EconExtra: Does GDP Truly Reflect an Economy's Strength?
EconExtra is a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
The Issue:
GDP headlines do not seem to mesh with the underlying health of the US Economy. We visited the recovery earlier this fall in GDP in the EconExtra “The Alphabet Soup of Economic Recoveries,” covering the prospects for a...
Econ Extra: Measuring Employment and Unemployment
EconExtra is a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
#1 The Issue
Employment and unemployment statistics are regular headline news these days. (CEE Content Standard 8) Most people have a very limited knowledge of how each one is calculated—who is counted and who is not. (Except for the weekly...
EconExtra: What do WWII and the Covid-19 Pandemic have in common?
EconExtra is a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
#1 Present the Issue
What do World War II and the Covid-19 Pandemic have in common? They both have driven US debt to over 100% of GDP.
Here are the headlines and key takeaways about this year’s record-breaking budget deficit announced last...
Reading List for October 16-18
By Beth Tallman
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Oct 16, 2020
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Current Events, Economics, Investing, Paying for College, Budgeting, Insurance, Retirement
Economics
Retail sales up 1.9% in September. (CNBC)
The unexpectedly big gain in spending comes after months of historically high savings as consumers retrenched due to the Covid-19 scare. The personal savings rate peaked at 33.6% in April and remained at 14.1% in August, the highest pre-pandemic rate since June 1975.
(Ed Yardeni) took a closer look at the recovery by sector of the economy in his blog post dated October 9.
First-time unemployment claims of 898,000 back on the rise this...
EconExtra: Pandemic Wreaking Havoc on State Budgets
EconExtra is a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
The Issue/ Huge State Revenue Shortfalls
The Tax Foundation summed up the situation back in April. The situation was dire enough to drive a $150 billion allocation to state and local governments as part of the CARES act referred to below. ...
EconExtra: Three Reasons to Update your Monetary Policy Material
EconExtra is a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
Issue/Event
There are three reasons to check your lessons on Monetary Policy (CEE Content Standard 10):
Policy has changed over the last ten years
The Fed’s long-term strategy around its dual mandate has changed slightly
The Fed is...
Reading List for October 2-4
Economics
How the pandemic is hurting working mothers disproportionately. (Knowledge@Wharton)
Weekly jobless claims came in at 837,000 last week. Over 25 million are still collecting benefits, and household income declined last month by 2.7%.(AP NEWS)
September employment report: 661,000 jobs added and 7.9% unemployment---definitely slowing, and these numbers don’t reflect upcoming layoffs at American, United, Goldman Sachs, Disney, etc. and business closures expected in...
EconExtra: The Alphabet Soup of Economic Recoveries
EconExtra will be a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
Issue/Event
Recessions happen for a wide variety of reasons. There is variation expected in the course of business cycles*, but not all countries experience them regularly. It took the current global Covid-19 Pandemic to break...
EconExtra #1: Supply and Demand in the world of Covid-19
EconExtra will be a series of posts that go beyond the textbook, relating current events and recent developments in economics to content standards, and providing resource suggestions to help you incorporate the current events into your lessons.
The Issue/Event
Is there anyone reading this post that did NOT have trouble finding toilet paper in the last six months, especially in the early days of the pandemic? This first post will cover supply and demand, focusing on the dynamics of markets...
Question of the Day (Updated): Can you name ONE of the five most valuable NFL franchises?
Football season is upon us again! Let's see what NFL teams are worth the most.
Answer:
Dallas Cowboys: $5.7 billion
New England Patriots: $4.4 billion
New York Giants: $4.3 billion
Los Angeles Rams: $4 billion
San Francisco 49ers: $3.8 billion
Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Questions:
What factors do you think drive the value of a sports franchise?
Do you or your friends spend money to support your favorite...
Reading List for August 28-30
Wow, the end of August is here! (Not quite sure if I should add "already" or "finally" to the end of that sentence.) This week we have something for everyone, plus lots of Economic News.
Investing
Big news this week is the shake up on the Dow, triggered in part by Apple’s 4 for 1 stock split. Read about who is now in and who is now out! (There will be no more tigers in the Dow “tank”) This is such big news, I leave you three options for the details! (CNBC) (WAPO)...
EdPuzzle Thursday: Loose Change & REITs
EdPuzzle is a great platform to test for knowledge while students watch a video and learn remotely. We will be releasing new EdPuzzle videos here on the blog each week so that your students can answer questions that are directly embedded within engaging videos. In light of the current pandemic, we will also be adding current event videos from Two Cents when relevant. So, on Thursday over the next few weeks, look for a combination of unit specific and current event EdPuzzle videos!
This...
What's New With Investing - 2020
This update is dominated by the impact Covid-19 has had on the investing this year.
Why is the stock market, after initial chaos at the beginning of the pandemic, not reflecting the downturn in the economy? What should investors consider in terms of diversifying, rebalancing, and retirement savings? And what about gold?
The NYSE president explained at the end of May that the “market” as represented by the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Index is a) forward looking...
Reading List for July 24-26
Economics of the Pandemic
New jobless claims increased this past week to over 1.4 million (1.3 million last week), stopping a 15-week decline. The biggest jumps were in the states where Covid is spiking. This is the 18th week with new jobless claims over one million. (CBS) (Yahoo Finance)
Gig workers who cobble together multiple jobs to make ends meet are often ineligible for unemployment insurance when work dries up. (NYT)
The Federal moratorium on eviction of renters expires today, along with...
What's New With Insurance--2020
Auto Insurance
Undoubtedly, people are driving less during the pandemic. Logic would suggest you should be paying less for your auto insurance. Many companies pro-actively decided to send their policyholders’ rebates or credits for lower usage early on in the pandemic (April and May). (Check out Consumer Reports for a list of what their twenty top-rated companies are doing.)
But you should not be satisfied with just those rebates. Several recent articles suggest you call your insurance...
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