Tuesday's Assorted Links

Plastic bag ban, IRS scammers, Google Earth, data revisions, and climate risk

Hi y’all! Here are five stories from this week that contained some neat applications of economic principles or are related to teaching:

1. California's decade-old plastic bag ban is blamed for worsening the state's plastic bag problem [NPR]

2. Scammers are making millions by stealing IRS refund checks out of the mail [The Wall Street Journal]

3. Google Earth unveiled a new feature, Timelapse, that lets you see how much humans have changed the planet over nearly 40 years [Mashable]

4. New data finds sharper economic rebound from the pandemic, erasing the new consecutive quarters of negative growth [The New York Times]

5. Zillow is adding climate risk data to its for-sale listings [Forbes]

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When financial systems break down, countries have to get creative. Russia and Pakistan's new barter agreement shows that even in today’s global economy, bartering can still be a viable workaround. Learn more about how trade continues to flourish, even when cash can’t change hands.

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