Assignment 6A: Identifying Opportunities in Economic & Regulatory Trends

• Economic Trend: America Is Declining In Global Economic Power
• Source: https://www.thebalance.com/top-usa-future-economic-trends-3305666
• This information suggests an opportunity exists because it has been known for sometime now and is clearly visible that emerging countries are growing and are here to stay. Many countries, for the most part in the Middle East, are now becoming independent and strong in their role in economic and social markets.
• The prototypical customers are the policy makers in the US who either hope to isolate countries or hope to continue good relations with those countries.
• I believe the opportunity is difficult to exploit as global power is always shifting. It takes much time and money to pass policies in order to be influential among the other countries.
• I think it is important to be in the know about such a broad and general topic about our country. I have definitely talked about this in my micro and macro economics classes as well as my marketing class. 

• Economic Trend: Climate Change Is Causing More Natural Disasters
• https://www.thebalance.com/top-usa-future-economic-trends-3305666
• This information suggests an opportunity exists as the article contains straight statistics comparing the amount of natural disasters in the 1900's compared to now. Wildfires in the Western US have increased to 400% and floods have affected towns 9 more times than they did in 1969.
• The prototypical customer would really be every citizen as crop outputs have decreased causing food prices to increase. More specifically, people in coastal towns who may be affected by sea level rising and flooding.
• I believe the opportunity is difficult to exploit as the effects on the Earth through climate change is almost near irreversible. It will take many years and persuasion to get the country on the same level of agreement that this is actually happening.
• I took an environmental class in the fall semester and our last lecture was about climate change. My professor's main field of study is climate change and he gave us a wealth of accurate information about it.

• Regulatory Trend: Trump administration eases restrictions on oil and gas drilling 
•  https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/how-trump-is-changing-science-environment/
• This information suggests an opportunity exists as oil is a non-renewable resource and has gone up and down in scarcity as OPEC represents the majority of oil producing countries.
• The prototypical customer would be drilling companies who are now able to drill in these areas.
• I believe this opportunity will be definitely not be easy to exploit as it is difficult to drill without threatening the ecosystem in the area of drilling.
• Even though the opportunity exists for drilling companies, I do not not agree with this opportunity. I agree that we need more resources such as oil/gas and cannot solely rely on other countries; however, I do not agree in extracting those resources from protected lands and harming species such as the sage grouse.

• Regulatory Trend: The End of Plastic Cutlery
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/anagarciavaldivia/2019/01/22/the-end-of-plastic-cutlery-plates-and-straws-eu-market-says-goodbye-to-single-use-plastic-products/#6593e38d1565
• This information suggests an opportunity exists as single use plastic products are 70% of all items that are littered in the ocean. There are many statistics and numbers involving the amount of plastic in the ocean.
• The prototypical customers are the European companies who will no longer be producing single use plastic products and have to convert to other materials in 2021. Once these measures have been made, the prototypical customer will become citizens of nations around the world who want to be involved in the movement of no plastic and protecting our oceans.
• I think it is easy to exploit as there are already so many other options that do not contain plastic. The only difficult thing is passing policies to stop the production of plastic products.
• I believe this belief of an opportunity comes from my attitude as well as my experiences. I did a project in my environmental class on this and feel very passionately towards this issue. I use stainless steel straws now and bring them wherever I go.