The Soft Power Edition

Summary

Slate Money – The Soft Power Edition

Date: March 11, 2017
Host: Felix Salmon (B)
Co-hosts: Jordan Weissman (A), Laurel Touby (C; Guest)

---

Episode Overview

This "Soft Power Edition" of Slate Money dives into the mechanics of global economic influence, exploring the role of corporate power, government sanctions, and symbolic gestures in shaping international politics and business. The central theme is "soft power"—how entities from eccentric billionaires to the U.S. government leverage money, policy, and culture to influence global behavior. Notable highlights include an in-depth look at Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and its ambitions, the U.S. wielding its financial clout via sanctions and the SWIFT system, and State Street Global Advisors’ public campaign for gender diversity on corporate boards featuring the now-iconic Wall Street girl statue.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. SoftBank and Masayoshi Son: The Global Tech Dealmaker

[02:14 – 10:13]

• Who is SoftBank?
  A giant Japanese conglomerate, founded in the 1980s, known for ambitious investments and unusual scale in tech and telecommunications.
• Masayoshi Son:
  “This is a man who has been a household name in Japan and China for a very long time and now... he wants to be big here [in the U.S.] too.” — Felix Salmon [02:44]
  • Owner of Sprint, significant stakes in Alibaba, ARM, Yahoo Japan, and a massive $100B investment fund (bolstered by $50B from Saudi Arabia).
• Notable traits:
  • Son is described as an “eccentric billionaire” with a “300-year business plan,” ambitions toward telepathy technology, and an appetite for debt.
  • “He wants to own your thoughts.” — Jordan Weissman [02:59]
  • Highly leveraged ($160B in debt) and almost lost it all in the dot-com bust.
• SoftBank’s ambition:
  • Compares himself to Warren Buffett, but with a focus on 21st-century telecoms and tech.
  • “He’s a good old-fashioned... telecoms mogul is probably a good description…” — Felix [05:13]
  • Willingness to shake hands with governments, and speculated maneuvers to get U.S. regulatory favor for a Sprint/T-Mobile merger with Trump.
• Mixed feelings on soft-power concentration:
  • “Is it good to have that much money sloshing around? Should one man have all that power?” — Jordan [07:57]
  • Laurel admires billionaire ambition in jest, “All billionaires are good billionaires. Except for maybe Vladimir Putin.” [10:21]

---

2. U.S. Financial Sanctions & Global ‘Soft Power’

[11:13 – 20:27]

• Case studies:
  • ZTE (China): Fined $892M for selling U.S.-technologized smartphones to Iran, a violation of U.S. law.
    • “If a Chinese company wants to deal with an Iranian company, it’s not obvious why the Americans should be able to control that, but they can and they do.” — Felix [13:34]
    • Fine closely matched to an earlier Chinese penalty on Qualcomm, suggesting tit-for-tat geopolitics.
  • SWIFT system: A Belgian-based global payments network, cut off North Korean banks following American pressure.
    • “They are the arteries of the global financial system. If you are cut off from SWIFT, you cannot function…” — Jordan [13:49]
    • Cutting Iran from SWIFT was described as “dropping the nuke financially” [13:49], leading to economic isolation.
• The centrality of the U.S. dollar and U.S. policy:
  • “America is pretty much the only country in the world which has this power... because every single international financial institution needs to have some presence in New York.” — Felix [15:58]
• Debate: Will U.S. retain its soft power?
  • Laurel is skeptical if the U.S. turns isolationist: “If we step back... we’re not going to be able to exercise soft power in any way, shape or form.” [16:58]
  • Jordan argues dollar dominance and entrenched systems protect U.S. “soft” (and hard) power for the foreseeable future. [17:32 – 18:28]
• Critique of sanctions:
  • Laurel questions the efficacy and morality of targeting consumer goods in sanctions: “Why would they stop like phone parts from being exported? Isn’t that just hitting the people?” [19:31]
  • Jordan acknowledges the roundabout but effective nature of economic isolation.

---

3. State Street’s Gender Diversity Push and the Wall Street Girl

[20:47 – 30:45]

• State Street Global Advisors:
  The world’s third-largest asset manager, accused by Felix of “doing almost nothing” on board diversity.
  • “If these companies with no female board members... can’t persuade State Street they’ve made moves... then they will vote against the chairman... Come on.” — Felix [24:03]
• The “Fearless Girl” statue and gender diversity ETF:
  • Public stunt for International Women’s Day, aimed at starting conversations about gender equity on boards.
  • “It’s a brass sculpture of a little girl staring down the Wall Street bull...” — Jordan [22:48]
  • Laurel defends the symbolic moves: “At least they’re doing something, right?” [24:44]
• Evidence and skepticism:
  • Jordan disputes the empirical argument that women on boards boost performance: “Once actual academics have looked into it, it doesn’t hold up... There’s no causal relationship.” [25:47]
  • Real change comes with 30%+ female board membership, not just “one token woman.” [26:16]
  • “I think all companies should do that. And I think investors should make noises about that. And I don’t think that a stupid publicity stunt with a girl on Wall Street makes any difference.” — Felix [27:43]
  • Artistic critique: “Why couldn’t it be a woman instead of a child?” — Laurel [30:11]
  • Jordan opines the symbolism is “sub-Banksy.” [30:46]
• Takeaway:
  State Street’s efforts are largely about marketing rather than substantive corporate change, but the panel agrees that moving the conversation forward has some value.

---

4. Numbers Round: Memorable Figures and Quirks

[30:57 – 35:21]

• Laurel: “250 petabytes”
  • The theoretical data that can be fit in a gram of DNA. “Isn’t that cool?” [30:57]
• Felix: “650,000”
  • Pounds paid to George Osborne by BlackRock for one day a week of work, a symbol of political/corporate crossover (and sinecures). [32:03]
  • “He was this kind of joke of a finance minister... Well done George, for your like 800k sinecure.” [33:09]
• Jordan: “520”
  • The number of “beachhead staff” placed by the Trump administration into federal agencies—cast as ideological ‘preppers’ (highlighting John Perdue, a bow inventor and self-styled guerrilla warfare expert). [33:15 – 34:53]
  • “I feel like the one thing that Treasury has always lacked has been preppers...” — Felix [34:52]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Masayoshi Son:
  “He wants to own your thoughts. Like literally wants to own your thoughts.” — Jordan Weissman [02:59]
• On Soft Power via SWIFT:
  “If you are cut off from SWIFT, you cannot function in the financial system.” — Jordan Weissman [13:49]
• On State Street’s Girl Statue:
  “It’s a brass sculpture of a little girl staring down the Wall Street bull, staring down the aggressive macho visage of American capitalism with nary a care in the world.” — Jordan Weissman [22:48]
• On Board Diversity Initiatives:
  “At least they’re doing something, right?” — Laurel Touby [24:44] “I don’t think that a stupid publicity stunt with a girl on Wall Street makes any difference.” — Felix Salmon [27:43]
• On Sanctions and Soft/Hard Power:
  “We’re not literally launching a Scud missile at you, but we are going to reduce your economy to a non-functional, pre-modern finance state.” — Jordan Weissman [15:41]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Guest Introduction: [00:08 – 02:12]
• SoftBank & Masayoshi Son: [02:14 – 10:13]
• U.S. Sanctions, ZTE, SWIFT & Soft Power Mechanics: [11:13 – 20:27]
• State Street, Gender Diversity, “Fearless Girl” Statue: [20:47 – 30:45]
• Numbers Round (DNA Data, BlackRock, Government “Preppers”): [30:57 – 35:21]

---

Tone and Style

The hosts maintain a witty, skeptical, and conversational tone, often poking fun at one another and satirizing both business figures and policy trends. Laurel’s humor and perspective as a self-professed “international woman of mystery” adds levity, while Felix and Jordan frequently reference their journalistic and analytical backgrounds. The conversation oscillates between insightful economic analysis and irreverent banter.

---

Summary Takeaway

This episode artfully weaves together stories of economic power, technological ambition, political leverage, gender equity, and the sometimes-absurd intersection of policy and symbolism. Whether discussing Masayoshi Son’s world-domination strategies, the mechanics of financial sanctions, or the merits of public art as corporate activism, the panel challenges listeners to think critically about who truly holds power in the global economy—and how that power is wielded, for better or worse.

Transcript

[A]

The following podcast contains explicit language.

[B]

Hello and welcome to the Soft Power edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. This week was the week of International Women's Day, so we're going to talk about international women with an international woman. I am Felix Salmon Infusion. I have with me in the studio Mr. Jordan Weissman of Slate. Hello. And international woman of mystery, Laurel. Toby, who is, well, I mean you're kind of mysterious really, but Laurel back in the day. For those of us who've been in New York for longer than we care to admit, Laurel was once upon a time famous for feather boas. Now she is more of a early stage investor, entrepreneur type person.

[C]

Feathering my bed.

[B]

Ooh. Ooh. Very clever. So welcome Laurel.

[C]

Hi. Thanks Felix, for having me on the show.

[B]

Laurel is also a good friend of Panoply. We're trying to bring in the Toby Fine, like, you know, family as much as we can into the Panoply network. If you want to listen to her husband on Ink Uncensored, you can do that too. Plug. And then if you, if you, if you, if you're really clever, you can work out which of the inconsensored people is Laurel's husband. But anyway, yeah, we are going to talk about this little girl who popped up at the bottom of Wall street earlier this week. Thanks to some 2 1/2 trillion dollar global asset manager. We are going to talk about soft power and the way that the Americans are trying to crack down on places they don't like, like Iran and North Korea by using various fines and sanctions and embargoes and whatnot. Which is kind of interesting because they've been quite active about that this week. And I think a good place to start is SoftBank. Why not?

[A]

Yeah, SoftBank. Soft Power. SoftBank.

[B]

So what is SoftBank, Jordan?

[A]

It's a just giant Japanese conglomerate. It's kind of a throwback to the 80s. Well, it's actually founded in the 80s, but we like characters on the show, we like eccentric billionaires and especially ones who are on the verge of becoming kind of a household name. And I think there, there's the head or the founder of SoftBank. Billionaire named Masayoshi Son is maybe on the verge of becoming kind of a little famous in the U.S. he's fine. He's definitely fine. Yeah, he's working on it. He's. Yeah.

[B]

This is a man who has been a household name in Japan and China for a very long time and now.

[A]

He'S tired of being big in Japan. And he wants to be big here too.

[B]

Did you know, by the way, if you have a Sprint cell phone, like he owns your cell phone company?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And he wants to own more than your cell phone, but we'll get to that. He wants to own your thoughts. Like literally wants to own your thoughts.

[B]

He's really into telepathy.

[A]

We're gonna get to that. So you might remember him from this kind of press event he did with Donald Trump not too long ago. He showed up at Power and, and told Don, told our president that he was going to invest $50 billion in the United States because Trump had won, was going to deregulate, etc. And that was, it was kind of BS. What was really going on was that, you know, SoftBank had planned this investment fund with Saudi Arabia some months before where they were basically going to pool $100 billion of venture capital money together.

[B]

And which is by the way, I mean, like whether or not this predated or post dated the Trump administration, the fact that this guy who's like a crazy tech billionaire from Japan managed to persuade Saudi Arabia to give him $50 billion to throw into venture capital in America, it's kind of impressive.

[C]

It's also an enormous amount of money for, I mean, it's almost impossible for them to deploy that much money in venture capital.

[A]

Well, so it's not, it's not just venture. It's also like they're probably going to be trying to do some M and A takeovers. And this is sort of his specialty. I mean, he started this company. I frankly, I can't even remember exactly what it began as I think 1981 though. And it just kind of, it just kind of branched into different parts of tech.

[B]

It was, it was a software company.

[A]

Was. It was, was it actually. Oh, no, it was like selling software. Yeah, it was, but it was like ancillary. It wasn't like they were developing code or things like that. And so. And now, you know, they own things like Sprint. They have an 80% share in Sprint. At one point they tried to merge it with T Mobile. They have, I think they own arm there, though it may be selling it soon. The giant chip.

[B]

They, they boug arm for $32 billion. They have a huge portfolio in a very kind of Warren Buffety way. Their portfolio comprises both publicly listed equities and actual companies. So a lot of his billions comes from. I bought a bunch of stock in Alibaba and that's why I'm very rich. Or he also controls Yahoo Japan, which Is this, you know, huge publicly listed company. But he also, you know, owns companies. He'll do anything. He's a good old fashioned, like people call him a telecoms mogul. And I think if you have to call him anything, I think a telecoms mogul is probably a good description because telecoms moguls in general tend to be very good at these kind of playing around in securities markets and M and A and that kind of stuff.

[A]

Absolutely. And so, and you know, I just, we were mentioning telepathy, so obviously he's so, he's this, he's this mogul.

[B]

I know what you're going to say.

[C]

Yeah, well that was teed up perfectly.

[A]

I really was.

[C]

You guys have practiced that.

[A]

So this guy, he's quirky. He has, you know, a 200 year business plan for his company.

[C]

I thought it was 300.

[A]

Oh, 300, sorry. He wants to, he has a plan to try and expand his own life to 200 years.

[C]

Which sort of like Peter Thiel, right?

[A]

This is so, this is.

[B]

Well, he's really Tony Stark. I think he wants this thing, he wants this company which just has fingers.

[A]

In every pad and he wants a parent. And Laurel, you sent us this article from a former employee of his that said his grand plan is to control the world's data. He wants all of the data which presumably will be generated partly by telepathy.

[C]

He's thinking ahead.

[A]

So my question about this guy is, is he just like, is he just like sort of a Japanese Peter Thiel type? Is he kind of a malignant. What do we make of this person who is now about to just throw money around the US Investment market? Like what is.

[C]

It's a little nuts. I mean, who is he modeling himself after Elon Musk? I mean who. So does he think he is?

[B]

So who does. He has said good things about Warren Buffett, I think, I think he.

[C]

Everybody says good things about.

[B]

He looks Warren Buffett did with industrial companies in the 20th century. And he's saying, I want to do the same thing with technology companies and telecommunications companies, what they called TMT back in the olden days, telecommunications, media and technology in the 21st century. And he's look, and he's trying to be one step ahead. He is also unusually among tech people, very happy to leverage himself up and raise a lot of debt. He has $160 billion of debt, which is, which is very, very rare in the tech world to have that much debt. He, it almost was his undoing during the dot com bust in 2000. He lost basically all of his money in 2000. He came out the other side, recovered. And so he has just an incredible ambition to sort of take over the world. And so I don't see that kind of cross industry ambition in any of the sort of Peter Thiel's and Elon Musk's necessarily. They like to. He's kind of vaguely interested in building companies, but he's just as happy just buying them.

[C]

Dealmaker.

[A]

Well, so the money, Laurel, you brought up just the sheer size of his, his investment fund right now.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that it?

[C]

Is. I mean that just.

[A]

Is it good to have that much money sloshing around? And like, should one man have all that power?

[C]

No. And if you look at the other funds that have been raised in the US at least VC funds, there are none that are that big. So for him to deploy that much capital into the US or anything close to it would.

[B]

It remains to be seen whether he's actually going to spend that much money in the U.S. i mean, remember that he's. He could go outside the. All of his big home run investments have been outside the US And I'm sure he's going to continue to invest in China.

[C]

Certain technologies that are. That the US dominates in Internet of things, robotics, artificial intelligence. He believes that humans, that robots will outnumber humans in 30 years.

[B]

I mean, one of the interesting things about sun is that he's incredibly good at I guess what Bill Gross would call shaking hands with the government.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That he's done this very successfully in Japan, he's done this in Korea, he's done this in China. And it's very, very rare for someone to be able to do this in China and Japan, these two countries which don't normally play well together. And, and now he's doing it in America with Trump. People are saying that he has a very sort of short term tactical aim here, which is that Sprint wants to buy T Mobile. It's very hard for either of those companies to compete with the two big guys unless they merge. But the competition authorities in the US have been kind of looking askance at this idea and basically signaling that they don't want to approve it. Donald Trump could probably make it go through.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And maybe this is. Or he's waving all of this money in the general direction of the US just to try and get sprinted by T Mobile.

[C]

That's such a small. I mean, how can you give him such a small ambition? Really? Really, Felix, I'm offended for him.

[B]

So what's his big ambition?

[A]

I mean, Besides telepathy and literally owning the world's data, I mean, he's actually an Avengers villain, as he's described himself. He's one step from Ultron.

[B]

So, Laurel, I mean, on a scale from, like, good to bad, like good to evil, is he, like a force for good in. Is here force for the consolidation of power, and he's a villainous, sort of Peter Thiel type.

[C]

Well, you know, my opinion on all billionaires.

[B]

What's your opinion on all billionaires?

[C]

I love them.

[B]

All billionaires are good billionaires. Except for maybe Vladimir Putin.

[C]

Yeah, except for him. Well, I used to be a business journalist, and back then when I made no money and thought, you know, I thought all business people were evil, you know? But now.

[B]

And now you're rich. You think that all rich people are good.

[C]

I'm not rich by any means, by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely not a journalist.

[B]

I would quibble with this idea that you're not rich, but we will get to the question of what constitutes rich in a future podcast, in a future segment, because I feel like we should move on to what should we talk about? Let's talk about soft power after SoftBank. So soft power. This is my, like, nerdy news of the week. It didn't get a huge amount of coverage, but there was for good reason. Thank you.

[A]

It's a big deal. It actually. It is a big deal.

[C]

Is it a big deal?

[A]

It is.

[C]

I mean, they only blocked. Well, I'll let you start.

[B]

So. So. So there are two little news snippets which you might have missed. One is that there's this Chinese company called zte, which is. You probably haven't heard it, but it's actually the fourth largest maker of cell phone smartphones sold in the United States. It goes Apple, Samsung, lg, and NZDE that they make a lot of smartphones, they sell them all over the world, and they were using the technology, or they were taking the technology, which they were using in their smartphones, and they were quietly selling it to the Iranians. Turns out that's not allowed under American law. And the Americans found out about this, even though the Chinese were quite careful to delete all of their emails after 24 hours and this kind of stuff. And the Americans found out about it and started saying, we're going to fine you. And the Chinese started saying, we're Chinese. Come and get us. And there was this big sort of standoff until the Commerce Department came in and said, well, if you don't let us fine you, we're just going to ban Qualcomm from selling you any chips. And then they were like, okay, you can find us. And then they settled with a $892 million fine, which was probably not coincidentally, very similar to the $975 million fine that the Chinese fined Qualcomm two years ago. So it's all like, tit for tat. But the point here is that the Americans have geopolitical reasons why they want to isolate Iran economically. And they are happy to use their sort of financial power in terms of being able to find companies and regulate global commerce. Because ultimately, if a Chinese company wants to deal with an Iranian company, it's not obvious why the Americans should be able to control that, but they can and they do. The other thing which also happened is that Swift, which is a Belgian company, which basically helps to move money around the world between banks, found out that three North Korean banks were using SWIFT to transfer money in and out of North Korea, which, again, the Americans, like, you can't do that. That's North Korea. And we don't allow people to, you know, even if they're Belgian, to do things with North Korea. And so they slapped down Swift and find them in the UN got very upset and that kind of thing. So the point here is that the Americans are really meddling in international commerce for their own geopolitical end.

[A]

So the other part of the Swift story is that Swift itself then kicked three North Korean banks off of the system. And, Felix, given your love of hyperbole, I'm actually kind of surprised how you kind of undersold Swift. I mean, they're kind of like the arteries of the global financial system. All the money. They are the one who control payments and transfers between banks. If you are cut off from swift, you cannot function in the. In the financial system. And what's interesting about this is the first time Swift really cut off a country was Iran. This was a while back when the US And EU sanctioned, sanctioned Iran. Swift cut off the entire country. And that is. Was basically dropping the nuke financially on the Iranians. It left them having to barter, like they were bartering oil, things like that, for food. I mean, like, that is what it reduced their economy to. And now you're seeing sort of a repeat of that begin again with North Korea.

[B]

Well, I mean, so. So you're. You're seeing it, and you've seen with North Korea that Swift basically told all of the North Korean banks that they weren't allowed to use the system. They effectively cut it off and then weirdly, and I don't entirely understand how this happened, three North Korean banks were like, oh, we're not allowed to use swift. Hey, we're just going to use it anyway. And they get used to it anyway. And eventually SWIFT was like, okay, we're kicking you off the system instead of just not allowing you to use the system. But yeah, North Korea and Iran are both, to all intents and purposes banned from using Swift.

[C]

I mean, how much business are they doing through Swift anyway with other countries?

[B]

I didn't know that was the whole point.

[C]

I didn't realize that North Korea had that much international import export business or.

[A]

Well, it does with coal, things like that in China. And Iran was, Iran was a heavy export oil exporter. And now it's getting to do it again because they've been reconnected. But I do think it's interesting we talk about US soft power. This is like when soft power almost verges on hard power.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Right. This is when, okay, we're not literally launching a Scud missile at you, but we are going to reduce your economy to a non functional pre modern finance state. Or we have the power to do that as long as this, this company Swift is willing to go along with it. And they're starting to show the willingness to do that more often.

[B]

And the point is that America is pretty much the only country in the world which has this power, the Belgians. Even though Swift is technically a Belgian company, the Belgians couldn't wake up one morning and say, we want to punish the Congo and then cut them off. And Swift would be like, oh, okay, Congo, you're cut off. It's only the Americans who can do this. Partly because every single international financial institution needs to have some kind of a presence in New York because all financial and transactions in one way or another become dollarized at some point along the chain. But the question is, if the United States becomes a little bit more sort of isolationist and unpopular globally, will it still be able to wield this awesome power that it has?

[C]

No.

[A]

Why not? Care to make the argument why not?

[C]

I just don't think that. I think if we step back and stop engaging in the world and world economic policies and world affairs as we seem to be doing, that we're not going to be able to exercise soft power in any way, shape or form.

[B]

And then, so I guess the follow up question, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is it good that America can basically police the world like this and use its power to punish entire countries or Ultimately, if China wants to do business with Iran, should they be able to.

[A]

You know, my stance on this is a. I actually, I'm skeptical that we're ever going to retreat so far from global affairs that we, you know, our sheer, really size isn't going to give us the hell.

[C]

Look at our budget. I mean look at the budget that we're setting right now for. We're going to disengage. So the military budget for example.

[A]

Well, military budget's going up.

[C]

They want to, it's going up, but the soft power stuff is going down.

[B]

Yeah, they want to abolish half of the State Department.

[A]

Yeah, but I still, but that isn't going to change the fact that fundamentally we are the center of the global financial system. Like that's, that's not going to change anytime soon. Donald Trump would have to really fuck things up badly for that to, I mean, who knows, maybe he could, maybe, maybe he could reduce the whole, you know, U.S. financial system to rubble and think people would start to rethink whether or not they want like the dollar to be the world's reserve currency. But so long as like the world runs on the dollar, I think we are going to have, you know, a lever in swift and be able to use that.

[B]

And also not just swift, you know, as we've seen with, with this fine on cte. You know, like if, and you know, if a Chinese company wants to deal with the Iranians, we can punish them like via the Commerce Department.

[A]

In that case. I think though isn't part of the legal issue there that is listed as in America. It like they, they did the Alibaba thing where they listed on.

[B]

I don't think it has anything to do with Z shares. It just. The main thing is that it has to do with the fact that we live in a globalized economy and the Americans told, you know, basically threatens ETE with banning all US companies from supplying anything to them. This is good old fashioned, you know, mercantilist sort of like we, you know, we're going to like hit your supply chain.

[A]

I guess there are geopolitical issues like whether or not a country that sponsors terrorism gets nukes that I think sort of merit stopping up the free flow of capitalism once in a while. I can't get too worked up about it. I guess personally that's just me.

[C]

But why would they stop like phone parts from being exported? I mean that just makes no sense. I mean that's just hitting the people, right? It's not hitting the military industrial complex or anything.

[A]

Like that it's hitting a company that did business with Iran. And the point is they wanted to isolate Iran. And so that's the, you know, it's indirect. I agree that it's sort of roundabout, but it sort of seems like an absurd result. But if your goal is to make it, make a country radioactive, metaphorically, not.

[C]

Literally, it seems to have worked too, right?

[A]

Yep.

[C]

But getting back to my point about the military budget, they really are reducing all of the programs that made people love us around the world. And when they continue to do that, I think that that affects us. That hurts the US that hurts our reputation. It hurts, you know, all those people who hated us after we went into Iraq. We had a chance with them. We could them back into the fold.

[B]

I feel a segue coming on here. This idea that like a large hegemonic global force is going to try and, you know, make people love it is going to be the subject of our next segment. Seriously, Laurel?

[C]

Yes, Felix.

[B]

The Americans love to be loved or used to love to be loved before we elected Donald Trump, as does this large corporation called State Street Global Investors.

[C]

Tell me about it.

[B]

So who are they and what have they gone done?

[C]

So State Street Global Advisors is the third largest asset manager in the world and they have decided to take on gender inequality on boards, which is as.

[B]

A kind of like pet issue.

[C]

Yeah. And they started doing it back in 2015, 2016. So last year they announced that they were going to do a spider, an ETF that was based on gender diversity. So they were going to create an ETF all around companies that have gender diversity. And then one year to the day later, they've announced that they are going to hold the, the Russell 3000 companies feet to the fire. They're going to actually use their proxy voting power to make sure that these companies have more than 1, 2, 3 women on the board. And right now they don't have any women on the boards.

[B]

So a lot of them don't have any women on the boards. And I, my, my view of this is, is rather less rosy. I feel like their gender diversity ETF was, you know, the 2016 International Women's Day publicity stunt, which got absolutely no traction and has about $5 under management.

[C]

Which is maybe why they're putting a little statue down on Wall Street.

[B]

And now that worked fabulously. 2017 International Women's Day stunt involved putting a, installing a statue opposite the famous bull statue down at the bottom of Wall street of a little girl, which I have no idea quite what, what this all Means. But it got a huge amount of press, and I saw it being retweeted into my feed a million times.

[A]

It's a fearless little. It's a brass sculpture of a little girl staring down the Wall street bull, staring down the aggressive macho visage of American capitalism with nary a care in the world.

[C]

Felix, are you saying you don't believe that companies should have more females on boards? And that whole msci, that's a market index provider that did their research a couple of years back that said that companies with more female executive staff performed better? You don't believe that?

[B]

Oh, I totally believe that. And I believe that the Russell 3000 doesn't have enough women board members. I believe that without female executives. But can I just explain here?

[A]

I will push back on that.

[B]

Jordan will push back on that.

[C]

Can I just say, like, you are so skeptical, you're a terrible skeptic. You should really just embrace State Street. What other big asset. What other big asset manager in the world is doing this? Okay, I want to kiss them.

[B]

And I want to ask you what they are doing, because if you actually look at what they are doing, this idea of they're cracking down on companies which don't have lots of female board members, this is totally not true. Let me tell you what they are actually doing.

[C]

Yeah, tell me what they're actually doing, because I read up on it too.

[B]

Is that they have announced that in a year's time, like, they're doing actually nothing right now. But in a year's time, if these companies with no female board members, if you have one, it's fine. If you have zero female board members, then as of a year from now, if you still have zero board members and you can't persuade State street that you have made moves to get more female representation on your board, then if and when the chairman of your nominating committee gets re nominated for a board seat, they will vote against that individual. I mean, come on.

[C]

Okay, okay. Fair, Fair. But I mean, at least they're doing something, right?

[B]

I feel like at least they're doing something is like the lowest possible value.

[C]

So what should they do? What should they divest completely? Do they divest?

[B]

No, no. Divesting does no good at all.

[A]

So I guess there's a bigger issue about this whole thing. It just kind of bugs me, which is this notion that, that whenever there's a good. A good social cause, let's just gender equity getting women on board. So just like a good thing, period. I think it's like a. A Priori, good thing. People always feel compelled to make a business case for it too. There has to be a business case why women are on boards. And that's how this has kind of evolved, right? It's like, well, companies with women on boards make more money. And this whole idea is kind of based on basically some research done by some consulting firms that really, it's, it's kind of crude. The research, once actual academics have kind of looked into it, it doesn't hold up. You know, when you actually do more sophisticated regressions to try to, you know, control for all the, you know, different variables, there's really. It doesn't seem to have no causal relationship. There's no causal relationship. Exactly. There's no obvious thing that having women on boards does.

[C]

A coincidence.

[A]

Well, to some, I think, I think to some extent it. I, you know, it's hard to say, you know, organizationally what it would do, especially since boards oftentimes are so weak to begin with. Oftentimes the boards themselves are basically sinecures that don't have much of an oversight role. So I think it's like, it's. We should have women on boards because insofar is just having equity, gender equity in our power structure and in America. But the idea that State street is doing this for the benefit of shareholders or anything, it's just like, it just kind of perpetuates this, like, weird idea.

[B]

The other thing is that they're acting actually where it's going to make the least amount of difference. If you go from having zero women on your board to having one woman, your board, and then like, once you have one woman, states, because, like, okay, now you're off our shit list. You know, that actually doesn't make much difference. Where it makes a difference is when you have more than 30%, right? Once, once female representation on the board goes above 30%, that's when the women start getting actual power and being able to influence the company.

[C]

I don't think they said that they're going to be happy if you have.

[B]

No, they're not going to. I'm not saying they're going to be pushing for 30%. They would love more, but the only time they're actually going to do something and remember that the worst they're threatening is to vote against the reelection of the chairman of the nominating committee. I mean, this is not exactly like nuclear power here, but like the worst that they're threatening, they're only going to do to boards to women with, to companies with no women.

[C]

If nobody takes Any stand. And they did give some prescriptive measures that can be taken which are.

[B]

Which are going to be completely ignored because no one cares what State street says about prescriptive measures.

[C]

So one of the measures that I liked that they brought forward was that you have to assess the current level of gender diversity on the board and within management rights. You have to address behavioral gender bias in the director search and the nomination process. I think that's really, really interesting. They're actually saying, go beyond, oh, we can't find any girls for this job.

[B]

Yeah, you should totally do this. And almost every company will pay lip service to these kind of ideals. And I approve of that. And I think all companies should do that. And I think investors should make noises about that. And I don't think that a stupid publicity stunt with a girl on Wall street makes any difference.

[C]

Well, I. I don't know. I think they're trying to be models. They have three women on their board now.

[B]

How many board members do they have?

[C]

Like 10 or 11. So. No, but they have three women. One was brought on board in 2015 recently, but the other two have been there since 2000 and 2006. So, you know, they've been. I think those women have been agitating for years for State street to take a stand and they're taken out.

[B]

And now that we have the weakest possible stand, which, by the way, this stand, which you're calling a stand, which is such a weak and pathetic stand, is also being done mostly in the interests of marketing. You know, they have to get that.

[C]

Spider off the ground that ETF really has to do.

[A]

That was cut with McCann. Yeah, like the sculpture was actually. An advertising firm came up with it.

[B]

Exactly. It was, it was invented by an advertising.

[C]

Who else was gonna come up with it?

[B]

It's like sub bank.

[C]

Symbolism, you know, something else.

[B]

So we.

[C]

Something else I like about State Street.

[B]

I'm not gonna give them credit for their marketing campaign, although I am gonna give them an entire segment on Slate.

[C]

Money report they did like a year or two ago, you know, in again. They're putting their money where their. Their mouths are.

[B]

How much money?

[C]

I don't know how much it costs, but they did this whole addressing gender folklore study, which I thought was interesting.

[B]

They released a study. How is that putting your money where your mouth is?

[A]

They paid a consultant to do it.

[C]

Because they're teeing things up so that they can make this huge change. And I think their next step is going to be to put. To take money out of the companies that Aren't that. Don't have women running.

[B]

I'll believe that when I see it.

[A]

That would actually be okay.

[C]

So if that happens, I think their next step. I think they're easing their way.

[B]

Yeah. Their next step in, like, 50 years time.

[C]

No, in 50 years time. 2005. 5. 50% of board members will be women according to the current trajectory that we're on.

[A]

If. If past trends continue. But before we leave the subject can. Because we do like to talk about art on the show. Can we just talk about the sculpture for a second? I like it. I think it should stay.

[C]

It's beautiful, you know, but if I were. I don't know.

[B]

If I had to. Well, it's certainly better than that fucking bull.

[C]

If I had to approach it, though, from a gender, you know, perspective, I would say, why couldn't it be just an adult woman? Why are we always made into children? Why do we have to smile all the time?

[B]

Yeah. No, artistically, it has very little.

[C]

Why couldn't it be a woman instead of a child?

[A]

I. I like the surrealness of it. The little girl with the bull coming at her. I think it's. I think it's good. And people are. People are like, what is this about? It makes it more confusing.

[B]

Yeah. In this case, like, that comment, it makes everyone more stupid.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't understand that.

[B]

But yeah, I. I said sub Banksy symbolism before, and I'm sticking with sub Banksy symbolism. Okay, so let's have a numbers round, because numbers are fun.

[C]

So my number is 250 petabytes. That's the 250 petabytes per gram of DNA that can now be stored in the sugar cube. Isn't that cool?

[B]

So what we're talking about here is this technology where people have been able to put, like, a French movie and an Amazon gift card into, like, they've coded it into DNA, which can be replicated. And of course, if you can replicate it perfectly, which you can, you can store it all over the world very easily, and then you can.

[C]

How come you know more about my number than I do?

[B]

Take. Take the information out with a great expense. There's no. Like, this isn't what you call a fast storage mechanism. It takes a lot of time and effort to put it on and take some stuff.

[A]

Sounds like something that Masayoshi san would really.

[B]

I can guarantee you that somewhere in his portfolio, Masayoshi Son is looking into DNA as a data storage ma mechanism.

[A]

I bet you guys he's gonna replicate himself, his brain across the world and Store it in places like.

[C]

Anyway, I bet you guys don't have a bigger number than I, than mine.

[B]

I have a smaller number. My number is 650,000, which is the number of pounds that George Osborne is being paid by BlackRock for one day a week of work. Actually that's, it's rather more than that because he's getting an equity grant and various other things. For those of you who don't remember, George Osborne was an entirely forgettable British finance minister, you know, up until not too long ago. And he's still an MP and he's now making 10 times his MP salary by doing this like four day a month random like get wheeled out at conferences job for BlackRock.

[A]

That's like, that's like a fucking crazy version of the corruption that goes on in New York State government. Like, except like it's done on the level of a guy you used to.

[B]

Anyway, George Osborne. I mean like I know this because I'm English, but he was this kind of joke of a finance minister. Everyone would like laugh at him.

[A]

He looks the part though.

[B]

He, but he doesn't. He looked like he was just the most gormless chancellor we've ever had. No one could really take him through.

[C]

Did you say gormless? That's a good word.

[B]

Well done. Anyway, well done, George, for your like 800k sinecure way to get that money.

[A]

Okay, so My number is 520. That is the number of staff of Beachhead staff the Trump administration says it has hired at the various federal agencies. Beachhead staff are basically spies or they're guys who kind of set the stage for populating the agencies.

[C]

The ones eliminating all the data from the database.

[A]

Well, so maybe some of them, but. So ProPublica, it's the, you know, great investigative nonprofit journalism outfit, went and actually found out who these people were. And I just want to read you the description of the man who has been sent to accompany Steve Mnuchin at the Treasury Department.

[B]

So he's like, he has to like walk around wherever Steve Mnuchin goes.

[A]

Not clear. I really want to find out more about how this guy is involved in Steve's life. But. So this guy, this is a man named John Perdue. This is Pro Publica's description. John Perdue, a self described guerrilla warfare expert and fellow at a little known security think tank, wrote a book called quote, the War of All the People, the War of Latin American or the Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism. He is also a one time contributor to Breitbart Perdue was featured on CNBC's reality series Make Me a Millionaire Inventor for his invention, the pack bow, which Purdue came up with while studying, quote, collapsed societies and what people who lived in those societies came up with to either defend themselves or to survive. It's a bow and arrow that doubles as a compass, tent pole, walking stick, spear, fishing rig, and water purification tablet receptacle. Perdue was hired as a special assistant at the Treasury Department.

[B]

I feel like the one thing that treasury has always lacked has been preppers. Like, we have never had a lot of preppers at treasury, and it'll be interesting to see.

[A]

Fucking imagine what this guy would have been like in 2008.

[C]

Just like, shit's going down, man.

[A]

Get the bow.

[B]

Get the bow.

[C]

I wonder if he's also bought some property in New Zealand, too.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I'm sure he's encoded a bunch of bitcoin into DNA.

[A]

On that note.

[B]

Okay, I think that's it. I think that's all we have time for this week. Thank you for putting up with us for another week. Many, many thanks to Laurel to turning up and doing her Laurel thing, which was awesome and is awesome. And many thanks as well to Zach Dynastein, who produced this. Or Dinestein. Or Dinestein or something. To Zach, winner, winner, chicken dinner. And to Andy Bowers and Steve Lichtai and John June Thomas and everyone else who I can't pronounce Next week, I will have taken my pronunciation lessons and I will. I will be better at pronouncing things things. In the meantime, check out all of the Panoply podcasts at Panoply fm. Leave us a review on the itunes store, email us on slatemoneylate.com and we will talk to you next week on Slate. Money.

[A]

Nothing but a she.

[C]

You better recognize. You got to understand.