About this episode
Consumer spending fell in early August, according to preliminary results from the University of Michigan’s survey. July retail sales were down, and the average price of gas is nearing a record high for August. In today’s episode, we look at how consumers could be cutting discretionary spending as a result. Also, we’ll look at why China’s economy may be in trouble, the value of GDP as a statistic, fake business registrations in Colorado, Reddit joining the S&P 500, and the global plastics industry.
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Read the stories in today’s episode:
- Is the consumer engine of the economy starting to slow down?
- Is China's economy in trouble?
- Why we still use GDP to measure economic growth
- Getting weird mail? In Colorado, it could be business fraud
- Popular online forum Reddit is joining the S&P 500
- Middle East conflict raises U.S. plastic industry's sinking ship
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