Measuring the Economy by "Guys Giving Tours of School Buses"

The economic indicator no one is watching

Many economic indicators are down. Consumer confidence is sitting in the second percentile of its entire recorded history. Inflation expectations are rising, the conflict in Iran has rattled household finances, and near-term forecasts are bleak.

And yet, buried beneath these headlines, certain sectors are posting numbers that demand attention. I am referring, of course, to the market for men who give tours of school buses on YouTube.

While the financial press obsesses over Treasury yields and the Fed’s posture on rate cuts, this parallel economy has been humming along undisturbed. It is, by any reasonable measure, thriving. There are dozens of distinct creators producing this type of content on a recurring basis. Never in recorded history has it been more profitable to walk around a school bus and point at things.

This should not be a footnote in our economic analysis.

In fact, school bus tours are merely the flagship indicator for a thriving industry of “random guys making truck videos for children.” Beneath them lies an entire ecosystem. Consider the genre of videos in which dozens of fire trucks simply drive past the camera ad nauseam. Or the garbage men who have a side gig as… video garbage men. There’s no narration. No music. No context. Just pure unadulterated footage of big machines moving slowly. And business is booming!

Standard economic models assume that consumers respond to conditions. They update their expectations. But toddlers do not do this. They simply watch the man locate the emergency exit on the back of a school bus, then ask to watch it again. In this sense, they are the only truly unbothered consumer demographic in the current environment—which, in some ways, makes them the only rational actors in 2026.

By my estimation, this is currently the world’s most stable consumer market. And if current trends continue, we should be prepared to confront what the next stage looks like. Projecting the current number of school bus videos on YouTube forward ten years, the implications are significant.

The vehicle video economy is positioned not only to survive an economic downturn but to expand into one. As household budgets tighten and discretionary spending collapses, the men in the videos are already there, already walking around the buses, already explaining what the stop sign arms do. The trajectory is clear: over time, this will stop being a niche content category and start becoming vital infrastructure.

You may disagree with my conclusions, but the data are what they are. While traditional investors will continue to watch the Leading Economic Index, I will be watching the bus.

(Many of them, actually. Over and over.)

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