Experts for the Media

As Americans scale back spending on luxuries and some necessities — from dining out and live entertainment to home and auto maintenance — the ripple effects are being felt across the broader economy.

Daniel Burnside, clinical professor of finance at the Simon Business School, says the trend reflects more than just belt-tightening and signals deeper structural pressures tied to energy markets.
“Higher energy prices push inflation up and growth down, putting monetary policymakers in a bind,” Burnside says, explaining the current situation as being beyond a typical price spike.

“This isn’t just a price shock, it’s a capacity shock,” he says. “You can’t just flip a switch back to normal because a lot of energy infrastructure has been destroyed.

That distinction matters. Because energy costs are embedded in nearly every good and service, rising prices squeeze consumers beyond the gas pump. The result is reduced discretionary spending at venues like sporting and live music events, restaurants, and leisure destinations.

Looking ahead, Burnside says a rapid rebound in discretionary spending is possible but unlikely.

“If, by some miracle, energy prices quickly return to prewar levels, you would see a sharp run-up in discretionary stocks,” he says. “But that’s precisely because expectations are so low.”

For now, markets are signaling that a swift return to pre-crisis conditions isn’t on its way, Burnside says. Until energy supply stabilizes, the pressure on both consumers and the businesses that rely on it is likely to persist.

Burnside regularly fields inquiries from journalists looking for his insight on personal money matters and investing. Contact him by clicking on his profile.

A dramatic decline in reading for pleasure in the United States has fewer American parents reading aloud to their children — and experts warn the consequences can be dire.

“It builds connections,” Carol Anne St. George, an expert in early literacy at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education and Human Development, recently told The74 for an article citing a 41-percent decline in parents reading to children daily.

“People talk about text to text, text to world,” St. George said, “and those are the kinds of things that help children cognitively think and classify their world around them.”

Many young parents grew up in an education system focused on reading as a means to testing and building skills rather than enjoyment. As a result, St. George worries, they often view reading to their young as an obligation rather than a joy and a time to bond.

Experts say an increased reliance on screens and digital content and time pressures and competing demands on families have also fueled the decline.

St. George notes that children benefit greatly from being read to regularly. The advantages of early literacy include:

• Having a more robust vocabulary and stronger communications skills.
• Being better prepared to learn in school.
• Having a closer relationship with their parents.
• Higher academic achievement and better health outcomes later in life.

What Parents Can Do St. George advises parents to:

• Let children choose books they enjoy.
• Make reading part of a daily routine and that bedtime is ideal.
• Focus on fun and connection.
• Model good reading behavior because children mimic what they see.

St. George is available for media interviews and can be reached by contacting Theresa Danylak, the director of communications at the Warner School, at tdanylak@warner.rochester.edu.

The on-again-off-again nationwide boycott of Target has the retailer’s new chief executive, Michael Fiddelke, officer facing relentless pressure from activists on both sides of the issue.

David Primo, a professor of political science and business administration at the University of Rochester, says Fiddelke can’t seem to move Target from the crosshairs despite slashing prices on thousands of products and investing in stores, workers, and technology.

“Target remains a battleground for activists on the left and the right, and its new CEO hasn’t yet figured out how to extricate the company from this role,” Primo recently told USA Today. “Fiddelke already faces a huge challenge in turning around a company with significant operational issues. This certainly doesn’t help matters.”

Target has reported 13 straight quarters of sluggish sales. Company officials have admitted that shopper anger has contributed.

Activists in Minneapolis, where Target is based, organized a nationwide boycott last year over the company’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. From church pulpits to community gatherings, the policy about-face was widely viewed as a betrayal of Black Americans who had propped up the retail giant’s bottom line.

Primo studies corporate political strategies, among other areas, and regularly shares his insights with business journalists and political reporters. His essays have appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and he’s been interviewed by many radio and television outlets, including Bloomberg and National Public Radio.

Contact him by clicking on his profile.