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- [00:11]
A
Hello, and welcome to the Goop Face Oil edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Hammond of Axios, and Anna Shymansky is here. Hello. And Emily Peck of the Huffington Post is here.
- [00:29]
B
Hello.
- [00:30]
A
But we have most excitingly in in the studio, the greatest magazine writer of all time, Taffy Brodessa Agner. You are famous. It is true. Actually, we have talked about your pieces on this show before, and we will continue to talk about them every time they come out, more or less, because everyone is amazing. Thank you. No pressure, but this week you have a non celebrity, huge piece in the New York Times Magazine about sterling jewelers and their evil ways. And we're gonna talk all about that, but we are also gonna talk about some of the other stuff you've written about and the whole celebrity industrial complex. You are a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, but you also have this book which everyone can't wait to come out. So what is the book that is coming out?
- [01:21]
B
It's a novel. It's called Fleischman Is in Trouble, and it is coming to you June 18th from Random House.
- [01:28]
A
That's so soon.
- [01:29]
B
It's very soon.
- [01:31]
A
Everyone I know who has read this book has said it's the best novel of all time.
- [01:35]
B
Wow. Have they read Anna Karenina?
- [01:39]
A
Is it on a scale of like, one to Anna Karenina, where would you. Where would you put it?
- [01:43]
B
Where would I. I would say. I mean, I would say it's the natural sequel to Anna Karenina. It's a great companion. A little dirtier.
- [01:51]
A
It's a filthy New Jersey novel.
- [01:54]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [01:56]
B
No other kind Coming out of New Jersey. It's a filthy New York New Jersey novel.
- [02:01]
A
Oh, my God.
- [02:01]
B
Same as me.
- [02:02]
A
I can't wait. So. And we are going to be talking about many celebrities. Tavia's met just about every celebrity in the world, and so she can talk about them and how they are increasingly starting businesses and monetizing directly rather than just being the face of some perfume. And for a Slate plus, we're gonna talk about the Texas celebrities, Chip and Joanna Gaines from Waco, who now have their own TV network. And what's up with them? So much exciting stuff coming up here on Slate Money. So we're gonna start with the new one, which you spent two years reporting this?
- [02:41]
B
I did. I spent two years from the time I read about it in the Washington Post, which was not the first indication of it, but it was the indication of it that had new documents that had been Released into the public out of arbitration, which is very rare because arbitration's goal is to keep everything a secret.
- [02:59]
A
And so you read about the name of this company is Sterling Sterling Inc.
- [03:03]
B
Which is the.
- [03:04]
A
Sterling, Inc. Sterling Inc.
- [03:05]
B
The parent company of Kay Jewelers. Jared, the gallery of jewelry.
- [03:10]
D
I can't stop thinking about that's in my head from reading this story.
- [03:14]
A
And Zales.
- [03:16]
B
Zales is a sister company owned by a different. It's such a convoluted company that they're like British. Their British parent company owns Zales.
- [03:27]
A
But yes, they're all connected.
- [03:30]
B
They're all connected.
- [03:31]
D
And you mentioned Jared.
- [03:32]
A
Right, And Jared.
- [03:33]
B
Jared the gallery.
- [03:34]
A
And so if you've ever bought a jewel in a mall, there's a good chance that you have funneled hard earned money into the coffers of Sterling in one way or another. Jewelers Inc. And for decades, they have been just an unbelievably sort of. What's. What. What's the adjective you would use to describe the behavior?
- [03:59]
B
Like disgusting. I would say disgusting. I would say like miscreant. I would say a lot. A lot of terrible things.
- [04:07]
A
So selling jewelers. Yes. Give us the. The elevator. What. How did you persuade your editors at New York Times Magazine that this is something you should spend two years.
- [04:18]
B
Persuaded me. They assigned me the story. And what it was was that it seemed like there was this class action that had been going on since they initiated proceedings in 2005. Why is it still going on? Why does it affect 70,000 women? It's a pan promotion suit where the women allege that they have been paid and promoted at a lesser rate than men. Happens everywhere, right? Except this is a lot less than men. And also it happens in every single region where they operate. It happens under different managers. So maybe it's coming from the top that makes it a class action suit. So in 2017, when it was certified as a class action, there were case files that were allowed to become public because people in a class action have the right to understand what evidence is being collected on their behalf. And it is impractical to send 70,000 women an email, especially if you can't find them. Or they all have Hotmails and AOL accounts, which is what I found to be true. So I watched and I waited for something to happen and nothing happened. The class was partially decertified and it was back in arbitration, meaning if anything was happening, no one was going to know about it. And the story went from being a story about what had happened to these women to the fact that we were no longer allowed to know what happened to these women, that it could happen to this many people and that nobody knew about it, that the company was still operating, that everything was fine, that arbitration was still ongoing. 14 years of arbitration. Arbitration is sold as something that's supposed to be faster and cheaper, and that's how it's sold to the employee. But the advantages accrue in most cases to the employer.
- [06:11]
A
And it looks like what's happened in this case is that the company has managed to drag the arbitration proceedings on for so long that probably the arbitration proceedings won't even end before the company just like, dies of natural causes. Because, like, shopping malls are dying. And it's just like, not a good company anymore, right?
- [06:31]
B
It's not a good company anymore. They didn't get online soon enough. Also, speaking of death, one of the named claimants literally died in the interim here. Like, people are sure. Like, the women that I spoke with and I spoke to so many women, they just could not understand why I was doing this story. Because they couldn't imagine a scenario in which the company doesn't triumph or stop me somehow or buy me off or whatever it is what their theory was. But they thought, who cares about this? Nobody cares about us. This was going on for so long. The Washington Post story came out. The company's stock dipped, but it's not clear that it dipped because of that. It's more likely that it's easier to. Like, the jewelry I am wearing today I bought on a whim in the middle of the night off an Instagram ad. I don't regret it yet, but I've spent two years going to malls to these stores, and you cannot believe what it's like in a mall jewelry store. It's exactly like it used to be. Which is to say that it's not that exciting, it's not that interesting. It's mostly men. It's mostly like velvet covered body parts in a display case that is begging for metaphor. And it's just jewelry.
- [07:46]
A
And the thing which really strikes me about this article that you wrote is that it doesn't have that thing that you want at the end of the article, which is the resolution. You don't have an ending to it. It just kind of. You're like, well, it's been going on for 14 years, and for all we know, it's gonna go on for another 14 years. You know, you're not gonna make this one into a movie.
- [08:05]
B
Diamonds are Forever. And so is this lawsuit. I used to say diamonds are Forever. And so is this. But now I say diamonds are forever. And so it's this lawsuit. But also, if anyone does want to option it, I just want to make it clear that what Felix says is not the law.
- [08:20]
D
I guess I really liked the parts of the story that sort of got into the women's mindset. Like you have that one line up top about the precise algorithm in every woman's heart where she finally decides, like, it's time to pursue something here, like, this isn't right anymore. And then this like, balancing act that they all went through where they're like, but the job is really good and the diamonds are perfect. And I know a lot.
- [08:43]
B
And also, is it better elsewhere? Is it better elsewhere? It was mostly in most cases, it's when women saw it happening to other people was when they realized it was wrong. Every woman seemed to be willing to believe that she was worth less money and less promotion.
- [09:00]
C
Well, I think that that's kind of like a, there's like a microcosm macrocosm here thing. I think in general, women have a tendency to, or at least until very, very recently, have always thought that, like, I'm the only person this is happening to because you kind of weren't allowed to talk about it. And I think the same thing when you have it at then people may think, well, it's only this company because you don't know about all the other companies because they're also going through mandatory arbitration.
- [09:19]
B
Right, right, right. And also they had all these rules in place to make sure that nobody, that they couldn't speak among each other. It was according to management figures that are no longer there. It was a fireable offense to discuss your wages with your co workers, which is illegal. It runs afoul of union laws. You're not allowed to do that.
- [09:41]
D
Yeah. And there is some policy motion you mentioned in your story. There's the bill that they just introduced, I think Democrats just introduced last month, or maybe it was just earlier this month, that would in part ban arbitration. So that's a thing that could be already banned.
- [09:54]
B
Forced arbitration, overall agreements, meaning that once you were in your problem, three years into your job, you were presented with, you can do this in arbitration, you could do this in court. And I don't know how the pressure is going to go for people who are wage workers who didn't read this story, who didn't read the Bloomberg story, who don't know their rights. I don't know how that's going to go. But it is a step in the Right direction. The American Arbitration association. Aaa. Yeah, the aaa. They don't love those jokes. Would prefer that you call it mandatory arbitration and not forced arbitration. To which I say, yeah, okay, we.
- [10:38]
A
Should mention the Bloomberg story as well by Katya Porzikanski and Max Abelson, because that is the kind of story I feel like we've read more often before, which is high paid, high powered woman at counter Fitzgerald, who is finding herself in the same fight with lots of expensive lawyers on both sides.
- [10:55]
D
Wait, wait, before you get into that, can we just mention the poop in the Bernie Sanders. Can we just.
- [11:02]
B
Can I just say that. Put that out there. That's all I heard.
- [11:05]
D
She's like, is he gonna put the.
- [11:07]
A
Mug in the mug? Pooping mug in the mug.
- [11:09]
D
Is he gonna get to that?
- [11:10]
B
She cleaned it out and drank it.
- [11:14]
C
I know.
- [11:15]
B
I was like, that should have been the headline.
- [11:17]
D
They said she was tough, but then they described her cleaning the poop out of the mug and drinking out of it. And I was like, oh, then you.
- [11:23]
B
Should not have to say that. She's tough. That's the story.
- [11:28]
A
So, yeah, a very tough Canter Fitzgerald saleswoman comes into the office one morning, can't find her Bernie Sanders mug, eventually finds it with poop in it.
- [11:41]
D
They don't say what kind of poop either. They leave it to your imagination.
- [11:44]
B
What kind of poop was it? Canter Fitzgerald poop. This happened in New Jersey, right?
- [11:48]
A
This happened in New Jersey. Well, I mean, who. It always happens in New Jersey, so. But the biggest story here is that this is a heist. They came with millions of dollars being earned and spent on both sides. What we have in your story is actually much more real for most people, which is, you know, these women had pretty much as good of a job as a non college educated woman in the heartland of the country is likely to be able to get. And they were thankful for their jobs and they liked their jobs. Except for the sexual harassment.
- [12:21]
B
You just had to put up with some bad stuff and like pool orgies.
- [12:25]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [12:27]
D
And that's not that unusual too. Like, it's not like we, you know, like you put up with a little bit of stuff all the time. From the time I was taking like jobs in high school to college to. I mean, I was told as a.
- [12:39]
B
Freelancer by editors at respectable places that they didn't assign me a story because they knew I had kids and I didn't want to travel for a day. Or when I would go for meetings, they'd say, where are your kids? Like I mean, I'm a few years out from some of the other sexual harassment, but there was that too. And it was just like I was told that this is what you're supposed to put up with to show that you can handle a job.
- [13:05]
C
And I think that this is important when we're talking about the fact that there isn't a resolution to this particular story. But like, what you're doing and what a lot of journalists are doing is incredibly significant because they're opening up this kind of door that for so long has been shut and no one has known. And so I think sometimes you'll have people say, oh, we're getting these stories, we keep getting these stories. Stories. And it's like, no, we need to keep getting these stories so that people will see that this isn't a isolated, this isn't one person, this isn't one company. This is something that happens to essentially everyone. And so it also means it's going to require both kind of a public and private solution. Like, it's very good that you have some companies now that are saying, okay, we're not going to do forced arbitration, but that's not going to be every company.
- [13:49]
A
But it's much bigger than forced arbitration. Now I want to just pull back a little bit because there's two levels I want to pull back. The first level is that you talked a bit about the pay scale at these jewelry companies where the managers who are mostly men, would get paid more than the salespeople who are mostly women. Even though the salespeople were the people who were actually bringing in the money. And the management skills needed to look up, you know, to manage a store, were just like, do you have a key to unlock the front door? And then the salespeople, because that was where the revenues were. No one wanted to promote those women up into higher paying management jobs because they would be less valuable to the company.
- [14:29]
B
That is very generous of you, but I can tell you that there are plenty of women. If you are a store manager, you were still doing sales. So it was the people who were promoted, it seems to me, were people who clearly were willing to perpetuate the company's culture. And that weren't squeaky wheels, but you can still make money for the company. As a store manager. I want to be very clear about that, that you still had incentive trips and bonuses and things like that. It had nothing to do with keeping the talent pool in the store because you could just pay those women a little more.
- [15:06]
C
It seemed to much more have to do with what you were saying in terms of, like, if you go into one of these stores now, it's like a kind of time warp. But I think the store, like, the culture as well. The way you described it, how they had very distinct ideas about gender role, that we have male customers, so we need attractive women to appeal to. This is what women do. Men are the managers who are in the back and there's. And so, like, this is why they weren't promoting anyone. It wouldn't even occur to them because it was such a part of their culture.
- [15:29]
B
It was such a part of their culture. But I met a couple where the woman was a district manager, which means she was in charge of a region. The man was a store manager, and he was paid $10,000 more than she was. And she. Because she, I don't know, spoke to her husband, did the taxes one day, saw her bank account, brought this to a regional vice president who said, he's a man. He has a family to support to her face. And they never changed it.
- [16:00]
C
I've heard that, like, I think. I think you hear that, and it seems so ridiculous, but, like, that is not an uncommon thing. Like, very recently, and I'm sure still going on now, that, like, you still hear this all the time of people saying. I've heard women say, it's like, oh, well, you know, this is family to support. Even though it's, like, suitable.
- [16:17]
D
Yeah, well, I mean, we've all seen the data. Mothers get penalized in salary and pay by, I think, like, 7 to 10%. And men, when they become fathers, their pay goes up.
- [16:27]
B
I mean, it's amazing.
- [16:28]
D
That's all you need to know.
- [16:28]
B
Pretty amazing to be a man. It is kind of amazing.
- [16:34]
A
I can tell you from personal experience, it's awesome. Even though I don't have a family support, it's still.
- [16:41]
B
They pay me just in case one day I haven't had.
- [16:43]
A
I need to, you know, I get paid extra. Just my hypothetical future family.
- [16:51]
B
You said it's bigger than arbitration. And this is where I hoped you were going, is that it's about power, too. Right? The thing I learned about this story, which has a lot to do with the Kentor Fitzgerald story, is that any amount of power is more power than someone else has. And the thing about arbitration and the thing about policies that keep a company operating not as honestly as it could and not as openly as it could, is that people. I know this is something everyone knows, but it was hard to keep relearning this when people do not know that they are going to be held accountable. The things they do are tremendously terrible. I don't know how I feel about the fact that after this story, that's still shocking to me. I'm not young enough to still be shocked by that. And yet I still am.
- [17:39]
D
Yeah, I mean, I think even if for some reason forced arbitration goes away, which probably it won't, I mean, there's no chance that Bill, for example, or.
- [17:47]
B
Something will replace it.
- [17:49]
D
I mean, companies have all kinds of ways to keep this stuff, you know, secret, hushed up. And they have enormous power over individuals.
- [17:56]
A
So this is the thing which fascinates me is we, I think we're conflating two similar things, but not identical things, which is companies and the mail management at companies. And what we see in this story is very much the good old boy network at the top of the company exploiting a workforce for its own financial and sexual needs. And it's a gruesome story, and I'm very glad that Taffy told it. If you look at companies generally when they implement these arbitration procedures or when they underpay women or do anything like this, you don't need to be a good old boy network. You can just be like a freelance good old boy. You can just. You can even be a woman. Right.
- [18:46]
B
There are plenty of women in my story who are in the good old boy network.
- [18:49]
D
The token women that just broke my heart. Like the woman you described whose job was just to be like, see, I.
- [18:56]
B
Mean, maybe she was also good at her job, but there were probably plenty of women. What she was probably also okay with was seeing what happened. The women I spoke with who made it to manager, who made it to district manager, were people who accepted that in order to be successful at this company, they had to do some ugly.
- [19:17]
A
Things and had to be okay with being paid less ultimately. And one of the things, if you look back to like the 1950s, one of the ways that men could make as much money and support families in the way that they did in the 50s and 60s was because women, especially schoolteachers, were massively underpaid. And there was this kind of redistribution of wealth from especially teachers, but other female dominated professions to men, which, you know, was just kind of built into the system in a way. And as that slowly, slowly, painfully goes away, what I worry is that, you know, it's not that the women managed to reach equality with the men. It's more that, like, everyone now gets shafted and it's just the rentiers and the catalyst glasses at the top and the shareholders who have, you know, the ever increasing share of GDP which goes to capital rather than labor. But that's, you know, me being.
- [20:11]
D
You're dangerously close to the argument Fed nominee Stephen Moore made in the National Review, in which he explains that first, the pay gap is a myth. But then he says, actually women are paid slightly less than men. But then he says. He says if it ever happens that women make more than men, that would be a crisis. And then he says, but it's. Everyone gets paid too little. And then he says, by everyone, he means men. Men are the ones who get paid too little. And that's the real problem. Okay, so that's dangerously close to what he really is.
- [20:46]
B
Let's keep this right at being a woman problem. This is a problem that affected women and not men in my story, 100% in most of these stories.
- [20:55]
A
And number one, don't read Stephen Moore in the National Review.
- [20:59]
D
I don't know what happened. I was down, like, a serious battle.
- [21:01]
B
You read it to the end.
- [21:02]
D
I was like, what?
- [21:04]
A
And number two, insofar as I was trying to imply that, like, men are also victims here. No, they are not. They are the perpetrators. Let's be very clear about that.
- [21:14]
B
But, you know, I read a lot of Wage Gap is a myth books to try to understand what could possibly be the other side. And sometimes I'd get to, like, the middle, and I'd be like, huh? And then they would always come in with, okay, fine, women are paid less, but society depends on women being paid less. It's all very fragile.
- [21:37]
A
I mean, like, it's bad and it shouldn't, but, like, historically, it really has.
- [21:41]
D
It's really interesting.
- [21:41]
B
I want to be clear that these were all terrible. And I was briefly hypnotized because I'm not discriminating enough. But by the end, I always am.
- [21:50]
A
So the number one rule that you just always have to bear in mind is never read Stephen Moore.
- [21:54]
C
And then other than.
- [21:57]
A
Or those books, let's move on to celebrities, though, okay? Because I think at this point, we need to talk about successful women like Joanna Gaines and Kylie Jenner and Gwyneth Paltrow. And they make gazillions of dollars. And you've met all of them.
- [22:13]
B
I've met all of them. I did not meet Kylie. I did a story on Kris Jenner in which Kylie, when she was a teenager, I was sitting on Kris Jenner's beautiful lilac couch, waiting for her to be done, speaking to the E. Blogger that she had to speak to for an hour. Before she got to me, Kylie walked in, we made eye contact. I thought it might be something. And I saw a look of just such contempt. And she walked away. Cause it was just another stranger in her mother's living room with a tape recorder. She's like, you're not here for me.
- [22:48]
A
Little did you know that she was going to outshine the rest of the clan.
- [22:53]
B
I mean, I didn't. I thought she was just like, you know, the run to the litter. But she came out with her lip kits. She came out of nowhere. She came out of our low expectations and really. And she became what is called a self made millionaire. A billionaire. Sorry, sorry, I meant billionaire. It's all a million trillion to me.
- [23:13]
D
We should just say I'm a thousandaire. This is the third time we've discussed Kylie Jenner and Slate money. I'm just saying it's the first time with me and I think we all enjoy it very much. But just acknowledge that we know that.
- [23:24]
A
So, so, but no, but from the point. This is the taffy angle. And the taffy angle is fascinating. You give Kylie credit for managing to do whatever it is that she did on Instagram and make all of this money. You have also spent an enormous amount of time with Gwyneth Paltrow, who also has a very successful business selling things online. I want to widen this out a bit though, to just the celebrity industrial complex more broadly, because I saw a headline late this week saying that Sports Illustrated, which has been on the block for gazillions of years and Meredith Corporation has been trying to sell it and hasn't been able to find a buyer, is now in talks to sell it to a company which you may never have heard of, but which has the best name of any company ever, called Authentic Brands Group.
- [24:18]
B
We are not the droids you're looking for.
- [24:19]
A
And Authentic Brands Group Group is basically what they do is they take famous people and turn them into brands and then monetize those brands. And those famous people can be film stars or they can be athletes, or they can be people who are famous off the telly or whatever it is. And there is now a massive multi billion dollar industry which is entirely, you know, listed on the stock exchange and understood to be a thing that people do. And it, you know, goes all the way back. You know, every fashion house pretty much that you can think of is named after a designer in some way. Everyone becomes a brand and then sells the brand. But the Nexus, I feel like the brands that are being created today are increasingly, not entirely, but Increasingly celebrified. And there's often celebrities associated with them. And you've seen this with Kylie and with Gwyneth and with the Gaines's, but you're also seeing it with sports stars and you're seeing it with a whole bunch of other things. And I'm fascinated to ask you, is this something that you're seeing as someone who writes celebrity profiles for a living, have you seen any change there that like being a celebrity used to be about being famous and now there's more monetization, more branding?
- [25:35]
B
Yes and no. So celebrity was always about lending your name to something and licensing your name, even when we didn't know it, even when it was Elizabeth Taylor, like before white diamonds, then she was just wearing a diamond ring that had to be in a photograph and it was from Van Cleef. And it's been going on forever. People have been selling their news. But the thing you see now, and I can't speak to, I don't think this is the same for sports people. I mean athletes, which is exactly how much you need to know about how much I know about it. But my understanding is that actually when women do it lately, Gwyneth is a great example. Gwyneth is running her business. There is no doubt to me that Gwyneth is running her business. She is not licensing her name. She in fact realized people like Estee Lauder, all of the people that she's lent her image to, those people are profiting off her image. Why shouldn't she profit off her image from something that she feels passionately about? And you see this with all of these women, including the Gaines's. And to me it's a really interesting play for a career that goes past their Hollywood sell by date. There is a point at which someone's going to ask Gwyneth Paltrow to play a grandmother. It's going to be sooner than any of us are ready for and she is going to have this thriving business in place that is 75% her good idea and 25% only out the gate because of her name. First it was 100% out the gate because of her name and now she. If you look at Goop right now, if you look closely, if you look at the website, you see all of these women in GOOP clothing or using the face oils. I'm using one of them today.
- [27:26]
A
Your face looks.
- [27:27]
B
I'm glowing. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know. Thank you.
- [27:30]
A
I thought it was just your natural. You thought it was just sweating, but in fact it's Goop Face Oil. But it's not Jessica Albert. Honest.
- [27:38]
B
No, no, no. Listen. No, come on, come on. She's now featuring models who look like her. She told me that she would like it to one day be a fun fact that she started this company. And I believe her. I believe that all of these women who start lifestyle businesses and wellness businesses are doing the smart thing and planning for the future. They have seen enough people who end up in ruins after suddenly the phone stops ringing. I think it's a great idea. And the difference between now and when Elizabeth Taylor was doing it is that they're not licensing their names. They are working very hard. They're doing what women do, which is working very hard and trying to appear that they're not working very hard. That it's like this wellness, glamorous lifestyle. But Gwyneth works very, very hard on this. She spent eight months with me. Like, that wasn't pleasant for her. She didn't want to hang out with me. She wanted to convey what is going on in her life.
- [28:38]
A
I mean, okay, that's the other question I need to ask you. It's really not a slate money question, but since you're here, I mean, explain, like, who persuaded her that spending eight months with Taffy acknow was a good.
- [28:50]
B
Idea and then not agree to eight months with me? She agreed to 45 minutes with me. They all agree to 45 minutes with me. And then you just stay?
- [28:58]
A
And then you just stay.
- [28:59]
B
Do you know how hard it is to ask someone to leave if you just stay and if you make yourself pleasant to be around and probably if you're counted out by essentially being like a chubby New Jersey housewife named Taffy. All of those. Those seem to combine to make me not as threatening as, say, I think of when my husband's in a room with people and they just want him to leave. He's a political reporter. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I've tried to think about what it is, but people ask me about the access all the time. And I think that if you are honest and you just say, I don't have what I need yet to write the story I want to write, I think people will be honest with you and people will.
- [29:38]
A
But you just said that she didn't really want to spend that much time with you, and then your piece comes out and it's frankly brutal. I mean, like, she can't have liked it.
- [29:47]
B
She loved it.
- [29:48]
A
She loved it.
- [29:49]
B
She loved it.
- [29:50]
D
It wasn't Brutal. I mean, you make When I thought it was Paltrow seem pretty, like, perfect. And you say her kids are like angels.
- [29:57]
B
Her kids are so amazing that yesterday for Take youe Child to Work Day, my children showed up at the New York Times and everyone wanted to know about, like, how well they can armpit fart. And as you laugh, they were like, how does everyone know we can do that? It's like, I don't know. I mean, I can't show them that story because I smoke a cigarette in that story. They're not ready for that story.
- [30:21]
A
They're not ready for that story. No.
- [30:22]
C
But I think there's something to that in terms of, like, why, like there's just this idea around people like Gwyneth, Paul Jermyn, she's I think, the most extreme example of this. But where when you have a woman who is very driven, who is very disciplined, people either don't take her seriously or they think that there's something really wrong with that. Like almost that.
- [30:45]
B
How do we say this? Like.
- [30:46]
C
Cause when people dislike Gwyneth Paltrow, it's almost like, I don't know, it's coming at this as like she's taking advantage of people.
- [30:53]
B
Right.
- [30:53]
C
You know, and I mean, she was so privileged.
- [30:55]
B
I mean, it's back to that self made thing. She was so privileged. And it's like, I don't know what that argument is. Right.
- [31:00]
C
And of course, like, yes, of course, if you grow up with, with access to money and a good education, that's certainly going to help you significantly and.
- [31:07]
B
Right.
- [31:07]
C
Statistically we know about social mobility and all of that. Of course. But it is incredibly hard to start and run a successful business. Like, nobody just does that because they were wealthy.
- [31:17]
D
Can I just say, she, she was selling women jade eggs to put in their vaginas and also published a story saying that underwire bras cause breast cancer and those aren't good things to do.
- [31:29]
C
No, I mean, I agree with you that I think I. The thing I don't like about GOOP is all that kind of like, that's subjectively. Yeah. And I agree with you and I've never bought anything on goop, but I guess it's pretty good. I was looking at the website last night, I was like, huh. But I guess it's that to me, when a lot of people buy this stuff, it's the same when like men buy all these ridiculous supplements that are just sugar pills. Like, granted, I do think, yes, there's a level of some of this where it could potentially get dangerous if people, like, think that they're going to cure cancer or something. But for a lot of it, honestly, it's because people feel good when you put something on your face or you feel like, I'm gonna take this thing and it's gonna make me prettier or something. Maybe it's a little silly, but if people like it, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
- [32:12]
B
I mean, there is the argument that the amount of people who ran her scaring up an old theory about underwire bras causes a panic. But there is also the theory that, first of all, what she told a class of people at Harvard, which is that every time she does something like that, the amount of traffic to her website. I mean, look at me. I, like, went in to tell the story, and I'm now on a subscription to the eye cream and the face oil. I'll reveal it here.
- [32:41]
A
Wow.
- [32:41]
B
Yeah. It's why I look 41 instead of 43.
- [32:44]
D
I think you were, like, 30.
- [32:46]
B
Yeah, I know. But I also want to say my theory about why she liked that story. She is made of metal. In terms of stories written about her, like, there's nothing I could do. I mean, I was there with her and her public display of conscious uncoupling. I was there for all of it. The reason she liked the story was because it took her seriously as a business owner. Her, I think, fear is being thought of as somebody who is a dilettante. Like, what's this actress doing running this company? And I take her very seriously. I take her seriously because of the health concerns and the lawsuits. And I take her seriously because her company is so successful and because it is obviously filling some gap where women feel left behind. And it's true, we do ridicule things. The thing that was so surprising to me after that story is the amount of healthcare people who are so quick to dismiss it without trying to understand what need it's filling in the first place. No one has explained that to me. No one has explained to me why you should ignore Gwyneth Paltrow, who is floating theories that other people believe they have researched. When I was once sent away from a doctor after my appendix was bursting, being told I had menstrual cramps, like, if that's still happening, whereas my husband has a broken ankle and they're like, get a bed. You know, Like, I don't know what to say. Like, then good, then people should up their game in the name of Gwyneth Paltrow and Then maybe people won't feel so neglected. The people I met on that story were not people who are inclined towards. There are people who have tried everything else and are now looking for any answer because maybe it'll come from somewhere else. They've been ignored by their doctors for so long.
- [34:34]
A
So let's have a numbers round.
- [34:36]
B
Okay.
- [34:36]
A
Because I feel like there's some great ones. Emily, what's your number?
- [34:41]
D
My number is $1,225,987.
- [34:48]
C
What's that?
- [34:48]
D
That's how much a man named James Holzhauer has won in a 16 day streak on Jeopardy. In which he's basically broken Jeopardy.
- [34:58]
B
He's moneyballed it.
- [34:59]
D
He has moneyballed Jeopardy. He has this like, really, like, just go for it. He's a sports bettor in his real life, so he just gets as much money as he can. He plays the bottom of the board. He gets a bunch of money. He does his daily double and he gets a bunch more money. And then at the end, you see this. I watched one episode where he had his little screen said like $70,000 on the bottom and the two women next to him had like $3,000, $2,000. He has just like broken Jeopardy. The last record breaker, you know, was Ken Jennings who won two and a half million dollars, but it took him 74 games to get there. And I'll remind you again, James is 1.2 million in 16 days. So keep watching. I think he'll be back next week.
- [35:40]
B
This makes me really sad.
- [35:41]
A
Why does this make you sad?
- [35:42]
B
Because there's something so pure about Jeopardy. You either know it or you don't. And also with Alex Trebek, I don't know, it just feels like this is like not a fitting ending.
- [35:52]
C
Oh, wait.
- [35:53]
D
And the one thing breaks Jeopardy. He told the Times how he knows so much information. This is sad too. He brushed up on trivia by reading kids books because the adult books were too boring. He said. And the way to learn facts fast is to just read kids books.
- [36:07]
B
Wow.
- [36:07]
A
And also he has also Good to know. Amazing buzzer. I thought that's buzzer reaction class.
- [36:13]
B
I know there's a whole buzzer thing.
- [36:15]
D
Going on, but it's beyond buzzer.
- [36:16]
A
My number is $82 million, which is the amount of money that the United States treasury has received as a result of Donald Trump's washing machine tariffs. So there you go. Well done, Trump. You brought in $82 million for the United States Treasury. Oh, by the way, the amount that US Consumers have had to Pay extra for their washers and their dryers because the dryers went up too, even though there were no tariffs on them. Because everyone's just like, oh, we're raising prices, we'll raise. We have to keep them the same price. The extra amount that consumers have paid is $1.5 billion.
- [36:56]
B
Oh, yeah, that sounds great.
- [36:58]
A
Good deal.
- [36:59]
B
Yeah.
- [36:59]
D
The price of the foreign washing machines went up, so the domestic manufacturers were like, oh, we can raise prices too.
- [37:05]
A
Exactly.
- [37:06]
D
Amazing to me.
- [37:06]
A
Well, that's why you do it. You make the foreign washing machines more expensive so that the domestic manufacturers can raise their prices. And then everyone pays a billion and a half more. And then The treasury gets $82 million.
- [37:17]
D
So messed up.
- [37:18]
A
It's amazing.
- [37:18]
B
Are foreign washing machines sexy like foreign sports cars?
- [37:22]
A
Are they better looking? I can tell you, as someone who has bought exactly one washing machine in my life. It was lg, it was Korean and it was very sexy. It was very sexy. It had like a blue glowy thing. I was totally into it.
- [37:38]
B
It's beautiful.
- [37:39]
C
My number is 7.5 pounds. So this is the weight of my nephew who was born about three hours.
- [37:46]
A
Oh, my God.
- [37:48]
B
So congrats.
- [37:49]
C
A little baby Ari is doing very well. So just shout out to my sister Aaron.
- [37:54]
A
And is that in. In Chicago?
- [37:56]
C
That is actually in California.
- [37:57]
A
The world's newest Californian. Welcome, Ari, welcome.
- [38:00]
B
Oh, gosh. Wonderful. I'm not going near weight. I'm gonna say 65.6 million is my number. And that's Bob Iger's compensation according to Abigail Disney.
- [38:13]
D
Oh, she's my new hero.
- [38:14]
B
She's amazing. Like, I remember thinking so highly of Disney after Maleficent did so well. And a friend of mine who works at Disney told me that everybody who works for Disney got a bonus. The guy who cleans the parks, the lawyers, everyone got this big bonus because Maleficent did so well. I might be wrong about which movie it was, but I think it was Maleficent. But now I'm like, why wasn't I more critical? Like Abigail, Disney is about wealth distribution and who should be paid for a company's success.
- [38:43]
A
This is the woman who also gave an interview to. It was either Vulture or the Cut. It was the Cut. It was. There's this great line, she said, I could be a billionaire if I wanted to, but no one should have that much money. It's just, it's amazing.
- [38:57]
B
How did she get so clear eyed living in a golden vault as she has?
- [39:02]
A
Well, she claims that her clarity, insofar as she has any comes from the fact that she wasn't crazy rich growing up. Because it was.
- [39:10]
B
Let's define our terms. I wasn't crazy.
- [39:15]
A
She wasn't private jet rich. Before Mike Eisner turned Disney into the Disney that we know today. They had a bunch of shares in Disney, and shares were something, and they were comfortable, but it wasn't private jet money. And then the Eisner Iger era began, and now they just had literally more money than they know what to do with. And she's like, I have. This isn't fair. I've done nothing to deserve this.
- [39:40]
B
It's like Brewster's Millions. Do you remember that movie? I was just watching it again with my kids. That he's given all this money and all he has to do is spend it in a certain amount of time.
- [39:49]
A
It's not easy.
- [39:50]
B
I mean, it feels like it might be again. Subscribe to the face oil on Gwynedd's site. And that's a good start.
- [39:57]
A
So I feel like this is the Taffy story to beat all. Taffy Stories that we need you to write is where we give you, like, $10 million and you have to spend it.
- [40:06]
B
Please do that.
- [40:07]
A
A month.
- [40:07]
D
Well, that's a good idea.
- [40:09]
B
I am taking that assignment. I'm sure my editors at the Times will be very happy for me to freelance this one.
- [40:15]
A
Okay, well, I think that's it for us this week. Many thanks to Jasmine, Molly for producing and all you lovely people out there for listening. We have an amazing little plus segment about Chip and Joanna Gaines, the home improvement titans of Waco, Texas, who now have their own TV network. That's coming up on Slate Plus. Otherwise, Taffy Ackner, thank you for coming on to Slate Money. It was amazing. And come back anytime.
- [40:46]
B
It is a real pleasure to be here. Thank you.