In the nearly 250 years since the nation’s founding, technological leaps and demographic shifts transformed a scattered collection of farmers and laborers into today’s workforce of more than 150 million people. The economic evolution began with a workforce barely large enough to populate a modern-day city. (Rust, Mollica & McKee, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreOnline sports betting is more popular than ever, with Americans expected to legally wager billions of dollars on this year's March Madness basketball tournament. But a growing body of evidence reveals that the sports betting boom leads to financial strain for bettors. (Wise, NPR)
Read MoreYou can be a looksmaxxer by soft maxxing (skin care or exercise) or by hard maxxing (plastic surgery or self-mutilation). Looksmaxxers often find themselves jester-maxxing, that is, using humor to gain the attention of women. (Bogost, The Atlantic)
Read MoreAs the AI-generated imagery and video colloquially called slop spreads across social media and video feeds, marketers are going out of their way to tell consumers they’re not to blame. For some, it’s part of a message about authenticity that they want to send to their customers. (Coffee, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreConsumer spending on Easter is expected to reach a record total of $24.9 billion this year, according to the annual survey released today by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The amount surpasses the previous record of $24 billion set in 2023. On a per-person basis, shoppers are budgeting a record high of $195.59, up from the previous record of $192.01 in 2023. (National Retail Federation)
Read MoreThis is one of the world’s great religious debates and one of its most intense historical detective stories, and my guest this week has spent his career as a leading participant, joining the skeptical side as a New Testament scholar after growing up as a believing Christian. (Douthat, The New York Times)
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