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Some advertisers are worried that the Olympics are losing their luster. Viewership for the winter Olympics has been declining and the summer Olympics has remained pretty flat. In an effort to compete for more eyeballs, official committees are adding new sports like surfing, sports climbing and even breakdancing.

Today on The Indicator why sports that get added to the Olympics roster see a bump in participants.

On this episode, we answer two questions from listeners. First, what does China get out of devaluing its currency? And second, how much of America's pepperoni ends up on pizza?

Our co-host Cardiff Garcia really loves analyzing the yield curve as an economic indicator. The yield curve recently inverted, and we have gotten many questions from our listeners. Should we expect a recession? If so, how soon? Is there really a relationship between the inversion and a recession, or is it all a coincidence? Today on The Indicator, we answer these questions and explain our yield curve obsession.

Our inbox is blowing up with people worried that there might be a recession on the way. A lot of this had to do with the events of last week when the U.S. stock market became highly volatile, another part of the yield curve inverted, and other countries began registering some economic difficulty that could feed back to the U.S.

A lot of people got a little freaked out, which is understandable - the last downturn was a doozy, and prospect of a full-on recession is a frightening one, after the long bull run we've just been through. So what to do? We answer a couple of listener questions about what the signals mean and what we should do about them.

Today on The Indicator: What the warning signals in the economy mean, and what you should (or shouldn’t) do about them. With @cardiffgarcia and @titonka https://t.co/5JW55ZVOyx

Source: http://twitter.com/theindicator/status/1154495300792401920 Today on The Indicator: The trade war between the U.S. and China was supposed to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, but so far… *crickets* https://t.co/CyurXs1mP6 pic.twitter.com/ANNJK9vJ62 — The Indicator (@theindicator) July 25, 2019

Last year, Coca-Cola warned investors to brace for the economic backlash of President Trump's trade war with China. But this week, the CEO of Coca-Cola basically said, actually we're fine. No trade war impact.

With the threat of yet more tariffs looming, the full effect of the trade war on the U.S. economy is still unknown — we're still waiting for the tariff storm.

(via Gold Rush 2.0 : Planet Money : NPR)

Gold has started wars, inspired poets, and adorned royalty for thousands of years. It's one of the oldest investments on earth. It's also having a moment right now — the price of gold is at a six-year high.

Source: http://twitter.com/theindicator/status/1143633956497166336

Today on The Indicator: what makes a protest movement successful? Turns out there might be a recipe for revolution. https://t.co/FvlUYenovn

— The Indicator (@theindicator) June 25, 2019

Millions of people recently took to the streets of Hong Kong, protesting an extradition bill that they say could erode their freedoms and tighten China's grip on the territory. How likely are they to get what they want?

It turns out there may be a way to predict the success of the protest, and other popular uprisings around the world. Erica Chenoweth, a professor of public policy at Harvard, teamed up with non-violence researcher Maria Stephan to crunch the data on political protests, and they found that there is an almost foolproof recipe for a successful revolution.