Business

Airlines Want a Piece of Every Purchase You Make. Bare bone fares have a lot of restrictions. To avoid such restrictions, passengers either have to pay up or get an airline-branded credit card which will net that airline some revenue. Either way, airlines get paid. Given how resilient consumer consumption is, it’s likely that airline branded card programs will continue to grow. The only thing that may play to consumers’ favor is that as the airlines and issuers compete, they will offer incentives and benefits to attract new cardholders.

The Starbucks Turnaround That Has Baristas and Customers Steamed. I don’t know if the Starbucks turnaround will be successful. One thing that does stand out for me is that if you listen to the Carlsberg story below, the former CEO moved his office from the top floor to sit with his folks on windowless floors. At Starbucks, though, the CEO lives in California and demands a private jet to commute from California to Seattle while demanding that employees return to office.

Convenience stores are eating fast-food chains’ breakfast. Convenience stores are taking a page from Costco playbook by selling quality “private label” food. Add the convenient hours, the breadth of options and the fuel stations to the mix, and you’ll have a new threat for fast-food chans’ breakfast. But chains also have themselves to blame. Just look up how much McDonald’s has increased its prices in the last few years. When affordibility increasingly becomes a problem, consumer preferences will change.

How Vietnam’s military built one of the hottest tech companies in Southeast Asia. “While much of Viettel’s success is often attributed to its proximity to the Vietnamese military, experts say the company’s early push into rural markets, focus on R&D, and its ability to retain talent make it a contender in the global race for chipmaking, AI, and electronics manufacturing.” In Vietnam, parents often encourage children to become doctors. Short of that, go work for telecom or utilities companies.

Other Stuff I Find Interesting

Ethiopia outfoxes Egypt over the Nile’s waters with its mighty dam. We all have to play with the cards we are dealt with. Ethiopioa is blessed with being located upstream of the Nile. It’s the country’s right to do what it has to do to ensure the social and economic well-being of its citizens. Any country would do the same. Egypt would do the same. The Egyptian government has only itself to blame for letting the situation get to this point.

How Japanese ‘tiny forests’ are sweeping Scotland. Whether these tiny forests can help us combat climate change is up for debate, but I’d love for myself and my family to be closer to nature and have more shade in cities. In Ho Chi Minh City, where I am from, not only does the local authority not plant any tree, but they also actively cut trees down to open up streets.

Zinc Roofs Give Paris Its Signature Look. But They Are a Nightmare in Heat. TIL that Zinc is the material that gives Paris the iconic look. As interesting as the history of why Napoleon drove the use of Zinc to build rooftops of houses in Paris, it’s insane to learn that the French government refuses to do anything to protect the health of inhabitants, just to preserve the signature look.

The H-2A Visa Trap. I appreciate the Propublica to bring to light an important issue that has gone overlooked for far too long. There are a lot of immigrants who want to go to the US for a better life. For them and their children. But the road to come AND stay in the US is not always easy. It’s hard for all cases, but in some, like Sofi’s in this story, it’s a nightmare. I do get that immigration, without cultural integration, causes problems, but you gotta feel empathy for the people who jump through hoops just to be able to come here and work to make ends meet. And maybe make their dream come true. Maybe.

Billions spent, miles to go: The story of California’s failure to build high-speed rail. “The reasons for this vary with who’s being asked, but people with expertise often cite three fundamental missteps: creating a new agency to lead the effort, failing to secure adequate funding from the start, and choosing a route through California’s agricultural heartland. The state’s strict environmental review process hasn’t helped, either.”

How Britain built some of the world’s safest roads. “Throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, between 5,000 and 7,000 people died in road accidents each year. Fast-forward to today. Around 1,700 people die in road incidents each year in the UK, about a quarter of the number that used to be. That’s despite there being 16 times more vehicles on the road and 33 times as many miles driven.”

Stats

Every year, about 1.2 million die on the world’s roads

Japan has 99,763 people aged over 100 in September 2025, with women making up 88% of the group

Three quarters of young people (16-24) in the UK use mobile payments

Sales of used electric vehicles rose 40 percent year over year in July