http://www.businessinsider.com/no-gas-tax-increase-in-trump-infrastructure-plan-to-avoid-gop-tax-bill-2018-2
1.) My first economic problem (opportunity) is that during Trump's SOTU address he announced a plan to cut taxes and create $1.5 billion in infrastructure investment over the next 10 years, but he did not reveal where he intends to get the funds to do so from.
a. This source is from Business Insider, but the source of my opportunity belief was from watching the SOTU and realizing that he was just announcing major changes with no actual plan that financially backed up those changes.
b. This information suggests that an opportunity might exist because there are a lot of different sources that Trump could use to fund these plans, but those sources (for example, a tax on gas was mentioned in the article) would be met with outrage and economic stagnation, depending on where he takes those funds from. If he cuts more programs to afford this plan, there will be social backlash. There are solutions to this problem, and maybe those solutions could be pitched to a representative or someone within the bureaucracy.
c. The "customer" in this case could be protesters or even just voters who have the chance to make suggestions to their representatives as to which programs should be protected and which ones should be cut to afford this plan (or even write to the representatives that this plan should not be in the works at all).
d. This opportunity is relatively difficult (some might argue impossible) to argue because it is pretty well known that Trump does not usually heed the advice of his constituents or Congress. Also, only some representatives actually heed the advice of their constituents.
Someone might not see an opportunity after reading this article if they are pessimistic about how much influence we have over our government. Someone could easily read this article and just get angry but not think that there's anything that can be done about it.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily-chart-17?zid=295&ah=0bca374e65f2354d553956ea65f756e0
2.) My second economic problem (opportunity) is that income inequality in the U.S. is rising, and steadily has been for the past millennia.
a. My source for this problem is from the Economist, but my source for the opportunity is the fact that I personally think that income inequality is at an unacceptable level right now in the U.S. There are other countries that have higher levels of egalitarianism in their governments and I can't help but wish that the U.S. would follow suit.
b. I believe that this opportunity exists because of the massive and sudden appeal of Bernie Sanders (a democratic socialist) in the 2016 election, and to some extent the election of Trump. Trump stole Sanders' message of a grassroots revolution and coined the phrase "drain the swamp". So, Sanders' surprising popularity and Trump's success in the election definitely indicate that Americans are tired of income inequality.
c. The "customer" in this case would be U.S. citizens who are dissatisfied with the levels of income inequality within the U.S., maybe specifically people who struggle financially (the lower and middle class perhaps).
d. This opportunity is also ridiculously hard to exploit, because it depends on radically changing certain aspect of our government, which would require overwhelming support and a lot of protesting in order to get representatives to make any changes.
Someone might not have seen this opportunity if they don't care about income inequality or are themselves part of the top 1% who benefit from this system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/politics/trump-immigration.html
3.) My third problem (opportunity), which is related to regulation, is about the recent announcement that Trump intends to heavily restrict immigration to the U.S. moving forward. Some intended regulations are unclear, as in the SOTU he specified that he intended to keep immigrants from bringing distant relatives over even though they already aren't allowed to do that.
a. My source was the New York Times, but my source of opportunity belief was knowing that a lot of people would be kept from immigrating to the U.S. and might even die as a result, especially if their home country is war-torn or starving.
b. I was led to believe that this opportunity exists because many immigrants do want to bring their children or spouse when they come to the U.S., and if that regulation is tightened then those people will suffer being away from their immediate family or will not come to the U.S. at all. Or, even worse, they might be tempted to bring those close relatives and then stay illegally rather than paving a road for those people to gain citizenship.
c. The prototypical customer would be someone who wants to get U.S. citizenship, and possibly their family.
d. The opportunity would, again, be hard to exploit, because anything to do with government is slow to change (although the proposed changes haven't been made yet, so maybe a lot of protesting could help prevent this problem from even happening).
Someone might not have seen this opportunity if they feel threatened by immigrants or are racist and want less people of color in the U.S.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html
4.) My fourth and final problem (opportunity) is the recent slashes in environmental protection/regulation, also perpetrated by the Trump administration.
a. I found this source in the New York Times, but my source of opportunity belief came from the many articles I've read about the Trump administration's attempts to deregulate environmental protections. As a sustainability major, I hear about these deregulation in my classes on a regular basis.
b. I was led to believe this opportunity exists because the Trump administration announced their intent to first deregulate the coal industry (during the election he used this to gain votes), then reversed Obama's decision regarding the pipeline, and now has already overturned as of January 31, 2018, 33 environmental regulations, 24 rollbacks are in progress, and 10 are being planned. This means that we may need to develop technology to compensate for the government's lack of protection of our environment.
c. The prototypical customer would be anyone who cares about the environment, air quality, water quality, clean energy, and the future of our planet.
d. The opportunity is relatively hard to exploit, but maybe easier than the other opportunities in this assignment. It gives plenty of opportunities to invent new technology to protect wildlife (like bears and wolves) whose protection from hunting is being removed, find a way to make coal-dumping less environmentally damaging, and prevent more oil spills because of deregulated offshore drilling.
Someone might not have seen this opportunity if they didn't think there was anything we can do about trying to protect the environment.
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