Slate Money

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Stacy-Marie Ishmael discuss the apparently abusive conservatorship of Britney Spears, the failures of COVAX and worldwide vaccine distribution, and Peter Thiel’s shocking Roth IRA. In the Plus segment: Small businesses in the pandemic.Mentioned in the show:“The Darker Story Just Outside the Lens of Framing Britney Spears,” by Sara Luterman for the New Republic“A Beautiful Idea: How COVAX Has Fallen Short,” by Ann Danaiya Usher for the Lancet Email: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Slate Money Goes to the Movies, a miniseries in which Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and a different guest each week discuss popular business-themed movies. Joanne Lipman, author and journalist, joins to talk about the 2005 film Thank You For Smoking. They discuss the terrible trope of female reporters sleeping with their sources, The Marlboro Man, and “moral flexibility.” Email: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Stacy-Marie Ishmael discuss Lina Khan and tech antitrust, Anna Wiener’s New Yorker piece on Silicon Valley, and the New York Times investigation into working at Amazon. In the Plus segment: MacKenzie Scott gives again.Mentioned in the show:“The Separation of Platforms and Commerce,” by Lina M. Khan for the Columbia Law Review“Does Tech Need a New Narrative,” by Anna Wiener for the New Yorker“The Amazon That Customers Don’t See,” by Jodi Kantor, Karen Weise, and Grace Ashford for the New York Times“The Latest Pandemic Supply Shock: Child Care Workers” by Patrick Sisson for Bloomberg CityLab“Seeding by Ceding” by MacKenzie ScottEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Stacy-Marie Ishmael talk about the ProPublica report on the tax returns of US billionaires, how Uber prices are changing and what it means, and the consequences of Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador. In the Plus segment: UI fraud.Mentioned in the show:“The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel for ProPublica“We Ran the Treasury Department. This Is How to Fix Tax Evasion.” by Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew, Henry M. Paulson Jr., Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers for the New York Times“Farewell, Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy” by Kevin Roose for the New York Times“Cryptocurrency Comes to Retirement Plans as Coinbase Teams Up With 401(k) Provider” by Anne Tergesen for The Wall Street Journal “There’s a New Vision for Crypto, and It’s Wildly Different From Bitcoin” by Joe Weisenthal for Bloomberg “Half of the Pandemic's Unemployment Money May Have Been Stolen” by Felix Salmon for AxiosEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Stacy-Marie Ishmael talk about AMC’s meme stock moment and the pros and cons of working from home. Then, Charles Duhigg of the New Yorker and Slate’s How To! podcast, joins to talk about his recent article on Chamath Palihapitiya.In the Plus segment: The latest Jobs Report. Mentioned in the show:“Employees Are Quitting Instead of Giving Up Working From Home,” by Anders Melin and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou for Bloomberg“Commuting is Psychological Torture,” by Luke O'Neil“The Pied Piper of SPACs,” by Charles Duhigg for the New Yorker“America’s Cruel Unemployment Experiment,” by Emily Stewart for VoxEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Weisenthal of Bloomberg joins Slate Money to talk about his take on inflation, Exxon’s new activist investors, and Amazon buying MGM. In the Plus segment: Joe on the importance of semiconductors. Mentioned in the show:"It’s Time to Talk About Something and Inflation Isn’t the Right Word for it,” by Joe Weisenthal for Bloomberg“What Scaremongering About Inflation Gets Wrong,” by Rebecca L. Spang for the Washington Post"Daniela Gabor on the Critical Case Against Private Sector ESG,” by Joe Weisenthal for Bloomberg"The Texas Winter Storm and Power Outages Killed Hundreds More People Than the State Says,” by Peter Aldhaus, Stephanie M. Lee, and Zahra Hirji for Buzzfeed"How the Texas Legislature Could Change the state's Power Grid This Session,” by Erin Douglas and Mitchell FermanEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Edmund Lee of the New York Times joins Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Stacy-Marie Ishmael to talk about AT&T's massive WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, this week’s Bitcoin crash, and burnout.  In the Plus segment: Future media merger speculation. Mentioned in the show:“U.S. Telecoms Decide Focusing on Pipes Isn’t So Dumb After All,” by Nic Fildes, Anna Nicolaou ,and Sujeet Indap for the Financial Times “‘Why the Bitcoin Crash Was a Big Win for Cryptocurrencies,” by Jim Bianco for Bloomberg “The Lie of ‘No One Wants to Work’,” by Gaby Del Valle for EaterEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Stacy-Marie Ishmael are joined by Brad Stone to talk about the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and his new book Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, covering things like AMI’s extortion of Bezos, what the single cow burger tells about who Bezos has become, the impact of Amazon’s labor practices, and many more Bezos/Amazon topics. In the Plus segment: Neobanks. Mentioned in the show:“No Thank You, Mr. Pecker,” by Jeff Bezos“Colonial Pipeline Paid the Ransom. Bad Move,” by Timothy L. O'Brien for Bloomberg “The Deadly Toll of Amazon’s Trucking Boom,” by Paris Martineau for The Information“Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace,” by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld for the New York Times “Simple Banking Customers Still Locked Out; Parent BBVA Says Its Customer Service Crashed,” by Mike Rogoway for Oregon LiveEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Stacy-Marie Ishmael talk about the disappointing jobs report and how it relates to falling birth rates, the Bill and Melinda Gates divorce news and Trump’s Facebook ban.In the Plus segment: The Peloton treadmill recall. Mentioned in the show:“The Great Birth Rate Freak-Out” by Jill FilipovicMIT Media Lab director resigns over financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein” by Felix Salmon for Axios“How an Élite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein” by Ronan Farrow for The New YorkerEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck, @s_m_i  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stacy-Marie Ishmael joins as a co-host this week with Felix Salmon and Emily Peck to talk about the pandemic’s Big Tech boom, the car market, and the controversy over Basecamp’s office culture.In the Plus segment: Wirecard. Mentioned in the show:“Breaking Camp,” by Casey Newton for the Verge“How Big Tech Won the Pandemic,” by Shira Ovide for the New York Times”About the Apple Card,” by Jamie Heinemeier Hansson “How the Paper Trail Went Cold in KPMG’s Special Audit of Wirecard,” by Dan McCrum and Olaf Storbeck for the Financial Times. "The Weird, Extremely German Origins of the Wirecard Scandal" by Adrian Daub  for The New RepublicEmail: slatemoney@slate.comPodcast production by Jessamine Molli.Twitter: @felixsalmon, @EmilyRPeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices