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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to Sleep Money, your business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Salmon of Kind of Sorter Axios. I will talk about that coming up. I'm joined by Elizabeth Spires of New York Times and places like that.
- [00:27]
B
Hello.
- [00:27]
A
I'm joined by Emily Peck of Axios.
- [00:30]
C
Hello.
- [00:31]
B
Hello.
- [00:31]
A
And yeah, we're going to talk about the fact that I'm not actually as of today at Axios anymore. We're going to talk about all of this craziness in the job market and especially the way that AI is eating people's jobs, what that means for white collar employment and indeed just employment overall. We are going to talk about crypto and stablecoins and the way that Truth Social is now becoming a bitcoin holding vehicle. We have a slate plus segment with Dan Primack of Axios, all about U.S. steel, which looks like it's getting bought by Nippon Steel, but no one really knows for sure. It's all coming up on Slate Money. So, Emily, this is coming out on Saturday, which means that as of the date this is coming out, I am not actually an employee of Axios.
- [01:23]
C
So we won't have that double thing in the beginning where you say, I'm Felix Salmon of Axios and this is Emily Peck of Axios. Like, that's over. That's all that matters.
- [01:32]
A
Yeah, that's basically the main problem. We will find the solution. And that's all there is to talk about, right?
- [01:36]
C
No, Felix, it's time. So you need to talk about, you know, what's next or. Dude, I don't know what to ask you, what you want to say.
- [01:44]
A
So what normally happens in America when someone leaves a job is that there's this big sort of weird cloud of opacity around it and everyone's smiling and like, okay, sometimes there are like, layoffs and it's very clear what's happened and sometimes someone is like, very visibly fired for cause, and it's very clear what's happened. But once you reach a certain level, most of the time it's kind of ambiguous. You're never quite sure what happened and whether it was voluntary or whether it wasn't. And even when it wasn't, people say that it was. And I know many, many people who have effectively been exited in one way or another by their companies in such a way that, you know, one of the things that the company does for them, but also weirdly for themselves is to be like, we want you to be able to frame this as being a wonderful voluntary decision, even when it wasn't and that makes the company look less prone to firing people. And it also is, I think, designed that people can avoid some kind of stigma of being exited by a company. And so I guess my first question for you in this, you know, chaotic era is, does that stigma really still exist? And is there a value to, like, hiding the fact that this wasn't your choice?
- [03:09]
C
I think the stigma around getting laid off is a lot lower. I guess I'll speak more to journalism than other and tech, actually, just because there have been so many layoffs and firings, especially since 2020, that there's a whole new culture. And I've written about this some. A whole new culture of being open. I've been laid off of being open on LinkedIn and social media.
- [03:29]
A
Videos on LinkedIn is a big thing.
- [03:31]
C
Yeah, videos on LinkedIn. I mean, there was a time period in 2020-2023 where people were like, posting their layoffs because they were getting laid off on video, on Zoom. And then there's just like, more openness towards, like, there's the Open to work badge on LinkedIn that, I mean, you can debate is, does it hurt you in a job search or not? But it's more common. People just are more apt to talk about it. There's a substack now called laid off, where this wonderful writer who I'm failing to remember her name, she interviews people who are recently laid off. And so I think there maybe used to be more of a stigma and there is less of one now as people understand that these things are systemic. They're like, it's not anyone's fault when they get laid off. Even though sometimes for the people left behind, companies kind of try and suggest that it was, you know, an individual's fault for getting laid off. But I think that's a way to reassure people left behind more than it is a truth.
- [04:27]
A
Well, sometimes companies will try and suggest that it was. I mean, precisely the opposite in a way, that companies will try to suggest that they weren't laid off at all and they just voluntarily chose to leave. And that gives the remaining employees a false confidence that the company doesn't fire people and that their job is safe.
- [04:46]
C
Yeah, that's also true. I mean, you see buyout offers. I think this week we're taping the Washington Post sent out big buyout offers to a lot of employees and things like that. But that's not what you're talking about, is it?
- [04:57]
A
Well, no, I'm talking about all of it.
- [04:58]
C
Okay.
- [04:59]
A
I really am. I'm Talking about the weird sort of doublespeak that happens, and especially that sort of very weird gray zone that becomes more common the higher up the org chart you rise, where once you become senior enough, you're rarely just formally caught up in a round of layoffs, and you're more likely negotiating some kind of exit. And often that negotiation can come with a large payoff by the company, a large severance check. I remember when I started my conversations with Axios, I talked to some friends and acquaintances and whatnot of mine, and they were like, oh, yeah, so this happened to me. I was working at a company and I. I was in charge of this and I was in charge of that. And then they decided to bring someone else to be in charge of that. And so then I would just be in charge of this. And that was an effective demotion. And so then I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. And so then we had a whole negotiation, and then they paid me basically a year's salary to go away, or, you know, suddenly there was a big strategic shift and they decided they didn't want me anymore because some big strategic shift. So even though I'd only been there for six, paid me in six months severance or something like that, and, you know, or I was just burned out doing my job and I wanted to leave. And even then I managed to get myself, you know, six months or a year of, you know, money out of the company. And these stories are common enough to me that it kind of. I started asking myself, like, why is it that companies write these checks when on some level, when almost everyone. Not for people who are on contracts and there are contractual obligations, but when people are just at will employees. If you look at technically what happened with me and Axios, I was terminated as of May 30th. Now, that was not actually what happened. What actually happened was there was a whole negotiation. We went back and forth, and there's, you know, severance, yada, yada. And it all took a long time. But in terms of, like, the legal facts of what happened, there's a termination as of May 30th. And if there's a termination, like, under the law, they don't have any legal obligation really, to pay me anything at all. So why are they paying me any money at all?
- [07:20]
B
I think isn't it just mostly managing backlash internally and externally? You know, we were talking about media and tech specifically, and the stigma is sort of going down because people are so accustomed to layoffs. But if you look at the Backlash around layoffs that have been conducted in deeply inhumane ways. Mass firing by email, stuff like that. I think it really can be damaging to a lot of these companies just because it makes it difficult for them to recruit new people. It creates a sense of uncertainty and insecurity institutionally. So the idea that they're actually treating people well if they have to leave, I think mitigates all of that.
- [07:56]
C
I had a similar thought when I was thinking about this last night. I mean, why do companies pay severance? I mean, part of it is they don't want. They don't want people who get fired to sue, so they want to offset some litigation risk. They also, to what Elizabeth is saying, they, they want other people inside and outside the company to think that they are a good employer. They want to keep their reputation solid for when they need to hire more people. And they want to keep their reputation solid to avoid attrition. Because layoffs do lead to more attrition, as you know, if that's possible, as current employees see the layoff and they feel insecure about their job. So it's in the best interest of the employer to not feed that feeling in any way. And if they can do that through severance and treating people better, then they're going to do that.
- [08:46]
A
It's all very kind of whisper network. We were reading one article which basically said that the quote unquote, standard severance in the event of layoffs, which is a very specific type of parting of the ways. And there are lots of things that aren't layoffs. I wasn't laid off. There was no round of layoffs that included me. But in the event of layoffs, the kind of standard severance ranged from one week of pay per year at the company to one month of pay per year at the company. And that's a forex, you know, more than forex difference. So, like, there's a big range of things that people consider to be generous. And often what you'll see is that companies will come out and say like, we're, we're giving all of our exited employees a generous severance package. But all severance packages are described as generous. And therefore that word sort of ceases to have any meaning.
- [09:37]
C
Well, I mean, from one of the things we read said, only a quarter of US Firms pay it at all. So by that definition, if that stat is accurate, then yeah, any severance is generous. If three quarters of companies don't pay anything.
- [09:49]
B
Yeah.
- [09:49]
A
If you work for the messenger, good luck with you.
- [09:51]
C
I should say, should I Say some. I'm still at Axios. I am not talking specifically about Axios in any way. I have no knowledge of what has happened with Felix and I don't plan on leaving.
- [10:02]
B
Just to get back to the idea of, like, why people don't are cagey about it. They don't want to talk about it. I think the biggest thing is that in this country, we associate work so much with self worth and it becomes a real piece of people's identities, especially if they work in white collar jobs, I think. So people are reluctant to talk about it because a lot of people find it, you know, shameful experience to be laid off, even through no fault of their own. Just saying, you know, I'm between jobs now or I'm unemployed. In a country where if you go to a party, one of the first things people are going to ask you is, what do you do for a living? Is difficult for a lot of people.
- [10:39]
A
It's just as difficult if you have some cash in your pocket as if you don't. You know, it's like getting a generous severance package doesn't help you there. But in the context of the cocktail party.
- [10:49]
C
In the context of the cocktail party, it does not. Yes.
- [10:52]
A
One thing that, you know, Axios was good at with me was there was a long period of discussions around all of this. And during that long period, that was basically a sort of signal to me to say, like, you should probably start talking to potential employers at this point because, you know, you're not going to be working at Axios that much longer. And so that gave me kind of a head start. Whereas people who are laid off, for whom it comes as a surprise, they only often only start those conversations after they've been laid off. Whereas I have had some conversations for, you know, some time now.
- [11:30]
C
Is what's happening a result of them canceling your weekend newsletter? Is that the reason that is not.
- [11:35]
A
The reason for us ultimately departing. But like, I think in hindsight, that was kind of the beginning of the end. That was the point at which the job that I joined Axios to do stopped existing.
- [11:47]
C
Yeah.
- [11:48]
A
And that wonderful franchise that I had where there was this newsletter that came out every Sunday morning and it came from felixaxios.com and it had my name on it and it was full of, you know, Felix vibes, for better or.
- [12:00]
C
For worse, lots of wine content that.
- [12:03]
A
Sort of ceased to exist. And then for a while, they tried to sort of sprinkle the Felix vibes into the Monday through Friday Axios markets newsletter. But it didn't come from felixaxios.com and there were, you know, other wonderful pieces by you and by Matt Phillips. And so it didn't have that uniform Felixness to it anymore. And it didn't come from me. And they didn't give me a choice about doing that. Right. They had asked me since before I even joined originally, did I want to write the daily newsletter? And I consistently said no. And I said no three or four times until the point at which they just came up to me and said, you are writing a daily newsletter. At that point, you know, I didn't have any choice. So I think that was the point at which there started to be a gap between the kind of thing that I joined the company to do and what it was that the company wanted me to do. And then from that point on, that gap just grew bigger and bigger to the point at which eventually after Trump's reelection, it just got so huge that it really wasn't sort of tenable anymore.
- [13:05]
B
So is this your way of announcing that you're going to start a substack called Felix Vibes?
- [13:10]
A
Absolutely.
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B
So we can still get them via email?
- [13:12]
A
No. To ben a.substack.com I don't think that I'm going to be one of the countless journalists who leave mainstream media to start a substack. If I do, then you can quote me and like, you know, laugh at me. I probably will get itchy and throw out a substack here or there just for old time's sake, because I am a blogger at heart. But I don't think I'm going to try and sort of monetize it into a full time gig.
- [13:39]
C
Do you know what your next adventure will be yet?
- [13:41]
A
My next adventure is going to be rollicking around Europe for a month without a care in the world.
- [13:46]
C
Sounds like your old adventures, to be honest.
- [13:48]
A
It's a good adventure.
- [13:49]
B
I mean, it's your favorite adventure.
- [13:51]
C
It's the adventure.
- [13:52]
A
We did have a Slate money segment on all the wonderful things about going on sabbatical. And like, I feel like this is just like I had a sabbatical in 2024 and now I get to have a sabbatical in 2025. Like, you know, that's good, right? On some level. One of the great things about sabbaticals is knowing that you have a safe, warm job to come back to. So, like, in an ideal world, I'll like negotiate some job to start in a couple months and then I get to just have a couple months off of gallivanting. We don't live in an ideal world, but one can but hope also.
- [14:23]
C
The bottom line for listeners too is like always try to negotiate the terms of your severance.
- [14:28]
A
Oh my God, yes. Oh my God, yes. I'm not going to reveal the terms of my severance, but I will say that they are significantly better than what was originally offered. The downside to negotiating the terms of your severance is zero. Like they are never going to offer you less than their first offer. So just absolutely try and negotiate that 100%. The reason we are talking about this is not just that it just happened to me, but also that according to wise folks, including the CEO of Axios, it's about to happen to everyone and that there is going to be an epochal extinction event of workers in general and white collar workers in particular and entry level white collar workers in particular. And the unemployment rate in America is going to spike to as high as 20% because AI is going to eat all the jobs.
- [15:37]
C
That's right.
- [15:38]
A
So without getting too crystal bally futuristic about it, because I think those kind of predictions are not worth that much, what we can say is the AI layoffs and AI related not hiring people that you would Normally hire is 100% a thing that is happening. And it started with coders, it started with software engineers, but it has expanded significantly from there and it winds up hitting people who you don't really immediately think of as being AI replaceable. Like for instance, all of the bilingual people who are working for Duolingo and putting together Duolingo plans. Like it turns out all of that can be done very well by AIs. And AIs speak every language in the world pretty damn fluently. And you're like oh shit. Now I come to think about it, a lot of those jobs really can be done by an AI. And if they can be, they will be. So I feel like there was always this kind of distinction between the college educated workers and the non college educated workers and the non college educated workers. There was this vibe, not really accurate, but a vibe that what they were doing was somehow less skilled and that if they lost their job, they were in a sort of fungible job market where they could find another job doing something similar relatively easily. Whereas with the white collar workers, if you lose your vice president of something something job at some corporation, it's not obvious that you can immediately find a vice president of something similar job at some other corporation because you may have worked your way up to that and you may know the organization and Those aren't necessarily easily transferable skills. And I think that's also part of the whole question of why white collar workers tend to get more severance as well, is because there's this idea that it's harder for them to find a new job after they lose one. And I think there's also a little bit of sort of you scratch my back going on in terms of the people doing the firing are well aware that they too could get fired one day. And there's this general sort of like, unspoken feeling of like, we're all going to look out for each other, we professionals, but now we're entering a new world, right, where it's entirely possible that there is this kind of mass extinction event happening and that a lot of people are going to unexpectedly find themselves out of work in a way that didn't even really happen during the pandemic.
- [18:21]
B
There's also a kind of irony that one of the areas where this is happening the most is really in coding. Somebody occasionally covers tech. I've spent the last 10 years being yelled at by tech people who don't like my coverage to learn to code. And now it seems like that's not anymore a completely stable path for anyone. One of the stories we read in the prep was about Microsoft having their engineers start to use Microsoft's Copilot, which is an AI program, to augment its coding. But it's also sort of reduced the number of people that they need. And it's not even clear that this is entirely a good idea, because you could go on Reddit or GitHub and there are loads of threads of engineers at Microsoft kind of skewering and making fun of Copilot generating bad code or just bad answers to things.
- [19:08]
A
Yeah, but I think it's absolutely undeniable that the quality of the code that is being produced by AI has been rising incredibly quickly. And insofar as it produces bad code today, like that's happening less and less, and we've probably already reached the point at which it happens less than when you have human people do it. You know, humans produce bad code too. And one of the other things, and we, you know, this is famously happening at Amazon, is that software engineer, it becomes just a much less creative and much less interesting job. When your job is basically code review, where you get an AI to create the code and then it's your job to plow through it line by line and make sure that it works than actually like creating and writing that code yourself. And your productivity goes up. Because all you're doing is like the editing basically rather than the writing. And that obviously takes less time than writing and editing. But your job satisfaction goes down and your replaceability goes down as well. Because the idea of like the 10x coder who's particularly, you know, amazingly productive doesn't have an analog in the 10x code. Reviewer.
- [20:18]
C
You know, I was excited to talk about this to begin with and then when we were taping on Wednesday, I decided to write about a report from Oxford Economics that really like goes deep in the weeds on unemployment rates for college graduates who they define as people with bachelor's degrees who are aged 22 to 27, which is sort of like the standard way they get defined. Anyways, they looked at the unemployment rates for college graduates who have just finished school versus those, you know, over their lifetime versus the overall unemployment rate versus young people without college degrees. And they kind of like do all these charts and yeah, blah, blah. And one of the more interesting, interesting findings that we were looking at today, and Felix was helping me with this, was looking at the difference between unemployment rates for people with college degrees who are 22 to 27 versus people without college degrees who are 22 to 27. And for a long time the non college people had much higher unemployment rates. Like a difference of like it really varies 5 percentage points, something like that. And when a recession hits, that difference really blows out. And we saw this especially in 2020 when everyone without college degrees, like blue coll collar types everyone got fired in the service sector basically. I mean the unemployment rate was 20%. I am not exaggerating, but most white collar people were able to work at home and didn't lose their jobs. So that advantage that Felix was talking about like super blew out. But now in 2025, the difference between non college and college 20 something year olds has really, really narrowed. And I think AI is really, that's what this Oxford report says. AI is really playing a role here because it's really tamped down. Hiring at the entry level because productivity has gone up for people like 1, 2, 3 notches above entry level. They don't need all the grunt workers as much as they used to, especially in tech. And at the same time that's happening, tech is like not hiring a lot overall. Right? Because they went nuts hiring in 2021. I remember I wrote stories and like software engineers were like naming their price. They would get called by recruiters and recruiters would say we were going to pay you 200,000. They'd be like, what about 300,000 and I live in Kans and they were like fine. Like it was wild times. And that all went away. So it's like AI is happening. There's the need to shed from the over hiring. Hiring is overall not in a good place because people are afraid of what we talk about all the time, which is like tariffs and uncertainty and blah blah, blah. So to sum up, if you're graduating from college now, you're having a harder time finding a job. And really the question is what happens going forward?
- [22:54]
A
And specifically the unemployment rate for college grads, for recent college grads is basically the same as it is for the people of the same age who don't have a degree. It's within like one and a half percentage points.
- [23:07]
B
Yes.
- [23:08]
A
And you're like at that point, yeah, probably, you know, you're still earning more money because most of these people are still employed and the jobs they have pay more than the ones that the non college grads do. But it does start, we're beginning to slowly see the, the contours of a future in which the value of college, the financial value of college basically starts evaporating.
- [23:34]
C
Yes. And wait, there's more points to make along those lines. In addition to that, we have a White House right now that is pulling funding from universities, making it harder for, you know, foreign students to come here and give money for tuition that the schools in the US like super really need. And Congress passed a law last year encouraging what's called like skills based or merit based hiring for the federal government. So there's like a real push to hire like non college people at the same time there's less money to go to college. Seems interesting.
- [24:06]
A
I've been not shocked, but certainly eyebrow raised at the degree to which basically 100% of the people I work with in the media world in New York over the past 28 years have been college educated. What we do does not require a college degree, but everyone has one.
- [24:26]
B
No, I agree. And it's, it's a requirement though in a lot of job descriptions and sometimes very specifically a degree in journalism, which is completely absurd.
- [24:34]
A
Yeah, that's ridiculous. If anyone ever sees that, send it to me and we'll laugh at that. But the. But yeah, I remember when Nick Denton was like at one point he tried to hire a bunch of bloggers who didn't have college degrees and he found it really hard for reasons I don't entirely understand.
- [24:47]
C
I mean you don't need it, like you don't learn anything in college. You couldn't just like Pick up off the streets of journalism. But I mean, I think, actually, no, I think you do. You spend time in college, especially if you're majoring in social sciences or liberal arts or whatever, you spend time reading and trying to understand texts and trying to understand things people say. And that's basically what journalism is. You're spending a lot of time reading and trying to understand things people say and coming up with good questions and like analyzing your work and like, that's stuff you're going to learn in college. So I'm going to disagree and say you do need a college degree to do this work.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah. Tell that to Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame.
- [25:28]
C
So one exception doesn't prove anything. Isn't that I learned that in college.
- [25:32]
B
It'S harder to find people who are interested in writing, you know, if they're not college educated. But I think two of my favorite writers at Gawker were Alex Breen and Alex Bach, and neither of them went to college.
- [25:43]
C
Not saying you need it necessarily, but I feel like it's valuable to go to school. Maybe I'm just like an elite. I don't know.
- [25:50]
A
I think you're an elite, Emily.
- [25:51]
B
I think that's true. But I also think part of the reason why people think that the media is full of elites is because, you know, we are. We don't have working class reporters anymore. And that was. That was really the norm in the early 20th century. And then I don't know when it got, you know, turned into a white.
- [26:08]
C
Collar profession, when it stopped paying that well, probably when the elites came in, they're like, we don't need money. Who went to Harvard? So is AI going to take our jobs? I just want to say that in the long run, I do not think that the job apocalypse is forever. I think that we've seen in the past, technology advances, jobs change, jobs are created, like I said in my piece, and no one, I don't think, edited it out. So I'll say it here. The auto industry has done a great job replacing the horse and buggy industry. More jobs, for sure. Like more jobs in the auto industry than ever were in the horse and buggy industry. Better paying.
- [26:48]
A
I'm sure that's true.
- [26:49]
C
Come on.
- [26:49]
A
If you include all of the people had to go around the streets shoveling up the horseshit. Not a good job.
- [26:56]
C
That was not a good job.
- [26:57]
B
Not a good job.
- [26:57]
C
I'm glad it's been clear.
- [26:59]
B
Yeah.
- [26:59]
A
But I do think that we have now reached a kind of inflection point where AI is Replacing jobs rather than powering jobs. Who was that guy? One of the stories we were reading who, you know, was basically in charge of, you know, fraud prevention at some company, and he got all of these AI tools, and he's like, wow, this AI is really powerful. I can do so much more fraud prevention now. I am so much better at my job. I am way more productive than I used to be. And then eventually they were like, but actually, we don't need you at all anymore. He was like, oh, yeah, good point. And then he woke up unemployed.
- [27:35]
B
Oh. It was amazing. About some of those stories is how quickly some of the people who were replaced by AI just leaned into it. There was one. One woman who was running a huge division, and she got laid off, and so she started an AI consulting firm.
- [27:49]
A
If in doubt, become an AI consultant right now. Being an AI consultant is definitely a boom job, but probably even that won't last long.
- [27:57]
C
Wait, that story had so many good anecdotes. I was almost like, how is this even possible? But, like, I think the last anecdote in the story was, like, these people at a tech company or who had engineered a lot of layoffs because they didn't need people anymore because of AI, and they were in some meeting and they ordered food, and the doordash comes, and the doordash deliverer turns out to be someone they fired, like, a month ago or something like that. And I was just like, this is horrifying.
- [28:20]
A
This is.
- [28:21]
C
Yeah, it's not what you want.
- [28:31]
A
Foreign. Shall we move on to bitcoin?
- [28:39]
B
Let's.
- [28:40]
A
Emily is shrugging, which is not a great thing to do on podcasts because no one can see you shrug. Emily.
- [28:45]
C
I don't know. Should we? I guess. So it's on the lineup. I don't understand why. Exactly. So I'll leave it to you to explain. Trump did something, something. Some companies going public. Something, something.
- [28:57]
A
Okay, so everyone is really into stablecoins right now. Stablecoins are the new hotness in crypto. The reason that people are into stablecoins right now is because there is this massive deregulatory fervor blowing through Washington. There's something called the Genius act that has passed the House, and interestingly, the Senate version is called the Stable act, which is kind of hilarious. And so between them, that's stable and genius. Eventually they'll get reconciled, and they'll just look trumpy. And basically what it does is it deregulates crypto, and it allows crypto to get incorporated deeply into the financial system without the SEC or the CFTC or other busy bodies busybodying and saying that you can't do that and it's illegal. And the main conduit between crypto and tradfi as it's known, are these things called stablecoins, where in tradfi you have dollars and in crypto you have tethers or USDCs or USD1s or whatever you like. These coins, these crypto coins which are, you know, exist on the blockchain just like Bitcoin or Solana, but which are always worth exactly $1. And because they're on the blockchain, they can do lots of clever blockchainy smart contract things that regular old dollars can't. But because they're always worth $1, they have on some level like the full faith and credit of the American government standing behind them because they're basically dollars. So one of the things that people worry about, you know, Dan Davies and Henry Fowell had a New York Times op ed about this, which is basically these stablecoins, they're beginning to look like absolutely enormous, too big to fail shadow financial institutions. If they really become an embedded part of the financial system, then on some level the American government is going to have to bail them out if they, you know, at that point.
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C
So is this because there was a really big piece, I think we talked about it years ago about tether.
- [31:02]
A
Yeah, that was Zeke Fox and you wrote a whole book about it.
- [31:04]
C
Yes, stablecoins, they tether or circle, they issued these coins that are worth a dollar and lots of people are holding them, assuming they're worth a dollar. And there's a promise that they'll always be worth a dollar. But there's not a lot of trans companies to make sure that they have the funds to back that up. There's no FDIC that gives you.
- [31:23]
A
Well, that's the big difference between tether and circle. Right? With tether there's very little transparency and no one really knows what it's holding with circle. Circle was built to be the transparent version of tether, basically. And they're like, we are fully transparent and here's our massive pile of T bills and you can see that our massive pile of T bills is worth more than the number of usdcs in circulation. And the T bills directly back the stablecoins. And so there's no risk of anything because it's all backed by actual securities.
- [31:55]
C
They're taking your money, giving you a coin, and then they're just buying very safe treasury bills. And nothing bad has ever happened. In that scenario.
- [32:05]
A
Well, there was that whole thing about when Silicon Valley bank imploded. And it turned out that Circle had placed a whole bunch of money with Silicon Valley Bank. And that was the great irony of March 2023. Was it somewhere around there that banking crisis was that there were these two rival stablecoins, Tether and usdc. And Tether was the one, everyone was like, this is based on hot air and pure faith. And USDC was the one that was based on this is truly transparent and one to one and all the rest of it. But when push came to shove when there was a crisis, Tether stayed worth a dollar the whole time. And USDC was the one that had the scary wobble where people were actually worried about it because it had money on deposit at Silicon Valley Bank.
- [32:51]
B
So what is the psychology behind people who buy stablecoins in the first place? It can't be the crypto bros who think that fiat currency should be eliminated or is bad, right?
- [33:03]
A
No, no, it's just, it's just a way of like. Let's just say that you're trading Bitcoin and you want to buy low, sell high. Right. So the thing is, because bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, you can't very easily on a crypto exchange, exchange fiat dollars for Bitcoin. What you need to do is exchange stablecoins for Bitcoin. If you have tethers or usdc, you want to buy Bitcoin. So what you do is you take your usdc, you convert it into Bitcoin, then bitcoin goes up and you want to sell high. So you take your Bitcoin and you convert it into usdc. The USDC is like this. It's where you keep your liquid crypto when you are not wanting to gamble it on something that you think is going up.
- [33:44]
C
It's like when you buy the chips at the casino.
- [33:47]
A
Yeah, exactly. It's the chips. It's the chips that you have in front of you before you gamble them by buying a Solana or a Doge or whatever.
- [33:55]
C
So, okay, so Circle says it's super transparent and now it's going to go public. And I guess we'll find out. Presumably if it does go public, we will then find out even more about how secure it is. Right, because it'll have to be even more transparent.
- [34:09]
A
Yeah, no, I mean like they, they've always been pretty transparent and like now we have an S1 so we know a little bit more about like how much money they've made in the past, although they were relatively transparent about that. What's super interesting about Circle is that for all that everyone is really into stablecoins right now, the range at which they say they want to go public is like 22 to $26 a share, something like that. Whereas the last time they tried to go public in 2022, they were talking about going public at like $45 a share or something like that. So, like, the valuation has actually come down since 2022, partly because their profits are going down. They're not like, it doesn't look like this hockey stick growth of net income that people like to see. Interest rates are down a bit. And so most of their money, just to be clear, the way they make most of their money is people give them dollars and then they give them USDCS in return. And USDCS are only worth $1. Meanwhile, those dollars they can invest in T bills and those T bills earn interest and they get to keep the interest.
- [35:11]
C
Why would you then buy Circle stock? Why wouldn't you just go buy T bills? Like what, what's the point here?
- [35:17]
A
Well, because, like, Circle stock is, you know, the idea is you get like a claim on all of that money making potential in perpetuity of investing all of the dollars that you get given by the people who own USDCs. But the interesting wrinkle here is that Circle, you would think that all of that interest income from the, from the dollars that are given to Circle would just go to shareholders, right? It's just pure profit for Circle. In fact, like $1 billion a year is going to Coinbase. And there are lots of weird ways in which Circle has to sort of buy its market share from companies like Coinbase. And yeah, trying to sort of break into stablecoin world is quite difficult. Donald Trump Jr. Is trying to launch his own stablecoin. And, and like, it's one of those things where like, everyone just wants to go with the biggest one. There's like this one huge massive stablecoin in the world called Tether, which almost everyone in the world uses, at least outside the United States. In the United States, most people use Circle still. But again, given the deregulatory fervor that's going on, it's entirely possible that Tether will become legal in the United States as well. At that point, who's going to use Circle?
- [36:24]
C
This seems like a huge missed opportunity for the federal government to issue a.
- [36:28]
A
Digital dollar, a cbdc, a central bank digital currency.
- [36:32]
C
I know that's been talked about for a long time and it's something I've tried to steer clear of.
- [36:35]
A
I feel like we haven't heard about the CBDC for years and. Well, at least for a year or so. And like, also for some reason in this MAGA world, it's kind of an article of faith among maga that CBDCs are a bad thing. And that the wonderful thing about crypto is that it's completely deregulated and that if it all becomes of the government and central banks, that's a bad thing. And the central banks should, their job is to just get out of the way.
- [37:00]
C
Right? Because the central banks, they don't make the finance industry more stable in any way, say by like rescuing them every time they go under or whatever. Like no, we don't, they don't need that.
- [37:11]
B
Speaking of that, the Trump Social has gotten together 50 investors who are raising $2.5 billion so that Trump Social can buy bitcoin. And Devin Nunez, who is the CEO, comes up with all sorts of very word salady kind of rationales for why it needs to do that. But one of his reasons was that it says Trump Social can avoid harassment and discrimination from financial institutions.
- [37:35]
A
If you have two and a half billion dollars of bitcoin, you can do what you like. I mean, the obvious game here, and Gamestop is doing it and many other companies are doing it, is that there's a whole bunch of companies who buy a bunch of crypto and who then trade on the stock for more than their crypto is worth. And the great granddaddy of these companies is a company called Strategy that used to be called MicroStrategy. And it's run by a slightly insane chap named Michael Saylor. And he has created this like amazing perpetual money making machine which is that he goes out and buys the bitcoin for like a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand dollars and then the minute he owns it, it's worth $200,000. So rinse and repeat, he just issues more stock or convertible bonds or whatever takes the cash, buys the Bitcoin for $100,000, it comes onto its balance sheet and now on the stock market it's worth $200,000. And that is an amazing trade. And everyone who can do that trade should do it eight ways till Sunday. And everyone wants in on it. And Devin Nunez is one of the people who wants in on it. But somehow of all of the people who have tried this, all of their share prices have gone up except for DJT stock, Truth Social stock, which went down when they announced they were Buying bitcoin, so they can't even get that one right, it seems.
- [38:54]
C
Do you have any sense for why theirs went down while everyone else went up?
- [38:58]
A
I don't, but thankfully I read Matt Levine and he has a theory which is that it's all about the memes. And basically microstrategy is a meme stock, and so everyone is buying it because memes. And if you are a boring company and then you become a crypto company that turns you from being a boring company into a meme stock, and then you start trading at a meme stock premium.
- [39:25]
C
Oh, but DJT was already.
- [39:27]
A
DJT was already trading at a meme stock premium, and therefore it doesn't get any extra bounce for being crypto because in fact, the premium it was trading at was even bigger than the premium it would have been trading at if it was just a bitcoin company.
- [39:40]
C
Still, in the end, it's left with these valuable bitcoin, which is is probably going to hold its value better than djt. But honestly, who knows?
- [39:48]
A
Exactly. I think on some level we have now set a floor to the value of djt, which is much higher than it used to be. Right. It used to be that the floor was zero, and everyone who could do a discounted cash flow analysis would be like, the value of DJT is zero, and now the value is two and a half billion dollars. So that's kind of a good deal for them. Even if the share price goes down a bit, their book value has gone through the roof.
- [40:13]
C
Yeah, because they bought assets.
- [40:15]
A
Yeah. Good for them.
- [40:15]
C
That's like a smart strategy. Go, Devin.
- [40:17]
A
Well done, Trumpists. All right, we should have a numbers round. Elizabeth, do you have a number?
- [40:30]
B
Yeah, my number is 70 and that's the number of new subscribers a day. And OnlyFans creator named Megan Baker got after she put up a billboard in LA, which is now a thing that OnlyFans people are doing because they find that if they advertise in other mediums, especially digital media, their messaging, I guess, gets lost. And in a lot of other ad forms, you're not allowed to advertise adult services in any format. So now all these porn stars who are doing their thing on OnlyFans are primarily looking at outdoor advertising as a way to reach new people. So if you happen to be driving around LA or Vegas, where this is apparently a very popular thing, you will see lots of porn stars on billboards.
- [41:15]
A
So wait, she got 70 new subscribers from doing a billboard a day?
- [41:19]
C
Oh, wow. Seems good.
- [41:20]
A
I have a guest. I want to bring on for an OnlyFans segment because I have a whole theory of the case about OnlyFans which is a little bit contrary to received wisdom, which is that I believe that, like, 80% of the content on OnlyFans and if the revenue on OnlyFans is resolutely PG and it's all a massive bait and switch, but we will cover that in a future episode. I should have a number, but I kind of don't.
- [41:49]
C
We should, like, just say a number out loud and then Felix will have to, like, make something up. Why don't we ever do that?
- [41:56]
B
Why don't we ever do that? 561.
- [41:59]
C
Go, go.
- [42:00]
A
561 is actually the number of stocks in the s and P.500. It's not 500 stocks, it's 560. This is completely false, but it is the made up number.
- [42:12]
C
I really thought he was going to pull that off.
- [42:14]
A
Oh, I've got a good one. All right. My number is six. And I have to thank Liz, who. What's the word? Blue skyed us back on May 4, saying you should play Learned League if you haven't. And so I'm starting to play Learned League now. I have joined the latest Learned League. And Learned League is this daily quiz where you play a different person every day. And there are six questions. And this week, for the first time ever, I got six out of six right, which is not easy. And so now I feel very chuffed. And so thank you, Liz, for your Learned League recommendation. And now everyone else should join me and we might wind up in a rundle together. If you know what Learned League is, then you get to look me up. I'm Salmon F I'm a rookie, but next season I'll be in the leagues.
- [43:07]
C
This looks really complicated.
- [43:09]
A
Is it? So complicated? But it's a lot of fun. You get six questions a day, and then you assign point values to your opponent so that you can say, if you get this one right, you get three points, but if you get that one right, you get no points. And then whoever gets the most points wins. And then there's a league. And it's horribly complicated, but it's incredibly addictive.
- [43:28]
C
Yeah, I'd probably pass on that, though. I appreciate Liz's comments always. And her blue skies or her Skeets or whatever you want to call them. Skeets.
- [43:34]
A
There you go.
- [43:37]
C
Would you like to know my number?
- [43:38]
A
I would love to know your number.
- [43:39]
C
Okay, it is $59,398. That's how much money a 27 year old named Brendan Liaw won on Jeopardy. Over three shows last week. And why I'm talking about it is because he described himself on the show as a recent graduate and stay at home son.
- [43:59]
A
Love that.
- [44:01]
C
Apparently stay at home son is a thing people have been saying since at least 2007 for, you know, recent college graduates, I guess men who haven't been able to find a job and are living still at home. And Brendan did an interview with the Wall Street Journal which maybe will lead him to finally get a job. And basically he also mentions that being on Jeopardy. Was a, quote, pretty sweet gig. Three wins were all filmed in one day. And so it was like $59,000 for two and a half hours of work. So I think that's a pretty good ratio. I agree with him. A good ratio and a good gig.
- [44:39]
B
At the very least he can get himself an apartment now.
- [44:42]
C
Yes. Or if he's really smart, just stay home until he finds work. Or he's apparently taking the lsat, so AI hasn't come for him yet.
- [44:50]
A
But the lsat and like $200,000 will get you a law degree, right?
- [44:55]
C
Yeah, I believe so.
- [44:56]
A
Or is he going to get the $200,000?
- [44:57]
C
Well, he already has 59,000, so he can take out a loan.
- [45:00]
A
Ah, okay. Fantastic. Okay, I think that's it for us this week. Many thanks to Jessamyn, Molly and Shana Roth for producing. Thanks very much for writing in on slatemoneylate.com thanks to Dan Crimack, who is our special guest on the Slate plus segment. He's talking all about US Steel and all of the weirdness going on there. And we'll be back next week with even more Slate money. This is the one job I'm not giving up.