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“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed,” Admiral William McRaven told the graduating class of 2014 at the University of Texas, Austin. What the us Navy counts as “making your bed”—square corners, centred pillow, blanket neatly folded at the foot of the rack—is idiosyncratic. Yet the admiral’s broader point is universal: whether you are a sailor, a salesperson or a ceo, “if you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.” His commencement speech went viral.Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said Thursday that the company’s sports network ESPN is looking for a partner to help it step into sports gambling.
Chapek said in exclusive interview with CNBC’s David Faber the sports network will never be a sportsbook that accepts bets.
The comments come after activist investor Dan Loeb’s Third Point recently took a stake in Disney and pushed to spin off ESPN.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said Thursday that the company’s sports network ESPN is looking for a partner to help it step into sports gambling.
“We at ESPN have the ability to do that. Now we’re going to need a partner to do that, because we’re never going to be a book, that’s never in the cards for the Walt Disney Company,” Chapek told CNBC’s David Faber said in an exclusive interview. “But at the same time, to be able to partner with a well-respected third party can do that for us.”

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Disney CEO wants to add sports betting to ESPN — a move we’ve long called for

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The comments come after activist investor Daniel Loeb’s Third Point recently took a new stake in Disney during the second quarter, valued at about $1 billion, or 0.4% of the company.
Initially, Loeb pushed for Disney to spin out the sports property, saying it would be easier for it to take part in certain initiatives, such as sports gambling. But on Sunday Loeb reversed his position, saying on Twitter, “We have a better understanding of @espn’s potential as a standalone business and another vertical for $DIS to reach a global audience to generate ad and subscriber revenues.”
Sports betting was at the core of Loeb’s earlier push to spin off ESPN.
“We look forward to seeing Mr. Pitaro execute on the growth and innovation plans, generating considerable synergies as part of The Walt Disney Company,” Loeb added to the Tweet, referencing Disney’s Chairman James Pitaro.
Loeb’s reversal came shortly after Chapek told reporters during Disney’s D23 Expo that he had big plans for ESPN’s future, without disclosing details.

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The Fed needs to pump the brakes on rate hikes, Barry Sternlicht said.
If it doesn’t, it will cause a “serious recession,” he predicted.
The central bank is expected to raise rates again next week.

The U.S. economy is teetering on the brink of serious downturn if the Federal Reserve doesn’t pump the brakes on its rate hikes, billionaire CEO Barry Sternlicht said.
The central bank has already raised interest rates four times this year and is widely expected to hike them by 75 basis points next week in an effort to tame inflation. Earlier this week, consumer prices rose 0.1% instead of the 0.1% decline economists surveyed by Dow Jones were expecting.

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However, Sternlicht believes the Fed was late to the game and is now being too aggressive.
“The economy is breaking hard,” the chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday.
“If the Fed keeps this up they are going to have a serious recession and people will lose their jobs,” he added.
Consumer confidence is terrible and CEO confidence is “miserable,” Sternlicht said. Supply chain issues are being resolved, and inventories are now backing up in warehouses, which will lead to huge discounting, he said.
“The CPI, the data they are looking at is old data. All they have to do is call Doug McMillan at Walmart, call any of the real estate fellas and ask what is happening to our apartment rents,” he said, pointing out that the rate of rent growth is now slowing.

The continuation of rate hikes will also cause a “major crash” in the housing market, Sternlicht predicted. The once-hot real estate market is swiftly slowing down, with mortgage rates for a 30-year fixed loan over 6% — up from 3.29% at the start of the year, according to Mortgage News Daily.
While the Fed’s target is 2%, inflation should run at 3% to 4%, Sternlicht said.
“Inflation that is driven by wage growth is fabulous. We should want wages to go up,” he said.
“You can pay higher rents, you can buy your equipment, you can go to the restaurant if you have high wage growth.”
As for when the “serious recession” will hit, Sternlicht believes it is imminent.
“I think [in the] fourth quarter. I think right now,” he said. “You are going to see cracks everywhere.”

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Kanye West, known as Ye, says he is terminating his company Yeezy’s contract with Gap Inc.
In a letter sent by his lawyer, Yeezy said Gap failed to meet obligations in the agreement, including distributing products to store locations and creating dedicated YZY Gap stores.

Kanye West and daughter North West attends the “Yeezy Season 8” show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2020/2021 on March 02, 2020 in Paris, France.
Arnold Jerocki | Getty Images

Kanye West, who goes by Ye, is terminating the contract between his company Yeezy and Gap Inc., according to a letter shared by his lawyer. 
The move comes after Gap failed to meet its obligations in the companies’ agreement, including distributing Yeezy products in its stores by the second half of 2021 and creating dedicated Yeezy Gap stores, according to the letter shared with CNBC.

“Yeezy notified Gap of its concerns in August and gave the company a contractually-designated 30 days to cure its breaches,” Nicholas Gravante, a lawyer for Ye, told CNBC. He said Gap took no action on the concerns.
CNBC has reached out to Gap for comment. Gravante said the termination letter was sent to the company Thursday.
Gravante said Gap’s noncompliance with the agreement has been costly and that “Ye will now promptly move forward to make up for lost time by opening Yeezy retail stores.”
Announced in June 2020, the partnership between Gap and Yeezy was set to continue through 2026. Yeezy, owned solely by Ye, would receive royalties and equity based on the sales. Gap also agreed to distribute 8.5 million shares to Yeezy as certain sales targets were met.
The first product in the Yeezy Gap line, a blue puffer jacket, sold out in hours upon its release online in June 2021. Gap later made headlines selling Yeezy products in its Times Square store, but the termination letter said those products were the result of a separate contract between Yeezy, Gap and Balenciaga.

Following its launch, Wells Fargo predicted that the partnership could bring in $1 billion in sales in its first year. But Gap has been struggling with slumping sales and in August slashed its financial outlook. The company has acknowledged missteps with its Old Navy chain, and has been looking for a new leader since its CEO left in July.
In recent weeks, Ye has publicly aired his grievances with business partners in recent weeks. The rapper, producer and designer made his squabbles with Adidas well-known in a slew of Instagram posts attacking the company’s board, and in an interview with Bloomberg said it was “time for me to go it alone.”
“I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that have changed the shoe industry. Now it’s time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience,” he told Bloomberg.
As a teenager, Ye worked in a Gap store and referred to his time there in the lyrics of “Spaceship,” on his 2004 College Dropout album. West and Gap had reportedly been in contact about a potential deal since 2015.
Shares of Gap were down 4% in pre-market trading.

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Hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries.
Siemens says hydrogen plant in Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia will produce 1,350 tons every year.
“Talks regarding the expansion of the plant’s capacity to 17.5 megawatts are already underway,” industrial powerhouse says.

A Siemens logo in Germany. The industrial giant says that a newly commissioned green hydrogen plant in the country will use wind and solar power from the Wunsiedel Energy Park.
Daniel Karmann | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

A green hydrogen generation plant described as one of the largest in Germany is open, with industrial giant Siemens saying it will produce 1,350 tons of hydrogen every year.
In a statement Wednesday, Siemens said the facility would use wind and solar power from the Wunsiedel Energy Park in Upper Franconia.

The hydrogen will be produced using an 8.75 megawatt electrolyzer. Siemens said the hydrogen would be primarily used “in the region’s industrial and commercial enterprises, but also in road transport.”
Following its commissioning, Siemens said a handover of the plant to WUN H2, its operator, had taken place. Siemens Financial Services has a 45% stake in WUN H2. Riessner Gase and Stadtwerke Wunsiedel, a utility, have stakes of 45% and 10%, respectively.
“Talks regarding the expansion of the plant’s capacity to 17.5 megawatts are already underway,” Siemens said.

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Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in a wide range of industries.
It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.

If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it “green” or “renewable” hydrogen. Today, the vast majority of hydrogen generation is based on fossil fuels.

‘A game changer for Europe’

Siemens’ announcement came on the same day that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed support for hydrogen during her State of the Union address.
In remarks translated on the Commission’s website, von der Leyen said “hydrogen can be a game changer for Europe. We need to move our hydrogen economy from niche to scale.”
In her speech, von der Leyen also referred to a “2030 target to produce ten million tons of renewable hydrogen in the EU, each year.”
“To achieve this, we must create a market maker for hydrogen, in order to bridge the investment gap and connect future supply and demand,” she said.
To this end, the EU’s von der Leyen also announced the creation of a European Hydrogen Bank. It is hoped this will be able to invest 3 billion euros ($2.99 billion) to support the future market for hydrogen.

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Over the past few years, a number of multinational firms have attempted to lay down a marker in the green hydrogen sector. Within Germany itself, oil and gas giant Shell last year announced that a 10 MW electrolyzer had started operations.
In July 2022, it was announced that plans to build a major hydrogen plant in the Netherlands would go ahead following a final investment decision by subsidiaries of Shell.
In a statement at the time, Shell said the Holland Hydrogen I facility would be “Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plant” when operations start in 2025.
According to the firm, the 200 MW electrolyzer will be located in the Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seaport, generating as much as 60,000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen every day.
In June of this year, another oil and gas supermajor, BP, said it had agreed to take a 40.5% equity stake in the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, a vast project planned for Australia.
BP said it would become the operator of the development, adding that it had “the potential to be one of the largest renewables and green hydrogen hubs in the world.” More

Railroads and workers’ unions reached a tentative labor agreement early Thursday.
The deal averts a national rail strike that threatened to shut a major segment of the U.S. transportation network.
The new contracts provide 24% pay increases over five years from 2020 through 2024 and include immediate payouts averaging $11,000 upon ratification, in addition to an extra paid day off for workers.

Railroads and workers’ unions reached a tentative labor agreement early Thursday to avert a national rail strike that threatened to shut a major segment of the U.S. transportation network.
The last-minute deal avoids massive disruptions to the flow of key goods and commodities around the country. About 40% of the nation’s long-distance trade is moved by rail. If the unions had gone on strike, more than 7,000 trains would have been idled, costing up to an estimated $2 billion per day.

The deadline for an agreement was midnight Friday morning. The parties spent 20 consecutive hours negotiating before reaching a deal.
“The tentative agreement reached tonight is an important win for our economy and the American people,” President Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the deal. “It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years.”
The White House had been in talks with railroad workers’ unions and companies for several months, but negotiations were hung up over unpaid sick time.
Tentative agreements have been reached with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers – Transportation Division, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, which collectively represent approximately 60,000 employees, the Association of American Railroads said in a press release.
The new agreement would improve rail workers’ pay and working conditions and give them “peace of mind around their health care costs,” Biden said. He thanked railroad unions and companies for negotiating “in good faith.”

The new contracts provide rail employees with a 24% wage increase during the five-year period from 2020 through 2024, including immediate average payouts of $11,000 upon ratification, according to the Association of American Railroads.
A spokesman for the labor unions told CNBC the groups also negotiated an extra paid day off for workers and that the deal paves the way to revisit attendance policies in the future.
The spokesman called it a historic win, but cautioned that all tentative agreements are subject to ratification by the unions’ membership, a process that could take at least a week.
“I thank the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith and reaching a tentative agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy,” Biden said in a statement.
Negotiators from railroad carriers and unions had met in Labor Secretary Marty Walsh’s office Wednesday as the sides tried to negotiate a deal ahead of Friday’s strike deadline.
Norfolk Southern and other railroads had been ramping down operations to prioritize critical shipments. On Wednesday, Amtrak announced it would cancel all long-distance trains starting Thursday since many of its railways are maintained by freighters. Thursday morning, Amtrak said it was working to restore the canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate them.
— CNBC’s Melodie Warner contributed to this report.

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Rising food costs helped push inflation higher again last month, according to the latest government data.
Prices for staples like eggs, milk, cereal, bread and butter notched some of the largest increases, further straining household budgets.
Savings experts share their top tips to cut costs at the grocery store.

Going to the grocery store isn’t getting any cheaper.
Rising food costs helped push inflation higher again last month, despite a drop in gas prices. The food index alone rose 11.4% over the past year, according to the latest consumer price index figures — marking the biggest 12-month jump since May 1979.

The food-at-home index, a measure of price changes at the grocery store, increased 13.5% — also a 43-year high.
In the face of higher prices, consumers have been cutting back, according to Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. However, “food, at its basic level, is not discretionary,” he said. “That’s the challenging aspect of the circumstances we are in.”

Prices for staples like eggs, milk, cereal, bread and butter notched some of the largest increases, further straining household budgets.
Inflation has also led many food and beverage companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, to raise the prices on drinks and packaged goods. Some are also making their packages smaller — also known as “shrinkflation” — or swap in less expensive ingredients, a tactic now termed “skimpflation.”

“Grocery product manufacturers know that while most shoppers will immediately notice a price increase, they are less likely to catch a reduction in a product’s net weight or a switch to using cheaper ingredients,” said Edgar Dworsky, the founder of Consumer World, who has been tracking the downsizing of popular products, such as Charmin, Quaker Instant Oatmeal and Honey Bunches of Oats.

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The Federal Reserve has already taken aggressive steps to fight surging inflation, and a survey released earlier this week by the New York Fed showed consumers are growing less fearful about rising prices — although they still expect the inflation rate to be 5.7% a year from now. 
“Consumers are prepared for high prices to persist in the foreseeable future, but there’s also a tendency for people to think that things might return to normal,” Hamrick said.
In the meantime, “it’s prudent for individuals to continue to be cautious with their household budgets,” he added.

To that end, savings experts share their top tips to spend less on groceries as food inflation shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
“It’s belt-tightening time and has been for a while,” Hamrick said.

5 tips for saving on groceries

Scrutinize sales. Generic brands can be 10% to 30% cheaper than their “premium” counterparts and just as good, but that’s not always the case. Name brands may be offering bigger-than-usual discounts right now to maintain loyalty, so it pays to pay attention to price changes.
Plan your meals. When you plan your meals in advance, you’re more likely to just buy the things you need, said Lisa Thompson, a savings expert at Coupons.com. If planning’s not your thing, at least go shopping with a rough idea of what you’ll be cooking in the week ahead to help stay on track and avoid impulse purchases, she added.
Buy in bulk. When it comes to the rest of the items on your list, you can save more by buying in bulk. Joining a wholesale club such as Costco, Sam’s Club or BJ’s will often get you the best price per unit on condiments and nonperishable goods.
Use a cash-back app. Ibotta and Checkout 51 are two of the most popular apps for earning cash back at the store, according to Julie Ramhold, a consumer analyst at DealNews.com. The average Ibotta user earns between $10 and $20 a month, but more active users can make as much as $100 to $300 a month, a spokesperson told CNBC.
Pay with the right card. While a generic cash-back card such as the Citi Double Cash Card can earn you 2%, there are specific grocery rewards cards that can earn you up to 6% back at supermarkets nationwide, such as the Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express. CNBC’s Select has a full roundup of the best cards for food shopping along with the APRs and annual fees.

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State of Freight

The unpredictable nature of supply and demand created a need for goods to be flown, and ocean freighters have been buying air capacity as a result.
Maersk launched an air cargo division in April and now has a fleet of 15 aircraft, while CMA CGM started its air division last year and will have 12 airplanes in operation by 2026.
Being able to ship or fly goods helps firms create a “one-stop-shop” for cargo, according to Maersk.

French company CMA CGM launched its air cargo division in March 2021.
Urbanandsport | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Ocean freight companies are adding air cargo to their businesses as shippers look for a “one-stop shop” to move goods around the world.
“We are finding out more and more that our customers really need an end-to-end logistics solution,” said Michel Pozas Lucic, Moller Maersk’s global head of air freight, in a phone call with CNBC.

“They’re looking for this one-stop-shop that takes away not only the complexity of the logistics, but also makes it an optimized, efficient and effective solution,” he added.
Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping firm, launched an air cargo division in April and now has a fleet of 15 aircraft, while competitor CMA CGM started its air division last year and will have 12 airplanes in operation by 2026.
Supply chain disruptions created a need for goods to be flown, Pozas Lucic said.
“For most of our customers, air is part of what they need, either because of the speed that they need for their specific products, or because of a disruption … [and] ocean freight would be not ideal because it takes too long, so we realized that it’s important to have air as part of the puzzle,” he told CNBC.
Demand for air cargo is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the International Air Transport Association, up 2.2% for the first half of the year compared with 2019 levels.

‘Nobody really cared about supply chains’

The pandemic raised the profile of supply chains, according to Marc Zeck, an analyst at wealth management firm Stifel. “The last three years have shown quite a lot of companies that their logistics divisions are not up to the task,” Zeck told CNBC by phone.
“Nobody cared really about supply chains … before the pandemic started. Now, it’s an issue or a topic for executive boards,” he added.
“In pre-pandemic times … [if companies] needed to ship some stuff by ocean, then you go to the ocean carrier and book the shipping … it arrives, and the job is done. Now, that’s not the case,” Zeck said.
Chinese factories shut down in 2020. Then, demand for goods rocketed in 2021 when lockdowns started to be lifted, causing widespread supply chain disruptions.
That disruption continued this year, with sailings canceled recently because of congestion at North American ports and strikes at European ports causing delays.

‘Awash with cash’

Airplanes are an attractive purchase for ocean shippers, according to Michael Field, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar.
“A lot of these ocean freight companies are awash with cash at the moment, having had a bumper couple of years, and they’re looking for ways to spend it — and buying up air capacity is definitely one of those ways,” he told CNBC by phone. Airlines, meanwhile, had a tough pandemic and needed the money, Field added.
Maersk said it expects free cash flow of more than $19 billion this year in its latest guidance, and it is set for delivery of seven Boeing 767s (three of which it is buying, and four leasing) around the start of November. The aircraft will fly Asia-U.S. and Asia-Europe routes. Maersk will also purchase two Boeing 777s, set for delivery in 2024, according to a company spokesperson in an email to CNBC. Maersk also bought the freight-forwarding company Senator International last year.
CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest ocean shipper, signed a deal with Air France-KLM in May to share cargo space, and said it would buy a 9% stake in the airline.
But is now a good time for an ocean shipper to buy airplanes?
“Air capacity has been added to anyway over the course of the pandemic. Now ocean freight demand is decreasing over the last few months, as we’ve seen. So, the pressure’s coming off, so it’s probably not the best time to go and buy airlines now,” Field said.
“Can they make money in the longer term on it? Yeah. Is a good idea in terms of upselling [to customers]? Yes,” he added.

What’s ahead

Companies shipping goods are also planning further ahead, Field said. “The carriers have told them, if you want the capacity, you have to lock yourself in for a year or two with us and they will guarantee that capacity … I think we will see a continuation of that,” he said.
“Customers … are looking at these shippers as more partners rather than someone you just call up when you need something. That will definitely benefit the shippers in the long run in terms of their actual planning process too, and maybe making sure that supply-demand imbalance doesn’t get out of whack like we’ve seen in the last decade or so,” Field added.
— CNBC’s Lori Ann LaRocco contributed to this report. More