FEE in the Classroom

07/22/2024

The best hammocks are perfectly portable ways to ensure you always have a place to kick back and relax. We tested over 21 hammocks and found lightweight favorites for camping, the comfiest loungers to add to your backyard, the best buys fit for two, and much more.

There are many great hammock options out there. Some can be hung in a handful of minutes using straps and sturdy trees, while standalone hammocks may require a separate frame purchase. To choose the perfect one for you, consider factors like weight limits, weather resistance, and how easy the hammocks are to set up and pack away. We’ve included the rundown on each winner below.

We tried out some of the best hammocks to ensure you have the perfect balance of comfort and ease on your next vacation.

07/22/2024

National Hammock Day is celebrated every year on July 22 to commemorate the universal symbol for relaxation. Developed by the Mayans of Central and South America for sleeping or resting, a hammock is a sling made of fabric, rope or netting, which is suspended between two points such as posts or trees. Most often, hammocks were made from the woven bark from the Hamack Tree — hence “hamacas”. Today the hammock is often seen as a symbol of summer, leisure, relaxation, and simple, easy living. So grab your favorite book, put your feet up, and relax!

07/21/2024

Between the reduction in wages among those unable to work as much or to be as productive as they otherwise would and the foregone wages from an inability to work at all, it is estimated that that the overall reduction in wages due to obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and nutrition-related cancer totaled $8.1 trillion between 2011-2020. Reduced wages among the working accounts for 28 percent of lost income.

The economic implications of nutrition-related chronic disease are primarily reduced wages, higher employment costs, and reduced government revenue.

07/21/2024

Have you ever wished for a day where you can eat absolutely anything you want? Well that day is today. National Junk Food Day is celebrated every year on July 21. Dedicated to the foods we like to snack on, this isn’t your average cheat day. Today, you can eat junk food for every meal. Popularized in the U.S in the 1950s, junk foods are usually, by definition, high in fats, sugars, salt, and calories. But they are also high in deliciousness! Junk food day is the perfect day to treat yourself. On this day, you’re allowed your favorite junk foods without any guilt. So go ahead and add extra cheese on that burger and go for that order of fries. Today you’re allowed!

07/20/2024

We celebrate International Chess Day on July 20, a day that was born from an idea the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had. Chess lovers around the world celebrate their favorite game on this day each year, in a tradition spanning more than 50 years.

07/19/2024

There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world. But when it comes to honey, there’s only one that matters — the aptly named honeybee (Apis family).

Bee colonies can fit up to 60,000 employees, each with a specific daily task. Worker bees are the laborers of the crew, and fly miles away from the hive looking for top-shelf flowers to pollinate.

When they find a hot lead, they tell their colleagues the exact location through a series of dance moves, which (incredibly) pinpoints the source of the forage in relation to the sun and the hive.

Bees use their proboscis (tongue) to suck up the sweet nectar from the flower. The worker bee’s gut breaks the nectar into simple sugars and returns it to the hive.

Finally, the nectar is stored in a hexagonal beeswax chamber. The bees dry the nectar by flapping their wings like crazy, completing its transformation into honey. 🍯

Once honey is formed, bees protect their haul by “capping” each chamber with beeswax. Image courtesy of Healthline.

Upzoning allows property owners to build higher-density dwellings on R1 land. It represents the biggest opportunity for investors in decades.

07/19/2024

National Urban Beekeeping Day is celebrated annually on July 19. The day is set aside to celebrate the practice of keeping bee colonies in urban areas. Other names for urban beekeeping are hobby beekeeping and ‘backyard beekeeping. Apiculture refers to the practice of keeping and maintaining bees. At a time, it was prohibited to keep bees in urban areas, but recent discoveries show that bees kept in the city are healthier than those kept in the country and that bees have economic and environmental growth.

07/18/2024

Indeed, technology has wreaked havoc on our industry and on musicians. Many of you are earning less from your art. Companies have shrunk, consolidated, or disappeared altogether. And entire formats are withering. Over the last two decades, it’s felt like a full-on battle for survival.

What caused the slide? New technology changed the way we consume music. Music sales went from albums to a la carte. Sales of vinyl, cassettes, and CDs declined. But the industry is rebounding.

Now is the right time to become an American Federation of Musicians member. From ragtime to rap, from the early phonograph to today's digital recordings, the AFM has been there for its members. And now there are more benefits available to AFM members than ever before, including a multi-million dolla...

07/18/2024

Shhh… do you hear that? It’s the sound of World Listening Day on July 18. World Listening Day is hosted every year by the World Listening Project, a nonprofit organization that is “devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening and field recording.” They explore acoustic ecology, a discipline that studies the relationship between humans and the natural world as mediated through sound. So quiet down, open up your ears, and get ready to study soundscapes on World Listening Day.

07/17/2024

If you’re reading this, chances are slim that you’ve ever won a lottery because the odds of winning are just so low. In 2021, Americans spent $105.26 billion on lottery tickets, making it the most popular form of gambling. That’s more than the total spending on music, books, sports teams, movies and video games combined. What do we get for all that money spent on the lottery and why do so many play if the odds are so low? We analyze the economics behind playing the lottery below.

Every year Americans flock to buy lottery tickets, even though we know the odds of winning are slim. We spend more on lottery tickets than many forms of...

07/17/2024

Here’s a midsummer night’s daydream: You — who have never won a single thing in your entire life — decide to take a wild leap and play the lottery. Why? There’s something about free money that seems rather appealing. Now then, you scratch the card, cross your fingers, avoid the 13th floor, and generally hope for the best. Then, right on July 17 — National Lottery Day — it happens. You win the big dollars and spend the rest of the month searching for the perfect beach house on Kauai.

Well, maybe, but one thing’s for sure — you have to play to win. National Lottery Day is a chance for everyone to try their luck and get involved.

07/16/2024

Economists have a poor track record of predicting the future. And Silicon Valley repeatedly cycles through hope and disappointment over the next big technology. So a healthy skepticism toward any pronouncements about how artificial intelligence (AI) will change the economy is justified. Nonetheless, there are good reasons to take seriously the growing potential of AI—systems that exhibit intelligent behavior, such as learning, reasoning, and problem-solving—to transform the economy, especially given the astonishing technical advances of the past year.

The collective decisions we make today will determine how AI affects productivity growth, income inequality, and industrial concentration