Interesting story on TheStreet.com today; we continue to love near monopolies... multiple ways to win here - as the "pooring of America" continues, cash strapped Americans will turn more to credit (before defaulting in some cases), and much of the rest of the world has yet to see their first credit card...Visa's strategy -- one shared by rival MasterCard MA -- of capitalizing on consumers' increasing reliance on plastic to pay for everyday purchases, rather than simply big-ticket items. Now, the two companies are looking to prepaid cards as another potential growth area, as they attempt to continue strong growth inside the U.S. and -- more important -- globally."The big vision is that ... people talk about prepaid in the same way they talk about credit and debit," says Elizabeth Buse, Visa's global head of product, in an interview with TheStreet.com. "If we're talking a few ...

Here is a very interesting story about a Hong Kong-based English language school and its very wealthy founder. This article isn't specifically about New Oriental Education, but it gives you some accurate insight on how lucrative the English tutorial business is in Asia.