Between the Interviews - Business Karma

I’m a millennial woman acknowledging that many generations of people prior to and up to my lifetime have successfully fought to change the landscape of the world in which I live. Today, I call out a few key pieces of government actions that have shaped the lens in which I view the world: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the Women’s Business Ownership Act in 1988. 

Regardless of whether these and other similar pieces of legislation legally protect the basic human rights of all people in the United States continue to exist into our future, we must act as if they do. Regardless of what the government does or does not mandate, we must act with civility. One of the key themes of this podcast is focused on using how we make and spend our dollars to support the greater good and how we promote “better business karma” by prioritizing people and the greater good. 

What I'm watching: NPR & KCUR - fact-based and unbiased information news sources are key to understanding the world around us. Local and national public radio are committed to this through transparency and are free to all. 

I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar: NPR & KCUR - National Public Radio exists on the donations of its listeners and supporters to keep this access to reliable and accurate information available to all. This is a two-for-one answer with both what I’m listening to and reading as well as where I’m spending my dollars. 

Early and bonus shows as well as curated discussions and merch are available on Patreon.

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Transcript

Hey folks, this is the Between the Interviews show, where I'll provide some context, background reflections, and recommendations associated with the Capitalism for Good philosophy. While the interviews are obviously focused on highlighting businesses and their leaders through talking about their experiences and philosophies, the Between the Interviews shows will be mostly me connecting the dots, providing some additional insight, spotlighting the things that I'm listening to, reading, and watching in order to learn more, as well as some of the why behind where I am choosing to put my dollar. These Between the Interviews shows will be sprinkled in Between the Interviews, and will be posted on the main feed, but will also be posted weekly on the Patreon in video form. So if that's your jam, head there, there's a link in the description. Hey folks, thanks so much for coming back to the Capitalism for Good Podcast, specifically the Between the Interviews series. To continue setting the foundation for the purpose and vision of the Capitalism for Good project, today I'll start with a mini history refresher, specifically with a few points in history that relate to me, my life, and my own viewpoint as a millennial woman.

I'll put some of these historical actions into perspective, not only with where we are now, but also from where we started. It is helpful for me to kind of understand where we are in the spectrum, and how long ago or how recent some of these things happened. So we'll just start from the beginning.

Well, not the beginning of time. That's a different podcast. That's a different thing.

But we'll start from the beginning of the US Constitution. So in 1788, the US Constitution was ratified. That was 237 years ago from today, February 3rd, 2025.

Again, we're gonna focus on the perspective of myself, a millennial woman here, because that's the lens through which I'm viewing the world and I'm viewing this project. So 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. This is the Amendment to the Constitution that protected and recognized the right for women to vote.

In the spectrum of US history, in the spectrum of the history of the US Constitution, that was 132 years after the Constitution was ratified, and 105 years from today. In that spectrum, that's, if I'm viewing that, it's about the midway point, a little shorter from that. During that period of time, I also wanted to just verify from a history perspective, one of these ratios.

According to 1920 US Census data, females, women, made up around 49% of the population. If we recognize that the total population, according to the US Census data, was about 105 million, the female population was about 51 million. A little minor note.

Obviously, I understand that there are some complications when it comes to collecting that US Census data, so please don't take that as a hard and fast truth. The other point to point out, just to put that in context of where we are today, US Census data is difficult to access via the government website. I always try to pull back references in resources that are as close to that first-hand perspective as possible, so when looking for US Census data and going to the US Census, granted, there are changes in technology in the way we gathered this information, the way we presented this information.

The good news is because it's 1920, I was able to find and verify actual print copies that I could view and verify for accuracy versus maybe potentially information that was translated into an electronic version. That does allow me some confidence in those numbers there, but just did want to point out from an information gathering perspective that I historically go back to things, especially when we're talking about government and politics and money, and go back to those government websites and right now in the current state, that is difficult for me to access. Just keep that in mind.

Now, if we jump forward to 1963, we have the Equal Pay Act that is passed. This prevents discrimination in an official capacity based upon race, color, religion or sex. Moving forward, I'll call out the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which was first introduced in 1972 and approved two years later.

Here I'll read some actual excerpts from Give Her Credit by Grace L. Williams. I called that out a couple of episodes previously, is one of the things that I had been reading.

I highly recommend this book specifically as a millennial woman in 2025. It was helpful for me to put that into perspective. Grace Williams does a really fantastic job of calling out the specifics of pieces of information from our history, making it easy to digest, and then also verifiable, very fact-based, while very entertaining and captivating narrative.

So, okay, we are talking about the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Before it was approved, there were the hearings, of course, that's the way government works. There are hearings to debate and to dig into the pros and cons of this act before it is voted on and approved.

The National Commission on Consumer Finance released a report outlining issues that women faced around their individual access to credit. Again, I'm reading directly from portions of Give Her Credit here. This report found that, single women had more trouble getting credit than single men, especially credit for mortgages.

Creditors were typically not willing to extend credit to married women in their own name. After a woman was married, a creditor could require her to reapply for credit, and it usually had to be in her husband's name. Creditors did not count the wife's income if a married couple was applying for credit.

As a side note, there's a story specifically in this book that she calls out of a woman who had a very successful franchise. She and her husband were moving states and were applying for a mortgage, and while she was making significantly more money than her husband, none of her income was allowed to be counted in that mortgage application. Going back to this book, divorcer widowed women faced obstacles re-establishing their own individual credit.

Further, it was standard practice, for instance, for a creditor or lender to expect access to a woman's personal information, specifically her health information, such as whether she planned to have children, what kind of birth control she used, questions that were wildly inappropriate and had nothing to do with the actual credit worthiness of the woman inquiring about a credit or account. Something as simple as a telephone number on the application that was in a woman's own name rather than a man's could allow the creditor to refuse it. A creditor could also legally ask a married couple about their birth control choices and further probe into the particulars of what method they were using.

Some lenders required couples to present them with a quote, baby letter from their doctor. This letter, this is my own elaboration here, but this letter, quote, could also tell the lender that the doctor was willing to terminate a pregnancy as needed. All popped forward to 1988, to the Women's Business Ownership Act.

This amended the Small Business Act and the Consumer Credit Protection Act, specifically eliminating the need for a male cosigner on a business application. This was in 1988. This was 37 years ago.

Put that into perspective from the lens in which I am coming at this from, that is two years before I was born, and 200 years after the Constitution was ratified.

So those examples that I just highlighted illustrate the world in which I grew up. I, like I said, was born two years after the Women's Business Ownership Act. And so I am the direct beneficiary of those that came before me and had to fight for these rights to be protected.

And I grew up in a world in which that was the case. I did have the opportunity to not have to worry and struggle about those things in particular, unlike some of the folks before me. Because of that context in which I grew up, it's sometimes difficult for me to understand the reasoning behind the need for some of these government actions.

It's difficult to truly understand a world in which I, a woman, would not automatically have the same rights and access to decisions that impact my own life and money. It's difficult to understand why I, as a person with my own brain, would need another human being to vouch, speak, assume responsibility for or decide for me. In the history of or in the context of those examples that I gave before, that was, there needed to be, I, as a woman, needed a man to vouch, speak, assume responsibility and decide for me.

I recognize and I'm privileged that I grew up without that understanding, that I thought that it was obvious to me that I could do that for myself. And it's a little bit of kind of some mental gymnastics for me to try to understand a world in which that wasn't the case. Obviously, I'm speaking from my own lens, but this can parallel to other demographics with other backgrounds as well.

Just really here trying to focus from my perspective of myself as a millennial woman here. No matter how much research I do or how much I attempt to understand the historical and cultural context, I keep coming back to these two main themes. Power and fear.

That's to say, the desire for those that have a say in government and money to keep or obtain power. And the fear that that power might be finite and thus reduced or with more competition for power that it will be harder for those individuals to obtain. Now please do not get me wrong here.

I promise that I'm not falling down an entire Karl Marx rabbit hole. That the entire world is driven by power. But there is a cynical part of me that if I'm being honest, I can understand not only just history, but also some of our present day struggles loosely through that lens.

Do I think that that is the same lens of our future? No. Do I think that that is the lens that will lead to a positive, more brighter future? No. Do I want everything to make sense through that lens? Absolutely not.

However, if I'm trying to understand why any of those examples that I started with, plus we can add in things like the need for the creation for the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education or the complexity of the Equal Rights Act, and trying to understand why those things were ever felt to be necessary, that's what I keep going back to, is the only thing that I can really, truly understand and make sense of that, is that there's a group of people that are vying for power, or afraid that their power may be diminished, or their opportunity for power may be diminished by just valuing others. This would be powerful people using their position to further their own wealth and their own power at the cost of the value of others. Whether that is purposefully or ignorantly, whether that is directly or indirectly, to me it doesn't matter because the end result is the same.

Legislation, like the examples that I gave, exist because a group of seemingly powerful people that were too afraid of losing their own power to consider the value of those around them. These protections of basic civil human rights exist because there are people who don't inherently choose to value people to begin with. In the examples that I called out, if women were valued on their own to begin with, there would be no need to explicitly state that they did.

There would have not have ever needed to be a reason to fight for a seat at the table if you just automatically valued another human being and their ability to sit at the table. There would not be a need to fight for autonomy over your own life.

That alone just breaks my heart and kind of risks breaking my own spirit. We live in a time in history where these rights, especially those that have recently been protected, may crumble. Whether that effort in government to crumble those rights succeeds or not, I choose to encourage all of us to continue to live as though those protections still exist.

If government no longer mandates civility, we must act with civility regardless. If government does not mandate equitable actions, we must treat one another as if they did. If government does not mandate prioritizing and supporting clean energy or sustainability efforts, we must find a way to do that regardless.

So when I talk about this podcast being focused on how we make and use our dollars for good, that's what I'm talking about. I choose to search for the things that benefit the greater good. I choose to highlight individuals making decisions that prioritize humanity, and decisions that may seemingly on the surface prioritize people over business, when in fact, in practice, they do both.

I choose to find ways to encourage what I call better business karma. I know that money drives business, so if we can find and support ways to use our money to support the greater good, it'll snowball into a greater, more positive, and more inclusive future for more people. If we support people in the world around us, it'll support us back.

That's what I'm kind of viewing as better business karma. I promise that I'll follow this episode up with some brighter examples, and future episodes. I thought it was important to acknowledge the dark that I see first, because it's an important part of my foundation, and thus an important part of the foundation that I'm using for this Capitalism for Good project.

That brings me to things that I'm reading and watching. National Public Radio, NPR. I use the NPR app to read about what's going on in the world.

I also often listen to the up first podcast. It's a shorter, maybe 10 or 15 minute episode, highlighting some of the top topics of the day. In kind of the through line of me and my Kansas City Pride, I also listen to KCUR, which is a local chapter of National Public Radio.

Because they're independent, they're trusted, honest, they do their due diligence when it comes to fact checking. I'll shout out Steve Kraski, who does the up to date at KCUR, and he will often in his episodes, specifically when he is interviewing people, where he's talking about certain topics, particularly those that are more controversial. And in order to address what could be potentially viewed as a bias, he'll often point out what has and has not been verified.

That particularly hits on a really important point that I just hit on earlier when I was talking about census data. It is so, so, so important that we are getting accurate information from firsthand accounts whenever possible, which is why when I'm digging into population information based upon the US. Census, if I'm going to a government website that is running that census effort and I can't get access to that information, it's going to take me a tremendous amount more time to be able to find those documents and verify that the information that I'm getting is correct and being able to go to an independent news source that is doing that work for me, that's going to bring me to my next part.

I'm willing to pay for it in my... I'm not telling you what to do, but here's where I'm putting my dollar. NPR and those local NPR stations run on donations.

If we as a general public, we're consuming those information, support them directly, that allows them to continue to put out that fact-based independent information, allows them to continue to operate independently. So highly recommend checking that out, or wherever it is that you're getting your independently verified and fact-checked information from. But being able to contribute directly to the things that you are doing and using so that those things can continue.

At the end of the day, it takes people to run those things. Those people need salaries so that they can live and take care of themselves and their families. So, all right, before we go, I've mentioned that this project is supported through Patreon.

There's a link to Patreon down in the show notes. And if you want to jump up a level from the free version, you can do so by becoming a direct supporter of the project through that platform. Once you sign up, you'll get a link to a different feed on Apple or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, that will take you to exclusive shows and bonuses as a thank you for your direct suppor

Also, this project is new and still working out how to make it better and making sure that it's resonating with the folks that are listening. So, I really appreciate any and all feedback. I truly do want to hear from you.

So, if you follow and message me on Instagram, it's at Capitalism for Good Podcast, or email me and message me with your thoughts, check the links in the show notes for different ways that you can also contact me. There's a really good chance that I'll send you a discount code for Patreon as a thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. All right, that's enough. Let's go leave this place better than we found it.