E-Learning Corgi focuses on distance training and education, from instructional design to e-learning and mobile solutions, and pays attention to psychological, social, and cultural factors. The edublog emphasizes real-world e-learning issues and appropriate uses of emerging technologies. Susan Smith Nash is the Corgi's assistant.
Let's take a look at a mother working at home while also homeschooling her two young children. One child is drawing polka-dotted cats, while the toddler holds a plush kitty, and the mother is surrounded by signs of both education and entrepreneurship: books, school materials, a laptop, branding notes, and web pages for a bookstore, coffee shop, and cattery.
Economically, the scene raises an important question: is she in the labor force? If she is earning income through a home-based web business, helping manage online retail, or developing web presence for small businesses, then she is participating in paid labor. At the same time, she is also doing unpaid work as a caregiver, teacher, household manager, and curriculum organizer.
The graphic also reminds us that official labor statistics do not always capture the full value of women’s work, especially when that work takes place in the home. Homeschooling, childcare, emotional labor, scheduling, tutoring, and business development may all happen in the same room, sometimes at the same time, but only some of that activity may appear as measurable income.
The key takeaway is that women’s economic contributions can be difficult to measure when paid and unpaid labor overlap. In today’s web-based economy, however, flexibility, creativity, responsiveness, and digital skills allow many women to carve out a niche for themselves, combining caregiving responsibilities with entrepreneurial work that supports families, local businesses, and new forms of economic participation.
Let's explore a macroeconomics scenario set during a zombie apocalypse in a beach resort town. The setting is a once-busy vacation destination, with beaches, miniature golf courses, pizza places, boardwalk attractions, and gelato shops now overrun by chaos.
The zombies are shuffling toward places where they can reliably find crowds of people — and therefore, in the logic of the scenario, “fresh brains to munch on.” This creates a vivid way to think about how consumer behavior changes during a crisis. Instead of focusing on leisure and tourism, people suddenly become much more interested in safety, escape, and survival. The imagery of panicked tourists, overwhelmed businesses, and zombies converging on popular attractions helps illustrate how an external shock can completely transform normal patterns of economic activity.
The slide also shows how demand shifts during an emergency. In ordinary times, a beach town might see strong demand for pizza, mini golf, boardwalk treats, and other recreational services. But when zombies appear, demand surges for barriers, fencing, helmets, security services, and even experimental deterrents — such as blasting Bach and Mozart if people believe the music annoys zombies.
This is a playful example of demand shifting to the right for goods and services associated with protection and survival. The slide uses the idea of “anti-zombie” strategies to make a serious economic point: when fear and risk rise, consumers reallocate spending toward whatever they think will help keep them safe. Even if some solutions are unconventional or unproven, people may still rush to buy them if they believe there is a chance they will work.
At the same time, the slide demonstrates supply problems and labor shortages. As much of the labor force flees the zombies, local businesses can no longer operate normally. Restaurants, resorts, mini golf businesses, shops, and boardwalk vendors may cut hours, reduce services, or close altogether.
This is shown through the “supply shifts left” idea: fewer available workers means fewer goods and services can be provided. The result is a reduced supply of local services and rising prices for whatever remains available. This is why the slide includes “Help Wanted” signs — in a crisis, some employers may become desperate to hire anyone willing to stay, which can drive wages upward. In macroeconomic terms, the labor supply falls, and businesses must compete harder for scarce workers.
Overall, the slide is a creative illustration of supply and demand interacting under extreme conditions. Demand rises for protection-related goods, supply falls for normal local services, and labor shortages create additional disruptions across the economy. Prices increase in some areas, output falls in others, and the entire local market becomes unstable.
The zombie-apocalypse theme makes the lesson memorable, but the underlying economics is very real: when a major shock changes people’s priorities and limits the ability of businesses to operate, both supply and demand can shift dramatically. The slide uses humor — from brain-hungry zombies to Bach-and-Mozart deterrents and emergency help-wanted signs — to show that macroeconomics helps explain how communities respond when normal life is suddenly turned upside down.
Let's explore a serious macroeconomic idea: when people expect inflation, they often change their behavior in ways that go far beyond simply complaining about higher prices. Inflation reduces purchasing power, which means the same amount of money buys fewer goods and services over time.
As a result, people start looking for ways to preserve value, avoid future price increases, or stock up on items they believe may become more expensive or harder to find. In the “Hoarder’s Guide to Hedging Against Inflation,” the two case studies — the Book Hoarder and the Collectibles Hoarder — show how inflation can shape not only markets, but also household decision-making, emotions, and everyday habits.
The first case study, the Book Hoarder, reflects the idea that people may respond to inflation by buying durable goods now rather than waiting until prices rise later. If someone believes that paper, printing, and shipping costs will continue to increase, then a used book that costs fifty cents today may feel like a bargain compared with what a similar book might cost in the future. The graphic imagines a full room lined with library-style shelves, packed with old textbooks, classics, and bargain-bin treasures, all collected under the logic that books could someday be rarer, more expensive, or even less available in physical form. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is a reactionary behavior tied to expectations: the person is responding today because of what they think prices and availability will look like tomorrow.
There is also a second layer to the Book Hoarder example: inflation does not just affect prices, it can also intensify concerns about scarcity and substitution. If more reading moves online, printed books may gain a kind of niche value, especially for people who prefer physical media or worry about losing access to material behind paywalls, subscriptions, or disappearing digital platforms. That is why the graphic works so well when it shows old textbooks, classics, and “under $1 finds” stacked everywhere like treasure. In real life, people really do behave this way — they fill basements with canning jars, buy extra printer ink, or grab discounted school supplies “for later.” The quirky difference here is that instead of stockpiling toilet paper or canned soup, the hoarder is stockpiling Dickens, chemistry textbooks, and random forgotten paperbacks because “good deals are forever.”
The second case study, the Collectibles Hoarder, focuses on a different but equally realistic inflation response: buying and holding nostalgic goods that may increase in value because of scarcity, memory, and collector demand. Here the graphic imagines toys and memorabilia from the 1990s and earlier — Barbie dolls, Pokémon collectibles, scout uniforms and pins, patches, lunchboxes, dolls, trading cards, and Tandy leather kits — as a kind of informal hedge.
The logic is that inflation raises prices generally, but certain older items may rise even faster if they also become desirable collectibles. In economics, this is not a guaranteed investment strategy, but it does reflect how people often respond when they lose confidence in cash as a store of value: they start putting money into “stuff” they think other people will want later.
What makes this second case especially memorable is that it captures how inflation can blend with psychology. Nostalgia can create demand in ways that are not purely rational or easy to predict. A box of old patches, a Camp Fire Girls uniform, or a slightly battered leathercraft kit may suddenly feel important because it connects to identity, childhood, or a vanished era.
In real life, people hunt estate sales for old Pyrex, spend surprising amounts on first-edition Goosebumps, and argue online about whether unopened Barbie dolls should stay in the box forever. The graphic leans into that quirky behavior in a fun way: today’s clutter becomes tomorrow’s “valuable archive,” and ordinary collectibles become part economics lesson, part time capsule.
Taken together, the two case studies show that inflation often changes behavior long before it changes every price tag in the same way. People react to expected inflation by stockpiling, substituting, bargain-hunting, and searching for stores of value outside of cash.
Some responses are practical, some are emotional, and some are a little eccentric — but all of them reflect the same underlying macroeconomic reality: when people fear that money will buy less in the future, they try to act now. That is the key lesson of the graphic. Inflation does not just push prices upward; it also influences expectations, priorities, and the strange but very human behaviors that emerge when people decide that maybe the path to financial resilience runs through a wall of bookshelves and a closet full of 1990s memorabilia.
The Woodward Trench is a Lower Pennsylvanian
(Morrowan) paleovalley running approximately 70 miles from
southeast of Vici, Oklahoma to the Kansas border, oriented
SW–NE. It is 1–2 miles wide and hosts the world's
highest-concentration iodine brines in any
commercially producible formation. The iodine's origin is traced
to the Woodford Shale, which contains
uranium-bearing organic material (Type II kerogen, brown algae,
marine organisms). Fissogenic iodine-129 from 238U
decay has been confirmed as a primary source.
Key mechanism: Processed
brine effluent is reinjected into the Morrow formation
downgradient from producing wells, creating a hydraulic
displacement that continuously pushes iodine-rich brine toward
production wells — sustaining yields over decades.
Formation
Avg I₂ (ppm)
Peak I₂ (ppm)
Depth (ft)
Permeability
Commercial?
Mississippian limestone
~500
1,560
5,000–8,000
Low
Limited
Morrow Sand (Pennsylvanian)
300–350
700
7,000–13,000
High
Primary ✓
Mississippi Lime (N. OK)
80–150
200
4,000–7,000
Moderate
Iofina SWD
Woodford Shale (source)
—
—
10,000–18,000
Very low
Source only
2. Active Producer Profiles
Iofina
Resources
AIM: IOF · Founded 2012 in OK
Active Plants8 IOsorb® plants
NW Oklahoma5 plants
Central Oklahoma3 plants
Brine capacity10k–100k+ bbl/day
H1 2025 growth↑ +11% YoY
StrategySWD-collocated
Iochem
Corporation
Vici, OK · Founded 1987
Production wells16+ active
Injection wells6
Leasehold~25,000 acres
Brine I₂ conc.500–700 ppm
Well depth10,000–12,000 ft
StrategyDedicated brine wells
Woodward
Iodine Corp.
Woodward, OK · Founded 1977 · ISE
Chemicals (JP)
Producing wells10
CountiesWoodward + Harper
Capacity~800 t/year
Brine I₂ conc.300–500 ppm
Well depth7,000–13,000 ft
DistributorMitsubishi International
Woodward Iodine — Named Wells (OCC Records)
Well Name
API Number
County
GUTHRIE
153-227167-0-0000
Woodward
HARRISON 3-1
153-204359-0-0000
Woodward
IRWIN 24-1H
153-124973-0-0000
Woodward
MARTHA
153-226226-0-0000
Woodward
OLDHAM 1-22
153-224890-0-0000
Woodward
PEACH 1-24
153-125763-0-0000
Woodward
ROPER
153-226227-0-0000
Woodward
SHAW
153-226228-0-0000
Woodward
ELSON #1
059-086050-0-0000
Harper
W.I.F. WELL #13,14,15,18
059-053190-0-1788
Harper
3. Horizontal Drilling Watch Zones
New horizontal wells co-produce large volumes of formation
brine routed to saltwater disposal (SWD) sites — exactly where
Iofina's IOsorb® plants intercept iodine. Increasing horizontal
activity therefore directly expands available brine supply.
County
Activity
Wells (Feb 2026)
Relevance to Iodine
Woods CountyHIGH
Very active
4,800+
Iofina NW core · SWD expansion zone
Major CountyMED
Active
6,000+
Highest county well count; Mississippi Lime brine feed
Alfalfa CountyMED
Active
4,000+
Iofina IO#1 & IO#5 original core (est. 2012)
Harper CountyEXPANDING
Growing
Active (181k MCF/mo)
Near Woodward Iodine well leases; new brine intercepts
possible
