University of Chicago professor of economics, Walmart chief economist and UW-Stevens Point Distinguished Alumnus John List ’92 returned to campus March 3-4 to speak about his experiences of scaling great ideas and shared stories from the White House and Chicago Heights schools to Uber and Lift. [View Photos] List presented “The Voltage Effect: How to […]
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As the military tensions heat up between Russia and the Ukraine and the political tensions increase between the United States and Russia, this blog provides a brief summary of Russia’s energy importance. Russia is a major player in global energy and is particularly important for Europe and China. Table 1 below shows the 10 largest […]
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Inflation has been a relatively hot topic of discussion with the annualized inflation rate hitting 7.5% in January, the highest rate since the early 1980s. Inflationary pressures resulted from a combination of increased demand as the economy rebounded from COVID, and reduced supply because of COVID related supply chain issues. This blog will look at […]
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The stock market has been up, down, and all around in January. For the week ending Jan. 21, 2022, the S&P 500, a benchmark for large company stocks (a large-cap index), fell 5.7% and the NASDAQ, a technology heavy stock index, declined 7.6%. That was the worst week for the market since the first quarter […]
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Interesting Times Recent times have been both interesting and challenging with the spread of the Delta variant interrupting a return to normalcy that we were all looking forward to. Now, the emergence of the Omicron variant promises to keep things interesting as we head into the holiday season and the new year. Speaking of interesting […]
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by Bo DeDeker, Ed.D.Assistant Professor of Accounting “Corporate social responsibility is not just about managing, reducing, and avoiding risk, it is about creating opportunities, generating improved performance, making money, and leaving the risks far behind.” –Sunil Misser, Head of Global Sustainability Practice, PwC Introduction Corporate sustainable responsibility (CSR) programs, combined with the advent of social […]
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Inflation Overview There are two broad factors that affect prices – supply and demand. Generally, inflation is caused when there is a change to one of these factors. If the supply of goods is reduced for a given demand, prices (inflation) will increase until a higher price level is reached that balances the demand to […]
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The Labor Market Overview A collage of factors influenced the labor market in 2021, with some of those factors likely to continue impacting the labor market in 2022. The economic rebound of 2021 prompted a flurry of job openings; however, those job openings were not always filled, and talk of a “labor shortage” resulted. First, […]
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The events of the last two years are ones that few Americans thought they would ever see. The performance of the U.S. economy as we enter 2022 continues to be unprecedented in many ways. The gradual changes that typically occur in a normal business cycle for economic growth, the labor market, and inflation were replaced […]
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Recent political discussions have included the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its debt. That would be irresponsible, costly, and foolish. A quick review of why the discussion on the debt limit, commonly called the debt ceiling, is currently taking place. The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt that the Department of the […]
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