Good Morning. Diesel is up 51% since the fighting started. That is what pushed your mortgage rate this week. Plus, happiness habits, Tiger Woods plea deal, and the life of a "smoke jumper" (first time? Join 523,000 Betterists here).
Yesterday’s most clicked link: Which recall foods are now safe to eat?
TOP STORY TODAY
The Cost of War
The 10-year Treasury yield hit 4.81% yesterday, its highest since late 2023. Renewed fighting between the US and Iran has pushed energy costs up, and the national debt passed $40 trillion last month.
Diesel is up 51% since the fighting began, and last month was the most expensive August for gasoline on record. The government has spent $931 billion on interest this fiscal year, more than on defense.
The 10-year is what 30-year mortgage rates track. Anyone shopping for a house or refinancing can watch it directly instead of waiting for a lender's quote. It updates daily.
The move: watch the 10-year yield, not the headlines. Mortgage rates follow it within days | The live number
Goodles Get Acquired
Barilla, the Italian pasta company founded in 1877, agreed to buy Goodles, the mac and cheese brand Gal Gadot co-founded five years ago. No price was disclosed. The deal needs regulatory approval.
The founders pitched more than 100 investors and were mostly turned down. By 2024 the company was selling a box every second, with 73 employees, against a category Kraft has led for decades.
At Target and Costco, more than 80% of its buyers said they had never bought mac and cheese there before. Goodles stays in Santa Cruz as a standalone brand with its team intact. How she got the shelf space.
The Clippers Caught
The NBA suspended Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for a year yesterday, fined the team $30 million, and stripped five first-round picks after finding it circumvented the salary cap. Two executives were also suspended.
The picks come off one a year from 2029 through 2033, five consecutive drafts without a first-rounder. The league called the team a prior offender of the same rules and imposed five years of monitoring.
Kawhi Leonard was fined $700,000 for pressuring the team to arrange off-court income and failing to reimburse personal expenses. The Clippers said they reject the findings and will fight the penalties. The league's full findings.
TOGETHER WITH SPRUCE
Your Emergency Fund Should Be Earning
You built the emergency fund. You did the hard part. Then you parked it somewhere paying almost nothing and stopped thinking about it.
At 3.50% APY, roughly eight times the national average, a $15,000 fund does real work sitting still. No minimum balance to earn the rate, no tiers, no monthly fees, no credit check.
New accounts opened September 1 through September 30, 2026 that receive $500 in qualifying direct deposits within 45 days get $100. Same money. Same account balance. Different number at the end of the year.
*Spruce fintech platform is built by H&R Block, which is not a bank. Bank products by Pathward®, N.A., Member FDIC.
GET 1% BETTER
Emerson: “You have a hundred chances”
Emerson described a portfolio resume in 1841, and he meant it as a compliment. He writes about a man who tries every profession in turn. Drives teams, farms, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, buys a township. New work every few years, and he lands on his feet every time.
Emerson says that man is worth a hundred of the polished graduates who studied one thing and waited for a title. "He does not postpone his life. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances."
The credentialed man has a single bet and spends his career defending it.
The portfolio has run a dozen experiments and knows exactly what he can survive.
Four unrelated things on a resume is not a gap. It is four things you already know you can survive. Don’t explain it away.
Also in the essay: the line about your best idea coming back from a stranger's mouth, why he calls travel a fool's paradise, and the sentence about note-books and memory that reads like it was written about AI.
When to go all in on something…
“Before you discover what you love: fewer commitments, more experiments. After you discover what you love: fewer experiments, more commitments."
- James Clear
TRENDING
5 Stories
▲ Short-term rental investors who bought Florida property in 2022 are selling $50,000 to $350,000 down | Statewide numbers
▲ Detroit Tigers reportedly committed $4 million to a 12-year-old, four years before he can legally sign | Some of these start at age 11
▲ Tiger Woods lost his license for five years after a plea deal in his DUI case | Why the DUI charge was dropped
▲ New York banned student AI use through eighth grade. Teachers can still use it for lesson plans | What the district is actually turning off
▲ Judge found Google's ad business an illegal monopoly, then declined to break it up | What she ordered instead
TOGETHER WITH BIRD&BE
Half of infertility cases involve him. Nobody tells you that.
Walk down the prenatal aisle and every box on the shelf is built for her. That is not because sperm health does not matter. It is because the industry never got around to it.
Sperm health drives or contributes to roughly half of all infertility cases. Bird&Be built for both from day one.
In a prospective clinical study, men with male-factor infertility took the Male Fertility Power + CoQ10 Pack for 90 days and saw a statistically significant 52.2% increase in progressive sperm motility. That is 600 mg of CoQ10, the dose research links to the strongest results. Her pack is built the same way, for the months before conception rather than after.
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Fun Links
What its like to be a “smoke jumper” [Blog]
…and how Goggins ended up as one [Video]
5 greatest convertibles of all time [List]
Why tennis balls are in sealed cans? [Blog]
21-year-old star of US open [Profile]
Tiny notebooks vs. your smart phone [Video]
10 science-backed happiness habits [Video]
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