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With the current coronavirus situation looming large in headlines, it seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Along with this latest wave of COVID-19 related panic, you may have heard of the mass-panic induced toilet paper shortages in Japan and Australia, or even seen the mad rush for supplies yourself at your local Costco. But what is really going on? Will civilization devolve into a lawless wasteland where raiders fight over boxes of tissues?Continue Reading

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The United States has been an economic powerhouse in the world since 1920, but has the implementation of taxes stymied its growth whatsoever? Congress recently reviewed tax policies, with extensive changes on the capital gains tax, a tax on assets that have accrued value over time when sold, regardless of when the gains had been accrued. The federal income tax does not tax all capital gains. For example, if a stock is purchased in 2010 at $100 and sold in 2020 at $150, the tax would be on the $50 accrued value in the current year. Economists believe that capital gains tax rates have resulted in economic prosperity and stability in the United States for nearly a century since 2016.Continue Reading

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The antagonistic relationship between the two nations began back in 1910 when Japan colonized South Korea. Japanese oppression pushed Korean men into forced labor, required every Korean to rename themselves in Japanese, and punished Koreans for speaking Korean. During WWII, Japanese occupation grew worse when Japan objectified Korean women as their “comfort women”—a translation of the Japanese ianfu, euphemistic for “prostitute”—under the name of soldier motivation. Innocent teenagers were taken away from their homes and raped by Japanese soldiers. Continue Reading

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As one of the most anticipated IPO’s of the year, DoorDash is set to go public in an exceptionally volatile market. The online food delivery platform has grown into a $12.6 billion dollar company in just seven years, with a dramatic increase from its $1.4 billion valuation in 2018. However, the success of its IPO stands in question due to changing investor sentiments concerning current market trends and recent struggles among competitors.Continue Reading

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With the magnification in intensity of climate change and global warming, many have wondered if the next step for humanity is between the stars. Some advocates of this proposition include Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, who is adamant on establishing a colony on Mars, former theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who ominously proclaimed that the human race would become extinct if we didn’t colonize another planet within 100 years, and President Trump, who recently supported a $25 billion budget for NASA and agreed the “goal is Mars.”Continue Reading

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The cacao bean, once thought a divine food by the Aztecs that imparted wisdom, is now considered by its farmers the curse of “brown gold.” The curse itself is easy to understand: manufacturers like Hershey’s and Nestlé must sell cheap chocolate to make a profit, and where else to cut costs but at the very bottom of this food chain? There, we find the cacao farmers of the Ivory Coast. These impoverished Ivorian farmers supply 40% of the world’s total supply of cacao beans alone. Despite playing such a dominant role in the global chocolate industry, the Ivory Coast benefits little from its position and does not have the leverage required to raise the prices of cacao exports to support its workers.Continue Reading

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Tax cuts are generally a very popular policy. As then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and other proponents of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act argued, who doesn’t want their government to “giv[e] the people their money back”? President Donald Trump went even further, claiming that the “…huge tax cut will be rocket fuel for [the] economy” by creating new investment, raising workers’ wages and bonuses, and increasing growth. Continue Reading

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The credit card business has since been recovering since the Great Recession when banks drastically cut consumer lending as they scrambled to reduce risky loans. The number of people with credit cards has since increased, from 152 million in 2010 to 176 million in 2017. At the same time, the number of credit card accounts in the U.S increased from 386 million to 455 million in 2017. Alongside a modest increase in the average number of cards each person holds, more people are getting a credit card for the first time.Continue Reading