December 19, 2025 • 44 mins
This week, we talk about two of the biggest economic stories of 2025: Buy Now Pay Later and $Trump.
First, Amanda Mull stops by to discuss BNPL: why its on the rise, how people use it, potential pitfalls and how it's different than just paying with a credit card.
Then, Zeke Faux goes through the implausible story of $Trump - the Donald Trump meme coin launched just a few days before the 2025 inauguration. Faux tells Max and Stacey how the Trump team made an estimated $350 million on the coin, while many investors lost money.
Also: tepid jobs numbers and new opportunities in sports for the older parts of the population.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Bannocksmith.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I'm Max Chefkin Stacy. It's the holiday season. I feel
like we've been in the holiday season for a while,
but it's still he like it never, it's never gonna end.
But you know what, we're companies are finally in the black.
All these retail stores, right they depend on holiday sales.
We're about halfway through, and now is the time when
they're making money. And one of the ways they're making money,
(00:39):
as we'll learn in one of our segments, is through
these buy now, pay later loans.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yes, one of the ways they're making money is by
demanding less money.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's odd.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Amanda mal is going to talk about that, and speaking
of buying things, we're going to talk about the hot
item of twenty twenty five. I'm of course talking about
the Trump meme coin as well as the Marania meme
coin with Zeke.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Fox, our colleague crypto expert.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He's coming here to talk to talk about his new
story in BusinessWeek about all the weird ways that crypto
and politics are intersecting.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
And Max for our underrated story.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You have brought us the story, and it is apparently
about age inclusive scores or something.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
That's right, Yeah, right, it's about opening up professional.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Sports to the elder, to the wizendelder, to the wizend elder. Excellent,
All right, Stacey.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's been a couple of weeks since we've gotten any
kind of economic data. Maybe I'm maybe I hallucinate that,
but it feels like it's been a while. But now
all of a sudden, there's a lot a lot of
information coming out about the economy.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
What kind of mix, I guess, yes.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
The government shutdown meant that a lot of government data
wasn't collected and wasn't you know, given out. And it's
hard because this is a really feels like a really
crucial time in the economy. Things feel a little bit
fragile and shaky. This week, we did get some jobs
information out, some of the jobs numbers. It was mixed, Yeah,
I would say mixed to not great. Three major takeaways here.
(02:06):
The first one is the unemployment rate crept up a
little bit more to four point six percent. It's not
good that it's been rising rising, but under five percent
is still historically really low, so it's not terrible news,
but it's not great. Also, there's a really interesting statistic
in there that the share of workers working more than
one job has risen to five point seven percent, which
(02:28):
is the highest it's been in twenty five years, which
may point to maybe people not being able to afford
things as much, or having to take on multiple jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Or wages being not growing as quickly as people would hope,
or maybe there's just a lot of freaking jobs in
the economy and all so many jobs.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Different styles of working.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think that's a really good point that this isn't
necessarily bad, that like the way we work is a
little different now. But in addition to that, what you
said about the hiring, I think is the big job's
news of this shar which is the hiring is just
at the lowest level it's been in years and years
and years. The job market is a little bit dead,
and layoffs are rising slightly, and so I think people
(03:09):
workers do not feel great about the job market. Everyone
feels a little bit like they're kind of holding onto
their jobs. And then in certain sectors, the only sector
that's like really hiring this year was healthcare everything else
almost was shedding jobs or barely adding jobs. I talked
with one worker for a Business Week story, This guy,
Brett Vergara.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
He worked at a big tech company.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
He was actually a project manager on an AI team,
and so he thought his job was pretty safe. But
then he was laid off in October, and he said,
right now, trying to apply for jobs is really tough.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
When you're just applying into the void and never hearing anything,
it can definitely be tough to keep up momentum.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Be like, but let me do that again.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
And it's always fun too. When you get a rejection,
like immediately after applying something, it's like, okay, well it
does have like this to just completely ruin your day.
I wish I was better at being able to shrug
those things off, but I am not. I'm not the
best at that.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, that's a I mean, that's a universal thing. Oh yeah,
that's all. That's all, you know, whatever is going on
with the economy. I think that is a feeling people
have right this kind of Yes, you got to apply
to a bunch of things cold, there's a lot of rejection, and.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There's a lot of AI built into the job system now,
so so what he's talking about like this, Sometimes the
second you fill out an application, they're like, Nope, you
don't fit this bill. So it is like kind of
shocking to get immediately.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Have you ever tried to return something on Amazon and
you have to talk to the chatbot? Like, yeah, it's
like that, but you're applying for it's like circular, like
my future and the thing on the other side of
it is just like thank you for.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Dear applicant and the other thing. Brett said.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So, at the same time this is happening, he's also
hearing about more and more layoffs in his field, and
he said, on the one hand, really it's kind of
comforting because he's seeing really good people losing their job.
It's like, okay, well, really really great people with great
skills are losing their jobs. But then also he's realizing
that now they're all applying for the same jobs.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
When you hear that next wave of layoffs from Amazon
or like Target or Meta or Google or whatever, it's.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Like, oh, I'm now competing against all those people immediately, yeah,
and like and like you know, and it's like, oh,
we're getting put against each other even though we're in
the same circumstances or similar circumstances. But yeah, it's like, oh,
all these people who I also know who are plenty
qualified as well.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
And he said the people he knows that do have
jobs are also unhappy because they feel stuck. So it's
just a it's a bad moment in the job market,
I think exactly because of the hiring numbers.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, all right, well let's look ahead, writer, Yes, maybe twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Twenty twenty six. I mean, there are some signs that
twenty twenty six might be getting better. We've got good
inflation numbers. Inflation seems to have come down a little.
The data is a little difficult because a lot it
wasn't collected in the normal way because of the shutdown.
But here's hoping that the hiring rate picks up in
the new year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
All right, well, we wanted to hear about your New
year's resolution.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, it's the resolution time.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
We sent Charlie Gorvin, Bloomberg reporter out onto the streets
to sort of ask people what their resolutions were, what
their what their financial resolutions were, what their personal resolutions were,
And this is what he came back with.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Do you have a resolution with that?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Again?
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Yeah, I have a new year's resolution, get outside more.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, I would like to read more books, probably trying
to better myself mentally than smogan less weeds.
Speaker 7 (06:39):
We're entering twenty twenty six with a big question mark,
and what are.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
You hoping to shop forward forty years? The way to
that came, whatever I need.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Well, I'm planning on getting rid of my startphone this year,
so I'm like, I'll have more time to not like
look at my Facebook reels because.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Everyone says like it's good, healthy Gord to Virginia. But
let's see how long that lasts. My new year's resolution
is to watch a fewer reels. My new year's resolution.
Speaker 8 (07:03):
I think that just being a city like this, growing
my career, connect with old friends and new ones, I
think it's something that I really want to be present for.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
In January is like an arbitrary number. It's an arbitrary date.
It's like, if you want to change your life, do
it tomorrow. I'm also at a certain age where I'm like,
I'm really just like happy to be alive.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I do have to say I love the woman who's
like my resolution is to shop more. That is the
American economy saying yes.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, I'm just struck by how prominent Facebook reels are
in that in those ress like.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, well I think less screen time.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Right, Yeah, they want to. I was thinking, maybe my
resolution is going to be like lots of screen time.
Oh yeah, I'm just going deep in Facebook.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Shot more and spend more time online.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I need to help these last time with friends.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I need to help these trillion dollar online you know,
internet companies increase their per user time spent every every week.
I'm going to do my part. I like that because
the stock market needs it.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, I feel like I'm going to eat more sugar
and try to spend more time inside alone. So, Max,
we just heard a bunch of resolutions, and obviously, you know,
the difficult economy right now is weighing on everybody's minds.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, lot of uncertainty, and I know that the way
I deal with uncertainty is by putting it off into
the future.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I think that's always a good plan, and in fact,
a lot of people are doing that, not just with
their futures, but with their finances. We've got senior reporter
Amanda Mole with us. She is the author of the
Buying Power column at BusinessWeek, Amanda, you just wrote a
great article about buy now, Pay later.
Speaker 9 (08:46):
Yes, the topic of our time is really yes, earlyist,
I would argue, so if you don't mind first describing
what buy now pay later is and then also just
talk about what's been happening lately. Yeah, So buy Now
Pay Later, which is often abbreviated BMPL, is like a
fintech type of business. They specialize in basically what is
(09:07):
like short term micro loans. So if you are buying
a new couch, if you want a new outfit for
your birthday, if you want a new handbag that you
don't want to pay for right now, then what you
can do at retailers that offer buy now, pay later
vendors for payment is that you can split that purchase
up into small payments over a short period of time.
(09:28):
The most common type of buy now, pay later loan
is a what they call pay in four, which splits
it up and splits the purchase up into quarters roughly,
and then you pay like every two weeks, every week,
every month, like it depends on the terms of the
lender you're dealing with. These lending decisions are made algorithmically
(09:50):
very quickly at the point of sale for in most cases,
there's also like membership programs that some of them offer.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Also, like when you're online buying stuff, I feel like
this will often come up. It would like, would you
with this instead of putting your credit card.
Speaker 9 (10:03):
In right, And on a lot of like individual product
pages that you're if you're looking at, like a new refrigerator,
it might say this is the price today or as
low as however much with a firm or with Klarna,
these services are pretty widely advertised within the shopping experience.
They are part of the decision calculus for a lot
(10:24):
of purchases in the US, and they are getting more
and more popular and more and more difficult to understand
exactly how they function within the world of consumer finance
because they do not, you know, do a hard credit pull.
The debt you accrue to them generally does not show
up on your credit score or on your credit report.
(10:46):
So yeah, until your default, they some of them might
start messing with your credit history if you stop paying.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I mean it sounds a lot like a credit card
in some ways, right, Like you you buy the thing,
and then you know your credit card payment comes in
and we all know, you know how credit card works,
so if you if you don't pay awfully for the month,
you end up paying a little bit more by note
pay later. I think if you make the four payments,
you don't pay interest. But what happens if you don't
(11:15):
make those payments.
Speaker 9 (11:18):
In a lot of cases, especially with these like four
part loans, there's no interest. If you opt into something longer,
there may be interest. The more you spread it out,
the more they're gonna charge you, generally, and it depends
on what kind of loan you take out with them
as to how it works. If you stop paying, some
of them will just sort of like continue trying to collect.
(11:39):
Some of them, depending on the size of the loan
and the policies of the particular lender, you maybe get
hit with interest that wouldn't have been there otherwise. They
may pursue you through the credit bureaus if they can.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
They come kind of take your fridge back. Though, if
you don't pay. Is it like a car loan? No,
not necessarily. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (12:00):
They most of these loans are like fairly small for
a couple hundred, couple thousand dollars, and a lot of
them are done sort of informally relative to like taking
out a car loan.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
At first glance, it really seems like one of these
zerp businesses that zero interest rate policy.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So like a bunch of tech.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Companies got big when interest rates were really low because
basically borrowing money was free. So giving away a gazillion
interest free loans to buy refrigerators is like maybe a
good deal when interest rates are low, the economy is good,
et cetera, et cetera. But seems like not obviously like
a great business to me today, And so I'm wondering,
(12:42):
like what is happening there, Like how have they managed
to keep growing and how are these businesses actually making
money if they're just like giving away free money to
anyone without even bothering to like check their credit.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Well, the main revenue stream that they have is that
they do transaction fees with the retailers they partner with.
So if you use Klarna, which is the market leader
both in the US and worldwide in this type of service,
it's a Swedish company, to buy a new designer handbag
and it costs you three thousand dollars, Klarna will be
(13:17):
paid a portion of that sale, a small percentage of
that sale by the retailer, and this happens with credit
cards too, interchange fees, transaction fees, swhite fees, if you
use an electronic form of payment anything other than cash.
Really there is a little bit of money going from
the retailer to the person who processes that payment, so
that is generally how they make their money. Some of
them also offer longer term, larger loans that do charge interest,
(13:41):
so they do have interest payments coming in from some
of their borrowers.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So this is like an entry point to having a
deeper financial relationship with you the borrower. I see this,
I click on it, I buy the fridge. Yeah, and
then Klarna convinces me down the road to borrow some
more money from them.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
And like as with any sort of like consumer choice,
like getting people to do something the first time that
they're not used to doing or that they're not sure
if it will work, is like the big thing. Once
you have made a by now pay later purchase, you're
really likely to make a second one. In a recent
survey that lending Tree did of like couple thousand by
(14:20):
now pay Later users, the majority of them had at
some point in the past had two or more loans
going at once. And it's definitely true that these types
of lenders over index in their customer base with types
of people who are not necessarily credit worthy by traditional
(14:40):
credit card issuer or lender standards. Their customer base, which
is about ninety one million people in the US right now,
so it's a huge Yeah, it's grown a lot in
the past several years. So their customer base tends to
skew young, it tends to skew single. There's a lot
of young parents that use it. There's a lot of
(15:01):
overlap between people who are young and single and have
a child. So because they don't have a credit history,
they have other debt where.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They might be able to get a credit card with
a really high interest rate, but wouldn't be able to
get like great credit right.
Speaker 9 (15:13):
And what's interesting is that in the numbers that I've seen,
like the percentage of people who use by Now Pay
Later who have missed a payment or been laid on
a payment in the past year is really big and
it's growing. That same Lending Tree survey found that it
was forty one percent of by Now Pay Later borrowers
(15:33):
in the last year had missed a payment.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Wow, And that's why to be way higher than a
credit card.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
And it's up from thirty four percent the year before
and thirty one percent the year before that, so people
are missing more payments. However, the default rate on these
is only like two to three percent, which is much
lower than a traditional credit card, which is closer to
ten percent.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
We talked about this when we were recapping the Black
Friend sales, which were good, but there was a lot
of binow pay later in there, and Saty and I
were kind of like trying to tease out good thing
or bad thing?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Is this bad or good? Like to me, that sounds like.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
People don't have enough money they're spending me on their means.
You tack that on with default rates going up on
credit cards and you're like, uh oh, this seems bad.
This seems like the kind of like fintech industry has
like gotten together with the retail industry to convince people
to spend money that they don't have.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (16:28):
I think it's something that like should be looked at
as a red flag, although we don't necessarily know exactly
what it means at this point. The Black Friday to
Cyber Monday or like Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period was
enormous for by Now Pay Later. It was usage of
those services was up I think six percentage points over
(16:50):
last year according to one survey. And on Cyber Monday,
over a billion dollars in e commerce spending was done
via Bye Now Pay Later services and the U which
is the first time it's cracked a billion dollars in
a day. And you know, about seven percent of all
online purchases that day were by Now Pay Later, which
is for a type of payment plan that only really
(17:12):
became widely available in the US like ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Ish really kind of really got traction during the pandemic,
I think.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I mean, it's not that old.
Speaker 9 (17:22):
Yeah, it's really not that old. Some of these companies
started in the twenty tens. Klarna was started in Sweden
and then came here in the twenty tens. This is
all like fairly new.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
The other thing I think I've heard a lot about
buy Now Pay Later is that some things are big purchases,
like couches and refrigerators. But also by Now pay Later
has started to show up in things like grocery services.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And we got to talk about the burrito back security,
reno back security.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I mean, people are splitting up very small purchases, which
seems like another potential red flag and maybe a signal
from consumers that like of distress.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
But when do you think, yeah.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
You know, if you look at like the purchase of
a refrigerator, the purchase of a new laptop, a new
iPhone because your one just broke and you didn't plan
for that expense something like that, if you look at
an option to pay it over the course of a
couple of months at no interest, like that is a
rational decision to make, Like, I think that there are
good use cases for these, especially when consumer credit card
(18:22):
interest rates have have really risen in the.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Past several years.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Then there's the burrito.
Speaker 9 (18:26):
Then there's the burritos.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, so are there so in case people haven't followed
this like you can, there are some door dash offers
the car and so that has led to jokes like
people are buying burritos in four parts and then that
is l which is yeah, gross, And that has led
to another level of of sort of joke, which is
the prospect that these finance companies that are lending you
(18:51):
money to buy burritos are then securitizing that debt and
selling them to like Goldman Sacks or something as burrito
backed securities are there, Burrito securities, abandon them all.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Essentially, Yeah, Like.
Speaker 9 (19:05):
I think in a in a manner of speaking, yes,
because the pot of money that these lenders are drawing
from is you know, private investors, it's private equity, it's
all of these things that are how private credit, private credit,
it's how you know, any company that needs a big
pot of money is getting money nowadays. Klarna is a
(19:29):
public company now they went public in September, but a
lot of these services either aren't public or they're part
of like a much larger company that like isn't necessarily
a bank, so it doesn't have to hear to banking
regulations and transparency. So like where how much debt exists
in this form, and like where it is, and like
what it was used on, and the likelihood of getting
(19:50):
paid back is just sort of difficult to discern, I would.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Say, Amanda Mall, thank you so much for talking with us.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Come back later. Yeah, thanks for having me, Thanks for
being here.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Now, all right, Stacey, we have talked about crypto a
bunch this year, partly because big story in twenty twenty five,
partly because, uh, you know, crypto currencies, the acid class
(20:22):
have boomed.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Some of that I think because of hype caused by
the Trump administration, and some of it because the Trump
administration itself and in particular Trump and his family members
are like making tons and tons of money.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Now they're releasing the crypto adventures.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
This is all kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There are a bunch of crazy little angles of this,
and the craziest one, I think are these meme coins,
the Trump coin, and we have in our midst Zeke
Fox of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He just wrote a story with
Max Abelson, Donald and Malania Trump's terrible, tacky, seemingly legal
meme coin adventure. Zeke is also the author of Number
(21:02):
Go Up, which is like the best book that has
been written about the weird world of crypto and ZEGI
is here now.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Heyzeke, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
All Right, So before we talk about this Trump coin,
which is what your story is about, I just have
to ask you, like, before Donald Trump was elected, it
kind of seemed like this entire industry was gonna go away,
and like the I may have been, I think I've
made this point the last time you were on this podcast,
But like there were all these guys to former titans
(21:32):
of industry who are like in prison or disgraced, and
the whole industry seemed like in the duldrums. And if
you wake up now and look and like, not only
are they all back, but they are all in like
positions of kind of power, And I'm wondering, like how
that happened.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 8 (21:53):
The regulators in the US were kind of a sleep
at the wheel during the lastpto boom under Biden, and
then towards the end they woke up and they said, hey,
all of this like crypto trading are doing, we don't
actually think almost any of this is legal at all,
and they filed big lawsuits against all of the big
(22:15):
crypto exchanges like coinbase, Binance. These lawsuits basically would have
put the crypto industry out of business, and the industry
realized they had a political problem and that there could
be a political solution, and they tried two different approaches.
(22:37):
One group raised a lot of money and they donated
a lot to congressional candidates. The crypto industry actually spent
more on the last election cycle than any other industry,
even like oil.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Right, yes, more than like tech or anything.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
They spent one hundred and fifty million. They spent against
one senator who had said some kind of critical things
about crypt but didn't even really seem to have strong
opinions about it, Shared Brown. They spent forty million dollars
on his election and defeated him. He was replaced by
a used car dealer with some crypto experience.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Bernie Marino, Yes, and a used car entrepreneur an owner
of dealerships.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
So but there there was a second group of crypto people.
They said, you know what, this lobbying is all fine,
but the Democrats are the ones who've gone after us.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Why don't we get behind Trump?
Speaker 8 (23:40):
And this wing was led by some really enthusiastic bitcoin fans,
in particular the guy who runs Bitcoin magazine, and he
runs this annual conference for every year, like ten thousand
bitcoin fans get together and talk about how cool bitcoin
(24:01):
is and how it's going to solve all the world's problems.
And last year he arranged a fundraiser before the conference.
They got people to pledge something like twenty five million
dollars to Trump. An RFK who was then a candidate.
He was supposed to be the main attraction, but he
got bumped for Trump. He held this fundraiser. He came
(24:25):
out on stage and he gave this speech in which
he promised the crypto industry everything they could have hoped for.
He said he would fire the head of the SEC
the one who had filed all these lawsuits against the
biggest players. He said that if the if crypto's going
to the moon, the US should lead the way.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And because this is like maybe a critical time for
crypto at this moment.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, and Trump wanted money.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I mean, he wanted their support, he wanted their he
wanted their dollars and their votes. I think so the
industry they get behind Trump, and I think the plan
is he's gonna do a bunch of things to help
them from a regulatory and he's gonna he's gonna fire
Gary Gensler, he's gonna make a strategic picking reserve, he's gonna,
you know, make a do a bunch of stuff that's
gonna be great for the industry.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
No, that's the plan.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And then there's like this one, this thing that I
think they did not entirely count on, which is that
he would also enter the industry himself. So, like just
before the inauguration, we get this trump coin.
Speaker 8 (25:30):
Yes, so it's inauguration weekend and some of these crypto
guys who had backed Trump put on a crypto ball
in DC at a big auditorium just down the street
from the White House, and who's who of the crypto
industry had gathered there, and Trump on truth Social announces
(25:57):
that he's created trump Coin, and people aren't sure what
to make of it. This is a meme coin, and
I want to explain what they are. So a lot
of cryptocurrencies make promises that they're going to make finance
more efficient, that they're going to make it cheaper to
(26:19):
transfer money across borders, or.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Stable coin like they're going to be pegged to a currency.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Be pegged to a currency.
Speaker 8 (26:25):
It's like a new venture that's new trading venture, like defive,
and a meme coin is none of that. It's a
coin that transparently does not do anything, and it's just saying, hey,
here I am this is kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
If people buy it, it will go up.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
It's like a joke sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay, So so my question is, and this is kind.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
The day of the cyberball at the center of your story,
just before the inauguration.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
How involved was Trump in this?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I mean, like he We've read a lot of stories
suggesting he ate a lot of money or on paper,
a huge amount of money initially and then less money
is it as it fell? How involved was Trump? And
like who are the players in this Trump coin?
Speaker 8 (27:13):
What we were told that in the weeks before inauguration
down at mar A Lago, there was kind of a
parade of crypto guys coming through. A lot of them
had donated to the inauguration, that donated to the campaign,
and that there was this push to get this meme
coin done. There's a belief that a president Alex meme
(27:33):
coin was somehow more legal than a president.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It had to be locked into place. That's why it
happened at the cyberball.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yes, now.
Speaker 8 (27:44):
I want to say, though there are no rules about
mean coins, no one. I couldn't even tell you what
why a president Alex meme coin is better than a
president's meme coin legally speaking. So something else weird happened
that weekend, though, which was that when Trump announced his coin.
I mean, this is by far the biggest celebrity who's
ever done a meme coin. It's like, I don't know
(28:04):
what niche hobby to compare it to, but like he's
like the.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Hawk Tua of America is what you're saying.
Speaker 8 (28:12):
So the coin really got going, it's got it gets
up to like seventy bucks in that day with it
on that weekend.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But then I'm.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Something something else happened that within the crypto world was
viewed as a rugging.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh okay, what happened was, yeah, because how did the
crypt so how did the people the crypto ball feel
as this coin was launching? Like are they excited? Does
this feel not quite right?
Speaker 8 (28:39):
The crypto ball during at that time, people there were
worried that Trump had been hacked because there was this
trend of hackers getting into people's Twitter and announcing meme coins.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Oh say, there's nothing stopping you from launching your own
trump coin that has nothing to do with Trump, Like
I just call it the dj T token or whatever.
And it wasn't totally clear that he was involved with
it until he truthed. Until her even though there was
some concern that was.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Not people were just like this isn't real.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Yeah, okay, So it becomes clear it's real, it's really
going and then Milania announces her own meme coin.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Okay, and this one takes off two but less so
I remember.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
Less So then crashes and it brings trump Coin down
with it, and people that day, on the day the
Millennia launch, when when the Millennia crashes, trump Coin goes
down to trump Coin has not crashed as hard as
Millennia coin. It's down about like ninety percent. It's kind
of been a.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Is a lot down.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
Milania coin is down ninety nine percent, which is a
lot worse.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
What was the time frame here between when the coin
launched and when it lost ninety slash ninety nine percent
of its value?
Speaker 8 (29:53):
Trump Coin it got all the way we're talking about
the decline from the peak once it hit seventy I
think within like a day of that it lost at
least half its value. All the action is that weekend.
It's been much less exciting since then. So again, a
meme coin is nothing. There's never any expectation.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
It's not backed bad thing.
Speaker 8 (30:13):
That the President's going to do anything to make this
meme coin valuable. The only thing he can do is
talk about it, and when he started talking about his
wife's coin. This is kind of like a breaking of
the implicit contract with your meme coin buyers. How come
(30:33):
when you announce a meme coin, you are basically promising
that you will promote that coin for at least a
couple of days. You can't then start talking about your
family member's coins.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Wait, so it's like he's taking too much from the problem.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Is he like promoted his coin and then immediately promoted
its like too many coin launches and at the same time, yes,
why is that breaking the code?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
The meme coin thrives on attention, and if you start
driving a into some other coin.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
You're splitting attention.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
And also, there's only so many people that want to
gamble on meme coins, and they only have so much money.
And I'm going to say like a lot of money,
like billions of dollars, but not like trillions. So if
you start telling people about a new coin.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It's not a deep market.
Speaker 8 (31:19):
They're going to sell their existing coins to get in
on the new one.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
The view is that he got greedy, right, It's like
it's like you're getting greedy.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
Yeah, so people weren't sure I mean, it seems hard
to believe, but like, did Donald and Millenia.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Speak to each other about these coins? Were these two
opposing camps. It's a little bit.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Blowing my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So the problem that the crypto community felt was not
that someone who was about to go into the White
House had launched a crypto coin and all.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The potential implications of that.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The problem was that he launched another coin which took
attention away from that and potentially was like rugging the
people who had believed in him enough to buy his coin.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yes, to be clear, No, there were people in the
crypto world who hated this, in particular the camp that
Ze brought up early on, the people who were like
investing in campaigns and like they found this.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
There's some crypto people who didn't like this.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, I will say so, it's a lot
of people would say they found this distasteful. This isn't
what crypto stands for. And now what I will note
is that they were all very quick to list the
meme coin on their trading platforms, and that when I
think what some of them told me is that yet
this is kind of a helpful conflict of interest, like
(32:37):
Trump has made a lot of promises to us.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
We don't know if he's going to follow through. But
now he's in on it himself. He's got regulate crypto, right.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
He's got skin in the game.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Is that a reason?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, that's a great point, great great transition, because I
wanted to ask you, like how much money he made
and and like on paper there were some crazy estimates.
It's gone down a lot. I mean, we're how rich
did the president get and the president's wife on these
on these two meme coins.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
Yeah, so it can be a bit tricky to calculate
because it's so easy to create wealth on paper. If
I make a billion zeke coins, I saw you one
for a dollar, Now I'm a billionaire technically. But because uh,
and on paper, the Trumps at one point were sitting
on fifty billion dollars of meme coin.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Do they own it?
Speaker 8 (33:33):
We don't know exactly what they're split is with their
business partners, but yes. Now, because a lot of this
trading happens on the blockchain, where it can be if
you know what to look for, you can gather a
lot of data about how the about the trading.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I talked to.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
Two crypto research firms Chain Analysis and bubble maps. Together,
they had calculated that the Trump family made more than
three hundred and fifty million dollars off these two meme
coins combined.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And that's a lot that money that they've coins that
they've sold and turned out of paper into dollars real money.
Speaker 8 (34:16):
Yes, I mean this really beats Trump sneakers, Trump guitars, Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Fragrance fight Fight Fight did not make nearly three hundred
and fifty dollars thousand dollars million, oh.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Million, three hundred and fifty million. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And now Trump he has acted.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
And this seems very believable that he really does not
know very much about any of this at a.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, he's old school, I mean, in fairness, it is
a whole world and it's not his world.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
Yes, and so at a press conference, on his first
press conference as president, uh, he was asked about this
and he flipped the question on the reporter and was like,
how much did I make on that? And the reporter
was like, as a president, I think like billions of dollars.
The data wasn't quite so good then, and he was like, ooh,
but it's nothing compared to he was standing with like
(35:05):
Elon Musk, He's like, yeah, billions, who cares? At a
different press conference, and this was one of my favorite
parts of the story. The Press secretary was asked about
on an event that dinner that Trump was hosting for
the top buyers of his meme coin, and she said
(35:28):
it wasn't relevant that he was doing that in his
personal time, Like he just clocked out for the day.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
He's not president anymore, just whatever he does. Who cares?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Zeke Fox, author of Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild
Rise and Staggery Fall, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 8 (35:45):
Thanks Facts, Thanks Stacy, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
I had to share a little listener feedback that came
into the Everybody's Business mailbox last week. Really fun email
from Matt in regards to our conversation about Donald Trump
and the difference between football and guess.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yes, this is when Donald Trump was like, we should
call soccer football, which is very right.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Shock. I was offended on behalf of all American sports chauvinists.
But here's Matt, as an avid fan of the beautiful
game in North America, I would welcome being able to
call the sport football or football like the rest of
the world. Soccer is just one more mistake we got
from the British, much like imperial units, which we should
have dumped Inton Boston Harbor, along with the tea worth
(36:35):
noting as well that Britain itself has since fixed both mistakes.
He goes on to talk about how popular soccer is,
and then says the NFL, in contrast, is an American
entertainment franchise and could be renamed something more catchy by
their immense marketing team, perhaps touchdown exclamation point or I
don't know, desperate quarterbacks say thanks for the fun podcast,
(36:57):
I'll sign up.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
He wants to change the name of football to desperate quarterback.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
You want to change it?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Okay, I don't think that one, Matt Matt in Seattle, Sorry,
desperate Quarterbacks is not good.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
But touchdown exclamation point excellent.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I think you think the game of football should now
be called the game of American football should now be
called touchdown.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I am on the record saying that it's soccer and that,
and I think Matt is very confused, Like I understand
like this, there's kind of like a patriotism thing here,
like we dumped soccer, but we have football.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
But but like football is also a British word.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
So I just think I am on the record saying
it should be called the NFL should be called football.
The beautiful game should be soccer. But I do like
Matt's idea that touchdown.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Okay, it has to be with the exclamation point.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I mean, I just feel like football, you know, Listen,
I love free trade.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I mean, I think globalization is a very positive force.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I am a person I like to consider myself a
cosmopolitan person.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
And it's just football. I don't know why break it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, No, that's so much.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
I feel like there's so much changing in our world
right now. I just want this one thing to say
the same.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Okay, thank you MAV for the email.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Yes, thank you for the email.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Everyone.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Please keep writing in everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
We really like the emails we keep reading.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Okay, Well, while we were on the topic of sports, Max,
you have an underrated story also about sports.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
What's what's your underrated story?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
You're probably familiar with this problem we have in American
society and in American corporations where you have these kind
of older workers who are crowding out younger workers. Right,
like the kind of zoomers and millennials who feel like
they can't get a job, they can't rise within the
organization because because they're too many old people taking their jobs, and.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
You frequently people won't retire.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah. You frequently see these very smart op eds written
in like, you know whatever, the Atlantic or Bloomberg opinion
about the gar intocracy talking about Joe Biden being very
old or Donald Trump being very old.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
It seems bad.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Now I have another example of this in an unlikely area,
which is professional football. I don't know if you're paying attention,
but last weekend, the new quarterback, the fresh faced quarterback
for the Indianapolis Colts, who is Philip Rivers, who is
forty four years old and who retired almost five years
ago ago for the NFL, who got into a game
last week essentially out of desperation, and although he did
(39:22):
not lead the team to victory, it was kind of
like an honorable defeat. And he's got another starting job.
He's going to be starting this weekend for the Colts
as a play I believe the forty nine ers. So
we're gonna have a forty four year old NFL.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
It's great, is it?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Though? So this is what's.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Weird to me, everyone thinks it's great, and I guess
it is kind of great. There's something just sort of
fun I think about, like an out of shape professional athlete,
Like we all, why do you.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Say he's out of shape? He is a professional athlete.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
If you watch him play, you will see like he is.
He is on the older side.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
He's not a scrambler.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
He's definitely he's lumbering at this point, I think in
his But you know, so there's this like interesting thing
happening where, yes, like the physical gifts aren't there, the
passes aren't great, he doesn't move very well, but a
big part of being a quarterback is is like understanding
the offense and making smart decisions.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
And it's kind of like that.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
The reason why the boomer is still in that you know,
middle management job and not a millennial or a zoomer,
it's because they they may be a little slower, they
may not be as hip to the kids, but they
understand kind of the ins and outs of the organization.
But anyway, what I think is just funny is that
everyone is like rooting for Philip Rivers.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
And it feels like a weird.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It feels like kind of discordant with our with the
rest of the conversation on on the gerontocracy. How come
no one is rooting for Joe Biden when he's like
slurring his words or whatever during a debate, or Donald
Trump is he's falling asleep in the Oval office. Like,
I feel like we need to kind of get on
one page and whether it's cool to have elderly people
in jobs.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I think, actually, this is a big conversation that we
should have. And I think we will be working later
and later and longer and longer because our health has improved,
our healthcare is improved, and also like retirement is just
a much different thing than it used to be.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think it's a good thing that the workplace is not.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I mean, I feel like the US were just so
youth obsessed. It's always like, what's the next thing? What's
the next thing? Like what are the eighteen to twenty
four year olds buying? But the reality of like our
demographics is that things are should be more holistic. I
think there is a place for zoomers and a place
for boomers in the same workplace. Like I don't think
one precludes the other. I don't think it's a zero
(41:35):
sum game. I think I think we should honor older workers.
I think older workers have a lot to contribute.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Well exactly, like, so I'm forty three, when you're younger
than Philip.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Rivery got, you've still got some years in your career.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
My kids they think, like, I'm pretty good at you know, baseball,
I'm pretty good at kicking the soccer ball. They think
I could be a professional athlete. And they're always tell
me like, oh, well, like you could be in you
could be a baseball player. You could do this because
they bring up one example or like my son watches
American Ninja Warrior and he's always telling me like, Dad,
there was a sixty year old on American Ninja Warrior.
So yeah, fine, see so yeah, so this is like
(42:09):
another data point, I guess in that case, but I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
We'll see if he what happens this weekend.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I do have an interesting data point that kind of
backs up what your kids are saying. In the business world,
there was this really interesting study done about the startups
and like the most successful startups, and as it turned out,
the most successful startups were started by people in their forties.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Obviously, in the business world, the kind of like youth
doesn't give you the same advantage as it gives you
as it gives you in the NFL, where like you know,
you need to be able to cut or whatever, and.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
The feel faster and yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
The fact that even like physically limited, his sort of
experience and decision making is enough to make up for that.
To the point they can't find any quarterback out there
anywhere who anyone who just graduated from college who can
pete in the NFL. Like, it tells you something that
that like these skills, these like maybe these soft skills.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
I'm sure they could find other people, but he might
just be better.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
He's better general.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I think it's I mean, I think there's something with
where the coach knows him or whatever. But still I
think there is something to the fact that to the
fact that like, once you get down to your third
string quarterback, which is where they were your bait, you
might be better off just getting a guy who was
coaching high school football in Alabama for the last five years,
which was what Philip Hurbs was doing.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
The show is produced by Stacy Wong. Magnus Hendrickson is
our supervising producer, and Amy Kean is our executive producer.
Sam Roganic handles engineering and Dave for self fact checks.
Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, Charlie Gorivin, and Maria Ling. If you have
a minute, please rate and review the show. It does
mean a lot to us, and if you have a
(43:55):
story that should be our business, please email us. Everybody's
at Bloomberg dot net. That is, everybody's with ans at
Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 8 (44:09):
M
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Bannocksmith.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I'm Max Chefkin Stacy. It's the holiday season. I feel
like we've been in the holiday season for a while,
but it's still he like it never, it's never gonna end.
But you know what, we're companies are finally in the black.
All these retail stores, right they depend on holiday sales.
We're about halfway through, and now is the time when
they're making money. And one of the ways they're making money,
(00:39):
as we'll learn in one of our segments, is through
these buy now, pay later loans.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yes, one of the ways they're making money is by
demanding less money.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
It's odd.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Amanda mal is going to talk about that, and speaking
of buying things, we're going to talk about the hot
item of twenty twenty five. I'm of course talking about
the Trump meme coin as well as the Marania meme
coin with Zeke.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Fox, our colleague crypto expert.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He's coming here to talk to talk about his new
story in BusinessWeek about all the weird ways that crypto
and politics are intersecting.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
And Max for our underrated story.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You have brought us the story, and it is apparently
about age inclusive scores or something.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
That's right, Yeah, right, it's about opening up professional.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Sports to the elder, to the wizendelder, to the wizend elder. Excellent,
All right, Stacey.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's been a couple of weeks since we've gotten any
kind of economic data. Maybe I'm maybe I hallucinate that,
but it feels like it's been a while. But now
all of a sudden, there's a lot a lot of
information coming out about the economy.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
What kind of mix, I guess, yes.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I mean, you're right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
The government shutdown meant that a lot of government data
wasn't collected and wasn't you know, given out. And it's
hard because this is a really feels like a really
crucial time in the economy. Things feel a little bit
fragile and shaky. This week, we did get some jobs
information out, some of the jobs numbers. It was mixed, Yeah,
I would say mixed to not great. Three major takeaways here.
(02:06):
The first one is the unemployment rate crept up a
little bit more to four point six percent. It's not
good that it's been rising rising, but under five percent
is still historically really low, so it's not terrible news,
but it's not great. Also, there's a really interesting statistic
in there that the share of workers working more than
one job has risen to five point seven percent, which
(02:28):
is the highest it's been in twenty five years, which
may point to maybe people not being able to afford
things as much, or having to take on multiple jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Or wages being not growing as quickly as people would hope,
or maybe there's just a lot of freaking jobs in
the economy and all so many jobs.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Different styles of working.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think that's a really good point that this isn't
necessarily bad, that like the way we work is a
little different now. But in addition to that, what you
said about the hiring, I think is the big job's
news of this shar which is the hiring is just
at the lowest level it's been in years and years
and years. The job market is a little bit dead,
and layoffs are rising slightly, and so I think people
(03:09):
workers do not feel great about the job market. Everyone
feels a little bit like they're kind of holding onto
their jobs. And then in certain sectors, the only sector
that's like really hiring this year was healthcare everything else
almost was shedding jobs or barely adding jobs. I talked
with one worker for a Business Week story, This guy,
Brett Vergara.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
He worked at a big tech company.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
He was actually a project manager on an AI team,
and so he thought his job was pretty safe. But
then he was laid off in October, and he said,
right now, trying to apply for jobs is really tough.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
When you're just applying into the void and never hearing anything,
it can definitely be tough to keep up momentum.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Be like, but let me do that again.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
And it's always fun too. When you get a rejection,
like immediately after applying something, it's like, okay, well it
does have like this to just completely ruin your day.
I wish I was better at being able to shrug
those things off, but I am not. I'm not the
best at that.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, that's a I mean, that's a universal thing. Oh yeah,
that's all. That's all, you know, whatever is going on
with the economy. I think that is a feeling people
have right this kind of Yes, you got to apply
to a bunch of things cold, there's a lot of rejection, and.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There's a lot of AI built into the job system now,
so so what he's talking about like this, Sometimes the
second you fill out an application, they're like, Nope, you
don't fit this bill. So it is like kind of
shocking to get immediately.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Have you ever tried to return something on Amazon and
you have to talk to the chatbot? Like, yeah, it's
like that, but you're applying for it's like circular, like
my future and the thing on the other side of
it is just like thank you for.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Dear applicant and the other thing. Brett said.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So, at the same time this is happening, he's also
hearing about more and more layoffs in his field, and
he said, on the one hand, really it's kind of
comforting because he's seeing really good people losing their job.
It's like, okay, well, really really great people with great
skills are losing their jobs. But then also he's realizing
that now they're all applying for the same jobs.
Speaker 5 (05:12):
When you hear that next wave of layoffs from Amazon
or like Target or Meta or Google or whatever, it's.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
Like, oh, I'm now competing against all those people immediately, yeah,
and like and like you know, and it's like, oh,
we're getting put against each other even though we're in
the same circumstances or similar circumstances. But yeah, it's like, oh,
all these people who I also know who are plenty
qualified as well.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
And he said the people he knows that do have
jobs are also unhappy because they feel stuck. So it's
just a it's a bad moment in the job market,
I think exactly because of the hiring numbers.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, all right, well let's look ahead, writer, Yes, maybe twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Twenty twenty six. I mean, there are some signs that
twenty twenty six might be getting better. We've got good
inflation numbers. Inflation seems to have come down a little.
The data is a little difficult because a lot it
wasn't collected in the normal way because of the shutdown.
But here's hoping that the hiring rate picks up in
the new year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
All right, well, we wanted to hear about your New
year's resolution.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Yes, it's the resolution time.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
We sent Charlie Gorvin, Bloomberg reporter out onto the streets
to sort of ask people what their resolutions were, what
their what their financial resolutions were, what their personal resolutions were,
And this is what he came back with.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Do you have a resolution with that?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Again?
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Yeah, I have a new year's resolution, get outside more.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, I would like to read more books, probably trying
to better myself mentally than smogan less weeds.
Speaker 7 (06:39):
We're entering twenty twenty six with a big question mark,
and what are.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
You hoping to shop forward forty years? The way to
that came, whatever I need.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Well, I'm planning on getting rid of my startphone this year,
so I'm like, I'll have more time to not like
look at my Facebook reels because.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Everyone says like it's good, healthy Gord to Virginia. But
let's see how long that lasts. My new year's resolution
is to watch a fewer reels. My new year's resolution.
Speaker 8 (07:03):
I think that just being a city like this, growing
my career, connect with old friends and new ones, I
think it's something that I really want to be present for.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
In January is like an arbitrary number. It's an arbitrary date.
It's like, if you want to change your life, do
it tomorrow. I'm also at a certain age where I'm like,
I'm really just like happy to be alive.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I do have to say I love the woman who's
like my resolution is to shop more. That is the
American economy saying yes.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, I'm just struck by how prominent Facebook reels are
in that in those ress like.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, well I think less screen time.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Right, Yeah, they want to. I was thinking, maybe my
resolution is going to be like lots of screen time.
Oh yeah, I'm just going deep in Facebook.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Shot more and spend more time online.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
I need to help these last time with friends.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I need to help these trillion dollar online you know,
internet companies increase their per user time spent every every week.
I'm going to do my part. I like that because
the stock market needs it.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Well, I feel like I'm going to eat more sugar
and try to spend more time inside alone. So, Max,
we just heard a bunch of resolutions, and obviously, you know,
the difficult economy right now is weighing on everybody's minds.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Yeah, lot of uncertainty, and I know that the way
I deal with uncertainty is by putting it off into
the future.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I think that's always a good plan, and in fact,
a lot of people are doing that, not just with
their futures, but with their finances. We've got senior reporter
Amanda Mole with us. She is the author of the
Buying Power column at BusinessWeek, Amanda, you just wrote a
great article about buy now, Pay later.
Speaker 9 (08:46):
Yes, the topic of our time is really yes, earlyist,
I would argue, so if you don't mind first describing
what buy now pay later is and then also just
talk about what's been happening lately. Yeah, So buy Now
Pay Later, which is often abbreviated BMPL, is like a
fintech type of business. They specialize in basically what is
(09:07):
like short term micro loans. So if you are buying
a new couch, if you want a new outfit for
your birthday, if you want a new handbag that you
don't want to pay for right now, then what you
can do at retailers that offer buy now, pay later
vendors for payment is that you can split that purchase
up into small payments over a short period of time.
(09:28):
The most common type of buy now, pay later loan
is a what they call pay in four, which splits
it up and splits the purchase up into quarters roughly,
and then you pay like every two weeks, every week,
every month, like it depends on the terms of the
lender you're dealing with. These lending decisions are made algorithmically
(09:50):
very quickly at the point of sale for in most cases,
there's also like membership programs that some of them offer.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Also, like when you're online buying stuff, I feel like
this will often come up. It would like, would you
with this instead of putting your credit card.
Speaker 9 (10:03):
In right, And on a lot of like individual product
pages that you're if you're looking at, like a new refrigerator,
it might say this is the price today or as
low as however much with a firm or with Klarna,
these services are pretty widely advertised within the shopping experience.
They are part of the decision calculus for a lot
(10:24):
of purchases in the US, and they are getting more
and more popular and more and more difficult to understand
exactly how they function within the world of consumer finance
because they do not, you know, do a hard credit pull.
The debt you accrue to them generally does not show
up on your credit score or on your credit report.
(10:46):
So yeah, until your default, they some of them might
start messing with your credit history if you stop paying.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I mean it sounds a lot like a credit card
in some ways, right, Like you you buy the thing,
and then you know your credit card payment comes in
and we all know, you know how credit card works,
so if you if you don't pay awfully for the month,
you end up paying a little bit more by note
pay later. I think if you make the four payments,
you don't pay interest. But what happens if you don't
(11:15):
make those payments.
Speaker 9 (11:18):
In a lot of cases, especially with these like four
part loans, there's no interest. If you opt into something longer,
there may be interest. The more you spread it out,
the more they're gonna charge you, generally, and it depends
on what kind of loan you take out with them
as to how it works. If you stop paying, some
of them will just sort of like continue trying to collect.
(11:39):
Some of them, depending on the size of the loan
and the policies of the particular lender, you maybe get
hit with interest that wouldn't have been there otherwise. They
may pursue you through the credit bureaus if they can.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
They come kind of take your fridge back. Though, if
you don't pay. Is it like a car loan? No,
not necessarily. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (12:00):
They most of these loans are like fairly small for
a couple hundred, couple thousand dollars, and a lot of
them are done sort of informally relative to like taking
out a car loan.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
At first glance, it really seems like one of these
zerp businesses that zero interest rate policy.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
So like a bunch of tech.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Companies got big when interest rates were really low because
basically borrowing money was free. So giving away a gazillion
interest free loans to buy refrigerators is like maybe a
good deal when interest rates are low, the economy is good,
et cetera, et cetera. But seems like not obviously like
a great business to me today, And so I'm wondering,
(12:42):
like what is happening there, Like how have they managed
to keep growing and how are these businesses actually making
money if they're just like giving away free money to
anyone without even bothering to like check their credit.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Well, the main revenue stream that they have is that
they do transaction fees with the retailers they partner with.
So if you use Klarna, which is the market leader
both in the US and worldwide in this type of service,
it's a Swedish company, to buy a new designer handbag
and it costs you three thousand dollars, Klarna will be
(13:17):
paid a portion of that sale, a small percentage of
that sale by the retailer, and this happens with credit
cards too, interchange fees, transaction fees, swhite fees, if you
use an electronic form of payment anything other than cash.
Really there is a little bit of money going from
the retailer to the person who processes that payment, so
that is generally how they make their money. Some of
them also offer longer term, larger loans that do charge interest,
(13:41):
so they do have interest payments coming in from some
of their borrowers.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
So this is like an entry point to having a
deeper financial relationship with you the borrower. I see this,
I click on it, I buy the fridge. Yeah, and
then Klarna convinces me down the road to borrow some
more money from them.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (13:57):
And like as with any sort of like consumer choice,
like getting people to do something the first time that
they're not used to doing or that they're not sure
if it will work, is like the big thing. Once
you have made a by now pay later purchase, you're
really likely to make a second one. In a recent
survey that lending Tree did of like couple thousand by
(14:20):
now pay Later users, the majority of them had at
some point in the past had two or more loans
going at once. And it's definitely true that these types
of lenders over index in their customer base with types
of people who are not necessarily credit worthy by traditional
(14:40):
credit card issuer or lender standards. Their customer base, which
is about ninety one million people in the US right now,
so it's a huge Yeah, it's grown a lot in
the past several years. So their customer base tends to
skew young, it tends to skew single. There's a lot
of young parents that use it. There's a lot of
(15:01):
overlap between people who are young and single and have
a child. So because they don't have a credit history,
they have other debt where.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They might be able to get a credit card with
a really high interest rate, but wouldn't be able to
get like great credit right.
Speaker 9 (15:13):
And what's interesting is that in the numbers that I've seen,
like the percentage of people who use by Now Pay
Later who have missed a payment or been laid on
a payment in the past year is really big and
it's growing. That same Lending Tree survey found that it
was forty one percent of by Now Pay Later borrowers
(15:33):
in the last year had missed a payment.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Wow, And that's why to be way higher than a
credit card.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
And it's up from thirty four percent the year before
and thirty one percent the year before that, so people
are missing more payments. However, the default rate on these
is only like two to three percent, which is much
lower than a traditional credit card, which is closer to
ten percent.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
We talked about this when we were recapping the Black
Friend sales, which were good, but there was a lot
of binow pay later in there, and Saty and I
were kind of like trying to tease out good thing
or bad thing?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Is this bad or good? Like to me, that sounds like.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
People don't have enough money they're spending me on their means.
You tack that on with default rates going up on
credit cards and you're like, uh oh, this seems bad.
This seems like the kind of like fintech industry has
like gotten together with the retail industry to convince people
to spend money that they don't have.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (16:28):
I think it's something that like should be looked at
as a red flag, although we don't necessarily know exactly
what it means at this point. The Black Friday to
Cyber Monday or like Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period was
enormous for by Now Pay Later. It was usage of
those services was up I think six percentage points over
(16:50):
last year according to one survey. And on Cyber Monday,
over a billion dollars in e commerce spending was done
via Bye Now Pay Later services and the U which
is the first time it's cracked a billion dollars in
a day. And you know, about seven percent of all
online purchases that day were by Now Pay Later, which
is for a type of payment plan that only really
(17:12):
became widely available in the US like ten years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Ish really kind of really got traction during the pandemic,
I think.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
I mean, it's not that old.
Speaker 9 (17:22):
Yeah, it's really not that old. Some of these companies
started in the twenty tens. Klarna was started in Sweden
and then came here in the twenty tens. This is
all like fairly new.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
The other thing I think I've heard a lot about
buy Now Pay Later is that some things are big purchases,
like couches and refrigerators. But also by Now pay Later
has started to show up in things like grocery services.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
And we got to talk about the burrito back security,
reno back security.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I mean, people are splitting up very small purchases, which
seems like another potential red flag and maybe a signal
from consumers that like of distress.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
But when do you think, yeah.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
You know, if you look at like the purchase of
a refrigerator, the purchase of a new laptop, a new
iPhone because your one just broke and you didn't plan
for that expense something like that, if you look at
an option to pay it over the course of a
couple of months at no interest, like that is a
rational decision to make, Like, I think that there are
good use cases for these, especially when consumer credit card
(18:22):
interest rates have have really risen in the.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Past several years.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Then there's the burrito.
Speaker 9 (18:26):
Then there's the burritos.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, so are there so in case people haven't followed
this like you can, there are some door dash offers
the car and so that has led to jokes like
people are buying burritos in four parts and then that
is l which is yeah, gross, And that has led
to another level of of sort of joke, which is
the prospect that these finance companies that are lending you
(18:51):
money to buy burritos are then securitizing that debt and
selling them to like Goldman Sacks or something as burrito
backed securities are there, Burrito securities, abandon them all.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Essentially, Yeah, Like.
Speaker 9 (19:05):
I think in a in a manner of speaking, yes,
because the pot of money that these lenders are drawing
from is you know, private investors, it's private equity, it's
all of these things that are how private credit, private credit,
it's how you know, any company that needs a big
pot of money is getting money nowadays. Klarna is a
(19:29):
public company now they went public in September, but a
lot of these services either aren't public or they're part
of like a much larger company that like isn't necessarily
a bank, so it doesn't have to hear to banking
regulations and transparency. So like where how much debt exists
in this form, and like where it is, and like
what it was used on, and the likelihood of getting
(19:50):
paid back is just sort of difficult to discern, I would.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Say, Amanda Mall, thank you so much for talking with us.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Come back later. Yeah, thanks for having me, Thanks for
being here.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Now, all right, Stacey, we have talked about crypto a
bunch this year, partly because big story in twenty twenty five,
partly because, uh, you know, crypto currencies, the acid class
(20:22):
have boomed.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Some of that I think because of hype caused by
the Trump administration, and some of it because the Trump
administration itself and in particular Trump and his family members
are like making tons and tons of money.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Now they're releasing the crypto adventures.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
This is all kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There are a bunch of crazy little angles of this,
and the craziest one, I think are these meme coins,
the Trump coin, and we have in our midst Zeke
Fox of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He just wrote a story with
Max Abelson, Donald and Malania Trump's terrible, tacky, seemingly legal
meme coin adventure. Zeke is also the author of Number
(21:02):
Go Up, which is like the best book that has
been written about the weird world of crypto and ZEGI
is here now.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Heyzeke, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
All Right, So before we talk about this Trump coin,
which is what your story is about, I just have
to ask you, like, before Donald Trump was elected, it
kind of seemed like this entire industry was gonna go away,
and like the I may have been, I think I've
made this point the last time you were on this podcast,
But like there were all these guys to former titans
(21:32):
of industry who are like in prison or disgraced, and
the whole industry seemed like in the duldrums. And if
you wake up now and look and like, not only
are they all back, but they are all in like
positions of kind of power, And I'm wondering, like how
that happened.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 8 (21:53):
The regulators in the US were kind of a sleep
at the wheel during the lastpto boom under Biden, and
then towards the end they woke up and they said, hey,
all of this like crypto trading are doing, we don't
actually think almost any of this is legal at all,
and they filed big lawsuits against all of the big
(22:15):
crypto exchanges like coinbase, Binance. These lawsuits basically would have
put the crypto industry out of business, and the industry
realized they had a political problem and that there could
be a political solution, and they tried two different approaches.
(22:37):
One group raised a lot of money and they donated
a lot to congressional candidates. The crypto industry actually spent
more on the last election cycle than any other industry,
even like oil.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Right, yes, more than like tech or anything.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
They spent one hundred and fifty million. They spent against
one senator who had said some kind of critical things
about crypt but didn't even really seem to have strong
opinions about it, Shared Brown. They spent forty million dollars
on his election and defeated him. He was replaced by
a used car dealer with some crypto experience.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Bernie Marino, Yes, and a used car entrepreneur an owner
of dealerships.
Speaker 8 (23:22):
So but there there was a second group of crypto people.
They said, you know what, this lobbying is all fine,
but the Democrats are the ones who've gone after us.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Why don't we get behind Trump?
Speaker 8 (23:40):
And this wing was led by some really enthusiastic bitcoin fans,
in particular the guy who runs Bitcoin magazine, and he
runs this annual conference for every year, like ten thousand
bitcoin fans get together and talk about how cool bitcoin
(24:01):
is and how it's going to solve all the world's problems.
And last year he arranged a fundraiser before the conference.
They got people to pledge something like twenty five million
dollars to Trump. An RFK who was then a candidate.
He was supposed to be the main attraction, but he
got bumped for Trump. He held this fundraiser. He came
(24:25):
out on stage and he gave this speech in which
he promised the crypto industry everything they could have hoped for.
He said he would fire the head of the SEC
the one who had filed all these lawsuits against the
biggest players. He said that if the if crypto's going
to the moon, the US should lead the way.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And because this is like maybe a critical time for
crypto at this moment.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, and Trump wanted money.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
I mean, he wanted their support, he wanted their he
wanted their dollars and their votes. I think so the
industry they get behind Trump, and I think the plan
is he's gonna do a bunch of things to help
them from a regulatory and he's gonna he's gonna fire
Gary Gensler, he's gonna make a strategic picking reserve, he's gonna,
you know, make a do a bunch of stuff that's
gonna be great for the industry.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
No, that's the plan.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And then there's like this one, this thing that I
think they did not entirely count on, which is that
he would also enter the industry himself. So, like just
before the inauguration, we get this trump coin.
Speaker 8 (25:30):
Yes, so it's inauguration weekend and some of these crypto
guys who had backed Trump put on a crypto ball
in DC at a big auditorium just down the street
from the White House, and who's who of the crypto
industry had gathered there, and Trump on truth Social announces
(25:57):
that he's created trump Coin, and people aren't sure what
to make of it. This is a meme coin, and
I want to explain what they are. So a lot
of cryptocurrencies make promises that they're going to make finance
more efficient, that they're going to make it cheaper to
(26:19):
transfer money across borders, or.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Stable coin like they're going to be pegged to a currency.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Be pegged to a currency.
Speaker 8 (26:25):
It's like a new venture that's new trading venture, like defive,
and a meme coin is none of that. It's a
coin that transparently does not do anything, and it's just saying, hey,
here I am this is kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
If people buy it, it will go up.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
It's like a joke sometimes.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Okay, So so my question is, and this is kind.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
The day of the cyberball at the center of your story,
just before the inauguration.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
How involved was Trump in this?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I mean, like he We've read a lot of stories
suggesting he ate a lot of money or on paper,
a huge amount of money initially and then less money
is it as it fell? How involved was Trump? And
like who are the players in this Trump coin?
Speaker 8 (27:13):
What we were told that in the weeks before inauguration
down at mar A Lago, there was kind of a
parade of crypto guys coming through. A lot of them
had donated to the inauguration, that donated to the campaign,
and that there was this push to get this meme
coin done. There's a belief that a president Alex meme
(27:33):
coin was somehow more legal than a president.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It had to be locked into place. That's why it
happened at the cyberball.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yes, now.
Speaker 8 (27:44):
I want to say, though there are no rules about
mean coins, no one. I couldn't even tell you what
why a president Alex meme coin is better than a
president's meme coin legally speaking. So something else weird happened
that weekend, though, which was that when Trump announced his coin.
I mean, this is by far the biggest celebrity who's
ever done a meme coin. It's like, I don't know
(28:04):
what niche hobby to compare it to, but like he's
like the.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Hawk Tua of America is what you're saying.
Speaker 8 (28:12):
So the coin really got going, it's got it gets
up to like seventy bucks in that day with it
on that weekend.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But then I'm.
Speaker 8 (28:24):
Something something else happened that within the crypto world was
viewed as a rugging.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Oh okay, what happened was, yeah, because how did the
crypt so how did the people the crypto ball feel
as this coin was launching? Like are they excited? Does
this feel not quite right?
Speaker 8 (28:39):
The crypto ball during at that time, people there were
worried that Trump had been hacked because there was this
trend of hackers getting into people's Twitter and announcing meme coins.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Oh say, there's nothing stopping you from launching your own
trump coin that has nothing to do with Trump, Like
I just call it the dj T token or whatever.
And it wasn't totally clear that he was involved with
it until he truthed. Until her even though there was
some concern that was.
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Not people were just like this isn't real.
Speaker 8 (29:06):
Yeah, okay, So it becomes clear it's real, it's really
going and then Milania announces her own meme coin.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Okay, and this one takes off two but less so
I remember.
Speaker 8 (29:20):
Less So then crashes and it brings trump Coin down
with it, and people that day, on the day the
Millennia launch, when when the Millennia crashes, trump Coin goes
down to trump Coin has not crashed as hard as
Millennia coin. It's down about like ninety percent. It's kind
of been a.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Is a lot down.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
Milania coin is down ninety nine percent, which is a
lot worse.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
What was the time frame here between when the coin
launched and when it lost ninety slash ninety nine percent
of its value?
Speaker 8 (29:53):
Trump Coin it got all the way we're talking about
the decline from the peak once it hit seventy I
think within like a day of that it lost at
least half its value. All the action is that weekend.
It's been much less exciting since then. So again, a
meme coin is nothing. There's never any expectation.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
It's not backed bad thing.
Speaker 8 (30:13):
That the President's going to do anything to make this
meme coin valuable. The only thing he can do is
talk about it, and when he started talking about his
wife's coin. This is kind of like a breaking of
the implicit contract with your meme coin buyers. How come
(30:33):
when you announce a meme coin, you are basically promising
that you will promote that coin for at least a
couple of days. You can't then start talking about your
family member's coins.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Wait, so it's like he's taking too much from the problem.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Is he like promoted his coin and then immediately promoted
its like too many coin launches and at the same time, yes,
why is that breaking the code?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
That doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 8 (30:56):
The meme coin thrives on attention, and if you start
driving a into some other coin.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
You're splitting attention.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
And also, there's only so many people that want to
gamble on meme coins, and they only have so much money.
And I'm going to say like a lot of money,
like billions of dollars, but not like trillions. So if
you start telling people about a new coin.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It's not a deep market.
Speaker 8 (31:19):
They're going to sell their existing coins to get in
on the new one.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
The view is that he got greedy, right, It's like
it's like you're getting greedy.
Speaker 8 (31:27):
Yeah, so people weren't sure I mean, it seems hard
to believe, but like, did Donald and Millenia.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Speak to each other about these coins? Were these two
opposing camps. It's a little bit.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Blowing my mind.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So the problem that the crypto community felt was not
that someone who was about to go into the White
House had launched a crypto coin and all.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
The potential implications of that.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The problem was that he launched another coin which took
attention away from that and potentially was like rugging the
people who had believed in him enough to buy his coin.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yes, to be clear, No, there were people in the
crypto world who hated this, in particular the camp that
Ze brought up early on, the people who were like
investing in campaigns and like they found this.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
There's some crypto people who didn't like this.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, I will say so, it's a lot
of people would say they found this distasteful. This isn't
what crypto stands for. And now what I will note
is that they were all very quick to list the
meme coin on their trading platforms, and that when I
think what some of them told me is that yet
this is kind of a helpful conflict of interest, like
(32:37):
Trump has made a lot of promises to us.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
We don't know if he's going to follow through. But
now he's in on it himself. He's got regulate crypto, right.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
He's got skin in the game.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Is that a reason?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, that's a great point, great great transition, because I
wanted to ask you, like how much money he made
and and like on paper there were some crazy estimates.
It's gone down a lot. I mean, we're how rich
did the president get and the president's wife on these
on these two meme coins.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
Yeah, so it can be a bit tricky to calculate
because it's so easy to create wealth on paper. If
I make a billion zeke coins, I saw you one
for a dollar, Now I'm a billionaire technically. But because uh,
and on paper, the Trumps at one point were sitting
on fifty billion dollars of meme coin.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Do they own it?
Speaker 8 (33:33):
We don't know exactly what they're split is with their
business partners, but yes. Now, because a lot of this
trading happens on the blockchain, where it can be if
you know what to look for, you can gather a
lot of data about how the about the trading.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I talked to.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
Two crypto research firms Chain Analysis and bubble maps. Together,
they had calculated that the Trump family made more than
three hundred and fifty million dollars off these two meme
coins combined.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
And that's a lot that money that they've coins that
they've sold and turned out of paper into dollars real money.
Speaker 8 (34:16):
Yes, I mean this really beats Trump sneakers, Trump guitars, Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Fragrance fight Fight Fight did not make nearly three hundred
and fifty dollars thousand dollars million, oh.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Million, three hundred and fifty million. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
And now Trump he has acted.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
And this seems very believable that he really does not
know very much about any of this at a.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, he's old school, I mean, in fairness, it is
a whole world and it's not his world.
Speaker 8 (34:44):
Yes, and so at a press conference, on his first
press conference as president, uh, he was asked about this
and he flipped the question on the reporter and was like,
how much did I make on that? And the reporter
was like, as a president, I think like billions of dollars.
The data wasn't quite so good then, and he was like, ooh,
but it's nothing compared to he was standing with like
(35:05):
Elon Musk, He's like, yeah, billions, who cares? At a
different press conference, and this was one of my favorite
parts of the story. The Press secretary was asked about
on an event that dinner that Trump was hosting for
the top buyers of his meme coin, and she said
(35:28):
it wasn't relevant that he was doing that in his
personal time, Like he just clocked out for the day.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
He's not president anymore, just whatever he does. Who cares?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Zeke Fox, author of Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild
Rise and Staggery Fall, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 8 (35:45):
Thanks Facts, Thanks Stacy, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
I had to share a little listener feedback that came
into the Everybody's Business mailbox last week. Really fun email
from Matt in regards to our conversation about Donald Trump
and the difference between football and guess.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yes, this is when Donald Trump was like, we should
call soccer football, which is very right.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Shock. I was offended on behalf of all American sports chauvinists.
But here's Matt, as an avid fan of the beautiful
game in North America, I would welcome being able to
call the sport football or football like the rest of
the world. Soccer is just one more mistake we got
from the British, much like imperial units, which we should
have dumped Inton Boston Harbor, along with the tea worth
(36:35):
noting as well that Britain itself has since fixed both mistakes.
He goes on to talk about how popular soccer is,
and then says the NFL, in contrast, is an American
entertainment franchise and could be renamed something more catchy by
their immense marketing team, perhaps touchdown exclamation point or I
don't know, desperate quarterbacks say thanks for the fun podcast,
(36:57):
I'll sign up.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
He wants to change the name of football to desperate quarterback.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
You want to change it?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Okay, I don't think that one, Matt Matt in Seattle, Sorry,
desperate Quarterbacks is not good.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
But touchdown exclamation point excellent.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
I think you think the game of football should now
be called the game of American football should now be
called touchdown.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I am on the record saying that it's soccer and that,
and I think Matt is very confused, Like I understand
like this, there's kind of like a patriotism thing here,
like we dumped soccer, but we have football.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
But but like football is also a British word.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
So I just think I am on the record saying
it should be called the NFL should be called football.
The beautiful game should be soccer. But I do like
Matt's idea that touchdown.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Okay, it has to be with the exclamation point.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I mean, I just feel like football, you know, Listen,
I love free trade.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
I mean, I think globalization is a very positive force.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I am a person I like to consider myself a
cosmopolitan person.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
And it's just football. I don't know why break it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, No, that's so much.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
I feel like there's so much changing in our world
right now. I just want this one thing to say
the same.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Okay, thank you MAV for the email.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Yes, thank you for the email.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Everyone.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Please keep writing in everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
We really like the emails we keep reading.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Okay, Well, while we were on the topic of sports, Max,
you have an underrated story also about sports.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
What's what's your underrated story?
Speaker 3 (38:25):
You're probably familiar with this problem we have in American
society and in American corporations where you have these kind
of older workers who are crowding out younger workers. Right,
like the kind of zoomers and millennials who feel like
they can't get a job, they can't rise within the
organization because because they're too many old people taking their jobs, and.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
You frequently people won't retire.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah. You frequently see these very smart op eds written
in like, you know whatever, the Atlantic or Bloomberg opinion
about the gar intocracy talking about Joe Biden being very
old or Donald Trump being very old.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
It seems bad.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Now I have another example of this in an unlikely area,
which is professional football. I don't know if you're paying attention,
but last weekend, the new quarterback, the fresh faced quarterback
for the Indianapolis Colts, who is Philip Rivers, who is
forty four years old and who retired almost five years
ago ago for the NFL, who got into a game
last week essentially out of desperation, and although he did
(39:22):
not lead the team to victory, it was kind of
like an honorable defeat. And he's got another starting job.
He's going to be starting this weekend for the Colts
as a play I believe the forty nine ers. So
we're gonna have a forty four year old NFL.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
It's great, is it?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Though? So this is what's.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Weird to me, everyone thinks it's great, and I guess
it is kind of great. There's something just sort of
fun I think about, like an out of shape professional athlete,
Like we all, why do you.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Say he's out of shape? He is a professional athlete.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
If you watch him play, you will see like he is.
He is on the older side.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
He's not a scrambler.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
He's definitely he's lumbering at this point, I think in
his But you know, so there's this like interesting thing
happening where, yes, like the physical gifts aren't there, the
passes aren't great, he doesn't move very well, but a
big part of being a quarterback is is like understanding
the offense and making smart decisions.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
And it's kind of like that.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
The reason why the boomer is still in that you know,
middle management job and not a millennial or a zoomer,
it's because they they may be a little slower, they
may not be as hip to the kids, but they
understand kind of the ins and outs of the organization.
But anyway, what I think is just funny is that
everyone is like rooting for Philip Rivers.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
And it feels like a weird.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It feels like kind of discordant with our with the
rest of the conversation on on the gerontocracy. How come
no one is rooting for Joe Biden when he's like
slurring his words or whatever during a debate, or Donald
Trump is he's falling asleep in the Oval office. Like,
I feel like we need to kind of get on
one page and whether it's cool to have elderly people
in jobs.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I think, actually, this is a big conversation that we
should have. And I think we will be working later
and later and longer and longer because our health has improved,
our healthcare is improved, and also like retirement is just
a much different thing than it used to be.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I think it's a good thing that the workplace is not.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
I mean, I feel like the US were just so
youth obsessed. It's always like, what's the next thing? What's
the next thing? Like what are the eighteen to twenty
four year olds buying? But the reality of like our
demographics is that things are should be more holistic. I
think there is a place for zoomers and a place
for boomers in the same workplace. Like I don't think
one precludes the other. I don't think it's a zero
(41:35):
sum game. I think I think we should honor older workers.
I think older workers have a lot to contribute.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Well exactly, like, so I'm forty three, when you're younger
than Philip.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Rivery got, you've still got some years in your career.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
My kids they think, like, I'm pretty good at you know, baseball,
I'm pretty good at kicking the soccer ball. They think
I could be a professional athlete. And they're always tell
me like, oh, well, like you could be in you
could be a baseball player. You could do this because
they bring up one example or like my son watches
American Ninja Warrior and he's always telling me like, Dad,
there was a sixty year old on American Ninja Warrior.
So yeah, fine, see so yeah, so this is like
(42:09):
another data point, I guess in that case, but I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
We'll see if he what happens this weekend.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I do have an interesting data point that kind of
backs up what your kids are saying. In the business world,
there was this really interesting study done about the startups
and like the most successful startups, and as it turned out,
the most successful startups were started by people in their forties.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Obviously, in the business world, the kind of like youth
doesn't give you the same advantage as it gives you
as it gives you in the NFL, where like you know,
you need to be able to cut or whatever, and.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
The feel faster and yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
The fact that even like physically limited, his sort of
experience and decision making is enough to make up for that.
To the point they can't find any quarterback out there
anywhere who anyone who just graduated from college who can
pete in the NFL. Like, it tells you something that
that like these skills, these like maybe these soft skills.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
I'm sure they could find other people, but he might
just be better.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
He's better general.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I think it's I mean, I think there's something with
where the coach knows him or whatever. But still I
think there is something to the fact that to the
fact that like, once you get down to your third
string quarterback, which is where they were your bait, you
might be better off just getting a guy who was
coaching high school football in Alabama for the last five years,
which was what Philip Hurbs was doing.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
The show is produced by Stacy Wong. Magnus Hendrickson is
our supervising producer, and Amy Kean is our executive producer.
Sam Roganic handles engineering and Dave for self fact checks.
Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcasts. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, Charlie Gorivin, and Maria Ling. If you have
a minute, please rate and review the show. It does
mean a lot to us, and if you have a
(43:55):
story that should be our business, please email us. Everybody's
at Bloomberg dot net. That is, everybody's with ans at
Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 8 (44:09):
M
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