Diamonds and Mining are NOT a girl’s best friend!

Diamonds and Mining are NOT a girl’s best friend!

Giulianna Maselli
Politics

Engaging in a dialogue about gender and economics is not intuitive. Especially, when the main understanding of the economy is based on the global free market, production, and the idea of meritocracy, which leads us to think that this dialogue would be limited to subjects such as equal opportunities between women and men and/or parity; and would leave aside other gendered and economic relationships of domination that are more discrete, normalized, and violent, such as gendered socialization and imposed gender roles. However, the recent resurgence of socio-economic and gender inequalities, and how they are interwoven, has made a deeper exchange necessary. We observe the emergence of an intersectional reflection in both economic and gender terms, which challenges the unequal distribution of wealth, natural resources, and the sexual division of labor. 

The Geopolitical Implications of China’s Evolving Economy

The Geopolitical Implications of China’s Evolving Economy

Caleb Smith
International Trade

The PRC’s quasi-control of the world’s markets, including its role as the primary exporter of goods, presents a massive risk to the sovereignty of nations large, like the United States, and small, like Taiwan. Taking into consideration the imperative function that cobalt plays in the building of a successful modern military containing stockpiles of munitions, jets, nuclear weaponry, and modern electronic weapons, and China’s ability to gather intelligence from nearly every country in the world, the PRC has positioned itself to become a dominant world power.

A Review of Price Expectations Prediction Methods

A Review of Price Expectations Prediction Methods

Zachary Weber
Investing

Making increasingly more accurate future stock market price predictions has long been a  master objective of portfolio managers, fundamental investors, exchanges, and traders alike. While many long-term investors and short-term traders have somewhat different goals for making price predictions and tend to prefer other analytical methods,  both have strategies and models that depend heavily on forecasting returns and making accurate price expectations predictions. Having good price information is essential, but it is less critical than some of the applications derived from price expectation information. No price expectations ever are perfect because markets are very complex adaptive, and evolutionary, chaotic systems that are by nature impossible to predict and have some perpetually novel, not repeatable forces at play.  

Rise of GP-Led Transactions Reshaping Private Equity Secondary Market

Rise of GP-Led Transactions Reshaping Private Equity Secondary Market

Ian Miller
Investing

The buyout of RJR Nabisco in 1988 executed by Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts Co. largely created the private equity market that exists today. The revolutionary deal created an investment strategy that spawned a new standalone asset class. Now, the private equity secondary market, particularly through the rise of GP-led transactions, is bringing about a similar transformation within the financial markets.

Advancements and Challenges in Blockchain Technology

Advancements and Challenges in Blockchain Technology

Syed Umar Bukhari
Finance

Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger system that allows for secure and transparent transactions between parties (Swan, 2015). Initially created to support Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, it has since expanded to various use cases, from financial services to supply chain management. Ethereum, unlike Bitcoin, was designed to support smart contracts and decentralized applications, making it a popular platform for developers. However, Ethereum, like other blockchain networks, faces scalability challenges, and Layer 2 scaling solutions have been developed to address this issue. One key innovation that has been enabled by blockchain technology is the concept of smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement written directly into code.

Netflix and Nostalgia

Netflix and Nostalgia

Cerine Benayoune
Technology

Nostalgia has crept up on us all at some point or another, but now for the first time in history, it has become such a widespread and intense phenomenon that Millennials and Gen Z’s have been dubbed the “Nostalgia Generation”. Were the Hannah Montana movies that good? Is everyone genuinely that attached to the Ice Bucket Challenge and conspiracy theories about hearing subliminal satanic messages when you play an Ariana Grande song backward? Maybe. There are many possible theories behind nostalgia's hold on this generation. One explanation that has come up time and time again in conversation is that of the modern economy, namely the instability of it, and the rise of mass production in American media as a marketing strategy.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Zoha Imran
Science & Nature

In the 21st century, however, using technology humanity has exceeded far beyond just using telescopes from the earth. Rather, it started placing them in earth’s orbits to observe stellar bodies much more efficiently and without any environmental disturbances. The well-known Hubble Space Telescope [launched on April 24, 1990] was placed in earth orbit at a distance of 535 km approx. and now the historic launching of JWST on December 25, 2021, is poised to continue the legacy 

A Brief Introduction to the Slavic Languages

A Brief Introduction to the Slavic Languages

Savannah Hinson Rivas
International Affairs, Science & Nature

The ‘Golden Age’ is a label applied to the period in Russia’s literary history which saw the rise of and prevalence of the movements of Romanticism, Realism, and Classicism. Beginning in the 19th century and centered in Moscow (Buckler, et al.), the authors of this Golden Age are familiar to Western tongues: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol. In his groundbreaking work on Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time, scholar Joseph Frank conducts an exhaustive study of, among other books, The Brothers Karamazov and traces the author’s common themes within his work; themes such as “man lifted up” as well as the “inherent stupidity of man” are common throughout (903). Thematically, the Golden Age addressed moral, ethical, and religious dilemmas, all of which are present in The Brothers Karamazov and Dostoevsky’s other major work, Crime and Punishment.

Diamonds Aren't Forever

Diamonds Aren't Forever

Michael Provvisionato
Business Current Events

Diamonds have undoubtedly become the most prominent gemstone in popular culture, with 86% of engagement rings in the United States being diamond. The popularity of diamond-studded jewelry in American hip-hop culture has also exploded, leading to an even further glorification of diamonds as a status symbol. However, demand for diamonds was not always so high and De Beers, which until recently held arguably the strongest monopoly in history, was able to utilize brilliant marketing techniques in order to embed diamonds into everyday life around the globe and set market prices to make incredible profits. Recently, a slew of antitrust laws against the company has diversified the market and growth in the efficiency of lab-made diamonds promises to benefit consumers.

Uncertain Economic Times Ahead for the United Kingdom

Uncertain Economic Times Ahead for the United Kingdom

Rhys Donnelly
Economics

On September 26th, 2022, the U.K.’s economy, the 6th largest in the world, nearly collapsed as the British pound fell 5% to its lowest value ever at just 1.03 USD. This left the U.K. teetering on the edge of a very serious potential economic crisis. To illustrate the severity of the situation, nearly ¾ of pubs in the U.K. are currently facing permanent closure, citizens are purchasing generators and torches as they anticipate blackouts in the coming winter, and police are preparing for an incredible surge in violent crime and civil unrest as the cost of living will make for a very tough winter for the country. The driver for all of this was the announcement from the new U.K. government that they would be borrowing billions more pounds as a part of their mini-budget which sent the markets tumbling out of control. Unfortunately for the U.K., all of this is occurring while a recession looms on the global economy set to further disrupt the country in many ways.

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