Insider Business (May 7, 2023) – Nigeria grows 63 million metric tons of cassava (also known as yucca) every year, but most of the country’s supply is eaten locally as fufu or garri. Experts say Nigeria could be missing out on billions in exports of lucrative cassava products like bubble tea pearls, starch, or ethanol.
Video timeline: 0:00 Intro 1:48 History of cassava 2:58 Growing issues 5:42: How garri and fufu are made 6:54 Transportation issues 7:36 How cassava is processed 10:06 Global demand is so high for cassava
Challenges along the country’s entire supply chain have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in cassava spoilage. But one entrepreneur, Yemisi Iranloye, thinks she has the solution. She’s introduced higher-yielding seed varieties and moved processing plants closer to farms.
Now, her farmers earn four times more for their product, and her cassava starch and sorbitol have landed her clients like Nestle and Unilever. Could Yemisi’s model be the way for Nigeria to feed itself and cash in on exports?
Monocle Films (May 4, 2023) – Located in the north-western corner of the Scottish Highlands, Gairloch is a coastal village of about 700 people that known for its mountains, sea loch and rugged landscape.
Monocle paid a visit to Two Lochs, reportedly Britain’s smallest commercial radio station, which is nestled on Gairloch’s shores, run by a handful of volunteers and has built a loyal fan-base of global listeners.
Wall Street Journal (May 3, 2023) – United Airlines flies 988 routes globally with around 30,000 departures every week. How do airlines choose where to fly when they have so many flights every week?
Video timeline:0:00 Meet Patrick Quayle, a global network planning executive 0:27 The hub-and-spoke network structure 2:50 The linear route system, point-to-point 4:45 When to update route networks
It turns out legacy airlines like American and Delta and low-cost airlines like Southwest and Spirit use different models when planning their route networks. WSJ asked United’s global network planning expert to explain how airlines plan and manage their routes.
The Economist ‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (May 1, 2023) – A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, Israel: the survivor nation at 75, is Sir Keir Starmer ready to govern Britain? (10:25) And why ChatGPT raises questions about how humans acquire language (19:05).
“People 50 and older hold the vast majority of wealth in the country, but we’re producing products and services for people who don’t have nearly as much money to spend…”
by Alexander Gelfand
April 27, 2023: Thanks to advances in medicine and public health, people are living longer, healthier lives. The world’s population of people 60 and older is growing five times faster than the population as a whole. Global life expectancy has doubled since 1900, and experts say that children born in developed countries now have a good chance of living to 100.
A “silver tsunami” is already sweeping the U.S. labor force: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 36% of people ages 65–69 will remain on the job in 2024 — up significantly from the 22% who were working in 1994.
These longer-lived, longer-working individuals generate an ever-bigger slice of global GDP and control an expanding tranche of global wealth. In her recent book Stage (Not Age), Golden estimates that the “longevity economy” is worth more than $22 trillion — $8.3 trillion in the United States alone.
That may be a conservative figure: AARP (the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) estimates that people over 50 already account for half of consumer spending worldwide, or $35 trillion. (This range of figures may have to do with how “older adult” is defined: The term is variously used to refer to people over the ages of 65, 60, or — sorry, Gen Xers — 50.)
CNBC (April 25, 2023) – Americans are collectively spending nearly $65 billion on sneaky fees, according to the White House. “It really seems like companies have become addicted to junk fees,” Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, told CNBC.
Junk fees are making companies billions of dollars richer. Watch the video above to learn more about where junk fees hide, details of proposed changes, where policy may fall short and whether increased regulatory oversight may be enough to squash junk fees once and for all. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 1:26 Defining ‘junk’ fees 5:34 Squashing fees 7:52 Policy problems 10:02 The future of fees
The Economist ‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (April 24, 2023) – This week, how to worry wisely about artificial intelligence, why in Sudan and beyond, the trend towards global peace has been reversed (13:00) and if English nationalism is on the rise, no one has told the English (19:30).
CNBC (April 22, 2023) – Outfitted with cameras and sensors, autonomous inventory robots can verify price signs and look for out-of-stock items. Inventory is one of the biggest challenges retailers face.
Missed sales from empty shelves and out-of-stock items cost U.S. retailers $82 billion in 2021, according to NielsenIQ. But an army of inventory robots is being deployed that could help retailers appease angry customers, boost sales and respond to the ongoing worker shortage.
Wall Street Journal (April 21, 2023) – At this year’s auto show in Shanghai, international automakers like Volkswagen Group and Porsche are trying to keep up with Chinese EV manufacturers like BYD and Li Auto, who dominate China’s EV market.
Video timeline: 0:00 EVs and plug-in hybrids are in the spotlight at Auto Shanghai 0:37 BYD’s Seagull and Li Auto’s L8 on display 1:58 How international companies like Volkswagen and Porsche are trying to keep up with Chinese EV companies 3:07 What’s next for China’s EV market?
WSJ’s Yoko Kubota heads to the most prestigious car show in China and takes a look at what’s driving the latest trends.
CNBC (April 3, 2023) – The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Credit Suisse were a harsh reminder of how quickly a trusted institution could fail, putting billions of dollars at risk.
Over 550 banks have collapsed since 2001, according to the FDIC. So what exactly causes a bank to fail? And what implications does it have on the U.S. economy?
Intellicurious 