Slate Money - The Nerds' Last Stand at the Fed
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: The Fed announced an expected rate cut with an unexpected dissent. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck are joined by Axios’ Neil Irwin who breaks down why the Fed meeting was so unusual – thanks to the very recent Trump appointee Stephen Miran– and what it means for the future of the central bank. Then, AMEX announced an increase that brings their Platinum fee to $895. Neil and the hosts reflect on the trend of making credit cards more and more premium and explain why you should think again before signing up. And finally, Publishers Clearing House filed for bankruptcy and its new owner ARB Interactive has said it won’t be honoring the “lifetime” winners from before July 15 of this year. What will happen to the people who have built their lives around those payouts?
In the Slate Plus episode: Labubus, the Avatar of 2025?
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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello! |
| 0:11.0 | Welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. |
| 0:18.5 | I'm Felix Salmon of Bloomberg. |
| 0:21.2 | I am joined by Emily Becker-Axios. |
| 0:24.2 | Hello, hello. |
| 0:25.5 | Elizabeth Spires of various places, apparently including the George Soros-founded |
| 0:29.3 | donation. |
| 0:32.0 | Yeah, news to me, but hello. |
| 0:34.0 | At least according to J.D. Vance, who we can trust because he's the first |
| 0:37.0 | residents of the United States. |
| 0:38.7 | And very, very special guest, Neil Irwin of Axios. |
| 0:43.1 | Neil, welcome. |
| 0:44.2 | Thanks, Felix. |
| 0:45.2 | You are the resident Axios Fed Watcher. |
| 0:48.0 | And this week we had one of the biggest, most closely watched Fed meetings in a very long time. |
| 0:55.6 | So you're going to try and tell us what happened and what didn't happen, interestingly enough. |
| 1:00.8 | But not only are you a Fed watcher, you are also a close watcher of rewards cards. |
| 1:07.8 | And we had some big news out from Amec following big news out from |
| 1:12.9 | JPMorgan Chase I guess a few weeks ago so we're going to talk about what's happening at the |
| 1:17.8 | top end of the reward card spectrum we also need to talk about publishers clearinghouse I think |
| 1:24.6 | oh yes I cannot wait for this. |
| 1:27.7 | Emily is totally into this. |
... |
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