Tuesday's Assorted Links
Trade connections, holiday spending, American billionaires, public toilets, and British pubs
Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:
Amazing interactive about the connectedness of free trade [Reuters]
US holiday spending set for steepest drop since pandemic [CBS News]
What we know about America’s 1,135 billionaires [The Wall Street Journal]
Can the private sector solve America’s failure at public restrooms [Morning Brew]
Britain is on track to shed more than one pub a day this year due to rising costs and lower spending [Sherwood News]
This week’s top referrer is Pat Johnson, a veteran economics teacher at Nashua High School North in New Hampshire. Pat has spent the last 20 years helping students connect classroom concepts to the real world, and apparently has a soft spot for Hostess snacks and the American Civil War, too.
Here’s what he had to say about the newsletter:
This newsletter is an excellent resource for economic educators in that it provides relevant and engaging examples of economic concepts for students. I'd like to thank all the current and former students at North for continuing to learn about Economics by signing up for this weekly email.
Thank you, Pat, for all you do to help your students engage with economics and for helping grow this community of curious learners. I’m grateful to have teachers like you on board.
Economists rely on indicators to gauge where the economy is headed, but not all of them come from government reports. While GDP, inflation, and unemployment measure where we are now, leading indicators like cardboard box sales can hint at what’s coming next. Recently, U.S. box makers have cut nearly 9% of their capacity, which has caused the “cardboard box index” to show caution.
What Cardboard Can Tell Us About the State of the Economy
The past six months have been filled with talk of a looming recession. Job growth has been positive, but each month has seemed to come up short of expectations. Consumer confidence surveys continue to show more worry than optimism. Retail sales have been up and down
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