Tuesday's assorted links

Inflation, remoteville, historical inflation, hot labor markets, and unions

Hi y’all! Here are five stories from the past week that I found interesting:

1. Inflation has finally reached the point where Americans are starting to pull back on some consumption

2. What would cities built around work-from-home lifestyles look like?

3. How close are we to 1970s-style inflation?

4. Hot labor markets may be bad for human capital investments

5. An Apple store in Maryland voted to form a union. It’s the first at the company in the US.

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At the end of the month, a series of federal waivers that provide free school lunches will expire. Learn more about those waivers and the economic impact of school lunch:

The End of Universal Free School Lunch

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Week 24 is over and I’m up to 21 books for the year. This past week I finish Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz. The author looks at the history of urban life in Çatalhöyük, Pompeii, Angkor, and Cahokia. There were some tangential things related to economics like the benefits of clustering or the use of money, but it was mostly an anthropological study of those four cities. I first learned about the book after joining Adam Conover’s Patreon. It was an interesting read and at a different pace from some of the stuff I’ve been reading. I enjoyed switching it up from the usual mix of economics-centric books and historical fiction.