Neal Freiman

Toby, we've seen it in the business world.

We're seeing it in geopolitics.

Once you secure strategic dominance, the next step is to monetize.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

So I'm sure you're listening to this thinking, is this legal?

And according to the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, not likely.

States can charge reasonable non-discriminatory fees for specific services that they render in the waterways around them, things like pollution mitigation and just maintenance.

They can service your ship and then charge it for it.

But they actually have to provide a service without that particular service.

And this service, in this case, is just letting you go through a waterway.

It seems to be not legal.

And if you're thinking, OK, what about the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal?

Panama charges ships to go through.

Well, actually, those are constructed and operated by sovereign states.

So they are allowed to because they have constructed, maintained and operated these waterways rather than the Strait of Hormuz, which, to my knowledge, has been formed naturally.

Okay, let's talk about Starbucks because I think I understand coffee a little more than...

AI this is part of Brian Nichols plan to turn around Starbucks is investing in employees investing in the service of these locations they've already spent about 500 million dollars since launching their uh his big return just back to Starbucks uh plan on employees and adding more of them essentially during the busiest time there's a coach position that is that has been included to uh Starbucks that that

will help out the store manager to keep locations moving smoothly.

And Starbucks says that this new tipping system and this new quarterly bonus system will increase compensation by 5% to 8% on top of current pay.

Nickel has been around for a year and a half now, and things have been OK.