The Jump Ship Edition

Summary

Slate Money: The Jump Ship Edition (January 28, 2017)

Hosted by Felix Salmon (Infusion), Jordan Weissmann (Slate Moneybox), and Cathy O'Neil (author of "Weapons of Math Destruction")

---

Overview:

This episode centers on major shifts in trade policy under President Trump, specifically the death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the uncertain future of NAFTA. The hosts debate the implications for global trade and the US economy, analyze recent banking scandals, and discuss the uncertain fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The episode is also a significant moment for the podcast, as Cathy O’Neil announces she will be leaving Slate Money for Bloomberg View and to focus on her new company.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. The End of TPP and Trade Policy Under Trump

• TPP Recap & Demise: Overview of what TPP was, its significance (40% of global GDP), and why its end under Trump is not surprising ([01:07–02:41]).
  • "No one thought Donald Trump was going to turn around and sign TPP." — Jordan ([02:00])
• China's Alternative: Discussion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as China’s answer to TPP, contrasting the significance of the two ([03:16–03:55]).
  • "This other trade deal is kind of bullshit. It’s a very minor thing. It's lowering some tariffs. It's not fundamentally restructuring anyone's economy the way TPP would have." — Jordan ([03:36])
• Impact and Overstated Hype: Felix argues that all these trade deals do at this stage is tinker at the margins, not rewrite the global rules ([03:55–04:53]).
  • "We have a world which to all intents and purposes kind of has free trade already. And all of these agreements are twiddling around…" — Felix ([04:13])
  • Jordan counters, highlighting non-tariff issues (ISD tribunals, IP for pharma) that affect business significantly ([04:53])
• NAFTA’s Precarious Status: Deep dive into Trump’s threats to NAFTA and the hugely complicated supply chains it supports across North America ([05:24–07:48]).
  • Real-world challenges of unraveling NAFTA compared to Brexit ([07:12–07:48])
  • "The supply chain just goes back and forth over the border… It’s just hard to wrap your mind around." — Jordan ([07:19])
• Multilateral vs. Bilateral Deals: Trump’s push for one-on-one trade deals and why the hosts see this as impractical and damaging ([08:43–11:28]).
  • Jordan explains why multilateral deals allow for better compromise: “It’s sort of like a three-way trade in the NBA.” ([10:20])
  • Bilateral deals increase complexity for businesses and reduce opportunities for trade-offs among nations

2. Banking Scandals and Consumer Protection

• CFPB’s Last Stand: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is racing to settle cases (e.g., Citigroup mortgage “runaround”) before possible defunding by the GOP-led Congress ([12:24–13:52]).
  • Cathy shares the personal resonance: "I can't tell you how many emails I got about this... CFPB finally nailed Citigroup on doing exactly this…” ([13:19])
• Wells Fargo & Mortgage Fees: The episode highlights new revelations (ProPublica) about Wells Fargo charging customers unfair mortgage extension fees by blaming paperwork delays on them ([14:12–16:16]).
  • Jordan notes: "Wells Fargo was doing was they had these horribly understaffed offices... instead of saying 'our bad', they found ways to blame it on the customer." ([14:38])
• Systemic Incentives & Ethics: Direct incentives for bank managers to shift costs to customers—an approach perhaps not strictly illegal but “skeevy and nasty” ([15:22–16:55]).
• Regulatory Threats: Discussion about Republican ideology, campaign donations, and their joint attack on the CFPB, plus the banking/credit transparency landscape ([18:12–21:35]).
  • "Transparency is not the friend of banking profits." — Jordan ([20:37])
  • Cathy laments the potential loss of the CFPB: "It's a big one. I will be sorry when the CFPB is gone." ([21:47])

3. Cathy O'Neil's Departure and Reflections on Quitting

• Cathy’s News: She announces she’s leaving Slate Money to focus on her Bloomberg View column and new company (ORCA: O'Neil Risk Consulting and Algorithmic Auditing) ([22:46–23:51]).
  • "It was exhausting to think about having that many opinions, like, per week. That's a lot of opinions to have…” — Cathy ([23:24])
• On Quitting and Professional Evolution: Candid conversation about quitting jobs and why it’s a marker of strength rather than failure ([25:01–25:29]).
  • "I'm really good at quitting things. I'm like a professional quitter… I'm a very episodic person." — Cathy ([25:01])
  • Felix: "The quit rate nationally is a sign of economic health. The more people quitting their jobs is a sign that things are going well." ([25:29])
• The ORCA Venture: Cathy discusses starting her risk auditing consultancy, the challenges of building a business reliant on regulation in a deregulatory era, and the humor in potentially being “aqua-hired” ([26:36–27:58])

4. Advice, Reflections, and Looking Ahead

• Advice for Successors: Cathy offers wisdom for the show’s future, notably: “You have to interrupt men a lot. Stand firm.” ([28:49–29:01])
• Reflection on the value of the show: deep dives into topics, privilege of meeting brilliant guests, and the reward of intellectual engagement ([29:31–30:23])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the complexity of ending NAFTA:
  "I can't even imagine that world… how you would unravel this giant deal that governs every part of the supply chain." — Union official via Jordan ([06:38])
• On multilateral vs. bilateral deals:
  "A deal between the group does make sense because there are all compensating factors. So… if you restrict trades to be two-way, there’s actually fewer opportunities." — Jordan ([10:37])
• On CFPB’s importance:
  "Transparency is not the friend of banking profits." — Jordan ([20:37])
• Cathy on quitting:
  "I'm a very episodic person. ... I think I could sum up what you just said ... by saying I'm really good at quitting things. I'm like a professional quitter." — Cathy ([25:01])
• Felix on economic optimism:
  _"The quit rate nationally is a sign of economic health. The more people quitting their jobs is a sign that things are going well." — Felix ([25:29])

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:07–02:41] — TPP overview, demise under Trump, global impact
• [03:16–04:53] — China’s trade deal, scope, TPP vs. RCEP
• [05:24–07:48] — NAFTA’s real-world complexity, supply chains, Trump’s threats
• [08:43–11:28] — Bilateral vs. multilateral trade deals; the Trump approach
• [12:24–13:52] — CFPB settlements, Citigroup, mortgage paperwork scandal
• [14:12–16:16] — Wells Fargo mortgage fee scandal
• [18:12–21:35] — CFPB under threat, regulation politics
• [22:46–23:51] — Cathy O’Neil announces departure
• [25:01–25:29] — Reflections on quitting as economic signal
• [28:49–29:01] — Cathy’s departing advice
• [29:31–30:23] — What Slate Money meant to Cathy

---

Numbers Round Highlights

• Cathy: 3.3% — Decline in women’s workforce participation since 1999; explored gendered reasons for exit ([31:50–33:00])
  • "The article should have been titled: Women don't quit, they just stop getting paid." — Cathy ([33:00])
• Jordan: 500 — Years of wealth inequality data; only major events (Black Death, WWI) reduced inequality ([33:02–33:50])
• Felix: 5,000 — Gbps “throughput” of Amazon’s physical data truck; moving petabyte-scale data is fastest by road, not internet ([33:50–35:36])

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers substantive analysis on trade, banking, and consumer protection, balanced with humor and candor—especially during Cathy O’Neil’s thoughtful announcement about her future. The panel’s dynamic, with a focus on real-world impacts and the value of independent thought (and even quitting), gives listeners both serious insight and a glimpse into the show’s unique chemistry as it enters a new chapter.

---

For Next Steps

Listeners are encouraged to suggest female, finance-savvy, opinionated Brooklynites to fill Cathy’s seat and to reflect on the value of challenging the status quo—be it in trade, finance, regulation, or personal career paths.

Transcript

[A]

The following podcast contains explicit language.

[B]

Hello, and welcome to the Jump Ship edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Salmon, Infusion. I'm joined by Slate Moneybox columnist Jordan Weissman.

[A]

Hello, lovely listeners.

[B]

And also a woman with some news, Ms. Kathy O'. Neill.

[C]

Hi.

[B]

Hi. The author of Weapons of Mass Destruction. We are going to be talking about her news later on in the show. You're gonna want to hear that. We are also going to be talking about. Well, I mean, Kathy, this is what you always want to talk about, right? Is banks behaving badly and the evil things they do terrible. So we're gonna talk about that, but first we are gonna talk about the wonderful world of Donald Trump's executive orders and other signs of madness. Jordan. What? Remind us what TPP is.

[A]

Yes. So, tpp, the Trans Pacific Partnership, you may recall, it was that giant, controversial trade deal involving 12 different nations, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, so on and so forth. About 40, covering 40% of the world's GDP. Barack Obama negotiated, and it became massively controversial.

[B]

TPP was going to be the sort of Asia Pacific version of nafta.

[A]

Sort. Yeah, I mean, it was. And it was going to include the NAFTA nations. It was going to be.

[B]

Except it was not going to include China.

[A]

No, it was not going to include China.

[B]

And then we had a presidential election where both candidates said they were opposed to it.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

And then, as was promised by both candidates, once one of them was elected, the one who got elected said, I'm not going to do this.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so is this news interesting, important, or is it just entirely expected?

[A]

Well, I think so. It is important. I mean, the news itself is as expected. No one thought Donald Trump was going to turn around and sign tpp. He had. That was abundantly clear. You know, I should say that, you know, he is basically withdrawing as a signatory. Trade deals like this don't ever really die. They, you know, they can get put on ice. There is nothing stopping in like, 10 years from now, another president coming and reviving TPP. But for now, it's basically, it's in a coma. It's done for now. Why? I think there are kind of philosophical reasons there. It's interesting, but the news itself is just sort of what we all saw coming.

[C]

So I'm actually really not sad that TPP is gone. There were a lot of problems with tpp, which we talked about. In particular, the amount of power that went to these sort of these bodies, these what are they called?

[A]

ISDs. Thank you. Yes, International arbitration.

[C]

But one of the things that Obama kept on saying.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Was that the reason we're taking, getting TPP even though it's imperfect, was that basically because China's not in it?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And now that we've, we actually said like as Trump said, like, screw it, really not doing this.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

It does seem like China has taken on a different role.

[B]

Well, so China has its own replacement lined up and it's called.

[A]

It'S the Regional comprehensive. Yeah, it's the Regional Comprehensive Trade Agreement. And this is, this is something I've talked to some people about. And there are two minds, right? They're, they're the, the people who didn't like dpp, people like Public Citizen or groups like Public Citizen Lori Wallach over there, who was sort of like the original anti trade crusader who will say, yes, China's going to bring people into this other trade deal. But this other trade deal is kind of bullshit. It's, it's a very minor thing. It's lowering some tariffs. It's not fundamentally restructuring anyone's economy the way TPP would have. It's not something where China's really rewriting the rules of the global economy like TPP's advocates are saying.

[B]

Okay, so I'm going to jump in here and say you're really overselling TPP if you think it was going to rewrite the rules of the global economy or fundamentally change anything. I feel that what we have with where we've reached in terms of the panoply, to use a local term of bilateral trade agreements, along with the WTO rules which govern everything along with the European Union and all of that kind of stuff and NAFTA and mercosur, is that we have a world which to all intents and purposes kind of has free trade already. And all of these agreements are twiddling around with the services industry and a little bit of intellectual property here and there and trying to add a bit and trying to add a piece and trying to sort of change a few things at the margin. But there's literally no trade deal which is going to rewrite the rules of it.

[A]

Okay, so it's not about, I think it's beyond twiddling. I think when you talk about things like ISDs and further, which is, you know, further solidifying this extra, you know, supranational judicial procedure, that's actually a big deal as that creeps out. I think when you talk about the intellectual property rules and what governs pharmaceuticals or biologics those are a big deal. I think that, you know, expanding intellectual property rights abroad in general are actually, you know, again, it's not about tariffs per se, but these non tariff rules really do change the way business works.

[C]

Well, if we're going to talk about changing the rules, like what do we think Trump is actually, I want to get.

[B]

Yeah, and this is actually the meat of where we need to talk about, which is the big elephant in the room and let's just name it. NAFTA is the, you know, the shining trade deal on a hill signed by Bill Clinton, which kind of really did change the entire North American economy and created these supply chains which stretch all the way from Canada to, to Mexico. And I will just say that the whole concept of Mexican imports and Mexican exports, it has, has kind of been rendered incoherent by nafta because now everyone just makes everything everywhere and almost anything you buy in the United States will have something in it which was, you know, in Mexico at some point. And yet in the face of this, clearly, you know, facts on the ground single trade area that we've had for a long time now, Donald Trump is talking about throwing up tariffs and taxing Mexican imports and tearing up nafta. And that just, that's something which Hillary Clinton would never have done. And that's kind of scary.

[A]

I mean, I was talking to a union guy who does trade for like a very large American labor union and he has to remain anonymous, sadly. But I asked him, you know, you guys have had problems with nafta, you know, is it a good thing if it goes away? If Donald Trump actually just withdrew, would you be happy about it? And his response is, I can't even imagine that world. Like, he can't, he couldn't even tell me if he'd be happy or sad because it's so inconceivable how you would unravel this giant, just this deal that governs every part of the supply chain.

[B]

Is he even. This is a little bit like Brexit, right? Like you can say that you want to do it, but actually doing it is impossible.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, like you're saying, Felix, one car. When you make it, the supply chain just goes back and forth over the border in Texas, into the Midwest, back into Mexico, back and forth. And so Canada, don't forget. Yeah, and Canada. And so there's just, you have these extremely complicated supply chains that cross borders freely right now. And you would just have to remake and all, you just have to remake how you manage all of that, it's really just hard to wrap your mind about or if you want to be.

[C]

Really concrete, as I understand it, like the trucking that goes from Mexico into Texas and all through the country is like, what's the plan there? Do we stop every truck at the border?

[B]

Well, that's going to be a wall.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

But I mean, it just would disrupt our economy.

[B]

And one of the more depressing things that I've seen is that the Canadians, rather than standing up and full throatedly supporting nafta, which has been extremely good for the Canadian economy, which exports, obviously the US and nafta, it's its number one trading partner, instead of doing that, they've kind of rolled over already and they said, oh, well, if you want to kick out the Mexicans, then I suppose we'd better just start talking about a bilateral trade deal just between the US And Canada, because. Okay. And that I just, I'm super depressed.

[C]

But I don't just seem like the plan, like Trump wants to one on one, negotiate with every single other country.

[A]

Right. And this plan. Yes, it is. And so this is, this is interesting. Another thing, I've been kind of talking to trade experts about this idea of. Donald Trump likes the idea of bilateral trade negotiations. He thinks these multilateral deals, these regional deals are bad for the US and his reasoning is that when you have these big kind of TPP like deals, a bunch of small countries can kind of gang up on the US and say, okay, well, we're not going, we're going to all join together and, and say, we're not going to agree to your terms. And so that gives us less leverage. So if the US Is just sitting across the table from New Zealand, theoretically we're going to have more leverage with them.

[B]

He adds, by the way, this is something which I've heard from the Trump administration quite explicitly, that one of the reasons they hated TPP is because it's a trade agreement among a bunch of countries and the same rules apply to every country. And the, and what the American slash Trump team are saying is, well, we're exceptional. We are the US Of A. We are the global hegemon. We should get better terms than everybody else.

[A]

Yeah. Which is, I mean, that's exactly in.

[C]

Line with Trump's, like, personality. I mean, he's like, he, he's a bully and he's like, if I'm, you know, I want to be able to bully.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. And I can because I'm the United States and it is power.

[A]

And like there are two, there are two big reasons why that doesn't really make a ton of sense as a trade strategy. The number, the first reason is just like for businesses like a bunch of bilateral trade deals are really complicated to navig. If you have to like figure out different rules for every single fucking country you're exporting, it's just a pain in the ass. Okay, that's number one complicated. Yeah, like it's, it just, you don't want to deal with that. But number two, it actually, it's probably just going to lead to less, fewer trade deals. And here's why. You get a bunch of countries all of which bring different things to the table. And even though a deal between any one, like two countries might not make sense. Right. A deal between the group does make sense because they are all like compensating factors. So the way it's sort of like a three way trade in the NBA, right? Yeah, that's like way. So like if, so if you restrict.

[C]

Trades to be two way, there's actually fewer opportunities.

[A]

So like one example is like you know, let's say new again, going back to tpp, right? Let's say, you know, New Zealand wants to get access to the US Dairy market, right?

[C]

I doubt that. By the way, New Zealand. Doesn't New Zealand have a whole bunch of.

[A]

Yeah, it's got a bunch. No, it's got a lot of dairy. So like they have a lot of dairy. So they want to send, they want to send their. Yeah, okay. They want to get access to dairy market. That's going to piss off American farmers. Right. But the compensation is. Well, if you have Canada in the deal and they have to open their dairy market right now American farmers don't have much access to Canada even under nafta. So American farmers get that kind of compensation. And so a two way deal between New Zealand and America might not have worked, but a three way deal does. And so that's why you have these multilateral trade deals. It becomes, it makes there's something for everybody. So in the end you're not going to get a situation where you, when you sit down one on one, you're less likely to come to an agreement in a lot of ways.

[B]

But that's. Yeah, I mean there's this weird nostalgia in the Trump administration for a halcyon bygone era where most commerce in the United States was just domestic. And I think that's exactly what you're talking about is that if you're gonna tear up trade deals, you are just going to become a Much more insular and less global country. And that's quite explicitly what Trump was campaigning on. He's like, I wanna go back to the days when we could just, you know, make our steel ourselves. And then for instance, he signed an executive order saying if we're going to be building oil pipelines, they need to be built with American steel, which is totally illegal under WTO rules. But, you know, he's the long term, so he doesn't care about that. I do sign these orders anyway.

[C]

The good news about the executive orders, as I've been explained to by a lot of law professors recently, is that most of them are illegal and won't happen. So we can end on a positive note.

[B]

Cathy o'. Neill. Yes, I hear that banks have been behaving badly again.

[C]

You know, here's the thing. This week the CFPB announced a settlement with Citigroup. And I should say that CFPB is doing a lot of stuff right now trying to get.

[B]

Which is kind of amazing, right? The cfpb, which was like the number one enemy of every single Republican candidate, including Donald Trump, is going out there slapping fines left, right and center and no one seems to be stopping.

[C]

Well, I think they're settling as quickly as possible before they're defunded is what I think.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. I should say that the, the cfpb, for those who aren't total wonks like myself, is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And as part of Dodd Frank and Eliz Warren started it, but then she didn't get to run it, so that's why she's a senator. Anyway, they're like the do gooders trying to protect consumers. And the reason this is actually a very personal story to me is that when I started in Occupy in 2011, I would get, because there were a couple news articles about me and my group, I would get emails from people saying I'm trying to renegotiate my mortgage. But they keep on telling me that they've lost my paperwork. But I've sent them my paperwork 17 times and, and they're just giving me the runaround and what can I do? And I was like, well, I'm not, I don't know what you can do. Like, I feel sorry for you, but I got, I can't tell you how many emails I got about this. Anyway, the CFPB finally nailed Citigroup on doing exactly this, the, what they called the runaround for people who were trying to renegotiate their mortgages back during the pandemic.

[B]

And this is this is the Citi Financial arm of Citigroup, which is basically the subprime mortgage bit and the bit which everyone was complaining about during the crisis and during Occupy and that kind of thing. But it's not just the subprimes, it's also Wells Fargo in Beverly Hills.

[C]

Oh, right, yeah. I mean, there's another story which was broke by, broken by ProPublica this week about how Wells Fargo has been doing basically the same idea, same idea of like losing people's paperwork, quote unquote, and charging people in Beverly Hills, in the Los Angeles area more generally for delays that their, their before. And those are like fifteen hundred dollar charges.

[A]

So this one was personal for me because.

[B]

Well, so because you live in Beverly Hills.

[A]

No, because I recently had to go through the whole process of taking out a mortgage. And so when you have a mortgage, you have a certain date where you have to finish everything by, to get your, the mortgage, the interest rate they promise you, or you get, you get, you have to pay more money to keep it locked in. And it's very, very, very stressful and you're trying to get all that done. Essentially Wells Fargo was doing was they had these horribly understaffed offices in, in California that they could not do all the paperwork. And so inevitably the deadlines were missed. But because of Wells Fargo. So instead of saying, oh, our bad, we'll, you know, extend, we'll pay to extend your mortgage rate, they found ways to blame it on the customer by handing them more paperwork that wasn't actually necessary, but that would cause them to miss the deadline. Yeah. And therefore they could slap them.

[B]

And in fact, what seems to have happened in Wells Fargo was it was not just incompetence and understaffing, although it was incompetence and understaffing to a large degree. It was also that they started treating these extension fees as a profit center.

[C]

Yeah. So there's this one guy, actually, his name is Tom Swanson and he's like the Wells Fargo executive in charge of the region, the Los Angeles region where this bad stuff happened. And by the way, four whistleblowers came out. That's how they found out about this bad, bad actions. But this guy, Tom Swanson basically created an incentive system for managers of these banks, gave them extra bonuses if they could sort of reduce the amount of, of late, late fees that the bank had to cover. So in other words, they had very direct incentives to have the, the, the people working at the banks shift those costs onto the customers. And they did so. And it was really nasty. It was because they intentionally understaffed them too.

[B]

What's fascinating is that it's not at all obvious that for all that it's nasty, it was illegal in any way. You lock in a rate for a certain amount of time, and if the, and if that certain amount of time expires, even if it's the bank's own fault, then you have two choices. You can either get the new rate or you can pay to extend the old rate. And it's really skeevy and nasty for the bank to force you to pay to extend the old rate when it's their fault that the time has expired, but it's not necessary.

[A]

I was under the impression that on the bank, like the bank's terms said that if they messed up, maybe I read that wrong. Violating the bank's own terms.

[B]

Yeah, so that's the whole point. It's up to the bank. So Wells Fargo used to just say, it's always the customer who pays. And then some time after the financial crisis, they said, well, obviously we've been making a bunch of mistakes, so we'll pay.

[C]

My reading of.

[B]

And then they moved to this kind of hybrid model where they were like, well, if it's our fault, then we'll pay, and if it's not our fault, then you pay. And, and. But ultimately it's up to them. They get to set the policy.

[C]

I think my reading of it is that like the AG Office of California could try to make the case, and I'm not a lawyer, but I think they could try to make the case that this was like deceptive and fraudulent act, you know, like, right.

[B]

If Wells Fargo says that they will cover the fee in the event that it's their fault and then they don't, then they've basically broken their promise and their practice.

[C]

In any case, it's exceptionally bad customer service. And we have examples of people writing to like Michael Hyde, the president, the then president of Wells Fargo Home Lending, saying, this is what happened to me. It's not fair. You guys should pay. And nothing happens.

[B]

And this is where all of the Slate Money listeners just fall off their chairs when to even dream that people might get bad customer service from a high street bank.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So coming back to the cfpb, right? And how like they're doing all their work before they get attacked by the Republicans in Congress. And just a little background here. Ever since it was created, there's been a giant target on this, on this new agency. It's like the top three targets Congressional Republicans hate it. And one thing they want to do is essentially they want. Right now, its funding stream comes from the Federal Reserve, and that insulates it in a lot of ways from the wrath of Congress. What they want to do is if they can't get rid of it entirely, they want to subject it to congressional appropriations, which will then allow them to. To defund it, make them be able to do less. They won't be able to be as aggressive at watchdog.

[B]

So, Jordan, can you just backtrack a little bit here? And beyond the sort of. Well, they overall get lots of campaign donations from banks. Like, is there any kind of ostensible reason why the Congressional Republicans hate the cfpb?

[C]

I just, I'll say one. One reason is that it's not just banks. It's. It's payday lenders. Payday lenders are one of the biggest targets of the cfpb. Yeah. And they have a pretty.

[B]

And why. And why the big. And do Congressional Republicans love payday lenders?

[C]

Because they get money from them.

[B]

Okay, so now we're just going back.

[A]

I don't think. I don't think it's just money. It's also, it is an ideological. It is an ideological dedication to this idea of, you know, completely free markets and that regulation gums them up and that they would be. You would have more lending and more access to credit, et cetera. Damn the consequences, whatever, you know, buyer beware. If you did not have these watchdogs breathing down banks or payday lenders necks.

[C]

So that's a libertarian argument. But, like, what most of what the CFPD does is like, insists that the. The terms of a credit card are actually upfront and clear.

[A]

Well, they also mortgage. Republicans will tend to say that when they insist on those additional things, like additional terms, all these transparency rules, that, that creates more bureaucracy and makes it harder to operate a community bank or whatever or, you know, a. Operate. Operate a business. And so, yeah, there are, there's a lot of ideal ideology at play. I don't think it's just campaign contributions.

[B]

But it's also particularly disingenuous ideology. I mean, if you force everyone to make it very clear how long it will take you to pay off your credit card if you make the minimum payment every month.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's not, that's very easy to comply with the compliance costs. There are simple. The problem, the reason why the banks all hate that is because they want people to pay off the minimum every one month because it maximizes their interest income.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Transparency is not the friend of the. Of banking profits. And beyond that, I think that this example you're bringing up with, like the. The mortgage problem. Right, the, the, the. Or the lost paperwork. Yeah, the lost paperwork. Or also, you know, Wells Fargo, what it was doing. Both of these really illustrate the problem with thinking of financial services as like, any other consumer market because, like, you don't know if you're getting good service or bad service all the time. You don't know what's normal the first time you take out a product.

[B]

Pretty much always, you know you're getting bad service.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. It's hard to. This is not. It is not easy to shop and compare. Like, you can look at the different rates that show up on lendingtree.com or whatever, but you can't necessarily figure out if you're getting screwed by a loan underwriter.

[C]

Credit card transparency, even now is so terrible. Yeah, it's very hard to know exactly what the best credit card for you is.

[A]

Yeah, it's just like multiple levels. It is not a market that without someone enforcing transparency on it, someone enforcing some basic decent behavior really lends itself to, you know, regulation by Consumer Reports. Like, it just isn't.

[C]

Yeah. I'm going to say, like, when. When Trump got elected, everybody went through the five stages of grief. Right. And one of the.

[B]

I'm still on, like.

[A]

Yeah, I was actually. It has not been a straightforward progression. There's been a lot of doubling.

[C]

I was going to say I went like. I went through a. Yet when I realized that the CFPB was going to get defanged, I went, like, triggered another sort of series of grief rounds. And it's. It's a. It's a big one. I will be sorry when the CFPB is gone.

[B]

You see, we're happy giving Kathy the last word for the next three episodes.

[A]

Definitely getting the last word on this one. In fairness, she typically does get the last word because my attempts to add something get cut. It's not as if there's any effect on the actual episode.

[C]

That's a good point. We should let him just do it. And then we just.

[A]

One of the reasons I do it.

[B]

And then Jordan's like. Said the actress to the bishop. And everyone's like, what?

[C]

By the way, we'll tell you if you want to keep it the default.

[A]

Do you not remember the last time we had this conversation? You were like, why do you do that? I'm like, cause I always add a beat so you can come cut it if you need to.

[B]

I don't Know how to do this one. I don't know how to do this. So, Kathy, what's your news?

[C]

My news is I'm leaving Slate money.

[B]

Kathy, don't say that. What's your news?

[C]

My news is I am now a Bloomberg View columnist.

[B]

Tell me that the evil people at Bloomberg View are forcing you to leave Slate money and it's not your fault.

[C]

Well, you can think about it that way.

[A]

Forcing her big bags of money.

[C]

They do pay pretty well.

[B]

They pay better than the slate money.

[C]

No comment. The real thing is that just trying to start a company and so it's a lot of time and I just can't do everything. To be honest, I was thinking about it like sustaining Slate money and writing to two columns a week, and it just. It was exhausting to think about having that many opinions, like, per week. That's a lot of opinions to have, you know, and it's. It's kind of like a mental effort to have that many opinions. Like, I love reading the news and I can learn information very efficiently and quickly. But then you actually, in order, you have to go an extra step and say, well, here's what I think. And that's actually a lot of work.

[B]

So tell us a little bit about.

[C]

Everyone should feel sorry for Jordan because he has to do this, like, every day, right?

[A]

That's literally all I do is form opinions constantly.

[C]

He's exhausting.

[B]

He's a take machine, people. And never let it be said that being a take machine is an easy job. It's hard.

[A]

No. Sometimes I wish they would just. My hair is thinning. It's rough.

[C]

You look nice. So you have thick hair.

[A]

I started from a very. I started with a lot.

[C]

You started very, very thick.

[B]

So obviously Kathy o' Neill is irreplaceable and we are all inconsolable. But I do think it's worth.

[C]

Just.

[B]

Kind of like giving Kathy a little bit of props here for. You're very clear about, like, you know, what you want to do professionally, how you want to achieve that, what fits in, what doesn't fit in. You're setting aspirations and goals and you're being realistic and you're raising a family and you're doing all of these different things and you're balancing your life and it's. I think there's a tendency for a lot of people, including myself, to just sort of say yes to everything, and that's probably maybe not wise.

[C]

Well, listen, I mean, I think I could sum up what you just said, which is very kind of you, by saying I'm really good at quitting things. I'm like a professional quitter and like people make fun of me for this. Like I quit a 10 year track job, which was dumb, right. And then I quit a job at a hedge fund. You know, who doesn't want that job? Right? Then I quit a job as a data scientist, blah, blah. I'm just, I don't know, I'm a very episodic person.

[B]

But it's also a sign of like strength and optimism. As we've mentioned on this show in the past, the quit rate nationally is a sign of economic health. The more people quitting their jobs is a sign that things are going well. So maybe this is a sign that things are going pretty well.

[C]

Yeah, things are going great and like, like my book has had such a great reception and I'm really, really grateful. But it also like, yeah, I guess like my, my life experience has encouraged me to just go ahead and say the next thing is going to be great too.

[A]

I was going to say though, with you, with you Kathy, it's not really cyclical. It's not like the economy gets better and you decide to quit. More like it just.

[C]

Right.

[A]

No, this is a secular trend.

[C]

Right, Right. I mean I often try to find a job before quitting the NAS job. I tried to, but that actually not always true. Right. I quit a job in and I quit the finance job in 2011 and I literally didn't know what I was going to do with my life. And I sat around thinking maybe I should work for like City Harvest now.

[B]

Is it possible? I guess if you actually do wind up getting a job, you'll even be firing yourself right? Now that you're self employed, you'll be like, I quit.

[C]

Actually, you know, so I started this company which is to say like someone my friend who's a lawyer filed an S corp. So I have like a technical legal entity. I just got an ein for tax purposes, but I have no clients. Like it's a zero revenue company. My company's called o' Neill Risk Consulting and Algorithmic Auditing, which I call, it's ORCA for short. Orca. And the idea is I would like have clients who have algorithms that they're using that they're worried are illegal or discriminatory. It turns out like nobody cares.

[A]

Not yet.

[C]

I haven't managed to get any. So I'm talking to people inside the insurance industry, I'm talking to people inside the HR algorithmic industry.

[A]

You need a good lobbyist to create more regulations so that you can consult about how to deal with those regulations.

[C]

It's like the worst time ever to start a company that depends on regulations.

[A]

Yeah, you did pick an interesting time for that.

[C]

Yeah. And so I'm really.

[B]

I feel like you should be bought by IBM. I feel like this is what the main thing IBM does these days is it buys companies consultancies which can then sell their services to its various suite of clients.

[C]

I have given myself like a time, a timer, like.

[B]

But the good news is that like now instead of just going to work for IBM, you can be aqua hired by IBM, which is a much better thing.

[C]

What does that mean?

[B]

It means they buy you water.

[A]

They buy your company.

[B]

They buy your company in order to hire you. And generally that means you get more money.

[C]

Oh, okay. But then I have to work for IBM that.

[B]

Yes, yes it does.

[C]

I mean, I might have to fire myself if that happens.

[A]

You might have to. There will be a contract clause that says you cannot quit.

[C]

Like, one of the things I've noticed is that like over time I've had less and less patience for having a boss.

[A]

Interesting.

[C]

So I'm really hoping this having a company thing works out because otherwise I might have to have a boss someday.

[B]

So Cathy, since you are going, you're going to be on for two more episodes.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you're not going to be on.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so what we need from you is, is some words of advice.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

For Slate Money hosts, which we can then pass on some of your hard earned institutional wisdom.

[A]

What have you learned about dealing with.

[C]

The most important thing is like you have to like interrupt men a lot, Stand firm, you know. Is that not the advice you guys are looking for?

[A]

Well, it is sort of an interrupt or be interrupted show. Ye, like that is sort of our M.O.

[C]

In a kind of happy, you know, this is. I'm going to keep talking, so you might as well stop, you know, kind of way. Yeah, that's important.

[B]

And dear listeners, given that Kathy is not going to be on this show much longer, we do want to hear from you with all of your ideas about what we should do with this empty chair that is, that is not really replaceable, but we're gonna try and.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, look, that was kind of. I was kind of kidding, kind of not kidding, not kidding. But the truth is like the thing that's really great about being a Slate Money co host or whatever my job is, is you get to learn, you get to sort of like have an excuse to sit down and really think about three things a week. Three topics a week. You get to sort of say, well, what are the facts here? Like, you really get to look some facts up and remember them, which is something that I don't find I do when I'm just reading the news. Right. Like you don't like, focus very much. I think the best part, though, of my three years here. Cause it's been almost three years.

[A]

Jesus Christ.

[C]

I know. That's crazy. Has been all the wonderful people that we've met and all the authors, all the guests. I mean, really, I would sum it.

[B]

Up by saying we get to meet Paul.

[C]

I was gonna say, like, what did I accomplish here? I met Paul Ford and I got.

[B]

A hug, and you got a hug, so. But dear listeners, one of the things that we find in this sort of journalistic world of slate and fusion and Slate money is that when we draw up lists for potential people like, that we would like to have on the show and maybe even have as a co host, those lists tend to be extremely journalist heavy.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So if you guys know people who don't have sort of professional fetters, which would prevent them from having strong opinions on all manner of subjects, who do understand business and finance, who are happy to interrupt me and tell me that I'm full of shit and they're women and are women. Because that's. Obviously, we need a woman here. It has to be a woman. Then do let us know. Oh, and who are also willing to slap out to Brooklyn every Friday morning. Yeah, this is. This is the criteria.

[A]

If you know an opinionated finance geek in Brooklyn who is female or anywhere.

[B]

In the, you know, subway, commuting distance. Kathy comes from the Upper west side.

[A]

I do.

[C]

I do.

[A]

Which is like as far.

[C]

I miss these subway rides.

[A]

That's like as far away as Philadelphia.

[C]

It's like coming from Los Angeles. I will miss you guys.

[B]

We will miss you more than you will miss us, because you're gonna be living your fabulous life and we're gonna be stuck in the Sleep Money studio.

[C]

You guys are gonna be awesome.

[B]

Okay, so it's the numbers round, people. Almost the third from last numbers round that Kathy will ever participate in.

[C]

Well, then I should go first because my number's 3.3%. And that's how many women are no longer in the workforce. Since 1999, we used to have 77% of women in the workforce, and now we have 73.7%. So it's gone down by 3.3%. And that's very different.

[B]

Percentage points.

[C]

Percentage points, yes.

[B]

There you go. For the nerds of all of us.

[C]

Oh, my goodness, you're so right. And that's in stark contrast to most other, like, countries that we usually compare ourselves to. Like the workforce in, you know, most European countries have gone up since 1999. We have gone down. And there was an interesting article in the New York Times about this trend. And the article I thought was mistitled. The article was When Women Quit that they do it for different reasons than for men. But inside the article, they said they were talking about how when women quit, they basically quitting because they have to take care of their aging parents, because they're taking care of their children, and they're sometimes taking care of their husbands. And when men quit, they play video games. So I think the title should have been like, women don't quit. They just stop getting paid.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Jordan, what's your number?

[A]

500. My number is 500. That's how many years of inequality data, or wealth inequality data. Economist named Guido Alfani looked at. He tracked stats in six different European countries from 1300 to 1800, and then combined that with Thomas Piketty and Company's data that spans after that. And basically the big takeaway they found, and I'm not 100% sold on this study, but it's interesting is that the only things that caused wealth inequality to decrease, made the rich get less rich, were pretty much the Black Death and World War I. Wow. Those were the things that, like, those are like the big events.

[C]

So we're like, looking for a plague here.

[A]

Yeah. So, like, it takes a lot. Like, you know, if they're right, like, capitalism's natural machinery really does seem to sort of lend itself to R is.

[B]

Greater than G, as the man said. My number. I am beholden to my colleague Patrick Hogan for this one, but it's based off this. My number is 5,000. 5,000 is the number of gigabits per second throughput rate that you would get if you hired Amazon Truck. Okay, so this is the thing, because we're living in this wonderful world of big data now. And if you have a lot of data and you want to put it in the Amazon cloud, there's the obvious question of how do I physically get all of this data onto the Amazon cloud? And Amazon has an answer for you, which is they will send a truck and they will. They will back it up to your loading dock, and you can put all of your data onto the truck, up to 100 petabytes of data on this truck, and then they will drive it off to their cloud. Storage facility and they will just plug it in and amazingly, it's become a physical thing. Is a physical thing. Amazingly, if you drove a truck with 100 petabytes of data from New York to Los Angeles, like all the way across the country, the effective throughput rate there is 5,000 gigabits a second.

[C]

That is crazy. That's just because there's just so many zeros in a pedophile.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

So like that really is the most.

[C]

It's actually efficient.

[A]

We're actually like through the looking glass on data here.

[C]

My mind was just blown.

[B]

If you wanted to like, you know, communicate data, just put it on a truck.

[A]

It's like the old thing about like the tubes get like the Internet's tubes, like getting clogged because there wasn't enough room on the truck from Ted Stevenson. It's actually become real.

[B]

It's a real thing. And you can. Yeah, but I mean, everyone's saying this is going to be the plot of Fast and Furious 9. You know.

[C]

I'll watch that one.

[B]

Okay, so that, that is on, on. On which note, we are going to leave you imagining like what you would do with a hundred petabytes of data on a truck. And we will be back next week. But for now, thank you for listening to Slate Money. Thank you to Zach Dynasty and the producer, to the executive producers Steve Lichti and Andy Bowers. Email us. The email address is slatemoneylate.com we want all of your love for Kathy because she, she loves getting love from listeners.

[C]

And I love you guys too and.

[B]

Get and give us some ideas for other people, especially non journalists who might be able to fill her shoes. And you know, if we can't do it, then you'll just have to listen to the rest of the Panoply network, which is itunes.com panoply. So we will talk to you next week on Slide Late Money.