Slate Money - What Even Is Money?
Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
4.1 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: The price of gold has skyrocketed to over $4k an ounce. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck speculate why this might be happening right now – or if there even is a “why”. Then, Intercontinental Exchange has announced an investment of $2 billion in Polymarket, upping the valuation from $1 billion to $8 billion. The hosts discuss what makes prediction markets so big right now and the increasingly murky distinction between "betting” and “investing”. And finally, several Bob Ross paintings are being auctioned for charity prompting a Slate Money listener to ask what the market is for his work. Felix breaks down the oddity that is the Bob Ross painting market and explains how charity auctions can skew the value of a piece of art.
In the Slate Plus episode: Emily goes on a reporting journey to figure out what the new phrase ‘6-7’ is all about.
Want to hear that discussion and hear more Slate Money? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slate Money show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello! |
| 0:11.7 | Welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. |
| 0:18.0 | I'm Felix Salmon of Bloomberg. |
| 0:19.7 | I'm here with Elizabeth Spires of New York Times. |
| 0:22.5 | Hello. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios. |
| 0:25.5 | Hello, hello. And we have a really interesting show that will make you question everything |
| 0:32.4 | you thought you knew about money. I think this is the general gist of this show. We're going to start talking about |
| 0:38.9 | gold, which is a barbarous relic that is somehow worth $4,000 an ounce. We're then going to talk |
| 0:43.9 | about Polly Market, which is apparently worth $10 billion, even though it's just betting. We are then |
| 0:49.1 | going to talk about Bob Ross paintings, which are spectacularly ugly. Sorry sorry Emily, and are selling for $100,000 |
| 0:56.6 | apiece. We have a Slate Plus segment where Emily is going to finally explain 6'7 in a monologue, |
| 1:04.7 | the likes of which the world has never seen. Somewhere along the line, if and only if you're |
| 1:10.7 | a Slate Plus subscriber, you will listen |
| 1:12.7 | to my own Dulcet tones and I will sing Spandau Ballet. It's one of those shows and it's worth |
| 1:21.1 | thinking around for. So all of that is coming up on Slate Money. |
| 1:35.9 | Gold is not just a Spandau Ballet song, |
| 1:39.0 | but it is a good Spandau Ballet song. |
| 1:39.7 | Never heard it. |
| 1:41.3 | Emily, you think you don't know the song? |
| 1:42.8 | Elizabeth knows the song, right? I only know one song by Spandau Ballet. |
| 1:44.0 | I don't think I know the song. Sing us a few bars, Felix. Yeah, could you sing it, Felix? You know what? I will. For the Slate Plus, if you are a Sleep Plus subscriber, you get Felix singing Gold by Spandau Ballet. How about that? A few bars of gold. Oh. |
| 2:03.2 | Oh. It is not just a Spandau ballet song. It is also an investment. And I have to say that in 30 |
... |
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