Hello and welcome to the end of an era edition of Slate Money, your guide to the Business and Finance News of the Week.

I'm Felix Salmon of Fusion in San Francisco this week, and on today's show, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced this week that he is proud to be gay.

We'll talk about what his essay could mean for the future of the so-called glass closet.

Is the U.S. now in a fight with Saudi Arabia for the title of the most powerful oil-producing country in the world.

And what does that have to do with the falling price of oil? And the Fed has ended. Its historic

effort to stimulate the American economy will discuss whether quantitative easing made a

difference. And our numbers round will include a fond farewell.

But first, let me introduce my regular guests.

Kathy O'Neill is a data scientist and blogger at mathbabe.org.

Hi, Felix.

Hi, Kathy.

And Slate's own Moneybox columnist Jordan Weissman.

Hello, Jordan. Hello, Jordan.

Hello, Felix.

So we're going to begin with Tim Cook, who announced this week.

He is, of course, the CEO of Apple and wrote a piece in Business Week, saying that he is

proud to be gay.

Now, many of us have known this and been writing about this for some years now,

but officially he is now no longer merely the most powerful gay man in the world.

He is now the most powerful, openly gay man in the world.

And this is a good thing, surely.

Kathy, what took him so long?

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