Now I Know More

by Lewis, Dan

  BONUS FACT

  In 2001, Dubai opened up a women-only bank. As the BBC reported, the purpose was to give women in the highly conservative country a way to manage their finances without having to explain their transactions to the men in their lives. Specifically, the BBC noted that “in some cases,” the goal of the bank was to provide the customers some “secrecy from their husbands.” It didn’t work well, and most people forgot about it, as evidenced by the fact that seven years later, another bank with special amenities catering to women only opened in Dubai—and the L.A. Times called it “the first of its kind.” (Oops!)

  GIVING NO CREDIT

  THE PLASTIC PIECE OF DISCRIMINATION IN YOUR WALLET (IN THE 1970s)

  Roughly 75 percent of American adults have a credit card in their name, and especially now with the ubiquity of e-commerce, credit- card use is commonplace. Competition among credit companies to sign up new cardholders is fierce, and it’s not difficult to get offered a line of credit. More than 40 percent of U.S. households carry some level of credit-card debt, and the average indebted household owes more than $15,000 on those cards. It seems as if getting a credit card is not only easy but inevitable, especially when the companies come offering some sort of incentive to sign up—air miles, cash back, rewards points, and the like.

  However, until 1974, if you were a woman who wanted a credit card, it wasn’t so easy. You usually needed a job or some other regular source of income. You needed some level of savings and a much better credit history than your male counterparts. One other thing:

  You needed to get married first—and stay that way.

  For much of human history, men were considered the breadwinners and women the homemakers to a degree bordering on the absolute. Only in rare cases did women work, and when they did, it was only in a narrow set of jobs—teachers and nurses, for example. Society often concluded that women weren’t up to tasks such as balancing a checkbook or paying bills; that was left to the man, as keeper of the household’s finances. In general, the banking industry held strongly to these gender norms, only providing services to men. In the early 1970s, those services included lines of credit and the plastic cards that went with them.

  For unmarried women, this was especially problematic. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred gender-based discrimination in matters of employment, helping usher in a society where women were able to earn a living for themselves. Younger, single women (of childbearing age) could now find work as employers couldn’t reject female applicants on the grounds that they’d get married and leave their jobs to have kids. Banks, however, were not barred from holding and acting on such beliefs. Many banks refused to issue credit cards to these women, believing they’d stop working once pregnant, be unable to pay off their debt, and their husbands-to-be, seeing this problem and not wanting to assume their future wives’ credit problems, would find ways around assuming that debt.

  For divorced women, the problem was even more ludicrous: Many banking institutions assumed that if a woman couldn’t manage a marriage, she certainly couldn’t manage a credit card—so no credit for them, either. If they were still married, though? In that case, credit was available—but only with their husband’s permission and signature. Credit-card companies would typically only allow a woman to count her own income on the application, not the household’s, and any earnings she had came with the concerns addressed previously. In practice, this meant that women of the early 1970s typically couldn’t have their own credit cards.

  What changed? The law. In 1974, the federal government passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender when making credit decisions and further allowed applicants to include household income (i.e., a wife could include her husband’s) in the application process.

  BONUS FACT

  As noted earlier, there have been a few occupations that have been historically filled by women. Among that (short) list is the now-antiquated telephone switchboard operator. The first telephone switchboard operators were male—typically boys in their late teens and early twenties—but in 1878, the Boston Telephone Dispatch company grew tired of their employees’ lack of patience, inattentiveness, and their proclivity to curse and play pranks on customers whose calls they were supposed to be directing. On September 1 of that year, the company hired a woman named Emma Nutt as the world’s first female telephone switchboard operator. According to Wikipedia, “The customer response to her soothing, cultured voice and patience was overwhelmingly positive.” That sparked off a trend, and for decades thereafter, telephone operators were predominantly female.

  REVERSING THE CHARGES

  HOW ONE MAN FOUGHT BACK AGAINST HIS CREDIT-CARD COMPANY

  Twenty thousand words. That’s roughly the equivalent of a thirty-to forty-page high school term paper. But in this case, the documents in question weren’t written by a tenth grader comparing and contrasting 1984 and Brave New World. They were written by a team of attorneys, and those 20,000 or so words probably need another team of attorneys if you want to comprehend the documents’ meaning. Yet we consumers sign these contracts anyway. They’re credit-card agreements.

  That word count comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which further notes that as recently as 1980, the typical credit-card agreement ran a mere 400 words—a page and a half or so. For most of us, though, it hardly matters whether the agreement is two pages or two hundred; we’re going to sign it anyway and we’re not going to read it beforehand. A Russian man named Dmitry Argarkov wondered if the same was true for the credit-card companies themselves—did they read the fine-print? To test, he added some of his own.

  Tinkoff Credit Systems, “Russia’s leading provider of online financial services,” according to the company’s website (as of the summer of 2013), offers three types of credit cards, and a quick perusal of their benefits suggests nothing out of the ordinary. You can earn points, air miles, etc., simply by using your card (and paying your bills, of course), just like one would expect in the United States and points elsewhere. According to the Telegraph, Argarkov was offered a credit card by Tinkoff, but Argarkov wasn’t interested in their offer—the interest rates were too high. While most people would simply toss the offer letter in the trash, Argarkov got creative. He made a counter-offer.

  The terms were, to say the least, very favorable to Mr. Argarkov. His card, if the contract he re-drafted were enforceable, came with a zero-percent interest rate, no credit limit, and of course, no fees. He still had to pay his balance, though, but this seemed like a bad deal for the credit-card company. Tinkoff could try and enforce their original offer, but Argarkov put in a penalty of 3 million rubles (about $90,000) for each such violation of his terms. If Tinkoff wanted to cancel the card outright, they could—but they’d have to pay a 6 million ruble ($180,000) cancellation fee. Tinkoff did neither—instead, they signed Argarkov’s revised term sheet.

  Then, Argarkov failed to pay his balance. Why not? With no fees and the zero-percent interest rate, there was no pressing need to do so. Of course, Tinkoff didn’t realize this, as no one had read through his revisions. So Tinkoff canceled the card, citing a long-overdue balance, and sued their former cardholder for 45,000 rubles—19,000 from the charges themselves, and another 26,000 in fines and interest. Argarkov’s defense cited his changes to the document, and the judge agreed that he only owed the 19,000 rubles ($575, give or take).

  As for the penalties? Argarkov countersued, seeking 24 million rubles ($360,000) in damages. That suit was to hit the Russian courts in September 2013. Tinkoff thought that it would ultimately prevail; its CEO and founder, Oleg Tinkoff, tweeted that the company’s lawyers were confident that Argarkov wouldn’t get the money. Rather, Tinkoff asserted, Argarkov would receive jail time for fraud.

  Neither happened; the case never saw the inside of a courtroom. The two sides settled, agreeing to call it even.

  BONUS FACT

  If you’re a purchaser of, say,
adult-only content online and buy such content using a credit card, make sure that the name you use is male. According to a 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal, the major billing company used by that audience “flags female names as potential fraud, since so many of these charges result in an angry wife or mother demanding a refund for the misuse of her card.” (No word on whether the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey changed that.)

  MEAL TICKET

  HOW MOSCOW’S HOMELESS DOGS LEARNED TO WORK THE SYSTEM FOR FREE MEALS

  It’s hard to find an urban area that does not have a significant homeless population. Be it New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, or Madrid, you’re likely to encounter someone for whom life has dealt a bad hand. Some homeless have taken creative measures to adapt, finding ways to persevere in the concrete and asphalt wilderness around them. In one city, this will to survive is not solely in the domain of the human homeless.

  Meet the homeless, subway-riding dogs of Moscow.

  There are about 35,000 homeless dogs in Russia’s capital, roaming the streets and alleys looking for a meal. Most of them are feral and eschew contact with people. However, about 500 or so have done what many homeless people have done and become semi-permanent denizens of the subways—in this case, the Moscow Metro. The advantages are more than just a roof and associated shelter from the weather. The dogs can cozy up to riders in hopes of getting food tossed their way, or, if opportunity knocks, scare an unsuspecting train-goer into dropping his or her snack. Either way, this newfound meal is critical to the hungry subway-living dog.

  For about two dozen or so dogs, though, the bark-and-eat gambit is merely a start. These advanced dogs have taken the subway game to the next level: They have become commuters. Areas with office buildings are crowded during the day but sparsely populated during the early mornings and late evenings; meanwhile, the opposite pattern is found in residential neighborhoods. Therefore, it behooves panhandlers, canine and human alike, to be near the offices at lunch time and near people’s homes at night. So, some Metro pups do exactly that—as reported by both ABC News and the Sun newspaper, the dogs have figured out how to navigate the train network to optimize their locations throughout the day.

  And they do so in style. The dogs have figured out which trains offer more room, so they can curl up on a bench for an in-transit snooze.

  BONUS FACT

  In 1980, the New York Times reported that the typical price of a single slice of pizza had matched, “with uncanny precision,” the price of a single ride on New York’s subway system since the 1960s. The Times revisited the strange correlation in 2002 and determined that it was still true.

  THE SUBMARINE SUBWAY

  WHAT SUBWAY TRAINS TURN INTO WHEN THEY’RE NO LONGER USED

  The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is responsible for the mass transit needs of the greater New York City area. As part of its services, the MTA operates more than 6,000 train cars over 800 miles of track. Those 6,500-plus vehicles have a lifespan of thirty to forty years before they wear out and are no longer viable for use.

  Then they go to sleep with the fishes.

  Really.

  For decades, the MTA has been running a program to turn disused subway cars into artificial reefs, situated off the Mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The MTA pays to remove the doors, wheels, and windows from each train car, as well as clean off any hazardous materials (such as some petroleum-based lubricants), which federal law prohibits from being dumped into the ocean. Then the cars—more than 1,500 of them—are shipped off to New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia. Once there, the cars are loaded onto barges equipped with specialized cranes and dumped into the ocean just a few miles off shore.

  In doing so, the MTA and its partners have not only managed to find an environmentally sound way of disposing of these hulking transports but also revitalized the Atlantic fishing industry. Before the subway cars landed in the Atlantic, the relatively barren waterways weren’t a good place for fish to hang out, as natural predators could easily hunt them down in the open water. That changed when the trains arrived. As one Delaware official told Reuters, “a 600-car reef in that state’s waters had increased the local fish population by 400 times, and boosted the number of angling trips to 13,000 a year from 300 before the reef was created.” As an added benefit, crab, mussels, and shrimp also have begun to colonize on many of the reefs.

  Many of those concerned about the environment and the ecology of the oceans are fans of these artificial reefs. While there have been some problems, most notably in New Jersey where some cars deteriorated faster than expected, these projects are generally seen as a resounding success. In 2007, according to a report by transit blog Second Avenue Sagas, train cars that had been submerged for nearly a decade and a half were still 67 percent intact.

  In part because of these successes, other man-made items have been tossed to the bottom of the sea in hopes of creating a similar home for fish and their friends. Perhaps the most notable example: in May 2006, the U.S. Navy intentionally sank the long-decommissioned USS Oriskany, a 900-foot-long aircraft carrier. It now sits on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola. Not only is it a great place for marine life, but if you’re a recreational diver, it’s close enough to shore that you can go pay it a visit.

  BONUS FACT

  In a previous bonus fact we discussed the odd correlation between the price of a pizza slice in New York City and the price of a Big Apple subway ride. However, the fate of a pizza box and a subway car couldn’t be more different. While subway cars are recycled, as noted previously, pizza boxes often can’t be. According to the city’s sanitation department, cardboard (and for that matter, paper) that is contaminated with food should go into the trash, as “the food particles, greases, and oils leave residues that are contaminants and aren’t recyclable.”

  ONE’S TRASH, ANOTHER’S TREASURE

  THE UNLIKELY BLACK MARKET THAT STARTS IN YOUR RECYCLE BIN

  There’s an old saying: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” the origin of which has been lost to time. The saying is a commentary on how there is no accounting for taste—what one person may think is worthless may be cherished by another. In the case of one type of refuse, the literal meaning of the phrase rings true—to the point of fueling organized crime in parts of the United States.

  That product? Old cardboard boxes. While some people are trying to throw them out, others are stealing them before the waste haulers come by.

  Cardboard boxes are recyclable. As recyclables go, they make for some of the best garbage out there. They are easy to transport because they can be baled up and thrown in the back of a truck, allowing tons of cardboard to be carted for miles without much labor or fuel costs. The recycling process itself is centered on something called a hydropulper, a moving bath of warm water that mixes the bales until the cardboard turns into an oatmeal-like paper pulp. That pulp can be turned back into boxes or other products made of corrugated fiberboard.

  Because cardboard boxes have a second life, they have value even after they are emptied of their contents and sent off with the waste hauler. While municipalities and companies alike will pay such service providers to take their garbage and recyclables away, the haulers also make money by selling the bales of cardboard to recyclers. However, others are aware of cardboard’s value—approximately $100 a ton—and grab it before the haulers can. Because the waste management companies have contractually agreed to take the trash (at a price lower than they would if the recyclable cardboard were not present), taking cardboard is often considered theft.

  One notable such crime spree involved three New Jersey men who, over the course of four months, made off with over 900 tons of cardboard, as reported by Metro in Philadelphia. While most cardboard runners simply steal the boxes lying on the side of the road (which is typical in larger cities) or from behind large stores like Walmart or Target, the New Jersey trio was more creative. They created a sham corporation called “Me
tro Paper, Inc.” and rented trucks. Then, they monitored the pickup schedules at large stores that went through a high volume of boxes. Once they had the schedule down, the men made sure they arrived before the legitimate haulers, picking up the boxes and moving on to their next target.

  Seem like a waste of time—or a crime not worth the risk? According to Waste Recycling News, the group sold their treasure trove of used cardboard boxes for just north of $100,000.

  BONUS FACT

  What does society do with all those recycled boxes? Usually they’re turned into more boxes, as noted previously. However, Israeli inventor Izhar Gafni, a bicycling enthusiast, decided to take his hobby and turn it into a challenge. As reported by Fast Company, Gafni built a fully functional bike out of recycled cardboard boxes. The water-resistant bicycle used only $9 in materials.

  IN THE LIME OF FIRE

  WHEN DRUG CARTELS GARNISH GARNISHES

  If you’re in the United States and there’s a lime nearby, it’s almost certain that the little green citrus in question came from Mexico. The United States imports nearly all of its limes—95 percent—from its neighbor to the south, and typically, supplies are stable and therefore, so are prices. In recent years, limes sold for about $20 for a thirty-eight-pound case (wholesale), according to a PBS Newshour report. However, in the early part of 2014, the prices spiked five-fold and remained there for a few months. In mid-May, prices restabilized, and the prices of limes fell back to their traditional levels.