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CARL AZUZ: Hi, I'm Carl Azuz.
Welcome to the show.
First topic this Thursday is inflation,
not for egos, not for balloons, and in this case
not a good thing.
Inflation, economically speaking, is when prices go up
and your money doesn't buy as much.
This has been a constant in America this year.
The consumer price index is a measure
of how prices change for goods and services over time.
And in 2021, it's been hitting levels not seen
since the Great Recession was underway in 2008.
Prices rose by 4.2% in April as compared with April 2020.
They were 5% higher in May over the previous year.
June and July prices were 5.4% higher
and August were 5.3% over where they were in 2021.
One component of all this is energy prices.
They've been skyrocketing lately and that's
causing concerns as the cold winter months approach.
Earlier this year, a number of economists and banking
officials said they believed the spike in inflation
would be temporary.
That once supply chains normalized
after the COVID pandemic, prices for goods and services
would also get back to normal, but that hasn't happened yet.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this week
that not only have supply problems continued,
they've gotten worse in some cases.
So inflation is likely to remain elevated for months
before it settles down.
Concerns about this contributed to a noticeable plunge in
the US stock market on Tuesday.
The Dow Jones industrial average of 30 major stocks
dropped 569 points.
It did recover a little of that on Wednesday.
Inflation isn't just a problem in the United States.
Spain and the United Kingdom are among the countries
that are seeing price rises of their own.
And the Bank of England says that while it expects
inflation to cool off, it doesn't think
it's hit its worst point yet.
Stateside, there are some tools the Federal Reserve
has to try to limit inflation.
The nation's central bank aims to keep the economy
growing comfortably.
- Inflation is the textbook term for prices rising over time
and purchasing power falling.
Think of a trip to the grocery store.
It sets you back $100.
A year from now you buy all the same items,
but they now cost $103.
That's inflation, 3% to be exact.
So what causes inflation?
A rise in production costs is one scenario, for example,
booming energy prices can drive up the cost of transportation
or manufacturing.
Rising wages can also contribute to inflation.
If business owners have to pay workers more,
they might also raise prices to cover those higher labor costs.
Inflation can also happen when the demand for goods
exceeds supply, then businesses selling those items
can increase prices.
Prices going up slowly is generally
considered a good thing, especially if wages rise, too.
It helps keep the economy dynamic and growing.
The US central bank has even a target inflation rate, 2%.
But inflation can quickly get out
of control when governments print too
much money to pay for spending.
When not enough real value underlies that paper,
prices surge.
That's called hyperinflation.
It happened in Germany, in Zimbabwe in the 2000s,
and most recently in Venezuela.
And it's the Fed's job to make sure the United States keeps
the inflation rate on track.
CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
What is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system?
Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, or Neptune?
Jupiter spins much faster than Earth.
Instead of 24 hours, its days lasts less than 10.
Though it spins quickly Jupiter's orbit around the sun
takes about 12 years and that coincidentally
is the scheduled length of a new NASA mission that
aims to study asteroid swarms that orbit
in front of and behind Jupiter.
NASA's plan is to send a spacecraft called Lucy
on a flyby of seven asteroids.
It'll observe them with a camera,
a thermometer, and a spectrometer
to see what their surfaces are made of.
The Lucy mission is scheduled to launch a little over two weeks
from now.
And while the asteroids are on either side of Jupiter,
they're not exactly close to the planet.
NASA says there is far away from Jupiter
as Jupiter is from the sun.
That's roughly $480 million miles.
The Lucy mission is projected to cost $981.
What scientists are hoping to learn from it
is some history about our solar system,
including how the planets wound up in their current spots.
After its mission is over the 46-foot Lucy spacecraft
could eventually collide with Earth or Jupiter,
but scientists say that would take 100,000 years.
Coming back down to Earth, in some parts of the world,
as you're about to see, there's a method of collecting
honey by burning beehives.
It's a traditional practice that's
been carried out for quite some time,
but it does kill most of the bees.
On a largely impoverished island in the Gulf of Guinea,
officials say the number of wild beehives
has decreased because of the burning.
There are people working to change these practices though
in an effort to keep the workers working, the bees
buzzing, and the honey flowing.
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LAURA BENITEZ BOSCO: Sometimes you think that the only thing
that they do is honey.
But these-- these little creatures, they
are much more than just honey.
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- On the tropical island of Principe,
located off the West Coast of Africa, the food economy
is heavily reliant on imports, especially from Portugal.
In its quest to become more self-sufficient,
the islanders make a beeline for the planet's
most efficient pollinators.
LAURA BENITEZ BOSCO: We depend off
the bees for everything that we eat, a lot of products,
a lot of varieties.
And they do all of this for free and we don't even notice them.
Without bees, our crops are much less productive.
Every one in three bites that you take every day
from your food depends on bees.
For example, coffee can produce three
times more if you have bees.
So if you have coffee in your mornings, thanks to the bees.
In the past in Principe, people used to burn the bees.
So we're just guys climbing the trees without beekeeping suit
or any protection, just burning the whole thing
and just take the wild honey.
JOSE PEREIRA THROUGH INTERPRETER: I
used to set fire to the swarm.
I wouldn't spare a thought for the queen and her workers,
I just burned them.
But now with the training I already have,
I would never advise anyone to set fire to a hive ever again.
LAURA BENITEZ BOSCO: People that work with bees
can protect nature, can protect the forest,
and can be a sustainable alternative.
We don't need to stop using honey,
we can just find a more efficient way to do it.
- Since bee burning was banned on Principe,
over 400 hives per year have been saved.
And in turn, the island hopes to become
self-sustaining as more local food products
are being sold in the market.
LAURA BENITEZ BOSCO: It's urgent for Principe
to try to find a way to produce its own food
and don't rely in other countries and other places.
We need to be sustainable.
And the only way to achieve this is through the bees.
So it's incredible how people here realizes very quickly
that with burning the bees, they start
to have less fruits and vegetables
and less food in the island.
JOSE PEREIRA THROUGH INTERPRETER:
Today, here on Principe island, we
see that there are many places where bees are pollinating.
So farmers say they are happy because of the bees.
LAURA BENITEZ BOSCO: It's a win-win
both from the agriculture and the beekeeper.
Everybody is winning.
I wish humans could be more like bees.
As the bees, we need to work together with this land
and with all their animals with the plans and the forests.
We need to protect nature because we
are part of the nature.
We are in nature.
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CARL AZUZ: When it comes to goats and herding dogs,
farms and fields make sense.
A furniture store does not, especially when
it's in the city of Atlanta.
The idea was for the goats to naturally clear out
an overgrown lot down the street,
but the animals apparently decided
to see the city while they were there and people passing by
were happy to see them to.
In fact, it was the city folks who
helped round up the country creatures right outside a Rooms
To Go.
More like ruminants to go if you know what I'm saying.
Where else would you look for a bovid day bed?
We hear they have a great sale on ottomans.
And for beard room sets, their prices are tough to bleat.
Just don't ask to see the sheepskin rugs because they
might think you're trying to billy
them with something hoofensive.
Carrollton High School, thank you for watching from Saginaw,
Michigan and for leaving a comment at youtube.com/cnn10.
That is the only place we look for your shout out requests.
I'm Carl Azuz.
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