Transcript
Live. from an ESG drenched wet poodle, it's yet another manic Monday edition of business pants joined as always by analysts whole map Mascari Hey. in today's Monday, protected class of weed gummies called January 22nd, 2024 business. Yes, I love them Monday nights. Our show today is being sponsored by free full analytics. The only ESG data platform to measure real board influence in diversity power gaps. Yeah. Does anybody know what that means? I don't. Yeah, it's a good question. Go ahead, answer. Well, real Port influence is how powerful each individual board member is on the board, right? Like, if you put 10 people together, you know, that there's probably one person that controls like 50% of the room like that, they speak, everyone listens. Well, that's free flow analytics, measures that and then because it measures that it can tell you, the fact that you have You know, 30% women on the board, but they actually have 10% of the power. That's a massive Gap. Then you basically stack. The room with women who have no power. Why would you do that? Yeah, let's defeats the purpose. So it tells you those things cool. I like that. Come on, let's do this. All right, let's do it. You're already on the music's going, we're rolling, are do it. Let's start over. If work it out in our hey Ma. Dad is being investigated. What will the neighbors think? Oh wait. The headline doesn't even name him, just call some CFO, so nobody will know, never mind, headlines of the week, ADM plunges. After placing its CFO on leave during accounting probe. But, but I do want to know what his name was CFO. Vic room, Lutheran Lutheran. I, this is the annotated version of not Goods. I have a few things to add here. Oh, I like this, Terry Crews, adm's. Lead. Director said the board takes these matters. Very seriously. Oh well thank God. And Matt this is the same Terry Crews who was the former CFO and CEO of vegetables. At Monsanto. A company once listed as the most hated company in the world and whose reputation was so horrible that when Bayer acquired it in, 2018, it immediately changed the name, Monsanto, it got rid of it immediately. This that's the same guy. That's the guy I want to be the CFO or CEO of an entire food group vegetables. I like that. But I will say This we've been told that no one cares about board members, you know, the board has an audit committee. The audit committee looks at the accounting, their job is to say that the accounting is good and sound. Now there's an accounting Scandal and the board is taking it very seriously, all of the sudden and the CFO is on leave. Where were they before? What were they doing? Because there were vegetables cuddling tomatoes. in our, While the Christian Taliban in New Hampshire, is threatening to imprison ESG analysts. The Techno kings are busy destroying the world headline of the week that I don't like that. A lot of mine had this tone today. AI voice cloning startup, 11 Labs valued at 1.1 billion dollars and recent Horowitz and others invest 80 million dollars in two year. Old startup. All right, I'm gonna continue with my annotated version of nuggets. Here's a quote, okay, from a recent Vanity, Fair article about Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark, Zuckerberg, and Mark, andreasen. Quote, if we are to inquire how we got to a place of radical income inequality, post-truth reality in the looming, potential for a second American Civil War, we need look no further than these four. The biggest wallet to paraphrase, the story in Timothy Snyder, paying for the most blinding light, Wait, who said that? This is from. This is from a recent article from Vanity, Fair talking about those four and I the reason why I mentioned that is because the 11 Labs CEO and co-founder Maddie Stannis veski came directly from Peter Teal's palantir Technologies, where he deployed palantir products at scale across the public and private sector scale. Do you think we can get an investment from those people in free flow? To tell the world about that. AI voice cloning startup. This is what the world is. Putting its money behind AI excited. We don't have to do this show anymore, we're just nobody anymore in our. Hey Ma why are there so many New Hampshire State Police and Copenhagen it, that's weird. Isn't their annual retreat in July at Lake, Winnipesaukee headline of the week? Danish, pension fund divests, Chinese solar Investments over ESG concerns. Oh my God, there's a lot to unpack in there. This is what this is p. Plus the pension fund for academics and doctors that they've pulled their investments in a Chinese solar panel manufacturer due to the risk of being linked to forced labor activities. So but according to New Hampshire, you would be put in jail if you divested from a company that had forced labor, right? If I got that long right, wait. Isn't this the exact reason why Tesla was knocked out of the S&P? But yes, right? Like like so the solar panel's where the good thing that they did, but they did it by like whipping vehicles in enslaved population to get it done. But and but if I die best from that, I go to jail, right? I think yeah in New Hampshire but not in Denver tomorrow. here in our Welcome to Florida, where our version of not politically discriminating is to politically discriminate against woke. Liberals headline of the week. Yeah. You are like you're in a place today. Well, I'm just looking at the headlines. I'm seeing over 100 Florida, Bank sign anti-esg agreement to not politically discriminate I love corporate McCarthyism. Yeah, like we're signing pledges, and listen to some of the people signing it so Banks across Florida have signed an agreement with the state CFO, Jimmy Patronus. I mean, that you've talked about a lot Matt Jimmy Platt. Yeah, not politically discriminate and exchange for being designated qualified public depositories that can accept public funds. So, that's the blackmail going on there. Some of the banks that have signed include Bank of America. City bank PNC, TD bank Wells, Fargo and JP Morgan Chase. So they're all buying into the bullshit in Florida. I thought that fascism started as like a movement of the people but not a corporate movement. This is so really weird pledge. We do it in our Oh, never mind. Let the headline speak for itself headline of the week. Oh God. I don't like this. What? This foreshadows kyte baby CEO. Ying Liu is forced to post. Two groveling, apologies after she fired worker Marissa Hughes who asked to work remotely while her adopted premature newborn was hospitalized. This is the, this is the worst CEO apology. I think I've seen to date. This one's bad, these are bad. Did you watch? These are just and they're just confusing and weird and of course she did them on tiktok of all places. I don't get the world. I don't understand the world anymore. I don't, I don't know what's going on. I really don't. Let me clear it up for you, right? Take over for a while. And our really you found a joint in my locker. Well that's so weird. I never would have put it there. Well thank you. I'll go check my other things and make sure this never happens. Again, I'm really glad you found. The only joint. I probably have headline of the week. Us authorities. Say more Boeing 737 planes should get checks after door plug blowout. It's taking us authorities to say that. Yeah well I mean do we want mowing to take care of it? I got Dave kehr questions. I don't know anymore. We I think we do not Hey here's a follow-up in our know. There's no need to check my backpack too. For more joints. I mean, there's no way they could be in there and I assume you won't be calling my parents. And this is the end of all questions about the matter. Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention headlight of the week. FAA, urges door, plug checks on second Boeing model as soon as possible is the same headline. Basically, what are you doing? No, you us Authority. I like this one says as soon as possible. Oh yeah. The other one was kind of like there might be a problem elsewhere and this one is no. There's a problem elsewhere. You need to not fly those plain. You need to check like yeah. Now So there now, they've expanded the door, plug price hopes so across multiple check them all. I mean, what are we doing? I read something shocking about this bone story, which is that, and I didn't even know this that do you realize that to save costs because it takes extra flight attendant hours that they seal shut emergency exit doors on these on these Boeing planes so that they don't. So that the airlines don't have to pay extra money to pay to pay attention to them. That's part of the problem here. That's how is this a lot? How is this allowed? How, what, what actually did are you did a dive this morning? Are the data Queen free floats are the data Queen on the expertise of the board members, across Boeing and Airbus and found that Airbus had like three times as many Engineers for a much longer period of time before their board on their board. And what found that everybody on the Bowing board was if effectively accountants Finance sales. Well, is this? Because this is Airbus in one of the jurisdictions that you have to put employees in the board. Is that part of it or know, their in France, their friends, not. But that's not, but that's not it right? Like that? The they just like it was just the straight board members. Not the not like employee members, it was just fascinating that, like, if you focus on turns out, it turns out if your main focus is on cutting costs, In the short term. You often forget door plugs, seal exit, doors. And leave your wrench about that? Yeah. Forget door plugs and seal exit doors. I don't like it. I don't like this. All right, before you get to the next one, I will ask this if I divest because I'm unhappy with what if I want to put all take my money out of Boeing and put it in the Airbus because I like their board more, like I'm more impressed and I want to vote out Boeing board members. Will I be put in jail in New Hampshire and and we'll investors care that I'm paid attention to the board. You did you read the proxy before you made? Because if you did yes can't even read. Who's going to be up for election? And our yeah, well, we deep fried ours twice and put it in a brioche bun with spicy whiskey, barbecue sauce and it's made from an organic cotton spandex blend for maximum sheerness. Take that Lululemon headline of the week. Yoga Wars heat up as Levi Beyond yoga Taps, Forma Athleta, CEO Gap veteran, his next chief. I don't know what, what's going on. What do you what's happening? I just like that. There's a yoga work. You like a horse? I like a yoga War. Like, you actually. I mean, I can't wait for like the like during the chicken sandwich Wars. They actually did a cross-branding with AirHeads. Like the candy, the sour candy, and they made a bun with Airheads in it and sold it with chicken fried chicken. Yeah, they did sneakers too. Didn't they all just sneakers? And yeah. I mean, like I just can't wait for the cross marketing opportunity of yoga, please, yoga is healthy Although our people are actually doing business, there's going to like Home Depot. For the record. Veteran like Athleta CEO and GAP veteran. They have a name. The athlete CEO's name was Chris Blakely. Oh, there's a name. That's the name behind it. Yeah, there's that person actually has a name. You know, so really thank you for letting me stay in your house that you bought and seriously I'm sorry. I broke the toilet seat cover but I should tell you if you even try to replace the toilet seat cover I swear to God I will sue you and your family and your mom and your cat headline of the week. Exxon sues two ESG investors. That doesn't surprise me that they're suing them. They're suing them. They're claiming that those two investors don't represent the rest of the shareholders, okay? They're suing them for being annoying and costing the money. And this is part of this is part of their trying to put a shareholder proposal up on the election but they're not, they're not purporting to represent everybody. There's there's suggesting that to go through the Democratic process of voting on their proposal. Right Exxon, I got some news for you. They own you. That's the way that works. They're the shareholders, they own the share's, they own more shares. Then you do they own you? You can't sue them for not owning you the way you want them to own you. I mean, I guess you can say Play. Before I hand this back to you in our idiot, says words, then says more words. Okay, line of the week. Msci, Under Fire for ESG ratings biases. That could cost investors like you've done this one before. Yeah. Do you remember I talked about Shiva Raj, Kapolei in his paper accused msci of inflating, their ratings for selling pay for play or something. There was something weird, go somewhere insinuation there, the most ridiculous academic paper I probably have ever read, like, given that I was there. Yeah. And none of it happened, right? Like it's all like the paper where they, they didn't actually talk to anyone from msci, right? They talked to 0 and they compared it to refinitiv which is a totally different model that measures something totally different. And they did basically that was the paper. And you don't talk to anyone at the subject that you're examining. Maybe you wouldn't understand what that subject does. And maybe is that possible? That's correct. And turns out though, what happens when you write in academic paper without doing any of the actual work required to understand what's going on and analyst named Joe Kim Clement. Who works for Libra will write blog posts about investing about msci. You should never use them ever again because they don't have a good momentum strategy in 12 months and they're cheating for their indexes. Now, we're now we're like we've been gaslit. Guy, writes paper never asks a question and other guy writes more stuff saying the same thing and now, everyone's just gonna believe that. That's the truth that I'm basically working with us frauds, while we're here, they called us frogs. take over like a friend angry in our if only there was a literal mechanism to hold corporate directors responsible for something in our society, there's not headlines of the week. Greed PlayStation caused more than half of last year's inflation. Surge study finds as corporate profits remain at all time high. If only, there was a way to I mean, I it's this irritates me. If only there was a way to hold some of these people, these corporations accountable, I can't think of any, I will say I put a poll on LinkedIn. and I I posed this question, speaking of voting 19 since 1920, basically 57% of equity have underperformed treasure, right? Like What percentage of directors do you think get voted out? And I gave a few options and you'll be shocked to know that investors actually know the answer to that question. Oh well, and don't care. So the majority of people got this right, the vast majority of people have this, right so far, don't give it away. So go, go to my LinkedIn and vote and see if you get it, right? I'm guessing you will and you won't care. You might not care in our how many Tesla board members, does it take to change a light bulb? None. Elon said, the light bulb is working just fine. So they all huddle around. Kimball musk's Patchouli candle headline of the week. Musk's AI company. Secures 500 million dollars toward one billion dollar funding goal. You see, Matt believe there's still not gonna hold him accountable if despite the fact that he's blackmailing them over there at Tesla while he's raising for another company. Will, here's the question then since he's already raising for his AI company, and he's using AI as his black whale chip. Yeah, with the board. Does that mean Tesla's gonna buy the AI company, enriching, Elon Musk just fire him, you know, unbelievable in our best CEO doing a jigsaw puzzle headline of the week. CEO of pro Ron. DeSantis Super PAC worked on a 1000 piece. Jigsaw puzzle within view of staffers days, before the Iowa caucuses, which the Florida governor lost. Yeah, I don't care. I like this one because this is a, this is, this is some of my favorite board cronyism and board fighting store. So, I'm just gonna tell you, Scott Wagner became CEO and chair of the Never Back Down pack after after Chris Jenkins. November Scott was a college friend of runs Matt. He's college friend. Yeah, the Sun from familiar to the world that we cover. This is it was he the college friend from Harvard or Yale? That would be Yale before he took over and BC News reported this confrontation with former pack consultant, Jeff Rowe, You have a stick up your ass, Scott row, fumed at Wagner. Who was a member of the Never Back Down bored. Why don't you come over here and get it? Wagner responded from his chair? He was quickly, restrained by two fellow board members. See what fun? The board has. This nine-member board has at Rhonda San Francisco. This is fun stuff fun, but they don't say whether or not he finished the jigsaw puzzle. Did he finish? I have a feeling. He did not finish. No. Oh, in our, I'll take the protected class for 1,000, Alex headliner of the week seeing this headline, Alex Trebek. Still alive. See what you know? Oh, mostly, because I don't really know the voice. I don't really know the new host of Jeopardy is I don't really care and I think most people when they hear a Jeopardy joke, there's still gonna think of Alex. So you see that what I did there that? Yeah, that's true. Disgraced X Caroline, Caroline boss. Land, senior us role months after UK boardroom band. So this is Richard, Hassan howson, who received an eight-year disqualification from the insolvency service in October? He's been named construction, president at Tampa Bay's Tech Fusion, they build and renovate data centers over there in Florida. So, you see, I'm, you can get banned from a board and the UK you can, you can just show up somewhere else, get a job protected class lives on. I'm just glad finally. A white guy does not get held accountable for something. And finally, in my section, before heading up to Matt and our But she still will have use of the company Jet right? Headline of the week. Elizabeth Holmes, borrowed from federal health programs for 90 years. Here's why I picked this one. The real joke is the sub headline which is that the former Toronto CEO barred from receiving payments from federal health programs. Matt, we talked about this, if it's a woman, they named her in the main headline, you see in the sub headline, they call her former Throne of CEO but the main headline I name her. Elizabeth Holmes. Yeah. Well, see how that works? Clear you got to be specific because they're so few women. You don't want to get them, you don't want to just call her former throws CEO. You. And we all know who that is, by the way, everyone will because there's only one CEO. Yeah, anyway, there you go. Come on, Matt finishes off. All right, let's wrap this up in our it's like Martin Luther King. Once said I have a dream of a place free of Disney and their trans gay woke agenda. That is killing this country and I am dropping out of the fight to fight it headline of the week. Ron DeSantis ended his campaign on an optimistic Church Hill quote that's actually fake. I'm glad you included this one. I I loved it and to Old putting fingers there Forgot, he was putting fingers, by the way, the quote was Success, is Not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts and it was said by no one. It was just an internet quote. It was an internet meme somewhere. Yeah. Churchill Foundation went through. 50,000 tomes of text. That could not find any good evidence. Now, we're still Ackman. Shouldn't he be angry at this? I don't know, it sounds like plagiarism to me in our shit. I should have said kissing and replacing the baking soda in the back of the fridge after 14 years, head of the week. Sam Altman stumped. When asked what humans will do better than AI? You think they'll do? You think they'll kiss better and they'll replace baking soda better because Elon Musk just said that by 2040 will be a billion, robot humanoids, or whatever they're called. I thought well maybe they'll be better as a baking soda, but definitely not kissing. Okay, they're gonna be better. See what Kimball comes up with not soon. In our the tech broke gig economy is working now shopping for groceries, takes his long as shopping for groceries just with the unions headline of the week. Why is your grocery delivery taking so long? Your driver has two other deliveries, okay? I just like that. You're doing it to save time. Yeah. But it's taking you as long effectively like it's you could have just gotten up and gone and got your groceries. But now you're upset. But the good news is that you are, I think you're right, the good news is that you're preventing a real job, right? Because it's a, it's a gig job. Everyone's a winner. Yeah. So At Dollar General. Our four operating principles are and these are real by the way, profitable growth growth opportunities, low cost and D E. I stop it really? I'm not joking and d e. I yeah. In a separate note, we've prepared the following statement, Perpetual short-term profit maximizing had nothing to do with these allegations. If anything it was the black people had line of the week Dollar General overcharges hundreds of thousands of customers lawsuit, alleges. Yeah, I saw this one this is disturbing that they actually at the register a different price came up from the what the price on the item. It turns out in 2019, they were charged with there's there they, they are not allowed. When they say something is a certain weight, it has to be that way, right? Like there's a law about that turns out. They didn't do that either, right? Like and they promised never to do it again. So this is their way around the way. Apparently, these four operating this, this, that's not true, right? I am not kidding you. Those are the four operators again Dollar General for operating principles. That's right here. These are the real. They're on their website. Yeah. See them, they're four operating principles of Dollar General are profitable. Growth growth opportunities, low cost, growth and D. So I mean, that I am gobsmack. Which how fast will it be before? Fox News says that this is dei's fall. Yeah, well, of course because when you have four operating principles position, all be focused on growth know, I mean like everybody else. and finally, in our look, This is a slippery slope people. First we cut prices then we need to agree with the great replacement Theory. Then we have to hire Kanye West to run marketing headline of the week. Stellantis, CEO warns of EV bloodbath and race to the bottom. If carmakers follow Elon musk's lead and start cutting prices look. I if you follow Elon for anything, it's a race to the bottom. So he's right about that. Any I'm really like why don't emulate this man? Go buy a Honda That's all we got. That's hazelnut Rallis. I am your analyst told him at mascardi. We are free float. We will be back on Wednesday with a woke Wednesday Thursday. You if you're not getting our proxy countdown show, we've been told that it's the greatest show on proxy. Anything ever it, is you first of all it is and second of all for those of you who are getting tired of silliness, it's a very serious show and we're even gonna try to remove all the all the swears. Yeah. Like to swears, we're just packed full of data. It's this very little commentary. It's just we're just covering proxies, right? It's designed for analysts like that. That's what we have voter recommendations. We cover proxy. Contests, we covered directors all there. It's all there. So go get that until Wednesday. Goodbye. Up.