Transcript
Wait. That we had different variety of Music. Why don't we don't like anything? You're the head of this, you know, the head of creative, man. Something. I'm the head of my office live. This is like cut. This is like we're back in the pandemic covid. We're all at home, we're all in separate locations. It actually we are back in the pandemic at Jesse's house so live from your don't call it ESG walking Skittles closet. Oh it's closet. It's a business pants Friday show. Here at August 18th, Lane Studios featuring all your favorites. Jesse. The money was for analysts whole man. Mattie, that's a mouthful. Why am I a man? Why am I analyst whole man analyst whole mattress? Yeah, I'm just an analyst. Why don't have to be used to be BS man. On today's weekly wrap up a CEO Mega options, cabal Ooh, punishing directors. DeSantis still sucks and Coca-Cola flavored Liars. You know what? Liars, come coke-flavored. I didn't actually realize they had a flavor. Much less Coke flavored. All right. Are we ready to do this? Let's go. Where are we ready? We're already doing it. Like, come on, stop. All right, here we go, then. Like that music. Yeah. Oh my God, I don't understand. He likes that. Don't understand, Connecticut. All right, story of the week. Here we go. First story, again, always in no particular order Ron DeSantis says he has moved on. Oh so cute and Disney should drop its lawsuit against him. It's one of the funniest stories we've covered. Come on, it is ridiculous. He's he's moved on. They should just drop the lawsuit, drop the lawsuit that they brought. Yeah, they're the plane accident because he's moving on. All right. Well, spent a lot of time on that number two. Story of the week. What most media Outlets are calling a game changer. A judge rules in favor of young activists and US climate trial. This is the US is It's the first constitutional climate trial in the United States rule in favor of a group of young plaintiffs who would accuse State officials in Montana of violating their right to a healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment. I feel like if that was a right that everybody had Then where there's a lot of lawsuits coming. That's what I feel like. Well that's Yeah, that's the Harvard job. I mean, like a lot of lawsuits coming. My kids might sue me. Number three, story of the week, the solution to esg's, unpopularity, call it something else and hope. No, one notices. What a dumb story? This is kind of a follow-up. Something I covered earlier this week about this from Bloomberg about 2/3 of respondents. In a survey said, the anti-esg movement will force firms to stop using those three letters right in conversation with clients. However they'll continue to incorporate do it. Okay, here's why I picked the story I want to point out. I just love pointing out idiot, see that there was an article written by Scott ball. He's a senior staff, writer already funny. Senior staff writer for use resourceful Finance Pro. This is how this is how far off the rails this whole movement has gone. This anti ESG movement, one of the things he says is Perhaps the number one, proponent of ESG is Larry Fink. I just don't understand. I don't understand how we got here. How did we get here? They know, have they tracked this for more than 40 seconds? Just don't understand how how a time, but like, like I don't we have an inside ESG for 20 years making fun of craziness craziness like he was a joke. The other thing he answers article with and I Gotta Laugh at this. He says selling the benefits of ESG to average investors tough and getting tougher for example Try explaining to the average investor, how credit rating agencies gave ExxonMobil, a higher ESG, score than test log, good luck. He says, well, first of all, I could I could do it quite easily, but but it's not that second of all how credit rating agencies gave xmobile higher. ESG, I don't really know what he's talking about. Their but he's talking about S&P, I know, okay, but he's he's he doesn't really know he's talking about Can I just tell you Scott ball? These are just two headlines. Just two I pulled this just this week that I didn't even cover. About Tesla. To just two if I'm just from this week, Tesla did not fix autopilot. After fatal crawl. Crash Engineers, say okay and X Tesla workers describe Elon musk's production. Hell in their own words. From working through a raw sewage leak to sleeping on the factory floor. Those are just headlights from this week. Yeah, once again week, yes, golf ball, you have figure out, don't take the effort, right? A whole effort. Write a whole article about it but don't take any effort to understand what ESG really is meant to represent. All I'm going to say I mean let's just say that Scott ball is making a career at resourceful Finance Pro of writing stuff about anti-esg. I'm reading Scott balls articles as we speak including things like, where's the best place to do business in the US and how Finance automation is solving your problems. Oh, where is the best place to do business in the US? Yeah, let's see. Scott, where do you say Southern States? That's where he says all the police that are banding. The number one is North Carolina where they just, so, yes, Scott, ball coming in strong. Ah, that's my third step. This is a story of the week that the story is, is that Giggles, the evolution of the anti-esg movement is that we're gonna stop saying ESG, I suppose, that's the evolution of the movement, I guess, okay. And number four in an ultra, nerdy Story the week. Look part of the problem was that there really weren't a lot of big stories this week. There were a bunch of CEO changes but I don't know. I couldn't really wrap my head around, calling them anything any of those like stories of the week. But this one piqued my interest. This is for us because it's very nerdy and I haven't seen this one in a while. Maybe ever. I don't know if I've ever seen this. Here's the headline. Two Pinterest directors resigned from next doors board in response to Anti-Trust. Enforcement efforts that justice department said. Whoa! What two that two directors, resigned from next door's board in response to the Department's efforts to enforce an Anti-Trust law aimed at barring. Executives from holding similar positions at rival companies. Have you heard this one before the United States? So wait a minute. Yeah. If there if Doesn't that disqualify like 40% of American? Well, it's a, it's an interesting question. I mean, the two companies are talking about here are next door and Pinterest, which, you know, which are definitely rivals in that social media space. If let me also just say that the 8K released by the company. Next door mentioned, none of it did not mention the Justice Department's order at all. That just said that the directors are resigning. Wow. Yeah I don't. So again I don't understand but but can I tell you what I on Earth at this? I like unearthing. Yeah, this is why I'm calling this a CEO, Mega option. Grant cabal Because maybe the justice department is onto something. Because the two directors here are Leslie. Kilgore and Andrea. I know she killed wisdom. You do. Okay, yeah, she's Netflix, those are the two directors, two women that again they both sat on the boards of Pinterest and next door. Leslie Kilgore was the chair of both pay committees right at both companies and Andrea. Andrea was all. So a member of both paid committees. So they both represented two thirds of each pay committee, but Matt Jesse, both of the CEOs of these companies in the last year. But last two years received, extraordinarily huge, mega option, Grant at Pinterest. CEO Bill Reddy Received 8.6 million options worth 100 million dollars, okay? And let me just remind people that Paul Hoge from the great Paul Hodgson. He used to call a mega, a mega option Grant 500,000 options. That's what he was alarmed at 500,000 options. Okay, that's compensation expert, Paul Hodgson. So this is 8.6 million options at Pinterest. Next door, they gave CEO Sarah fryer, 2.4 million options last year in 2.6 million options a year before. So that's five million options over two years. So, there's something going on here. There's, there's some kind of an option, a mega option, cabal going on here at the social media companies because of these two directors. It's actually Leslie, Kilgore earned some Fame in our circles and by our circles, I mean in my desktop on my Excel spreadsheet. That's not because that's that's how far my circle extends. We're basically Talking to Ourselves anyway, she worked at Netflix she retires from Netflix. She waits three years and gets added to the Netflix board, as an independent director, Leslie's, and is up to Shenanigans everywhere, I guess. Like, like hysterically, she's still on the Netflix board. And like, how on Earth is she an independent director when she worked for the people who currently run the company? I don't know, but she that's that's where she popped for me. Well, it's good to know that they all put her on other boards when they just want to pay people. Well, the other thing about Leslie is that Pinterest is a bro, Tater ship, right? Evan sharp and Benjamin Silverman combined 60-75% of board of influence. Next. Door is a dictatorship that's nerve tolias 60%. I see what you did there. Netflix is also a dictatorship. That's Reed Hastings, so Leslie Kilgore. Is on all three boards, has no real influence except for chairing compensation committees in Doling out, massive amounts of options so she's clearly being used as a tool in the CEOs interests. You know, we actually generated a tag and we haven't put on our platform, but we generated a tag for directors, who sit on boards, where their influence, doesn't matter where they're all dictatorships, totalitarian boards because that's just the director collecting a paycheck. But is it even worse? When you used to work at that company, you waited long enough to be considered Independent by listing standards, and then you're a director there. I mean, you might as well just say, like, I have like there's this is pointless and then they're going and they're sitting on two separate rival, boards and paying the same amount. This is great. This is a good Poll for you. I will add Reed Hastings last year, Netflix got 49 million dollars in options so there's something there's something that's not. He's got a kicking himself. Those are my four weird stories of the week. Four, weird stories, Jesse. I don't know if you have an immediate reaction. You guys seem really jazzed up about this Pinterest thing and I found it interesting. So how often that have you seen this before? Matt Anti-Trust, kicking off. Two directors. I've never seen it. Like, honestly, we it means I need to do a review because the number of antitrust cases, they can bring are substantial, right? Like it's got to be of every large cap board, they're recycling directors, these large cap boards, just recycle one another. So I don't is it is it Anti-Trust? If you, you're simultaneously, you're simultaneously working on two rival boards, right? Like two rival company boards. But what if you sit on another, a third board, that isn't a rival company. But, you know, everybody in the room and you all just trade right like five years at this company, five years of the next company, five years at a third and then you rotate. Is that Anti-Trust? Like if we're gonna do people Anti-Trust, that's a huge problem. Yeah, I wonder if I Don't know. And we'll look more into this. I wonder if part of the problem, the justice department had is that these companies are essentially dictatorships, right? I I don't know, I could because It's not like that. You're actually an antitrust, that should make it less because like, like the other directors don't matter at all right, what do these people matter? Like you can have 10 of them on? I don't know. Who cares? Is this your vote to, um, you seem really excited by this. I'm very excited about it. I'm gonna vote. I, I should vote for it, okay? But going to vote for the real story of the week, which is the Montana. Yeah, that's the right, that that's the real story. I mean, I this, I mean, like, our story of the week is this one because it's fast as we're because we're nerds and losers, the story of the week that like, the rest of humanity might care about is, yeah, Montana. I was gonna put Montana and as my goodness choice, but I had I had to put it through the week. I mean, it's it's huge. It's it's it's it's quite a surprise. Makes me feel hopeful about something I gotta and I am the tiebreaker. I'm gonna go with that one story, The Young activists in Montana winning their climate trial, That is correct, which brings us to Goodwill. Where's Ari, you know what she's been delinquent from work for like approximately Two weeks and like a couple of days like she's really taking this maternity leave serious amount of the baby being born. It's almost like she really leaves that maternity leave is a real thing. Yeah. It's I think we need to adopt a joking or we were kidding. We're gonna go with the first. Good least the week. This is the one I chose. I chose this headline calstrs escalates efforts to hold global companies accountable for not adequately disclosing, climate change, risks votes against 2035 Boards of directors in proxy season 2023. Now, there was a slightly better headline. Yeah, you pulled, this was the headline that I saw and this is actually from their own press release so they wrote themselves up that way, which I already like there are I already like that they're like championing the fact that they voted against that many directors, but just for context sake, there are nine 9500 companies globally in the msci acwi universe, right? Like so that's the majority of Highly liquid Market. Publicly traded companies. They voted against almost 20%, more than 20% of them 20% of entire boards. Oh, they wanted to go, I realize they voted against the entire slates, they voted against everyone on the board. For them did not have good enough climate disclosures. Everyone we got told voting against a director was too. Aggressive using data that shows who performs well, who performs poorly. Who's got power. Who doesn't Kelsey's just said, fuck it against them all. I love it. I yeah, I respect this because a lot of a lot of companies when they report their voting like they'll tell you some very strange Chutes and Ladders version of why they pinpointed a bow against one particular director. Despite the fact that the problem is clearly systemic and bored. Why? But they're just focusing on this one person who was the sub chair of this subcommittee but it doesn't really make sense, I think Kyle's maybe has the right attitude which is You know, punish them all. In fact, our data suggests. If you are a director, the incentive now is to never take the chair of a committee role because that is the role that gets the highest votes against true. Now, we're talking about a difference of average, 93% vote for versus 95. You're safe. Don't worry, you're not exactly most of them don't even leave on their voted out, so don't worry about it. But, 100% of the, the time your risk is higher at a committee level. But here's the, here's the better version of the headline. And I have to take issue with it. It's calstrs punishes directors and more than 2000 firms for weak. Climate risk disclosure. That's a chief investment officer dot the AI Dash cio.com. They didn't punish them for they are doing their dude. They're Steward. They are they are effectively saying You all suck at your job. Yeah. So we can find someone who's better if you're not going to listen to us who hired you. So I don't like that headlines. So I chose the other one but that's my good least the week. All right. Jesse, you want to go next? If we can hear, I don't know. I'm this is that's why I'm asking her to go next. This is a test. Or do we officially have to remove Jesse from the show at this point? Jesse can like if we wait long enough, she might just throw in a vote here. No, I don't think so. Okay. Just went down. Here's my goodness of the week. You have a good excuse to turn off your camera during Zoom meetings. It's better for the environment going off camera. Reduces the carbon footprint of a video conferencing session by up to 96%, according to one study, you know, what's even better for you environment? Phone calls. Just take it on the phone. I'm not someone who cares about going on camera. I know I'm ugly and I'm over it but I like this one anyway, I don't know. I like giving people an excuse to say, no to their bosses. I just like it. This thing is a good one, I but it doesn't stop. Zoom from using everything that you ever said, well in AI training. Technically the zoom dictator Eric. You want said that he he backtracked on that decision, I think. Yeah, I know they did but it's still funny. How dare you? Yeah. And we sort of have Jesse back. Let's see if she's actually back. Jesse, do you have a good list? I mean. It's, I do, let's see if I can get through it. Major brands are pulling advertising after post appeared, besides pro-nazi content, isn't that free speech? Yeah. How dare that? It's good that they're pulling out from there just for profit. Pulling from Alex Twitter. No longer advertising. Oh X. Yeah. And this this comes less than a week after Linda Yakima promised that their brands would be safe. She had it's a problem. You promise that? Look at it. Yeah, she said that, since acquisition, they have built Brands safety and content moderation tools that have never existed. But wait, never existed just there, right? She's I mean I know it's crazy. This is the glassy thing. You have Linda Ocarina is the one walking out there being like, no, we're super safe. Like as Elon. Musk is dunking on people on his own platform. He just tweeted that Vivek ramaswamy like like eat. Semi endorsed him saying like he speaks his beliefs clearly or something. Yeah, and those being that number one being God is real. And that there are two genders and all that kind of compared to the other candidates. I guess. He's a little more clearer, his speech. Yes. Yes, he speaks faster, he's faster. That's what you mean. Yeah, all right. So we've got three here, it's calstrs, hold punishing director punishing directors. It is turning off your zoom camera, which honestly like, that might be for the best anyway, just get on the phone. Now, I know why, when I have my weekly meetings with Jesse, she never turns her camera on now. I know why? Because she's just trying to say the environment, that's what it is. I am nothing. She doesn't want to look at my ugly face. Wait, her turning off her camera. That's true. You still see. You should turn on your camera and just put up a picture of me and I can just talk to me because that's really my dream. It's really what I'm looking for and Major Brands pulling advertising after post here. I just realized like, why is that good? Because they're pulling advertising, they're not, they're pulling their ads but they won't get. Are you not you're like thinking why are we now? Like I know it's like, no, I don't get why it's I don't get why it's not because there's because there's neo-nazis running all over a major social media platform. I don't feel good about them having to pull out of that. I, but I hear what you're saying, you know, you have this weird already logic, where you don't know what's good or bad anymore? I like that. Like the story is that Advertiser are pulling and the story is stop being that there is pro Nazi content. Right? Like Pro Nazi contract. Like that's that's like a thing now, let's just the content Street like that. We just support where we all vote for our own this. I don't know. I don't know. I like these. I think we all we all stars. Yeah, I think I think Jesse's, right? Jesse, you're right. I Matt, we were just complaining about this yesterday in a call. We want more of this. Yeah. Just you're right Callister. I like this. I it's because I had my first intro into looking at proxy voting and I saw how awful it is. Like, BlackRock just votes for every there was like five votes against in the hundreds of votes. I mean, the company that is associated now with ESG Larry Fitzgerald. I thought they were, I thought they were very woke and just hated everybody just hated capitalists date. There is first Victory, ever in the world in history. Yeah, we love him. No, it's not. All right. Well, now we know that calstrs won something for the first time in its life, that means we can move on to Ash Holyoke. Which is made you introducing your own. Topic. It's not that I guess you are. Supposedly is here I know. But you jump ahead. Come on. I guess holy for you. I got three. The first one is really just these two headlines together because like, they're not even trying not to be assholes anymore. This is these two headlines to consider as not even trying assholes who don't even try to not be assholes headline. Number one, conflict. DeSantis Ally can't lead, both ethics board and Disney? Yeah. So apparently apparently DeSantis put on their new, like, Disney board. Um, a guy who leads the ethics board for the, the state as well. And the ethical Watchdog of Florida said, that's an ethical conflict. So, I love the vampire, public worker, and also serve on that on that really, it's just fantastic. I just love that they're, you know, they're hard to figure that stuff out. I just like the, the guy who his public role is ethics, and like they set this rule up to stay. Ethical. And now it's anyway. Sure. And the number two headline for this is World Chess bands, transgender players from women's events. I don't get this one. I don't I I look I don't get any anti-trans hate but I don't, I don't understand this. What is the First of all, I had no idea that there were men's and women's chefs. Why do we even you know, why is a chess tournament? Not just a bunch of players in the first place. I don't really understand that. Whatever zero sense to me that there's there's men's and women's chest leads, like that's, that's a level of absurdity. And then to say that trans people, Need to what be in their birth assigned. Leak, our transfers are they banned from Men's events too? Or is it just in women's events? Because the headline does say, they're banned from women's events. I I don't understand any of this. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't, I don't. Yeah, I don't understand but they're not even trying that. Like, now, World Chess is just come out and we're straight asshole. So that's my first option. Number two, the headline is Hawaiian Electric new wildfires and Maui were a growing risk, but waited years to act So here's the thing Hawaiian Electric looks increasingly. Like if they still haven't figured out what started the fires in Lahaina, but it looks increasingly like it was Hawaiian, Electric was involved in some way. They were down. There were power lines that were down sparking. There's a video of it. It may have actually lived and was, it was already has already been a dry season. There is that was, it was already dry season, but worse than that, they, they actually said back in 2018. 2019, when PG&E had their major fires fire. For some kind of reason, you know, Hawaiian Electric basically said we have a tremendous amount of fire wrist they've known for years years and years and it's, they, they've come out and said in their filings between 2019, 2022, the company spent less than 250,000 dollars on a wife, Wildfire projects like to limit Wildfire, rescue 250,000 dollars. You can't even buy a house in like in any Suburbs for 250,000 anywhere. Yeah. They didn't even spend that much joy. 200250, this is a publicly traded utility This is a publicly traded utility Hawaiian Electric and the reason why we know there are publicly traded is because we have the data on them, right? The first thing to know about Hawaiian Electric is this is a very bizarre, I'll say bizarre because it's so rare case of a woman to woman glass, Cliff CEO. Well, I don't know what that means. So usually in a glass Cliffs situation, men screw up a whole bunch of stuff, then they bring in a female CEO, they to clean it all up and usually they get fired in the process of cleaning it up like they get blamed for Stuff. In this situation, Connie Lau was the CEO, a woman was the CEO, she stepped down in 2021, okay? And the CEO job was actually split between Hawaii and electric and American Savings Bank, which is a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric as well. The CEO of Hawaiian Electric became shelee Kimura. A woman. She became the CEO in 2022 and the CEO of American Savings Bank was Scott cu. He became a CEO of that however, Lau was on the board. Like Connie lau, and she steps down, she's on the board. The CEO of Hawaiian Electric not added to the board, but the CEO of American Savings Bank. The male Scott Sue is added to the board. So the glass Cliff used like, here's here's a way to think of it. Yeah, the influence the pot, the gender gap influence on Hawaiian. Electrics board from 2018 to today. 2018 2019 2020. The average was a plus 5% power Gap as in women had 5% more influence than they had. Representation Connie allows steps down and they don't replace her with another woman that they put on the board. Now, they have a, one of the worst in the country negative 14% female power gap on board, okay? And the person who owns all the power on the board is now Thomas. Farago a 75 year old retired military vet. He's a professional director. Now, for companies that get military contracts, he has on average in the last five years, 23% of the board influence. He's been on the board since 2005. So you want to know who is responsible for spending 250,000 dollars on Wildfire mitigation, it would be Thomas Fargo, who are the, who are the major shareholders of a wireless electric, you know, everybody it's State Street, Vanguard. Yeah. And And have you. I don't know if you look but have shareholders been upset about things in the past few years, or I don't know if you know this or not know, mostly no one cares about Hawaii. Nobody ever votes for everything that happens there because it's in Hawaii and everyone's like, that's might as well be a foreign country even though it's in the United States. Well, so, I mean, my number two asshole is Hawaiian Electric and they're shity Board number three, I have another shity board. Oh, okay. Sun Core. This is the headline. Suncor has been too focused on energy. Transition must get back to fundamentals. CEO says So, Suncor energy is a Canadian company. We don't talk a lot about Canadian companies, but they've had a lot of problems because they do oil. Sands and tar. Sands, you know how those work. They they basically like light Sandy shit on fire. It's really, it's one of the most carbon intensive and heinous ways in destructive ways to get oil out of the ground. From oil, sands Sons, Suncor energy. That was like what? They did 10 years ago and it smells terrible. And they had a female CEO who they has actually, been trying to transition them out of doing that, to doing something that's more about, you know, more climate friendly. Oh, there's a transition. So, I mean, she can't play chess. Know, she had to do it. No, you can't. That's, I always say. Oh there it is. Um it's I had to I had to break up all this depressing board talk. So the man who is hired to turn around Suncor Energy said he believes the company has been too focused on energy transition as on over to carbon, it's been back to oil centered business strategy. Oh no. He also said that the he said on a conference call that the company's board of directors agrees with him on the revised Direction in tone. The reason why the company directors agree with them is because Elliot management. Everyone's favorite Africa, hating Dorsey, hating Elon, loving activist hedge fund Elliott management. Took the stake in Twitter. The activist taken Twitter that ended up getting Dorsey fired and left us with Elon Musk as the head of now acts. They took a stake in Suncor, Energy, They replaced board members with three of their own, including a lifetime oil guy who they put on the sustainability committee and the gender gap Samsung Core. The gender power Gap went from plus 8% gender power to minus 8% Elliot's. The one telling them to go back to Tar Sands and oil sands Drilling. And now we have a company that has decided that we've done too much energy transition too much decarbonizing in the midst of the hottest fucking year in the Canadians are supposed to be the Smart Ones. Now not true, so those are cousins to the north. Okay those are three. I'm not assholes not even trying to stop being assholes, Hawaiian Electric and Suncor Energy going back to carbon. I got wonky this week. Yeah, that was a, that was a different type of assshole for you. It was very, very nerdy. Jesse. Did you hear any of that? Yeah, I'm gonna vote for. I got a vote for Hawaii and electric because it's like the story. Like I mean, it's just so relevant. The relevant. See, it's already been specific kind of asshole relevant. I've seen it being spun from the right to where they're claiming that the reason why they didn't spend a lot of money on that type of fire prevention is because they were sent spending money on green energy. I right. Well, no, yes, yes. I mean, that's, that's gonna be the take, from the right from for all this. Uh, yeah. This is a tough one, man. Usually your assholes are so compelling but these are so you're right. They're so bureaucratic this week. Yeah, this week is there were. There were a lot of, like other asshole options, but I'm so tired of doing like, oh, I'll just Civics, says, Elon says, you know, just let you break the tie, I'll go Suncor because the idea of of go getting away from the energy, transition is just seems ironic and 2023. So I'll vote for Suncor. So what I think the real as Elliott management and Elliott management, is there fucking assholes? They've they've, you know, Elon musk's Twitter and now more tar, Sands, what are you doing? Elon management. All right management, but I think the winner has to be Hawaiian Electric. I mean, okay. They're gonna be held liable for this fire. Most likely, they're gonna, they're probably gonna declare Bank of C like PG&E. Like this is going to be a multi-billion dollar pay. I mean, what I know this is a little bit off topic here but Uh what what could shareholders have done to prevent this? How could they even know? I mean right? Look in the tip in the 10K you know like we love the joke like sections that were they list all their risks because they list and they're pretty forthright. They do list a lot of things. Yeah. Wildfire has been in there for a decade, right? Like it's not like an unknown risk. What shareholders can do is not vote for every fucking director. They can change it up so that you don't have long tenure directors, you don't have weird like conglomerate. I think where, yeah. I think what Matt's trying to say is reach out to us, we can help you use our data to create board, vacancies to, to vote out, underperforming director's, all kinds of things. I don't know matter what your interests are, we can help you create those board vacancies we can Damien himself. Will I will? I'm gladly I'm gladly here to punish her actors. All right that looks us. We'll see if we can get through Jesse section without Jesse having to restart her computer. So let's go try it. Do a speed round. Version. Go. All right, first headline, why it's more expensive for black towns to borrow money? When cities need to raise money, they have two options raised taxes or issue bonds. And there was a paper published last week that confirmed that the act of issuing bonds is perpetrating, systemic racism, which we already know has been perpetuated by the US Financial system. Basically, since Inception since We had slaves here since we brought them over the author of the paper, Erica small. Here's a quote from her the inequality in the bond market perpetuates a cycle of debt and disinvestment in Black communities, but I also has huge implications for environmental justice and climbers. Brilliant. So it's not just money, it's not just All climbers. Yeah, that's pretty well. I mean More and more, the data is not just suggesting but proving that the all of the the horrible events that are affecting our globe because of the climate change are targeting essentially people of color. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean absolutely I'm just saying obviously. Okay. So yeah, this is exhausting because this is not new at all whatsoever. It's just another paper that has been written on it to prove Another Brick in the Wall. Yeah. Okay. What else? Jesse next we can't online shop or even ship things if we want to have a conscience. So they're all ready. Stop online. Yeah, I know we already knew that but this is, this is even worse because I didn't know this. Like I I know that so this story is about you line and the the billionaire family, the Uline which is like I guess there's actually yeah I didn't know that was actually a family called Uline. Okay well it's not spelled that way so but yes they adapted their name to make it. Yeah but I just read the story about Who's behind you line which is basically on every single cardboard shipping thing that you probably use. Well not even just cardboard but like anything any shipping vessel envelope whatever probably from you lying so just total Mammoth they had six billion dollars in sales last year the there are billionaire Founders behind the company that support far right wing candidates including Trump and their family Foundation gave more than five million dollars to groups at disputed or worked to challenge legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Most recently, it gets worse, most recently, they've thrown their financial heft behind Ron DeSantis. Oh, this is really sad. This is really sad and exhausting because like, what the fuck, who are we gonna use instead of Uline? They're like total Mammoth there are however, at least some small businesses that are trying to find Alternatives, like I found a Reddit thread. That was the question was, what's a good alternative? Do you line? That doesn't support extreme, right wing politics. So someone knew about this before I did and they're asking for help. You'll be happy to know two things about Richard. Uihlein. Yeah. Who is behind you like literally. Yeah when you see the real spelling of the name yeah it does China. Change your thought? Yeah, go ahead number one. He he went to Stanford. Number one, number two, he's a billionaire, nepo baby. He was the heir on Schlitz Brewing Fortune. Okay, that's where, okay. So they made their money off of getting people, drunk. Great, got a loan from his father to start you line. That's probably why I like Trump so much because Trump got all his money from Dad, man. It was really great dad. You fail me miserably because I could have just taken. If I could have taken out a billion dollar loan from you. Free flow would be a massive. Juggernaut not selling packaging, I suppose. What else? Justin this is exhausting. Okay, my last one drop your diet coke. Right now. That's fine. I'm not drinking diet coke. Well, there are gonna be people out there that are. I know some people that will like crack One open instead of coffee in the morning, which is way. We have, we have an audience, we have listeners. First of all, and that's the gross nurse. Still drink Diet Coke, but they won't after the show talking about Robbie. No, no. Thank God. Go ahead. All right, the backstory is that in May, the who World Health Organization issued, an alarming report that declared Not sugar sweeteners. So aspartame. Or of the likes are ineffective for weight loss. Which is why people got into the craze and like the 90s. Yeah. And that long-term consumption may increase diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality, whatever and whatever the who declared it a possible carcinogen which you guys know, I really hate those. Just like he was then the story heats up, they very quickly issued. A third report that seemed to contradict those findings saying that you can continue to drink. Aspartame at the levels, determined to be safe decades ago. So this was confusing and some Advocates, did some digging. And what they uncovered is that eight who panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame previously or currently work with a front group for Coke for Coca-Cola called International Life, Sciences Institute. So we have a pretty big conference. Yeah. And you're right to point this out because this is the, the most exhausting scam in the corporate world. I remember doing a report back at GMI rating is about the the groups that went into Foxconn to investigate the the labor, you know, the Apple supplier all those there were like three or four different groups that Apple was touting, as proving that labor practices were found at Foxconn. They all had all four had these straight. They were kind of named like the anti ESG groups, you know, that like National research, you know, those weird games, they all kinds of the same. And, and in the end I discovered the all four had were funded by essentially Buy Apple. I mean, this is like, it's an exhausting part of all organization I still. But yeah, even though research But the amount of research being paid for by these corporations to support this stuff, it is you're right it's just endlessly exhausting. But when this happens what's exhausting about it is that the World Health Organization will talk about covid vaccines and now now now now it's like if you believe the conspiracy theories which I do now you have like oh you see the you know like industry pays. Yeah. So I used to say Pfizer didn't pay for the World Health Organization is showing a take a covid vaccine, right? Look I am sympathetic to why people get caught up into the cult of conspiracy through because they always do start with a very little grain of Truth somewhere. It's just that's the exhausting part to ya about this. It isn't the diet coke part because who drinks? Diet Coke, really? Anyway, this stuff is terrible hero, a few months ago, No. Oh you just you live in. Who are your friends? And who are you? I don't know. They're not my friends. I just see them and I'm like, oh yeah, Jesse doesn't have friends, how dare you? All right, let's go. All right. All right, so it's why it's more expensive for black towns to borrow money. These are just Jesse. Do you line family is behind your packaging and behind backing, can the election conspiracy theories and Far? Right groups and World Health Organization is compromised and your diet coke is killing you. Those are your three options. Oh, you go first. I don't know how to go first on this one. I'm gonna go with. I think the most exhausting thing though, is the billionaires behind stupid things like I really. I cannot it's like, you know, like you go to, you know, get takeout and they give you like, you know, if you go to like a Chinese food place and you get like Chopsticks my guess is there's a billionaire family somewhere that's making Chopsticks, right? Yeah. And they make all of them and we have no idea. You just like use the Chopsticks. Those things about it. The same thing with this packaging. You you that comes in a box. You don't think about the box at all. You think about the thing in the box but there's a billionaire family. You got a nepo, baby loan from Daddy to start this company and then they use their billions and billions of dollars to basically ensure chaos like misinformation whatever their like a pet you know conspiracy is I hate that I'm exhausted by it. I'm gonna go with that one. Oh, Jessie, Jessie, I want to go with the the World Health Organization You using panelists who are former executive or you know, former industry insiders that that old story has exhausted me for a long time. So I hate that one and Matt you're right to point out that This is where, you know, this does give fire, you know, gives a little bit of energy, just all these other horrible, conspiracy theories even though it shouldn't, but it does, right? So well, I just saw, ironically, ironically this morning, I was watching Alex deconnick who's a spokesperson for like stop fossil fuel. He was brought on to GB. Great, Britain news, GB news and the anchors. The GB news are interviewing him and they started laughing at him, because he was talking about, like, heat waves and deaths associated with them. He said that like, you know, heat waves effectively what happens is you effectively boil in your own Sweat, Right? Because you're sweat can evaporate and doesn't cool you off. It's like he the way he said it, they started laughing at him and he said like, you know, 1700 people died in Great Britain during the heat wave, you know, last year, two years ago and they were like, where did you get your facts? And he said that's from the World Health organ. Station, which is a respective organization and the woman goes, actually, they're kind of bought and paid for by corporates and they have agreed incentive here. So I don't agree that that's respected. But anyway, rightly and then like continue the interview and then I remember agreeing like them or agree with right wing, use Outlet, maybe news, we're the problem now. Yeah, it's really terrible. Yeah, just using the using, this is why you need education. Jesse. This is why you shouldn't have dropped out of high school. Just I'll go back at my GED. We told you I'm gonna vote you line. So you gotta break the tie. Oh, really? Yeah billionaires. You know, okay. All right. Yeah. All right, you're better choices in mine. All right, so let's do. Who won the week and some predictions. Yeah, go ahead. I got I got a very obvious one. PG&E one this week. Because from 278 was responsible for 30 wild fires that killed more than 100 people but guess what? Hawaiian Electric now is got more deaths due to their one Wildfire. So congrats to PG&E you won the week. You're out of the. No one thinks gonna be thinking of PG&E for a while fires because we have the Maui Wildfire, to take terrible. You're terrible. Jesse, who won the week? Come on. I trust covid because at least in my household, it won the week if my household and it's making a comeback, so be careful you, but you don't, you don't have it. So you're winning the week, you become my immune system is winning the week but it ruined my week. So My currently, my winner is a bit strange but it goes into the my favorite kind of disclosure governance category as Matt knows I want everything to be disclosed. This is my winner is Carolyn Ellison. She was the former CEO of FTX right? She was Samoa of Alameda research. Okay. So which is the firm that only FTX she was the girlfriend of Sam bakeman fryed who's in jail in Brooklyn somewhere, right? Now she I love this level of disclosure. She kept a memo Which they're gonna use in the court. Cases against Sam, she kept a memo called things Sam is freaking out about And they're good. They're gonna use it to prosecute, the FTX founder. Things Sam is freaking out about. I love that number. I like that. I like that EOS. There should be a memo for that for all publicly traded corporations. I want to know. Oh, really, I want that in the proxy and and that gets me the predictions. I'll go next, it gets me to my prediction predictions. Yeah. After AOC wins the presidency in 2015, okay, that's your points. Me, she appoints me as SEC. Chair, pretty much too. And my first order of business is to require disclosure of quote things. The CEO was freaking out about and quote and all proxy statements. Well, what would be? I can't wait to read Well, we're not publicly traded by, then we'll be publicly traded because we're gonna be, of course, a unicorn in the ESG space, right? Oh, don't call. Yes, I'm sorry. Well, I have a prediction that is much more practical and now and frankly more likely than dealing the head of the SEC at any point. 2050, any point any point so you can win the president. See how dare you calstrs, buys free float analytics Day this year and vote again, at least one director at 95 9,533 Boards out of 9,533 boards globally, Screw 2000 boards, go for 9,000. Oh yeah. Voting against at least one director will help you vote against all of them, we'll help you create a big easy and every board Let's make a vacancy everywhere, that's all we've got. That was a janky show for us. Jesse was here. She was not went down at one point and it came back. I don't know what happened, it's gonna take me an hour to do this. That was Damian Ross. Just the money was for, I am your analyst hole. We are free float show spots by free flow analytics.com, go there, sign up, do the thing, get all the data that we talked about. If you want to feel nerdy and wonky with us, otherwise we'll be back next week with some other stuff. Until then go. Bye.