Rachel Webster
Appearances
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
This project is a sometimes funny, sometimes critical, always empathetic, exploration into our relationship with money, stuff, capitalism, trash, income inequality, psychological wounds, ecological crisis, advertising, corporate greed, the college trap, the impending apocalypse, shoes, addiction, codependency, anxiety, consumerism.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
And the people we told were like, good idea, even though we're not really sure what you're talking about. And we were like, I know, right? And they were like... Why don't you just make it? And we were like... because it's a lot of work. And they were like Elle Woods and Legally Blonde when they said, what, like it's hard?
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
And we thought, no, it's not that hard, but it's time and money we don't have. And we want to make this good. And they were like, but every single person on earth has a podcast, so it must be easy. So just do it. Yeah. So we took time off. Got into even more debt while we did that. And then miraculously, we got a grant.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Ooh. They had recently added an audio section to the competition, and entering our show would give us a purpose and, more importantly, a deadline.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Yay, we did it. We thought, if we can get this episode in Tribeca, that will help us sell the project. And then we can make the full series, and then we can live happily ever after.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Yeah, we basically stopped all progress on the project and waited with bated breath about the fate of our hasty and very barely organized plans.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Rachel got the rejection email at another extremely inconvenient time.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Because it happened to be the one 45 minute stretch in which I was not available to share in the misery.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Yeah. Thank you so much to everyone who has listened and liked and followed and subscribed and rated and reviewed and texted us screenshots of our picture on the front page of Apple.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Remember a few minutes ago when we said we got a grant? Well, we did. And later that day, I told my mom, who offered up some perspective and levity as only she can. I have to tell you something. What? It's a secret. What? We didn't get into Tribeca. Yeah. We found out this morning. They passed over you on Passover. What?
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Together, we licked our wounds, wrote some scathing words about gatekeepers and placed them firmly on our vision board and listened to Mark Duplass tell us it's all going to be all right.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
The next two episodes of Deadheads will feature a fan favorite character from episode one and a trip to the happiest place on earth, TJ Maxx.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
And to be honest, nobody really heard them in the first place when they came out. So did they even ever really come out?
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
You can also support us by liking, following, and leaving a rating for our show. I've heard from literally everybody else that's ever made a podcast, if that helps.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Bonus! We'll be back next week with the next official episode of Deadheads.
Debt Heads
BONUS: a peek behind the pod
Instead of talking about how to fit into the status quo, we wanted to ask why this was the status quo. We made a pitch deck and a trailer and we reached out to people we knew and we heard a lot of variations of that's cute. Good luck. One person gave us a great piece of advice, which was make your first episode. So we started to publish little sketches of this project.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And that was for married women. If you were single, divorced, or even widowed, you likely needed to bring a man, like any man, to co-sign for credit products at most banks. And we imagine it sounded something like this.
Debt Heads
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This just seemed so crazy to me. So we consulted our resident legal expert, my stepmother, Mary Pat Truthheart, to weigh in.
Debt Heads
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That's crazy. What else was by Jura? I mean, so many things. I mean, honestly, it was ridiculous. Do you remember having some understanding of why women were denied credit?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
I'm ready. The thing about 1983 is that prior to that year, there was no consumer debt. Did you hear me?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Did you know that Maya Rudolph's grandpa supposedly came up with the idea for the first credit card? No, I didn't know that.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
As the name suggests, the diner's club card was designed for men of the same status and class to literally dine together without the hassle of remembering their wallets. Having a diner's club card was like having a tab at a bar, but fancier.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
But they still weren't available to anyone but these rich businessmen. And Donna, being a businesswoman, wanted to flash her fancy credit card with her clients at lunch too.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
In order to successfully do her job of finding songs like Working Man, Donna needed to have access to the world of working men. The credit card gave her that access.
Debt Heads
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Unsurprisingly, one of the Act's supporters was the credit card industry.
Debt Heads
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So within a decade... Nearly everyone who wanted a card had one. Or five.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Oh, good God. So what I was saying is that prior to 1983, on average, people didn't have any non-mortgage debt. So in essence, no debt. Hold on.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
How did it go from people begging to have the right to borrow on cards to this seemingly predatory state of affairs where everyone has more cards than they can count and an ever-increasing credit limit?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And like Flashdance and the Cleveland of Donna's radio DJ years, this story is set in the heartland of America. Ooh, a story? Yes, about interest rates. Oh, that sounds boring. No, it's interest-ing. Okay, so there's this bank in Minnesota that has credit cards with a 12% interest rate. Oh damn, that's low. I know. It was capped by their state law. Fascinating.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
So one day, people in Minnesota start getting these letters in the mail from a bank in Nebraska promoting credit cards with an 18% interest rate. And people in Minnesota start signing up for them. But wait, that's a higher interest rate. Exactly. Exactly. I don't blame them. Ugh.
Debt Heads
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And Nebraska was like, stop acting like you got a losing ticket to the meat raffle because one, we're allowed to send mail. And two, if there's one thing people like, it's getting credit card offers in the mail from Nebraska. Really? Yeah. And that argument, exactly the way I recounted it to you, went all the way to the Supreme Court. Wow. Of the United States of America. What?
Debt Heads
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And the Supreme Court agreed with Omaha. They said, you're right. People do love getting mail from Omaha, Nebraska. And they especially love to sign up for credit cards in the mail, even if it means they're getting a shittier interest rate. They said literally that? I'm pretty sure.
Debt Heads
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But they also said that banks can charge whatever interest rate they want as long as it's legal in the state in which they're located. Damn. So, South Dakota. Oh, I know South Dakota. It's on all my credit card bills. Exactly. And I'll tell you why.
Debt Heads
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South Dakota, being next to Minnesota, gets wind of this idea of sending mail across state lines and thinks, huh, we don't have a lot of business here. Just a lot of bison. Let's tell everyone in America that they can charge any interest rate they want as long as they BYOB. Bring your own bison? No, bring your own bank. Oh.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
So the next thing you know is enterprising Midwesterners start sending white-collar jobs to Sioux Falls and taking vacations to the Badlands and taking pictures of bison and thinking, damn, South Dakota is a great place for bison and banks. I mean, I do love bison. The next thing you know... What? All the banks are located in South Dakota and all the credit cards have super high interest rates.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
This obscure ruling created the credit card industry as we know it today.
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S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Our lifetimes have been marked by this simple economic reality. Because of a bank in Nebraska and an unfettered capitalist agenda that turned unsuspecting, newly awarded members of the financial mainstream into lambs for the slaughter.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Bye. In our first episode of Deadheads, my co-host, Jamie Feldman, revealed she was in debt. I have a lot of debt. We met her mom, Sam, who loves Nick at Night. Hello. We met her friend Rachel, that's me, who told her that, no, she can't afford to buy a $300 bathing suit. Have you worn them yet? No. Okay, so let's start by returning them.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Do you know what your interest rate is on your credit card? I think so.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Nearly half of us Americans do not know what our interest rates are. And nearly half of us also carry a balance on our cards. That means that we are getting charged an interest rate we do not know that's compounding on our balance every single month. So are you the kind of person who pays off their balance every month?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Do you find that you spend more on your card when you have a higher limit?
Debt Heads
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Uncapped interest rates were the first step in a long transformation of the banking industry, from a boring necessity into one of the most profitable industries in the world.
Debt Heads
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Like us. Like everybody. I'm Jamie. And I'm Rachel.
Debt Heads
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And by the time 1983 rolls around, in a flash dance, debt explodes.
Debt Heads
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We'll take a trip to our nation's capital to meet some cats.
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And we'll try to define what we consider to be priceless.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Because we know firsthand what it's like to lose sleep over debt. To live in denial over debt. To get out of debt, but find ourselves falling back into it. But most importantly, to start questioning why and how. America became a country full of deadheads. When Jamie first started to tackle her financial situation, she was in about $23,000 of debt. Credit card debt, to be specific.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And this episode was mixed by Jeff Seeley. Thanks to every woman who shared her debt story with us. Thanks to Flashdance, Donna Summer, Mall Madness, Rush, Showgirls, Cheers, and I Love You Man for inspiring this episode's theme and for explicitly allowing us fair use of their materials, which has been reviewed by a lawyer.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And speaking of lawyers, thanks to my stepmother, Mary Pat Truthheart, for explaining why women didn't get access to credit in the first place.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And once she got over the shame of the debt itself, she had to start facing it, practically. So one afternoon, we sought out the help of an expert.
Debt Heads
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Okay, so it turns out that focusing your budget is just bushing. And we'd already had some painful conversations and realizations about Jamie's spending and figured out a way to reprioritize the things in her budget. But Siri's advice assumes that you're a person making a regular fixed income.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
And nobody was really able to assist us with advice for people who have no idea what they'll be making from month to month. So we were already off to a rocky start. Then once we got to step two, things really started to fall apart. Okay. What's number two? Setting up a repayment plan. Okay. So currently the repayment plan is that we got to pay it. We got to pay it.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
How do you repay $23,000 on a freelancer's inconsistent income, especially credit card debt, which is something that Jamie found out is commonly referred to as bad debt. Means we're going to have to look into the credit card. Details. I don't want to do that. Bad debt is scary.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
The reason it's called bad debt is that it won't help you get a home or an education or anything that has the potential to increase in value.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Here's the deal. So we need to just like, first of all, identify how many credit cards you have. So how many credit cards do you have? Five. Five? Okay. Sorry. And how much?
Debt Heads
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Jamie became TikTok famous, acquired some trolls.
Debt Heads
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We had driven out to this palace of consumerism, not to investigate the authenticity of the brioche, but rather to conduct a highly scientific poll of the American populace.
Debt Heads
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Yes. This investigation was going so well. We were so prepared. We planned the route. We planned the questions. We printed the release forms. But there's one thing we didn't do. Oh, sorry. Is it okay?
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
but more importantly, discovered that she is not alone, even though she and everyone else in debt think so.
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Oh, okay. Our understanding was that we were allowed to record in the mall.
Debt Heads
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Oh, that's the mall's rules? Okay. We're in trouble.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
Thank you so much. We will stop. We're going to stop.
Debt Heads
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It was here that we were able to defend our hypothesis that paying with credit is what people like to do.
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And for those who didn't have cards, they made sure to tell us that they were planning on getting them.
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One, we are professional journalists. And two, using credit cards in America is a hallmark of adulthood.
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In fact, 75% of Americans get a card by the age of 25.
Debt Heads
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And finally, she surmised that getting out of debt might be more complicated than simply learning how to budget. For the next several episodes, these two semi-qualified sleuths Yep, that's us. are going to try to get to the bottom of what makes debt so ubiquitous in our culture and why it's so hard to get out of it. Jamie, do you know what happened in 1983?
Debt Heads
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Oh man, another great tale of a wannabe dancer who has to work hard for the money.
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When we were kids watching our parents be grown-ups, we idealized the edgier sides of adulthood. It was never doing the dishes or paying the bills or mowing the lawn. It was always a little bit sexy. Like walking around with a corded phone while applying lipstick. Tapping a keyboard with long nails. Making your high heels echo down a marble corridor.
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Don't I feel so sleek in your hand? Just swipe me, see what it does.
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Use your Chase card. Are you still slumming it on a wobbly barstool with a $20 glass of Chardonnay you ordered from an off-brand iPad while balancing your carry-on suitcase with your one free leg? Flash that Delta Sky Miles Amex and get into that lounge, girl. Thanks to Rewards Points, everyone can be a VIP. Security. Access. Perks.
Debt Heads
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It's wielding power so effortlessly, it takes nothing more than the flick of a wrist to get everything you ever wanted. And double points for every dollar spent. More.
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Oh, my God. I didn't even know you could do that.
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But what the Gap Card did offer Jamie was at least a sense of freedom. Like, she could take care of this unfortunate situation on her own. And there was a time, not even that long ago, that this sort of secret financial workaround wouldn't have even been possible for women.
Debt Heads
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In our initial research into the origin of the credit card, we discovered that it was rare for women to have their own credit card before 1974. And...
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Just before the birth of the millennial generation. Like, we knew people who were alive then. I was very close to being alive then.
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So we did what every semi-qualified sleuth does. We started combing Reddit.
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That simple. This is Donna. And no, we did not pay her a thousand bucks to speak with us. But if we could have put it on credit, we might have.
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Rush is the kind of band that inspires a very enthusiastic evangelical fandom in a very specific demographic, Working Men, which Donna also understood.
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And like the Pittsburgh portrayed in Flashdance, Cleveland was full of steelworkers. And I like to think a lot of wannabe dancers.
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Wow. I wasn't thinking of that either. But isn't it interesting that both of those cultural treasures, I would call them cultural treasures, featured women working blue-collar jobs when all they really wanted to do was dance?
Debt Heads
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Just like one of the dozens of oil fires that exploded in the Cleveland waterways around that time, due to all the steel workers working steel, Rush blows up. And they were eternally grateful to Donna.
Debt Heads
S1.E2 - The House Always Wins (Part One)
But Donna wasn't only an early adopter of Rush. She was also an early adopter of the credit card. And it was the credit card that bought her entry into what was a very male-dominated career.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Did you book the tickets? Yes. No, she's not. You're going to call her. You're going to tell her what's going on. And you're going to say, I can't come to your wedding. And I really hope that I can celebrate with you in another context at some other time. It doesn't require me to fly across the country, buy a dress, get a hotel and a car service and everything and a gift.
Debt Heads
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Here to read the best of the worst comments from Jamie's TikTok is our third grade friend, Dottie Mae Mershon.
Debt Heads
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It wasn't surprising that Jamie was in debt. That's something I could totally relate to, because I've been there plenty of times. It's just that she and I both have these big fucking mouths. So I was like, how did you keep that secret for so long? It's true. Our instinct to confess is kind of like a compulsion. Jamie's made a career for herself being loud on the internet.
Debt Heads
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Yeah, it's really upsetting to hear. And because you didn't tell me any of that stuff, I wouldn't have brought up the fact that I'd also been in debt in the past and I could have helped you.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Just like in any other form of shame, the isolation is really deadly. It can be really dangerous. Why do we insist on suffering, on judging ourselves for these perceived failures? Does feeling ashamed even help us?
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
That's Kathy O'Neill, a data scientist who studies the way shame is used as a tool for profit. And she says not only does shame not help, it hurts. It's called a toxic feedback loop.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
You do something you're ashamed of. You feel ashamed about it. Hide from your shame. And as a result, you're driven to do that very same thing again.
Debt Heads
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She talks about her family. I'll start by saying that I'm an only child and an only grandchild in a very small family. And all the shitty dates she's been on. I'm probably just going to delete my Bumble and all my dating apps and probably just go live somewhere very far away from all men. She's definitely always talked about mental health.
Debt Heads
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And when following the rules relies on our singular willpower to be responsible when everything around us tests that willpower at every turn... Following the rules doesn't feel like a reasonable choice.
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But that starts with honesty, not willpower. And you did have a model for that in an apartment building in Queens.
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Jamie is so candid in her documentation of her life that I admit to occasionally feeling jealous because she'll have shared something deeply personal with me and we've worked it out together.
Debt Heads
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This is the story about how I tried to heal my grandmother's chronic back pain with medical marijuana and ended up putting her in the hospital.
Debt Heads
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And then the very next day, my mom calls and says, hey, did you see what Jamie posted on her Instagram story? And it's the very same personal topic we just discussed. Okay, but I always tell you first. It's true. Of course, bravery does have its limits. And even the most audacious among us keeps secrets from our friends.
Debt Heads
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Within a few months, there were tens of thousands of people following Jamie's journey. She even started to get news coverage.
Debt Heads
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She kept getting stopped on the street by people who recognized her, mostly young women. Remember that one lady who made a beeline for you? Oh, God, of course. How could I forget? It was my Taylor Swift moment. She dropped her bags and left her friends and just, like, ran up to you and was like, I love you. To be fair, I'm pretty sure she was drunk.
Debt Heads
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Every year, the same news outlets run the exact same segments telling you how to fix your financial problems.
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Debt, and basically everything about money, makes even the most confident-seeming people squirm. Why do you think that was the day that you told me?
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Yeah. Her tools and tips to fortify our funds are all in her new book. Usually somebody who's struck it rich by being smart with money.
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Of course, they've made even more money selling you a book or eight about how you too can be smart with money. But if this was such easy advice, then it wouldn't be a problem that only gets worse every year.
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The predominant narrative about personal finance in our culture, the one that's reinforced by those experts on daytime television, is that we are failing. That being in debt is an anomaly. People in debt are the exception to the rule.
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Because the fact is, we are not an anomaly. We're not the exception to the rule. We are the rule.
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This project is made possible in part from a grant by the Elevate Creatives Fund. Debt Heads is written, produced, and edited by us, Jamie Feldman and Rachel Webster. Our theme song is Pay for That Money by The Defibrillators. Original music is composed by Ali Helnwein, Serena Chow fact-checked this episode, and it was mixed by Jeff Steele. Thanks to every woman who shared her debt story with us.
Debt Heads
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You can learn more about how shame is used for profit by picking up Kathy O'Neill's book, The Shame Machine. Special thanks to Dottie May Mershon and her momager, Jessie Arrington, for making internet trolls sound adorable.
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And thanks to our family, especially Samantha Feldman, for her endless support, and Moss Levinson for his creative guidance, moral support, and for keeping the motherfucking lights on.
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Yeah. The truth is nobody, nobody really knows what's going on with other people's financial lives. That's because we don't talk about it. We think that if we keep our fears and embarrassments secret, we'll be safer.
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So when Jamie told me, and then she told the hundreds of millions of people on TikTok, something shifted. After 10 years of cultivating a secret in the dark, suddenly she turned on the light. I'm starting with about...
Debt Heads
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Because we know firsthand what it's like to lose sleep over debt.
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To get out of debt, but find ourselves falling back into it.
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And his take on financial advice is steeped in the theory that every individual is solely responsible for their financial well-being.
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And while I find Dave Ramsey's tone particularly off-putting, his take on advice is pretty popular. He sells a lot of books and has a lot of listeners on his podcast.
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If you have poor money management, you really can't blame anybody except yourself. And perhaps this advice is so satisfying because it is so simple. It's got a clear bad guy, you.
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It's a simple freaking formula, damn it. Yeah, dummy.
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Don't spend more money than you make. It's just math. Actually, you know what? This podcast is over. That's a wrap.
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Why don't we go grocery shopping? Okay, perfect. Just kidding. I think there's more to the story.
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I thought so too, but I was too embarrassed to ask. You and everyone else. Because we all seem to think that everyone else just knows personal finance by osmosis from just, like, living in the world. But we don't know. And we don't know what we don't know.
Debt Heads
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And just like a part-time Orange Julius employee who protects her virginity as carefully as her summer wages and then gets stuck in the middle of a tea party of friends sharing salacious stories of their summer camp sexcapades, we're too embarrassed to admit what we don't know. Now it's just about finances, not fellatio.
Debt Heads
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But women need to be talking about finances more than any of the other sometimes hard things in life because women have a particularly fraught relationship with money.
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So over the last year, we interviewed women from across the country to better understand their experiences with debt and money.
Debt Heads
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And after we began speaking with these women, we started to notice many similarities in their experiences. One of the most astounding patterns is that they all thought that they were the only ones in debt.
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And without fail, they all had the same story about money, which is that they didn't know anything about it.
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Where are we heading? Do you want to go to the library? I would love to go to the library. I have a few books to pick up. Okay.
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For American millennials in the public school system, personal finance classes were few and far between. Of course, even if they had been more ubiquitous, it probably would have sounded something like this scene from Ferris Bueller.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
In the last few years, personal finance courses have become slightly more common in American public high schools.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
And whether or not we're taught personal finance skills at school, or like me by Regis Philbin on who wants to be a millionaire, that doesn't change the fact that in general, we don't like to talk about money in our culture.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Entitled simply Etiquette, this bestseller had one very simple rule when it came to talk about money.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
A hundred years later, etiquette books are obsolete. Americans comport themselves with manners that would have Emily rolling in her tuxedo park grave.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Unless, of course, we're on national television fighting to the death to win some. And we have a lot of shame about money. Nearly half of Americans admit to lying or misrepresenting information about their finances to their intimate partners.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
We're not learning about money. We're certainly not talking about money. And unless we spend our after-school hours on the floor of the self-help aisle at Borders, we end up learning everything about money from the people around us. So, to get a better understanding of Jamie's financial education, we turned to the one person we thought would know best. Her mom.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Oh, God, is that a rat? Generally, I like to do all the boring stuff together. It's way more fun.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Because we talk the whole time while we're together. Yeah, I mean, we talk about literally everything, but there was that one thing that I guess I never told you.
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
It was a big one. I think it was right up here. I remember because it was, like, right by this gate. We were almost home, and we'd been talking for, like, two hours. And then suddenly you're like, um, uh...
Debt Heads
S1.E1. The Secret Life of Debt Heads
Our relationship with money is personal. It's as unique as the families we come from. But the cruel reality is, if you come from a family that experienced poverty, you're far more likely to struggle financially as an adult.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
The FICO credit score for consumers wasn't even born until 1989.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Yes, it's just a little baby, but not as beautiful as you and Tay-Tay. How come, like me, it's so young? Well, I'm guessing because of credit cards. When everyone is suddenly borrowing money all the time. Oh, so before people just didn't really borrow stuff? Well, if they did, they borrowed money through connections and reputation.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Like, I was totally sucked into their marketing campaign. Wow, it really worked on you. That was so lame.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
That would be a generous mission, but I don't think we can give capitalism that much credit. Do you know what FICO stands for?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Fun is... Think of a celebrity couple portmanteau.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Bill Fair and Earl Isaac. Oh. They're FICO. Okay, so just like two random dudes? Mm-hmm. Two unassuming data analysts set up a system that became the number one way that lenders can evaluate the creditworthiness of consumers. Okay, so this FICO system helps us get credit? Sure. But more importantly, it helps credit card companies collect information about us and our spending behaviors.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So it's like a spy? Yeah. Yeah. Remember when spies were sexy? Now they're just data analysts. But here's where it gets tricky to follow. So FICO is a score. And the credit bureaus, you might have heard of them. Oh yeah, you mean like Experian, TransUnion, Equifax? These bureaus use that score to help determine what to lend you. Okay. And they also work with FICO to create the score.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
A conflict of interest? Yeah. Good question. It's hard to know who is what and what is who. That is confusing. We learned a little bit more about these self-appointed behemoths of judgment from our favorite Welsh-American journalist and iconic podcaster, John Ronson.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And in that very same year, at the end of the 20th century, just across Central Park from where I stood, holding a shiny new sliver of plastic, some copywriters on or around Madison Avenue were launching a brilliant new marketing strategy for that very same plastic product.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In 2005, John wrote a story for The Guardian about a man named Richard Cullen who died by suicide after racking up over $130,000 in credit card debt. Debt that started when he took out a $6,000 loan to cover a medical procedure and quickly spun out of control from countless extensions.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
This guy that John is talking about is Richard Weber. And he built a program that can identify what people might want to buy based on where they live.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
That's right, Experian, the same company that determines our credit worthiness.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
When Richard Weber wrote the software for Experian, he created reductive categories for people based on their postcodes and described each group with blunt, aphoristic titles.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Richard, the program's author, who apparently wrote all the texts himself, described people in his own group as cultural leaders.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And for Richard Colon, the man who succumbed to the unrelenting pressure of compounding credit card debt, he was part of the Happy Families, Families Making Good group. When John did his investigation into the death and debt of Richard Colon, he found that the most lucrative demographic for credit card marketers was the Happy Families category.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In 2024, MasterCard reported a profit margin of nearly 50%. Visa's was even higher. In comparison, on average, U.S. businesses consider 7% profit to be normal and 20% to be high.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
With a 24% APR card, which is the average in America, nearly half of those cardholders could default. And it would still be profitable.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So they came up with a new idea to peddle, which is, life is short, we'd better live it to the fullest. Budgets be damned.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
When you have a credit card, you don't really have to ask. And when Alina finally left Capital One and set out to interview dozens of people across the country, she found that this is exactly how people were using the credit cards.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
As emotional creatures with a strong desire to connect, to show love, to create meaning, we will always do these very human things, if we can. An easy access to credit makes it nearly impossible to draw a hard line between what we want and what we need.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In her extensive interviews, Elena found that most of us use credit cards when we're feeling optimistic, when we're at our peak earning years. And instead of saving, we're handing large percentages of our disposable income over to the banks in the form of fees and interest and everything else we don't pay attention to.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Good question. A lot of the cost is covered by high POS fees. Piece of shit fees? Well, Point of sale fees. Have you ever heard of them?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Just as I and many other elder millennials were entering the financial mainstream, the Priceless campaign was infiltrating the zeitgeist.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
It costs stores over 3% for you to swipe, tap, or contactlessly use your card. And most of them pass that cost down to all of us.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Yes. And this amounts to the poorest among us paying a premium for bodega croissants so that the richest among us can fly to Paris for free.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Credit card debt is usually held for years, meaning it's not a bridge, but rather a long-term crutch that makes the middle class poorer each year.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In our last episode of Deadheads, we met Donna Helper, the radio DJ who discovered the band Rush. I would take a client out to lunch... And the server would give the check to my client. We learned about something called the Marquette decision and how that affects our interest rates.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
On our way back from D.C., we were aghast at the price of Amtrak's wine. Yes. But also the many, many things that Elena had told us. And we couldn't believe we were still blaming ourselves for our bad credit card behavior. As if we alone were manifesting this debt.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
This must have been how John Ronson felt 20 years ago when he first set out to expose these bad actors.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
MasterCard was invoking a deep-seated sense of FOMO by connecting priceless human moments to things, well, with prices. And that philosophy of spend now, pay later, hashtag no regrets, would come to represent exactly how credit cards would undo the middle class in 21st century America.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In 2010, Senator Elizabeth Warren, alongside a handful of other politicians, attempted to fight back against this true malevolent power by passing the landmark CARD Act, which aimed to help protect us, the consumers, from predatory lending practices.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
What an orator. The CARD Act might have rattled people like Elon and his ilk, but even at its most robust, when the CFPB had political clout, Elena didn't think it amounted to much.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
America has come a long way from the era of Nick and Nora parties, where there was nary a dame without a Virginia Slim hanging out of her delicately painted pout. And yet, it wasn't until I went to Canada, and in a drunken fugue state, picked up a fresh pack of cigarettes for a night on the town, and upon opening them, thought, oh no, I shouldn't do this.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Because in Canada, everything about a pack of cigarettes is branded with a stomach-turning warning, including the cigarette butt itself. Each cigarette butt is literally printed with messages that you are forced to look at every time you take a drag.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Everyone in debt? Which made us wonder, had Donna ever been in debt?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
When we're in credit card debt, we tend to get scolded for buying unnecessary stuff, for misunderstanding the value of things. But that's not really the problem for most of us.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
At the end of the day, all any of us really want to do is to be able to take each other out for lunch, back and forth forever, right?
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
This episode of Deadheads was brought to you by the letters A, M, and C. American movie classics? No, Amtrak hot dogs, Margaritas to go, and Canadian cigarettes.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Because we know firsthand what it's like to lose sleep over debt.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
You can become instant fans of John Ronson by checking out any one of his brilliant podcasts, books, or even 20-year-old newspaper articles.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
To get out of debt, but find ourselves falling back into it.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Run the numbers on that. So that's... So as a reminder, Jamie was working with five credit cards when she started her debt journey. Yeah, you won't let me forget it. And all of them carried a balance. But once we got them laid out, figuring out how to pay down that debt was going to require some math. A tall order for a couple of art school kids.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
We need like maybe to have somebody who knows how to do math. Maybe we should get a mathematician. Getting out of credit card debt was looking harder by the minute. Each minute costing 20.24% more in interest. You know, it would be a lot easier as if we just had a certain amount of money and then we use that money and then we didn't go, we didn't borrow money.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
I first heard Elena Bethea speak on a Zoom call with a debtors' rights activist organization where she was discussing her book, Delinquent. I admit that when the talk began, I was barely paying attention. I only joined, really, in hopes of getting in touch with the event's organizers. But then the words coming out of her mouth caught my attention, and I immediately called Jamie.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So urgent, we immediately booked train tickets to D.C. just so we could speak to Elena in person and also to eat Amtrak hot dogs. Do you want one or two hot dogs? One. Two. Two.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Do they have onions? Yes. Like good New Yorkers, we took public transport and walked everywhere with our recording gear.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Elena lives in a peaceful neighborhood on a serene, tree-lined block in a hushed and tranquil apartment. In fact, the loudest thing in her living room was the tender patting of her two cats. And me. Because I'm allergic to cats. I'm so sorry. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. But Alina is the kind of person who doesn't get ruffled by two semi-qualified sleuths coughing their way through her apartment.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
She was unfazed by this whirlwind of chaotic energy, which made it easy to understand why she maintains such a measured tone when recounting the significance of the year 1983. And it's not just because of Flashdance.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
So does that mean that before 1983, people were just walking around on cloud nine? Pockets full of cash, not a care in the world.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Okay, so they weren't living in some utopia. They were just not using credit cards.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Elena heard the question, what's in your wallet, loud and clear. And she wanted to answer. So she joined Capital One Bank in the division that helps decide how much gets in your wallet.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
As two people whose curiosities mainly include dancing in the streets whilst blasting music and drinking to-go margaritas, we could not quite relate to Alina's curiosity about lending.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
In 1997, I moved to New York City, and it began my long, slow journey to becoming an adult. Right across the street here was Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, which was the best. R.I.P.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
And speaking of underbellies, it only took a few years working at Capital One before Elena became deeply disillusioned.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Elena would soon begin to piece together the ways these experiments were affecting real people and their relationship to debt when she embarked on a new position in the credit line increase division at Capital One.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
As people in debt, we're often defined by this notion that we have an uncontrollable urge to overspend.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Alana calls this tendency to use more when we have more the portion size effect.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Additional credit is like cigarettes at a party. What? If somebody brings a pack. Oh, it will get smoked.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
While Elena was tasked with getting people more credit, Kathleen McDowell was tasked with getting people more of everything.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
But it's not just Jamie. In 2025, the share of credit card customers making only minimum payments rose to a 12-year high. I haven't gotten the thank you card from Chase yet.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
$6,500 is the average unpaid balance? That's a lot.
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S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Prior to this move, I had hoarded all of my babysitting, pizza delivery, and art framing income in a modest savings account. But when I got to college, walking the New York streets all by myself, I figured I needed more. And when I entered a bank on 66th and Columbus Avenue, the eager sales associates convinced me to get my first credit card. I remember feeling that this bank really got me.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
Hey, Jamie, do you want $6,000? Yeah. Cool. So just give me $6,000 back in 30 days. Oh, okay. Wait, what? No, actually, I'm sorry. I'll give you $6,000. But in 10 years, I just need you to give me $15,000 back.
Debt Heads
S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
It seems to be the only thing most people have gleaned from their lackluster financial education.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
This is a storytelling journey into our lives and yours. What's the first word I ever read?
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Let's go return the equipment of the job that is laying me off.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
We're making this project because we know what it's like to struggle financially.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
As we like to say around here, we are not alone. You are not alone. Our first official season of the Deadheads podcast is coming out in early 2025.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Follow along on Instagram and TikTok and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
I became briefly TikTok famous. Hi, I'm Jamie. I'm in $15,000 of credit card debt. Let's spend the day together. Because I started talking about debt publicly.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Actually, we've struggled with money because most people do. And that's what this podcast is all about.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
In 10 minutes, I'll teach you how to be rich. You won't become rich until you understand this. And the myths of financial responsibility. If you have poor money management, you really can't blame anybody except yourself.
Debt Heads
Coming Soon: Debt Heads Season One
Why are there so many mattresses and why did they corner the market on podcast advertising?