6A – Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

Opportunity 1: Legalization of medical marijuana in Florida
  2. With the recent legalization of medical marijuana in Florida, the opportunity for massive investment is imminent in this field. Thousands of people can be employed, and companies can invest to open dispensaries all over the state.
  3. The Florida legislature states that prototypical customer for a medical marijuana license would be anybody with a debilitating disease, like cancer, HIV, or Crohn’s Disease.
  4. This opportunity seems easy to exploit at first, but there are probably many legal and regulatory hurdles required to open a chain of medical dispensaries.
  5. I saw this opportunity because I have seen the positive effect of marijuana on debilitating diseases. My uncle unfortunately passed from an aggressive form of cancer, but he used medical marijuana during his treatments, which helped ease his pain tremendously. Many people have negative feelings towards marijuana, so I think people might be hesitant to allow dispensaries to be opened.
Opportunity 2: Regulation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by the US Government
  2. While many of the more well-known cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, might suffer huge losses once regulation begins, I think the creation of a brand new cryptocurrency built and structured to follow US guidelines would skyrocket, as it would not suffer the blow from the introduction of regulation.
  3. The prototypical customer would be anyone interested in holding cash in an untraceable account or one who would want to invest their money into cryptocurrency, especially in one that is regulated and insured.
  4. This opportunity is extremely easy to exploit, as creating a cryptocurrency is not a hard task.
  5. I saw the opportunity because I have invested in cryptocurrency for about six years now, and the money is there if you want it. Not many people have invested in it, because it can be volatile.
Opportunity 3: Proposed 70% Marginal Tax Rate for those making $10 million+
  2. This proposed tax hike for the richest Americans would offer a huge increase in funding to the most underfunded sectors of the US budget. Additionally, this would only affect the top 0.1% of Americans.
  3. The prototypical beneficiary of this tax hike would be any American citizen. The increased budget would go towards education, healthcare, and social security.
  4. This huge tax hike is going to be difficult to be passed in Congress, especially among conservatives.
  5. I see this opportunity as a way to increase funding in the most underfunded areas of the US government. Most might see this as way too high of a tax hike, but this was done in the era of Jimmy Carter.
Opportunity 4: Fed Ready to Pause on Interest Rate Increases
  2. This pause on interest rate increases can allow many businesses to take out loans without worrying about inflated rates in, at least, the near future.
  3. The prototypical beneficiary in this situation is the entrepreneur or business owner who wants to take out loans.
  4. This opportunity is easy to exploit for now, as interest rates are not rising for the near future.
  5. I saw this opportunity because I took an economics class last year, and saw the importance of low interest rates towards the success of entrepreneurs and business owners.

Comments

  1. Caroline PierceJanuary 24, 2019 at 5:10 PM

    The legalization of marijuana is an opportunity that definitely needs to be seized. There would be many regulatory and legal hurdles to this business. However, after legalization in Canada, the legal suppliers ran out of supply very quickly because they were not anticipating such a high demand. So the sooner one could obtain the proper licensing to produce marijuana the better.

    As far as the proposed 70% marginal tax rate, it will be a huge battle to get passed. Congress now has a democratic majority, but the Senate does not. Even if the bill did pass both the House and the Senate, the current President would veto it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. VictoriaJanuary 25, 2019 at 3:13 PM

    I agree there is a huge market for the legalization of marijuana. Although I have to say I am unsure how easy this will be to exploit. For now, the legalization is bound to medical uses only. Which requires doctors approval and I'm sure certain medical regulation. I do think it will be a matter of time before legalization of marijuana is approved for recreational purposes. I think there is a lot of opportunity here as well. However, again this may be somewhat difficult to exploit because of certain regulations. Just as we have regulations on who can sell, who can purchase, and produce alcohol I'm sure these requirements will be enacted for marijuana. This could cause this opportunity to be a little more difficult to exploit.

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