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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is all they call

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We are joined as always with our super

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Speaker 1: producer called Mission Control Decades. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know. We're diving into a story that

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Speaker 1: that is going to be, in at least some respect,

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Speaker 1: familiar to all of us. Like most of our best suggestions,

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Speaker 1: this came from one of your fellow listeners from bridget

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Speaker 1: B who reached out to us via social media to

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Speaker 1: ask about the dark side of the fashion industry. Bridget

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Speaker 1: you specifically, we're asking us about one aspect of the

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Speaker 1: fashion industry that we're uh no spoilers, gonna gonna save

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Speaker 1: for a later episode because we believe that when it

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Speaker 1: comes to the occulted side of the story behind the

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Speaker 1: clothing we all wear, Uh, there's more than one episodes

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Speaker 1: worth of stuff they don't want you to know here,

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Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of because you know, Uh, clothing

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Speaker 1: is one of the fundamental needs of the human species.

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Speaker 1: It's it's the shelter that you wear and you walk

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Speaker 1: around in. Uh. You know, I think we can point

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Speaker 1: out the um the elephant or should I say, the

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Speaker 1: clothes source in the room here. Guys. Uh, people are

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Speaker 1: We're pretty smart. You know, we have our moments, but

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Speaker 1: we're very much a visually driven, appearance based creature, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you mean human beings, right, and then not not just

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Speaker 1: the three of us like that. I love the idea

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Speaker 1: of us, the three of us being a single creature,

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Speaker 1: like we form like vultron and we are appearance based creature. No,

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Speaker 1: it's true. We are just like like everyone else. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. Considering the times that we're living in, I

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Speaker 1: think people live may be gotten a little less concerned

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Speaker 1: with their appearances. You know, people are doing zoom calls

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Speaker 1: and like workout shorts and you know, uh kind of

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Speaker 1: must up hair and stuff. But yeah, in the before times,

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Speaker 1: absolutely appearances everything. You know, you want to look smart

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Speaker 1: and sharp when you go to a meeting or when

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Speaker 1: you go out on the town, and and that's what

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Speaker 1: fashion is. It becomes like almost an extension of who

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Speaker 1: we are as people. Um, the idea that you know,

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Speaker 1: the clothes make the man or whatever. Yeah, people really

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Speaker 1: lean hard into personal style and it really becomes kind

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Speaker 1: of intertwined with our identities. Yes, it certainly does. And

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Speaker 1: I would just say that now in times where we

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Speaker 1: aren't going out as much, the act of getting ready

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Speaker 1: for a day as though you were going to go

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Speaker 1: out and dressing up as though you are going to

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Speaker 1: an important meeting or something, or going to meet with friends,

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Speaker 1: and taking that extra step to look really good, it

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Speaker 1: has become this powerful thing that changes the way we

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Speaker 1: we feel about ourselves in these times and it um.

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Speaker 1: I was just speaking with my wife a little bit

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Speaker 1: about that and how you know, if you're not going

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Speaker 1: to be going out or doing anything, you generally don't

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Speaker 1: have to think about that stuff. But when you do,

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Speaker 1: it changes your entire outlook of for the day, the

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Speaker 1: way you feel about yourself, and the way you feel

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Speaker 1: others would interact with you. It's just fashion and caring

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Speaker 1: about appearance can be a powerful thing for oneself. Yeah, agreed.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's it gives lie to that old comfor

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Speaker 1: truble figure of speech where people would say, you know,

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Speaker 1: oh you can't judge a book by its cover. Well,

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Speaker 1: my response to that would be, why do books have

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Speaker 1: a cover? What's your beef with graphic designers? There? Uh? People,

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Speaker 1: we do judge people by the clothing they wear, by

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Speaker 1: their appearance, because we all participate in this uh social

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Speaker 1: assumption that that is a statement of person is making.

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Speaker 1: It's it's the first version of a business card we

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Speaker 1: see when we encounter someone, and it does you know,

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Speaker 1: it is an opportunity to voice one's personal aesthetic. But

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Speaker 1: at worst, it can also be a substitute for a personality.

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Speaker 1: It can be right, it can become a means of

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Speaker 1: confusing wealth with superiority, right, whenever the new hot product

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Speaker 1: comes out. Uh. It can even in some cases, uh,

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Speaker 1: such as UH cockades during the time leading to following

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Speaker 1: the Civil War, it can be a declaration of hate,

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Speaker 1: right like sympathies with the Confederacy or you know, in

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Speaker 1: maybe a fascist regime. Certain badge or arm band can

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Speaker 1: identify you. But you know, regardless of where it falls

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Speaker 1: on the spectrum, again, it's a fundamental need. We're a

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Speaker 1: smart species, but we're not especially durable. And and this

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Speaker 1: is I don't know, this is something that has always

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Speaker 1: been hilarious to me. Human beings are intelligent, right, uh,

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Speaker 1: but they're relatively few places in the world where a

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Speaker 1: human being can live naked all year round. Whether you're

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Speaker 1: a popper or whether you're bezos, you you probably have

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Speaker 1: to wear clothes at some point in your life. So fashion, clothing, apparel,

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Speaker 1: it's not going anywhere, but it has a dark side,

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Speaker 1: a very deep dark side. Here are the facts, So

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Speaker 1: why don't we start by let's kind of size up

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Speaker 1: the fashion industry here a little bit um in the US,

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Speaker 1: as some of the world's largest fashion companies are based

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Speaker 1: in the US. UH In two thousand and seventeen, the

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Speaker 1: United States alone generated a hundred and fifteen billion American

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Speaker 1: dollars in women's wear sales and about eighty six billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in men's wear on the US alone. The Bureau

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Speaker 1: of Labor estimates some one point eight million people are

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Speaker 1: employed in the fashion industry, with two hundred and two

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Speaker 1: thousand of those being in textiles UM manufacturing fabrics for

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Speaker 1: different peril and other fashion items, successories, et cetera. Um

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Speaker 1: Average annual wages and fashion range from twenty six thousand,

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Speaker 1: four and forty bucks beyond the super low end for

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Speaker 1: textile bleaching and more procedural kind of factory type operations,

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Speaker 1: dyeing machine operators uh to eighty four thousand, six hundred

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Speaker 1: bucks for folks in marketing and sales managing for sure.

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Speaker 1: In the Bureau of Labor also, you know notes in

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Speaker 1: year that there are a lot of discrepancies in how

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Speaker 1: much people are paid. You know, you're we're talking about

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Speaker 1: averages right, um about of all us employees and fashion

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Speaker 1: work for some kind of apparel retailer. So somebody who

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Speaker 1: is actually selling and distributing a bunch of clothing and

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Speaker 1: accessories and things, and the annual average wage at one

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Speaker 1: of those companies is just slightly higher, um around twenty

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Speaker 1: six thousand, six fifty dollars. However, where the real money is,

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Speaker 1: or well at least the higher wages are. That's in

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Speaker 1: sales managers. That's in the marketing side of this this industry,

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Speaker 1: people who are out there actually selling the stuff, people

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Speaker 1: who are running the show. They have an annual wage

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Speaker 1: of around eighty four thousand, six hundred dollars. But I

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Speaker 1: mean that that would still be on a relatively low

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Speaker 1: side of the high side, because I mean folks like

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Speaker 1: fashioned signers make like hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if

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Speaker 1: not millions of dollars. But that is that's almost like

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Speaker 1: if you're thinking about the fashion industry and those designers

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Speaker 1: that roll in the big bucks. It's kind of like

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Speaker 1: the NBA if you think about all all the basketball

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Speaker 1: players in the world and then the very few that

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Speaker 1: make those ridiculous amounts of money. Um, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it's like being discovered. It's like being

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Speaker 1: a you know, a rock star. I mean it really is,

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Speaker 1: or or or a movie star or something. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: to clarify, when we're talking about apparel retailers, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about everything from you know, a target where somebody might

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Speaker 1: buy back to school clothes to something more higher end

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Speaker 1: boutique you would see at a shopping district or a mall.

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Speaker 1: But but yes, even even with the um the rarefied

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Speaker 1: air of guru designers aside, there there's still marked market

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Speaker 1: discrepancies here. Accountants and auditors, for instance, receive an annual

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Speaker 1: average pay of just under seventy thousand dollars. Buyers and

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Speaker 1: purchasing agents get paid on average fifties six point five

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year or something like that. And and again,

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Speaker 1: you know, in any industry of this size, averages are

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Speaker 1: going to be a little bit misleading because that that

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Speaker 1: clearly means there are people who make north of a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars as purchasing agents. So if we dive

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Speaker 1: into the discrepancies here, we see that they only accelerate

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Speaker 1: as we look at the macro economic picture. There are big, big,

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Speaker 1: presumably well dressed fish in this global ponds. UH McKenzie,

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Speaker 1: which is a super powerful, super opaque probably kind of

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Speaker 1: evil consulting firm. UH that is a a former employer

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Speaker 1: of Pete Buddha j Edge. By the way, mckensey estimated

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Speaker 1: that nine seven percent of the economic profits for the

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Speaker 1: entire fashion industry are earned by a relatively small group

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Speaker 1: of companies. Just twenty companies in the fashion industry earned

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Speaker 1: of the profits, and most of those twenty companies, as

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Speaker 1: you might assume, are in what we call the luxury segment.

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Speaker 1: There also the majority of those twenty companies of that

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Speaker 1: pantheon of UH, of that pantheon of profitable fashion UH,

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Speaker 1: most of them have been in the game for a while.

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Speaker 1: Twelve of those top twenty have been in that that

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Speaker 1: upper echelon for the past uh ten years, and their

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Speaker 1: names are probably at least a few are very familiar

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Speaker 1: to you regardless of where you live. Yes, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of the you know, kind of longstanding leaders in

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Speaker 1: the space include, among many others, UM in, Indo TECs.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Indo texts, I think that's I thinks

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Speaker 1: I would say Indo texts, l v M H and Nike,

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Speaker 1: which I know, Ben, you were a bit surprised by UM,

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Speaker 1: which have more than double their economic profits over the

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Speaker 1: past ten years. And each of those companies wracked up

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Speaker 1: more than two billion bucks in economic profit in UM

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Speaker 1: and you know you got we gotta remember too. The

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Speaker 1: close at the end of the day are a uh

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Speaker 1: one of those you know, life necessities. UM. They are

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Speaker 1: designed to help us survive UM and you know, be

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Speaker 1: warm and stay dry, but we also want to wear

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Speaker 1: things that we like and we want to look cool

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Speaker 1: while we're doing it. Let's, uh, let's go into some

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Speaker 1: more of these companies because we're talking about the ones

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Speaker 1: we mentioned. Their LVMH into texts and Nike at least

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Speaker 1: at least two billion dollars not too shabby, right, but

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Speaker 1: jump over to the gap, you know, the commercials you've

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Speaker 1: seen in the one near you wherever you live, because

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Speaker 1: there's probably one somewhere around you. Uh. It was the

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Speaker 1: top selling retailer. It had sales of around sixteen and

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Speaker 1: a half billion dollars. That's a United States currency, by

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Speaker 1: the way. Who pretty pretty great. Then if you look

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Speaker 1: at you know, the the lexus is and the infinities

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Speaker 1: of the clothing brands getting that luxury line over there,

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Speaker 1: you can check out the one we mentioned lvm H.

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Speaker 1: Um is it mo itt or mo A? I don't,

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Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. That's like, that's champagne, right, isn't

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Speaker 1: that a alcohol brand? It's such a it's such a

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Speaker 1: ridiculous story of consolidation of corporate acquisitions. It's uh, it's

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Speaker 1: also Hennessy, Louis Vatton, It's this, it's this gigantic luxury

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Speaker 1: goods conglomerate. It's let's just call it the good life corporate. Right.

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Speaker 1: That that's the LVMH. Correct, that's we're talking about Louis Vuitton, moa, Hennessy,

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Speaker 1: that's lv m H. It's crazy, and you know, like,

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Speaker 1: what else do they sell? Probably monocles. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: guess monocles. Uh, maybe like custom bath mats for mega yachts,

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Speaker 1: gilded Bidet's perhaps, Yes, interesting. I mean, that's that's great,

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Speaker 1: that's great for great for l v m H. That's awesome.

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Speaker 1: I want to really quickly, really quickly, will move right on,

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Speaker 1: just chime. And there's also we talk to the top

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Speaker 1: of the show about, like, you know, the idea of

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Speaker 1: like fashion being an economic indicator, a way to kind

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Speaker 1: of you know, flex and say, look at me, I

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Speaker 1: have money. There's a lot of people that spend a

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Speaker 1: lot of money on this stuff that don't have money,

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Speaker 1: and they just need to feel like they're keeping up

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Speaker 1: with the Joneses, and it maybe like you know, spending

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Speaker 1: irresponsibly on like Gucci stuff because they want to be

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Speaker 1: like quote unquote cool or like look like their favorite

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Speaker 1: celeb who wears these brands. But it's really not something

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Speaker 1: they can actually afford or they could probably be spending

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Speaker 1: their money in better ways. Just putting that out there, yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean also brands at times reacted versely to that

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Speaker 1: if they become too closely associated with what they see

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Speaker 1: as the hoi polloi uh. In the United Kingdom. For instance,

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Speaker 1: when members of what is pejoratively described as the job

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Speaker 1: or chav demographic ch a V when they started, uh

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Speaker 1: sort of identifying themselves with certain clothing brands or certain

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Speaker 1: fashion brands, the brands took a hit to their reputation.

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Speaker 1: They didn't like it. And in the past, if we

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Speaker 1: wanna point out some of the systemic discrimination involved in

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Speaker 1: this industry, brands didn't like it all the time. When

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Speaker 1: hip hop artists, for instance, would say, you know, I

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Speaker 1: love this cologne or I love this blah blah blah. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: money talks and takes the ascendant spot in any capitalist conversation. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, the manufacturers of may Bok cars uh may

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Speaker 1: not have initially love the fact that they were getting

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Speaker 1: mentioned by Jadakis or Rick Ross, but uh, when they

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Speaker 1: saw the numbers and they saw the visibility, they said, okay, yeah, alright, cool.

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Speaker 1: Uh the cool people like us, and that helps us

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Speaker 1: sell cars. This certainly worked out for Hennessy excellent example, Matt,

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Speaker 1: and these are other there are other Um, Gucci is

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Speaker 1: the big one. Gucci is a big one. Uh, there

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Speaker 1: are other other things. These conversations happen with the most

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Speaker 1: the most valued brands in the world. And again, like

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Speaker 1: anyone who knows the strange history of the Coca Cola company. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the importance or the value of a brand is sometimes

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Speaker 1: very difficult to quantify, Like what's what's the actual valuation

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Speaker 1: or price you could put on Nike or Adidas. But

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Speaker 1: this conversation, we're saying it money is first, but it

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Speaker 1: also factors in more than money that the drives it.

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Speaker 1: So what this gets very interesting when we forecast the

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Speaker 1: future of fashion right now, we can categorize the world

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Speaker 1: in terms of the the biggest apparel markets. We've got

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Speaker 1: pretty solid information on that there in the following order. Um, first,

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Speaker 1: the European Union is number one. It's got the largest

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Speaker 1: apparel market, and that's some people might take that see

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Speaker 1: that as a little unfair because remember the European Union

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Speaker 1: is a organization composed of twenty eight different member states

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Speaker 1: that are all their own countries. So it's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like it's kind of like comparing a team for

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Speaker 1: a team sport to a group of individual players. Because

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Speaker 1: second is the United States and then third is China.

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Speaker 1: Given the current economic pandemonium, that may very well change

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Speaker 1: in the coming years in ten, which is probably the

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Speaker 1: best like the most recent solid numbers we would have here.

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Speaker 1: Uh the fastest growing global market in apparel was sportswear.

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Speaker 1: It was growing at six percent, which doesn't sound that

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Speaker 1: huge until you hear the next statistic, the size of

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Speaker 1: the global apparel market. Uh in it was one point

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Speaker 1: three trillion dollars with a T in US dollars by

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Speaker 1: this year. And this number came before Mackenzie really understood

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Speaker 1: there was a you know, a global pandemic coming, which

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Speaker 1: we kind of predicted in our Superbug episode years ago. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: long story short, the market is supposed to likely eyes

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Speaker 1: to one point five trillion dollars. So while six point

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Speaker 1: eight percent may not sound like a huge number, six

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Speaker 1: point eight percent of one and a half trillion dollars

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Speaker 1: certainly is. And a lot of this is because, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you look at if you look at the planet overall,

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Speaker 1: we're seeing the emergence of an act of a true

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Speaker 1: middle class in a lot of the world that historically

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Speaker 1: had a an incredibly inequal domestic population, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. We're like one to five of people controlled

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Speaker 1: the majority of wealth, and most other people were consigned

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Speaker 1: to poverty. Now more and more families are saying like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I want to get myself some or my loved ones,

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Speaker 1: uh some some more and luxurious high end clothing. You

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Speaker 1: know that ties in with diet. I want to eat

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Speaker 1: more meat, I want to go out to eat more. Um.

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Speaker 1: This this pattern is most apparent in the region of

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Speaker 1: the Asia cific. Uh, there's a four percent rise in

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Speaker 1: the apparel market there overall. So if you want to

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Speaker 1: if you want to make a lot of money and

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Speaker 1: you're a global fashion can colomberate start selling sportswear, sell

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Speaker 1: it in Asia, make it over priced, and uh just

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Speaker 1: watch the money roll in. You know, it's a really

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Speaker 1: great point that you made earlier. Been about that report

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Speaker 1: coming out showing the one point five trillion daughter the

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Speaker 1: increase to one point five trillion dollars um. It does

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Speaker 1: feel as though the disruption, the economic disruption from this

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Speaker 1: pandemic globally in the fashion industry may not be fully

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Speaker 1: felt for a little while, just because of if you

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Speaker 1: think about the way money flows in these from you know, designing,

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Speaker 1: to manufacturing to the actual selling of these products, right

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Speaker 1: and you know it's being affected in the fact in

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Speaker 1: the factories where these clothing. You know, we're clothing is

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Speaker 1: being created, it's being affected in people not being able

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Speaker 1: to go to a retail store, the retail stores closing themselves,

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Speaker 1: all of the online shopping that is occurring, but black

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Speaker 1: or less of a need for a lot of the

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Speaker 1: fashion items. So man, it's just it's gonna be pretty brutal,

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Speaker 1: I think, Um, but we just don't have those numbers

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Speaker 1: yet because we're not in the future yet. However, the

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Speaker 1: McKenzie State of Fashion made a report in twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: that I don't know, seemed to be looking forward to

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Speaker 1: with some serious prescience. Uh, we've got some quotes here.

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Speaker 1: We predict that twenty nineteen will be a year shaped

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Speaker 1: by consumer shifts linked to technology, social causes, and trust

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Speaker 1: issues alongside. I love this idea of trust issues alongside

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Speaker 1: the potential disruption from geopolitical and macroeconomic events. Let's unpack

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Speaker 1: that that that that's a lot going on in that

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Speaker 1: trust issues, potential just eruption. Indeed, yeah, you know, that's

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. You You don't have to think McKenzie

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Speaker 1: is necessarily heroic to admit that there's some that's pretty

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Speaker 1: good research here. This report. You know is necessarily vague

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Speaker 1: because they're they're trying to uh prognosticate a little bit,

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Speaker 1: and they're you know, at this point they weren't able

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Speaker 1: to say this specific chain of events will occur, but

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Speaker 1: trust issues. They're clearly describing, you know what what is

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Speaker 1: occurring in the US and abroad today. I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: it's what. It's July as we record this. The Kingdom

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Speaker 1: of Iran is going into an internet blackout due to protests.

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Speaker 1: They're sweeping the country. You might have read about it

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Speaker 1: on Reddit, maybe maybe, but there's so much happening people

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Speaker 1: do trust their government's less because it's it's not because

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Speaker 1: there's uh, it's not entirely due to foreign dis info campaigns.

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Speaker 1: It's also because the average voter knows more about how

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Speaker 1: the sausage is made. And it's a gross disturbing story.

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Speaker 1: So so Mackenzie knew. That's so crazy. They knew in

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, what would happen. I can't wait to read

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Speaker 1: the report. Uh if we're all little light reading there

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Speaker 1: for yeah, it's just it's just emoji. It's just it's

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Speaker 1: just like an all bold caps were Yeah, and uh.

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Speaker 1: The report also it mentions it in that quotation there.

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Speaker 1: But the report also examines the role of technology in

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Speaker 1: a couple of ways that matter for this episode. First

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Speaker 1: that there will be um ever more sophisticated logistics programs

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the big companies you know, from

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Speaker 1: Walmart on down, Uh they prized themselves on their uh

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Speaker 1: supply chain logistics. And then of course data analytics, which

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Speaker 1: are part of every single modern business. Now it doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter what you're selling, you want to know everything about

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Speaker 1: the person buying it. And then waste reduction efforts. Waste

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Speaker 1: is a huge problem in the fashion industry, which will

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Speaker 1: explore a later episode properly. And then really jets stuff

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Speaker 1: that sounds very um utopian and jets and sci fi

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Speaker 1: level here, like drone delivery. Why go to a store,

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Speaker 1: We'll just we'll send you that, uh, we'll send you

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Speaker 1: that Louis Vuitton drone. But that's all good, right, All

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Speaker 1: this sounds like a step from the right direction. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean yeah, hopefully it's it's definitely it's um, it's

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Speaker 1: definitely what we would want to happen. Uh not for

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Speaker 1: I hate this phrase, you guys, but it's definitely what

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Speaker 1: every stakeholder would want to see from the company's creating

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Speaker 1: the stuff to the people doing the actual work of

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Speaker 1: manufacturing it to the people buying it at the other

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Speaker 1: end of the chain. The report also lists the growing

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Speaker 1: demand for sustainability and this part greater interest in transparency

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Speaker 1: and supply chains, along with a growing desire for those

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Speaker 1: established brands, those Nikes, those Adidas, and so on to

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Speaker 1: participate in some way in political matters, which might be

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Speaker 1: surprising to some of our fellow listeners, because you know,

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Speaker 1: the factions of traditional media will sometimes give a or

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Speaker 1: in the past, they would give fashion brands some uh,

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Speaker 1: some heat, they would give them some smoke if they said,

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Speaker 1: you know, we support one movement or another. I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna say, you know, I'm not saying it's going to

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Speaker 1: go as far as like we at Nike, Uh we

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Speaker 1: we at Nike support regime change in Iran or some

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Speaker 1: thing like that, because that that won't help them sell

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Speaker 1: shoes as soon as it helps them sell something they care.

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Speaker 1: Right When when, when when there was an opportunity uh

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Speaker 1: to affect you know, the second quarter profits by uh

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Speaker 1: performatively allying oneself with a cause to jour, then of

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Speaker 1: course they're all in that's money. You know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: just do it? Uh sorry, yeah, I mean when the

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Speaker 1: zite guys turns with a large enough majority of the

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Speaker 1: public opinion, right, that's when it happens. That's when you

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Speaker 1: can see every company coming out with some kind of

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Speaker 1: support for a movement. And we've seen it pretty recently happening.

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Speaker 1: Companies that you may not expect to see from see

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Speaker 1: that from mm hmm. And at the at the you know,

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Speaker 1: it's that old saying at the heart of every great

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Speaker 1: fortune lay some sort of crime. Now, honestly, that's that's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a broad brush statement. You know. Uh,

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Speaker 1: some people in some institutions accumulate wealth because they do

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Speaker 1: a good job. It doesn't necessarily mean they broke the

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Speaker 1: law or social mooris or taboos. But that doesn't make

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Speaker 1: this statement entirely untrue. Unless you've been living some sort

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Speaker 1: of trick lugetic existence and you never watch the news

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Speaker 1: and you've only wear worn clothes that you made yourself,

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Speaker 1: you you have the odds are you have heard about

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Speaker 1: the ongoing concerns regarding the dark side of the fashion industry.

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Speaker 1: It's very true. Just to jump back really quickly to

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Speaker 1: that concept of a great fortune constituting at some point

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Speaker 1: probably some kind of crime or a crime at the

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Speaker 1: heart of something like that. We've talked about it length

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Speaker 1: before in the show, but just to read or the

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Speaker 1: concept here is that a great fortune generally is not

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Speaker 1: something that is built within a couple of years. It

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Speaker 1: takes time to build money up, and then that money

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Speaker 1: continues to accrue more money, and it grows and grows

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Speaker 1: and grows. Concept there is that if you go back

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Speaker 1: far enough with something that would be considered a great fortune,

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Speaker 1: there's probably some act or some process within you know,

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Speaker 1: creating a product or pulling something out of the ground,

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Speaker 1: like a natural resource, where there was something terrible that

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Speaker 1: happened to other people in order for that fortune to

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Speaker 1: be generated. That's all we're saying. Oh yeah, yeah, Like

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Speaker 1: the Kennedy dynasty of political dynasty here in the US,

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Speaker 1: pretty solid evidence that, uh, they got their starting bootlegging

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Speaker 1: and they later sort of diversified into politics. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and you know, that's not to say that bootlegging was

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Speaker 1: the absolute worst crime ever, but it was certainly illegal

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Speaker 1: at the time when it was being done. And real quick,

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Speaker 1: I think we buried the lead here trogladinic. Amazing word,

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Speaker 1: amazing word. Then finally, oh, you know, we didn't write it.

426
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just living like a trigo living. It

427
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: means cave dweller. It's just like the uh, it's the

428
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: fancy version of cave dweller. It's the overpriced, upmarket fashion

429
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: version of cave dweller. Love it. But you know, speaking

430
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 1: like of the fashion industry, of the idea of of crime,

431
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: the dark side of the fashion industry, we're we're not

432
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: talking about the stories where the sometimes sordid lives of

433
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: hot shot gurus of design or influencers, and we're not

434
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: talking about the cabals that meet to determine what quote

435
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: unquote hot color palettes and products will be for the

436
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: given year. But those caballs exist. It's crazy. There's a

437
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: there are groups of people who get together every year

438
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: and decide what will be in fashion or cool. And

439
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: when they do it, part of how they part of

440
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 1: their process, is to try to make it seem like

441
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,959
Speaker 1: everyone just organically agreed, which is ridiculous. I wonder if

442
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: that happens in other industries. I hope it happens in

443
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: other industries. I hope there's like a caball for um

444
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: thinking what the silliest thing would be, I'm hoping the past. Yeah, yeah,

445
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: is there a caball for podcasts? How do we get

446
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: in that room? I think it's called I Heart Media?

447
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: Is it? Well, we we don't have the best track

448
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: record then no, you guys. I just something occurs to me.

449
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 1: Can we dub this episode the Dark Side of the Loom?

450
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: That's cool, that's pretty just just it's I mean, you know,

451
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: just submitted for your approval, and things are about to

452
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: get dark. These harrowing tales of the people actually making

453
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: the clothes, you know, the ones actually operating these looms,

454
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: these massive machine creating the fabric. The stories they get

455
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: kind of filed away in some back room, um, you know,

456
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: or some uh step along the way of this absurdly clandestine,

457
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:18,239
Speaker 1: you know, meandering supply chain from the factory to the

458
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: fashion show, um, the runway, um to the retail rack.

459
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: Or you've got your high street boutiques in London. I

460
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: love I love the idea of the high Street. I've

461
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: never been, but I always think of it as being

462
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: like an elevation thing, Like the high Street is literally

463
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: like somehow higher than the other streets. But that's not true.

464
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: They just call it the high street because it's uh,

465
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: just like a main street in the United States. So

466
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 1: what's the secret story behind all of this stuff? And

467
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: we'll tell you right after a quick work from our sponsor.

468
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: Pretty sure it's a high end fashion retailer. Here's where

469
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. The secret story of the fashion industry,

470
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: or one of them, is slavery. Not being hyperbolic here,

471
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: not exaggerating, not embellishing, not chasing a sensational headline, slavery.

472
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,479
Speaker 1: At this point, it's a stretch to even call it

473
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:23,640
Speaker 1: a secret, although it is definitely something apparel industry giants

474
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: historically have not and in several cases still don't want

475
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: you to know. Uh there. There's a twenty eight team

476
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: report by the outfit Global Slavery Index dot org where

477
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: they found that the fashion industry has not just involvement

478
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: with the practice of modern slavery, but huge gigantic economic

479
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: impact on it. It's the fashion industry's existence and the

480
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: way it moves now is very very good for the

481
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: slave trade. Uh specifically a quote for UM. This report

482
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: finds that the fashion supply chain funnels more money towards

483
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: modern slavery than any other industry besides technology, and and

484
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: why is that important? Just to exacerbate this in absolute terms,

485
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: there are more slaves alive right now, enslaved than at

486
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: any other point in modern history. Yeah, And a lot

487
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: of this trouble arises when you've got, uh, let's say

488
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: a company based in country A. Let's just say the

489
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: United States for this example, and all of your manufacturing,

490
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: for the products that you're creating, that you've designed, it's

491
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: being done in company B, which is halfway across the

492
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: world somewhere where the rule of law is very different

493
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: in that country, and the laws in country A and

494
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: B do not apply to one another. So then when

495
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: you're trading and making deals and setting up contracts, it

496
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: just becomes a very different system, right, And it's there's

497
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble in enforcing law in country B.

498
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: When you're in country A and you know there's a

499
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: crime being committed, or if you know you're in country

500
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: B and there's a crime being committed in country A,

501
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: it's just a it's a tough thing to deal with,

502
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: the big problem here is that many of the companies

503
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: who are operating in this way to get cheap labor

504
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: in a different country. Are aware that these problems exist,

505
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: or it can it can be assumed that they're aware.

506
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: And it's important to say, you know, we're talking in

507
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: absolute terms when we explore modern slavery, but it comes

508
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: from a couple of factors. You know. One we have

509
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: to we have to be objective and say part of

510
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: it is due to the overall rise of the human population. Right. Uh,

511
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: that turns out actually that's probably going to be a fad.

512
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: Global fertility rates are are crashing just because there are

513
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: more people enslaved and absolute numbers, that doesn't mean the

514
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: percentage of people enslaved is necessarily at an all time high.

515
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,359
Speaker 1: For more information on this, please do check out our

516
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: earlier episode on modern slavery. But there's another part of this,

517
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: and I think it's what you're you're speaking to here, Matt,

518
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 1: the the interaction of of the fashion industry. It's it's

519
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: not a altruistic affair, right, It's not a nonprofit, it's

520
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: not a not for profit. It is it is clearly

521
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 1: a profit driven endeavor. This unending search for cost cutting

522
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: to streamline supply chains. These are the kind of things

523
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: that could be considered sort of the Star Trek like

524
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 1: continuing mission of these global enterprises doing a the Captain

525
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: Kirk of inappropriate jokes over here. And we don't know

526
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: how many slaves exist, right like, that's that's terrifying. We

527
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: don't really know, Yes, we we do not know the

528
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 1: exact numbers, but we do have some estimates that we

529
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: can point to here and it's harrowing stuff. It's estimated

530
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 1: there are probably somewhere around twenty seven to thirty million

531
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,919
Speaker 1: people who are enslaved right now, and there are other

532
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: outfits that have estimated that number to be higher than

533
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,839
Speaker 1: forty million. And that's across the entire globe that we're

534
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: talking about. A lot of the people who are enslaved

535
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 1: are thought to be in India. There are a couple

536
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: other countries that also have a large number of those

537
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: who are enslaved. We're looking at Russia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia,

538
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mayan, mar Burma, Bangladesh, and

539
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: Pakistan uh And you know, that's really unfortunate to hear that.

540
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: I mean, somewhere between twenty seven and forty something million

541
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: people that are enslaved right now. Um, it's crazy. I mean.

542
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: And and before the episode started we were talking a

543
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: little bit off Mike and I was like, Ben, so

544
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: when we say slavery, are we talking about just super

545
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: low wages? Are we talking about like some kind you know,

546
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 1: obviously there's prison labor, but I would consider slave labor

547
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: in its own weird way. Um, And it's it turns

548
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: out there's this weird gray area and it's sort of

549
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: like a combination of a lot of these things sort

550
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: of mashed up. It's really kind of hard to track.

551
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:35,399
Speaker 1: But yeah, at the end of the day, you call

552
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: it what it is. It's modern slavery. Yes, it always UM,

553
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: no small way distress to learn that since the time

554
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: we recorded modern Slavery, and since the time to the

555
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: time that we're recording today's episode, the average cost of

556
00:36:53,600 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: quote unquote buying a human being is still very very cheap.

557
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: It's very low today. In according to UH nonprofit watch

558
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: groups sites like Modern Day Crimes dot org UH in

559
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: multiple sources UH, the agreed upon average cost again this

560
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: is to buy a living human being is nine that's

561
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: less than just for comparison, that's less than a lot

562
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: of people's monthly cable and Internet bills. That's much less

563
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: than say a a PlayStation or a game console of choice.

564
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: We are, as a society saying that what one PlayStation

565
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: is worth four, maybe the new one's worth five human

566
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: beings really disturbing. So yeah, we're we're consider us available

567
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: to ruin all your future casual get togethers in cocktail parties. Uh.

568
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: But but but to your point, no, Uh, we do

569
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: too acknowledge that there is there is a blurred line here.

570
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: There is a gray area, liminal space in the difference

571
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: between very highly exploited labor and out and out slavery.

572
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 1: There's a definition that the CNN Freedom Project used that

573
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: that we think is is a good lay of the

574
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 1: land definition for what we mean when we say slavery today.

575
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: That's correct. Uh. They define modern slavery as quote when

576
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: one person completely controls another person using violence or the

577
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: threat of violence to maintain that control uh and exploits

578
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: them economically, um, and they are not able to walk away.

579
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: That threat of violence could on this is this is

580
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 1: me uh, could also be a threat to their family

581
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: in anyway, holding them hostage uh and forcing them to

582
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: do work against their will. You know, we see a

583
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,840
Speaker 1: lot of times that this kind of thing is enforced

584
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: by one or one person or one group holding onto

585
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: the traveling papers essentially of another or a family to

586
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: where they cannot leave, where they do not have any

587
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: money to leave UM, or to gain access to other

588
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: means of transportation or escape. UM. It's really rough stuff

589
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: mm hmm. And and it's it's all true. This is

590
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: not conspiratorial theory. Macy headline chasing reports that focus on

591
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:42,280
Speaker 1: the many many people that are tragically forced into UH

592
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: sexual exploitation, but looking at the statistics for what we know,

593
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: many more people, the majority of people are forced into

594
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 1: manual labor of some sort, and of course it would

595
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: be naive to not acknowledge at the people forced into

596
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: manual labor are often also exploited sexually by UH those

597
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 1: impositions of power. This manual labor includes stuff like the

598
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: production of textiles fabrics UH in some cases the the

599
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: final step in manufacturing of clothing that consumers around the

600
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 1: world purchase. Like literally the people who take something that

601
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:27,399
Speaker 1: was made in a generic factory and then so on

602
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 1: the name brand label UH, and then that goes to

603
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: someone in a store somewhere UH, and they might buy

604
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 1: this uh, these shirts, these pants, these socks, these shoes, etcetera.

605
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: And wear them on a regular basis for years without

606
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:48,439
Speaker 1: ever knowing them. The disquieting genesis of of of that

607
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: of that piece of clothing. It's modern slavery. And it's

608
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: not you know, we're focusing on the fashion industry, but

609
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: long time listeners, you know, this has popped up in

610
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 1: other cases, right in in mining, it's everywhere. In certain

611
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: agricultural goods, it's everywhere. Lots of food production. Yeah yeah,

612
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: and uh, and people have even been you know, enslaved

613
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,720
Speaker 1: in all but name here in the US to assist

614
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: with harvesting crops. Right, So, slavery is a link in

615
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: numerous supply chains. According to the U. S. State Department,

616
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: slavery just by itself is a thirty billion dollar industry,

617
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: and it's an industry fueled by lack of transparency in

618
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: unregulated production and illegal work practices. It can take several

619
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: forms in the world of fashion. Yeah, you gotta wonder too, Like,

620
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: I mean, the paper trail of all this. It's not like,

621
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 1: you know, it incriminates these companies as like, Okay, we

622
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: went out looking for slave labor. It's just kind of

623
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: part of a bigger system, right, I mean, you know

624
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: where it ends up. It's like a byproduct of us,

625
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: this hunger for cheap labor and cheap manufacturing, and we're

626
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: complicit as a country. It's not just fashion. I mean,

627
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 1: it's like we crave this, therefore there's a market for it,

628
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: right Yeah. And you never know who is going to

629
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: be doing what for that piece of clothing you're wearing

630
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: because you cannot see that supply chain when you go

631
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: pick something up and buy it. You can't see it.

632
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: There's no way to do it right now, because there

633
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: may be an enslaved person harvesting the cotton that became

634
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: that shirt you've got on or the pants that you're

635
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 1: rocking right now. A n enslaved person may have spun

636
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: up all of that fiber that cotton into yarn that

637
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: created that thing. There may have been an enslaved person

638
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: that actually did the final stitching on that shirt and

639
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 1: thousands of others that ended up in that retail store

640
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: that you usually go to. And it's gonna be really

641
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: tough for you to prove that that's happening, or to

642
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: look at a label in some way and figure out

643
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: if that was if that happened at some point along

644
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 1: the way. Ben, is this the same kind of stuff

645
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: that we used to hear refer to as sweat shops

646
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: back in the day. Yeah, yeah, sweatshops. Sweatshops can straddle

647
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: the line there. Typically the typical idea of a sweatshop

648
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: is very underpaid labor, if not outright slavery. But to

649
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: go back to that idea of the liminal space, you

650
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: could say that the fashion industry walks a fine line

651
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: between slavery and exploited labor. You could say they, I

652
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: guess you could say, if if you want to be

653
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: cute about it, that they thread the needle. The thing

654
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: here is, you know the problem of enforcement. What is

655
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: legal or accepted in one country, such as a very

656
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 1: low wage or very long working hours and unsafe conditions,

657
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: might be illegal in the country where the ultimate end

658
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: product is purchased. Right, So this means that you can

659
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: circumvent laws because remember, corporations nowadays are often more more

660
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 1: powerful than states or government. We're moving through that evolution

661
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: of ultimate ultimate social power here. Most of the interactions

662
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:11,439
Speaker 1: between fashion industry and modern slavery come from, as we said,

663
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:17,839
Speaker 1: global supply chains and slave labor sort of infiltrates that

664
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: fashion industry and myriad ways in the supply chain, like

665
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: the different ways, the different avenues you mentioned matt Um.

666
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: This also goes into it goes into underage labor, child slavery.

667
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:37,720
Speaker 1: Imagine if you're a kid born in extremely disadvantaged circumstances,

668
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: you and your parents get an offer for a gig

669
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: that pays pretty well, and you think, well, higher education

670
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: is not a possibility for me. I have to find

671
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: a job to support my family. Uh Like, in in

672
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: very real terms, I have to be able to buy

673
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: food or medicine. So I'll take this job. I'll travel

674
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 1: to this factory. They say they're going to give me

675
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 1: an education as well. This will be a step up

676
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: in life for me. But then you're in coerced factory

677
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: labor and you are kept in debt bondage. Debt bondage

678
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: is something that's going to be familiar um too many

679
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: people because it takes many forms. This is an explicit

680
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:24,359
Speaker 1: form of debt bondage. But you could also say, uh,

681
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: debt bondage is uh well, debt bondage is a way

682
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: of an employer um bilking an employee out of compensation

683
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: by adding a bunch of incurred costs. Right that they

684
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: quote unquote recoup before the person doing the actual work

685
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: sees a penny. This will be familiar to any musician

686
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,879
Speaker 1: who has ever worked with a record label. Right that,

687
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: you could make a pretty strong argument that something similar

688
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: happens with a lot of especially historically a lot of

689
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: recording agreements. Right, you get the money deductive for studio?

690
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,640
Speaker 1: What I me? How does that work meant? Oh? Oh, man,

691
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never actually worked with the label before.

692
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just anyone, anyone attempting to keep you

693
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: on the hook um for a debt that you owe

694
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: by adding more and more to that debt. It's a

695
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: story that we've heard more and more about over the

696
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: past ten years or so with regards to human trafficking.

697
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: When someone pays, or or needs to pay a group

698
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: several thousand dollars, let's say, to be moved from one

699
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 1: country to another country, and they have to do it secretly.

700
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 1: When the people arrive in the destination country, the people

701
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: that brought them there say, well, yeah, you still owe

702
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: us this money. How are you gonna pay us back

703
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: that money? You have no money and then that uh,

704
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: that group would then force them to do things such

705
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 1: as labor and other terrible things in order to pay

706
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: off that debt. But of course it's an accruing interests,

707
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 1: so you never really are able to get out of

708
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: debt and you just are essentially stuck in bondage. Yeah,

709
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 1: and if we look at the report mentioned by Global

710
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: Slavery Index, one point to seven billion dollars worth of

711
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: garments were at least what they say, what they've phrased

712
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: is at risk of including modern slavery in their supply chain.

713
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: They're imported annually by the G twenty that's the group

714
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: of nations that accounts for eight of the world trade

715
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: UH in the in this industry. If we look at

716
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,399
Speaker 1: their demographics from what we know of people who are

717
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: laboring in bondage or slavery, of the population are thought

718
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,840
Speaker 1: to be women. So the question what are people doing

719
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: to try and stop this? The kind of good news

720
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 1: is they're trying to do some things. We'll tell you

721
00:47:52,800 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: more after a word from our sponsor. So we're back

722
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: once again. Legislation rears its head slowly and inefficiently and imperfectly,

723
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: but we're you know, we're getting out there. UH. Various

724
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: Western countries have attempted to address this crisis. Make no mistake,

725
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,399
Speaker 1: it is a crisis. It is a conspiracy. Through legislation,

726
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: in California passed an act requiring large companies to publicly

727
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: disclose their efforts to address slavery and human trafficking in

728
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: their supply chains. The UK did the same thing or

729
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,880
Speaker 1: a similar thing, and the Modern Slavery Act of that

730
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: said businesses past a certain size have to publicly disseminate

731
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: the actions they've taken to combat supply chain slave labor. Uh.

732
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 1: And and that met with some positive force, but we

733
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: can only really describe it as a good start because

734
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: that legislation had problems. We don't know how effective it was,

735
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: don't know to what degree it was enforced. And you know,

736
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: the California law only applies to California. There are forty

737
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: nine other states and they're really messed up. Stuff is

738
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: happening in the US controlled regions that aren't even considered states. UH.

739
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: And then there's the there's the big bank conundrum. Right like,

740
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: after a certain after a certain point of profit right

741
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: and economic heft than any kind of UH fight, A

742
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: lot of financial punishment is just gonna be folded into

743
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: the cost of business. Right, you're a bank, you do

744
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 1: something crooked, you get your Yeah, you pay the fine.

745
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:38,759
Speaker 1: You just pay the fine. It's not gonna It's like

746
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: if you got a twenty dollar ticket for legally parking,

747
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: you could tell yourself, well, if I parked in a

748
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: parking deck, it would have been twenty five dollars, and

749
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 1: and and again and again. Like this cost of doing

750
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: business mentality is such an American like staple, like of capitalism,

751
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: like this idea of you know, deregulation, or of like

752
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,359
Speaker 1: even the idea that we can you know, why would

753
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: I pay taxes? Why like, why would I'd be stupid

754
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: to pay taxes? You know, I should do whatever I

755
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: can to use these loopholes to best serve my interests

756
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 1: as as a business person. You know, the President says

757
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:19,319
Speaker 1: that very unabashedly, because it's considered like a badge of

758
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: honor to be I'm smart. You know, if I wasn't smart,

759
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 1: I would be paying taxes. You know, it's the same

760
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: thing with this stuff. You know. Uh, these leaders are

761
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: like they're looking out for that bottom line. I mean,

762
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: I I don't want to you know, just it's obviously

763
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:34,919
Speaker 1: beating a dead horse, but it's so clear, and yeah,

764
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: they just yeah, we'll pay the fine and we'll just

765
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: roll that into the cost of doing business. It's a

766
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 1: problem with loopholes, you know. Uh, there's there's a conflict

767
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 1: of interest all too often people who are making the laws.

768
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 1: And this is not just the US thing, this is

769
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: and every this is an everywhere thing. People who are

770
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: making the laws often have a vested financial interest in

771
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 1: carving out loopholes that take the teeth and claws from

772
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: those laws, that render them in some way ineffective, such

773
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: that they simultaneously appease the concerns of voters at least

774
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:13,520
Speaker 1: for that news cycle, while also maintaining the economic status quo.

775
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the story that the Jedi won't tell you.

776
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: If you live in the US, you've probably seen that

777
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 1: made in USA label on various products. The idea here

778
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: is that you see that you buy it because you're

779
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: supporting your domestic economy and you're also buying something that

780
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: conforms to the labor and employment laws of the US.

781
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: But we found an example from back in that shows

782
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 1: just how meaningless that phrase can be. Yeah, back in

783
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: which was, by the way, twenty seven years after that

784
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: old made in USA label started making the rounds on

785
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: pretty major brands. The New York Times ended up they

786
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: exposed a scam that have been for a long time.

787
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 1: So let's let's just talk about this um. There were

788
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: a ton of industry giants Ero, Liz claib Or in

789
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: the Gap, Montgomery Ward, Jeffrey Bean. There are a ton

790
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: of them. They were all using oh Levies, by the way,

791
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: also included they were all using the made in USA label.

792
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:22,440
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. They were actually manufacturing clothing in

793
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: a place called the Northern Marians or the Northern Mariana Islands. Now,

794
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting case and it's exactly that

795
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: kind of loophole we're describing here where the Northern Mariana

796
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: Islands are not a United States state. They're not a U.

797
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: S state, correct, They are a commonwealth technically that's where

798
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: they are. It's uh, you know, they're islands that are

799
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:49,040
Speaker 1: out in the Northwest Pacific Ocean. And the problem here

800
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: is that in this commonwealth, the same rules don't necessarily

801
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 1: apply that if you're a citizen of the United States,

802
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 1: it's it's a weird again, a loophole situation where there

803
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: are some similarities but it's not the same thing. The

804
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: workers there in the Northern Mariana Islands, UH, they were

805
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 1: often migrant laborers from other countries, specifically from the Philippines

806
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 1: and China and other Asian region countries. They would live

807
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: on site at these factories where manufacturing was occurring. They

808
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:24,359
Speaker 1: were living in dormitories that were just terrible. They were

809
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: working ridiculously long days, and they were making two dollars

810
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,360
Speaker 1: in fifteen cents an hour, which was almost exactly half

811
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: of the guaranteed federal wage that the United States would

812
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,400
Speaker 1: uh would give to anyone working at that time. In

813
00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's really crazy. The worst part is that

814
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 1: if those factory workers like spoke up, guess what would happen? Yeah,

815
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we don't have to guess because we have stories

816
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 1: from the people who survived this experience. They were booted

817
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: off the project, they were shipped back to their country

818
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: of origin, and additionally, the wages they were due we're confiscated.

819
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:11,000
Speaker 1: So that's I think that's an example of the liminal

820
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: space between exploitation of labor and slavery. Because you had

821
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: someone who was able to hold that over you. If

822
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: you complain, we're just not going to pay you. And

823
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 1: in at the time of that expose eight, clothing from

824
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:30,839
Speaker 1: the Northern Marianas only made up about one per cent

825
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: of the twenty nine billion dollars in clothing imported into

826
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 1: the US, but it accounted for up to twenty percent

827
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:44,280
Speaker 1: of the clothing sold worldwide by some large American companies.

828
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 1: And and now you have to think, like, if you're

829
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 1: the average US customer in how in the hell are

830
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: you going to be aware of that? How are you

831
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: going to know? How are you going to know? Uh?

832
00:54:56,120 --> 00:55:01,480
Speaker 1: And and while we're being fair in many cases, especially

833
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 1: in the past, it's not as if these companies all

834
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: got together and pulled some sort of monty burdens things

835
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:12,880
Speaker 1: steepling their fingers and like, yes, suppose this slave trade. No,

836
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: because the complex supply chains here make it possible, plausible

837
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 1: in some cases even probable, that many companies genuinely were

838
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:27,880
Speaker 1: unaware of their complicit participation in slavery. They see that

839
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 1: they get a great price on cotton, right and sign

840
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:34,560
Speaker 1: a several year contract for that, and then that goes

841
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: to a different company that has a factory where the

842
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: cottonist process they signed a contract for that, and then

843
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 1: that goes to a different company and so on and

844
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:44,920
Speaker 1: so on and so on until it gets to a

845
00:55:45,040 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 1: store they didn't do due diligence, and performing due diligence

846
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: on every aspect of a supply chain has to be

847
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:57,520
Speaker 1: If we're considering financial punishment for breaking the law a

848
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:01,720
Speaker 1: cost of doing business, then due diligence should logically also

849
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 1: be a cost of business going forward. Will that make

850
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: clothing more expensive? I mean, yeah, probably, I would imagine. Yeah,

851
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 1: Like I felt like maybe I was miss using this

852
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: term when I've when I've used in the past, but

853
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: I just looked it up and I think it applies

854
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: the idea of the banality of evil. Um. You know,

855
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: there's a philosopher named Aren't who Um referred to the

856
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: Nazi war criminal aikman Um as being an example of

857
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,800
Speaker 1: the manality of evil, that he wasn't inherently evil, but

858
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: just shallow and clueless. And that's kind of what this

859
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 1: this all is. You know, these corporations that maybe they're

860
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: not inherently evil, but they just don't care enough to

861
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 1: like know what's going on, and it's just a byproduct

862
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:45,800
Speaker 1: of like the whole capitalist system that yeah, you know,

863
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 1: just a couple of bad apples, right, this is there's yes, sure,

864
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: there might be a little slavery in there, but it's

865
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:56,279
Speaker 1: mainly fine. So who cares, right, people like problems that

866
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: are removed, I mean too. On the other hand, that

867
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 1: point right, yes, this, this will probably make clothing more expensive.

868
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: You can buy, uh, you can buy sourced clothing that

869
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: is described as sustainable in terms of impact on the environment,

870
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 1: in terms of their wage and employment practices, and yeah,

871
00:57:17,800 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: it tends to be more expensive. But on the other

872
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 1: side of the coin, since we're talking about money, on

873
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 1: the other side of the figurative coin here, do you

874
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 1: want to live in a world where you, in some

875
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: way are supporting the enslavement of human beings because you

876
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:37,400
Speaker 1: say five to fifteen or whatever bucks at the register?

877
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: Do you want like are we have to ask ourselves

878
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 1: are we comfortable with this arrangement because it's happening in

879
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:49,040
Speaker 1: a way that we cannot immediately see if you had

880
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 1: to go to the people who are enslaved and you

881
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 1: had to buy that stuff directly from them and look

882
00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 1: them in the eye, and you know, acknowledge like life

883
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 1: sucks and people are terrible, but I am I am

884
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: agreeing that it's better for me because this is eight

885
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 1: bucks instead of twelve. I think a lot more people

886
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: would be a lot more uncomfortable with the idea or

887
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 1: food processing. That's a good example, right, people will eat

888
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: something because they don't have to watch the cow get slaughtered.

889
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: They don't have to watch the bolt gun shoot into

890
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: its brain, you know, So you're at a remove. Therefore

891
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: it's easy for you to just kind of absolve yourself

892
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: of any responsibility. You know. I'm not saying that killing

893
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 1: cattle is bad or is in any way equivalent to

894
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 1: slave labor, but it's a similar, you know, kind of

895
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: that that remove is very similar. Then you've painted a

896
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: picture in my head where I'm imagining a small booth

897
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: where there is let's it's let's say it's in India

898
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,200
Speaker 1: because that's where a lot of the modern slavery is occurring,

899
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 1: or you know any other country where it's agree there's

900
00:58:55,920 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 1: a small booth where there's one person sitting behind that

901
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 1: booth and there's a big rack of designer fashion clothes

902
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: behind them, and uh, when a customer comes up, picks

903
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: out picks out a piece of clothing, hands the person

904
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:12,840
Speaker 1: behind that booth, let's say a hundred and twenty dollars

905
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: US for this piece of clothing, and that person behind

906
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: the booth takes that money, gives you that piece of

907
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: clothing that they made by their hands, hands that money

908
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 1: to their employer which is standing right next to them,

909
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:28,160
Speaker 1: and the employer gives them back half of a penny

910
00:59:29,080 --> 00:59:32,600
Speaker 1: or you know, one cent in order for all of

911
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: the labor the actual human being that created that thing gets,

912
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:43,560
Speaker 1: you know, whatever miniscule fraction if anything, for creating that

913
00:59:43,640 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 1: piece of clothing for you, the end user, it is

914
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 1: just man, Yeah, you know, the thing is I I

915
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 1: know this can come off as sanctimonious, so we also

916
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 1: have to admit it is very difficult to It is

917
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 1: very difficult for us when we're buying stuff to be

918
01:00:03,880 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: aware of just how many horrible uh injustices or shenanigans,

919
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: if you want to be glib, go into this right

920
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 1: like how the demand for attention and the demand for

921
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:22,080
Speaker 1: research is so unending nowadays. We like, even even in

922
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 1: the course of this show, there are at least three

923
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 1: other hidden sides of fashion that we have not covered

924
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:35,920
Speaker 1: in this episode. One, we didn't cover the rampant sexual

925
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 1: exploitation in the modeling industry, which is very closely related

926
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 1: to the fashion industry. Two, we didn't cover the um

927
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 1: to me hilarious story of the deciders, those real life

928
01:00:48,600 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 1: committees that get together every so often and decide what

929
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:55,440
Speaker 1: is or isn't going to be hot in the in

930
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:59,920
Speaker 1: the subjective shifting world of taste. And we didn't come

931
01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:03,280
Speaker 1: were the pollution and the waste, which was you know,

932
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 1: what set us off on this path to begin with.

933
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 1: So we have more to We have more to dive

934
01:01:08,960 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: into in future episodes. I think certainly we we haven't

935
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:17,400
Speaker 1: even talked about the psychological damage globally, globally that the

936
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 1: fashion industry has done for the you know self image

937
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 1: of women and men across the world. Um, yeah, so

938
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: whole there are there's lots to go over here. So

939
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 1: what do you think about all of this that we've

940
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:33,680
Speaker 1: discussed at a the ugly side of this giant industry

941
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 1: of the things that are on your body right now?

942
01:01:36,960 --> 01:01:40,800
Speaker 1: Unless you're listening to this, you know, commando or naked

943
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: or however you how do you like to listen to

944
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: the show. I mean, we don't judge. Whatever you want

945
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 1: to do. What steps can be taken? Do you think

946
01:01:48,360 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: to actually stop some of this? Not to you know,

947
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,240
Speaker 1: have some kind of loophole legislation out there, but what

948
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 1: can actually be done to change this whole thing. We

949
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: want you to write to us if possible. Uh, find

950
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 1: us on on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram. All those were

951
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 1: mostly conspiracy stuff on Instagram or conspiracy stuff show. If

952
01:02:09,240 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that, you can give us

953
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:13,920
Speaker 1: a call or one eight three three st d w

954
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:16,760
Speaker 1: y t K, leave a message and you might get

955
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 1: on the air. You never know. Yeah, a lot more

956
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: opportunities for that these days with the with the Weekly

957
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: Listener Male episode, So definitely hit us up. We love

958
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can also join our Facebook group,

959
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 1: which is a lot of fun. Here's where it gets crazy.

960
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:34,240
Speaker 1: Just name me Matt ben Uh, Super Producer, UM Paul,

961
01:02:34,320 --> 01:02:37,280
Speaker 1: Mission Control, decond. There's some little tidbit about the show,

962
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: so we know you're a real human person, uh, and

963
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 1: we'll let you right on in UM great way to

964
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:44,200
Speaker 1: interact with other listeners, share memes, all of that, and

965
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: also please do us a solid go to Apple Podcasts

966
01:02:47,640 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: and leave us a nice review. If you enjoy the show.

967
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 1: It seems like a small thing, but it actually goes

968
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:54,720
Speaker 1: a long way to help people discover the show, um

969
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:57,440
Speaker 1: and to help fight the trolls. You know. Here's where

970
01:02:57,440 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. Honestly, fellow gets here is your realist.

971
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 1: If you just make a dumb laugh and I chuckle,

972
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:07,840
Speaker 1: or even just sort of breathe air out of my

973
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: nose a little bit more aggressively, the boom mission accomplished.

974
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 1: You're in. If none of that quite bags your badgers,

975
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:18,720
Speaker 1: there is always one way you can get in touch

976
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:22,720
Speaker 1: with us. No delay, no waiting, no lines. All you

977
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:25,360
Speaker 1: need is some avenue to the Internet. You can reach

978
01:03:25,400 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 1: out to us twenty four hours a day, seven days

979
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:30,480
Speaker 1: a week at our good old fashioned email address where

980
01:03:30,560 --> 01:03:52,920
Speaker 1: we are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff

981
01:03:52,960 --> 01:03:54,800
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know is a production of

982
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

983
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple pod Tests, or wherever

984
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,200
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.