Transcript
Come on. There you awake live not from your ESG ear wax removal kit. I think I didn't know the E stands for ear or ear wax or what. I don't really understand that. It's a business pants Friday show here at February 28th Studios. Yeah featuring analyst whole mattress cardi and nobody else. Nobody ever, you know? My one said that, even when he listens, he sometimes confuses our voices. He can't tell us apart, which is not good. It's not good podcasting I'm guessing. No, it's not all so, like Do you ever watch Parks and Rec sure? There's an episode like in the last season where they realized that Ron Swanson has a brother. I've known you for like 10 years and I didn't know you had a brother until it's not that kind of it's not that kind of podcast today's weekly wrap-up. It could be if people want that we could. We could start a new talk about our family on today's weekly wrap up. CEOs, continuing to love 2025. Oh apples. Apples. Siri is finally useful. No incorrect. America's Sprint towards a corporate idiocracy and Tech Bros Say the Darndest Things. Oh blah, our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections and performance for free. And look, if you're one of those, lucky people who uses the platform. and you're having, Difficulty turning the data into into information or knowledge or dare, I say even wisdom, reach out to us. We can or listen to the shows. This is why we create these shows. We it's a it's a platform to turn the data into talking points into narratives and histories, right? Can I tell you something? Yeah, so like there's about 500 users on free full analytics, show me more, should be five, should be first of all, there should be a lot more but I was worried that all the users are free flow. Analytics.com were like my brother bestie, and your brother, right? Exactly like and some guy named like, big boobs, 69, you know, whatever. Like I think that's what I, you know, like I look through the list, we don't use the list, we don't disseminate the list, we don't even send you emails, but I should users. They're from massive asset managers. Like, almost all of the users are Pension funds asset managers. We have users from glass Lewis and ISS in there. Of course why wouldn't why wouldn't they use it? I'm sure their data sets, not telling them anything about their directors. I'm just saying the fact that like, you know, there's a free thing out there for free flow analytics.com, where you can get information, that massive asset managers are using and you could use it yourself like that's that's impressive to me. I don't know. They're doing a good job over there. All right. They're doing a good job. I agree. Let's get to it. Come on story of the week. I got nothing uplifting here. That's right. I am in a mood today. It's gonna be bad. And if we overlap some of your assholes of the week, I can trunk 8, my stories and you can cover it later. The first story I'm calling is this the weak, Matt, that the world noticed a shareholder proposal at a, at a company at a public company. I don't know, but I saw a lot of headlines about it. Here's the headline and there are several apples. Dei program will live on following failed, shareholder vote. Now, here's why I picked this headline. This is from Fox Business calm, which has a lot of Articles, of course, about anti Dei stuff, right? But even the people at Fox Business, Matt clearly have no understanding of annual meetings at public corporations because they should know that. First of all, these aren't binding votes that the company does even if it passed the company is not have to adhere. So, I don't know what Fox Business thinks like and by the way, what we're seeing, you know, laterally are bored and CEOs without shareholder votes scrapping, their Dei program. So again, Fox Business News. You have no idea what you're talking about, which is sad. It's sad. I'm not sad about it. Um, I will say that before I get to the second story, is that for those you who think this is a victory. Tim Cook, has already said that the Dei programs may change, which is again showing you the the lack of force behind these shareholder votes. So even though they fail miserably, Tim Cooks still as deciding, which is stupid. Also, I have to add our president Donald Trump. I hate saying that out loud. He had a wonderful tweet. I don't even know what you call it. A post a blog Tumblr. I don't care. Yeah he he so he the headline is that Trump asks Apple to drop diversity policies after stockholders back Pro, Dei stance. Which is not really what shareholders did, that's not what they. But anyway, here's his quote Apple. This is all, of course, in all caps but I think Donald Trump, everything is in all caps, right? This is his mentality, he has a caps lock button. It's just a caps. Well, no, yeah, well to be fair, I think would happen. Is he pressed it? He set the Caps like button and then somebody else ripped it off by mistake and he's left with that. All I know is that in 2025, the the middle school man, flakes that run, this country are yelling about all the time. So yeah, everything is in caps and if Elizabeth Warren was doing this, they call her shrill. So he's alive to do this. All right, so, here's the quote, Apple should get rid of d e, i rules, which is let's just start with that. Matt is no odd, a President telling Apple what to do. It's special for Republican president. It's really bizarre, especially Apple of all companies, which the last time I checked, had like a four, almost a four trillion dollar market cap. I it's like I know what they're doing. It would be hard to argue. Apple has An unsuccessful, as a result of Dei, I hear. Matt, I guarantee you that if you asked people across the globe, what's the best company? They would probably say apple, right? I mean, it's Apple. Anyway, he says, get rid of der rules, not just make adjustments to them. Dei was a hoax that has been very bad for our country. Dei is gone with three exclamation points. I don't like get the hoax part of that and I don't get how it is gone. Yeah. And what's, what does he mean? It's been very bad, where's the data to support that? We've only had to EI for a few years, right? So you did data. Yeah, the magic, d word, I don't get how it's been very bad and I don't really understand any of that, but I do want to say Matt that speaking of hoaxes, here's another headline. And this is from the company were Donald Trump was posting CEI, I'm sorry, CEO Devin Nunez made 47 million dollars. Last year, while truth social parent company. Reported 400 million dollars in losses. Yeah, that's the real. That's true. There's a lot of money to go around because Donald Trump owns 52% of Truth social. And he his meme coin basically a lot of pocket like several hundred million dollars by himself. I want to start though. With should we replace Dei? The acronym with Merit? Like should we because we know from the data that the meritocracy, basically, if we followed some basic measures of meritocracy, true Merit of some kind it would be entirely black women running the country, right? Like I'm waiting for waiting. Yeah. To the point like in boards that people of color and women get to those positions They have to be significantly more accomplished than sort of their white male counterparts, which would suggest that Apple's Dei program. Or the anti Dei bandwagon anti Dei is really anti meritocracy. Right? Like what they're saying is, we don't like people who are incredibly accomplished at their job which gels with Devin Nunes being the CEO of Truth social and the first place. So, anxiety capitalist, I would think but that's a whole another story. ah, Sure, I don't talk about that talk more. I'm gonna talk more about that right now, I'll move on, but I, I wrestle with the idea because I know a lot of people want to just stop saying Dei and ESG, but I don't know if I want to give up. I am with, I I get you. I like, I like tweaking people. Same with woke, like I'm proud of all. I don't know if I'm proud of ESG, it's a data set. The ESG thing makes me laugh because it's just numbers and they're not correct. There's so not political it hurts like you could use those numbers anywhere you want but Dei and woke is clearly that's clearly their politically charged to that point there there is a fun called the vice fund that uses ESG data. And in the exact opposite, way of like what people talk about ESG did they only focus on companies that do poorly on ESG metrics? So ESG data is not just saving Dolphins. It's literally there's zero ideology bill in to I mean I'll say 95% of the data you know there's someone somewhere who I'm saying I'm sure is Data that has like, some etiology attached to it, like built into some of the ESG data to Grand irony of this is, is religious data and by religious data, I don't mean Sharia law. I mean, Christian Catholic values data is often built into the data set. So, to be, as I ESG is also sort of to say, like we don't like Christians in their, you know, because that's the same data, it's the same, it's just the data set, just a bunch of data, I think what you're saying. When you don't, when you're inside, you just don't like facts in general. You just don't like you just don't like describing the world with with like, actual tangible facts. You just like, you know, like tooth fairies and and things like that, right? Oh, I do like a Pixar movie. Second Story of the week. See is continued to win. This is from today from the cnbc.com, the Consumer Financial Protection. Bureau's Trump appointed leadership. Re Elon Musk. Plans to fire nearly all its 1700 employees while winding down the agency. Now, just for any of the listeners, who don't know. I'm just gonna tell you what this is. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau It's an independent agency of the US government responsible for Consumer Protection in the financial sector. Its jurisdiction includes banks. Credit union Securities, firms, payday lenders, Mortgage Service, blah, blah, blah blah. I mean this is This is a major win for for CEOs who don't want any kind of oversight of any kind, right? I mean, this is a major win for for grifters for frosters for, right? I mean this is just insane. The killing of Cfpb is at Saint, they, they already dropped their biggest lawsuit against Capital One, right? It was like two billion dollar that's my next round. That's my next story. Oh, let's just move on. So that's the second story. And the third story of the week is, I'm calling at the end of at least non woke oversight. I mean, there's a lot of woke oversight these days, right with the like Trump about programs but see what. So here, I'll just read some of these headlines quickly. Um cfpb, which is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dropping lawsuit against Capital One bank. That accused it of tricking customers. SEC. Declares meme coins are not subject to oversight SCC drops investigation into uniswap Labs into Robinhood into the company owned by the Winklevoss twins. Gemini these are all like grifty Doji coin, weird, right. I don't. It's almost like they're like they're they're baseball cards without the fun of seeing your favorite baseball card. Baseball player on the card, right? It's just all weird like ways for like Tech Bros to get richer. But anyway they're all all those actions all the oversight that they've all been suddenly dropped. That's what. Yeah, there's very much a difference in my mind between the SEC. Like basically deciding that all meme coins and sort of Thrifty like blockchain you know, like well that like gooey stuff that's like making like yeah. if there's a big difference between that and Capital, One did not pay, It's bank account holders, two billion dollars in interest payments, it just decided not to pay them, right? Like it was and just there's not that is a heavily regulated industry. The banking industry and Capital One tricked its customers so that it wouldn't have to pay them interest They dropped the lawsuit, dropping the lawsuit into that is taking two billion dollars from human beings and Capital One. I looked into this Capital once you know there there's standard Capital One account holder, is it 31% of their account, holders are 65 and older. Like they are one of the oldest skewing Banks so they took two billion dollars from effectively retired elderly people and kept it. and the, this US government said, Nah, you can keep it. It's fine. You the trick was good. Like, there's a big difference to me between that and being like, hey, like white white middle schoolers in their mom's basement, like jokingly trading, you know, Dogecoin Yeah, I don't know. I feel different to me, I will agree except that. I, my fear is that there are more and more young people who are using those tricky Doge clenney Bitcoin. He kind of things as their ways of investing. Now, like, there, there are ways of building their own personal wealth, right? So, I, so if they're being prayed upon, it's still somebody should be over. Should be overseeing that right? Somebody should be looking into it. Well yes I I agree. I mean it's almost become like a new non-traditional bank for a lot of young people as all this weird grifty stuff, I think it's different when you're talking about like Bitcoin and mean coins, right? And I think that's a, that's a parse that they would, those people would make. Yeah, you're buying Bitcoin. It feel like in their minds, its currency. But you're buying a meme coin, you know? It's attached to nothing. I mean, in my mind, they're the exact same thing. Like, I'm, I'm old and I don't get it. Yeah, but I think for somebody anyway, I think yeah, yeah, I get, I get the point. I do think they're a little bit different. Well, all those headlines, drop this week, I found the fourth story of the week is a calling out another win for the oligarchy Jeff. Bezos, announces The Washington, Post that Washington Post, opinions will now exclusively celebrate the glory of capitalism know And I I think you're covering this later, but do you want me to do you want me to read the quote now, or do you want to cover this quote later? Know you could cover the quote now. I mean it's it's something this is nuts, an email from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Everyone knows him. He's the Amazon, dude, he's the guy who's basically like Turned us all into addicted, like addicts buying nonsense on his stupid Amazon platform. Which coincidentally met today is Boycott is economic blackout day but I'll cover that later that's fun and email from Washington Post owner. Jeff Bezos to the newspapers. Staff is now saying the quiet part out loud the newspaper will no longer tolerate opinions, it's billionaire back or disapproves of quote I'm writing to let you know, about a change coming to our opinion Pages. Normally, Matt, I should add that Publishers like Bezos. Never stepped in to the, they never crossed the line between the editorial. I don't know about. No. Okay. I shouldn't say never, but I found a pond murdochs made this. That's true. You're right. You're absolutely right. Let me go on with the quote. I'm right to let you know, but a change coming to our opinion Pages. We are going to be riding every day. This almost seems like a forest when I read this out loud. We are going to be riding every day in support of of Defense of two pillars personally and free market defense. He already, it's weirdly worded. Well, this is his word and this is not an editor. Yeah, he should have asked one of the stupid AI engines to help him out. So again every day they're going to be writing a support of personal Liberties and free markets. He goes on to say, Viewpoint opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. Oh good fair and balanced. There was a time when a newspaper especially the one that was a local Monopoly. Might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning, a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views today. The internet does that job. I mean, this is effing insane to think of who controls information on the Internet is he trolling us. Matt. I mean, is he is he I mean, is he talking about tiktok and Instagram? Like this is a troll, this is insane. I mean, it's absolutely. And I don't even know why. I don't even really, Understand that. Why does he even need to do this? Why does he like his? His done company is like, sending a bunch of celebrities like, Katy Perry to to space this week or so. Why does he need to be doing this? Why? I don't understand this, this is nuts. We'll come back. Lex Luthor villain mode. There's a lot of overlap this week, but so we'll come back to that. Wrap us up and make a vote here. What's the story, right? So my, my options for story of the week this week are apples. D e, i program will live on following failure. Maybe and then it will not live on because of legal reasons, CEOs, keep winning as a cfpb, gets wound down the end of non woke oversight which is a little bit the same thing but also includes SCC declaring meme coins or I guess a real thing and Jeff Bezos say celebrating the glory of capitalism. This was hard for me. Yeah, really Yeah, I think the story of the week like for the last, the reason why the cfpb existed lest we forget is in 2008, there was a financial crisis. Yeah which some of us lived through a big one as adults. It was like sort of a big deal because what happened were Banks were lending things to people that they knew they couldn't afford. Oh yeah, in order to write the loans in order to sell them to investors, even though they knew they were shit, that was there was good summary. That's, I mean, there were people. There were stories of people who had like seven loans, you know, like they got from banks at 0% interest for, you know, that for one year, I mean, even though they had no income, they actually called them something called them, ninja loans know income, no job, no verification loans. And like families of three living in mcmansions, like they didn't even need the the homes to begin with. They were so massive. Some of them thanks did this on purpose. They did this to make as much money for themselves as possible and it caused a massive crisis. The result of the crisis was government that said we need to police these Banks so they don't do stuff like that. And more Elizabeth Warren, right? She was was she was a masterful. Yeah. This year and making this happen. Yeah. And it has been in the target of Republicans ever since who I guess don't like when like Banks can't rip off poor people. I go, they want you they want you to turn the lights off, Matt, right? They like they don't want anyone to look at what they're doing. Please like, let's operate in the dark. It's easier for us. So, See in particular. to me, feels like, if you are, if you are 65 and older have an account at Capital One, you should be writing your congressperson saying, why are you stopping the agency that tricked me into this account and cost me Interest payment? Yeah, you know, like more than that. I honestly, if you're CEO of a credit union banks security Forum, I would think you would want there to be oversight over just all of the peers in your field, right? I mean Do you want your peers that you're competing with to be up to Shenanigans? And I don't see how this benefits anybody. I mean, I I get that CEOs are high-fiving about this because it means in the short term, it means higher, pay and and elevated, stock prices. But I don't for for the community as they operate in. I don't I don't get why what they would want this. Like extra layer of chaos. It's just seems like to step too far on a silly. Well, I would also say and this is something to keep in mind that the last year Capital One had its annual meeting in April which means roughly its annual meetings coming up. Yeah right relatively soon investors This is your opportunity to vote out everybody on the Capital One board. Why would like if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau no longer exists, meaning that they're the regulatory bodies that protected, you know, like unsustainable customers and made it possible for a company to rip off, as much as they possibly could. If that no longer exists, it's up to you. It's up for you to look at the people who run these companies and say we, that is not sustainable. I am going to own this stock, not for the next two years when you will make all your money. But, for the next 200, hypothetically, I own the market and I own it in perpetuity, if you are a pension fund, if you're in a massive, institutionalized manager, if you are passive holder, This is your opportunity to step up and say. I that's not going to work for me. I need to vote this board out. So what is your winner? That is your winner. That's my that's my story. That I don't even know what the story because anymore which team were Financial Protection. Got your winding down. That's my story of the way that it's not CEOs win to me. It's just dismantling of well, consumer protection. Well, speaking of the board. So I that's why I mentioned it, because I a win, meaning the less oversight. And again, I've been making the case for years. That that the way that the boards constructed here in the United States that they're not actually providing oversight of management, they're actually just blocking for management. They're just it's basically they're there to so the CEO can rule with an iron fist. So I'm just call I'm just saying that the way I look at this is it just continues to let CEO is make any goddamn decision. They want to write because they're boards aren't checking in on them. Matt they as according to the data that we tell you about here every week that investors aren't checking in on. Them. So now the oversight part of the of Congress and and the executive branch or all, so not checking in on them. So that this is really winning all the way around. Let's move on. So that's something good. Come on, let's do a good list. This is gonna be much faster and shorter. Good. Um, go ahead. Let me go first, I found one. Place. All the places in the world, where would you think? That there's like a race to have better clean energy goals. Like just pick a place on Earth, California, New Mexico. Know how about this Vietnam triples the clean energy goals aims to get 16% of its power from solar makes sense. Now 16% isn't a huge percentage but tripling. Your energy goals is yeah and triple and then they can triple that one day so they can triple the 16%. I mean how come it? How is it that Vietnam is putting in place to energy plans to have solar farms and triple clean energy goals and the rest of the world. Can't figure this out there. There's saying that like the energy transition is costing us GDP Vietnam doesn't seem to think so. So that was one of my good list good for you Vietnam. Okay. That's it. That's my that's only one. Okay, second one. But once you do one, my second day is economic blackout day boy. Here's the headline boycott, Amazon, Walmart and others for a day. The people's Union USA wants people to forgo fast foods, skip Amazon, and keep their wallets closed on February 28th. I don't know. The significance, is it of it being today and I don't and I'll be curious to see if anybody cares and but and what the effect is of this, it might be minimal, but I felt like I had to. I like it and I felt like I had to report on it. Since it is technically today and I will tell you Matt, so far, I have not bought anything from Amazon, Walmart or any fast food. So I'm winning, I'm either. I'm part of I'm winning, I guess, I'm accidental. Oh, In fairness? I don't buy anything. I don't know any of those places any day. Well, oh yeah, I should admit that. I so, I, I wasn't Amazon. Subscriber, I have cancel my membership. It actually lat, but it's a annual membership. So, it's not over until May, but I don't go to Walmart and I'm not really a fast food guy, but yeah, well, nobody tell my wife because I thought your Amazon Subscription. I thought you didn't do, we don't have our, we don't have Prime membership anymore, um, but but I do wonder, how many people if they were like knew this day was coming and like, did they buy more yesterday? Bye but yeah, just stop buying stuff. All right, here's my ironic one. Yes ironic. Um but it did make me smile. Here's a headline fyre Festival. 2 has no lineup. No location. No, actual date but Mastermind Billy McFarland insists, it still happening. Yeah Festival. Perfect. Doesn't it just just for context sake, the first fire Festival, the one where Billy McFarland got a whole bunch of people to pay a whole bunch of money, to ship them to an island, where they had to pay to get there and then put them in tents. They had no food and no bathrooms. So, no actual performers ended up as a Netflix documentary, that's all about it was Andy went to jail. He was in jail for the Frog. He was out of jail now. Um, he was, but the whole thing was so bad. Now, this is the second one. The first one took place in April May of 2017 during the first Trump Administration. Oh, this I get. Oh, yeah. I love the symmetry of trump won. Fire was a fire Festival. One Trump two is fire Festival, too. I love it and my second Goose of the week. Is this headline iPhone users spot bug that types Trump instead of racists? So I don't know. I don't know the follow-up of this story and I had read reports that you know, Apple was working to fix this but where does that help? Where does that mistake come from? So what happens basically when you use well, any phone now sometimes it gives you suggest, you know. It it will. I don't even know how does this work. Like so you type in the word racist and the app will turn it into Trump. Is that how is that what they're saying? It's not like it's giving you a suggestion for Trump. It's just turning racist into trump. It must be doing somewhere like that, like where my parents come from, I don't know, but no, I guess I don't write the word racist that I do want to race this Friday, I talked about on these shows because we cover the anti Dei movement, but I don't, Do it in my personal life. A lot now. Yeah, how many times do you text your friend and call them a racist? I don't, I don't have those kind of friends in God. Yeah, I'm lucky so. All right, so I think the, I think the winner is probably the iPhone. Oh, Vietnam is closed. Let's go for Vietnam celebration. So the week. Let's do asshole is, um, Look, I'm not gonna rehash things that you've already talked about. There is a lot of overlap this week. I will start with apple. Yeah, I I know it's in a production notes, it's the second one, but I'm going to start with it and I'm going to start with like Actually, my asshole is a Apple the story around apple, apple investors put block, push to drop Dei, right? Yeah. My asshole though, is a guy named Stefan padfield. He's a white male executive director at the national Center for Public Policy. Shocking. They have a white guy there. I didn't didn't realize. Yeah, go ahead. I found out actually through his own bio that he was actually an immigrant and got a green card. So I'm not sure you timed it right Stefan because you managed to get into this country before we would have sent you to Guantanamo Bay for trying to get into this country. So good for you. You know how the the right wing. Now, they they use Dei as a proxy for like people of color and women, like, so they're anti. But what they're really saying is that their, you know, their their, their anti, everything, but white men, basically, maybe we should change the Immigrant. That word is confusing. Like, if it's a white brown or black immigrant, maybe we should change because it's just too confusing, right? Because, yeah, you're seeing stuff on is a, he's a good immigrant. He's an okay immigrant according to do, Is that just so, you know, Trump is already changed it for you, right? Oh yeah, I don't know if you heard about this, but there that he has proposed, not a green card, but a gold card. Yeah, I saw that this is not a joke. No, he's proposed a gold card where the quote unquote. Good immigrants can pay 5 million dollars in immediately get access to this country. Yeah, he's oddly tying a gold cards. He's already oddly tired. Tying it to the tech sector as the way of for Tech sectors to basically import smart people like, you know, like apple and meta. And I was thinking first, I was like that, that's crazy and stupid and horrible. But I thought, you know, the the huge golden hello packages, they give to Executives of these companies. Five million dollars is actually pretty cheap, right? For if Apple wants to buy a coder, I guess if you're only getting an executive, that's true. I don't think they get gold in hellos, but I Will say this. The reason why I chose Stefan. He is an executive director at and CPP. Who filed the shareholder, proposal called a c, d e. I practices. Here's a quote from padfield. He wrote quote, the vibe shift is clear, Dei is out, and Merit is in the vibe. Shift, does he have does? He how do you measure Vibe shift? Is it was like a spectrometer or thermometer? How does one like is that what they used in Ghostbusters to figure out? There was a ghost in the room? Is that actually might be right. Actually. Yeah. It's like one more. There's a ghost there, by the way in and and sorry Stefan Hadfield, but isn't like things like Vibe ships. Isn't that more for? Like the left for hippies and never heard the vibe shift of shift although they don't dwell on things like data in fact. So I I get it. This is the new the new Republican party. Does do things like a Vibe shift so I love it. Yeah. Well, it's very, very confusing to me that, you know, like we're in the same sentence where he's saying, d. I is out and and and what does that means? Merit is in, no, he doesn't Define. Marriage other than the fact that it's white. So obviously doesn't know fight marriage. White people are in how they ever been out white people. When were they out? In the same write-up. He says, the reason why Dei should be out, is the vibe shift with? Yeah, what with hit, remember how you're talking about, how you don't type racist to your friends, maybe. Maybe he has a different, maybe he's measuring vibe from a different group of friends. I think what we know he is, right? Because his his friends. Yeah, he's probably right. The vibe shift is that Dei is out. So I am just trying to figure out exactly like how like, what vibe the vibe shifted like well, like imagine who he went with, though, seriously. I'm trying to figure that out. So. All right, so, Stefan already problematic because you can't even say, like, I've never never heard an investor meeting. The reason why we should vote is because of a Vibe here. It's already theater because there's yeah, because this has nothing to do with business. Something to do with, capitalism, nothing to do with anything. We're dropping mushrooms, The Vibes are different, man. Why don't we vote out the black people like that? By the way, they're saying. So if you come hang out with me and some of my friends, our Vibe shift. My, we might have a different vibe. I'm just saying it's possible. It's possible. It's possible. No. So, I chose him because he also was one of the, you know, they're one of the progenitors of some of the shareholder proposals. That deer asking for, for more Vibe shifting this. Yeah. Costco. He wrote a piece on the national Center for Public Policy research. He really wrote something? He wrote something down. This is two weeks ago now where he wrote know, 98% of Costco shareholders Don't support Dei what. So so at Costco there was a similar shareholder proposal asking you know for you know them to shut down the I or at least proved you know something about Diana not being discriminatory, we talked about it at the time. Yeah this is very two weeks ago. Yeah, this is after. After Costco came out really the first major company to support Dei. And right now, Costco and apple and deer are being heralded as big losses for the anti Dei movement, because shareholders voted overwhelmingly against these proposals. Yeah, 98% of shareholders at Costco voted against the anti Dei proposal, right. So Stefan wanted to somehow this, as a victory Vibe shift, a Vibe shift Victory. So, he writes about how this shareholder vote showed, like the headlines suggest that 98% of Costco shareholders support Dei, he wrote quote, that's flat wrong. Okay, okay. Well Numbers. Don't say that. That's wrong. The number 98 percent of the shares did vote again. Sure. That right. But he went on to basically say how really it's just BlackRock and Vanguard oh, State Street along with glass Lewis. And i s s who control using mind control and a lot of money. They control the vote similarly here. There are some sense that when he said, the vibe shift is clear, Dei is out and Merit is in what he's saying. Effectively is he saying BlackRock and Vanguard are controlling these votes ISS and glass Lewis? They're all in it for the woke mob. And that is why there is 98% again despite the, despite the headlines this week saying that Dei is completely. Sorry, black rock is completely turning. Its back on Dei Stephanie, I just wanted to give you some numbers because I know numbers are hard. Yeah, I know. Well, they're not very diaby. Let's be honest. They didn't use any every time I've been tripping on mushrooms. Matt, anytime someone brings out the spread, she kills Divine? Absolutely ruins. The vibe every time. So in his post about Costco, he tried to do some math. And he basically says this is, I'm not kidding. He says, really the problem is the big five Black Rock, Vanguard seed Street glass Lewis and ISS. And then it says, quote, while difficult to calculate precisely The combined Costco votes attributable to the big. This big five either directly or indirectly is likely over 50%. Oh God, these are a lot of like, fuzzy hazy ideas. Yeah, I know. This is where the math gets hard. Yeah, so I did the math at Apple. So you don't have to write this Stefan pad. Field of NCP, the top 10 investors in apple owned 31% of their shares. Okay. That's the top 10. Okay. That's like they, like, where they do. Do they do? That's 10. Is one number. That's 10. Investors 31% is the second number. Apple is the company. Okay, yeah, Vanguard and BlackRock owned 16.8%. Of Apple in the top 10 they are the 13 G filers. They are the big filers who now are not allowed to. If they hated Dei, they can't thank you to the Trump Administration asked the company. To get rid of Dei because that could be exerting pressure and they would have a new regulatory burden, they would have to be seen as activists today to this SEC. Okay? Now, if they're having lunch with what one of these companies, like, say apple, could they write the message in a note and put it in a fortune cookie and give it? Is that at lunch, they pass a napkin that says, Dei with a cross and X through it. Is that allowed or that is considered activist investing. Now, whatever, there's ketchup already on the use napkins, a little bit of catch-up crust on it. Is that account? That one would have to go to the SEC for adjudication but nobody, but that's there anymore. Yeah, go but nobody, there's no one there to actually, look at it. So, let's be clear 31% is the number of the top 10. That's actually lower than at most companies apple is an incredibly widely held company. Just trillion dollars and eight eight billion shares of Apple out there. There's a lot of people who have it, okay? In the top 10 include two European asset owners norges, who vote against management routinely. They also said, no to this and you UPS is in there. These are all places in the top 10 that had stewardship teams, some of which we know do not. We actually know the people in the search of teams. They do not vote ISS class Lewis. They don't, they have, that's why they have a stewardship team. They create their own policies, they engage they vote their own by the data free flow analytics.com. So this is a long way of saying Stefan padfield. Yes. Do you really need to shut the fuk up with the match? I could have told you lost this. In the same way that everyone asking for climate change stuff. 10 years ago, lost incredibly badly. Yeah, investors vote with management management, said vote against this. They voted against this. That's largely the story here. You don't have to try to spin this. As there's a conspiracy where BlackRock and ISS me sweet love and told Tim Cook. We're gonna we're gonna all we're gonna have a gay orgy at Apple forever and we're going to only hire black dudes named. That's God, that sounds like America. That sounds like America. I know that's not what's Happening. Here you ask hole the number of shareholders voting against it was 98% and really stuff on padfield if you should consider yourself lucky, because based on the precedent of what happened, last year at Exxon, these companies should be suing you out of existence, right? They because this you're getting like, basically like 1% of all these votes. You doing every year, you're shouldn't Darren Woods be suing them Matt? Yes, that's that is the best thing you've ever said in the history of saying. things on the show, I would say like, Why isn't Apple suing the national Center for Public Policy? Being a nuisance for being a mosquito They don't even own the shares burrito. They're only doing this on behalf of somebody else, who owns the shares. In fact, we talked about in a show, a guy that they used name Wayne who we can't find on the internet anywhere, I didn't find him on a public record on a voting record on a mortgage record, Wayne may not exist and, and they're using people like that. When does Apple sue ncpp saying? This is, this is actually outside of scope. If it's okay for Darren Woods to sue Arjuna Capital, who was an actual shareholder in the actual company. Why can't we Sue ncpp, who doesn't own any shares for doing this? That's what. Excellent. I mean, there are more assholes of the week because I'm married to vote, and they're fat, they're fast. I do one last thing about Stephanie and NCP. Apple. The D I vote at Apple actually got this is called math stuff on it. Got 37% fewer votes than the average vote against directors that's bad. That's horrifically bad, they vote for everybody. I mean this is a their votes are like almost worse than the vote for the accountants. Write for like right now percent ninety seven percent, these are even worse than basically on par with audit level. Indifference that's where you are. Okay? What the investors are basically telling you Stefan padfield. They're basically putting a rubber stamp on your forehead which says shut the fuk up races or like that's all I guess. An apple would be shut the fuk up Trump because they change. There we go, there we go, there we go. Well done. All right. All right, two more assholes, number two, Jeff Bezos say no more. And and you left out my favorite part of the quote, okay, he said at the end of this quote, I'm confident that free markets and personal Liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas. Underserved as he finally out of himself as just an idiot. Is that what we're doing? What are we doing? Have you underserved anything anywhere? Jeff Bezos. Not to mention that the top 10 billionaires in the world, basically control. What? Percentage of the wealth. It's a staggering amount of wealthy control. So I think there may be served. I think we're top 10 billionaires in the world control. A staggering amount of what we see and hear. Not only just actually, right? Not only just actual well, but but actual information, right? I mean, X is owned by Elon Musk owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, right? Bezos owns the Washington Post and Amazon, like most of the information we get Jeff, you're saying, oh, this is hard from the top 10 making this hard for us all the week. What else do you have the third option? Here is a bit of a, it's a weird one to me, but I'm going to blame and this isn't really of the week except that the story this week, really put it over the edge for me. I'm going to blame Our current state in America. Yeah, on the WWE, okay? I watched the Vince McMahon documentary on Netflix sorry, which I highly highly recommend, because if you want to know how we got here, it's all encapsulated in a company that basically sold viral and and highly divisive entertainment, led by a guy who had dual class shares and he is mired in sexual controversies, a sexual predator. He's forced out of his company. He comes back to his company. He it's nipple nepotism everywhere. Everything you can think about is, basically the administration that's running this company. Well, which misogyny like like constant dunking on like the other like the story lines in the 90s in WWE are unmentionable today, right? Like it I mean it's literally a constant set of gay lgbtq rape jokes that the con Violence. But of course, that's part of wrestling. Yeah, permanent violin. What you've left out of that is the fact that it's a, it's a world that is meant to represent reality. It's not actual reality, but it actually takes a lot. Many people's a bit of time to understand that these these matches aren't real. They're like, it's right, it's simulated Sports. It's it's it's supposed to be exaggerated reality is what, which is the time we live in now, which is what 20th 25 has become. Because as we just mentioned the top 10 billionaires do own information or should I say information? But yeah, Trump was on the W. Several times. In fact, he's still shows up at some of those still shows up there. Yeah, the WWE and the UFC. Yeah, let's not forget that. This is not that we're not just rambling, which we are but that Mark Zuckerberg himself one of the top 10 billionaires that we just talked about just appointed. Know why, right? Who founded the UFC to see you just crying to the board of all places of metaplace UFC. I'm not joking who Dana punched his wife at a love Las Vegas party like that and even if he hadn't done that Matt, why would the board of meta platforms? Need the guy who runs a fighting company on its board. It defies all logic. Well, so this is 2025, right? Like if you want to know what middle school man, flakes are running this, this country and running these companies, which is why it's time, the investor Revolt needs to happen and it's not a divestment it's it's a vote, right? Because like there's a mechanism in place, Dana White is now on the meta board Linda McMahon is running education, the wife of Vince McMahon, the founder of WWE is running the education department in the United States now and Matt on the app for mentioned board at truth social the Trump Media company. She's on that. Truth social, she's a board member board. True social. And here's the, here's the headline I saw this week. FBI director. Kash Patel wants the UFC to train agent? Yeah, I I didn't know, I, I thought we were full idiocracy when I saw that, I don't know. I don't know how many of our listeners have seen the Mike Judge movie, Idiocracy? Was he made in the early 2000s? Now it reads like basically encyclopedia like that's it seemed like a high level of satire back in the day. But now it's basically a blueprint of what America is becoming. And when I saw this headline Matt, because it really triggered me to think about that movie. Because in that movie, the president of the future, this is like a talking about the future of America was a former wrestler, right? I mean, that's right, driver on a big motorcycle and give the middle finger to the adoring fans. But but Yeah, the FBI director wants to use the UFC to train. I'm completely I want you to think about. We talk about like the the culture of management all the time, how the culture sets its own, how the board and the executive team sets, a tone for a company when you have the culture of management and and we and we're acutely aware that wrestling as a sport like the, the WWE version, which is highly athletic and all so scripted and like, it is, it's not a real thing. I don't know how many that if what is happening. Well, we've implemented as governing policy, right? Like, at both companies, where we have Mark, Zuckerberg, sitting in front of a camera talking about removing content moderation and we need more masculine energy at companies and we have Elon Musk who has a board that is entirely captured to him, who is out, not running any companies and just firing people. Well in the government instead such that story about Verizon is losing is likely to lose. Its contract with the FAA to get replaced by musk's own company. We have Middle School men running every no expertise, by the way, the perfect encapsulation of that to me is WWE. Where you watch Vince McMahon, who was the CEO of a publicly traded company. On stage, making jokes about having sex with his own daughter. Doing some of the worst most heinous things all in the name of entertainment. And now we have Kash Patel that FBI director thinking, you know what would be great if our like our effectively are a force of Defense learned from middle school. Men pretending to fight for real in cages and punching each other. Or it's the joke's on us. We I said jokes on. All right, those are your three WWE, efficient of sort of corporate America, and government, Stefan, padfield, and Jeff Bezos. You're not joking, too. Because, let's not forget the who Mark Zuckerberg who was, you know, one of the most successful business people CEOs in our on our globe actually said out loud. That he want he wanted to make what the company more masculine is that what he said? Yeah, that's what he said, you're not. I know what you're saying is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's also not. It's actually all this is verifiable. Dana White is on that board. Huh, these are all good, candidates Bezos, always a great candidate. You know, I I'm tempted to go with the WWE if occasion of America because it is a very important concept, a stupid as it sounds. And part of the reason why we rail against controlled companies and companies where there is no counterbalance to Emperor CEOs, like, you know, menopause forums but I I can never miss out on an opportunity to to label people like stuff on padfield as just Sheeran artists because because at its heart and its heart, this this push against Dei policy is just a dark angry hateful. Sad part of our current history, It's just sad. It's sad. I know we're going long but I have to say this anyway. Yeah. So free flow analytics has pulled non-profit data, nonprofit boards, into his database to find how directors are connected to one another, through non-profit boards, right? Which is a big dark hole in most of the universe when you're talking about these Executives and in doing, so, I ended up doing a deep dive, not into the national Center for Public Policy, but their sister org, which is the national public policy Research Center, which is it sounds like the same but not the same. I guess the same thing or something. I looked at the funding of, like, where is the anti Dei funding coming from? And that place is one of the tips of the spear on Auntie Dei in Corporate America. Filing shareholder proposals against corporations to remove Dei, you know, like pumping out, think pieces and say think, I mean, sort of like, there's no thought but it's piece after piece after piece of content. What they're really trying to do, which you alluded to, which is what Stefan people is there, trying to control the narrative by saying bulshit, like the vibe shift is clear. They're trying to convince America that we are racist, misogynist people, which were not. So they're, they're trying that's why they're submitting these proposals. It is political theater that has nothing Stefan. Padfield knows how incredibly successful apple is. He just trying to control the narrative. He's trying to convince all of us that this is what we want, which is bullshit. As you said, 98% said no to that. But there was there was a proposal, a deer by the sister or Not NCP. But the national public policy Research Center, or whatever they call themselves. There was a proposal there. I wanted to know who's funding that proposal. Right? Like where do they get their funding from? And what I found was there was about 2 million dollars of funding that comes from foundations. It's really five or six foundations of billionaires and Millionaires and funding 2 million dollars worth, you know? So that these proposals can get filed, so you're talking about two, only two of the foundations had a billion dollars in assets. The rest of them had, you know, million a couple hundred thousand, they're smaller foundations. But the total funding was 11 million dollars and I could not for the life of me figure out, where is the other 9 million come from? Whose giving it to them, I'm thinking, is it the Koch brothers? Is it some like massive sort of, you know, conservative machine? It turns out that that funding was coming from a group called response Dynamics, which does mailing campaigns the Head of that group was actually found in the early 2000s, to be sending out mailers to demented, older Americans and taking every penny from them, right? The same Target as some of these Evangelical churches. When you read an anti Dei proposal, you should absolutely know where the proponent comes from. And in that case the proponent was a handful of deeply conservative religious foundations. But the vast majority of it is from mailers targeting the elderly in this country, there is no, like, broad campus. The vibe shift is not some like broader American Vibe shift. It is stealing money from the elderly so that we can create the impression that people are against diversity. Yeah, that is how these campaigns are building includes those the figures of the vote in his next mailing to try to get their money. Yeah, that would be that. All right, let's move on. Let's finish the show with headline winners predictions. We can go quickly. Now, I think you're out of steam anywhere, I'm at a site. I need a Nap. Oh no. Actually, after this show were recording, another show. A headline is of the week. My headline is meta says it fixed error. After Instagram users report a flood of graphic and violent content Cool. But for that's what does that mean it when it says fixed errors? I mean it's shutting down its company because this isn't that what I mean? Isn't that all these platforms do was just show you Crap. Just like, what do you think that is there like one switch? That's like showing porn take out the porn. Like, is it like, is it like a switch? Always on, man? I mean, it's like all, it's all basically. See. Every time I open up tiktok, that's basically what I see. Or it's like line, you know, 273 of their baby, you know, their their code. Like somebody was like, oh, sorry, I just, I turn I did. I did the actual The Accidental, like graphic content switch. I turned it back on. I'll turn it off. Like, like, how does one? Like was the error there? What's your? I think the error is you fired. Everyone who does content. Yeah, that's true. Actually. My headline is the week and this made me smile because I just I just find it. Like it's like he suddenly has like a he's in a relationship and he's just realizing this about his partner. Sam Altman. Says open ai's. New chat GPT 4.5 is more emotionally intelligent model but warns that it's expensive to train and run it just felt, does that feel like just is this guy asking for more money or something or know it feels like he's in a new relationship with somebody and they're really amazing to go into nice Lobster. And yeah. They but it turns out they like they like going to Paris they want to they want like to travel and stuff. They're expensive. It's like he's talking about it. Like it's a, he just got a new Lover. He just fold the company. It's cheap to fold the company, you know. All right. There's no winner to the headline this week, all the headlines stink who won the week though. Mine is simple and obvious from everything we talked about. Sadly, Matt. It is grifter's Hustlers con artist con men, scammers, just fraud and general fraud like that as well. I'm sorry, but it's clear. That's the winner. Yeah, what? He got that, you're a downer my winner this week. Yeah, you're the dinner my winner, this week is Ron sugar. Congratulations, Ron sugar who got 94.4% of the vote in favor of his re-election at Apple. Which by the way Very close to how much the DCI vocal crushed by very close, but he got brought in 94.4% of the vote, despite the fact that he's crossed the age, she is breaking the rules, breaking, their own government control. Why? Yes. Two different. I have the policy cares about him being old. He still went. He's winning, just get rid of the policy. Yeah, yeah. He's winning. You got a prediction. I got a long prediction. You want to go first? Yeah, go first. And this is its. I shouldn't say it's funny but I didn't I didn't look at what your stories were. But there's some definitely overlap from your your screed against the WWE WWE if occasion of America. So this is direct overlap here of my prediction. Donald Trump's new. Department of UFC or FBI or Doge or whatever it's called performs, a mandible Claw on Senator, Elizabeth Warren. Now, I know, I want to tell our listeners, what a mandible Claw is Matt. Again, it's a great coincidence that you were talking about WWE and from the 90s, but this is what the mandible Claw is. This is real, this is from a from an action, you know, from a publicly traded company, there was a wrestler named man kind, For real mankind, of course, his name is mankind, this is really his name. And what this is, how this is was his finishing move which means that this was the move that mankind would do to end the match to win the match. So the opponent would be this is, this is all real except of course it's not real. Well I don't like any not real. Welcome to 2025 the opponent. Would be staggering around all days but not enough to follow the ground that follow the ground and Mankind. Would see his opportunity, he would reach into his underpants. This is all real. Don't like that. He would reach into his underpants and he would pull out a sock with a face on it called mister soccer. Oh, this is America. Yeah, I'm glad that again, that's called man. Kind in the sock, all these gendered. Mr. Soco, he would put it on his hand and he would stick his hand in the other guy's mouth. And again now the FBI is using this company. And now one, you know, Dana White is on a bore, it's crazy, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Is this what cash potel wants to teach the FBI? Should they as long as they Mr? Soccer. I think his hand into like a Dei person's mouth and I think we're fine. Call Kash Patel, Mr. Sokko for now, let's just like all right, mine is much shorter and less interesting. My prediction is Voting, the voting against director movement will take off this. I mean, that we're gonna raise 11 million dollars in no support our company, that it means, it means generally the opposite of that, but I do think and I was, I'll tell you this, I am talking to multiple people attention funds at asset managers all incredibly large who are deeply interested in the idea of we need to hold individual directors are only you can use ours. Come on. I can only tell you what I'm seeing, but I think it's a movement. Is taking off. Do it? That's it. That's your show, that's his floats, come back next week, when we do more of this, but hopefully not the same this because I am depressed until then good. Bye.