Marketplace Morning reports new Skin in the Game series explores what we can learn about

money and careers from the $300 billion video game industry.

Plus, here how an Oakland-based program helps young people get the skills they need to break

into this booming industry. Listen to Skin in the Game and more from the Marketplace Morning

report wherever you get your podcasts.

On the program today, a reminder that it's a global economy we only live in it.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai, Rizdole. It is Monday,

today, August 7th. Good as always to have you along.

Everybody, we begin today with a nod to the calendar, in fact, and by pointing out

that we are one day shy of seven months since China officially ended its zero COVID policy.

And by pointing out that what a whole lot of people had been expecting to happen

has not. Marketplace's sub-rebenicure starts us off with the why and why it matters.

When China's zero COVID policy was lifted earlier this year, a lot of economists and analysts

assumed the full might of the second largest economy in the world would be unleashed.

You'd have roughly five to six percent growth that that would be driven by a rebound in

household consumption based on savings that had been accumulated during the pandemic.

Logan Wright is a partner at Rodium Group. He says the comeback was expected to be so intense

that it would add to global demand for a lot of products and maybe contribute more to inflation

here in the US and elsewhere. None of those trends have materialized.

There has been a rebound, but it's been weaker than expected Wright says, even below typical

pre-pandemic levels. Prices are flat or even falling. Households aren't spending.

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