6A - Identifying Opportunity In Economic & Regulatory Trends

Economic Opportunities

1) Florida Healthcare Helper funds cut

I learned of this issue from a Gainesville Sun article. In the past, there has always been a lot of readily available help and guidance to navigating healthcare, but recently funding cuts has eliminated a lot of their support. Any healthcare users would likely be affected by this increasing issue. This opportunity has a simple solution, redistributing the funding and increasing healthcare counselors, but finding the necessary money to fund may be more difficult.

I found this opportunity because I personally do have difficulty navigating the expansive system of healthcare offered in the United States, Florida, and various companies. This problem will at some point directly effect me.

2) NASA expansion

NASA and space exploration and research has always been a focus of the American people. More recently, President Trump has shift this focus, by majorly cutting funding to NASA and space programs. I've learned about this issue from many various news outlets. This opportunity does exist because there is a lot of work and research available to be done, but simply can't because the funding is not present. Many employees, scientists, astronauts and more are affected by this in that it limits their ability to work successfully. This disrupts a major employer, business, and future research. Solving this problem would include allocating more money towards NASA, but again, it may be difficult to physically find money to use.

I found this opportunity because I'm quite interested in the future of space research and exploration. The United States is not acting as efficiently or quickly as it could be when research, and it disappoints people like myself when we don't reach our potential.

Regulatory Opportunities

1) ICE and Kids in Prisons

Current policies are separating refugee kids from their parents as they enter the United States, fleeing from other countries. This opportunity presented itself all over the news and media outlets. The opportunity to do more with these kids, and their parents, is being ignored. The people effected by this are the kids, the parents, tax-payers who are responsible for providing boarding for them, as well as the future success of the United States. If more is done for these people who want to contribute to the United States, the future success of the U.S. could improve. This would be difficult to solve, as there are many factors in play, but steps towards ensuring these families a real future in the U.S. would be major in moving towards a solution.

I found this opportunity because it is something that is personally upsetting and much more could be done to improve this situation.

2) Legal Medical & Recreational Marijuana

The United States is currently split between states with full legality of marijuana, medical legality, and complete criminality. This opportunity is everywhere in the media, with many states and private companies making huge profits off the newly legalized industry. The opportunity for jobs, tax money, profit and more that legal marijuana provides is huge. Many people are affected by this. Laborers who could be employed by the marijuana industry are hurt. Recreational users of illegal marijuana are punished, while a large portion of the country it is perfectly legal. Patients who could use cannabis to improve their medical situation are harmed by not having access to this medication. This opportunity would not be hard to solve, as many states have already solved it by legalizing marijuana to different extents.

I found this opportunity because I'm very interesting in the expanding cannabis industry, and plan to look for career opportunities within it in the future and after graduation. It is vital to my career aspirations that this industry continues growing and breaking barriers throughout the country.