Transcript
Hello. Live. Committee to destroy all ESG scores because they murder puppies. It's the podcast that puts the w. O k e in cowpoke. I'll let you work that out slowly. It's business pants. Featuring me. Your analyst told, Matt mascardi, Damien Rallis is that the cleaners today? He's not gonna be here in today's S&P did not score this episode called August 9th 2023. An alternative democracy Roundup, note and anti-wolf Roundup and a Pastiche of business news stupidity. So basically a whole bunch of stuff you normally get on this show just without Damian. And that's because Damien did most of the pre-prep, but it's just me today. You're gonna have to suffer through me. Awkwardly pressing buttons and trying to figure stuff out. However, our show today is being sponsored by S gauge your e, s g data provider. The poll actually be stopping by. Yeah thank you, thank you audience for escorts. That's right. Paulie stopping by later to talk about Something some stuff. He's just he's got stuff to say while we wait for Paul to get here. How about I say some stuff which is what everybody here is waiting for. Let's get to it. Here is your alternative democracy Roundup in fake public. Company news. Dutch Brothers names. Christine Barone, CEO. We talk a lot about CEO changes, but what we like, what's fun is that Baron is stepping down after just months after she was brought in to lead The Drive Thru, beverage chain drive through beverage chain already a problem, but who cares? Because co-founder and executive chair, Travis Boris Boar's. Three shares per vote and class D, three shares per vote. In fact, there's only 5% of the vote that goes to the public. What is the point? This isn't a real company, it's a fake public company. The share price was 76 dollars as of October 21st. So congratulations to Dutch Brothers for finally getting someone to, you know, lead this company. That's fine. It's great, it's great. They finally found somebody because, you know, having 10 votes per share wasn't enough in the anti-esg, really love China news. ESG actually provided some data. This is a shout out to our sponsor skh provided some data to the conference board proxy proposal season is over. And here they put out a chart and I saw this in Bloomberg actually Where they summarize the sp500 proposals that the anti ESG crowd filed in 2023. Here, it is by Focus area. The number one Focus area of the anti-esg crowd was wait for it. Human rights. That's right. They want with human rights in the top five other social issues. Just broadly other stuff, racial equity and civil rights. Audits. Number one on vivek's list of pillars of things to ask your financial advisor about that's for real. and separation of CEO and chair positions was number of Four. And Corporate purpose. Number five, I'd like to point out that separation of CEO chair isn't anti-esg. Is it? The filer might have been traditionally anti-esg. But isn't that just a g question that everybody talks about has for 20 years, 30 years? But the human rights issue at number one was really just China. It was the use of forced labor in China for the most part, which means the anti-esg crowd loves China now or loves human rights issues. As long as they're not. American human rights issue. I don't totally understand it. The conference board did note that using skhs data, that the anti-esg proposals are only getting around 2% of the vote compared to 20% for pro. ESG proposals, they did not include data that suggested both are losing, no one should care. No one cares. Everybody's losing anti ESG loses ESG. Loses investors don't care either way. So I like that, you know. It looks like there's a huge amounts but guess what? Both are less than 50%. No one cares. Speaking of No One Cares. Here's your anti-woke ground up. In two years later news. Provider of anti-woke ETFs closest funds because of low inflows. That's right, one of my favorite fund companies. Second vote funds. Actually closed its second vote Society, defended fund a 30 million dollar AUM fund and its second vote life neutral, plus fund. I don't know what the plus is for, but it was a 19 million dollar fund. They've closed, they'll close, they close to investors on August 3rd, Society defended, screened out companies that oppose second amendment rights and border security and civil society and support for law enforcement. There are a lot of companies that apparently do not, like law enforcement or border security. I don't know what their methodology was I do, in fact know what it is, but that we don't have time to talk about that today. Their life neutral, plus fund excluded investments. In companies, that support abortion, here's what their their CEO and founder. David black had to say, quote, there is an overall failure in either our messaging or a commitment by conservatives and Christians to actually take meaningful steps to counter the successful. Radical ESG woke left. Agenda. Nowhere in that statement. I mean they do say their messaging nowhere in that statement. Did they say That our entire methodology is flawed and pointless and stupid. That was not part of the quote. It would have been nice to David. Black came out and said, given the fact that we made up our methodology used basically ESG data to do it. This whole thing is a sham to begin with didn't say that. Did say it was the ESG woke leftist agenda that took him down. But speaking of two years later and other two years later, news. And here's our big story this week ratings, agency, S&P Global stops grading borrowers, ESG credit risk, amid political backlash over woke capitalism, so that was the headline. S&P as ditch, numerical rankings of corporate borrowers, and this is two years after they actually introduced them into the ratings. The team announced that customers didn't like it so much. They pushed back. So, what they're going to do instead is they're going to do narrative, quote, after further review, we have determined that the dedicated analytical narrative paragraphs in our credit rating reports are most effective at providing detail and transparency on ESG, credit factors material to our ratings analysis analysis. The company said, Two years, that's all they got. And they realize there's zero to five score that no one understood was not that useful. This is being headlined as they're doing this as a part of the anti-walk backlash. I would argue differently. I would argue, they're doing this because there's zero to five star was stupid, but the, they didn't actually. So they have an ESG ratings product. This isn't that product and ESG ratings product in a different part of their house. This was a separate product, that was a credit ESG rating score. That was a separate methodology, that was even less transparent than their first product. So what they did was say, well, the product that was crappier actually, was kind of crappier, nobody actually liked it. So, we're not going to do that anymore. We're just gonna write about ESG stuff. I don't know that this is like what capital is Backlash, is it? I mean it happens to coincide with the fact that people are want Their challenging ESG scores particularly in credit ratings, but it has nothing really to do. What? I mean. If you created a sucky score, should you keep it in there? like four in perpetuity simply because like there's legislation against it or does it actually make sense to just cut your losses now because it was a sucky sucked. It was terrible. I can't emphasize enough that it kind of sucked. I saw it. So that's the big news out of S&P in other news. In, if you can't beat them, make them. Do tons of paperwork news. Missouri's Secretary of State Reigns in environmentally minded investing. This. Missouri. This is Jay Ashcroft. Secretary of state of Missouri after the general assembly in Missouri fail to pass legislation on ESG. Investing stopping it. Banning it. The, what a lot of the southern states conservative states in the US are doing. He's introducing a rule to actually create different barriers. So after he failed, what he's doing is he's created new restrictions. That says, it's a free. He said, it's a first of a Kind Rule. And it's, it's the quote Cutting Edge of how some states. Might think about regulating ESG, the practice takes into account, social concerns and Percival beliefs. The rule requires financial advisors and institutions to have clients signed disclosure forms when an investment may consider ESG scores or prioritize elements. That may not yield maximum profit. There is no definition here of may not yield maximum profit because as if we knew What factors yielded maximum profit? Wouldn't we be contrarian heirs? If like, the finance Community knew, everything that was high 100 to 1 correl, with maximum profit. I don't even know what that means. But they are eliminating, ESG scores, which includes G. So now they have to get their clients to sign something when they want to use anything related to governance. Like that might be scored, but they're basically killing issue with paperwork. He said, anyone who's quote going to make a discretionary Trader recommendation and that recommendation is wholly or in part based on something other than getting the maximum Financial return, they needed to disclose that and get approval. He's built in an assumption that like that. It's, it's like using any ESG score isn't about getting maximum Financial return and I actually, I was just reading Texas, they're in new insurance law that says, which is fabulous. It came out in June and it said, I have it up. It says insurers actually and they exclude crop insurance very smart, but an insurer quotes, where is it? Here it is, is acceptance provided by the next section and sure may not use an environmental social or governance model score factor or standard to charge a rate different than the rate charged another business or risk in the same class for The same Hazard, meaning. You can't charge a tech company more for like data security, then you can charge say my mom, right? Which is bananas, but then they go on to say, here's the exception and ensure, it does not violate that. If the insurers actions are based on ordinary Insurance business purpose, including the use of sound actuary or principles Financial solvency considerations, or reasonable related to loss experience for the different types of risks. Then they just carve out an exception that says the opposite of what they just said. They said you can't use ESG except if you're using ESG, the way that you've been using is SG. I'm pretty sure all of these bands are fake bands. So any company. That is worrying. That ESG is getting banned. You can't like, you're not going to be able to use it. These are mostly turning out to be fake. You can still use all the same stuff. There are almost no places where you can't Including in Missouri. In fact, this John Ashcroft, he is arguing that his proposal restrictions. He's the same one who was proposing, restrictions on non-appropriation, libraries, and prurient sexual any, any material that would quote, appeal to the prion, sexual interests of any minor. Yeah, so that's what's happening in Missouri. They're they are making ESG difficult with paperwork and they are not allowing papers to be read by miners. So when when in gaping hole news and know thats not a segue from the sexual Prairie, Aunt, sexual interest of Minor's conversation, here's the headline American Airlines lambasts suit over ESG funds in a 401k, plan background here. American Airlines has been sued. For the use of ESG and its 401K. Except The lead plaintiff in the proposed class. Action wasn't actually invested in any of the funds in question. So in the 401K American Airlines offered options that were ESG options and this the the plaintiff actually didn't use those options, but sued American Airlines. For even having the options at all, in fact, they're only available the ESG options were only available through self-directed brokerage accounts. Not. American Airlines directed accounts. So That's like suing somebody like Ricky Gervais said it best it's like you see like a sign outside or a flyer that says guitar lessons and you sue them for offering. You guitar lessons that you didn't want. That's basically what's happening. The plaintiff in this case is a pilot named Brian Spence. He said quote he seeks to insert himself I seek to insert himself into the ongoing politicized debate over the wisdom of ESG themed investing. So he admits this is nothing to do with the actual Investments that were offered to me, or what I did. I just want to insert myself into this conversation and, and debate whether or not this is wise, that's literally what he's saying in the lawsuit, But in more gaping holes, Brian Spence news. Brian Spence is the same. Brian Spence. A pilot who sued the Quest Federal Government over covid, vaccination requirements in 2022. In fact that lawsuit was brought on religious grounds, he claimed quote plaintiff's religious beliefs generally fall into the following categories. One opposition to abortion in the use of fetal cell lines in development of the vaccine which I is that proven that covid vaccines were used, fetal cells from aborted, Fetuses number two, belief that mRNA technology utilized in some covid-19 vaccines usurps God's creation of the human genome. So, mRNA in particular, usurps God. Number three, the body is a temple and taking the vaccine would defile that Temple. Those are the arguments that Brian Spence made about having to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, he's an Air Force pilot who is teaching F-16 Pilots just to be in the Air Force, the US military mandates, 17 different vaccines that must be taken. So we couldn't have even been there without taking 17, vaccines to get there. That's like hepatitis and everything else. So he's defiled his body Temple. It was really just the covid. It looks like Brian Spence is suing for fun to make political points. For what like to insert himself in a conversation. Speaking of a conversation that no one wants to have in you call this hot news. Arizona, Republicans don't want to hear about the deadly Heatwave. There are some really great quotes out of the Arizona, legislature about the heat wave, including things like it. If you don't like the heat, then you can get out of Arizona. There was one that said there. Conservatives were suggesting that thermometers like vote counts are rigged because they're placed on sun scorched asphalt airports. So they they actually think the heat was rigged. We rigged, the heat, the failed, Governor gubernatorial, candidate Carrie Lake accused. The governor Katie Hobbs of pushing Mass hysteria in an effort to declare climate emergency and then went on to blame heat-related deaths, on the meth and their policies. Governor, hobbes's policies that allow meth to flow freely on their streets meth So if you died from heat, you actually died from meth. That's what's going on in Arizona. So despite the fact that there was the longest ever record of 110 plus Degree Days in Phoenix in history and recorded history, it's not that hot. I was mostly because, you know, they're taking temperatures airports. That's why Let's get to business news. Comedy Roundup. Actually, let's play me into this. This is quick. In some duh news, we were warrants. It has substantial doubt about whether it can keep going as a business. Meanwhile, Adam Newman is worth 2.2 billion dollars according to Forbes as of today, And also de news. Top Tech CEOs got more money right before layoffs data shows, apparently a number of tech CEOs. Right? Before they announced layoffs were given massive pay packages soon to our pichai at alphabet. Had a over 3,000% increase in his pay package, but the CEOs met on Microsoft, Uber sales force are all among to make large personal gains with the short term Boost from the the layoffs, this is data out of equilar and analyzed by ABC News. And the sandwiches aren't even that good news. Almost 10,000 people said they were willing to change their legal name to Subway. For free sandwiches. The company said, they'll select one winner from 10,000 people who are willing to change their name to Subway, And in return, they would get 50,000 dollars in gift cards as well as 750 dollars to cover the legal fees associated. With the name change 50,000 dollars a sandwiches. Is that even a lifetime of sandwiches, the captain at 5000? What if you want, more than that? And you changed her to what name to Subway. I don't know that that's good Roi for you. And maybe they don't have zoom fatigue. They just are avoiding AI spying on them news. Zoom has Zoom fatigue requires workers to return to the office. Zoom surprisingly decides its teams are more effective working in office. Here's a rhetorical question because now they're forcing everyone back in the office, they announced this the same week, they quietly changed their terms of service to spy on all Zoom calls for the purpose of training AI. Does that feel coincidental? Guess. No. Yes, I think it's probably just pure coincidence. In first the gays now, the gambling Disney does hate Jesus news. ESPN, launches Sportsbook in partnership with Penn entertainment. I love that. The articles are claiming that. Yes, ESPN is getting into sports. Betting is Complicated by their the parent friendly. A family-friendly image that Disney's trying to preserve. Haven't we established that like half the country thinks Disney is woke and not parent friendly and inserting gays into everything in the first place. Which image is it that they're trying to preserve? I'm pretty sure they're going to piss off the same half if they offer gambling right unless that have to place fantasy football. In which case, no one no one cares then suddenly everything's fair game. That's all I've got. We've already got some data. From. ESG on the show, but let's bring him Paul who's now waiting outside? Paul, you can come in, Paul is going to say some words about directors. Paul, come in. Hello, pull Hudson. Here with ESG statistic of the week. Now, the sound quality may not be absolutely fantastic today because I have the dog pounding underneath my desk. I have the fan on because it's supposed to be summer and the wind is blowing a gale outside and occasionally you'll hear my wife and a friend of hers, praying, the piano and the flute. All in all a busy morning but a blessedly short escaped statistic of the week. So we're looking today at direct to elections, giving the average support level for boats as a percentage of votes cast. For directors is 94.1% in the Russell 3,000 and 95.6% in the S&P 500, it's not a really controversial issue. But of the 17,597, total number of directors up for election in the Russell 3000. 393 received less than 70% of the shares voted, that's 2.2% of the total and 69 directors, received less than 50% of the shares voted, which is, I think, just under 0.4%, So pretty, negligible numbers of directors, not receiving the full support of shareholders, in the S&P 500 of the 4000 6606 total number of directors up for election. Only 38, Receive less than 7% of shares voted. So this lesson More percent and five received less than 50% of the shares voted, which is just a negligible amount of directors. Now, when you get less than 50% of shares voted, it depends on your governance practices. As to whether you are actually asked to leave the board or have to leave the board. Sometimes the rest of the board will ask the right to leave. Sometimes the last time to stay on. It's not a perfect democracy, let's put it like that. So next week, we're going to have a look at direct election policies across the S&P 500 and the Russell 3000 to see how many of those directors actually. Left the board. So this is Paul Hodgson with ESG, statistic of the week signing off. Was Paul. The great Paul Hodgson of skh our sponsor. This Today's show was sponsored by Skagit your ESG data provider. It's also sponsored by free float analytics.com, which is where you can go and you can sign up for free and you can look at director data. It covers everything. It's got their actual performance, individual director performance, you want to know like Gary on company, you know, on rubber chicken coop performs. We can tell you how powerful Gary is how we performs on everything from earnings to carbon. We got all the data on free flow analytics.com. I was your Analyst at mascardi, Damien was not here, but screw him, who cares? We'll be back on Friday. In fact, we might have a guest appearance from my brother, might be in town. He does some producing, so he might step out of the booth and join us for the show. Do you always bit of good? Until then. Goodbye.