Legal Online Sports Betting in California: Good or Bad for Californians 20 Jul 2022 2:45 AM (3 years ago)
Since the Supreme Court struck down the controversial law PASPA (the one that banned sports betting on a federal level) in 2018, many states have legalized sports betting and are already reaping the fruits of this decision.
California is on the verge of legalizing sports betting at land-based venues, as well as online and mobile sports betting, but curiously, many people are opposing the latter and there is now a state-wide campaign against Preposition 27 (the one legalizing online betting).
We will explore the reasons behind this push against the preposition, and we will also discuss the arguments of the opposing side.
What is Preposition 27
Before we discuss the proponents and opponents of the measure, it’s important to give you a brief summary of Preposition 27.
Preposition 27 proposes a constitutional amendment, which would legalize online sports betting and allow an online sports betting platform to enter a contract with a gaming tribe and provide online betting to persons over the age of 21 on the territory of California (outside tribal lands).
The preposition will appear on the midterm election ballot. Election day will be on November 8, 2022.
For and Against Preposition 27
The people and groups actively campaigning against Preposition 27 have given us a plethora of arguments to consider. Perhaps the most emotional argument they use, and the one you will have definitely seen in ads if you live in California, is that online sports betting would lead to more people addicted to gambling, and would allow children to bet as well.
Emotional arguments, whether they are true or not, are unfortunately very effective, especially if voters aren’t familiar with the issue. One of the sponsored ads claims that by making sports betting readily available, everyone with an Internet access could be a potential victim of gambling addiction, including children.
The last argument can be easily fought if one looks at states with legal online betting industries. In order to bet online in states like New Jersey, you have to open an account with a regulated online operator and to do this, you have to verify your identity, using an ID or a driver’s license, and your location via GPS-locator. This bars children from betting as effectively as a person checking customers’ IDs at a land-based venue.
In terms of overall addiction, there could be a debate. Addiction rates will rise when online betting is legalized, but that’s simply because there would be more people betting. The per capita percentage will not necessarily rise, and various online operators have schemes preventing addicted players from gambling their fortune away.
Also, now it’s the time to address the elephant in the room – Preposition 26. Preposition 26 will also appear on the ballot, and if successful, it would legalize land-based sports betting on tribal lands. There isn’t a big push against this preposition, and we suppose you already know why.
The groups that oppose Preposition 27 are made out of gaming tribes that oppose all and every attempt to legalize commercial gambling. They have since raised $114.13 million for lobbying against it, which shows how influential they are in California, the state with the biggest number of tribal casinos in the US.
Californian tribes have successfully blocked legalization attempts in the past , and Preposition 27 is no different. Their other argument is that it would hurt tribal economy and that they would have to compete with out-of-state operators.
Tribes can just as well open their own betting websites, but as it is with any industry, they would have to compete for a bigger market share. This is what the argument essentially boils down to – should the Californian tribes be the only ones allowed to conduct legal sports betting operations or not?
Proponents of Preposition 27 have also noted that Californians would continue to bet online, whether it’s legal or not. If it is legal though, they wouldn’t use predatory websites, which could steal their data and money. For those who already bet online, online betting legalization is the only safe haven.
In addition, legalizing online and mobile sports betting offers a big injection of tax revenue with the proposed 10% tax on betting revenue.
Preposition 27 will also create the California Online Sports Betting Trust Fund, which would use “revenue from licensing fees, renewals, and the sports wagering tax” to sponsor the California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support (85%) and the Tribal Economic Development (15%) funds.
Still, the pro-27 lobby is just as wealthy and influential; it’s not a band of rogues. It’s made out of mostly gambling operators, although the California Solutions to Homelessness and Mental Health Support also supports the measure and has since raised over $100 million to put it on the ballot.
Conclusion
Two big lobbies, that of gaming tribes and that of commercial operators, will meet on the midterm ballot. They both have financial incentive for their side to win the debate, so the question is whether you, as a Californian, want online and mobile sports betting to be legal or not.
Do not appeal to emotional arguments on either side; think pragmatically about the matter in hand and make an informed choice this coming November.
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Tackling Homelessness in the US 17 Jun 2022 2:39 AM (3 years ago)
The United States is the richest country in the world with GDP of over $20 trillion, and yet the nation has half a million homeless people. The situation differs from state to state with California having the largest homeless population in the nation with over 161,000 people living in shelters or on the streets.
Today’s article will discuss how this big humanitarian issue arose and what the US is doing to address it.
Number of Homeless People in the US
The latest data on the homeless population in the US, coming from the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (2020), found that 580,466 people are homeless. The method of surveying, however, was rather imperfect. The number in the first sentence represents people who were found in shelter or on the streets by surveyors on a single night.
The number is likely way higher, and there should be better ways to report on the actual number of homeless people. One worrying trend shows that homelessness only increases, despite efforts to curb it.
However, the United States is not, as many people like to say, the only developed country with a homelessness problem. If you account for population size (number of homeless people per capita), the United States isn’t even in the top 10 of wealthy countries with the worst homelessness crises. Still, that doesn’t mean that the country is doing its best to prevent it.
The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with high levels of inflation, will likely make even more people homeless. A very grim, but perhaps realistic, prognosis from January 2021 estimates that these two factors can increase homelessness by 49%, which is deeply worrying.
Reasons for Homelessness
It’s difficult to give one or even few reasons why homelessness occurs in the US. Most of the time, there is more than one reason anyway. The housing crisis is intrinsically tied to homelessness, for example.
The cities with the biggest percentage of homeless people in the states are also those with the highest rents and house prices. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that for every 100 low-income renters, only 37 affordable housing units can be found. It doesn’t take an economist to see the problem here.
In addition, many families live pay check to pay check, and unfortunately, it’s plausible that they end up in shelters if the economic situation was to drastically worsen, which is prognosed to happen.
Many homeless people also struggle with drug addiction, which is another reason for homelessness. Other homeless persons include those who were recently incarcerated. It’s extremely difficult to find a job as an ex-convict in the US, so many of those people end up on the streets.
There are also a lot of young homeless people, some of whom had been kicked out of their homes by their parents because they disprove their lifestyle. This is especially prevalent with LGBTQ youths and those who battle drug addiction.
Public Opinion on Homelessness
The homelessness situation has gone out of control, especially in big cities like New York, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. There are now whole camps in central parts of these cities, which create safety concerns for some citizens.
Petty theft and car theft are prevalent in these parts, so the populace’s opinion on their homeless peers is worsening. Many people now avoid these areas out of fear and they are less willing to offer financial help to the homeless.
Experts agree that property theft is on the rise in these encampments, but they say that the areas with a high number of homeless people were already crime-ridden, so it’s uncertain whether the homeless increased crime rates.
Still, if the public perception is that encampments drive crime, then government policies might and likely will reflect this view.
What is the US Doing About the Homeless Crisis
A major issue regarding homelessness in the United States is that the number of unsheltered persons greatly exceeds that of the sheltered. In California, for example, 79% of the homeless are unsheltered. This exposes them to all kinds of dangers and makes it near impossible to find a job. California is not an outlier, it’s just the most striking example.
Truth is that wages do not proportionally rise with the cost of living, especially housing prices, and it’s expensive to build shelters and to rent, leading to more unsheltered people. There should be either another great housing crash or a complex economic policy that could fix the issue.
The lack of comprehensive social programs has also contributed to the higher number of homeless people. This all started in the 1980’s when budgets for social programs were drastically cut, and they haven’t since recovered.
The issue is not taxation; in fact, taxes have gradually risen over the years. The issue is the government’s allocation of resources. Many agree that the homeless crisis should be a top priority to ensure all Americans are housed, but it doesn’t seem to be that high on the agenda.
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The Contemporary Social Issue of Data Stealing 25 May 2022 2:43 AM (3 years ago)
There is no need to give you background information on the issue we will discuss today. Almost all, if not all, internet users know that their personal data is not safe online. This has always been the case, but the issue has only worsened in the past decade and big scandals like the one concerning Cambridge Analytica have revealed exactly how bad the situation is.
We will talk about some of these big data breaches, but we will mainly concentrate on how websites use your data, who they can sell it to, and the measures against this catastrophic reality that were put in place by responsible companies and state governments.
How Websites Get Your Data
Nowadays, you don’t have to sign up for a website with your email to have your data used and sold by the said website. All you need to do is visit it. The websites use the so-called website tracking technique to gather information about every visitor. Some use it for analytical purposes only; tracking user demographics to improve their websites.
Many others though use it for both analytical and marketing purposes. When you visit a website, so called “cookies” are gathered about you. A cookie is a text containing data that identifies your computer. Every website stores cookies and accesses cookies you have stored on your computer.
This allows websites to find out everything about your online browsing habits, including websites you visit, websites you purchase from, and so on. Thus, a website can construct a whole dossier on you, including places you visited, both in real life and online, products you’ve bought, and so on and so on.
How Websites Use Your Data
A 2017 study has revealed that 79% of websites use website tracking. The majority of them use it for marketing purposes, although they also use it to improve their website and its services. The result is targeted ads.
People no longer wonder why they continue to get ads for a website on other websites after visiting it just once. Let us be realistic though, some people genuinely like targeted ads. They like getting recommendations for restaurants or stores in their area, they also like learning about things that they were already interested in.
Others, however, don’t like falling into a loop seeing the same ads over and over again or be made to purchase something after that said thing was recommended time and time again. Sometimes these people can give feedback on certain ads and remove them if they are of no interest, but that’s not always a possibility.
Another interesting, or rather scary, part of targeted ads is that it appears they are not always tied to cookies. What we mean by that is that people have reported seeing product ads without ever searching for similar products online.
One couple, for example, talked about cat food for a few days (they didn’t have a cat, so they never bought cat food) and they began receiving cat food ads. Big social media platforms like Facebook have claimed that they can’t access your phone’s microphone to eavesdrop, and they are probably telling the truth, but some apps can and have done that.
An app might ask to access your microphone and if you click “accept” even once, it’s game over until you delete the app. Alphonso, for instance, is a data-collecting company, which embeds data tracking software in various apps, some of which can record conversations. The company can later sell your data to other websites, and that’s how you end up with cat food ads on Facebook.
Truth is, this is not always illegal, so you can have your most private data sold to a third party without even noticing. In addition, you might have even authorized it yourself by agreeing to their terms and conditions, so the apps would not be liable.
Sometimes though it is illegal. This was the case with Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct British political consultant firm. Investigation showed that they illegally obtained data from over 87 million Facebook profiles without user consent.
They did that through “This Is Your Digital Life” – a Facebook personality quiz app. Upon doing the quiz, Facebook users opened their profiles, even their direct messages, to the app creators. The app creators then used the data to build complex psychological profiles on each user and even on those in the user’s friends list.
The findings were later sold to Cambridge Analytica, and the consultant firm used it to find eligible voters and target ads to swing them in a specific direction. This has shown to have helped the campaigns of Senator Ted Cruz and former President Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica whistle-blowers said it also helped Brexit happen, but there was insufficient evidence in court.
How to Stop Data Collection
Shortly after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the EU brought in measures to combat the senseless data collection.
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP), active since May 25, 2018, allows users to know how their data is used by each website and they can decline almost all cookies they are presented with. Non-EU countries should follow this lead because it should be up to the user whether they want to share their personal data or not.
Still, some feel this is not enough, so they use additional protection from predatory sites and apps. Some people use a VPN to hide and change their location and/or use encrypted browsers like Tor and encrypted messaging apps like Telegram.
It’s also important that you read the terms and conditions of various sites and apps, no matter how boring they are. You should do whatever it takes to guard your Internet safety.
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The Cost of Education in the US: Why It’s So Expensive 15 Apr 2022 2:36 AM (3 years ago)
If you or your children have recently attended university in the US, you know the staggering cost that comes with it. In some cases, the amount you have to pay for an undergraduate degree is a 6-digit number, which is beyond ridiculous.
The US has the most expensive tuition rates for private higher education institutions, and it’s among the countries with expensive public colleges as well. This, however, didn’t use to be the case. In fact, the rising cost of education can be tracked down to a few government policies.
Today’s article will explore the roots of this deeply troubling trend, which sadly leaves many college-helpful kids with little to no options.
Price Comparison
To the younger people reading this article, you’ve probably encountered comments on the Internet made by older generations telling you that you are able to pay your own tuition if you work, but you’re simply lazy. These comments, while condescending, were true for the time that the commenters were in college.
One could easily work a part-time job and support themselves while studying, while the loans were much more bearable and realistic back then.
To put this in numbers, the average salary in 1970 was around $9,870, while private universities charged around $3,000 to $4,000 per year. Thus, yearly tuition was between a third or a half of the average income in the country. Now, the US average salary is around $53,000, and tuition, in a private institution, is about the same amount, sometimes even higher (e.g., USC charges $63,500).
The tuition fees in public universities have also gone through the roof. For comparison, UCLA, a public university, used to be free for California residents. They imposed a $150 educational fee in 1970, which was still a reasonable amount. Nowadays though, California residents pay $37,448 per year, while out-of-state students – $68,474.
Even “cheaper” public institutions such as Arizona State University charge their resident students over $10,000. No matter where you choose to study, you’d have to pay a 5-digit sum every year. Note that this doesn’t include room and board, which can cost an additional $10,000 to up to $30,000 per year.
What Happened
Many like to blame greedy banks for the size of their student loans, but as crazy as it might sound, the federal government is almost solely to blame.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 created federal scholarships and low-interest student loans; another law in 1976, made borrowers of federal student loans unable to declare bankruptcy on them, and lastly, a 1978 act made all undergraduates eligible for student loans.
All of these policies were likely well-meaning as they sought to make universities more accessible, but they had the opposite effect. While students were and still are able to go to the university of their dream due to these policies, they amass sizable debts, and so does the government. As of today, millions of Americans owe the government more than $1 trillion in student debt.
Public and private institutions are also to blame for the price increase though. Their rates have grown and continue to grow in an unhealthy manner, and they know it. However, why would they care when they know that no matter how much they charge, the federal government “has their back” and will pay their ridiculous fees?
What to Do Now
It’s easy to point the finger at legislators in the 1960’s and 1970’s who created these policies, but it is up to contemporary legislators to change them and they only seem to make matters worse.
Over the years, the amount you can take from the federal government for tuition has only increased, and now it’s the Department of Education, rather than banks, that is the prime lender of student loans, further worsening the problem. Universities have taken note and increased their rates as a result.
So, what should happen now? One radical solution is to overturn all these policies we mentioned, but this is not a very popular view, because it sounds cold-hearted and the general populace will likely protest.
A common view young Americans hold is cancelling student debt and making college “free”. First of all, taxpayer-funded education is not free. Second of all, universities are unlikely to drop their tuition fees overnight, so the federal government would have to foot the bill and go trillions in deficit (as if one trillion in debt wasn’t bad enough).
Such a decision would also further devalue college degrees and we would see universities expanding their student bodies, which again would lead to a higher bill that taxpayers would be made to pay. College degrees are already devalued, and research has shown that recent graduates spend years working a job below their academic qualification with only 27% graduates working in their actual field.
No matter how you look at the issue, all possible solutions to the crisis revolve around a limited role of the federal government in higher education, which translates to lower subsidies and looser regulations for new competitors on the market.
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Welcome: A New Blog Discussing Social Issues 5 Mar 2022 1:31 AM (4 years ago)
Hello and welcome all to our new blog that is meant to discuss the most important issues that our society is facing today.
Some think that websites of this sort have already saturated the Internet market, but we actually feel like there should be even more and we encourage those who are interested to pursue their passion and expose more people to the discussions of problems that concern all of us. It’s the noble thing to do, at least in our opinion.
We hope that you are as passionate as we are about the biggest problems we are up against today and we also hope that you find our reporting to be truthful and comprehensive. Our goal is to educate people on social issues, so there are more engaged citizens who can be the ones enacting change one day.
We will dedicate this post, our first on the blog, to the most important social issues according to various recent polls conducted in the United States. According to our research (looking at recent polls), these are the significant social problems our country is facing today:
- The government/poor leadership (18%)
- Gun control (8%)
- Crime/violence (6%)
- Immigration (5%)
- Unifying the country (5%)
- Ethics/moral/religious/family decline (4%)
- Race relations/racism (3%)
- Poverty/hunger/homelessness (3%)
*These findings come from a poll conducted by Gallup International in June, 2022. You can see the full poll here.
Interpreting the Poll
Let’s look at the poll and talk about the issues that seem to be on people’s mind right now. We picked the top contenders or the ones which received at least 3% of votes on the Gallup survey.
The clear “winner” of the poll is the government and its poor handling of current social and economic problems the US is facing. 18% of the voters picked this option, which is a troublingly high number.
A few things might have influenced this. The main reason is likely the economy as a big portion of the surveyed answered that the most important issue right now is inflation and the state of the economy in general. We didn’t include these issues, because they are not really considered social issues.
Another thing, which probably contributed to this result is the overturning of Roe v Wade. While the current administration is strictly pro-choice, and so are Democrats in the Congress, they failed to codify the Supreme Court case of 1973 into federal law, which brought criticism.
The next issue on the list is gun control. After a string of mass shooting in the past few months, we see why people are concerned.
The issue of gun control is a lengthy topic, which is always relevant. However, despite various states imposing gun control measures, guns will never not be legal in the US due to the Second Amendment. It’s unlikely for the constitutional amendment to be rewritten to suit modern times.
Crime and violence come third on the list. The US has experienced a significant crime wave in recent years and people rightfully point fingers at public officials who appear to be struggling to curb this trend. Democrats are slowly turning away from progressive candidates whose policies have seen many criminals go unpunished.
The San Francisco’s ultra-progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin, for instance, was recently recalled by voters due to his radical ideas on justice reform. There’s a similar trend in other cities in California and around the country.
Another issue on the list is immigration. We have no context as to what the surveyed meant by their choice, but it’s likely interpreted differently by people from the two sides of the political spectrum. Some believe that American immigration laws are too lax; these people are usually against illegal immigration, and some also support quotas on legal immigration.
On the opposite side are those who think that more people should be allowed to come in the country, and that those who are already here should be given an easier path towards citizenship.
Some of the polled people (5%) feel that the country is too divided and believe that bipartisanship is necessary to unify the country and to basically get things done, which is hard nowadays considering how both parties are highly partisan and make no effort to reach an agreement.
Racism is also an important social issue according to 3% of the surveyed. This number is significantly lower than the one on the same question two years ago. Things have maybe changed for the better, being influenced by the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
The last issue on the list regards poverty, hunger, and homelessness. The number of homeless people is likely to rise in the following months and years due to the bad shape of the economy and the Covid-19 pandemic, so this issue is very relevant and concerning.
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