Seasonal

Road salt is keeping the economy alive

Winter states spend more on road salt than you’d think. Just one snow day is estimated to cost Northern US states close to $2.6 billion in lost wages and $870 million in retail sales, according to IHS Global Insight. The salt is so important that politicians have been fired because of it.

It’s usually mined in states with high reserves of the mineral like Kansas or imported from Chile or Canada. Ten times more chlorine and sodium hydroxide gets thrown on our roads and sidewalks than goes into processed foods, according to the US Geological Survey.

While it keeps us safe from ice, it takes its toll

Road salt isn’t the greatest on infrastructure. The US spends more than double in repairs to vehicles, bridges, and concrete than it shells out to plow and salt the roads themselves. It takes over $5 billion annually to repair the corrosion the salt causes while it only takes $2.3 billion to cover roads and sidewalks.

After doing its job melting ice, road salt runs off into soil and water sources, which can be especially dangerous to freshwater supplies.

• Part of the reason the Flint Water Crisis happened in the first place is because the town started to source drinking water from the road-salt-filled Flint River, which corroded the region’s old pipes and pulled lead into the mix.

• In the same year, the US Geological Survey found unsafe levels of chloride in nearly 30% of urban streams.

So how can we address this issue? “Smart” snowplow software can create more efficient routes that reduce plow time and prevent over-salting. Biodegradables like beet or pickle juice, barley leftover from vodka distillation, or cheese brine (what?) also melt ice, which can reduce the amount of road salt needed. However, like regular road salt, natural de-icers don’t work as well at below-freezing temps.

Prices this holiday season might be cheaper than you expect

Deflation could be coming this holiday season, and no, I didn’t know that was a thing either. According to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, a reduced price tag on grocery items like chicken and eggs might be on the horizon.

Apparently, McMillon says this is due to a coming surge of deflation, and while some items may retain their expensive price tag, other staples are sure to come down in the next months.

This is welcome news for everyone feeling the squeeze from inflation and rising interest rates.

• Target Chief Growth Officer Christina Hennington said earlier this week that the average price of basics fell three percentage points between Q2 and Q3.

• JCPenney announced last month that it planned to keep prices for Black Friday the same or lower than last year.

It’s still unclear just how much this will affect holiday shopping prices, but if we’re being bullish, you can expect a drop in some goodies you’ll be getting for those you’re close to.

While buying the gifts may be cheaper, returning them will be more costly

These AI images get weirder every time. Also, the money you saved on buying the gifts can go towards returning them! Whohoo! Well, it was a good run, but the era of returning gifts for free has come to an end.

Virtually all retailers are hitting the big red button that says “end free returns", as the loose return policies that helped drive online sales start to cost them greatly.

• According to a survey from the National Retail Federation (NRF), returns accounted for more than $816 billion in lost sales in 2022.

• An estimated 44% of retailers now charge customers a fee to ship something back, up from 33% in 2021, according to post-purchase-logistics company Narvar.

Why the sudden change? For every $1 billion of merchandise they sell, processing returns costs companies around $165 million, according to the National Retail Federation. The pandemic encouraged people to shop online, which had most buying more than they wanted to keep (or just bought clothes that didn’t fit), causing retail return rates to jump 14% from 2019 to 2022, according to Narvar.

Amazon took a huge blow from returns too

The e-commerce giant, which was a huge proponent of free returns, brought in nearly $514 billion in revenue last year and paid $84.3 billion to process returns. That was more than double what it paid in 2019 when the company made $280 billion, according to Statista and The Information.

• Still, it doesn’t charge too much. Amazon now charges $1 for returns made at a UPS store when there is a closer Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go, Staples, or Kohl’s (which are all free return locations).

By incentivizing these in-store returns, Amazon saves money on expensive UPS shipping. The new logistics strategy also aims to boost foot traffic and impulse purchases at partner stores, so you may see other chains opening up their doors to Amazon’s return services in the near future.

Miscellaneous

Israel-Hamas ceasefire remains steady as hostages are being swapped

More hostages have been freed on each side as the war is put on pause. 17 hostages were released by Hamas Sunday — including a four-year-old American girl — which marks the third exchange between Israel and Hamas.

This comes amid a tenuous four-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that was held over the weekend and up to early Monday at the time of writing this. If completed, the swap would result in a total of 50 women and children hostages held by Hamas exchanged for 150 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the burden to keep the ceasefire ongoing falls on Hamas, and not on Israel.

The Qatar and US-mediated cease-fire began Friday, with Hamas agreeing to release at least 50 of around 240 hostages abducted during their initial Oct. 7 attack in Southern Israel in exchange for about 150 Palestinian prisoners. The majority is said to be women and children on both sides. As of late Sunday, 43 hostages had been released by Hamas, while around 100 prisoners have been released by Israel.

The second fastest-growing sport in the US might surprise you

The fastest-growing sport in the US might not be your first guess. Backcountry skiing has become the United States’ 2nd fastest growing sport, right behind pickleball.

The new surge sees experienced skiers forego maintained slopes and expensive lift tickets for the undisturbed powder in remote areas. The pandemic helped expose people to the sport when social distancing was at a premium.

In November 2020, backcountry ski sales shot up 81%, while backcountry snowboard sales soared 146%, according to the trade association Snowsports Industries America.

Backcountry skiers and snowboarders need to attach climbing skins to provide more traction on the way up if they don’t want to shell out the money for an airlift. But there are other added dangers to taking the road less traveled:

• Safety patrols aren’t around, which is why taking avalanche classes and practicing mock rescues are encouraged.

If you’re looking for a new hobby this coming winter (if you live in an area with snow), backcountry skiing might be your new jive if you’re willing to give it a try.

We want to know what you guys want to see from us, if you could take a few seconds to click a response it would mean the world!

Thank you for voting in our poll! Hopefully, we can get you the content you’d like to see most.

Grab Bag

Black Friday is chronically online

Experts weren’t expecting a big Black Friday this year… they should know not to discount the power of discounts. Despite analysts’ poor outlook, the shopping holiday generated a record $9.8 billion in online sales in the US, a 7.5% increase over a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics.

What’s been popular?

Phone shopping: $5.3 billion of online sales (or over half) were done through a phone, and that method is expected to overtake desktop purchasing during this holiday season for the first time, according to Adobe. Using separate data, Salesforce reported that 79% of all shopping traffic happened on mobile devices.

What isn’t popular?

Store-branded credit cards: New store card registrations were down 37% last year compared with 2015, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Some possible explanations include high-interest rates on store-branded credit cards, and Americans looking for discounts are less loyal to particular brands than they used to be, switching retailers last year at a higher rate than at any point since Covid began, per McKinsey.

Despite the waning interest in some items and more interest in others, Black Friday proved itself to be the economic powerhouse of a holiday everyone expects it to be.

The government is the newest entity hiring tech workers

Tech workers have been laid off at record rates between 2022 and 2023, but there’s one employer that is taking them in… and it’s Uncle Sam. According to Wired, the government is increasingly looking to recruit tech workers for their next jobs. They’re reportedly looking to hire 22 thousand tech workers into the public sector this fiscal year.

• The US Department of Veterans Affairs has hired 1k+ workers into tech jobs over the last year and increased its average salary by $18k to better compete with private sector salaries.

• The VA has also made its jobs more accessible, recruiting via LinkedIn Live events and advertising remote roles with hubs in popular tech cities like Seattle and Austin.

• A federal tech portal currently has 101 job listings, with some salaries ranging as high as ~$200k.

So far, it seems to be working. Over three thousand people have registered for a career event that helps the government recruit for tech jobs, called the Tech Talent Project.

President Biden signed a $1T infrastructure law in 2021 that included $1B in cybersecurity grants for state and local governments, which could be good for everyone: Unemployed tech workers get jobs and the government gains access to a talent pool of highly skilled professionals. It’s a win-win for everybody and who can hate on that?

Snippets

Leftover Tips: Have a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers? Here's what to do with them.

Fantastic Photos: Enjoy looking at the national landscape photography winners.

Incredible Iceberg: One of the largest icebergs on Earth (which is about 3x the size of NYC) is now adrift after being grounded in the Antarctic for over 30 years.

Spectacular Spout: Here’s a massive waterspout spotted off Italy’s coast.

Trustworthy Teen: An Iowa teen grew 7,000 lbs of vegetables to donate to families in need. What a beast.

If you enjoyed our newsletter even a little bit, please don’t hesitate to share, it would mean a lot! 😄 Also, if you’d like more snippets and critical analysis of the media please follow our X (Twitter) down below!