Transcript
Yeah. Yes. Alright, we're back baby. Where were we were back? Where'd we go? Well, we had Labor Day. We were. Oh yeah. And I feel like did I go somewhere? I feel like I haven't done this in six years. I know it was a weird end of the summer and yet we're getting out of every day. I do this, I feel like I've never done anything else in my life but this show, Well, I'm gonna be in Portland on Friday. That means I have to vacuum Now. Okay. Good lie. I mean, you need to get a second chair live from Tariq. Fancies anti-esg, diary, did you know, he cut the anti ESG diary is that like, like, Lord Voldemort's Tire? I've seen it. It's leather brown has a little clasp. That's what I mean. Not is he Lord Wilmore, but is the diary like that? Like, it's the ESG Industries. Only weakly woke data podcast, featuring analyst whole mattress. Come on audience, give it to him. Oh, we can't. Yeah, can't hear the audience is know. The audience is well, they have to have to wait for the music to fade out before they actually come and do anything. Today's sweaty, September, ESG Sac called September 6th 2023. I do feel that way though. Today sack of, you know, what's going on in your part of doing, but my part is unpleasant, we have, it's hot. Yeah, we have an epic Australian glass. Cliff alert. All the musk headlines you were trying to avoid. You're welcome and no. Are we doing that? Today, we had the ESG idiot of the day. Except for that. Yes, she idiot the day and the great Paul Hodgson from skh who I'm getting a late report is not the ESG idiot of the day. No, he is not, they are escaped is used. Your ESG Data Solutions provider, our show today is being sponsored by ESG. yeah, your ESG Data Solutions provided you just said that and I know but I have front-running Your sponsorship say that Paul will jump on later to talk about According to him, he's talking about women on boards and women in management. That's a lot of very Broad in general. Know there's a lot of things you could talk about but let's get right to it. Because there's a big, you have a big story. As in a lot of words not that anyone cares. Ladies and gentlemen, I got into the rabbit hole of Qantas Airlines this morning. That's what that's what I did. That's All right, this is a sure if this is an incredible glass. Cliff alert out of Australia, but not Vanessa. Hudson is the no is now the quantity CEO. Here's the headline, she faces, big challenges in the years ahead. Matt, I think the best way to tell the story is just with a hodgepodge of all the horrible headlines going on a Qantas. I don't know how much, you know, The well, I know they're an airline and I know they're in Australia, but the but the headline says in the years ahead, that assumes she's going to last the year, okay? Oh, the reason why I'm saying in the years ahead, is because of the shitshow left by departing, CEO Alan Joyce, who is who is stepping down, two months early, Just weeks just weeks before a plan for formal farewell, so it couldn't even get to the formal farewell at the AGM in November. That's how bad things are. So here, I'm just gonna run down a bunch of red things. Going on a Qantas first is a, They announced record profits right a few weeks ago but then there was this bogus ticket Scandal that dropped out of nowhere course Australian. Petition consumer commission, they're aiming for a record. 600 million dollar penalty. There are accusing Qantas of allegedly advertising tickets for thousands of canceled flights and failing to tell customers about ticket cancellation. So, there was so in effect Qantas has been selling its customers canceled flight tickets. Oh well, that's one way to get some profit for more than 8,000 flights. 8,000, flights is a lot of flights. Other headlines Qantas reputation is in the bin. What canoe CEO of Vanessa Hudson do to retrieve it. So Here's a according to one article here, Qantas issues, a groveling apology to Australians after nightmare week. But here's the groveling apology. We openly acknowledge that our service standards fell. Well short and we sincerely apologize. It's like groveling. Oh wow. That's That's like hands and knees, like that's outside your door, begging you to come back other headlines, Alan Joyce, leaps, Quantus, outrage, over 24 million dollar CEOs golden handshake. As he retires to enjoy a penthouse with views of the Sydney Opera House. So there there, rubbing in a little bit there that he's already rich. I mean, that's isn't that what they did with the svb bank? Yes, which fails spectacularly. And then they said, like the CEO is currently at Maui. Like, well, this article gets really into this. Oh, he's so he just sold a 20 million dollar home, but, and they downsize to a 9 million dollar Penthouse, and they also have a five million dollar beach house down the road. So, they're really laying into him on this one. Other headlines, everybody has a Qantas Horror Story. Um, so there's been a run of negative headlines. This has been the subject of Scandal and the joyces leadership and was found to have violated the fair work Act. So that. So the court, the Australia's Federal Court ruled at the airline had recently. Fired 17 illegally fired, 1700 employees in the process of Outsourcing 2000 ground handling jobs. So, during the pandemic, they dealt with their Human Resources with their labor by Outsourcing 2000 jobs by. So the legally fired. 2000 unionized worker's. What else is going on? Oh, cuantas board Under Fire over horror. Run, they're saying, Ah, this is the Qantas board, led by veteran chair. Richard goiter. Okay. Oh, sorry, according to reports. The board was not expecting Joyce to retire early. It was also unaware of the severity of the Australian competition consumer commission's case against the airline group, really, they're unaware. Goiter emphasized that it was not the board's decision for Joyce to leave early. So you got to wonder, like, what is the board really doing? Goiter is not up for reelection. Does the chair at November is annual election, because he is reelected on three year terms. So, this is how this is, why we rail, like stupid classified boards, right? So yeah, sure is. According to Australian law, he actually has the option to put himself up for reelection, but it's not expected to do so. Oh, he's getting out while the getting good. How many airlines are there in Australia? At least one, at least one that I know. I mean, the squad this but like, Like I everyone's got a Qantas horror horror story. Their service shuts down and it's terrible. They're selling canceled. Flight tickets and they have that many flights. Aren't they? The like, the largest airline like, buy a wide margin? Right? Like there aren't many other I think there's like three or four other, big enough how it is when you would care about your book a trip. And there's not really you don't really, you can pretend like, you know, you're angry against Delta in American, you never gonna fly them again but you don't really have much choice, right? I mean, well, and and you us, we have Southwest, JetBlue American Delta. Give it only certain routes are certain carriers though. So it's like you don't really have a lot of choice, but I, I like my fake options. I don't think Australia. Even has many fake options. The good news for Qantas Australian trailers, is that Qantas all? So, owns a budget airline in Australia called Jetstar so that so they own the competitive one of their competitors. So here's back to the glass Cliff stuff, oh, before I get to that. The chair. The chair of Qantas. Again, Richard Gorder, he's also the chair of Woodside Energy Group. He is also the chair of Australian football, the Australian football league commission. He is also the chair of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and he is also the chair of Channel 7 telephone trust. So this is a busy guy. That's a lot of, okay? So, back to the class cliff. Who's to Vanessa Hudson taking over. She was the CFO of Qantas also. So Alan Joyce will be leaving the board director. Michael Lestrange will be leaving the board. They just appointed a new board member two weeks ago. Dr, Heather Smith. She has a PHD in economics. So all Heather. So as of the AGM in November, this Qantas will be led by a female CEO, and a majority, that'll be five out of eight directors, will be women. So this is a great glass Cliff moment for Qantas. Let's just summarize real briefly. Yeah. Qantas sucks ass. After everybody got rich, and then all the men. Left leave Qantas at literally the same time chair. It. I mean, the the chairs not putting himself up for not election now, right? Like, so we didn't have to, he's a three. He got reelected last year and a three year term. So, Oh so he's he's just opting to stick around, stick around. Yeah oh that's a coordinate our data Alan Joyce controlled 28% of the board influence so that's a lot of influence that's going to be spread around now, it was a nice void, it's a nice glass. Cliff void before I leave to the next story. I wanted to end on this. The inevitable headline that comes from any disaster although I gotta I want to reiterate before I get to this, is that there has been a remarkable run of epic failures that including apologies that have led to appointing a woman as a traveling apologies. Like we're really on an epic glass. Cliff CEO ceiling run, right? I mean, this is really incredible. I really wanted that out. All right, inevitably in all these stories, we get to this headline. Qantas is woke capitalism is failing. Rupert Murdoch rag. This is from the Sydney. Know what is the date from? This is from The Spectator. I don't know what that is. It's probably Rupert Murdoch. We all so Matt and I were talking about something off air. There was an anti-wolf story upset about Dove because they're putting up their pictures of women with like a few hair follicles on their armpits. Just a couple of hairs. Yeah, and this guy is angry. And I, this is from a website called outkick and I looked at who owned out kick and yes, it's Rupert Murdoch. He Arts Corporation. I mean, it's Literally the dove one is moderately hysterical. That anyone cares about that, it is like it's about armpits and the article makes it sound like that there are these like, monstrous hairy armpits all over the place that Dove is shoving in your face. It's like a couple of women with arguably Norm, like totally normal. Armpits that are visible whatever. Yeah I mean like they're just it's such nothing burger and they're like doves woke you know, Believers woke, Ben and Jerry's as well. Thank you got to bed and Jerry's too. Uh, so in this article Quantus, what? Capitalism has failing. I guess at the most issue here is that Australia is being asked to vote on a referendum in October. It's called the indigenous voice referendum asking voters, whether they support altering, the Constitution to set up an indigenous committee to advise the federal Parliament up. Now, this is just a committee indigenous committee that only an advisor at capacity, right? But this, I guess this referendum is really splitting the country. This is really, this is like their version of brexit because You know both sides are are kind of angry at each other. It's the polling is kind of right down the middle right now. The issue at hand is that Qantas declared its support for this And this is why they're saying that Qantas is woke capitalism is failing. And I wanted to point out the Playbook of the anti-esg and anti-wolf this. Quote from this article, says the central conundrum of woke capitalism is its unprofitable. That's the central tenant of this guy's argument. Matt two weeks ago, Quantum headlines, Quantus delivers record 2.5 billion dollar profit. So he writes this two weeks after Qantas delivered record. Province is the state of the anti-esg movement right now. And can I just say before you get to that just two sentences after he says this, he, this is just like the Playbook of Vivic Romney. He jumps to this quote, not to mention. There is zero evidence that woke diversity, training, programs, improve, productivity. I don't even know how he got there, but he went from what, capitalism? Equals unprofitable. This is you're right that this is the Playbook, this is the Playboy, it's it's say a thing. The thing being the thing being that woke politics is not profitable, right? And then blame it on black people say something about women. Black people are gays, right? Like and those two things have literally not a thing to do with each other. But it's like, say something is woke then say, women brown people gazer to blame. That's it. And that's the whole place it must be a paint by numbers Playbook because this was now, it's record profits. This guy's still went ahead with his article. There's another piece to this Playbook that we're not talking about which is say political discrimination somewhere too, say that like conservative voices have been shut down by this company because I'm seeing that over and over and over again. Like Vivica wants to shut down the FBI. Why? Because it's ideologically, like discriminating against and you're right because, which is funny, because it was started by a guy who was chasing hippies and leftists, right? Like it was not shooting at Martin Luther King and shooting them, right? Like so shouldn't the lefties want to shut it down, more than Vivic. Uh, yeah. That's all I got to say. Yeah that's that's probably enough of that. Do we have more terrible things to make me fear? Tell I just, I just wanted to run down a bunch of Elon Musk headlines. Sorry. Oh, come on. Yeah, I don't, I never know what to do with them. I don't I guess like me a bit, our listening audience kind of avoids them, but I just, I, I think it's worthwhile to hear them all. This is like, within the last few days, this is just to hear them all at once. I think it's a worthwhile corporate governance exercise and it begs you to anyone, listening who has any control over proxy voting that you vote for anyone on on the Tesla board. You're crazy. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah, that's insane. And let's show, let's just in order to make this more fun, I know you play this, not only steam music underneath you, okay, ready? So because this otherwise I'm going to hate every second, I'll try to go quickly must do the headlines. Musk blames Anti-Defamation League for ex's, poor ad sales, threatens lawsuit. The head of anti-india leak, says, Elon Musk behavior is dangerous and deeply irresponsible musk's epic Labor Day weekend against the Jews. Elon Musk borrowed, one billion dollars from SpaceX around. The same time, he bought Twitter. That's right. He borrowed a billion dollars to SpaceX. A Tesla bumper sticker says that. I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy. Elon Musk says Progressive La school has turned daughter into communist. Who thinks anyone? Richest, evil Elon Musk says, his daughter who ditched his last name doesn't want to spend time with me. Oh, well, he's an evil and and ever because he's Rich Elon musk's erosion of safety. Standards at X is helping Putin. Spread Russian propaganda study finds. Elon Musk has unprecedented influence that spans multiple Industries and Our Fate is in his hands. Elon Musk ask ex wants to collect users biometric data and education history. Know like with it, an upcoming privacy policy update shows Federal officials claim. Elon Musk is treated like an unelected official due to Growing influence in Ukraine. War policy, Elon Musk doubted X Twitter CEO, parag Agarwal because he was Too nice. Elon musk's X is hit with 2200, arbitration claims from former Twitter employees, Tesla investors, awarded 12,000 dollars each for Elon musk's funding secured. Tweet falsely indicating he would take the company. Private Elon musk's tweet is cited in a new doj lawsuit, accusing SpaceX of routine discrimination against refugees. And finally, Elon musk's Tesla. Almost ran a red light during a full full. What is it called? FSD demo? What is that full? It, isn't it full self-driving? Full self-driving, demo. A video appeared to show must taking the wheel after the software. Misread a traffic signal. Yikes. Um, That was really depressing and horrible and it didn't even say the one that musk just zoomed AI. He just did the zoom like update where he said all users tweets will now be subject to training his AI company. His AI. Yeah, I'm just reading the headlines. I don't want to talk about Elon Musk. Oh anyone? Advising voting that again, that you would support anyone on that board. Share one vote people. Yeah, you actually have a say at this company at least Tesla, you don't have to say anywhere else. And I was talking to the money Whisperer yesterday, you can't tell me. I mean, Tesla had such incredible Market control, electric vehicle Market control really had all the positive headlines. You can't tell me that the rest of the world hasn't quickly caught up because you have this guy in Power who has 17 other CEO, 100%, right? Like this. If you see sales numbers going up at any other EV company like product, it's because they just don't want to buy Elon musk's products. Yeah, this is a corporate governance issue. But beyond that, I mean, because what we've seen in the tech space is that if you get early Troll of the market. You generally keep it right in in this is the unless you this is the ESG thing, right? Like your CEO is is insane and hard to deal with and has ten other one's right? Like he has ten jobs, he now hates his daughter because she's a communist, she's a trans communist or whatever he's anti-walk because of all that stuff, I will take a lesser quality product. If I had to just to avoid you, that's called capitalism. That's a Market Force, that's why people use ESG data. Speaking of ESG, yeah, let's do our ESG, I don't know. Idiot, might be hard any of the day of the week. Yeah. She might be She might be harsh, but because she does not seem like an idiot, but she does seem like an opportunity. So what I'm gonna, but here's here's that, I saw, the same has ESG gone off the rails. I like, I like the question. I like that kind of headliner, riding the question, the Tucker Carlson? The question. It's it is the time don't play something, just insinuated. I'm not gonna say it. But I am gonna imply it and you're gonna read it as a result. It's written by Sharon Bentley, Hamlin. She is a director at Aubrey Capital Management, based in UK and Scotland, or London and Edinburgh. I think they're offices. Just for background on who, Sharon is? Yeah, Sharon was an opera singer in the 1980s. Well, we all honor, so that's fine. Obviously, she then worked at credit. Commercial to France as an m&a analyst accent. Yeah, she joined Walter Scott Partners as an analyst doing EU stock selection. I mean, stocks and she won a bunch of women Awards. She won some woman stuff. Okay. I don't know. Now, you're creeping me out. I don't know what you're getting at. I'm just saying she lists five things. I've never heard of that were, like, top female. You're making this part of your making, the case of whether or not. She's an idiot. Oh, I see what you've done. You've changed the the story that it's not ESG. Idiot of the day. It's is she idiot of a day question mark? Yeah. It's it's I'm in. I'm implying, I didn't say it. Didn't say. Um, all right, here's some quotes from the article. Yeah, all right. Here's her are quote. ESG, quote, which is I am becoming increasingly queasy about the direction of so-called ESG. I'm already a lot to unpack there. First, first question is, when did she start becoming queasy? Because she's she's increasingly queasy. And and why like what? What caused the initial queasiness I like the so-called ESG? Yeah. Was it was it the tuna fish smeared all over the executive compensation plan? Like, what, what made her queasy I want to know. I mean, that would make anyone crazy for honest, right? Like that, what that would put me over and then beyond that. What does she mean? So called the ESG. What is that even though called so we call this? Yeah, I don't know. Called it that right? Like, so already. All right. And then there's the, we do women, good. But they're so hard to find play. Oh, the article quote and this is a longer quote. So sit with me, I'm here quote our firm strongly supports getting more. Into consider Investment Management as a career and we have a good gender balance in our company, but there are several well-run businesses in our investment universe that are downgraded in the sustainability ratings because women do not yet comprise one third of their boards. Okay, in principle it would be great to have this level of female participation. She's for using, women can be found who are qualified and confidential roles, okay? That's the biggest assumption in our others, the butt. There's the there's the period now the consuming but it but in our experience of speaking with Senior Management in a wide range of Industries, this is not so easy to achieve. God, they're simply are not enough qualified women coming forward for such roles or indeed entering certain industries and progressing to this level. I mean, I, there's so much to say here. I don't even know. My head is spinning. I mean, but the one that I'm Stick stuck on is the qualified women. They're not coming forward. So so we're not going to go. We're not going to recruit people. We're not right. We're not going to create a pipeline, we're going to wait for them to come forward, I don't like that juxtaposition, assuming there are qualified women, it would be great to have them. We know there are no qualified women well that that thing Is our fantastic. Yeah, as if there aren't women, who are qualified to do any, like the men who have those roles are qualified. Can I just that's the Assumption? Yeah, of course, can I just say that? And this is another one part of the anti ESG Playbook. They always, they always, you know, they they refer to, you know, these like she's saying in our experience of speaking with Senior Management in a wide range, why not quote them in the article? Why don't I get people on record at least to say? Like there are no. Women around? Why not Charlie sharp fit is what you're saying. Like, say that we can't find them, but but most of them are going to be men, right? Like the senior manager that they're talking to, and they're saying to the man, why? And they're like, we can't find any and then they like write that down and then put it in an article like to say that there aren't any. What do you executive search for sad? I feel sad for her. I don't know if she's an idiot. I just feel sad here. No, well, it's idiot question mark, yes, so I don't so. So here's what I wanted to ask you. assuming women can be found who are qualified and competent for board roles your experience, Damien Raul's, looking at women on boards, our women competent Uh well if you take her logic, right? Which is that if since the man the man's already there so he must be confident and qualified, right? Then the women must be too if they're there so I guess the answer is yes, they're competent. Write logic, right? Also like the fact that you did a paper that showed that women have higher education than men. Like I feel like that's old and that's old news at this point. It's old news but it's like maybe that they're more caring and Audrey needs to read it. Yeah, this is a sad again. This is a sad moment for sure. And I don't know if she knows what she put her name on and then she wraps this article up with a non-sequitur into environmental issues and the ideology discrimination play, which is what I mentioned earlier, as increasingly part of the Playbook quote, you get into situations as in the UK where basic services like banking can be denied to individuals small businesses and organizations. Who views may not concur with a company's political or sociological stance. Well, I have a question about what a sociological stances. What's the social logical stands? Social logical stance is like, that's a good question. Like like I'm taking a stance against bed, wetters or something. I don't know. Obesity probably know that. What is that? But let's break these down one at a time, shall we? Because what else do we have to do in the next five minutes? Go ahead as to Aubrey capital investment management, all Aubrey Capital Management's ESG. All right, so she first says so called the SG, here's what their e isg is, which I assume must be real ESG next to so-called ESG. Right? Because they're doing is G and now today's so call the SG. So he started the real one. So it started as you saying it's started as he's cheap but it's kind of transformed into a so called the issue because of now it's like because of all the I I guess, the unqualified and incompetent women who've taken over the. I don't even know what why? I don't mean, like whatever the ESG is. Now, here's how I'm gonna take the ESG now, is not really. Is she? So called he is she that we're doing is really SG, right? So here's the issue that they're doing. Yeah, Aubrey has built ESG into their practice since 2006. So from their website, you can look this up, they use the UN Global compact as the base basis for their research and Analysis. That is all. Oh that they that's all the information. They give you right? That's what she means by. So called ESG because there's really no this is the real. Yes, so called ESG, the other stuff doesn't do their own in-house research. They have no context, they don't. They only research their portfolio, companies ESG stuff, and they only do it around the UN Global compact. So, all the other stuff, but this Dei stuff, I imagine is the so called the SG. They claim they have internal know-how to create ESG scores. I looked at every bio on their website and there are more than 30 people on their website. I like internal know how. Yeah. There is G experience includes analyst. Lizzy lidman. She had a investing certificate. She's a junior. Analyst investors certificate like that. Yeah, that's right. And kamilla Hwang. Yeah. Who got a CFA course in ESG. She's also a junior analyst. In fact, the only two women on their investment team outside of Sharon are the ones who have ESG experience and they're both Junior. Okay, so ESG know how is two Junior women doing the ESG. Well, do you notice that there were there is a correlation to all this like the reason why these movements are now called like so called ESG. It, it correlates with the rise of women and people of color like having a voice in our society or in any industry, right? Like when they got to the table and started having some kind of authority, that's when the the structure that's when we started questioning the validity of everything. Question of Willie. The FBI question of Liberty of the military question of Liberty of ESG. It's all become shit now, right? Because because For the first time in history, really we've let women and people of color to the actual exactly to the into, the actual power structures. And that's when we've noticed that, it's time to drain the swamp, right? Because that's when he is, she became so cold. He is she, I think she's what she's trying to shut down the FBI. Shut it all, but shut it all down, right? Because that's exactly, that's what woke, the anti walking and issues. Really afraid of is right. Is we've given the wrong people, the voice in, not at all three. Okay, no, not look cute. Here's what I want to say about Aubrey, which transitions in the next part, which is the we do women. Good part. This is the quote. She said, she said, we have a good gender balance in our company. Divine she defined good relative to what she's basically saying that as a preference to putting getting gender balance is possible but there isn't qualify. There aren't qualified people at some of these companies again like we can get what are we talking about? Like good compared to the actual the demographics of you know like population of who actually graduates from from higher education like or we talked about what good is relative to know good boys, okay, I'll just tell you what good is good is 22, men out of 31 employees on the website. Okay, so nine women that seems like a big achievement over there in the UK, massive? Yeah. Good is 100% male portfolio managers. Oh, all the flooring managers are man. Oh, good is 80% of the investment? Managers are men. Yeah. Good is 80% of the investment team is men and the women are the two. Junior analysts, who are analysts that I mentioned right, ever be promoted. 63% of the operations team is men and that usually correlates, right? We just talked about a paper, a few weeks ago, where the operations tend to be more women at these investment firms. But the leadership positions are are men all the way, all men. Yeah. But the Ops Team like the head of HR exactly women. Right. 71% male sales, team, 78%, male board they can't even do 30% women on the board in their own company. Yeah. Right. Like the can't even do it and even the biggest companies that you even at the biggest companies in the UK were well over 30% women on the boards. So this is like, I mean, She might be right, but but she goes on. So she's saying that there's not qualified women for Boards of the companies in which they invest. And that's aggravating because sustainability, Raiders are debiting, okay, that companies, right? But Sharon was on a podcast and yes, I listened to the boat you in, which she talked about women in investment management and she said in the podcast that the aggressive culture often keeps women out, maternity leave mean men get Advanced ahead of them right? And job satisfaction work, life balance matter more to women, right? And they get paid less is the implication here. Like if you got paid less All the time. Wouldn't you care about more about like getting out of work earlier? Yes. Like I was getting paid less than my colleagues for the same job applications. Like worse 9 p.m. every single night. Why would I stay here until 9 p.m. when I know I'm getting 80 cents to their dollar, right? Like I'm not doing that. And then women, when they do get added to a mixed team, she called it generally gender washing, what does that mean? Because the women get no responsibility, they just get added to. She saying all this sort of like adding two Junior women analysts to the investment teams and having them, be the only women on the investment team, right? Sort of like that. This little thing, this is like a woman who sounds like she's very much behind all the tenants of ESG, right? I mean she's like she seems for it all Know, not only does she seem for it all, but she seems to be living all of the problems in her own firm. And then saying that, well, we can't have 30% women on boards because Because of all these things, like all the barriers, aren't you then supposed to as an investor say those things are not good, excuses. The women are qualified to have the job, know, socially, keeping them out of the job. No, Matt, because you're forgetting that she was suggesting that women aren't competent enough to have. Oh, right. So, she's so that was just that despite the barriers, the barriers, don't matter because the way there are no competent women in the first place, right? Well, you'd be wrong about that because in in the podcast, she says, there are no differences between men and women doing their job at research. There are no competency issues. What she does say is confidence is an issue because these are situations in which the loudest voice tends to win and so women lack the confidence in those issues. Networking is an issue because women don't do, and this is her thing, drinking culture, you know, probably because all the fucking groping that happened. Well, when you go out drinking and probably because they're Going home to their families and the men don't feel like feel the need to do that. They don't feel that we talked about here with this. I don't like This is the most confusing thing. I think that someone wrote that question, mark, I think someone wrote that article for, she didn't know what she was putting her name on. This is, this is this is sad. I find this to be very sad. Can I rename this, the sad ESG industry, professional of the day? It's it's the easiest question mark. But to headline today competence of women, I mean, that is just outrageous. Look, the point is here, and let's go out on this because otherwise, we're too much for, like, seven years. Yeah, the point here is, if you give everyone on the internet a pan you can flood it with hot takes about wokeness and ESG and clickbaity titles with question marks. A is Jesus destroying capitalism and I can go back and forth. I was on a LinkedIn back and forth with the guy who was saying that ESG, Is predatory delay of client addressing the climate issue? Is to blame for the delay in client, like dealing with the climate. She's the problem. Well, it just like VivoCity blame the climate, the Paul says, fighting climate change is caused More Death than climate change itself that and just to put a point on it zero data Sorry, Sharon there is no data in your entire article you cited 0 numbers. You say did zero sources zero quotes and when I looked at your own firm and actually counted things and did like the numbers and did some research, your own, your own quote about your own firms gender balance in our company is good is demonstrably false? Yeah. Right stop pinning. Bulshit that's that's my point. This is bad that's sad that all that's all I got again I can understand here questioning the quality locations if they're not. Oh yeah. We're not done. No, we are done because we have Paul. Okay, Paul's got to come in. We Paul's going to talk about women. Just of the audience knows the audience knows the reason why we've been filibustering so long and making the show goings, we're waiting for Paul to park and to get into the studio. Yeah, honestly, we don't usually like this alone. We, he's got a validate his parking afterwards. All right. Here's Paul from skh talking about some stuff about women. More women stuff. We do good gender balance, Paul take it away. Hello there. Paul Hudson here with the S gauge statistic of the week or rather statistics because it's gonna be several as they're always are. In fact, so with the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action as well as the ESG backlash that's going on due to Republican concerns about the subject. A lot of corporates have pulled back on their diversity, equity and inclusion programs or at least have sent them underground. So, I'm going to spend the next few weeks looking at what has been achieved over the last few years. In terms of diversity, both gender, diversity and racial ethnic diversity, both for pay levels for the proportion of women in management, women, on boards, etc, etc. Those kinds of things. So we're going to look at those and see whether it's appropriate, really, for corporate to actually pull back on these programs because they've achieved what they wanted. I think we'll know the answer that. But anyway, so let's start with women on board. Okay, so we're looking at the Russell 3000 over the period from 2021 to 2023. So we've seen a steady increase, both the average and the media of women on board from 24.3 percent in 2021 to 31.1% in 2023, that's the average and the median has gone up from 25% in 2021 to 30% in 2023. Now, just to make a comparison between the total sample here. The Russell 3000 and the S P 500. I think we'll find that progress has been higher in the S&P 500 than it is faster rather than it is has been rather in the Russell 3000. So yeah. So we're just looking at 2020 at the moment and the average for the Russell 3000, is 31.1%, as we said with a median of 30%, but the average in the S&P 500 is slightly higher, not a great deal but slightly higher. So the average is 33.1% in the S&P 500 and 33% median in the S&P 500. So a couple between two and three percentage points higher. So we're talking about a third of boards are made up of women directors at the moment, which is a proportion of the population that is slightly higher than 50%. So, clearly pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion D, and I programs is not appropriate at the moment. So let's look at women in management. This is a more difficult statistic to collect and more difficult statistic to analyze because there's less information about women in management than that is about board. Women in management. It's likely more difficult to get data on that. But anyway, as gauge is good at this stuff. So here we are. So we're talking about a fairly similar proportions for the Russell 3000, on the S&P, 500 in 2023 for women. In management as we saw women in boards, it's actually slightly lower for women in management than it was for women on boards. So for the S&P 500, we're looking at a median of 29.5% and an average of 31%. And in the yes, the Russell 3000 rather. We're looking at a median of 30% and an average of 32.1%. Now interestingly the Russell 3000 is ahead of the S&P 500 in women in management, which is not quite sure how that happened. But it happened smaller companies are better in this respect and less good at hiring directors, I guess. So over time, again a very very slow increase in women in management, much slower than women on boards which has been the focus of more shareholder action I think than women in management. so we're looking at a mean in 2021 of 31.6, which is Barely increased by well less than a percentage Point by 2023 at 32.1%. That's the average. And in fact, the media has gone down From 2021 from 30.2%, it went up slightly in 2022 to 31% and then fell back to 30%. This is for the whole vessel 3000 just a looking at that time period. So what we're going to look at next week I is statistics on women in the workforce and specifically women in the US Workforce. So this is Paul Hodgson signing off with the S gauge statistics of the week. Paul. Excellent stuff from Paul Hodgkins. That's it. That's all we really got. That was a fake leave last time. Now it's a real Leaf. That's Paul Hodgson from skh your ESG data, service provider, the show's also sponsored by free, float analytics.com, go there. Get some stuff, it's free, it's up, it's got a lot of data. It's Damian roles. I am analyst whole mattress. Cardi, we are free float. Come back on Friday. I'm going to be in Portland in. Damien shed Unabomber, like shed? Reporting live from there, until then. Goodbye.