Discover the Wealth of Knowledge: Top 10 Fun Facts About Economics You Never Knew!

1. Credit Scores: The Online Dating Game-Changer

Move over, hunks and hotshots – it's time for the financially fit to flaunt their "assets": A Discover and Match Media Group survey revealed that a whopping 58% of online daters find a good credit score more attractive than driving a snazzy car, and for 50% of them, it's more important than a swanky job title. Financial responsibility even outperforms humor, looks, ambition, bravery, and modesty in the love market, so flashing your credit score could be the secret key to unlocking a potential partner's heart – just make sure it's a key worth showing!
Source => cnbc.com

2. From The Landlord's Game to Monopoly Mayhem

Before Monopoly made it rain dollar bills and crushed familial bonds: The Landlord's Game, invented by Elizabeth Magie, served as a cautionary tale of land grabbing and wealth inequality, eventually morphing into the friendship-testing, property-owning powerhouse we know today. Some antique versions like the Parker Brothers' 1935 Patent Pending marvel and the Salem Manufactured swan song can fetch a pretty penny – up to thousands, in fact!
Source => rd.com

Did you know the ancient abacus was the go-to calculator for over 2,000 years? Find out how this simple yet brilliant Chinese invention made accounting a breeze with just beads on a stick! 📿💡

=> Fun Facts about Accounting

3. Italy's La Dolce Stagnation

In a classic case of "la dolce stagnation," Italy's economy seems to have taken the "when in Rome" adage a tad too literally: Real per capita incomes have barely budged in the past twenty years, and youth unemployment averaged 33% even during the nation's strongest economic growth from 1994 to 2000.
Source => forbes.com

4. The Golden Ticket of Ferrero's Candy Empire

As the chocolate river flows into the land of tic-tacs and Nutella jars: Ferrero's revenue reached a sweet $12 billion in the fiscal year ended in August, thanks to the acquisition of treats like Butterfinger and BabyRuth from Nestle, which has turned Executive Chairman Giovanni Ferrero's aggressive acquisition campaign from four years ago into a delightful, money-minting golden ticket.
Source => euronews.com

5. The Costly Penny: More than Meets the Eye

Whoever said "a penny for your thoughts" probably didn't account for inflation: It actually costs 2.7 cents to make and distribute a Lincoln cent, while a Jefferson nickel sets the US Mint back by nearly 11 cents! The 2022 Annual Report from the US Mint reveals that the unit cost for pennies and nickels is more than their face values for the seventh year in a row, but don't worry about dimes, quarters, and half dollars - they're still turning a nifty profit.
Source => coinnews.net

6. Fatter Wallets Don't Always Equal Bigger Smiles

Hey there, GDPs and jolly folks! You'd think that as our wallets and economies become fatter, so do our grins, right? Not exactly my dear Penny Pinchers: Studies suggest that despite wealthier countries often having higher levels of self-reported happiness, the correlation between economic growth and happiness is weaker than we thought, and in some cases, even diminishes as GDP expands (take the United States, for instance). So, simply put for our dear Scrooge McDucks: A swollen GDP doesn't always guarantee basking in euphoria.
Source => economist.com

7. Lights, Camera, Economic Boom: The TV and Film Industry

Who needs a money tree when you can just film a TV show? Ka-ching: The American motion picture and TV industry generates a whopping $47 billion in wages, employs 1.9 million workers, and turns filming locations into bustling tourist attractions with major movies contributing roughly $225,000 per day to local economies.
Source => motionpictures.org

8. Cows: Ireland's OG Currency

In "udderly" fantastic financial news, cows were once considered the "moo-lah" of ancient Ireland: Brehon Law determined the value of these bovine beauties based on their age, breed, and condition, making them a vital part of the economy and often used as a means of exchange in Early Ireland.
Source => brehonacademy.org

9. Coffee: The Bean that Brews Billions

Move over, oil, there's another liquid gold in town, and it's brewing a storm in our mugs: Specialty coffee drinks have catapulted market penetration by 50% since 2007, with coffee consumption surging up by 7% in 2012 alone. The caffeinated U.S. even guzzles down a whopping 400 million cups daily, catapulting it as the top coffee consumer worldwide. But globally, coffee struts its beans as the second most valuable commodity at over $100 billion, barely trailing behind the crown-holder, oil.
Source => cafebarbera.com

10. The Accidental Birth of the Potato Chip Empire

In a crisp turn of events that would leave any French fry green with envy, a picky eater's tantrum led to the potato's deliciously diabolical makeover, raking in billions over the years: Enter George Crum, the culinary genius behind the potato chip, who first appeased a fussy customer at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1853 by slicing potatoes to near transparency, frying them to perfection, and dishing them out with an extra sprinkle of wit – ahem – salt, thus giving birth to the beloved "Saratoga Chips" and, eventually, the global potato chip market that boasted a whopping US$16.49 billion in revenue in 2005.
Source => en.wikipedia.org