Biden to appoint UAW President Fain to Export Council
The White House intends to appoint UAW President Shawn Fain to the President’s Export Council to advise the Biden administration on policies and regulations that affect U.S. trade.
Travel junk fees are a virus with no easy fix
By Sam Kemmis | NerdWallet
Getting upset at junk fees is like getting upset at the flu.
Sure, I’m annoyed both when I get sick and when I have to pay $20 for my seat of choice, but it’s pointless to get mad at the viruses or airlines responsible. They’re just doing their jobs: One maximizing self-replication, and the other, profit.
Since budget airlines rose to prominence over a decade ago, airlines have been exploiting a quirk in human purchasing psychology: We’re attracted to low initial prices and tend to overlook high total costs when fees are “dripped” out slowly.
Indeed, it’s been shown that consumers systematically make suboptimal decisions when prices are dripped throughout the checkout process rather than disclosed up front, according to a 2020 study in Harvard Business School’s journal Marketing Science.
Just as a virus will exploit a weakness in the human immune system to reproduce itself, airlines have quickly realized that offering the lowest base fare possible and the highest fees is a great way to increase profit.
Why Millennial and Gen Z couples aren’t putting all their money in joint bank accounts
Erin McCarthy | The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
Reema Malhotra-Phillips never considered giving up her bank account when she got married last year.
“As a woman I think it’s important to have financial independence,” she said, even though “I am planning on being with my husband until the day I die.”
When they bought their home in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood, the Phillipses did open a joint account to pay the mortgage and bills. They also take money out of that pot for vacations and other shared experiences.
But they keep the rest of their finances separate.
“I use my personal bank account for anything that doesn’t involve our home or something that my husband would be partaking in,” said Malhotra-Phillips, who works in sexual violence prevention education at the University of Pennsylvania. The personal card is swiped “when I’m out with my friends, when I’m at lunch at work, when I’m buying him gifts or other people gifts.”
Millennials like Malhotra-Phillips, 31, are more likely than other generations to keep at least some finances separate from their partners.
NASA astronauts back at it to try for 1st human spaceflight of Boeing’s Starliner
After years of delay, another four weeks wasn’t much of an ask for a pair of NASA astronauts set to finally fly on the first human spaceflight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are set to return to the launch pad Saturday to climb on board the spacecraft sitting atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. Liftoff of the Crew Flight Test mission is targeted for 12:25 p.m., taking the duo on a trip to the International Space Station, with a backup opportunity on Sunday.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance for good conditions at the launch site for both Saturday and Sunday. Further backup opportunities fall to next Wednesday and Thursday.
NASA astronauts return to Space Coast ahead of Starliner launch
The duo had already suited up once and were strapped into their seats at the pad on May 6, but an issue with a fluttering valve on the Atlas V’s upper Centaur stage forced mission managers to scrub the launch and ultimately roll the rocket back to the nearby Vertical Integration Facility to have the valve replaced.
Kia lawsuit says dealer defrauded automaker out of more than $500,000
Kia America has accused a New England dealer, his six present and former franchised dealerships and its COO of racketeering, fraud and related wrongdoing for a scheme that allegedly bilked the automaker out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.