Money, Money, Money, Must Be Funny, In The Rich Man's World

For our second unit of Economics, Wealth and Wages, we looked into how wealth is accumulated and how it is distributed. We gained knowledge on how to invest our money and increase our money as much as possible, and we were assigned to put this knowledge into use for our Action Project by making a portfolio. This project was challenging because it required a lot of planning and calculating but I really enjoyed it and plan to use some of these skills in real life.

For this project, we received a scenario where 18 years ago, our “guardian angel” set up a college savings plan for us with an initial investment of $8,500. They then would continue to add $50 each month ($600 yearly). After 18 years, at an average annual interest rate of 7%, compounded annually, the plan is now worth $50,556.80. We then had to decide what we do with the money after cashing it out and depositing the money in a brokerage account to invest on our own.

My investment philosophy is to invest when a stock is lower than the annual stock rate, for example when Disney’s stock dropped in July of 2015, and cash out when it’s really high up, but also to wait a long amount of time, because the more years you wait the more likely you are to profit. I also don't care for big fluctuations and prefer stability in my investments, the more fluctuations the less likely I am to invest.

According to a risk assessment quiz I took, by Rutgers, I have an average tolerance for risk. I agree with that result. While, I am willing to take some risks, they aren’t usually aren’t very large risks. If I don’t feel it is almost certain that I will profit, I am not willing to invest my money. I’m more willing to invest in something that I will make less of a profit on it it’s less risky, than to invest in something that I would make a much larger profit on but that has high risk.

AG Screenshot Risk Assessment 2015

I chose three investment goals I have over different periods of time. 1 year, 5 years, and 25 years.

1-year goal: Own a used car - Jeep ($6,500)
5-year goal: Rent an apartment for one year without having to work ($12,000)
25-year goal: Pay off all my student loans ($120,000) Own a house ($400,000)

When choosing which companies to invest in I looked at how well they have done over the course of 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and since the company first started. I also paid attention to fluctuations and how big they were. If a company’s stocks would change constantly, I automatically crossed them off my list. If they were a sure and steady company for years and continued to have a steady increase the past year, I took a closer look at them. This way I could be almost positive that I would make a large profit and I knew that they would be the least risky. I also was only willing to invest in companies that don’t do anything that harms animals, people, or the environment. I decided that when it comes to money, I think the most important thing to look at is what will make money, not what is the nicest or friendliest, but I also have morals and harming others isn’t acceptable to me.

The two companies I chose were the Walt Disney Company and Amazon. The reason I chose these two companies is because I felt could invest in them both no matter what time horizon, since they both have had a steady increase over the years and I think they’re a safe bet no matter what time frame you choose.

• Walt Disney Company has a great competitive advantage over other companies in the entertainment industry. They have one of the largest shares in animation, television, film, theme park, and merchandising industries and over 10 years of a steady growth. They also offer dividends, $0.66/share biannually, but what’s more impressive is their steady growth, with an ROI of over 200% in just the past 5 years. They are constantly releasing new movies, TV shows, merchandise, and attractions. 

Disney Stock Price. 2015. Via Google

• Similarly to Walt Disney Company, Amazon has a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States. They are not likely to fail because of how many different things they offer, such as entertainment or retail. There is almost nothing you can’t find on Amazon and they find you the cheapest prices which is something consumers love, so I doubt they would drop in the market anytime soon. While Amazon itself hasn’t profited that much, people who invest in them have because of their good business model that customers like so much. Like Disney, they have had a steady growth over the years and also have an ROI of over 200% which is incredible. 

Amazon Stock Price. 2015. Via Google

I then organized my investments into three portfolios, one for each goal.

Portfolio I- 1 Year Goal

$3,954.24

      4 shares of Amazon @ $563.91 ($2,255.64 total) (57.0% of portfolio)

      15 shares of Disney @ $113.24 ($1,698.60 total) (43.0% of portfolio)

This grouping of Amazon and Disney has an expected ROI of 64.4%. After one year, I should have enough money for the car I want- $6,500.

Portfolio II- 5 Year Goal

$2,033.74

      2 shares of Amazon @ $563.91 ($1,127.82 total) (55.5% of portfolio)

      8 shares of Disney @ $113.24 ($905.92 total) (44.5% of portfolio)

This grouping of Amazon and Disney has an expected ROI of 490%. After 5 years I should be able to have enough money to pay rent for an apartment for an entire year without having to work- $12,000.

Portfolio III- 25 Year Goal

$44,980.21

      39 shares of Amazon @ $563.91 ($21,992.49 total) (48.9% of portfolio)

      203 shares of Disney @ $113.24 ($22,987.72 total) (51.1% of portfolio)

This grouping of Amazon and Disney has an expected ROI of 1056.06%. After 25 years I should have enough money to pay off my student loans- $120,000 and own a house- $400,000.

Total Investment Portfolios Value- $50,968.19 (This is $411.39 over how much my guardian angel gave me to invest but I have my own $411.39 to invest already saved so it’s ok👍)

If you look at my Stock Sector, you see that I have chosen two companies that are very different and would branch into two very different sectors. A sector is a type of business that a company deals with, basically the category or industry, for example Disney’s Stock Sector is entertainment. The reason I chose entertainment and retail was because, while I doubt either of these sectors would fail anytime soon; if they were to for some reason, some of my money would still be safe in another stock so my loss won’t be as detrimental.

With each portfolio I tried to put in as close to a 50/50 balance in each company as I could, so that if one were to fail I would still have half of my money. I put the majority of the money I’m investing into my 25 year goal, since that is where I need the most amount of money.

Financial Advisor Nathan Aldinger came to speak to our class and a big part of what he does and what he talks about it financial planning. He also talked about how things happen a lot that you just can’t account for with the government, banks, and just money in general. You can never really plan something because you don’t know what might happen. So I think it’s important to keep that in mind while investing, because even if everything were to go perfectly in the stock market for me, I never know if something like what happened in Greece will happen in America, where I won’t be able to get my money out of the banks. I think it’s important to have another back up plan with the money I make on my own, not from my guardian angel.

Three assumptions I made while doing this project were that:

• These companies will continue to flourish and their stocks will continue to rise at a steady rate.
• That nothing major will happen with American money or the value of the dollar or my bank (Chase)
• That Disney’s recent drop is just an anomaly and won’t happen multiple times.

If this scenario were in real life I would definitely choose to actually do this project and put in it the stocks the way I did. The only thing I would change is the time horizon, because I would rather focus on my long term goals rather than my long term goals, so I would most likely just cash out the majority of the stocks after 25 years if not longer.

Works Cited

• Amazon.com. (2015, October 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:35, October 16, 2015
• Douglas Satterfield. "Core Values: Amazon.com." Theleadermaker.com. N.p., 15 June 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2015
• Investopedia. "Who Are Amazon's (AMZN) Main Competitors?"Investopedia.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2015
• Peter Roff. "The Man, the Medium and Message." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 06 Aug. 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2015 
• Rutgers. Investment Risk Tolerance Quiz. 2015. NA
• "Company Overview | The Walt Disney Company." Company Overview | The Walt Disney Company. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Why The Walt Disney Co Is Investing In This Startup." The Motley Fool. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Potential Competitive Advantage over the past 10 Years." Walt Disney Company (The) (DIS) Economic Moat. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Spider-Man Arrives at Disneyland Park November 16 in the New Super Hero HQ." Disney Parks Blog RSS. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Growing Dividends Are Great News for Investors in The Walt Disney Company -- The Motley Fool." The Motley Fool. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Walt Disney Co." Google Search: NYSE:DIS Quotes & News. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 
• "Amazon Never Makes Money But No One Cares (AMZN,AAPL,WAG,AZO)." Investopedia. 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. 

Childhood Taken Over By Technology...Or Is There Some Hope?

For our final unit in Journalism, Text, we learned about written journalism and how it has been used to connect us to here and now. We studied essential skills, values, and concepts of written journalism in our century, and we learned about spot stories, in which all of the information is gathered “on the spot”. For our Action Project, we were assigned to cover our own spot stories at an event that we each chose to attend. This was a unit I enjoyed because I’m someone who loves to write, and I liked being able to improve upon my writing skills.

Childhood Taken Over By Technology...Or Is There Some Hope?

AG Technology Taking Over 2015

“Give that back! Why would you take that away from him?” a father yelled at his 9 year old daughter for taking away an iPhone from her 3 year old brother. Meanwhile, the small boy is screaming and crying off to the the side. This familial moment, which nowadays seems to happen all too often, is a prime example of what I worry about most when I think about today’s youth (by which I mean younger than me).

To clarify, I’m referring specifically about young children in this generation, children whose lives will be changed forever because they will never have the opportunity for a childhood that isn’t taken over technology. People my age are already technology obsessed - I’m not any different - but at least when we were younger we had childhoods where we actually played, childhoods where we still played outdoors, and with each other, with actual toys, not all-tech all of the time. Today’s youth have childhoods that don’t involve these things, but instead are corrupted by technology, disconnection, less socialization, and what I consider to be a much duller experience of being a kid.

On October 18th, I had an opportunity to witness both phenomena in action at this year’s annual Fall Harvest Festival at Wagner Farm in Glenview, Illinois. I was there volunteering for community service hours and had been assigned to supervise the Arts and Crafts section of the festival. The event was comprised of many different sections and opportunities for creativity and okay: the farm contained a large field with a farmhouse, a historic center, many different educational exhibits, and there were other fun, hands on activities such as wagon rides, apple cider making, animal petting, pumpkin picking, tours, and a lot more. Being in the crafts section, I got the opportunity to witness a variety of “interesting” artistic talents in my young “students” that day, but my mind also kept returning to our glaring difference in childhood experiences - tech or no/less tech.

This isn’t a concern to me alone. Fellow twitter users will recognize the trending hashtag “#TodaysKidsWillNeverKnow” where people nostalgically share the different games, books, or experiences in general that this and future generations of children don’t and won’t ever know because of how overcome they gave been by technology. Everything is just at their fingertips, and it’s there without any waiting. It’s amazing that technology has gotten so advanced, but what ever happened to jump rope, freeze tag, passing notes in class, mash, mood rings, Twister, the Barbie Cash Register or Hot Wheels? Do kids even still want treehouses? The most my generation had, technology-wise, when we were growing up were Gameboys, slow internet that would take 15 minutes (if you were lucky) to start up, flip phones that you had to record your ringtones on, cableless TV, and CDs. Movies weren’t “instantly streamed”-- you went to Blockbuster to rent them with your family and then you would spend some time rewinding the tapes to the beginning before returning them to the store. You couldn’t look up the definition of everything on Google in a couple of seconds -- you had to flip through the dictionary. You didn’t just take a million pictures on your phone -- you had a disposable camera, where every picture was taken with precision and care because there was no redo or delete button. And then went and developed the film -- it didn’t just upload quickly to your computer. But “Today’s Kids Will Never Know” and that’s just downright sad.

What I witnessed at the Fall Harvest Festival, however, was a relief to anyone who worries that technology is taking over today’s children. Kids were actually playing with toys, each other, animals, and the outdoors. They weren’t all sitting with tablets and cell phones and Gameboys. In fact, aside from the one incident I overheard with the child crying over the iPhone being taken away, I didn’t see any kids playing with any tech, which made me feel extremely relieved. One of my fellow volunteers said “I’m surprised we had this many kids coming in; I thought most kids nowadays just play on their phones.” The children and parents in my section were genuinely excited about the crafts we had set out to make. We created apples out of yarn and leaves out of paper, which might not sound like the most exciting things to do, but the kids actually enjoyed it, their little smiles along with exclamations of oohs and aahs, were proof that this was certainly a highlight of their day. We helped children of all ages - some of them so young that they even struggled to loop yarn around cardboard - who stuck with the crafting and did their best. An excited parent exclaimed, “It’s really nice to get to see the kids play with things hands-on for a change.” Whether her comment and this whole experience confirms my worries or proves them wrong, it was nice to get to spend a day with children, playing and creating, just like I once did.

Self Defense 101

For my third period elective of the Fall Term, I chose to take Self Defense. In this class we learned many different techniques to defend ourselves and about personal safety.  For our Action Project we were assigned to make a video showing at least one of the things we learned in this class. I really enjoyed this class and liked getting to learn techniques to defend myself; I honestly feel safer walking down the street thanks to this class. Sometimes the maneuvers were challenging, but I was able to get past every challenge and successfully master the moves.

REY of Light

For our second unit of Journalism, Sound, we studied radio and how it is used to connect people. We listened to many podcasts and studied many different voices. For our Action Project we were assigned to choose who we considered to be the “voice of the century” and make a podcast about them, including an interview and soundbites. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed the project because we got to do it on someone meaningful to us, and I really enjoyed getting to discuss Lana Del Rey and her art.

WHEN	WHO/HOW	WHAT
0:00 0:02 0:26 0:46 2:49 2:53 2:56 3:04 3:08 3:14 3:17 3:19 3:20 3:25 3:28 3:35 4:01 4:31	[soundbite] [AG] [music fades in] [old music fades out, new music fades in] [soundbite] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [snippet of Lana Del Rey’s song “Brooklyn Baby” fades in] [AG with music fading in in the background] [soundbite] THE END	Elizabeth Grant, more well known as Lana Del Rey, was born June 21, 1985 in New York state. She began songwriting when she was 18 and released her first album in 2005 under the name May Jailer. Later she signed her first record deal and released her debut studio album- Lana Del Ray AKA. Lizzy Grant, ray spelled with an a not an e like currently, under the name Lizzy Grant, but it got very little attention. She then changed her stage name to Lana Del Rey, rey with an e, and released Born to Die, which became a major hit, 5th best-selling album worldwide in 2012. Later she released two more albums, Ultraviolence, and more recently Honeymoon. In between all those albums she also released many hit singles. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Lana Del Rey about how people consider her to be “not authentic”, and she is often criticised for many reasons. However, people need to realize, that all celebrities have a persona, that doesn’t make them fake or “not authentic”, it just makes them a celebrity. There is a lot of mystery surrounding Lana Del Rey and what kind of person she is, but the rumors about her are just that- rumors. For instance, people think that her father paid money to get her where she is today just because of how wealthy he is, but that’s completely false. 5 Points Records label boss David Nichtern said “Her father never had anything to do financially with supporting her creativity.” Her music is good, and people realized that which is why she’s gotten where she is, it has nothing to do with money. People also think that she slept with many people in the industry to get her higher up, but again this is completely fake. Lana Del Rey is brutally honest and even said herself, “You know, I have slept with a lot of guys in the industry, but none of them helped me get my record deals.” She owns her actions and does it with no shame, which just goes to show how not fake she is, and it also confronts another issue of people calling her anti-feminist. But how can someone who completely owns something like that be anti-feminist? Her music strives to show women's’ points of views on many things, and explains what goes in their minds, not to make an excuse or encourage it, but just to make the world understand, and to show women going through these situations that others feel the same way and that they aren’t alone, but I don’t think that’s anti-feminist at all, I think it’s just honest. The things Lana Del Rey sings about are critical for this century because she brings to light issues that most people don’t really address, like domestic violence. She also confronts death and what comes after. Her music is so hypnotic it captivates people and her lyrics force you to listen and pay attention. I interviewed the person who first introduced me to Lana Del Rey to discuss her music and why she thinks it’s important. Why do you like Lana Del Rey's music? I think she inspires a lot of people, um, especially young women; she serves as a role model for me, and my other young women as well. Why do you think she's important for out generation? Um, I believe that she inspires a lot of people to be their true selves. Which of her songs has the deepest meaning to you? Um, "DarkParadise". Why? It reminds me of the dark times and being able to get through them. What made you play me her music for the first time? I thought you would enjoy her music as much as I did, and I thought her music would help you go through hard times like I did. Lana Del Rey’s music is so important in our generation, because it is so honest. Her music tells the truth about our time period and it helps others know that they aren’t alone. Time Magazine described her song Brooklyn Baby as “by far the most millennial song ever written”. I think her music is something that everyone could relate to if they just listened to her words, and I think it is something important for everyone to listen to, so they can know what they’re feeling is normal and okay. Because that’s what her music does for me.

Works Cited:

• 50 Geeky Facts About Lana Del Rey | NME.COM. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• Harris, P. (2012, January 21). Lana Del Rey: The strange story of the star who rewrote her past. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• Lana Del Rey. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• REVIEW: Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence Is the Album We Need Right Now. (2014, June 17). Retrieved October 14, 2015.