In response to Maya’s blog on Washington’s new found marijuana laws will impact the economy of BC I am inclined to agree with her assumption that the original blog poster’s view is a bit exaggerated. While it is very true that British Columbia thrives economically off its conducive environment to marijuana production the impact it has on the province is not as strong one might suspect. Due to the nature of the product the industry is currently not being taxed unlike every other major production crop in the province. Therefore the shrinking of one market segmentation, and a fairly small one at that with less than 7 million people, will not noticeably affect the economy.

The more interesting issue here I find is the entrepreneurship opportunities that will arise from this referendum in Washington.  Now that “weed” has climbed its way out of the social gutter of drug dealers and been elevated to the open minds of business men and woman alike the companies we see spawned from this situation will be intriguing. Will there be mom and pop stores selling your local hash or will a big agribusiness step into the open market? Only time will tell.

For young aspiring entrepreneurs nothing is easier then saying “not right now” or “I have no resources” but a select few make over this hurdle and go on to do really special things. As there has been a lot of talk about social entrepreneurs in class over the past couple weeks I investigated into how people my age are starting ventures and creating change. After looking at Canada’s top 20 under 20 one winner really stood out to me, Mirian Dang. Her works with Discovery Days in Mental Health shows that the classic excuses associated with adolescents do not necessarily apply. The program centers on workshops given to other youth to explain Mental Health and how to overcome the stigma. Granted her work falls more under NGO rather than social entrepreneur as they are funded by Children’s Hospital of Eastern Canada. She still leads as an exemplar that the vision and enthusiasm that is needed to build up something from scratch can be found in each one of us if there is enough passion.

As a Sauder student I have yet to experience an entire week, maybe even a set of three days, without Apple being brought up as an example in at least one of my classes. They are made out to be a god among men in the Tech industry and I for one have had enough. Not only is it boring students to hear the same example over and over again but in a lot of cases it’s a bad example! They are often inferred to have great diversification when they mostly sell the same product in different sizes and capability levels. Having said that, most of the blame lies on students themselves as the majority of Apple references come when they are asked to participate. This is why I purpose a moratorium on Apple references. I believe that by doing this we will foster learning such that we hear about companies that are outside the general knowledge sphere. I loved it when I was introduced to companies such as Tagga, Zara and Zappos and even have a friend that started shopping on the latter. By forcing students to come up with new refreshing answers our base of information will expand.

Leaving destruction in its path, Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast this week. In disaster situation like this it is sometimes hard to see a silver lining but for Montreal based Resolute Forest Products this is just what they needed as Pine Beatles continue to ravage the lumber industry in British Columbia. After shares dropped by over 4% at close of trading on the TSX Friday, the company is in need of some good news. They found it in Sandy’s estimated 50 billion dollar rampage as analysts expect a big bump in the lumber industry in the second and third quarters of 2013 as the rebuilding process starts to get underway. Once again proving that stock prices are heavily influenced by projections rather then purely revenue or profit.

This just goes to show the huge role of unpredictable factors play and how fickle the world of business can be. I especially think this Maclean’s article is relevant because it showcases the connection between analysts, stock prices and the hurricane. While it is not necessarily appropriate to think of profit margins as the death toll raises and New Yorkers start to get their lives together, such is the way of life and the world of business.