Love, opened with a somewhat disappointing $7.7 million.

For nearly two months, the box office has trailed behind last year's impressive numbers. Last year, The Passion of the Christ proved to be the spark that brought movie goers out in very large numbers. This year, no film has had that same effect. While the new releases like Sin City and Sahara haven't been total busts, they haven't brought in the money like studios hoped they would.

The movie industry is limping into the summer season, the busiest and most profitable time of the year. The industry has been holding its collective breath, waiting for the film that will put the year back in a good light. The summer has quite a few offerings: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Kingdom of Heaven, Stars Wars Episode II: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, and more. Certainly, the industry hopes a few of these movies will cause fans to flock to the theaters. If not, this year could go down in history as one of the poorer years at the movies.

No Bonus for American Airlines exec

Gerard Arpey, the chairman and chief executive officer of American Airlines mad $518,837 last year, with no bonus. American Airlines said that Arpey voluntarily declined a pay increase. Beginning May 1, Arpey, other American Airline execs and non-union employees will get a 1.5 percent salary increase.

This is the latest example of top airline executives not enjoying the high salaries and major bonuses that they once had. The entire airline industry has suffered greatly since 9/11, and continue to do so. We are currently in the midst of the worst ever financial downturn in airline history. This latest example shows that not only the regular workers are feeling the effects, but the top level management as well.

Jobless claims plummet

While the economy is on a downward spiral, there seems to be a positive...Or at least appears to be one at this moment. The unemployment rate has reported to been decreasing, falling under the 300,000 mark for the second time in almost three years. What do you think is contributing to this decrease? Do you think it is a result to Bush's policies to decrease unemployment or something else? More importantly do you see this trend continuing, and how long must it continue before the Bush administration get credit? Does he deserve any?

I saw this one coming!

"Under existing tax rates and reasonable assumptions about other spending...Projections make clear that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, in which large deficits result in rising interest rates and ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years," Greenspan told the Senate Budget Committee. Greenspan continues to recognize these deficits and enormous about of government spenders might lead to stagnation or worse! The government in my opinion needs to get a grip on this before it gets worse. But I must say that I saw this one coming. An increase in national defense and other government programs have increase the government deficit to unbelievable high levels. There must be an economic policy put in place to control this tremendous problem. What would you suggest the government should do to get this economic plague under control?

KFC: Back in the Fryer

After 14 years of trying to downplay the image of greasy, fried chicken, KFC is returning to its roots. It recently opened a new restaurant in its hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, called "Kentucky Fried Chicken," instead of the "KFC" that is found on almost all the restuarants today.

KFC's sales have been negative or flat for over 16 straight months. It is still recovering from a failed attempt last year to promote healthier food in its restaurants. Sales in recent months have slightly improved, however, in part due to its new 99 cent Snacker chicken sandwich (which is amazing, by the way).

The new Kentucky Fried Chicken in Louisville is also equipped with a free digital jukebox, low set tables, and features a younger image of the founder, Colonel Sanders. This model will be used on 50 other restaurants, being remodeled in this new image. Kentucky Fried Chicken hopes to capitalize on its recent increase in sales.

It seems that after a relatively long period of weak sales and marginal profits, Kentucky Fried Chicken is moving in the right direction. Hopefully it can continue to ride this wave of success as it attempts to revitalize its image.

Medtronic settles patent fight

This is an interesting debate going on. How do you feel about patents and would you agree that this story and Medtronic is creating a medical monopoly? After this deal is settled a transfer of ownership to Medtronic of all inventions related to the diagnosis and treatment of the spine will be mandatory. My main concern is this limits what is avaliable to the consumer and will continue to keep prices inflated. What do you think about medical patents and how this settlement has been handled?

Free Agency

In class we talked about free agency and how in a bidding war, it is the second highest bidder that determines the players' salary. This article talks about how the Cowboys signed Darian Barnes from free agency. Barnes was signed to a one year contract for $655,000. Assuming that this price is above the league minimum, we can guess that $655,000 was a little bit higher than the revenue the second highest bidder expected to receive from signing Barnes. The Cowboys were obviously the only team that expected to receive a revenue greater than this price, which is why they signed him. To read the article, go to http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=nfl&id=2041978

Gay Rights?

According to ABC news, Microsoft would rather focus on their business rather than support the gay rights bill. I thought this was business as usual, and that business always comes first before supporting a gay rights bill. Evidently, some people are upset by this. I don't know, seems confusing and mixed up to me. What do you think? Business as usual, or support the gays?

Talk about pressure....

9.75 BILLION dollars is what Verizon wireless has to come up with, or better, in order to win the bidding discression they have been going with Qwest. This will allow either company to take over MCI, which would respectively pull in much more profit. Verizon is currently at the 7.5 Billion bidding cost. They have 5 business days to produce a new proposal.

What do you think, do you think these costs are sky rocketing too high for Verizon, or will they come back with a higher bid? Will it really benefit them as much as they hope if they do take over MCI?

oil prices... not so high??

According to ABC news, the cost of gasoline really isn't as high as we see it from the outside. Along with inflation and the rising costs of everything else, on the pricing scale, oil is still "cheap". ABC reports that up until a year ago.. they were "giving the stuff away". Is oil really as cheap as they say it is, or have prices started reaching a high that many may not be able to attend to?

puchase or not?

assume you just have 50,000 dollars in your hand. you are thinking about buying a house. there is a 100,000 one for sale. it is really a nice house and you know you love it so much. will you buy it?

there are more and more company offer "low-interest" loan for car, house, ETC. If you are in the above situation, what will you do? you may put the 50,000 into bank, and wait. you may get 100,000 some years later; you may put these money into stock market, you can win but you abosolutely can loss; Or you may apply a "low interest rate" loan for the house. you can get the house immediately. but if someday, you lose your job. you don't have more money to pay for the monthly bill. What can you do at that time?

think about it.

How safe is not safe enough??

According to Fox News:
Congress is about to make America less safe. The president shouldn’t stand for it.
The answer may be for George W. Bush to do something he’s never done before: Tell Congress he will veto the homeland-security appropriations bill. Apparently, they may decide the 13,997 projects (totaling $27.3 billion) identified by the Citizens Against Government Waste in its 2005 Congressional Pig Book aren’t enough. If it ends the moratorium on earmarks for the 2006 appropriations bill, Congress would open the door to ever more pork barrel spending — just as the 9/11 Commission warned against.
Do you really think these spendings will take away from homeland security?

do you want to be a free-rider?

In last Friday econ211 class, we discussed the "free-rider" phenomenon. do you want to be a free rider in the market?on one hand, being a free rider can earn more money and get rich. But in the other hand, as a free rider, you may be blamed by your competitor or partner, and may be you will self-accusation sometimes. It make your life more burden but less happiness. So what do you think? Be a free rider or not?

are you eligible??

According to fox news, small business owners, especially females, have trouble obtaining loans, when they actually need them. The average size of a loan is 10,500. However, Congress is trying to pass a program where small businesses, or new businesses are able to take out a load of 35,000, allowing them more support in order to succeed. If I were in the small business owners shoes, I would be loving this. It makes it a lot easier to profit when the base funds are there. Do you think it will lead business owners to fall harder, or start stronger?