Tuesday's assorted links

Hidden inflation, misinformation, return-to-work, unions, and climate change

Monday’s post was originally going to be about the price of chocolate, but I switched it at the last minute to be about gift-giving. Since I had this cool graph on the average price of chocolate chip cookies, I thought this is as good of a place as any to place it!

The day after Valentine’s Day is one of my three favorite days of the year because so much candy at Walmart & Target is half off! Hurry and go grab a bag before they’re all gone! Here are 5 stories from this week that I thought were worth sharing with you:

1. There are a lot of hidden ways that companies increase the price of the product without actually increasing the price of the product.

2. Is misinformation effective at fighting misinformation?

3. As workers return to the office, their disappointment grows.

4. Are unions coming back? [Podcast]

5. As climate change worsens, America's prison system faces a growing crisis

If you’ve already picked up a bag of half-priced candy, comment below and let me know what you grabbed!

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If you missed yesterday’s post, consider this a belated Valentine’s Day gift:

An economic lesson for Valentine's Day

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Week 6 is over and I’m still at 5 books for the year. I have a really bad habit of getting into a funk and pulling myself out of it by starting a new book… or two. This week I took a quick peek into two books I recently picked up:

• The Wall and the Bridge by Glenn Hubbard

• Made in China by Amelia Pang

I got about 30% of the way into each of them and have really enjoyed them so far. One of my goals this week is to finally wrap up some of these books I’ve been reading for a while. If that doesn’t pan out how I want it to, I’ve got plenty of other books lined up and ready to go:

Jadrian Wooten @Wootenomics

I wish I could read books at the same pace as I acquire books. These are almost all of the ones I've picked up in the past 2 months.