Trans-Pacific Tractor Beams

Summary

Slate Money: "Trans-Pacific Tractor Beams"

Date: January 18, 2020
Host: Felix Salmon with Emily Peck and Anna Szymanski

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Slate Money team unpacks three major stories at the intersection of business and finance:

• The “phase one” US-China trade agreement and its implications
• Visa’s $5.3B acquisition of fintech infrastructure startup Plaid
• The effectiveness of the Rooney Rule on diversity in organizations, especially in the NFL and corporate America

A fast-paced numbers round caps the episode, with the hosts tackling topics from the Equal Rights Amendment to world record bank profits and the surprising decline in human body temperature.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. US-China "Phase One" Trade Deal and Global Trade Dynamics

Segment: [01:04–14:57]

• The title "Trans-Pacific Tractor Beams" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the convoluted nature of recent trade deals, including US agricultural exports to China—especially soybeans and tractors ([01:02]).
• Anna Szymanski: Explains the abnormality of the “phase one” trade deal, which is centered around China’s promise to increase purchases of US goods by $200 billion:

  “It is in fact not a normal trade deal because it’s not really about freeing up trade. It is in fact about managing trade.” ([03:28])

• The panel notes widespread skepticism about the feasibility of hitting these targets without “creative accounting,” referencing the unlikelihood of China buying so many extra soybeans ([04:18]).
• Felix and Anna emphasize the deal’s undermining of market relationships for US farmers, who are now dependent on arbitrary government agreements rather than direct commercial ties ([06:16]).
• Emily Peck likens the policy to unnecessary surgery fixes:

  “It’s like I go to the doctor and... he fixes all the mistakes he made and sews me up and he’s like, I did it, but my appendix is still swollen—like nothing has happened. This deal is dumb.” ([07:08])

• The team frames the deal as a departure from capitalism and multilateralism toward “bilateral mercantilist” strategies, undermining the WTO and stable global trade, and potentially inciting retaliation ([09:24], [10:05]).
• Anna laments:

  “Clearly this activity is showing that this bilateral mercantilist strategy doesn’t work either... There needs to be some other type of movement forward.” ([10:05])

• The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is described as a lost opportunity for counterbalancing China and supporting a rules-based order ([11:01]).

Notable Quotes:

• “Now Trump is like, no, I don’t want that. I just want to fix the outcome in advance. And that just feels like a deeply not very good idea.” —Felix ([09:24])
• “Even then, what this deal does is it’s one more step in breaking the rules-based trade order...” —Anna ([07:45])

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2. Visa Acquires Plaid: What’s at Stake for Fintech Infrastructure?

Segment: [15:00–24:50]

• Plaid is positioned as essential financial “plumbing”—the API layer connecting apps like Venmo to users’ actual bank accounts ([16:34]).

  “The basics is that it’s the kind of API... basically the connecting apps to the banks, right?” —Anna ([16:34])

• Plaid’s value comes from banks’ unease at third-party access but being unable to block consumers’ demands for interoperability ([18:05]).
• Visa’s motivation: Ensuring relevance as card-swiping gives way to app-initiated, contactless, and smartphone-based payments:

  “They definitely can see that the way people are moving money is changing... they want to get out in front of that.” —Anna ([19:03])

• Discussion on “network of networks” strategy—Visa aims to intermediate money movement however consumers desire ([19:40]).
• Panelists discuss the antitrust implications, comparing Visa’s acquisition of Plaid to Facebook’s “buying competitors in utero” ([22:42]).
• Felix’s skepticism:

  “There’s something monopolistic about this. Visa and MasterCard are, of course, a huge duopoly and anything that strengthens that massive duopoly is not a good thing.” ([24:50])

Notable Quotes:

• “Visa is becoming what someone described as a network of networks... They are the company that is going to do that.” —Felix ([19:40])
• “When you have a payments behemoth like Visa buying this kind of company... I just wonder how that’ll look down the line.” —Anna ([22:42])

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3. The Rooney Rule: Diversity Policies in Sports & Business

Segment: [24:53–34:50]

• Origin story: Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney authored the NFL’s Rooney Rule in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching jobs ([25:01–26:09]).
• Emily explains its mixed effectiveness; after initial NFL gains, minority coaching hires stagnated; similarly, corporate adoptions (e.g., Amazon, Airbnb) show limited impact unless supplemented by systemic changes ([26:49–28:55]).
• The conversation tackles skepticism and research:

  “If you just have one minority or female candidate in your pool, statistically their chance of getting hired is essentially zero.” —Emily ([27:18])

• The “pipeline problem” is analyzed: barriers exist at entry and coordinator levels, not just at the top, both in sports and corporate America ([31:39], [32:32]).

  “You would need to have [the Rooney Rule] at every level... so eventually wouldn’t even need the Rooney Rule.” —Anna ([32:08])

• They relate the Rooney Rule’s unfulfilled promise to broader, systemic racism and glass ceilings, echoing in both football and corporate leadership ([33:19]).

Notable Quotes:

• “If you don’t have a minority candidate, you’re pretty much guaranteed not to hire one.” —Felix ([28:24])
• “You have to be like a scientist, like kind of tinkering with all this stuff. You can’t just be like, have one minority person.” —Emily ([31:39])

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4. Numbers Round: ERA, Bank Profits, Human Body Temperature

Segment: [34:52–41:38]

• Emily: “38”—the number of states that have now ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, though its constitutional future remains uncertain due to expired deadlines and political dispute ([34:54–37:04]).
• Felix: “36.2 billion”—record annual profit (2019) for JP Morgan, the highest ever for a US bank ([38:28]).
• Anna: “97.5”—the new average human body temperature in Fahrenheit; people are measurably “colder” compared to the traditional 98.6°F benchmark ([40:03]).

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Emily’s analogy comparing Trump’s trade deal tactics to unnecessary, confusing surgery ([07:08]).
• Anna’s lamentation over the decline of multilateral trade frameworks:

  “There needs to be some other type of movement forward.” ([10:05])

• Felix’s deflation on Visa-Plaid:

  “My heart sank... anything that strengthens that massive duopoly is not a good thing.” ([24:50])

• Emily’s candidness about superficial diversity policies:

  “It’s disingenuous... statistically their chance [of getting hired] is essentially zero.” ([27:18])

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Notable Timestamps

• 01:04 — Overview of episode topics
• 03:28 — What makes the “phase one” trade deal abnormal
• 07:08 — Emily’s surgery/Trump trade policy metaphor
• 10:05 — Impact of bilateral trade approach
• 16:34 — What Plaid is and why Visa wants it
• 19:40 — Visa’s “network of networks” ambitions
• 22:42 — Antitrust concerns on fintech acquisitions
• 25:09 — The Rooney Rule is explained
• 27:18 — Why the Rule may not move the needle on its own
• 32:08 — The importance of “the pipeline” in diversity efforts
• 34:54 — Numbers round begins: ERA, JP Morgan, human temperature

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Overall Tone & Style

The conversation is breezy yet incisive, mixing sharp analysis, playful banter, and healthy skepticism. Felix’s dry wit is a fixture (“We could call it nafka”), Emily brings relatable analogies and research, while Anna’s policy depth grounds the discussions.

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Conclusion

The Slate Money crew tackles the headlines with clarity and humor, drawing substantive connections between policy choices, business strategies, and social dynamics. Listeners are left better informed about the real-world implications of US-China trade, fintech consolidation, and diversity policies—plus a few surprising facts about body temperature and constitutional amendments.

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For further reading or to join the Slate Plus bonus episode (not covered in this summary), visit Slate Money Plus.

Transcript

[A]

Hello.

[B]

Welcome to the Trans Pacific Tractor Beams edition of Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. Emily, why. Why am I calling it Trans Pacific Tractor Beams?

[C]

I mean, I don't really know, but I think it's because we're discussing trade and tractors for farmers and how the TPP could have been good.

[B]

I am Felix Hammond of Axios, and I came. I take full responsibility for the title of this show, and I apologize for it. Emily Peck of HuffPost. Hello. You are utterly befuddled by the title of this show, and you are probably, like, 99% of the listeners. Anna Shymansky, you're the casting vote. Does the title of this show make any sense?

[A]

I'm gonna go with no.

[B]

But you're.

[C]

Listening anyway, so thank you.

[B]

But thank you all for listening to this incomprehensibly titled show. I promise you that the actual show itself will make more sense. We will talk about the tractors and the soybeans and the Chinese trade deal. We will talk about Visa buying plaid for $5.3 billion. And we will talk about the Rooney Rule, which is a way of trying to increase minorities in the upper echelons of an organization and whether it actually works or not. Also, a Slate. Plus about Nike vaporflies. All that and more. We have a great numbers round coming up on Slate Money. Okay, so the big news of the week was a trade deal with China. I mean, there were actually two trade deals this week. That's true, in case you hadn't noticed, and most people didn't, the got signed or it wasn't signed, but it was passed by the Senate by a massive bipartisan consensus. You see, bipartisanship is possible. We can all get behind asumka or usmca or NAFTA as it's probably easier to call it. ASMKA is the new nafka. NAFTA is the new nafta, I should say. And maybe you're onto something.

[C]

We should call it nafka.

[B]

We could call it nafka. Now, I have heard that the main reason that Donald Trump is so keen on USMCA rather than NAFTA is just because it starts with Les's us and that's America first, quite literally.

[A]

That's true also because he wants to suggest that he has, like, gotten rid of nafta. So if you have a new bill that starts with NAFTA that is going to indicate that you, in fact, have not gotten rid of nafta.

[B]

But as we all know, USMCA is not much of a difference from nafta. But this phase one trade deal with China, the best phase, I mean, like, yeah, exactly. You can't have any other phase if you don't have phase one. So it's gotta be a big deal. And it has hundreds of billions of things in it. So thankfully I have someone here who knows about all of these billions and can unpack it for us because it gets a bit confusing a bit quickly. So, Anna Szymansky. Yes, explain. This doesn't seem to me like a normal trade deal. This seems to me like some kind of a weird promise by China to spend a bunch of money on American goods.

[A]

That's because that's pretty much what it is. It is in fact not a normal trade deal because it's not really about free up trade. It is in fact about managing trade. And the centerpiece of this deal are these, these promised $200 billion in additional purchases.

[B]

And this is the Chinese government who's going to make these purchases, or Chinese state controlled company or the Chinese government is just going to like twist the arms of private companies.

[A]

Exactly. A little bit of all of the above. Right. And the reality, and granted, there are other parts of this too. There are some nods towards intellectual property protection, although the protections look like they're going to be that good. You know, there are a few other things. However, the purchases are really the biggest part of this. And when you start to look at these numbers, this is where pretty much everybody becomes very skeptical about this deal.

[B]

So the Chinese have promised to buy a gazillion dollars of like soybeans. And people like you sort of get out your pencil and envelope and you're like, there's no way they're going to be able to buy a gazillion dollars of soybeans. And so what's the remedy in the deal if they don't buy a gazillion dollars?

[A]

Well, I mean, this is a really interesting question. I mean, to me. So in December they started to kind of put out some of these numbers and that's when everyone was starting to do the math, the soybean math. I was like, no, that's not happening. Now if you looked at the actual deal, it definitely includes some language that gives you a little bit of wiggle room. So my assumption are two things. One, there is some language that suggests that the Chinese could say that the reason they aren't making these purchases is because of other, other things that the US are doing. So then they're not in violation. And there's also wiggle room that offers the ability for a little bit of creative accounting to protect, you know, so you can potentially say, like, oh, well, you know, we're going to be buying them in this period, but we're not actually going to be sending them until this other quarter, or we're going to be, you know, not actually paying for them for another year, but they're. We're going to be booking them in this period. So my guess is if they get to anywhere close to hitting these targets, it's going to be because of creative accounting, not because they're actually buying all these soybeans.

[B]

But in terms of, if I'm an American soybean producer, I'm no longer really saying, hey, I produce great soybeans. And I've put a lot of effort into developing a relationship with soybean buyers in China who want to feed their cows, whatever it is they want to do with my soybeans. Instead, I'm basically saying that I'm going to produce these soybeans, and then the American government and the Chinese government are going to come to some kind of a deal. And if the deal works out the way that I hope it'll work out, then the Chinese government will buy my soybeans. And if it doesn't, then they won't. And it kind of feels like infantilizing, and I can't really build up a relationship with a buyer or anything like that, which it takes me out of control of my own business.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you're right. And granted, it wouldn't just be the Chinese government doing all the purchasing, but, yes, this is true that, you know, you had a functioning market, and then you had Donald Trump come in and essentially destroy this functioning market. And then obviously, China started to build up and Chinese buyers started to build up relationships with other providers. You know, Brazil in particular is one that was providing a tremendous amount of soybeans. And so now you have, you know, Donald Trump out there saying, you know, buy tractors to all of these farmers. But these farmers are not stupid, and they are very, very skeptical about this. You know, the statement that came out from the kind of farmers union is basically saying, we are, you know, he's.

[B]

Not telling Chinese farmers to buy American tractors. He's telling American farmers to buy American tractors because they're gonna harvest more soybeans, need more tractors to harvest more soybeans.

[C]

It feels like Donald Trump, like, it's the equivalent of like, I go to the doctor and I have appendicitis and the doctor performs surgery and, like, cuts a Bunch of other stuff and injures me and then I am hurt. So I go back to the doctor and he fixes all the mistakes he made and sews me up and he's like, I did it but my appendix is still swollen like nothing has happened. This deal is dumb. Like he screwed up trade relations between China and the US and now the fix, it doesn't even get us back to where we were, if I'm understanding this correctly.

[A]

Yeah, I mean look in. Now I know the argument. You're, I think you're 100% correct. I know the argument against that would be like, well, but if, if you do have, you know, all of these additional exports to China, then, then that would be moving the needle in terms of the bilateral trade deficit and in terms of exports it would be different from what you had before and you almost certainly will have additional exports. But the, but the bigger question is, okay, let's, let's say we even have some magical world where they're able to come up with these magical soybeans and send them, okay, like let's pretend that world exists. Even then what this deal does is it's, it's one more step in breaking the rules based trade order that supported the growth of global trade and the growth of globalization. And so to me this deal is another kind of failure of that. And the problem is that if we have more of this type of activity, more of this type of bilateral activity that is going to be net negative for global trade. It creates more instability and it just creates more animosity because you know, if you're a trading partner that all of a sudden is going to get a trading partner of China that could be damaged by this. Granted China is saying that's not going to happen, but it almost certainly would have to happen. Well then you, you might try to retaliate in other ways.

[C]

Right. And I was reading, I think in the Wall Street Journal that one thing that's interesting about the phase one deal is the arbitration provisions where so you don't go to some neutral like WTO body to settle China and the US wouldn't to settle their disputes. There's like rounds of negotiations that take place and that's sort of like a finger in the eye. Another finger in the eye or I mean it was fissure in the eye of the wto.

[B]

We covered this on Slate Money. Like they can't go to the WTO because the US government has basically rendered the WTO completely useless. And I think Anna's absolutely right that what this really is, is a repudiation of capitalism. Like you used to have this capitalist system where you would set the rules and then let everyone go out and compete and get gains from trade and Ricardian advantage and all of this kind of stuff. And now Trump is like, no, I don't want that. I don't want to play by the rules. I just want to fix the outcome in advance. And that just feels like a deeply not very good idea.

[A]

No, I agreed and it makes, it makes me very sad, you know, and look, I don't want to suggest that the previous, you know, WTO led rules based order was perfect. It obviously wasn't. The fact that, you know, China and other actors were able to break a lot of the rules suggest that there were clear problems here. But clearly this activity is showing that this bilateral mercantilist strategy doesn't work either. Like there, there needs to be another way, there needs to be some other type of movement forward. And it's interesting because you did then also have Trump making these suggestions that, oh, now I'm going to be working with other countries in order to push back against, you know, Chinese subsidies to their state owned companies. And you're like, well, yeah, you should have been doing that from the very beginning. And like, what? Like this. And you can't on one hand say I'm breaking up this multilateral rules based order and then the other hand say, I want to use this multilateral rules based order to get what I want.

[B]

So the, the way that the Americans were trying to create a countervailing force against China before Trump came along was tpp, right? Nat was like, we are all going to join up with a bunch of other Pacific Rim countries and create a big force which can, you know, go up against China without having to enter into a trade war. Would that count as, you know, would that, would that count in terms of your desire for finding something which would have been better than the status quo ante? But like, isn't the Trump solution or was that just an incremental thing that wasn't really going to work?

[A]

I mean, I do think it was a good step in the right direction. I mean, I was very much in favor of TPP when a lot of people were bashing it for various reasons, because I do think that it, it was the entire world acknowledging that the system that they'd had previously where they were kind of saying, oh, you know, like, we're only going to push back on China so far and obviously individual countries weren't going to push back on China, you know, it really was, I think, a genuine step forward, but obviously now that that has been mostly trashed.

[B]

And so I mean, it exists.

[A]

It does, it does.

[B]

But if you don't have the US.

[A]

In it, I mean like you. Doesn't really work. Right.

[B]

Do you think that if I don't know Joe Biden is the next president that he could join TPP or would that not happen?

[A]

I think it's incredibly unlikely.

[C]

I feel like people, Americans don't care about trade or trade deals that much. Except for no one.

[B]

Like there's one person in America who really, really, really cares about trade and trade deals.

[C]

Bernie Sanders.

[B]

Donald Trump.

[C]

Right. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders who's like on. Actually they're kind of aligned if you watch.

[A]

No, they are. They're actually very.

[C]

The Democratic debate this week, they spent a lot of time talking about trade and it just struck me as such a waste of time because I don't think Democratic voters, beyond not liking nafta, no one cares like, which is a problem what USMCA is. I think they'd be like, ah. Which is actually, I think it's a.

[B]

New kind of sports league.

[C]

It's actually kind of good branding if you think about it. Because we spent the past like what, two decades really polarized over nafta. Nafta, nafta. So now you sort of like gotten rid of that and there's the polarization could kind of go away at this point because.

[B]

Right. It's hard to find Americans who hate WTO or TPP or USMCA in the way they hated nafta. You're absolutely right. And. But by the same token, you're not going to find a huge amount of non completely wonkish Americans who are particularly in favor of them either. It's just like, yeah. What. Who. I'm much more interested in USWNT women's nationality.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I just think at a policy level, like, there's just not much impetus behind any of this and maybe a Biden would do differently because his powerful donors and you know, they would have some sway over him and most Americans don't care. So you can kind of go in.

[A]

And also because it's legitimately actually important, like, you know, you've had. There are legitimate criticisms that the US manufacturing sector and other sectors have against what China has done. And the way that you counter that is going to be through trade activity, globally organized trade activity. So it's actually incredibly important. I agree with you that I don't think actually anybody cares. However, if People want to get to where they want wages to increase. This kind of thing is actually really important.

[B]

And the United nations just came out with a big global report showing that global Trade grew in 2019 at 0.3%, which is by far the lowest growth rate in a decade. So, yeah, we got some work to do here.

[C]

And that's bad for stability, right? Political stability, like, world.

[B]

And it's bad for. It's bad for economic growth. It's bad for.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, Trump, it's bad.

[B]

Okay, so we have apps now. What I didn't realize is that they've really grown in the past four years. I've. I've had a few. I guess I was an early adopter. I've had a few little baby fintech appy things on my phone for a long time. I got a simple card when they launched, and so I thought, yeah, yeah, there are these online banks. They've been doing things for a while. There's Venmo, there's Square. Cash is super popular these days. And I was like, yeah, this is a thing. Okay, whatever. It's just a different way of moving money around on the same old rails. Big deal. Turns out it's a big deal because Visa, which is used to be owned by the banks, was then spun off into this massive IPO and is much more than just a credit card company. It's one of the main sort of financial infrastructure companies which moves money around the planet. They just bought this startup called plaid for $5.3 billion, which is an enormous amount of money. It's like 50 times their revenues, and.

[A]

Square trades at like, 10 times its revenues.

[B]

Right? And so they're like, this is obviously in Visa size, a hugely important strategic move. And so the big question is, what is Plaid? What does it do that Visa doesn't do? And why does Visa value it so highly? And what does that tell us about the world? Can you answer all of those questions?

[A]

I mean, I know what Plaid, the basics is that it's the kind of API, it's basically the connecting apps to the banks, right? It's.

[C]

That kind of infrastructure connects your Venmo to your JP Morgan, right?

[B]

So if you have a Venmo account, if I Venmo you money, what's ultimately happening on some level is that money comes out of my bank account and it goes into your bank account. And Venmo therefore needs some kind of access to both of our bank accounts. And Venmo does not do that itself. Venmo uses Plaid to do that because Plaid is better at that than the only company that used to do this, which was this company called Yodlee. And everyone hated Yodlee. So these two guys started Plaid because they're like, we can do better than Yodlee. And it was true. They could do better than Yodlee. And so now everyone uses Plaid. And the banks don't love this because it means that your login credentials are basically out there in the wild being used to transfer money in and out of your bank account. And they don't have control over that. And then you can go up to them and say, a bunch of money left my bank account. And they're like, well, you gave your password to Venmo or all these other companies. But by the same token, the banks realized that people want to be able to use these apps and they can't make it completely impossible. So Plaid has kind of made itself an indispensable, pretty low down layer in that ecosystem.

[C]

So banks would rather deal with Visa than Plaid, probably because Plaid is just some startup and Visa, they know Visa.

[B]

So that definitely, I think their end of it. And I think that's. If that's true for American banks, it's even more true for international banks. And Visa is this, you know, globally recognized copper bottomed financial services behemoth. And if Visa goes along to international banks and says, you're gonna, you're really gonna have to allow access to this utility to allow people to access their money in the way they want to access it, that's going to be an easier sell than if it's this American startup called Plaid.

[C]

And then from Visa's end, they want Plaid because the fear, I guess, is that credit cards are going away and soon no one will need Visa anymore.

[B]

Well, I don't think so.

[A]

I mean, I. Well, yes and no. Like, I don't necessarily think credit cards are going away, but I mean, I.

[C]

Do think I use them less.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I do think part of the reason that Visa paid as much as they did is because they definitely can see that the way people are moving, money is changing and it is changing rapidly and that is going to continue. And I think they kind of want to get out in front of that and they're. Because, you know, obviously these credit card companies do still extract a lot of rents. Basically, you know, they're getting paid fees every time money's moving around. And I do think that there is some fear that as that system changes, that's not, we're not anywhere close to that system really changing. But if it did then that could cut into their business model. And so they want to get out in front of that. And that's part of the reason they're willing to pay as much as they did.

[B]

I don't, I don't think credit cards are going away, but I do think that Visa sees an opportunity to extend its model to beyond just credit cards. And they've done that already with debit cards. Right. That was the first big move they made what like 15, 20 years ago was the Visa debit card. And that turned out to be very popular both domestically and internationally. And then this is like the next, you know, the idea is that Visa is becoming what someone described as a network of networks. And so they're bringing on a whole bunch of different networks so that however you want to be intermediating your financial services, they are the company that is going to do that. I don't think, as Anna says, that it's because they see credit cards going away. I think credit cards have a huge amount of utility, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. But you know, there are lots of other countries where that isn't how people pay for things and move money around. And so they want to be able to meet people wherever they want to be.

[C]

It does seem like we are literally heading towards a world without literal cards. That's going away. People use their phones now so much more and apps more than they used to. Like I, I, I just visually see this in my day to day life that people aren't taking out cards as much as they used to.

[B]

So that there is contactless and contactless. It's really interesting to see how it has taken off enormously in some countries and not in others. Australia, it's really big. Uk, it's really big. Us, it's creeping up slowly. And interestingly, the big winner in the contactless in rise of contactless in the United States is Apple. That something like 2/3 or I think it's over half of all contactless payments in the United States are made via Apple pay, which surprises me, but apparently.

[C]

It'S a thing you have your phone all the time. That's the thing you have all the time.

[B]

Of course. But Apple phones are a minority of phones.

[C]

You stump me.

[B]

I'm sorry, but yeah, I mean, but I think Apple has just made tapping your phone somehow easier than Android has. It's a little bit like podcasts, you know, Apple was a minority of phones, but everyone used to listen to Apple. Podcasts was always the big dominant way that people used to and still do listen to podcasts and you're like, why isn't, like, an Android app competing with this? Because most people have Android phones, not Apple phones. And I've never really got a good answer to that question.

[C]

So, yeah, if you're getting towards a world where more people are using their phones to pay for stuff, like, there's going to be more innovation and more Plaids and fewer Visa.

[B]

Well, no, remember that if you put your, like, if you pay with Apple pay, let's say that you're paying with an Apple card on Apple Pay. What you're paying is with a MasterCard, right? And you're going over the MasterCard rails, and then you can just as easily put a Visa card in Apple Pay and pay with a Visa card. You're still using your credit card.

[A]

And this is what I think is because. Yeah, so it's not. Clearly nothing right now is changing that dramatically. But I do think this is interesting as, like, an antitrust kind of thing, because you're thinking of. They are kind of doing a little bit of, like, what Facebook did, you know, and kind of buying companies buying competitors in utero. And now I'm not saying that Plaid is going to necessarily be a competitor to Visa, but I do think when you have a behemoth, this kind of payments behemoth, like Visa buying this kind of company, partly with the idea of, we think that payments are going to eventually, like, this is going to be a big part of the market and we want to be a big player in there, so we're going to buy this. I just wonder how that'll look down the line. You know what I mean?

[B]

I couldn't agree more. I think you're absolutely right. And when I saw the news, my heart stopped, sank. And my first reaction to this was, like, right now, Plaid is growing very fast by being all things to all people. And anyone who wants to use it to connect to anyone else, they're like, yeah, use us to connect to anyone else. Anything going on anywhere in the world now that they're owned by Visa, certain applications have Plaid. Certain potential customers, existing and potential future customers have Plaid, on some level are going to be competing with Visa. And Visa is going to now be faced with a choice. And they're going to have to say, are we going to allow this tiny little Plaid part of our business to cannibalize the main part of our business, that is credit cards? Or are we going to start restricting the number of people who can use the Plaid service in order to shore up our Core credit cards, networks. And you know, that might not happen for a couple of years, but it is almost certainly that question is going to start getting raised at some point. And I agree with Anna that, like, there's something monopolistic about this. Visa and MasterCard are, of course, a huge duopoly and anything that strengthens that massive duopoly is not a good thing.

[A]

Yeah. And not good for consumers.

[B]

I mean, Emily, who is Rooney?

[C]

He is the guy who came up from the NFL.

[A]

It's Dan Rooney. He was the head of. He was the owner of the Steelers, I think.

[C]

Yes, the owner of the Steelers.

[B]

The Steelers is an American football team.

[A]

It is indeed.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And he came up with the rooney rule in 2003.

[B]

He created a rule and it was such a good rule that they named it after him.

[C]

Yeah, it's ok. The rule is big. So the rule was just that in 2003, the NFL was kind of having a reckoning with the fact that there were just very few black head coaches in one season. I think three, two or three were fired, Tony Dungy among them. And there was a lot of upset. Johnnie Cochran was involved. He was gonna sue for racial discrimination. It was really big news. And then Rooney comes up with the rule which is, don't worry, we're gonna fix this. We're gonna bring in anytime there's a head coach opening, we'll bring in at least one minority candidate to interview and that'll be a requirement. The NFL adopts this requirement and for the next few years, a few more black head coaches do get hired. So the number goes up from like 2 to 6 to 8.

[B]

So. So the chap from the Philadelphia, what we call this Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Steelers, implements this rule and then the NFL, which is the whole league, says that's a really good rule, and forces all of the other owners to do the same thing.

[C]

Yes. So the. All the teams have to interview one candidate or they get fined.

[B]

And the rule has stayed in effect to the present day. And it still exists.

[C]

Yes, the rules still exist. So the rules exist the whole time, meanwhile. So. And it looks like it's working somewhat for the NFL. Meanwhile, a lot of companies, especially tech companies, are coming under fire for not hiring any non white people or not any women. So a lot of companies start saying, we're going to use the Rooney rule too. It's such a good rule. So it becomes really popular right alongside in the NFL.

[B]

It becomes like a management fading.

[C]

Yeah, it's like if you get criticized for something, you can say, oh, we're going to do the Rooney Rule. Like Amazon had an all white board a few years ago and activist investors said you should adopt the Rooney Rule. And at first they were, they said no, we're not going to do it. And then people got very upset with them, including their employees and they were like, okay, fine, we'll do it. So now they do it and they, they put two black women on their board.

[B]

What is the reason why people might not want to adopt the Rooney Rule?

[C]

I mean, Amazon. So Amazon told, they said it first. There's research that shows the Rooney Rule just doesn't work. And also common sense. So if you just, if you're hiring, you have like four candidates in your final round and one of them is not like the others. There is perhaps unconsciously. Oh, you kind of think, well that's a, that's different. I don't want that different person, no matter woman, non white or whatever. So there might be some natural prejudice and there's some research done that shows that if you just have one minority or female candidate in your pool, statistically their chance of getting hired is essentially zero. It doesn't work. So you have to have at least two or three candidates in your. And you have to have a diverse slate of candidates.

[B]

So wait, the argument, the argument against adopting the Rooney Rule is one is basically the same as zero. So we may as well stick with the zero.

[C]

Yeah, I mean there's no, it's disingenuous, I think, to argue against it because it's not even, no reason not to.

[B]

Do it feels like the bare minimum.

[C]

There's no reason not to do it.

[B]

If you don't have a minority candidate, you're pretty much guaranteed not to hire one.

[C]

Exactly. There's no reason not to do it. Which is why there was such an uproar over Amazon and they quickly were like, no, no, no, we'll do it fine. Sorry. But that said, the rule itself, it's not very effective because of what I just said. If just one, if it's just one candidate, statistically zero chance. So it's cool to do the Rooney Rule and a lot of companies have, but if you don't do other stuff, then nothing is going to change in company as evidenced by the NFL. We're talking about it this week.

[B]

Well, yeah. Why were you talking about it this week?

[C]

Because head coach hiring season is kind of just wrapped up and we're down to only three black head coaches in the NFL and one Hispanic coach. Everyone else is a white guy. There were five open positions this season, and four were filled again by white guys. And there's a lot of debate, like.

[B]

In this is UL male.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Yeah. And there's a lot of debate in the sports world over, like, did the most qualified candidates even win? They point to this guy and they say, oh, he only coached one season in the NFL. And this qualified black coach, you know, he's. He, you know, coaches like the MVP quarterback in the league. You know, there's a lot of. It's quite controversial, but it just got me thinking about this, this rule that all these companies are like, we do it.

[B]

And like, so in business, does it work about as well as it works in the NFL, which is like, if you're doing it because, you know the NFL or some activist shareholder or something is. Is forcing you to do it, then it's not really going to make any difference. You have to actually want to hire minorities in order to be able to effectively hire minorities.

[C]

So in business, the rule alone probably isn't gonna work beyond maybe the board, where it's very easy. You have 10 slots to fill, and you can kind of really intentionally get it done.

[B]

Well, I mean, I guess even at board level, there's a huge difference between we want to have a minority board member versus when we're hiring a new board member, one of the candidates needs to be a minority.

[C]

Yeah, you have to sort of have both be true in order for it to affect change. And then in the business world, the Rooney rule alone doesn't work. And the companies that use it, that have been successful in diversifying a little bit, do a lot of other stuff. Like, they look at, you know, where their weaknesses are. Like I was looking at Airbnb is very intentional about this stuff. And they looked at their hiring process, which was like three stage process. And one of the stages, they noticed there was a lot of drop off of women and minority candidates. And that stage was where the engineers, like, go in a room and like, do something at a board. Look it, I'm an editor. I don't know what they do with the board, but they, like, do stuff with stuff, and people evaluate them in the room, and they found out that's where, like, a lot of women were dropping out. So they kind of intentionally then like, revamped how that process worked. So they had, like, the woman have, like, an informal coffee with someone on the staff, so. And made sure that person was in the room. So they knew someone in the room, and they always made sure there was another woman evaluating whatever happens on the whiteboard. I Don't know. And then that actually like increased the number of women they were hiring. So it's like you have to be like a scientist, like kind of tinkering with all this stuff. You can't just be like, have one minority person.

[A]

Well, and I think one of the things you saw in the NFL, which I think has parallels outside of the NFL, is that one of the reasons that you don't have as many African American or Hispanic head coaches is because you don't have as many offensive coordinators who are African American or Hispanic. And that tends to be. There tends to be. Often you pick from offensive coordinators. You also don't have as many head coaches in college football who are minority. And so I think this is, this.

[B]

Is the, the pipeline defense, which we've heard in a bunch of different places.

[A]

Yeah. And I'm not defending it. I'm saying that when you're thinking about the Rooney Rule, you would need to have it at every level. It can't just be at the top level, which is essentially what it was if you want there to be enough candidates. So eventually wouldn't even need the renewal. Cause you would just have so many candidates. It wouldn't, you know, you need to start at lower levels. You need to start pushing people at, at lower levels to get into the types of positions that get you on that track.

[C]

But here's the thing also I was, I was reading some article I missed because I wrote a story about this this week, a study from a few years ago that ESPN wrote up. Basically the problem is baked in at the entry level, just like you were saying, Anna, because of discrimination against black coaches who are hired at like half the, they're promoted at half the rate of white coaches. Like, it's just baked in. And the study looked pretty good. They kind of controlled for everything else. Every other possible idea, like, is it because more white people coach quarterbacks versus this or that or that, and they controlled for everything. And it's just like basic racism, like kind of baked in the system. So you really need to go, like you're saying, back down to the entry level and sort of make that all right too. Like you have to work at every layer of the cake.

[A]

And I think within sports, I think it's just so glaring because so many of the athletes are obviously minorities. I mean, so it's like when you're thinking of where ultimately coaching talent is from, usually coaches have played at some levels. Now sometimes coaches haven't actually played at the professional level, but often they have or they played at the college level, the high school, whatever. And so it just seems so absurd that when you have this enormous pool of talent that somehow that's not getting into these leadership roles. I mean, I think. And this is something that it is this kind of racist thing that you see. And I think in football, you see it's most glaring because football is kind of a weird team sport because you have a leader like quarterbacks. Like, historically, quarterbacks have almost always been white. That is changing, thankfully, but you still see a tremendous amount of white. And I think. Because there is still these, like, racist assumptions about who is best fit for a leadership role.

[C]

Absolutely. And I think the. The parallel to corporate America is pretty. Is pretty obvious. You see the same things. At the entry level, it's like half women, and at the top it's like 80% men. So what's happening? And there's always a lot of blame about mothers and stuff, but we all know that's. That's not the story. Right?

[A]

I mean, it's obviously, yes, it's incredibly hard for women who have kids to do what, in theory, you are expected to do into these roles. But then the idea is, okay, well, if we want anyone other than old white men to be in these rules, then we need to accept that. You need to put in things in place that enable people who have children and are going to have some of those responsibilities to also be able to do this role.

[C]

Best part of it.

[B]

Let's have a numbers round. Emily, what's your number?

[C]

38.

[B]

What's that?

[C]

That's the number of states who have now ratified the Equal Rights Amendment.

[B]

We got another one. Here's the latest.

[C]

The latest was Virginia, which their legislature yesterday, House and Senate both said yes to the era and this has been.

[B]

Going on since the 60s, so.

[C]

Yeah, so, well, if you really want to know. So the era was first conceived in the 20s, and they kept proposing it in Congress, which all the men in Congress said, no, no, no, no, no. Finally, 1972, they said, fine and voted the ERA out of Congress. And it went to the states for ratification. And everyone was really excited. A lot of states ratified it. But then conservatives got really upset and they started talking about bathrooms and stuff.

[A]

It's always bathrooms.

[C]

It's always the bathrooms and bathrooms. Gay marriage and housewives. I don't know, blah, blah, blah, backlash, blah, blah, blah. So the whole thing kind of ends in 1982 with only 35 states run.

[B]

And how many do you need?

[C]

38. Felix.

[B]

Oh, this is it. Yeah. So now it's gonna. We have a new constitutional amendment. No.

[C]

So now it's kind of a mess. So they revived the effort, the three state strategy in like 2015 or 2016. They got the three states was Arizona, Illinois and now Virginia. However, there was a deadline for ratification. The deadline was 1982.

[A]

Oops.

[C]

So activists are like, the deadline was unconstitutional because the last time we amended the Constitution, it took literally from James Madison to George H.W. bush. That's how long it took from proposing to. Okay, so they're like, it's fine, it's unconstitutional. We'll get the deadline removed. And then, you know, and then in the meantime, some of the states that ratified like are trying to take it back unratified.

[B]

They're trying to rescind, which probably like Steph Curry unresigning.

[C]

This is just like Steph Curry. And also now if we were in the Obama years, this is probably going get into the Constitution, but we're not. So some. The Republican attorney generals in three states are like, no era. It's bad. They filed lawsuit to it.

[B]

So what? Just let's rewind forever very quickly because this is the lightning round. But in like a real nutshell, what does the ERA actually do and why do Republican attorneys general oppose it?

[C]

So in a nutshell, it's unclear what the ERA would do. It's a line. It says that you would not be denied equal protection under the law because of sex. That's it. That's all it says. So you'd think so whatever, just stick it in the Constitution, like make the ladies happy. Right? So yeah, it's the kind of thing, like once it went into the Constitution, then there would be lots of like laws that would be passed and lawsuits that would be filed and you'd kind of like figure out what it means over the years and decades, just like all the other ones. Right. The reason they're the Republicans are upset. I don't know, they think it'll lead to more abortion rights and things like that. And they don't want equality for women. They don't want equal pay lawsuits and all this stuff and the bathrooms. I honestly don't understand why you would oppose something like that. There was even a piece in the New York Times, an editorial from a feminist, Joan Williams, who's like a work life advocate kind of person, saying like, we shouldn't even do this because if it did get into the Constitution, conservatives would go bonkers and file all kinds of crazy bathroomy kinds of lawsuits that would just turn everyone against women, basically. So I Mean, it's crazy. Anyway, go on, someone else do a number.

[B]

All right, I'm gonna do 36.2 billion, which is the number of dollars that JP Morgan made in profit in 2019, which is not only a record profit for JP Morgan, it is a record profit for any bank ever in the history of America and is more than double the highest amount of money it ever made at the height of the pre crisis in late 2007. It is beyond, beyond enormous profits. And part of it is the Trump tax cuts. They're paying lower taxes, but most of it isn't. Most of it is just like these banks in general and JP Morgan in particular are just raking in money hand over fist and no one is competing that way and they just get to make more and more money. And I guess the employees who in the pre crisis go, go years of Wall street would just eat up all of those extra profits in terms of bonuses, don't have that amount of leverage anymore. And so their bonuses, like you don't hear quite as much about the eight figure bonuses anymore. And so now it just goes to shareholders. Yay.

[C]

Bankers don't get big bonuses, they get paid bonuses.

[A]

They get paid bonuses.

[B]

The base salaries are higher and the bonuses are lower. That's part of the post crisis, you know, financial regulation.

[A]

Yeah. And this is, this is something we can also, it's a larger discussion talk about in a non. My number is really like not that interesting.

[B]

What's your number?

[A]

My number, I think it's kind of interesting is 97.5.

[B]

Is that a percentage as well?

[A]

It's not a percentage, it's a temperature. Turns out humans are getting colder. What?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

No longer is 98.6. Actually the average temperature. It is 97.5.

[B]

Oh, this is a Fahrenheit. Yes, yes.

[C]

Do you understand Fahrenheit?

[B]

I do. I've been living in America for 23 years now. And so just for those listeners who don't speak American. Hey Siri, what's 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius?

[C]

97.5 degrees Fahrenheit is 36.4 degrees Celsius.

[B]

There you go. 36.4 in real money is now the official. And that's the average temperature of like human beings in the world.

[A]

Yeah. So basically they, they've had the same thing for like 150 years. And it's not that they think that it was wrong. They think that people are actually getting slightly colder.

[B]

Is this global or is this American?

[A]

I think it's considered global. Like, I, I believe I'm only, I'm hesitating slightly because I know the article, I believe the people they were looking at were essentially all American, but I believe the person who first came up with it was, I think, German.

[C]

So does that mean to have a fever? Like fevers are lower, like you're telling.

[A]

You would think they would be, Right?

[C]

I don't know.

[A]

Right. I mean, I would imagine it's always.

[C]

Very controversial at the Tech household who has a fever and who doesn't. We're always trying to figure it out.

[A]

Yeah, I've, I've been, I think, part of the reason I've been, I've been sick much over the last two weeks. I've been constantly taking my temperature. So that's also, I think, why I was like, it turns.

[B]

So there you have it. If your Temperature is above 36.4 or 97.5, depending on, like, what language you speak, then you're running a temperature. So I say to all of you parents out there, just hand out those sick notes with abandon because even when you thought it wasn't the temperature, it probably was. But that's because I always side with the kids and I think they should just stay home from school. On which note, I think we'll wrap this up. Thank you very much for listening to Slate Money. Thank you, Jasmine and Molly for producing, thank you, Hannah and Emily for being amazing, and thank you all lovely listeners for keeping the emails coming on slatemoneylate.com we will talk to you next week on Slate Money.