A Higher Stage for Minimum Wage

Today, the Seattle City Council approved an increase of the Seattle's minimum wage up to $15.   Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is expected to sign the ordinance on Tuesday.

Currently, the federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 an hour.  The minimum wage in the state of Washington is $9.32, which is already the highest state-level minimum wage in the country.  The increase to $15 will only be effective within the city boundaries of Seattle, and will be effective for large businesses in 2017 and for every business in 2021.

Supporters of the increase in minimum wage hope that increasing the minimum wage will lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty, reduce the wealth gap in America, and increase spending, among other economic benefits. I believe that raising the minimum wage is a good first step to fixing many of these problems, but I believe that more can be done as well to help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor as well as reduce poverty in our country. With Seattle being the first place to drastically hike up the minimum wage, only time will tell how it effects the economy of Seattle.

Local businesses have numerous complaints about the increase in wages. They are saying that the increase will cause them to cut jobs and halt future expansion plans. If cutting jobs and slowing expansion end up being results of the increase in minimum wage, then the plan may end up hurting more than it helps. Raising the minimum wage by around 60% could be especially problematic for small business trying to get their feet under them, which could also hinder the economy if small businesses begin failing. Luckily for these companies, the large companies have over two years, and the small businesses have over six years to prepare themselves for the new minimum wage hike.

What do you think about this increase in minimum wage in Seattle?  Do you think this should become a nationwide change? What do you think are the pros and cons of increasing the minimum wage?

New College Rankings

Around the halls of New Trier High School, hardly a day goes by where people aren't talking about colleges and comparing the hundreds of colleges that kids are applying to.  It is natural for us to try to declare that one college is better than another in every way, because it is easier to then create rankings.  However, it's not always easy to decide which college is "better" than any other college.  The US News and World Report, Forbes, and many other publications have attempted to do this for years, but the different methodologies of each ranking make each one drastically different.  How do you decide whether Yale is "better" than Harvard?  No one can really definitively know, but President Obama is determined to do so.


The Obama Administration has announced their plans to introduce a government college ratings system.  Reasons for this change are that they want to help students weigh the pros and cons of certain schools as well as to prove that the $150 billion dollars the government gives to colleges and universities each year is worth it.

The new government-run rating system would factor in things like how many of their students graduate, how much debt their students accumulate, and how much money their students earn after college.

I think that these changes can really help our country if done the right way.  I think it could give students better advice on which college will be most worth their money, and I think it could filter out schools that are expensive and don't have graduates that are making enough money to pay for their education because the colleges themselves are bad.

What do you think about the government getting involved in college rankings?

Betrayed by the Game

For my junior theme paper I read The Last Shot by Darcy Frey.  It is an account of the year the Frey spent with the Abraham Lincoln High School basketball team in 1991.  He followed the lives of Corey Johnson, Tchaka Shipp, and Darryle Flicking.  All three of them were stars on the team and were being recruiting by Division 1 schools to play basketball.  When the book ends, Tchaka is going to Seton Hall on a full ride, Corey is going to junior college in Texas, and Darryle is going to junior college around Los Angeles.  However, the obstacles put in front of them by life in Coney Island kept all of them from achieving their dreams.

Of the three, Tchaka had the most promising future because by the end of high school he had secured a full scholarship to Seton Hall, a Division 1 school.  Throughout Tchaka's recruitment, the coaches at Seton Hall would repeatedly tell him that he'd contend for a starting spot right away, that they thought he could be star, and that they thought he could have a chance at the NBA if he went to Seton Hall.  However, soon after arriving on campus Tchaka learned that these were all lies, and that he had been recruited as a bench player the whole time.  After two fruitless years at Seton Hall he transferred to UC Irvine in hope of more playing time.  One night while driving back to campus after practice, Tchaka fell asleep at the wheel and got in a bad car accident, leaving him with life-threatening injuries to his skull, lungs, legs, and hands.  He was never able to play basketball to his potential again because of the injuries.  After the accident, transferring to CW Post, and a failed tryout in the semi-pro leagues, Tchaka gave up the game of basketball and has been living paycheck to paycheck doing manual labor ever since.

After spending some time in the JuCo leagues in Texas, Corey Johnson lost hope in ever being recruited to a Division 1 team, lost motivation and dropped out of school.  He then continued to pursue his dream of becoming a poet by writing his first set of writings to be published.  He has continued to struggle after high school, living paycheck to paycheck just as Tchaka has.

Lastly, there was Darryle Flicking.  After becoming one of the best JuCo players around, Flicking was recruited by many Division 1 coaches, but decided to go to Division 2 UC-Riverside because he felt he could better focus on earning his degree there.  He did eventually graduate in 1996 with a degree in sociology.  But his mental and emotional troubles from his childhood stayed with him.  He was arrested twice for abusing his wife while in college, and later became homeless.  Then in 1999 he was walking along railroad tracks and was fatally struck from behind by an Amtrak train, which friends of his believe to be a suicide, which he almost attempted during his time at Lincoln High.

For all of these players, basketball was the promised road out of their struggles.  They chose basketball in order to avoid the troubles of getting involved in drug dealing in the streets of Coney Island, but in the end, how much better off are they?  Unfortunately, the sometimes cruel world of Division 1 basketball holds more stories like these than the publicized success stories of a lucky few who make it.

World Hoops

Over the past couple weeks, I have been reading The Last Shot by Darcy Frey, which tells the story of college basketball recruitment of a few high school basketball players from Coney Island, New York.  Since beginning the book, I have been looking more closely at topics related to the book.

This past Saturday, Nike hosted the Nike Hoop Summit, which was a showcase game played between Team USA and the World Team.  Team USA was comprised of the best seniors in high school from the United States, and the World Team had the best seniors in high school from the rest of the world.  It was a fantastic event which showcased the best talent form across the world, yet I couldn't help but see all the parallels to Darcy Frey's book and the rest of my basketball knowledge.

In the book, it is mentioned that shoe companies try to build relationships with young players as early as possible.  The Nike Hoop Summit is the perfect example of this.  Nike pays for the whole thing, gives them free uniforms, shoes, and other gear.  Nike feels that their payoff will be that when one or two of these players become the next big thing in the NBA, they will have built enough good credit with the player and a strong enough relationship to convince him to sign his endorsement deal with Nike instead of Adidas, Under Armour, or countless other brands.

In addition, I think this is too big of stage to be putting high school kids on.  Before these kids have even stepped foot on a college campus, they are being compared to the best players in the entire world on national television.  While listening to the broadcast, I heard them mention that there were many NBA scouts in attendance.  While this does make sense considering most of these players won't go to more than a year of college so they could be in the NBA pretty soon, I think people have to realize how many of these kids probably won't end up being NBA prospects a year or two from now.

Favoring the Underdog

It always happens.  Every year.  In the NCAA Tournament, there is always at least one school we've never heard of that shocks the world by beating a perennial powerhouse.  Dayton, Florida Gulf Coast, Lehigh, Norfolk State, Wichita State, and VCU are recent cinderella stories that come to mind.  And year in and year, out everyone is rooting for these schools that they couldn't even point out on a map.

I find it fascinating that there really seems to be no other feelings towards these teams besides people rooting for them.  I feel like there's a counter-argument to almost everything else, yet there seems to be unanimous support for these underdogs.  Maybe someone could say that they'd rather have the better team advance, or that a program with an established culture of winning deserves to go farther in the tournament than an irrelevant team that got lucky one night.  But I never hear these arguments, which begs the question:  Why are we so obsessed with the underdog?

I believe that it's simply the American way to cheer for the underdog.  It begins with our roots as a country in which we started as colonies ruled by Great Britain, eventually fighting our way against the world's most powerful nation and gaining our independence.  We're the country that people from across the world immigrate to in search of a new life and a place in which one could find success if they are willing to work.

Why do you think we as a society love the underdog?  Do you love the underdog?

Follow Up to "3D Printing: More Than a Toy"

Back in January, I had posted on the new and innovative technology of 3D printing.  I had discussed  how 3D printing was becoming much more than a novelty, and had the chance to truly change the landscape of many industries.  Since then, I had not come across any new advancements or news in the 3D printing world, until I came across this incredible article today.

Mick Ebeling tells the story of how he heard of a Sudanese boy named Daniel had his arms detached from his body during the Sudanese government's bombing raids.  That night, he couldn't go to sleep without trying to help out.  He knew he wouldn't be able to help all of the kids who had limbs blown off in the explosions, but he knew he had to try to help Daniel.

Ebeling surrounded himself with the smartest people he could, and they came up with the idea of bringing a 3D printer to Sudan to print the prosthetic arms there, while teaching people in Sudan how to use the printer so they could continue to help more people.

In case you aren't familiar with 3D printers, they mostly operate just as regular printers do.  They are connected to computers, and they print files from the computer.  But, 3D printers are able to print three-dimensional objects right in front of you.  So in this case, the proper materials had to be loaded into the printer, and computer-designed 3D parts of the prosthetic arms were printed on the spot.

In the end, the prosthetic arm worked for Daniel, and will end up helping countless other children who have unfortunately lost their limbs.  It is incredible how the 3D printer is being utilized now even though it has not existed for very long.  Stories like this can only leave us wondering what 3D printers will be doing next.

What other uses do you think 3D printers could have?  Do you see the use of 3D printers growing even more?

Middlebury vs Middlebury

Upon checking into a quaint inn in Middlebury, Vermont, the man behind the front desk looked me up and down and immediately said, "Here's a pamphlet on the College, enjoy your stay" in a cold, rehearsed voice.  I hadn't mentioned a thing to him about the college.  It was as if he was disdainful about how the only reason he thought I would ever consider setting foot in his small town would be to visit the local college; which was actually exactly why I was there.

Later that night at the conclusion of dinner at the inn, the extremely welcoming and kind waitress told us that she hoped we would enjoy seeing Middlebury College tomorrow in almost an identical tone as the man behind the front desk.  Again, we made no mention of Middlebury to her whatsoever.  At this point I knew there had to be something more between the people of Middlebury and the students at Middlebury College.

As soon as a began to look into the topic, I came across a documentary made by local students at the high school about this exact relationship.  The tone of the video is set immediately by a high schooler saying that if he was in a car driving through the campus, he would hit the next Middlebury College student that crossed the street without looking.

One of the issues between the students of Middlebury College and the residents of Middlebury, VT is that there is an enormous financial gap between them.  In terms of the college itself and the town itself, a few examples were given in the video of major town projects having to be majorly funded by the college because the college has more many the town itself.  This is not different on the person to person level either.  In Middlebury, the median household income is $48,487, while the total annual cost for one student to go to Middlebury College is just under $60,000.  This immense financial gap seems to create a lot of tension and resentment from the less wealthy people of Middlebury to the more wealthy students at the college.  In my brief experience, the students at the college have almost the opposite feelings about the residents of the town.  One student described the people of the town as "sweethearts" and said that "The people here make it the most wholesome and friendly place I've ever been."

I think this relationship is particularly interesting because I see it as a sort of microcosm of the larger financial gap throughout the United States.  The large gap between the middle class and the "1%" is a continuous struggle in this country that has not seen any progress in being resolved.

I believe that the best solution in both the smaller case of Middlebury as well as the larger case of the United States is that the people need to settle there differences and work to get along.  There isn't a whole lot either side can do to help decrease the financial gap, but I don't think that's what necessarily needs to happen anyways.  People should be able to get along despite financial or any other differences.  The town of Middlebury offers as much to the college in certain ways as the college does to the town in other ways.  Even though the issue of financial differences isn't going away any time soon, hopefully the attitudes of the town of Middlebury and Middlebury College as well as the attitudes of the middle class and "1%" does change soon.

Do you think the feelings of resentment are justified?  What would you do to solve the problem?