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Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. This is one for everybody who is

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Speaker 1: celebrating the holiday of Christmas, the most famous birthday in

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Speaker 1: all of human history. We're doing some classics as we're

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Speaker 1: hanging out with friends and loved entities, and this got

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Speaker 1: us thinking about how Christmas here in the States is

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Speaker 1: no longer necessarily tied to Christianity. It's become kind of

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Speaker 1: a secular holiday. We talked about this on Ridiculous History.

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Speaker 2: Mm hm, bit of a you know, it's the shopping season.

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Speaker 2: It's very very commercialized, especially here in the United States.

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Speaker 2: Not to say that people aren't still leaning into the

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Speaker 2: religious aspects of it. But one thing that some people

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Speaker 2: maybe are bummed to get for Christmas, kids in particular,

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Speaker 2: but some people are stoked to get as should get older,

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Speaker 2: like things like socks and pants and dress shirts. You know,

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Speaker 2: I think the older you get them more. That's kind

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Speaker 2: of what you're after in the Christmas season.

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Speaker 3: Well, if you don't get them, know, a giant cat

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Speaker 3: from the ice is going to come and eat your cats.

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Speaker 2: You right, yeah, exactly, Holly, you on out. So it's

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Speaker 2: pretty important, pretty mission critical, as Ben would say. But

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Speaker 2: the question then becomes, what is behind that aspect of

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Speaker 2: this commercial season the fashion industry.

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Speaker 1: Ooh, that's yeah, that's correct. If you are like most people,

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Speaker 1: you wear clothing, whether you're in a clothing enthusiast clothes

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Speaker 1: horse as we said previously off ear, or whether you're

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Speaker 1: a you know, whether you're a Macaroni Yankee doodle, or

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Speaker 1: you're someone who says, ah, man, they won't let me

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Speaker 1: into the store without pants, you probably have.

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Speaker 2: To wear clothing. It's okay, you can just wear like

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Speaker 2: a nice completed short What is a clothes horse. It's

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Speaker 2: actually a device. It's sort of like a drying rack.

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Speaker 2: But it is a term that gets thrown around for

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Speaker 2: people who are into dressing nice and who are into,

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Speaker 2: you know, buying fancy clothes. But it does get thrown

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Speaker 2: around as a term for people who are into dressing

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Speaker 2: nice buying fancy clothes. But it sort of looks like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's like a rack with made of wood with little

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Speaker 2: strings kind of along each segment of it that you

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Speaker 2: can put clothes, you know, fold clothes over to to

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Speaker 2: drive them or to just have them laid out and back.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, we add an excellent listener suggestion from

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Speaker 1: our fellow conspiracy realist GigE and GigE you you said, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to school for fashion. I'm learning about fast fashion.

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Speaker 1: You know what is going on with clothing. It's one

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Speaker 1: of the oldest pieces of human technology. It's a very

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Speaker 1: popular gift for the humans, and it's also a multi

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Speaker 1: billion dollar industry, which means it has not just one,

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Speaker 1: but several dark sides. So as you're prepping with your

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Speaker 1: elf on the shelf for your your pink pig where

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Speaker 1: you're about to open some presents, we hope you join

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Speaker 1: us for this classic series on the dark side of

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Speaker 1: the loom.

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Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracy. History is

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Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 5: Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noa.

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Speaker 2: They call me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We are joined as always with our super producer called

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Speaker 1: Mission Control Decade. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,

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Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: We're diving into a story that is going to be,

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Speaker 1: in at least some respect, familiar to all of us.

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Speaker 1: Like most of our best suggestions. This came from one

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Speaker 1: of your fellow listeners from bridget B, who reached out

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Speaker 1: to us via social media to ask about the dark

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Speaker 1: side of the fashion industry. Bridget you specifically were asking

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Speaker 1: us about one aspect of the fashion industry that we're

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Speaker 1: no spoilers gonna save for a later episode because we

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Speaker 1: believe that when it comes to the occulted side of

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Speaker 1: the story behind the clothing we all wear, there's more

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Speaker 1: than one episode's worth of stuff they don't want you

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Speaker 1: to know here, And that's that's kind of because you know,

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

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Speaker 2: It's it's the.

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Speaker 1: Shelter that you wear and you walk around in. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think we can point out the elephant

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Speaker 1: or should I say, the clothes source in the room here. Guys,

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Speaker 1: people are we're pretty smart. You know, we have our moments,

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

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you mean human beings, right, and not just the

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Speaker 2: three of us, right that I love the idea of us,

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Speaker 2: the three of us being a single creature like we

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Speaker 2: form like vultron, and we are a appearance based creature. No,

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Speaker 2: it's true. We are just like like everyone else. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's funny considering the times that we're living in, I

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Speaker 2: think people have maybe gotten a little less concerned with

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Speaker 2: their appearances. You know, people are doing zoom calls and

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Speaker 2: like workout shorts and you know, kind of must up

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Speaker 2: hair and stuff. But yeah, in the before times, absolutely

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Speaker 2: appearance is everything. You know, you want to look smart

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Speaker 2: and sharp when you go to a meeting or when

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Speaker 2: you go out on the town, and that's what fashion is.

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Speaker 2: It becomes like almost an extension of who we are

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Speaker 2: as people, the idea that you know, the clothes make

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Speaker 2: the man or whatever. Yeah, people really lean hard into

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Speaker 2: personal style and it really becomes kind of intertwined with

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Speaker 2: our identities.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it certainly does. And I would just say that

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Speaker 3: now in times where we aren't going out as much,

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Speaker 3: the act of getting ready for a day as though

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Speaker 3: you were going to go out and dressing up as

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Speaker 3: though you are going to an important meeting or something

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Speaker 3: or going to meet with friends, and taking that extra

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Speaker 3: step to look really good, it has become this powerful

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Speaker 3: thing that changes the way we feel about ourselves in

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Speaker 3: these times. And I was just speaking with my wife

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Speaker 3: a little bit about that and how you know. If

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Speaker 3: you're not going to be going out or doing anything,

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Speaker 3: you generally don't have to think about that stuff. But

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Speaker 3: when you do, it changes your entire outlook for the day,

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Speaker 3: the way you feel about yourself, and the way you

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Speaker 3: feel others would interact with you. It's just fashion and

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Speaker 3: caring about appearance can be a powerful thing for oneself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed.

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Speaker 1: I mean it gives lie to that old comfortable figure

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Speaker 1: of speech where people would say, you know, you can't

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Speaker 1: judge a book by its cover. Well, my response to

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Speaker 1: that would be, why do books have a cover? What's

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Speaker 1: your beef with graphic designers?

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Speaker 2: There? 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 social assumption

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Speaker 1: that that is a statement a person is making. It's

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Speaker 1: the first version of a business card we see when

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

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to voice one's personal aesthetic. But at worst,

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Speaker 1: it can also be a substitute for personality. It can

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

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Speaker 1: with superiority, right whenever the new hot product comes out.

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Speaker 1: It can even in some cases, such as cockades during

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Speaker 1: the time leading to and following the Civil War, it

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Speaker 1: can be a declaration of hate, right like sympathies with

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Speaker 1: the Confederacy, or you know, in maybe a fascist regime,

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Speaker 1: a certain badge or armband can identify you. But you know,

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Speaker 1: regardless of where it falls on the spectrum, again, it's

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Speaker 1: a fundamental need. We're a smart species, but we're not

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Speaker 1: especially durable. And this is I don't know, this is

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Speaker 1: something that's always been hilarious to me. Human beings are intelligent, right,

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Speaker 1: but there are relatively few places in the world where

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Speaker 1: a human being can live naked all year round. Whether

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

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Speaker 1: have to wear clothes at some point in your life.

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Speaker 1: So fashion, clothing, apparel, it's not going anywhere, but it

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Speaker 1: has a dark side, a very deep dark side. Here

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Speaker 1: are the facts.

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Speaker 2: So why don't we start by let's kind of size

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Speaker 2: up the fashion industry here a little bit in the US,

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Speaker 2: as some of the world's large just fashion companies are

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Speaker 2: based in the US. In twenty seventeen, the United States

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Speaker 2: alone generated one hundred and fifteen billion American dollars in

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Speaker 2: women's wear sales and about eighty six billion dollars in

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Speaker 2: men'swear in the US alone. The Bureau of Labor estimates

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Speaker 2: some one point eight million people are employed in the

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Speaker 2: fashion industry, with two hundred and thirty two thousand of

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Speaker 2: those being in textiles, manufacturing fabrics for different peril and

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Speaker 2: other fashion items, accessories, et cetera. Average annual wages in

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Speaker 2: fashion range from twenty six four and forty bucks be

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Speaker 2: on the super low end for textile bleaching and more

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Speaker 2: procedural kind of factory type operations dyeing machine operators, to

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Speaker 2: eighty four thousand, six hundred bucks for folks in marketing

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Speaker 2: and sales managing for sure.

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Speaker 3: In the Bureau of Labor also, you know notes in

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Speaker 3: here that there are a lot of discrepancies in how

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Speaker 3: much people are paid. You know, we're talking about averages, right.

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Speaker 3: About seventy nine percent of all US employees in fashion

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Speaker 3: work for some kind of apparel retailer, So somebody who

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Speaker 3: is actually selling and distributing a bunch of clothing and

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Speaker 3: accessories and things, and the annual average wage at one

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Speaker 3: of those companies is just slightly higher around twenty six,

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Speaker 3: six hundred and fifty dollars. However, where the real money is,

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Speaker 3: or well at least the higher wages are. That's in

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Speaker 3: sales managers. That's in the marketing side of this industry,

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Speaker 3: people who are out there actually selling the stuff, and

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Speaker 3: people who are running the show. They have an annual

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Speaker 3: wage of around eighty four thousand, six hundred dollars.

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Speaker 2: But I mean that would still be on a relatively

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Speaker 2: low side of the high side, because I mean folks

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Speaker 2: like fashion designers make like hundreds and hundreds of thousands,

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Speaker 2: if not millions of dollars.

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Speaker 3: That is, that's almost like if you're thinking about the

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Speaker 3: fashion industry and those designers that role in the big bucks,

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Speaker 3: it's kind of like the NBA. If you think about

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Speaker 3: all the point, all the basketball players in the world

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Speaker 3: and then the very few that make those ridiculous amounts

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Speaker 3: of money. It's kind of like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like being discovered. It's like being a you know,

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Speaker 2: a rock star. I mean it really is, or or

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Speaker 2: a movie star or something. Yeah.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: end a boutique you would see at a shopping district

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Speaker 1: or a mall. But but yes, even even with the

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Speaker 1: the rarefied air of Guru designers aside, there there's still

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Speaker 1: marked market discrepancies here. Accountants and auditors, for instance, receive

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Speaker 1: an annual average of just under seventy thousand dollars. Buyers

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Speaker 1: and purchasing agents get paid on average fifty six point

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Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a year something like that. 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 clearly

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Speaker 1: means there are people who make north of one hundred

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

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

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Speaker 1: we look at the macroeconomic picture. There are big, big,

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Speaker 1: presumably well dressed fish in this global pond. McKenzie, which

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

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Speaker 1: consulting firm that is, a former employer of Pete Budhaje Edge.

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Speaker 1: By the way, McKenzie estimated that ninety seven percent of

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Speaker 1: the economic profits for the entire fashion industry are earned

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Speaker 1: by a relatively small group of companies. Just twenty companies

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Speaker 1: in the fashion industry earned ninety seven percent of the profits.

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Speaker 1: Most of those twenty companies, as you might assume, are

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Speaker 1: in what we'll call the luxury segment. They're also the

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Speaker 1: majority of those twenty companies of that pantheon, of that

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Speaker 1: pantheon of profitable fashion. Most of them have been in

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Speaker 1: the game.

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Speaker 2: For a while.

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

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Speaker 1: echelon for the past ten years, and their names are

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Speaker 1: probably at least a few are very familiar to you,

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Speaker 1: regardless of where you live.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and a lot of the kind of longstanding leaders

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Speaker 2: in the space include, among many others, inditicts, I don't know, indotects,

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Speaker 2: I think's how you would say, end of texts, LVMH

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Speaker 2: and Nike, which I know, Ben, you were a bit

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Speaker 2: surprised by, which have more than double their economic profits

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Speaker 2: over the past ten years. And each of those companies

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Speaker 2: racked up more than two billion bucks in economic profit

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Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen. And you know you got we got

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Speaker 2: to remember too that close at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: are a one of those you know, life necessities. They

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Speaker 2: are designed to help us survive and you know, be

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Speaker 2: warm and stay dry, but we also want to wear

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Speaker 2: things that we like and we want to look cool

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Speaker 2: while we're doing it.

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Speaker 3: Let's, uh, let's go into some more of these companies

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Speaker 3: because we're talking about the ones we mentioned. Their LVMH

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Speaker 3: into texts and Nike at least at least two billion

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Speaker 3: dollars not too shabby, right, but jump over to the

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Speaker 3: gap you know, the commercials you've seen, the one near

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Speaker 3: you wherever you live, because there's probably one some we're

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Speaker 3: around you.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 3: It was the top selling retailer. It had sales of

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Speaker 3: around sixteen and a half billion dollars. That's a United

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Speaker 3: States currency, by the way. Woh, pretty pretty great. Then

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Speaker 3: if you look at, you know, the the lexuses and

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Speaker 3: the infinities of the clothing brands. Get in that luxury

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Speaker 3: line over there, you can check out the one we

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Speaker 3: mentioned LVMH. Is it Moet or moa Moe? I don't,

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Speaker 3: I honestly don't know moesh.

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Speaker 2: That's like just champagne, right, isn't that an alcohol brand?

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Speaker 1: It's such a it's such a ridiculous story of consolidation

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Speaker 1: of corporate acquisitions, right. It's it's also Hennessy, Louis Vauton,

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Speaker 1: it's this, it's this gigantic luxury goods conglomerate. It's let's

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Speaker 1: just call it the Good Life Corporation.

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Speaker 3: Right, that's the LVMH. Correct, Yes, we're talking about Louis Vuitton, Moay, Hennessy,

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Speaker 3: that's LVMH.

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Speaker 2: Just so it's crazy.

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Speaker 1: You know, like what else do they sell? Probably monocles,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess monocles. Maybe like custom bath mats

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Speaker 1: for mega yachts.

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Speaker 2: H gilded bidets perhaps, Yes, interesting, I mean, that's that's great.

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Speaker 5: That's great. Great for LVMH. That's awesome.

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Speaker 2: I want to really quickly, just really quickly, well, move

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Speaker 2: right on, just chime in. There's also we talked at

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Speaker 2: the top of the show about, like, you know, the

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Speaker 2: idea of like fashion being an economic indicator or a

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Speaker 2: way to kind of you know, flex and say, look

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Speaker 2: at me, I have money. There's a lot of people

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Speaker 2: that spend a lot of money on this stuff that

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Speaker 2: don't have money, and they just need to feel like

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Speaker 2: they're keeping up with the Joneses and maybe like you know,

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Speaker 2: spending irresponsibly on like Gucci stuff because they want to

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Speaker 2: be like quote unquote cool, or like, look like their

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Speaker 2: favorite celeb who wears these brands, but it's really not

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Speaker 2: something they can actually afford, or they could probably be

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Speaker 2: spending their money in better ways. Just putting that out there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean also, brands at times reacted versely

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Speaker 1: to that if they become too closely associated with what

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Speaker 1: they see as the hoy paloi. In the United Kingdom,

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Speaker 1: for instance, when members of what is pejoratively described as

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Speaker 1: the Chov or Chav demographic chav when they started sort

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Speaker 1: of identifying themselves with certain clothing brands or certain fashion brands,

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Speaker 1: the brands took a hit to their reputation. They didn't

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Speaker 1: like it, and in the past, if we want to

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Speaker 1: point out some of the systemic discrimination involved in this industry,

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Speaker 1: brands didn't like it all the time when hip hop artists,

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Speaker 1: for instance, would say, you know, I love this colone

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Speaker 1: or I love this blah blah blah. Ultimately, money talks

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

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Speaker 1: for instance, the manufacturers of Mayboch cars may not have

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Speaker 1: initially loved the fact that they were getting mentioned by

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Speaker 1: Jadacus or Rick Ross, but when they saw the numbers

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Speaker 1: and they saw the visibility. They said, okay, yeah, all right, cool. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the cool people like us, and that helps us sell cars.

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Speaker 5: This is certainly worked out for Hennessy.

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Speaker 1: Certainly worked out for Hennessy. Excellent example, Matt and these

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Speaker 1: are other There are other.

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Speaker 2: Gucci is the big one, Gucci's a.

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Speaker 1: Big one, there are other other things. These conversations happen

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Speaker 1: with the most u the most valued brands in the world.

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Speaker 1: And again, like anyone who knows the strange history of

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Speaker 1: the Coca Cola company, Uh, the importance or the value

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Speaker 1: of a brand is sometimes very difficult to quantify, like

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Speaker 1: what's what's the actual valuation or price you could put

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Speaker 1: on Nike or Adidas. But this this conver we're saying

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Speaker 1: it money is first, but it also factors in more

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Speaker 1: than money that drives it. So this gets very interesting

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Speaker 1: when we forecast the future of fashion. Right now, we

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Speaker 1: can categorize the world in terms of the biggest apparel markets,

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Speaker 1: and we've got pretty solid information on that. They're in

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Speaker 1: the following order. First, the European Union is number one.

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Speaker 1: It's got the largest apparel market and that's some people

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Speaker 1: might take that see that as a little unfair because Remember,

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Speaker 1: the European Union is a organization composed of twenty eight

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Speaker 1: different member states that are all their own countries, So

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like it's kind of like comparing

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Speaker 1: a team for a team sport to a group of

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Speaker 1: individual players, because second is the United States, and then

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Speaker 1: third is given the current economic pandemonium that may very

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Speaker 1: well change in the coming years. In twenty seventeen, which

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Speaker 1: is probably the best like the most recent solid numbers

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Speaker 1: we would have here, the fastest growing global market in

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Speaker 1: apparel was sportswear. I was growing at six point eight percent,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't sound that huge until you hear the next statistic.

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Speaker 1: The size of the global apparel market in twenty fifteen.

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Speaker 1: It was one point three trillion dollars with a T

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Speaker 1: in US dollars by this year, And this number came

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Speaker 1: before Mackenzie really understood there was a global pandemic coming,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: you know, if you look at if you look at

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Speaker 1: the planet overall, we're seeing the emergence of an act

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Speaker 1: of a true middle class in a lot of the

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Speaker 1: world that historically had an incredibly inequal domestic population. You

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Speaker 1: know what I mean, We're like one to five percent

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

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Speaker 1: people were consigned to poverty. Now more and more families

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Speaker 1: are saying like, Hey, I want to get myself some

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Speaker 1: or my loved ones some some more luxurious, high end clothing.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the Asia Pacific. There's a four percent rise in the

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

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

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Speaker 1: a global fashion conglomerate, start selling sportswear, sell it in Asia,

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Speaker 1: make it overpriced, and uh just watch the money roll in.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's a really great point that you made earlier,

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Speaker 3: been about that report coming out showing the one point

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Speaker 3: five trillion u are the increase to one point five

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Speaker 3: trillion dollars. It does feel as though the disruption, the

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Speaker 3: economic disruption from this pandemic globally in the fashion industry

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Speaker 3: may not be fully felt for a little while, just

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Speaker 3: because of if you think about the way money flows

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Speaker 3: in these from you know, designing, to manufacturing to the

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Speaker 3: actual selling of these products, right and you know, it's

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Speaker 3: being affected in the fact in the factories where these clothing,

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Speaker 3: you know, where clothing is being created. It's being affected

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Speaker 3: in people not being able to go to a retail store,

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Speaker 3: the retail stores closing themselves, all of the online shopping

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Speaker 3: that is occurring, but lack or less of a need

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Speaker 3: for a lot of the fashion items. So man, it's

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Speaker 3: just it's going to be pretty brutal, I think. But

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Speaker 3: we just don't have those numbers yet because we're not

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Speaker 3: in the future yet. However, the McKenzie State of Fashion

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Speaker 3: made a report in twenty nineteen that I don't know,

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Speaker 3: seem to be looking forward to twenty twenty with some

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Speaker 3: serious prescients. We've got some quotes here.

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Speaker 2: We predict that twenty nineteen will be a year shaped

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Speaker 2: by consumer shifts linked to technology, social causes, and trust issues.

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Speaker 2: Alongside I love this idea of trust issues alongside the

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Speaker 2: potential disruption from geopolitical and macroeconomic events. Let's unpack that.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot going on in that.

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Speaker 1: Trust issues, potential disruption. Indeed, Yeah, you know, that's the thing.

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Speaker 1: You don't have to think Mackenzie is necessarily heroic to

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Speaker 1: admit that there's pretty good research here. This report, you know,

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Speaker 1: is necessarily vague because they're trying to prognosticate a little

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

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

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Speaker 1: but trust issues they're clearly describing, you know, 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 seventeenth as we record this. The

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Speaker 1: Kingdom of Iran is going into an internet blackout due

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Speaker 1: to protests. They're sweeping the country. You might have read

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Speaker 1: about it on Reddit. Maybe maybe, But there's so much happening.

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

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Speaker 1: there's it's not entirely due to foreign disinfo campaigns. It's

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

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Speaker 1: sausage is made, and it's a gross disturbing story so

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Speaker 1: we so McKenzie 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: their twenty twenty report if we're all light reading therefore, Yeah.

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Speaker 5: It's just a blank page one.

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Speaker 1: It's just emoji.

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Speaker 2: It's just like an all bold caps where.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the report also it mentions it in that

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Speaker 1: quotation there. But the report also examines the role of

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: on down, they prize themselves on their supply chain logistics.

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Speaker 1: And then of course data analytics, which are part of

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Speaker 1: every single modern business. Now it doesn't matter what you're selling,

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Speaker 1: you want to know everything about the person buying it.

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Speaker 1: And then waste reduction efforts. Waste is a huge problem

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Speaker 1: in the fashion industry, which we'll explore in a later

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Speaker 1: episode properly. And then really jets stuff that sounds very

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Speaker 1: utopian and jets and sci fi level here, like drone delivery.

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Speaker 1: Why go to a store, We'll just we'll send you that.

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Speaker 1: We'll send you that Louis Vutan drone.

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Speaker 2: But that's all good, right, all this sounds like a

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Speaker 2: step in the right direction.

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

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Speaker 1: it's definitely what we would want to happen, not to

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

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Speaker 1: what every stakeholder would want to see, from the companies

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Speaker 1: creating the stuff, to the people doing the actual work

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Speaker 1: of manufacturing it, to the people buying it at the

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

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

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

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

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

432
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: be surprising to some of our fellow listeners, because you know,

433
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 1: the factions of traditional media will sometimes give a or

434
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: in the past, they would give fashion brands some heat,

435
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: they would give them some smoke if they said, you know,

436
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: we support one movement or another. I'm not gonna say,

437
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying it's going to go as

438
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: far as like we at Nike, we at Nike support

439
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: regime change in Iran or something like that, because that

440
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: won't help them sell shoes as soon as it helps

441
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: them sell something they care. Right when when, when, when

442
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: there was an opportunity uh to affect you know, the

443
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: second quarter profits by uh performatively allying oneself with a

444
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: cause d jore, then of course they're all in. That's money,

445
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, just do it?

446
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:32,360
Speaker 3: Sorry, yeah, I mean when the zeitgeys turns with a

447
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 3: large enough majority of the public opinion, right, that's when

448
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 3: it happens. That's when you can see every company coming

449
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 3: out with some kind of support for a movement. And

450
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 3: we've seen it pretty recently happening companies that you may

451
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 3: not expect to see from see that from MM.

452
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: And at the every at the you know, it's that

453
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: old saying at the heart of every great fortune lay

454
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: some sort of crime. No, honestly that that's a little

455
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: bit of a broad brush statement. You know, some people

456
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: and some institutions accumulate wealth because they do a good job.

457
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean they broke the law or social

458
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: mores or taboos. But that doesn't make this statement entirely

459
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: untrue unless you've been living some sort of trogliditic existence,

460
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: and you never watch the news, and you've only wear

461
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: worn clothes that you made yourself. The odds are you

462
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: have heard about the ongoing concerns regarding the dark side

463
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 1: of the fashion industry.

464
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 5: It's very true.

465
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 3: Just to jump back really quickly to that concept of

466
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 3: a great fortune constituting at some point probably some kind

467
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 3: of crime or a crime at the heart of.

468
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 5: Something like that.

469
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,239
Speaker 3: We've talked about it length before in this show, but

470
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 3: just to reiterate the concept here is that a great

471
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 3: fortune generally is not something that is built within a

472
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 3: couple of years. It takes time to build money up,

473
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 3: and then that money continues to accrue more money, and

474
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 3: it grows and grows and grows. The concept there is

475
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 3: that if you go back far enough with something that

476
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: would be considered a great fortune, there's probably some act

477
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 3: or some process within, you know, creating a product or

478
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 3: pulling something out of the ground, like a natural resource,

479
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 3: where there was something terrible that happened to other people

480
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 3: in order for that fortune to be generated. That's all

481
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:33,479
Speaker 3: we're saying.

482
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Like the Kennedy dynasty of political dynasty

483
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: here in the US, pretty solid evidence that they got

484
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: their start in bootlegging and then later sort of diversified

485
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: into politics.

486
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, that's not to say that bootlegging

487
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 3: was the absolute worst crime ever, but it was certainly

488
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 3: illegal at the time when it was being done.

489
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: And real quick, I think we buried the lead here. Troglodenic.

490
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 2: Amazing word, amazing word.

491
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: Ben Finally, oh, you know, we didn't write it. But yeah,

492
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: just living like a chocolate diet living it means cave dweller.

493
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: It's just like the it's the fancy version of cave dweller.

494
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 1: It's the overpriced, upmarket fashion version of cave dweller.

495
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 2: Love it.

496
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: But you know, speaking like of the fashion industry, of

497
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: the idea of crime, the dark side of the fashion industry,

498
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the stories or the sometimes sordid

499
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: lives of hot shot gurus of design or influencers. And

500
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the cabals that meet to determine

501
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: what quote unquote hot color palettes and products will be

502
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 1: for the given year. But those cabals exist.

503
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 2: It's crazy.

504
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: There's a there are groups of people who get together

505
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,719
Speaker 1: every year and decide what will be in fashion or

506
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: cool and when they do it. Part of how they

507
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: part of their process, is to try to make it

508
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: seem like everyone just organically agreed, which is ridiculous. I

509
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: wonder if that happens in other industries. I hope it

510
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: happens in other industries. I hope there's like a cabal

511
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: for thinking of what the silliest thing would be.

512
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:21,719
Speaker 5: I'm hoping those podcasts.

513
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, is there a cabal for podcasts?

514
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 2: How do we get in that room? I think it's

515
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 2: called iHeartMedia.

516
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: Well, we don't have the best track record, then.

517
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 2: No, no, you guys, I just don't thing. It occurs

518
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 2: to me. Can we dub this episode the Dark Side

519
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 2: of the Loom?

520
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 5: That's cool, that's pretty cood.

521
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: Just it's I mean, you know, just submitted for your

522
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 2: approval and things are about to get dark. These harrowing

523
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 2: tales of the people actually making the clothes, you know,

524
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 2: the ones actually operating these looms, these massive machines creating

525
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: the fabric. The stories they get kind of filed away

526
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 2: in some back room, you know, or some step along

527
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 2: the way of this absurdly clandestine, you know, meandering supply

528
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 2: chain from the factory to the fashion show, the runway

529
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 2: to the retail rack or you got your high street

530
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 2: boutiques in London. I love the idea of the high Street.

531
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 2: I've never been, but I always think of it as

532
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 2: being like an elevation thing, like the high Street is literally,

533
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 2: like somehow higher than the other streets. But that's not true.

534
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:34,719
Speaker 2: They just call it the high Street because it's just

535
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: like a main street in the United States. So what's

536
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 2: the secret story behind all of this stuff?

537
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 3: And we'll tell you right after a quick work from

538
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 3: our sponsor. Pretty sure it's a high end fashion retailer.

539
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 2: Here's where it gets crazy.

540
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: The secret story of the fashion industry, or one of them,

541
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: is slavery. Not being hyperbolic here, not exaggerating, not embellishing,

542
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: not chasing a sensational headline, slavery. At this point, it's

543
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: a stretch to even call it a secret, although it

544
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: is definitely something apparel industry giants historically have not and

545
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: in several cases still don't want.

546
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 2: You to know.

547
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: There's a twenty eighteen report by the outfit Globalslaveryindex dot

548
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 1: org where they found that the fashion industry has not

549
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: just involvement with the practice of modern slavery, but huge,

550
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: gigantic economic impact on it. It's the fashion industry's existence

551
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: and the way it moves now is very very good

552
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: for the slave trade specifically. A quote from this report

553
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: finds that the fashion supply chain funnels more money toward

554
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: modern slavery than any other industry besides technology. And why

555
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: is that important? Just to exacerbate this in absolute terms,

556
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: there are more slaves alive right now in slaved than

557
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: at any other point in modern history.

558
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a lot of this trouble arises when you've

559
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 3: got a let's say, a company based in country A,

560
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 3: let's just say the United States for this example, and

561
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,720
Speaker 3: all of your manufacturing for the products that you're creating

562
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,320
Speaker 3: that you've designed, it's being done in company B, which

563
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 3: is halfway across the world somewhere where the rule of

564
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 3: law is very different in that country, and the laws

565
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: in country A and B do not apply to one another.

566
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 3: So then when you're trading and making deals and setting

567
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 3: up contracts, it's just becomes a very different system, right,

568
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,919
Speaker 3: And it's there's a lot of trouble in enforcing law

569
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 3: in country B when you're in country A and you

570
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 3: know there's a crime being committed, or if you know

571
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: you're in country B and there's a crime being committed

572
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 3: in country A. It's just a it's a tough thing

573
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,879
Speaker 3: to deal with. The big problem here is that many

574
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 3: of the companies who are operating in this way to

575
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 3: get cheap labor in a different country are aware that

576
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 3: these problems exist, or it can it can be assumed

577
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 3: that they're aware.

578
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: And it's important to say, you know, we're talking in

579
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: absolute terms when we explore modern slavery, but it comes

580
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: from a couple of factors.

581
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 5: You know.

582
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: One we have to we have to be objective and

583
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,840
Speaker 1: say part of it is due to the overall rise

584
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: of the human population.

585
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 2: Right.

586
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: That turns out, actually that's probably going to be a fad.

587
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: Global fertility rates are are crashing. Just because there are

588
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: more people enslaved and absolute numbers, that doesn't mean the

589
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 1: percentage of people enslaved is necessarily at an all time high.

590
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: For more information on this, please do check out our

591
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 1: earlier episode on modern slavery. But there's another part of this,

592
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: and I think it's what you're you're speaking to here,

593
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: matt Uh, the interaction of the fashion industry. It's it's

594
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: not an altruistic affair, right, it's not a nonprofit. It's

595
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: not a not for profit.

596
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 2: It is it is clearly a.

597
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: Profit driven endeavor, this unending search for cost cutting, to

598
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: streamline supply chains. These are the kind of things that

599
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: could be considered sort of the Star Trek like continuing

600
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: mission of these global enterprises doing a the Captain Kirk

601
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: of inappropriate.

602
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 2: Jokes over here.

603
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: And we don't know how many slaves exist, right like,

604
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: that's that's terrified. We don't really know.

605
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 3: Yes, we do not know the exact numbers, but we

606
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 3: do have some estimates that we can point to here,

607
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 3: and it's harrowing stuff. It's estimated there are probably somewhere

608
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 3: around twenty seven to thirty million people who are enslaved

609
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,240
Speaker 3: right now, and there are other outfits that have estimated

610
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 3: that number to be higher than forty million. And that's

611
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 3: across the entire globe that we're talking about. A lot

612
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 3: of the people who are enslaved are thought to be

613
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 3: in India. There are a couple other countries that also

614
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 3: have a large number of those who are enslaved. We're

615
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 3: looking at Russia, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic

616
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 3: of Congo, Mayan Maar Burma, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. And you know,

617
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 3: that's really unfortunate to hear that. I mean, somewhere between

618
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 3: twenty seven and forty something million people that are enslaved

619
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 3: right now.

620
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 2: It's crazy. I mean. And before the episode started, we

621
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 2: were talking a little bit off Mike and I was like, Ben,

622
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 2: so when we say slavery, are we talking about just

623
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 2: super low wages? Are we talking about like some kind

624
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 2: You know, obviously there's prison labor, but I would consider

625
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 2: slave labor in its own weird way. And it turns

626
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 2: out there's this weird gray area and it's sort of

627
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 2: like a combination of a lot of these things sort

628
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 2: of mashed up. It's really kind of hard to track.

629
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 2: But yeah, at the end of the day, you call

630
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 2: it what it is. It's modern slavery.

631
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: Yes, And that is no small way distress to learn

632
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: that since the time we recorded modern slavery, and since

633
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: the time to the time that we're recording today's episode,

634
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:53,280
Speaker 1: the average cost of quote unquote buying a human being

635
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:55,320
Speaker 1: is still very.

636
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 2: Very cheap.

637
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: It's very low today in twenty twenty, according to nonprofit

638
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: watch group sites like modern day crimes dot org, in

639
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: multiple sources. The agreed upon average cost again this is

640
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: to buy a living human being is ninety dollars. That's

641
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: less than just for comparison, that's less than a lot

642
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 1: of people's monthly cable and internet bills. That's much less

643
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: than say a PlayStation or a game console of choice.

644
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: We are as a society saying that what one PlayStation

645
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:42,600
Speaker 1: is worth four, maybe the new one's worth five human beings.

646
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 2: It's really disturbing.

647
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're consider us available to ruin all your

648
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 1: future casual get togethers and cocktail parties. But to your point, Noel,

649
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: we do need to acknowledge that there is a blur

650
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: lying here. There is a gray area, liminal space in

651
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: the difference between very highly exploited labor and out and

652
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: out slavery. There's a definition that the CNN Freedom Project

653
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: us that we think is a good lay of the

654
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: land definition for what we mean when we say slavery today.

655
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 2: That's correct. They define modern slavery as a quote when

656
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 2: one person completely controls another person using violence or the

657
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 2: threat of violence to maintain that control and exploits them economically,

658
00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 2: and they are not able to walk away. That threat

659
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 2: of violence could on this is me could also be

660
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 2: a threat to their family in any way, holding them

661
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 2: hostage and forcing them to do work against their will.

662
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, we see a lot of times that this kind

663
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 3: of thing is enforced by one or one person or

664
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 3: one group holding on to the traveling papers essentially of

665
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 3: another or a family to where they cannot leave, where

666
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 3: they do not have any money to leave or to

667
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 3: gain access to other means of transportation or escape. It's

668
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 3: really rough stuff.

669
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 5: And.

670
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: It's all true. This is not conspiratorial theory. May see

671
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 1: headline chasing reports that focus on the many, many people

672
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: that are tragically forced into sexual exploitation, but looking at

673
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: the statistics for what we know, many more people. The

674
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: majority of people are forced into manual labor of some sort,

675
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: and of course it would be naive to not acknowledge

676
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 1: that the people forced into manual labor are often all

677
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: so exploited sexually by those impositions of power. This manual

678
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: labor includes stuff like the production of textiles fabrics, in

679
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: some cases the final step in manufacturing of clothing that

680
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: consumers around the world purchase, like literally the people who

681
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 1: take something that was made in a generic factory and

682
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,239
Speaker 1: then so on. The name brand label, and then that

683
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: goes to someone in a store somewhere and they might

684
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: buy this, these shirts, these pants, these socks, these shoes,

685
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: et cetera, and wear them on a regular basis for

686
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: years without ever knowing the disquieting genesis of that piece

687
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: of clothing. It's modern slavery. And it's not you know,

688
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: we're focusing on the fashion industry, but longtime listeners, you know,

689
00:43:54,719 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: this has popped up in other cases, right in mining everywhere,

690
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: in certain agricultural goods. It's everywhere.

691
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 5: Theres lots of food production.

692
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and people have even been you know, enslaved

693
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: in all but name here in the US to assist

694
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: with harvesting crops. Right, So, slavery is a link in

695
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: numerous supply chains. According to the US State Department, slavery

696
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: just by itself is a thirty billion dollar industry, and

697
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: it's an industry fueled by lack of transparency in unregulated

698
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: production and illegal work practices. It can take several forms

699
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 1: in the world of fashion.

700
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta wonder too, Like, I mean, the paper

701
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 2: trail of all this, it's not like you know, it

702
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 2: incriminates these companies as like, Okay, we went out looking

703
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 2: for slave labor. It's just kind of part of a

704
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 2: bigger system, right, I mean, you know where it ends up.

705
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: It's like a byproduct of just this hunger for cheap

706
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 2: labor and cheap manufactur and we're complicit as a country.

707
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 2: It's not just fashion. I mean, it's like we crave this,

708
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 2: therefore there's a market for it, right Yeah.

709
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 3: And you never know who is going to be doing

710
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 3: what for that piece of clothing you're wearing because you

711
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: cannot see that supply chain when you go pick something

712
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 3: up and buy it. You can't see it. There's no

713
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,919
Speaker 3: way to do it right now, because there may be

714
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 3: an enslaved person harvesting the cotton that became that shirt

715
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 3: you've got on or the pants that you're rocking right now.

716
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 3: A and enslaved person may have spun up all of

717
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 3: that fiber that cotton into yarn that created that thing.

718
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 3: There may have been an enslaved person that actually did

719
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 3: the final stitching on that shirt and thousands of others

720
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 3: that ended up in that retail store that you usually

721
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 3: go to. And it's going to be really tough for

722
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 3: you to prove that that's happening, or to look at

723
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 3: a label in some way and figure out if that

724
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 3: was if that happened at some point along the way.

725
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 2: Ben, is this the same kind of stuff that we

726
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 2: used to hear referred to as sweatshops back in the day.

727
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sweatshops. Sweatshops can straddle the line there. The

728
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 1: typical idea of a sweatshop is very underpaid labor, if

729
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: not outright slavery. But to go back to that idea

730
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: of the liminal space, you could say that the fashion

731
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: industry walks a fine line between slavery and exploited labor.

732
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: You could say they, I guess you could say, if

733
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: you want to be cutesy about it, that they thread

734
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: the needle. The thing here is, you know the problem

735
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: of enforcement. What is legal or accepted in one country,

736
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: such as a very low wage or very long working

737
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 1: hours in unsafe conditions, might be illegal in the country

738
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: where the ultimate end product is purchased. Right, So this

739
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: means that you can circumvent laws because remember, corporations nowadays

740
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:56,919
Speaker 1: are often more more powerful than states or governments. We're

741
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: moving through that evolution of ultimately ultimate social power here.

742
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: Most of the interactions between fashion industry and modern slavery

743
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: come from as we said, global supply chains and slave

744
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: labor sort of infiltrates that fashion industry and myriad ways

745
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 1: in the supply chain, like the different ways, the different

746
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: avenues you mentioned, Matt, this also goes into it goes

747
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 1: into underage labor, child slavery. Imagine if you're a kid

748
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,919
Speaker 1: born in extremely disadvantaged circumstances, you and your parents get

749
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: an offer for a gig that pays pretty well, and

750
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:43,840
Speaker 1: you think, well, higher education is not a possibility for me.

751
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 1: I have to find a job to support my family,

752
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,720
Speaker 1: like in very real terms, I have to be able

753
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: to buy food or medicine.

754
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 2: So I'll take this job.

755
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: I'll travel to this factory. They say they're going to

756
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: give me an education as well. This will be a

757
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: step up in life for me. But then you're in

758
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: coerced factory labor and you are kept in debt bondage.

759
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: Debt bondage is something that's going to be familiar to

760
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: many people because it takes many forms. This is an

761
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: explicit form of debt bondage. But you could also say

762
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: debt bondage is well. Debt bondage is a way of

763
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: an employer bilking an employee out of compensation by adding

764
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 1: a bunch of incurred costs. Right that they quote unquote

765
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: recoup before the person doing the actual work sees a penny.

766
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,839
Speaker 1: This will be familiar to any musician who has ever

767
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 1: worked with a record label.

768
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: Right that, you.

769
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:50,320
Speaker 1: Could make a pretty strong argument that something similar happens

770
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,919
Speaker 1: with a lot of especially historically a lot of recording agreements. Right,

771
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: you get the money deductive for studio. I mean, how

772
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: does that work? Meant?

773
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 3: Oh, oh man, I don't no, no, I've never actually

774
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 3: worked with a label before. But yeah, it's just anyone

775
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 3: attempting to keep you on the hook for a debt

776
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 3: that you owe by adding more and more to that debt.

777
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 3: It's a story that we've heard more and more about

778
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 3: over the past ten years or so with regards to

779
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 3: human trafficking. When someone pays or needs to pay a

780
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 3: group several thousand dollars, let's say, to be moved from

781
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 3: one country to another country, and they have to do

782
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:37,760
Speaker 3: it secretly. When the people arrive in the destination country,

783
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 3: the people that brought them there say, well, yeah, you

784
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 3: still owe us this money. How are you gonna pay

785
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 3: us back that money?

786
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 5: You have no money?

787
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 3: And then that group would then force them to do

788
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 3: things such as labor and other terrible things in order

789
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 3: to pay off that debt. But of course it's accruing interest,

790
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 3: so you never really are able to get out of debt,

791
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 3: and you just are essentially stuck in bondage.

792
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:07,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if we look at that twenty eighteen report

793
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:12,800
Speaker 1: mentioned by Global Slavery Index, one point two seven billion

794
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: dollars worth of garments were at least what they say,

795
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: what they phrase is at risk of including modern slavery

796
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,760
Speaker 1: and their supply chain. They're imported annually by the G twenty.

797
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: That's the group of nations that accounts for eighty percent

798
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 1: of the world trade in this industry. If we look

799
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: at their demographics, from what we know of people who

800
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: are laboring in bondage or slavery, seventy one percent of

801
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: the population are thought to be women. So the question

802
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: what are people doing to try and stop this? The

803
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,320
Speaker 1: kind of good news is they're trying to do some things.

804
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,760
Speaker 1: We'll tell you more after a word from our sponsor.

805
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 1: So we're back once again. Legislation rears its head slowly

806
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: and inefficiently and imperfectly, but we're you know, we're getting

807
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: out there. Various Western countries have attempted to address this crisis.

808
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: Make no mistake, it is a crisis. It is a

809
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:21,439
Speaker 1: conspiracy through legislation. In twenty ten, California passed an act

810
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: requiring large companies to publicly disclose their efforts to address

811
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: slavery and human trafficking in their supply chains. The UK

812
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: did the same thing or similar thing in the Modern

813
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: Slavery Act of twenty sixteen that said businesses past a

814
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 1: certain size have to publicly disseminate the actions they've taken

815
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: to combat supply chain slave labor. And that met with

816
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 1: some positive force. But we can only really describe it

817
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 1: as a good start because that legislation had problems. We

818
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: don't know how effective it was, we don't know to

819
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: what degree it was enforced. And you know, the forty

820
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:04,280
Speaker 1: law only applies to California. There are forty nine other states,

821
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 1: and the really messed up stuff is happening in the

822
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 1: US controlled regions that aren't even considered states. And then

823
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:15,760
Speaker 1: there's the there's the big bank conundrum. Right like, after

824
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: a certain after a certain point of profit right and

825
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: economic theft, then any kind of a lot of financial

826
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:26,360
Speaker 1: punishment is just going to be folded into the cost

827
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: of business. Right, your bank, you do something crooked, you

828
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: get your you pay the fine. Yeah, you pay the

829
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: five You just pay the fine. It's not gonna It's

830
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 1: like if you got a twenty dollars ticket for legally parking,

831
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: you could tell yourself, well, if I parked in a

832
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: parking deck, it would have been twenty five dollars, and.

833
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 2: Again and again. Like this cost of doing business mentality

834
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 2: is such an American like staple of capitalism, like this

835
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 2: idea of you know, deregulation, or of like even the

836
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 2: idea that we can you know, why would I pay taxes?

837
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 2: Like why would I'd be stupid to pay taxes? You know,

838
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 2: I should do whatever I can to use these loopholes

839
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 2: to best serve my interests as a business person. You know.

840
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:15,080
Speaker 2: The President says that very unabashedly, because it's considered like

841
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 2: a badge of honor to be I'm smart. You know.

842
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,359
Speaker 2: If I wasn't smart, I would be paying taxes, you know.

843
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 2: And it's the same thing with this stuff. You know,

844
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 2: these leaders are like they're looking out for that bottom line.

845
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to, you know, just it's

846
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 2: obviously beating a dead horse, but it's so clear, and yeah,

847
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 2: they just yeah, we'll pay the fine and we'll just

848
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 2: roll that into the cost of doing business.

849
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: It's a problem with loopholes, you know, there's a conflict

850
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:42,800
Speaker 1: of interest all too often people who are making the laws.

851
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: And this is not just the US thing, this is

852
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: in every this is an everywhere thing. People who are

853
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: making the laws often have a vested financial interest in

854
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: carving out loopholes that take the teeth and claws from

855
00:53:56,160 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 1: those laws, that render them in some way ineffective, such

856
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 1: that they simultaneously appease the concerns of voters at least

857
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: for that news cycle, while also maintaining the economic status quo.

858
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 1: I mean, here's a story that the Jedi won't tell you.

859
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 1: If you live in the US, you've probably seen that

860
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: made and USA label on various products. The idea here

861
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: is that you see that you buy it because you're

862
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: supporting your domestic economy and you're also buying something that

863
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:32,800
Speaker 1: conforms to the labor and employment laws of the US.

864
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: But we found an example from back in nineteen ninety

865
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: three that shows just how meaningless that phrase can be.

866
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, back in nineteen ninety three, which was, by the way,

867
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 3: twenty seven years after that old maide In USA label

868
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 3: started making the rounds on pretty major brands. The New

869
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 3: York Times ended up they exposed a scam that have

870
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 3: been running for a long time.

871
00:54:57,719 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 5: So let's just talk about this.

872
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 3: A ton of industry giants, Arrow, Liz Claiborne, the Gap,

873
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,200
Speaker 3: Montgomery Ward, Jeffrey Bean, there are a ton of them.

874
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 5: They were all using.

875
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 3: Oh Levi's, by the way, also included they were all

876
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:12,760
Speaker 3: using the Maiden USA label.

877
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:14,359
Speaker 5: But here's the thing.

878
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 3: They were actually manufacturing clothing in a place called the

879
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 3: Northern Marians or the Northern Mariana Islands. Now, this is

880
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,239
Speaker 3: a really interesting case and it's exactly that kind of

881
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 3: loophole we're describing here where the Northern Mariana Islands are

882
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,320
Speaker 3: not a United States state. They're not a US state, correct,

883
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:39,720
Speaker 3: They are a commonwealth technically, that's where they are. It's

884
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 3: you know, they're islands that are out in the Northwest

885
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:47,880
Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean. And the problem here is that in this commonwealth,

886
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 3: the same rules don't necessarily apply that if you were

887
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 3: a citizen of the United States. It's a weird again,

888
00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 3: a loophole situation where there are some similarities, but it's

889
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 3: not the same thing. The workers there in the Northern

890
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 3: Mariana Islands, they were often migrant laborers from other countries,

891
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 3: specifically from the Philippines and China and other Asian region countries.

892
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:15,359
Speaker 3: They would live on site at these factories where manufacturing

893
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 3: was occurring. They were living in dormitories that were just terrible.

894
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 3: They were working ridiculously long days, and they were making

895
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 3: two dollars and fifteen cents an hour, which was almost

896
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,720
Speaker 3: exactly half of the guaranteed federal wage that the United

897
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:34,719
Speaker 3: States would would give to anyone working at that time

898
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety three. It's really crazy. The worst part

899
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 3: is that if those factory workers like spoke up, guess

900
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:45,240
Speaker 3: what would happen.

901
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, Unfortunately we don't have to guess because we have

902
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 1: stories from the people who survived this experience. They were

903
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 1: booted off the project, they were shipped back to their

904
00:56:55,920 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: country of origin, and additionally, the wages as they were

905
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 1: due were confiscated. So that's I think that's an example

906
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:11,640
Speaker 1: of the liminal space between exploitation of labor and slavery,

907
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 1: because you had someone who was able to hold that

908
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 1: over you. If you complain, we're just not going to

909
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 1: pay you. And in nineteen ninety three, at the time

910
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:26,080
Speaker 1: of that exposa, clothing from the Northern Marianas only made

911
00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: up about one percent of the twenty nine billion dollars

912
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 1: in clothing imported into the US, but it accounted for

913
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,920
Speaker 1: up to twenty percent of the clothing sold worldwide by

914
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 1: some large American companies. And now you have to think, like,

915
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:46,760
Speaker 1: if you're the average US customer in nineteen ninety three,

916
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: how in the hell are you going to be aware

917
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: of that? How are you going to know?

918
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 2: How are you going to know?

919
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 1: And while we're being fair in many cases, especially in

920
00:57:58,080 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: the past, it's not as if these company all got

921
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 1: together and pulled some sort of Monty Burns things, steepling

922
00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 1: their fingers and like yes so about the slave trade. No,

923
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 1: because the complex supply chains here make it possible, plausible

924
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 1: in some cases even probable, that many companies genuinely were

925
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:24,320
Speaker 1: unaware of their complicit participation in slavery. They see that

926
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: they get a great price on cotton, right and sign

927
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,000
Speaker 1: a several year contract for that, and then that goes

928
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 1: to a different company that has a factory where the

929
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 1: cotton is process they sign a contract for that, and

930
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 1: then that goes to a different company and so on

931
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: and so on and so on until it gets to

932
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: a store they didn't do due diligence, and performing due

933
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: diligence on every aspect of a supply chain has to

934
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,640
Speaker 1: be If we're considering financial punishment for breaking the law

935
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 1: a cost of doing business, then due diligence should logically

936
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: also be a cost of business going forward. Will that

937
00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: make clothing more expensive? I mean, yeah, probably, I would imagine.

938
00:59:07,200 --> 00:59:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I felt like maybe I was misusing this

939
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:11,960
Speaker 2: term when I've when I've used in the past, but

940
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 2: I just looked it up and I think it applies

941
00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:16,439
Speaker 2: the idea of the banality of evil. You know, there's

942
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:20,680
Speaker 2: a philosopher named Aren't who referred to the Nazi war

943
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 2: criminal Eichmann as being an example of the banality of evil,

944
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 2: that he wasn't inherently evil, but just shallow and clueless.

945
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what this this all is. You know,

946
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 2: these corporations, maybe they're not inherently evil, but they just

947
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 2: don't care enough to like know what's going on, and

948
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 2: it's just a byproduct of like the whole capitalist system

949
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 2: that yeah, you know, just a couple of bad apples, right,

950
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 2: this is there's yeah, sure there might be a little

951
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: slavery in there, but it's mainly fine.

952
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 1: So who cares, right, people like problems that are removed,

953
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:58,160
Speaker 1: I mean to On the other hand, to that point, right, yes,

954
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 1: this this will probably make clothing more expensive. You can

955
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 1: buy you can buy sourced clothing that is described as

956
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:11,440
Speaker 1: sustainable in terms of impact on the environment, in terms

957
01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 1: of their wage and employment practices, and yeah, it tends

958
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: to be more expensive. But on the other side of

959
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: the coin, since we're talking about money, on the other

960
01:00:21,200 --> 01:00:23,880
Speaker 1: side of the figurative coin here, do you want to

961
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 1: live in a world where you, in some way are

962
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:31,120
Speaker 1: supporting the enslavement of human beings because you say five

963
01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: to fifteen or whatever bucks at the register? Do you want,

964
01:00:34,880 --> 01:00:38,560
Speaker 1: like we have to ask ourselves, are we comfortable with

965
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:43,000
Speaker 1: this arrangement because it's happening in a way that we

966
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 1: cannot immediately see if you had to go to the

967
01:00:46,440 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 1: people who were enslaved and you had to buy that

968
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 1: stuff directly from them and look them in the eye,

969
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:55,800
Speaker 1: and you know acknowledge like life sucks and people are terrible,

970
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: but I am. I am a great that it's better

971
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:04,920
Speaker 1: for me because this is eight bucks instead of twelve.

972
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: I think a lot more people would be a lot

973
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable with the.

974
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 2: Idea or food processing. That's a good example, right, people

975
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 2: will eat something because they don't have to watch the

976
01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:19,480
Speaker 2: cow get slaughtered. They don't have to watch the bolt

977
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 2: gun shoot into its brain. You know, So you're at

978
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:25,840
Speaker 2: a remove. Therefore it's easy for you to just kind

979
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:28,760
Speaker 2: of absolve yourself of any responsibility. You know. I'm not

980
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:31,600
Speaker 2: saying that killing cattle is bad or is in any

981
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 2: way equivalent to slave labor, but it's a similar, you know,

982
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 2: kind of that remove is very similar.

983
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:39,760
Speaker 3: Then you've painted a picture of my head where I'm

984
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 3: imagining a small booth where there is let's say it's

985
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 3: in India because that's where a lot of the modern

986
01:01:47,600 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 3: slavery is occurring, or you know, any other country where

987
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 3: it's occurring. There's a small booth where there's one person

988
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:56,200
Speaker 3: sitting behind that booth, and there's a big rack of

989
01:01:56,320 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 3: designer or fashion clothes behind them, and when a customer

990
01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 3: comes up, picks out a piece of clothing, hands the

991
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 3: person behind that booth, let's say one hundred and twenty

992
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 3: dollars a US for this piece of clothing, and that

993
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 3: person behind the booth takes that money, gives you that

994
01:02:15,280 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 3: piece of clothing that they made by their hands, hands

995
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 3: that money to their employer which is standing right next

996
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:24,080
Speaker 3: to them, and the employer gives them back half of

997
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:28,600
Speaker 3: a penny or you know, one cent in order for

998
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 3: all of the labor. The actual human being that created

999
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:38,400
Speaker 3: that thing gets, you know, whatever minuscule fraction if anything,

1000
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 3: for creating that piece of clothing for you, the end user,

1001
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:43,959
Speaker 3: it is just man.

1002
01:02:43,880 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know the thing is I. I know

1003
01:02:48,480 --> 01:02:52,320
Speaker 1: this can come off as sanctimonious, so we also have

1004
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 1: to admit it is very difficult to It is very

1005
01:02:56,760 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: difficult for us when we're buying stuff to be aware

1006
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 1: of just how many horrible injustices or shenanigans. If you

1007
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: want to be glib, go into this right Like how

1008
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 1: the demand for attention and the demand for research is

1009
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 1: so unending nowadays. Well like even in the course of

1010
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: this show, there are at least three other hidden sides

1011
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: of fashion that we have not covered in this episode.

1012
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 1: One we didn't cover the rampant sexual exploitation in the

1013
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 1: modeling industry, which is very closely related to the fashion industry. Two,

1014
01:03:38,560 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: we didn't cover the to me hilarious story of the deciders,

1015
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:47,200
Speaker 1: those real life committees that get together every so often

1016
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: and decide what is or isn't going to be hot

1017
01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:56,120
Speaker 1: in the subjective shifting world of taste. And we didn't

1018
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 1: cover the pollution and the waste, which was you know,

1019
01:03:59,760 --> 01:04:02,160
Speaker 1: what's set us off on this path to begin with.

1020
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 1: So we have more to We have more to dive

1021
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 1: into in future episodes.

1022
01:04:07,200 --> 01:04:11,240
Speaker 3: I think certainly we haven't even talked about the psychological

1023
01:04:11,320 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 3: damage globally that the fashion industry has done for the

1024
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:21,919
Speaker 3: you know, self image of women and men across the world. Yeah,

1025
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 3: so whole there are there's lots to go over here.

1026
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:26,880
Speaker 3: So what do you think about all of this that

1027
01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 3: we've discussed today, the ugly side of this giant industry,

1028
01:04:30,840 --> 01:04:33,280
Speaker 3: of the things that are on your body right now

1029
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 3: unless you're listening to this, you know, commando or naked

1030
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:39,400
Speaker 3: or however you like to listen to the show. I mean,

1031
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 3: we don't judge. Whatever you want to do, what steps

1032
01:04:42,520 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 3: can be taken? Do you think to actually stop some

1033
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 3: of this not to. You know, have some kind of

1034
01:04:48,640 --> 01:04:52,640
Speaker 3: loophole legislation out there, but what can actually be done

1035
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:55,000
Speaker 3: to change this whole thing. We want you to write

1036
01:04:55,000 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 3: to us if possible. Find us on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram,

1037
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 3: all those we're mostly conspiracy stuff on Instagram or conspiracy

1038
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 3: stuff show. If you don't want to do that, you

1039
01:05:06,480 --> 01:05:08,840
Speaker 3: can give us a call. We're one eight three three

1040
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 3: std WYTK. Leave a message and you might get on

1041
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:14,080
Speaker 3: the air.

1042
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 5: You never know.

1043
01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot more opportunities for that these days with

1044
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:21,840
Speaker 2: the weekly listener male episodes, so definitely hit us up.

1045
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:24,160
Speaker 2: We love to hear from you. You can also join

1046
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:25,880
Speaker 2: our Facebook group, which is a lot of fun. Here's

1047
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 2: where it gets crazy. Just name me Matt Ben, Super producer, Paul,

1048
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,720
Speaker 2: Mission Control decant. There's some little tidbit about the show,

1049
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 2: so we know you're a real human person and we'll

1050
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 2: let you right on end. Great way to interact with

1051
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:41,640
Speaker 2: other listeners, share memes, all of that, and also please

1052
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 2: do us a solid Go to Apple Podcasts and leave

1053
01:05:44,360 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 2: us a nice review if you enjoy the show. It

1054
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:48,600
Speaker 2: seems like a small thing, but it actually goes a

1055
01:05:48,600 --> 01:05:51,600
Speaker 2: long way to help people discover the show and to

1056
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 2: help fight the trolls.

1057
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:57,240
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets crazy. Honestly, fellow conspiracy realist,

1058
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: if you just make a dumb laugh and I chuckle,

1059
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:04,280
Speaker 1: or even just sort of breathe air out of my

1060
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 1: nose a little bit more aggressively, the boom mission accomplished.

1061
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:08,680
Speaker 2: You're in.

1062
01:06:09,440 --> 01:06:12,440
Speaker 1: If none of that quite bags your badgers, there is

1063
01:06:12,480 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 1: always one way you can get in touch with us.

1064
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: No delay, no waiting, no lines. All you need is

1065
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: some avenue to the Internet. You can reach out to

1066
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,680
Speaker 1: us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week

1067
01:06:24,840 --> 01:06:27,160
Speaker 1: at our good old fashioned email address where.

1068
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:49,640
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't

1069
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:52,600
Speaker 3: want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

1070
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1071
01:06:56,760 --> 01:07:00,120
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M