Media Coverage

It’s almost a testament, the determination to make your child happy. I was wondering what was your son’s reaction when he first got to hold like a… I don’t know if he got to see like demos or if he got to see the fully-produced figure, but what was his reaction when he first got to hold Sun-Man?
Well, he did see stages of it, so he loved it, but I can tell you how I really knew he had a wonderful reaction was, I went to pick him up at the nursery school one day and all the kids swarmed me, squealing, yelling around my legs. And I was like, “What’s going on here?” And they said, “Menelik told us you can get us any toy we want.”

That’s hilarious. [Laughs]
That’s when I realized what it meant to him, because he was telling his friends about me and about the toy.

How do credit card companies decide whether or not to “instantly approve” an online applicant?

Several factors may influence the decision. The individual’s credit score is a basic indicator of overall creditworthiness. Additionally, other factors, such as prior delinquencies (accounts that are past due) and payment history weigh in as well.

An important factor, of course, is income. This must be disclosed in the application and can be compared to the debt level. Credit history may also feature in approval decisions, with a short credit history indicating an inexperienced borrower.

When does it make sense to worry about getting instant credit card approval?

The credit card company may initiate “hard inquiries” when an individual applies for several credit cards at the same time. Those who have had excessive credit card usage (using more than 30% of available credit) are viewed as engaging in potentially risky behavior as well. Any previous delinquencies and late payments on utility bills etc. are things to worry about since these will show up in the credit report.

The purchase of NFTs essentially gives people membership to a yet-to-open establishment promising omakase – and exclusivity.

Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, says this kind of use of NFTs might be new, but that she expects many more brands will follow suit. “People think of NFTs as the cute stuff, the Beeple and the fancy art,” she says, referring to the artist whose NFT sold for more than $69 million at a Christie’s auction. She thinks NFTs have the potential for broader use, like the way Flyfish will allow people to own, lease and sell their memberships.

“The power of NFTs is authentication – they facilitate the transition of ownership,” Ozair said. “When you think about it, everything in your life is about is transferring ownership.”

“The crazy thing is in the last several years, it really feels like based on your political affiliation, you’re operating on different facts,” Ponce de Leon added. “It’s hard to compromise when we can’t even agree on what reality is. It makes it almost impossible to talk about what the solutions are.”

Nancy DiTomaso, a professor of business and management at Rutgers Business School, said that is by design. As issues of racism and inequality persist and politicians and others offer possible solutions, she said, there has been an effort “orchestrated by right-wing billionaires who have put together organizations to try to change the conversation.” Those include conservative-leaning think tanks and other entities that try to influence politics, higher education, the judiciary and more.

“To some extent, the rush among Republican legislators to try to prevent people from talking about racial inequality is another manifestation [of the] wish to keep things hidden … under wraps,” she added.

And when investors sell, they don't just sell in one asset class. Retail investors and institutional investors might sell assets to cover for losses in other ones. If crypto was once a hedge from inflation and traditional market forces, that era may be long gone. "There was a time when you could think about Bitcoin as a way to diversify from the market," but that's no longer the case, said Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School.

"When people panic, they panic cross-border."

NFT experts and artists say they’re wary of Meta’s gambit for a number of reasons. It’s a centralized business, while the NFT community prizes decentralization and autonomy. Meta has tried to censor content on its platform, while NFT artists value free expression. There’s also the suspicion that Meta is only jumping on the bandwagon to capitalize on a Web3 innovation that can make a lot of money. In January, NFT trading broke records, topping $4 billion in sales on OpenSea as celebrities and fashion brands got involved.

Decentralized art sales don’t “resonate well with a company like Facebook,” said Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and a fintech professor at Rutgers Business School. Ozair says she is dubious of the degree of control Meta will have on price manipulation of the art, highlighting an example of how Meta plans to track people’s movement in the metaverse.

News 12 spoke with professor David Dreyfus, who teaches supply chain management at Rutgers Business School, two weeks ago when many hoped the COVID-19-related situation would be solved by now.

“If you are going to the store, certainly check around and see what others are finding,” says Dreyfus. “Ask friends or neighbors going to the store to look for you for items that may be at a different store. You could of course call the store and see if they have a specific item in stock."

Visakhapatnam: The three-day Academy of International Business (AIB) South Asia Conference (SAC) began here at the Indian Institute of Management Visakhapatnam (IIMV), the hosts, in virtual mode on Sunday.

In the keynote address, Prof. Farok Contractor, President AIB, and distinguished professor, Rutgers Business School, USA, highlighted the agenda of SAC and spoke about the importance of studying international business. He emphasized the roles of international business leading to sustainable development in South Asian economies.

A recent academic study looking at the performance of IRAs found some “striking and unexpected” results. First, for those who make less than $200,000 (or “low-income”), returns on Roth IRAs were 3.6% from 2004 to 2018, versus 8.5% for those who make more (or “high-income”). Further, the Sharpe ratio for those with lower returns was 50% higher (.49 versus .32).

“At the aggregate level, the risk-adjusted performances of IRA plans are comparable to that of the aggregate equity market,” Lorenzo Bretscher of London Business School, Riccardo Sabbatucci of Stockholm School of Economics and Andrea Tamoni of Rutgers Business School write in their paper, “The Unintended Consequences of Roth IRAs.”

“However,” they write, “high-income individuals substantially outperform low-income ones, and this return differential is almost three times as large in ‘tax-free’ Roth IRAs, suggesting that their introduction, intended to help hard-working, middle-class Americans, greatly benefited high-income individuals and amplified wealth inequality.”

The latest restaurant to be launched upon New York’s crowded dining scene does not yet have premises or a menu and will only serve diners who have purchased a token using the digital currency ethereum.

In spite of these drawbacks, or perhaps because of them, tokens giving the holder the right to eat at this establishment at some time in the future were trading this week for $21,000.

Flyfish Club, which is due to open in 2023, has been set up by three restaurateurs and a digital marketing entrepreneur and is being billed as the “world’s first NFT restaurant.”

Merav Ozair, an expert in blockchain technology and a fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, thought the group behind Flyfish Club would need to steadily provide added benefits for token holders.

“This is how they are really going to increase the value,” she said. If they did not, the value of the assets would be entirely based on the quality of the restaurant “and this is super risky.”

Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, says this kind of use of NFTs might be new, but that she expects many more brands will follow suit. “People think of NFTs as the cute stuff, the Beeple and the fancy art,” she says, referring to the artist whose NFT sold for more than $69 million at a Christie’s auction. She thinks NFTs have the potential for broader use, like the way Flyfish will allow people to own, lease and sell their memberships.

“The power of NFTs is authentication — they facilitate the transition of ownership,” Ozair said. “When you think about it, everything in your life is about is transferring ownership.”

Darryl Morris, Talk Radio TV in the UK, interviewed Dr. Merav Ozair about NFTs. "What is an NFT and is there a succinct and easy way of you describing it?"

We speak with Dr. Merav Ozair, Leading Blockchain expert and FinTech Professor at Rutgers Business School, about NFTs and the turbulent removal of the founders of the Pudgy Penguins project.

Temidayo Adepoju discusses the role observation units play in hospital capacity and cost management.

Watch video 10:31

“What we’ve been seeing and hearing is there are shortages of various products at different places – really scattered,” says David Dreyfus, assistant professor of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School.
Dreyfus says that there are still international shipping problems causing supply chain issues. But he says that Omicron is making things worse industry-wide.

“All those people involved in making sure these items make it to our retails places or to the places we may order items online – it’s slowing down because there just isn’t enough labor to keep the same momentum we are used to,” Dreyfus says.

Jeana Wirtenberg, an associate professor at Rutgers Business School, associate director of the Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation, and the CEO of Transitioning to Green, said a marker of business success is being able to converge company growth with service to the environment.

At Transitioning to Green, a global management-consulting firm that helps companies integrate sustainability into their organizations, Wirtenberg's team is rolling out simulations and games, including an ecological-footprint game in which people can calculate their carbon emissions.

When do you think it makes sense to seek out a credit card with no credit check for new applicants?

If an applicant has a hard time getting a credit card with a traditional vendor, then they may want to look at alternative providers. As with all credit cards, you should get one only if you believe you have the means and discipline to pay it off in full each month. The rate of interest most credit cards charge is usually much higher than the rate at which your savings grows. If you have no savings, I would suggest setting on a path to reduce debt so you can eventually start saving.

Researchers examine every Supreme Court case involving at least one public company between 1946 and 2018

Academics, non-academics, the popular press and citizens frequently speculate and look for clues to predict the outcome of these cases, often with limited success. Do the financial markets, with their collective intellect and wisdom, and efficiency in processing information, also anticipate Supreme Court decisions relating to the corporate world? Can they correctly predict the impact of the actions of the justices, on average?

These are some of the questions we posed in our recent paper, ‘Do financial markets anticipate corporate-related decisions of the United States Supreme Court?’

Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and Rutgers Business School professor, agrees, adding that the metaverse could disrupt education.

“Education and learning will be a big beneficiary,” she notes. “Education is pretty expensive but once you create a metaverse emulating in-person experiences, you will be able to learn from anywhere and with anyone. You won’t have to spend tens of thousands to travel to a particular school.”

Meanwhile, analysts say the metaverse will be a boon for cryptocurrencies, noting that its development will mark an inflexion point for their usage. As virtual-world platforms take off, stablecoins will likely win the race as most tokens are still too volatile.

Ozair agrees: “The metaverse is a virtual world; you cannot function without virtual currency."

"I am advocating for a truly decentralized, algorithmic-based stablecoin, something similar to DAI (an Ethereum-run decentralized currency pegged to the dollar) or even better,” She adds. "So far, Bitcoin can’t scale and Tether has too many regulatory issues and question marks.”

“I started talking to other mothers and found out they were having the same problem,” Yla Eason, assistant professor of professional practice adds. “They couldn’t find any Black superhero toys for their boys either.”

Out of that absence, Olmec Toys and its flagship figure, Sun-Man, were created in 1985. Now, almost 40 years later, Sun-Man is seeing a resurgence. Thanks to a partnership with Mattel Toys – and in a piece of “sweet irony,” Ms. Eason says – Sun-Man will be sold alongside He-Man as part of the Masters of the Universe collection. Under the partnership licensing agreement, Mattel will be reproducing Sun-Man and the Rulers of the Sun toy collection, but Ms. Eason will retain rights to the property. The toys are slated for a first-quarter release in 2022.

Envisant, a CUSO that is operated as part of the Illinois Credit Union System, became the first CUSO to sponsor Filene Research Institute’s Center of Excellence for Innovation and Incubation, Filene announced on Wednesday.

The Madison, Wis.-based think tank’s Center of Excellence for Innovation and Incubation, first announced in March 2021, is a three-year research project designed to measure and develop credit union innovation capabilities. Credit unions will benefit by gaining access to new insights and resources that will help them become leaders in providing innovative products and services that meet consumers’ current demands, according to Filene. The project is being led by Dr. Jeffrey Robinson, associate professor and academic director of The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School.

Also threatened by Manchin’s announcement are plans for a significant funding increase for the Internal Revenue Service. The agency’s rate of auditing the wealthy has plunged due to budget cuts, a trend “that sends a message to people that they can do as they please with very little risk of consequences,” said Jay Soled, a Rutgers University professor and tax attorney.

Farrokh Langdana, professor & Executive MBA program director

“Dr. Farrokh Langdana is an inspiration and a treasure to all of us who have been through the Rutgers Executive MBA program. His Macroeconomics and International Trade Classes are more than classes – they are experiences that will stay with me. He manages to provide exactly the right level of content to prepare C-suite leaders for their roles, while simultaneously incorporating memorable lessons on leadership, history, global perspectives, current events, art, poetry and more. His classes helped to widen my lens and I was able to see facets of the businesses I support and my life with a new perspective.”

Denise Weber, Rutgers University

“At least until this point, people had tons of money saved up, and from a psychological perspective, they were feeling deprived that they hadn’t purchased stuff [earlier in the pandemic],” Monga said.

But inflation means that people are paying more for the same items (including necessities like food and gas) that they were buying before. Compounding the matter, some people continue to overbuy items for their household out of fear there will be a shortage, and that can raise prices.

“We are in a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Ashwani Monga, a marketing professor at Rutgers University, told Fortune. “People think there are shortages, so they go and they buy more, and there is low supply for others, and prices go up.”

You can also try reaching out directly to the carrier. “If it’s actually in transit, the retailer more than likely will have just about as much information as you. Once it’s left them, it’s really in the hands of that transportation provider at that point,” says G. Tony Bell, an assistant professor in the department of supply chain management at Rutgers Business School.

“Spending time in the communities that surround Rutgers and throughout New Jersey and getting to know the people is so important. What are they dealing with on a daily basis? That’s what matters to them, and so it matters to us,” says Kevin Lyons, a core faculty member of Rutgers Global Health Institute. Lyons, an associate professor at Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick, has been doing research in Newark related to municipal purchasing disparities, with an eye toward supporting local economic development and resilience by way of ensuring that locally owned businesses have equitable opportunities to offer their goods and services to the city’s large anchor institutions.

“Everyone is grappling with a lot right now. Their openness about their experiences is invaluable, because we can only begin to have an impact once we understand those dynamics better,” says Lyons, whose business acumen and networking connections helped the Equitable Recovery program launch in the South Ward.

Will credit cards be used 15 or 20 years from now? In what form?

My feeling is that credit will still be around in 10-15 years, but perhaps the plastic cards will be replaced with electronic forms such as cell phone-based apps. One thing is certain; our lives will be increasingly embedded within the digital environment.
Sengun (Shen) YeniyurtAssociate Professor in the Supply Chain Management and Marketing Sciences Department at Rutgers Business School

But bitcoin (BTC) prices jumped after the Fed decision was announced at 2 p.m. ET (19:00 UTC), signaling that traders may have been worried about an even more aggressive withdrawal of the stimulus and faster interest rate increases next year. The bitcoin price had fallen 15% just in December alone.

“The market went down before the fed announcement, so it’s probably correcting now,” Merav Ozair, a professor in the finance and economics department at Rutgers Business School, told CoinDesk in a phone interview. “Inflation is coming for sure, and we see it.”

Rutgers Business School (RBS) FinTech Professor & Leading Blockchain Expert Dr. Merav Ozair presents at MarketLit, Australia's first social media investment conference and answers:

1. What are NFTs and why is there so much excitement around them now?

2. What are the biggest applications for NFTs and what are some of the best ways for investors to get access to the NFT space?

3. How will the emergence of NFTs work with existing social media platforms?

4. Who do you think should be responsible for regulating social media, NFTs and emerging technology?

When bitcoin was introduced by the Satoshi white paper in 2008, it presented a novel and liberating concept – a peer-to-peer, decentralized payment system that can be used by anyone, anywhere and for everything. It did not require intermediaries or an exchange rate to function, and created a single globally used currency for any type of transaction.

Then greed got in the way.

The use case that it was supposed to deliver has somewhat faded. Instead of focusing on its initial intent – a payment method – the focus shifted to bitcoin as an investment vehicle, a store value, a digital gold.

Lyons is an associate professor at Rutgers Business School, where he focuses on supply chain management, and heads their Public Private Community Partnership Program. His research has focused on how to integrate the different aspects of the supply chain – including raw material extraction, logistics, manufacturing and design – into economic development, financial forecasting and environmental and social justice efforts at the local, nationwide and international levels. With shortages of raw materials and other products hindering economies everywhere, a major push has been to source locally and domestically. Lyons has been involved with the “Buy Newark” initiative, under which businesses in the state’s largest city purchase directly from Newark businesses. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s office said there’s been considerable buy-in from partners such as Rutgers-Newark, United Airlines, Verizon, Panasonic, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. “We can make the local competitive,” Lyons said in a February interview, as long as local officials do their work to promote the goods and products made in the communities they lead.

“The beauty of it is that it allows you to facilitate transactions that are not possible in the physical world or that would be really complicated and costly,” Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and a fintech professor at Rutgers Business School, told me.

She said NFTs can also be used to authenticate and transfer ownership of physical objects, like a rare bottle of scotch, in the real world.

"I believe small business owners are always optimistic. It's a challenging political time, but entrepreneurs are focused on generating revenue, being profitable, finding new customers and finding new markets," said Lyneir Richardson, executive director of Rutgers Business School's Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.

Bullish observers like McCormick see huge opportunities for corporations in the Web3 space. Forging new connections with old and new fans is a big one. “First of all, it reminds you about the brand,” says Dr. Merav Ozair, a leading blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School. “Budweiser may not be the most popular [beer brand], there are the other brands that are trying to compete, so they’re kind of rekindling: ‘Hey, we’re still around, we’ve been around, and we’re still good.”

“That’s one purpose” for corporate NFT projects like Budweiser’s, she continues. “The other is monetizing whatever they can.”

Parul Jain, associate professor of professional practice in the Department of Finance and Economics, said the SPR is primarily a crude petroleum reserve meant to act as an energy stockpile in case of any severe supply disruptions. The reserve was created in 1975 in response to the 1973 energy crisis resulting from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo.

She said the Biden Administration has been concerned about rising oil and gas prices for some time and has been constructing a plan to release oil reserves in coordination with other countries. Korea, Japan, India, China and the U.K. will provide 30 million barrels of oil in conjunction with the U.S. release, making a total of approximately 70 to 80 million barrels.

“So, the overall release amounted to about 70 (to) 80 million barrels, short of the 100 (plus) million barrels that (were) being priced in,” Jain said. “Oil prices actually rose on the heels of the announcement.”

Ashwani Monga, a marketing professor and consumer psychologist at the Rutgers Business School, has seen tons of multicultural toy brands emerge, too, or even just finally get noticed. That’s due to changing consumer habits and the attention that marketers are paying to that, he said.

Due to a changing acceptance of diverse races and cultures in society, people are identifying more with those aspects of their identities and seeking out toys that reflect those newfound identities, he continued. It’s a positive that reaches far beyond recess.

“Expectations drive who we become,” Monga said. “If I’m a child of color and I see a toy of color who is a doctor or a scientist, then I know this is somebody like me and I can do this. Kids get cues, and they live up to those cues.”

The issues started first with as shortage of raw materials, followed by inflated energy costs and then compounded by a shortage of manufacturing workers, explained Rudi Leuschner, director of the Master of Science in Supply Chain Management program at Rutgers Business School.

"Manufacturing transportation delays and warehouse shortages, as well as an overall labor shortage. All of this is the case while we have unprecedented demand for goods all across the board," he said.

"The quickest we are going back to normal is when seasonal demand declines and supply chains have a chance to get back to some equilibrium. There are short-term remedies, such as addressing choke-points at the ports and relaxing rules around hours of service."

If you invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin or any number of other cryptocurrencies, you might want to spend some of your holdings. Crypto debit cards are a tool that can make it easier for consumers to use cryptocurrency with merchants who don’t accept their digital coins outright.

But be sure to read all the fine print before you open a card. Companies may advertise rewards programs or say they have low fees, "but they don't advertise all the other things that you are being penalized for or paying fees for," says Merav Ozair, a blockchain expert and fintech professor at Rutgers Business School.

For all the classes that are taught by some of the top professionals in the industry, and all the degrees that have been conferred, Morris Davis likes to offer a different metric when measuring the impact and success of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers University.

Before the founding of the center in 2015, Rutgers had not awarded a single scholarship dollar to those studying real estate in any fashion. Since then, the center has distributed nearly $1.3 million to 220 students — with nearly all of the funds coming from private donors.

Davis, the Paul V. Profeta Chair of Real Estate and the academic director of the Center for Real Estate at the Rutgers Business School, often talks of making the center the best real estate school in the country. He said that can only happen if the school makes its students the top priority.

“We really want to invest everything that we can in the students, so that they have the best possible career trajectory,” he said. “And a lot of that has to do with finances. We want to give them every opportunity possible. What we don’t want them to do is to make a terrible career decision because they’re worried about debt.”

Rutgers Business School professor Jay Soled joins Yahoo Finance to explain how Americans can reap tax benefits from charitable giving.

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A Rutgers FinTech expert explains how decentralized finance may change how we use financial services and what it means for the future

While the hysteria over NFT’s (non-fungible tokens) continues, a new blockchain-based form of finance called decentralized finance or DeFi has caught the attention of everyday consumers and Wall Street veterans alike.

Merav Ozair, a FinTech professor at Rutgers Business School and leading expert on blockchain and cryptocurrency, says DeFi has lowered access barriers to financial services where everyone can access economic activities – like high-yield savings, trading, lending or insurance – without a bank account or a credit check.

Ozair demystifies decentralized finance – aptly called the “Wild West of Crypto” – and what it means for the future of money.

To kick off this season of Wednesdays with WIB, our host Sunanda Saravanakumar speaks with Professor Lisa Kaplowitz, the executive director of the Center of Women in Business at Rutgers. In this episode, we get to learn more about Professor Kaplowitz’s many roles, from being a mom, professor, and consulting firm owner, as well as hear advice she has for students!

Ashwani Monga, a marketing professor and consumer psychologist at the Rutgers Business School, has seen tons of multicultural toy brands emerge, too, or even just finally get noticed. That’s due to changing consumer habits and the attention that marketers are paying to that, he said.

Due to a changing acceptance of diverse races and cultures in society, people are identifying more with those aspects of their identities and seeking out toys that reflect those newfound identities, he continued. It’s a positive that reaches far beyond recess.

“Expectations drive who we become,” Monga said. “If I’m a child of color and I see a toy of color who is a doctor or a scientist, then I know this is somebody like me and I can do this. Kids get cues, and they live up to those cues.”

“As much as we say this is decentralized, there are humans behind it,” says Merav Ozair, a blockchain-focused finance professor at Rutgers. “Someone has to write the software. It shouldn’t be at the hand of one developer, or a small group. We should have a long-term, bigger audit.”

To that end, the nonprofit International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA), where Ozair is an adviser, is developing a proposal for a European Union committee to monitor Bitcoin code and interface with governments. Such a committee would have no formal role in Bitcoin governance, but, over time, could build up legitimacy and community influence.

Expert Q&A
The Motley Fool got the chance to chat with Dr. Merav Ozair, a leading blockchain expert and FinTech Professor at Rutgers Business School. She serves as Research Director of RBS Blockchain Hub, as well as an Advisor and Researcher at the Rutgers Blockchain and FinTech Collaboratory. Here's what she had to say.

The Motley Fool: Which industries, other than finance, do you think blockchain has the potential to disrupt?

Dr. Ozair: The future that I have been envisioning is that every product or service application we know today will run on some form of blockchain technology. In other words, the "rails" of all products and services (i.e., the technology that "runs" these applications) will be a type of DLT [Distributed Ledger Technology].

I truly believe that in 10 to 15 years, this would be feasible.

Like the internet, which has become a pivotal part of our everyday lives, and we cannot imagine life without it, so will DLT. When we use the internet, we do not ask ourselves – "How does it work?" or "Why should we use it?" – we simply use it for the mobility, flexibility, efficiency and connectivity it provides. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the Internet's benefits. It enabled us to connect to services, products and people and facilitated a smooth transition to a remote, contactless global economy. Now Web 2.0 – Internet is evolving to Web 3.0 – Distributed Ledger Technology.

Which do you think is a better indicator of a good car insurance company: low rates or good customer reviews?

There is little doubt in my mind or my experience that "good customer reviews" are far more important than just low rates. Lots of companies are very competitive rate wise but it is when you need the assistance that the "good customer reviews" make such a difference.

Do you think 24/7 live customer service should be a requirement to be among the best car insurance companies?

Yes, excellent service and that includes availability when a customer has a problem (like an accident) that really is the hallmark of a superior company.

When non-fungible tokens should be regulated under securities laws, and when they shouldn’t.

Non-fungible tokens are here to stay because the possibilities and the opportunities of NFTs are boundless and go beyond art and celebrities’ tweets or photos. The future of NFTs lies in the business applications. The true power of NFT is providing authentication and facilitating the transfer of ownership. Thus, you can create NFTs for wine, a Dolce and Gabbana designed dress or a crown, a property or any physical or digital asset that is deemed unique.

While companies are experimenting with the applicability of NFTs across different industries and business use cases, regulators will soon feel the need to regulate these assets. The “one-trillion-dollar” question then becomes: Are NFTs securities?

Merav Ozair, a professor of financial technology at Rutgers University and a blockchain expert, told The Post that it’s innovative to tie a digital token to a physical asset — in this case, a bottle of alcohol.

“This is the whole idea of blockchain transfers,” she said of the digital transactions. “You can transfer a token from one wallet to another and whoever has the token — whoever owns the token in the wallet — they have the ownership of the token and they can transfer it for years between wallets.”

Rutgers University economist Morris Davis said the supply of rental units in New Jersey grew by 14 percent from 2000 to 2019, well below the mark of 24 percent in the rest of the U.S. during that time. That has translated to higher rents in New Jersey for every income level, he said, noting that apartment dwellers earning $50,000 or less pay an average of 22 percent more in rent in New Jersey than in the rest of the country.

“These are alarming numbers,” said Davis, the Paul V. Profeta Chair of real estate and the academic director of the Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School. “The affordability problem is bad everywhere in the United States, but because rents are higher in New Jersey than everywhere else, the affordability problem — especially for lower-income households — is especially troubling in New Jersey.”

In this recent 710 WOR / iHeartRadio Mind Your Business broadcast, brought to you by Investors Bank from the recent JBiz Expo, seasoned business executives gave corporate "tips and strategies". Learn from these experts what it took to become successful.

Assistant Professor of Professional Practice Gary Minkoff @33:40
We try to first foster a mindset that gets students to tolerate and understand that ambiguity sorry is good. Uncertainty is good. Identify opportunities and then figure out various ways, and we have a methodology called the lean startup methodology that we use at Rutgers Business School, at least in the program that I teach.

It's an iterative process that lets the students if you will apply the scientific method to a business problem, or an opportunity. To go and solve it in a fashion that lets them develop a series of hypotheses or assumptions, test them, gather some data, take a step back, analyze what it is they've learned.

Listen to the entire podcast.