S1.E3 - The House Always Wins (Part Two)
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What is the main theme of 'The House Always Wins' Part Two?
Hi, this is Jamie from Deadheads. This is Episode 2, Part 2. A lot of people loved Episode 2, Part 1, so if you haven't listened, you should do so. You might also love it, and you'll definitely be less confused. Okay, enjoy Episode 2, Part 2 of Deadheads.
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.
No.
Off the top of my head, no. And I got some great advice from a financial expert. Hey, Siri. Uh-huh? Can you tell me how to get out of debt? This week, we'll speak to not one, but two muckraking journalists, one of whom started as an insider in the credit card industry.
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.
It's so crazy that we both spent some of our formative years here.
I know.
I was in college. And I was right around the corner in high school. And we were the exact same age, and we were always friends.
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. Like, I was totally sucked into their marketing campaign. Wow, it really worked on you. That was so lame.
It was the Olive Garden of banks. When you're here, you're family.
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.
Two tickets, $28. Two hot dogs, two popcorns, and two sodas, $18. One autographed baseball, $45. Real conversation with 11-year-old son
The MasterCard Priceless campaign, which persists in advertising to this day, featured one instantly recognizable tagline.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard.
Just as I and many other elder millennials were entering the financial mainstream, the Priceless campaign was infiltrating the zeitgeist.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. For everything else, there's MasterCard.
How does the Marquette decision affect credit card interest rates?
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.
Welcome to Deadheads. Welcome. Deadheads is an investigation into the American economy. From the perspective of people in debt. Like us. Like everybody. I'm Jamie. And I'm Rachel. And we named this podcast after ourselves.
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. The chase card has the most because that's my highest limit. The limit is 16,000 and it's like about to be maxed out. So, and that's a 20.24%. Yeah. So let's,
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. 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.
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