Transcript
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Live! From a don't sweatshirt. Oh, I wear this every day. It's cold out here. Live from a Don't make Target CEO. Michael fiddelke. Say Voldemort action committee. They have a committee for that, they don't want him saying Voldemort's. I like that. Is that a real? That's not a relevant. Term anymore Voldemort, right? People don't talk about Harry Potter anymore, do they? Yeah, of course they do. They know He Who Shall Not Be Named? It's a business fans Friday, show here at January 30th Studios featuring analyst whole map mascardi. On today's weekly wrap up, heartbroken CEOs. CEOs who heart D escalation and obliterated delivery robots. Yeah. That made me happy. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Our show today is being sponsored by free flow analytics and free flow, analytics.com. The only platform measuring board power connections performance for free. Influencer numbers. I included some of the data in one of my top stories this week just because of howling, it is just I It's just one of the wonderful things you discover when you look at the database when you're, you know. Yeah, it's great having a sponsor that sticks with us for that long. And is so reliable. All right. You want to get over all the happiness now and get to the get to yeah let's make it horrible. Let's do it. It's gonna be. So I have a mini blame game later on, so it's gonna be long. So strap in Now look I I know a lot of businesses are closed today. A lot, there are many, many businesses and Portland, Maine close today, as part of a protest, but Look, we're gonna we're just gonna we're gonna defy the protest. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do our I'm currently on strike. So we're talking we're talking about the very story. We're we're allies. We're allies in this fight so let's do. Yeah. Let's Story of the week. The first one is obvious. Trumps ice tactics for CEOs to choose between staying silent and risking White House backlash. If that if that's the headline, that's the case then that's from CNBC there's still overall. they're pretty silent because the big story was this Chamber of Commerce from Minnesota, 60 CEOs came out which is about half of the Republican traded company is and then we had a handful of other people who felt sad like you know, In this Sam Altman had but really the bigger picture when you pull back, I know a lot of people have given credit to these Minnesota cities. Is it no one saying anything really? Everything they say is nothing Burger. So CEOs of Target, they call calls for Dia and many Minnesota CEOs call for DS collation. That's somebody some lawyer somewhere. Found the word DS Collision past that around everybody. Everywhere is asking for de-escalation, see more on that later actually is part of my prediction CEOs long, silent on Trump's immigration. Crackdown seem to hit their breaking point over killing of Alex pretty in Minnesota. Targeting CEO tells staff violence in Minneapolis is incredibly painful without naming Trump or ice. Yeah, that was nice. By the way, as I had been doing now a bit chilly. I go. Always go to Target's website, I look at their press releases. I look at their statements, they have News releases press releases a statement. Here's the latest one from January 28th. Only two days ago. Target unveils largest Spring Beauty assortment ever making? Yes. And making trend-driven expert. Backed beauty marks accessible finally So they're referred, they really don't expert back Beauty. So whoever you are, if you're falling from it, but Michael fiddelke is nonsense. Don't, please don't fall for it because they have a Cornell. It's January 30th, Brian, Courtney about a state, you know, until February 1st, and then he's executive chair. This is that one guy, it's not, it's not Fidelity yet. Ice is going too far. According to Sam Altman and Jamie dimon more CEOs apple, apple Sim Cooks says, he's harp broken. Yeah. And then read Hoffman, we couldn't disagree on this one earlier this week weed. Hoffman says, Business Leaders are wrong to say. Stay silent about the Trump Administration. Now Know you disagrees just pointed out that he's a donor. He's a big donor. He but I just, I don't know. I just don't feel like I would have, I would have captured the headlines if he'd been speaking. Oh, I just haven't seen him speak out much. So I don't know why he's pretending like he's on the right side of History here, but, whatever Reid, stay at it, shame, your fellow CEOs, do something. But that's the first story of the week. I mean, and really like what? I don't even know, I had this, like, little glimmer of optimism earlier in the week, but like what? What's come of any of this? Like, I don't even know, say or do anything. They just said pretty, please. De-escalate now, the Trump Administration is feeling the pressure so that there is but they're not feeling what's but we're not saying what they're feeling it from is public backlash and the up the Optics of executing, someone in the street are bad gender, that's considered back but they haven't drawn on Ice by any means they haven't changed. They got rid of the rules Vino the you know like great. They didn't get rid of him. Sorry they moved him somewhere else. That's nothing that's nothing. Anyways nothing you're right. Nothing has changed. And the reason why is because it's of He Who Shall Not Be Named, none of these CEOs and the letters, none of the statements named Trump. Why won't you fucking name the problem? In fact, the worst one was was the the Minnesota letter which is supposed to be like, the one that is the breaking point because not only did they say, not yeah. Name Trump but they they called ice recent challenges, didn't even name. They didn't even use the proper title. They didn't even say the president, they said the White House, they said the White House saying the vice president, they didn't even, they couldn't even say the president. You know you know the scene in A Few Good Men where they're in the courtroom and Jack Nicholson railing on, you know, Tom Cruise and he goes, who's gonna do it. You lieutenant Kathy, you lieutenant, Weinberg, and all of us. He yells, at Kevin Pollock, who's sitting at the table, who's done, said nothing the entire time. I, that's what this is. This is like vice president, right? Like what do you think that that's not the guy? The guy is Trump as soon as you get over the fact that you Can't say his name. Then we're gonna talk about real change. We can't we can't make any change until you say a name. The, the the people who should be credited here are is the protest movement in places like Minnesota Minnesota workers pressure employers to take action against ice operations and then there's also today. Uh, there's a national shutdown, a general trick. You know, you know, look it's it's not a general strike but, you know, they're, they're trying, I The point is, is that if these CEOs incorporations want to do something about, they they have the power. You want to know what they do here? Yeah. You know, want to know what they could do. They like the things that are in their power? First of all their massive donors and they can donate right? Like they that's what citizens united is allows you to do. Yeah. And you can donate you can donate to anybody who doesn't want to fund ice in this immigration crack or the way it is or to all the groups working to help immigrants in the people, correct or targeting. Because even here in my city a lot of the businesses are donating full days and these are businesses don't make a lot of money, you know. They still cookies and coffee and they're already struggling. There's they're donating like full days of profits. 100% of the profits. I mean, Target always the small easy opportunity Target. How about how about all of January's profits? There you go. Well, the other thing you could do like so this is something that our family did, we donated to buy Emily body cameras to anybody who's protesting because the family, the reason why we are seeing what's happening is, is journalists aren't allowed and Ice agents aren't wearing body cams and they cover their face. We're seeing it all because the activists on the ground, the people on the ground. Not activists, they're people on the ground who are trying to protect their City from a militia that stormed it are wearing cameras. Well, I think you're wrong, actually. I think they are active Elliot management. I think they've been protesting All right, let's move on. That's the first early week. Second is, you know, maybe the part that we're forgetting here is the other. The other side of this company's reap. This is from Financial Times. He's reap 22 billion dollars from Trump's immigration. Crackdown some other related links meta Blocks links to ice list across Facebook, Instagram and thread. So these are their their users trying to fucking ask. Like, it is as big Tech CEOs. Speak up about violence in Minneapolis. One in three, corporate leaders. Think ice tension are not relevant to their business which is probably a higher number. Those, the ones that actually admitted it. A another article how ice already knows who Minneapolis protesters are. I think this is from The New York Times agents are using facial recognition, social media, monitoring other Tech tools and, you know, and the point being that those Tech tools that social media monitoring. These are all companies like profiting off of what's going on. Now, I wanted to take a look at four companies that are making money off of ice palantir Technologies. That's run by Alex. Karp, Alex, karp, um, has at least a 30 million dollar contract to build immigration OS. A platform designed to provide near real-time visibility on individuals for the purpose of streamlining, apprehensions and tracking self-deportation. I mean that's just gross, but it's the closest thing. Can you imagine there? And they're like, you know, we want to do so we want to track brown people wherever they go. What else? So horrible person, you must be to stay there. There are four companies. I uncovered in this list. Gaining from ice one, one is the company that puts out like this next is a company called relics r e l x. Lexus. Next is Risk Solutions. They provide ice with investigative databases. 22 million dollar. Contract. Thompson. Reuters. They Supply ice with access to massive databases, and then Clear View, AI a company. We've talked about a lot in the past, has a multi-million dollar contract, providing facial recognition technology, so, I decided to plug these companies into our into the free flow analytics database. And this is the one, the one common denominator, the one common data point. They haven't come in palantir Technologies, a gender influence gap of minus 26%, which means that the women on the board there have absolutely no power at relics. That's the Lexus, Nexus company, gender, influence, gap of minus 24%, Thompson. Reuters, a gender influence, gap, of minus 28%. It's like all basically the same number, it's all run by men. These are not family. Firms relics is like, dominated by five men with just supreme power. So again, yeah, another way to use the data yet another reason why we need diversity leadership. And then Clearview AI, which is not a publicly traded company. Not in our database, they have an Advisory Board of all men. So I guess their gender influence Gap would be minus infinity. What is that Infinity percent? Or because there's no women, that's the correct math. Mine is infinity. And I maybe I should give them credit because they're like look, we could have women on the board but we're not gonna let them have any power. So forget it. We're just not gonna have the mirror. I mean, so so relics and Thompson. Reuters are providing information. And that's information you can buy, anyone can buy right? Palantir is providing something that's specific that not anymore contract, right? Like and the important common denominator which is in inside this the two stories that you just read out is one person meta's blocking links to ice. You want to know who Mark Zuckerberg's Mentor, was it was Peter Thiel. You want to know who's the a one of the founders in early investors and on the board of palantir. It's Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is actively funding the destruction of humanity as he goes around. Giving talks about the Antichrist. I that's no joke. He there's nothing like Antichrist. There is nothing like the Legacy that he's leaving behind him, which is he hates women. He hates people of color. He, I mean, like, there's no way to sugarcoat it, right? I'm sure. I'm sure if I met him, I, I feel equally as strongly at this is what he's getting at. Because He everything, he's funded everything he touches is about, absolutely destroying some piece of humanity, that's all he does. and he's the common denominator forget Alex carpet is like, you know, his big blabbermouth I hate all this. All right. Can the other next story? Be good. No, that's the second Story. The third story, I'm calling King bumps. King bumps. We seen a slow of these headlines, just over the last week, JP Morgan's diamonds. These 10% pay bump to 43 million Disney CEO. Bob iger's, pay increased 12% to 46 million. Goldman Sachs hikes CEO. David Solomons paid 21% to record 47 million Wells. Fargo CEO. Charlie sharp gets 20% papers to 40 million and then the last one I want to focus on is Brian Nichol. The new CEO at Starbucks who was now They're making him use the because of security reasons, although, who who exactly is after the CEO of a coffee company. I, I'm kind of curious about a granted. It's one of America's biggest drug companies so many, you know, I get that connection. It's like, he's like a cartel head, but, I don't know who's coming after. Brian nickel. They're now he can use the plane for everywhere. He goes, he can use the Jet and back there making the language. Yeah, everywhere. He goes, yeah, following the security review of risks, the Starbucks board of directors made the decision to enhance security measurements for Brian. He died this included a decision by the board to require Brian to use private aircraft for all travel require Brian to use private aircraft. Let's talk about Brian for a second. Yeah. You want this coffee, right? Like that's sells coffee and a place that is routinely hated. By the way, I know people are addicted to it, but everywhere I go, people kind of me. I mean, maybe I live in a liberal bubble but yeah, you live people near me. But anyway, he made 96 million dollars last year. This year he made 31 million dollars including Temporary housing, expenses in the amount of 370,000 dollars, temporary housing expenses, they give money for yeah, where he stays Security expenses in the amount of 1.1 million and then a million related to his aircraft. Now, the meeting employee last year at Starbucks made about 17,000 which means that his pay ratio was 179 1794 to 1. Which means on the first day of the work year at 10:10 a.m. he made as much as their average Starbucks. He got enough, his temporary housing expense alone is this is a pay ratio of 22 to 1. Just they This guy is made 127 million dollars. I got negative six kids, they're paying his rent. I mean that is just shameful. Don't forget. The Baristas are still looking for better wages and better benefits still. I mean, like, I love the fact that he's paying 30,000 dollars a month for rent, can you think of a place near you 30,000 dollars? A month to live in? Well, maybe he lives in the Seattle, like maybe he lives in the Space Needle, like in the, is there like a apartment up there? I mean, finding a hotel. That costs 1000 dollars a night is actually, it's a nice horse. It's like there's, there's not, there's, there's something that you could broke her a deal, too. I mean, all year, like, if you can broke her deal to take the plane everywhere you want to go, make? Yeah. And finally, that's the third story. He's King bunk calling him King bumps. The third the last story that we just the docu bribe. Do you know what that is when I say that you do you know it's so there was aware there was the premiere of some documentary about Melania Trump but happened Saturday at the at the Kennedy Center Performing Arts which I know has been renamed but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna, it's the Kennedy Center. But anyway, a little bit of background Amazon, paid Melania, Trump's production company, 40 million dollars for the movie and then paid another 35 million dollars to promote it Jeff Bezos. You mean that's Jeff's Amazon, not Amazon. Jeff Bezos. Here are the, here are the guests. I could find to this event and this is Saturday, right? Saturday was the day, let me look at my calendar. Briefly Saturday was the day that Alex pretty was murdered. That's three weeks after Renee. Good was murdered. So let's not let's not forget that. Renee, good happened, three long weeks ago. Okay, everyone's focused on on Alex, Preddy, that death being what the turning point was but you know, I was Three weeks after Renee good. Here are the guests, some of the guests. At this event. First of all, the first one, the real life Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort. He's a really I That guy, he shows up at parties. This is a celebrated guy. He got fired, he can't do anything else, I thought he was okay. Anyways, Tim Cook tours, Tim Cook at Apple. These are all I think everyone. I'm about to name is a CEO. Tim Cook Andy jassy, of course, Amazon Lisa, Sue AMD, Eric Guan, Zoom Lynn. Martin New York, Stock Exchange, Larry Culp, it g e, Sam Altman, opening AI. I saw you in Adele and Microsoft sooner, but I Google Safra Catz, Oracle David, Brown Victory, Capital, David, Ellison, skydance Paramount, and then the last one, It surprises me like it was hard to know if I could get if this was like valid or not, but what I'm seeing is that I'm getting reports that Mark Benny off from Salesforce was there. I don't know why that surprises me but he was the one who did he originally called the National Guard to come into San Francisco earlier this year, mark? Benny off, said that? Yeah, he's a shithole and the National Guard should come and then backed off. It took a picture of herself with the police officer from San Francisco so he waited police. So maybe he was at the event, maybe I'm wrong. And then finally the the saddest but most like this this kind of tells it all the director, Brett Ratner, he directed The Milani a documentary, he was the man accused of a shit, you know, these are all things. He's been accused of by at least nine women and some very high profile, actresses included in the list, who came out and reported this accused. Of rape. Sexual assault, sexual harassment, and homophobic abuse. And the stories are I was gonna list out the stories but they're they're too horrific. I mean they're terrible, but he's the guy. They're calling this. This is post me to come back. I mean, this is the guy that they found. To direct that Amazon found to direct this movie. I mean, what is what a you know I'm hit. My blood is boiling allegations against him were not like singular. They were from a lot of women like multiple women. Multiple years. Not all the stuff they were so bad. He wasn't allowed back into Hollywood and he instead immigrated to Israel, he just left the country. Yeah, good. Sorry, he's back. Sorry to take him. Yeah, now he's back because so my options are the week. Sorry, I mean, this is the worst stories in the history of story of the week. But I'm going to go, the story isn't how much companies are reaping from the immigration. Crackdown, I think, first of all, the bulk of that is actually coming from a company building a wall in Mexico, which is dumb and private airplane company, which is shuttling ice, agents around and that's pretty much all it does. But I always wanted the companies as a they're using their planes right to apply people. Um, yeah, but I wish the king bumps were, it wasn't so quaint. Now relative to the other store looks like I included. This is the problem that I included that story because this is what they do Under the, what no matter what's happening, whether it's in secret, whether it's out loud, they just continue to enrich themselves, no matter how bad America is. They do it while all this other stuff is going on, and it's really hard to pay attention to and it's good to keep paying attention to it, but it's not making. The story of the weird reasons though. Huge races like who went to the Melania Premiere is not surprising. It's the same guys who are basically on their knees kissing Trump's ass anyway, right? Like it's the same everybody. It's it's mostly text though. Mostly Tech. Of course, this is mostly Tech. They're the ones who have the most. Like he's got the largest to kiss for Tech and the other ones, you know. Corrupt and our society, the most. So why not show up to that event? Just by process of elimination? It has to be ice and the CEOs. I mean, this, what the CEOs are not doing and not saying about He Who Shall Not Be Named is the story of the but this, that's yeah. But this is what we are. I think we talked about in our prediction show because we're, we were praising Costco for some of their actions in 2025 and we wondered. When is it going to happen? Is anyone Gonna Act Like Costco? I didn't see it happening like this. And I think this is, unfortunately, such a most version of it, because it's so, it's almost like they had to write. But like, this is what so important about like the free flow analytics data, because it's the names of people, right? Like we should know and be able to talk about who is responsible and accountable, whether it's your director as an investor or its The president of the United States, Donald Trump. There is not anyone who is He Who Shall Not Be Named when it comes to accountability like this, right? So I don't know. That's my story of the week. Let's do goodly and feel good about ourselves? No, I don't think. Is there anything good? Yeah, it's a good stories. Well, maybe they want that good actually. Now that I think about it. Mine, we're not good at all. Oh good, let's lead with yours. Well, first of all, I don't know. Maybe this is good diversity. On Fortune, 50 boards. White men haven't been a majority for three years in a row. now their number is at 49.7 percent, despite the fact that that white men represent 31% of the US population and the number that number is taking up but, You know they're saying that a decade ago is like two thirds so I don't know. That's something that's progress. I guess I the problem is that when you look at free flow analytics and you should you should spend some time there, the major problem. And this is why I just, I can't understand why people are hesitant to use data like this because this is the most important data I've seen in a while in the ESG space is that the problem is that these women don't have power, no power, but, but still they're showing up. I just wish people would use this data to make informed choices about, you know, voting or engagement or just publishing articles or just you know, in your blog, whatever to tell your friends. It's important stuff. Women are there but have no power. That's, that's an important thing. I love that we had to. We had to look for a cohort that this could be possible. And so they were reduced the number of companies 50 just like, because that was my first thought is that when you broaden this out to the Fortune 500. And then to like the Russell 3000, this number is going to go way up, you know, the board. Yeah, it does. It doesn't exist. Yeah. My second story of Julius, which is really not good, but at least someone's trying to fight back this. Today, they're calling at a general strike a national shutdown, January, 30 aims to push ice out of Minnesota stores closed protest, schedules and all 50 states. Look, you know, this look this is ultimately what gets CEOs and things to change is just accept that. It's not you people who are working at like, you know, like Sigma and fucking, you know, the Apple Store aren't doing this, right? Like it is true. It's the service industry in my city, it's the service industry, but they're usually small businesses that are doing it. Just take a stand, like, the list of people who went to Melania Apple, Amazon, AMD Zoom gee Microsoft, Google Oracle, those are the companies where everyone needs walking National today. They need to walk out right? Like you should actually if I was working at msci and I heard Henry. Fernandez was out there, kissing Trump's ass going to the Melania Premiere and and helping fund the destruction of the East wing of the White House there. Yeah, I I would I would have protested constantly. They would have had to fire me because I would have spent all my fucking time. Being like, what are we doing? What are you doing? Who wants to work for you? I don't care how politically expedient you think this is. That's not the be all end all. Yeah. Um what do you got? I don't like actually give actually good list. I have one that's actually good lace I'll start with that one judge green lights Massachusetts offshore wind project halted by Trump Administration that's right. The Trump Administration halted five offshore winds right and in the Northeast all blue States all you know non Trump States and halted them claiming National Security was in issue because of Radars and birds or some bullshit some Gaslight All four out of the five have now been restored with the fifth one probably coming. This one was the vineyard wind off the shore of Martha's Vineyard so that the bougie Vineyards can get free energy for the rest of their lives. I just like that, that there is some bulbar, I if judges do a thing, this is what remember we screamed about this? The beginning of the administration, the Trump Administration 2.0, we were screaming at Academia and law firms. Remember when Trump was was coming down hard on them. And we were saying, hey, Fight back. Sue back. Yes, Sue back. Why are you settling immediately? Like and this is what these, these these. So this is good. I mean, this is why these companies are getting their projects we reinstated because they fought back I mean like you've heard the taco trade, right? That Trump always chickens out trade, love tacos. Yeah, this is the jerk trade fact. I'm starving right now. The jerk trade is judges. Always reverse Trump if you bought, yeah, if you had like some of these stocks of the wind energy companies, they plummeted when they halted them, if you bought them as soon as they say or halting it and you know, they can't hold it, it's illegal. It's fucking legal. You know, it's Gonna Come Back by him cheap and double your money. Literally, I did this. I did it personally. When they came out against Tylenol, Okay, this is why you're so rich. Yes, that's why I put all 300 dollars that I was gonna spend on what are good list is that my other good list. Here's the headline. Delivery robot. Gets stuck on, train tracks, gets obliterated by locomotive. I like that one. I love that. I watched the video of it. There's a show. I don't remember the name of the show, but there's a show that Seth Rogen stars in and really that my only part of the show. I really actually enjoy is, every time he walks by a delivery robot. He kicks it kicks it. I like that a lot and I don't, I, this is I don't want to get on this. I don't want to get hung up on this, but what is it? Why do we need delivery robots? And drones what? What part of our culture demands that? What? I don't understand that one, you know, we don't want to pay helpless, we don't want to pay humans. You know someone's got to pay for the food that you're delivering, right? Like you fire, all the people who would pay but honestly, I don't like I don't get food delivery to begin with. I mean, go, I don't want a hamburger 45 minutes after it's made anyway, like after it's like, I someone put it in the front really good, they're like 1993 Toyota Tercel. Like I I rather just go there and buy it, like are people afraid to leave their homes. Now is that I rarely go out and or get delivered. Cheeseburger can you promise me that you just have the guts to go to the counter and ask for cheeseburger? I I look it was worth it to have a delivery robot if for no other reason to watch. It gets stuck on a train on the street right over. All right let's move on. All right, let's move on from that. Oh no, this is gonna be bad. Well, you come around my stories already, and I didn't want to do a single asshole. It was hard. So I did a asshole blame game, I like playing games, I like all games. So, which asshole do you blame? I'm gonna read you a headline, and I'm gonna give you a couple options and then you can pick the asshole. Here's the first one, Trump's ice tactics for CEOs to choose between staying silent. Risking White House backlash, you read the headline already. So the first option here as an asshole to blame is obviously Trump and ice right? Like sure, you could just blame ice that putting these CEOs in that position. Sure, you can blame palantir and the ice and industrial complex. You already talked about 20 billion dollars, nice industrial complex. Yeah, worth of money for the, you know, get going to immigration crackdowns according to the Ft. Alex, karp, who is the biggest benefit here of the ice and industrial complex has gone out of his way to insist to his disgusted employees. His employees have now come out and said, This is going going too far. He keeps going out and saying, palantir is bolstering civil liberties. That's from a story this week. Let's not forget, I want to read the. The what do you call? Not the byline. Listen to this headline from The New York Times. How ice already knows who Minneapolis protests? Protesters are agents. Use facial recognition, social media monitoring and other Tech tools. Not only to identify undocumented immigrants, but also to track protesters. Yeah, correct. Right. So that that's all right, here's databases. I like a tin foil had it on Tuesday. And the New York Times came up, came out with it last night. That that is actually happening, right? The big tech companies are using all that data that you don't care about. In fact, if you are protesting, you should cover your face, you should, you should go out and goggles and a ski like masks because the world, this is the world like, no, like That like it is called Warfare. Yeah, it's a real Warfare. Yeah. Keeps you at least up here it is. Yeah. So you can blame pallet here in the ice industrial complex. You complain CEOs themselves? Oh yeah, if you like the CEOs, it says the headlines as Trump's ice tactics for CEOs to choose Does it does it is it really the ice tactics that are forcing CEOs to choose or CEOs choosing themselves? Not to say anything about who? He who shall not be named? Yeah, they're letting a little they're the the tires are like over inflated. They're letting a little air out so that doesn't pop. Like that's all they're doing. They're not they're not doing anything else. They're changing the tire. You trying not to not to get noticed, they penned a strongly worded letter that asked for de-escalation. That was the strongly worded letter that they end. Yeah, and and they called ice a recent challenge, they didn't even call it ice and they said the recent challenge was causing widespread disruption. They didn't name, what the disruption was disruption is more like traffic jams and potholes, it doesn't. That sounds like the internet, went out like shooting, protesters in the street and dragging brown people out of their homes, illegally and going to Target stores or stopping them from living normal lives. Like, a lot of them don't even leave their houses anymore and they called it, they called it widespread disruption and recent Challenge. And I gotta say this, can I want to push back to against the the Chamber of Commerce there in Minnesota because thinking about this, Uh, to do this as a I was thinking like oh I guess I can understand that, you know, you you come out as a collective body and maybe that has some kind of power behind it. But but no actually if you had made every single CEO, write a letter, a personal letter and then one by one. Keep dropping them day after day. After hours, keep the onslaught coming. Keep go. But they just kind of hide behind one week. It was way easier because you only need to pay one lawyer. We should have 60 different letters written by an actual human being mostly men. Just, you know, really describing what's going on but no, we have to hide one horrible, like Chachi PT written. Well, Michael recorded a video and the video he said loss of life in our community is incredibly painful it. Yeah, but that's only in turn. Not even to the point. What's incredibly painful stepping on a thumbtack, you know what like heinous and against human Rights what's going on in Minnesota. Yeah, and you couldn't even name you couldn't even say out loud. The fact that ice came into your store, arrested your employees illegally and then let them go because it was all illegal. Let them go not even and you're that somewhere else. Not even their own store. He's Michael fiddelke. You could have written. This is directly affecting the target family. They are ice is entering Target stores and making it difficult for our Target family, and our customers. And it is wrong. Just say that instead of saying, oh, It's incredibly painful to step on a thumbtack. You could blame Boards of directors. Yeah, I knew you'd go there well, every single one of these CEOs doesn't get to sign a letter unless they ask the board, right? Like in in this climate, don't you have to ask every board? And again, if they cared every single director could write a letter. Well, the nice part about it is all of the 60, Minnesota CEOs, that sign the letter, 25 of them, sit on each other's boards, right? Maybe that's why they only came up with one letter, because it's really just one voice. It's really just one person. You didn't have to run it by anybody because they're all setting on each other's boards. What a fucking waste. Actually, if anything, this single letter should should expose the fact that how insular these boards are and how much group think there is they have, I mean, no, spine, their feckless and they they are all in it for themselves. These are some things. These are some important American companies. By the way, you know, you talk about like targets and three, yeah, Best Buy. If they just all decided, hey we're we're stopping until this gets changed, like we're shutting down operation. Trump would have listened like immediately. It's all I'm gonna say. But keep going, keep blame Jeffrey Epstein. I mean this is the leading like files dropped today. This is the leading theory to why Trump has been such a maniac. The last like two or three months, right? The more files dropped today. I actually look through some of them. A lot of them are just redacted again, and they're not all there and they're actively pulling them down as people find stuff in the course. So I did last time, you know. But you know what, if not for those files, we wouldn't need to murder protesters. We wouldn't need to go to war with the rain. Really take over. Then his weight loss. Maybe it's our fault and maybe like should we shouldn't point out things that Trump does wrong because it just makes him mad. Maybe it's Artful. I mean, we should just say everything you're doing is great now releasing files, right? Like, sure Shooters in the street, but release the upstein files. And lastly, we I couldn't get away from this as an option. You can obviously blame investors, because if not for sure holder value, we could pay attention to like human value. Well, you could do that. You could blame stakeholders, like, if people just completely stopped shopping and working at the places, I guess, right? So, which asked you blame for the first one? Trumpet and the industrial complex CEOs boards, investors are Epstein. I don't know what you think. I'm gonna say. But I'm going to go right to the CEOs because yeah, the letter sucked and their their actual Collective power is off the charts. I mean in this country especially All they have to do is just stop just just stop. Put that put their pens down whatever they do just put it down. Stop And the entire the entire Administration is going to listen, it'll, it'll work like that every time because that's all Trump really is it? By the way, is he's just a business guy. So that transaction that's only absorbs selfish. And and one thing that Americans, the world, the Press will notice is when Corporation just stopped, they will notice. That believe me. Well, it was, that's what made that was the best part of the pandemic when we stopped flying and everything. Got better. They started like hanging out with each other because there was only Community left and business people could see mountains. Remember I remember that story? Yeah. All right. Number two, yeah, which asshole do you blame? Ya. Here's a headline as you sew leads criticism of sec's, updated restrictions on smaller shareholders, or help me out on this one. Give me, give me the background on this one. All right, so the background on this is the SEC has now released guidance, that if you own less than 5 million dollars of a stock, you cannot submit or should not submit what's called an exempt, solicitation, which is a filing. All you're doing is you're going to SEC Edgar, you process a filing. The filing gives your opinion about a direction to vote. It usually is in conjunction with a shareholder proposal that you might have put out. So as you, so, for instance, we'll do a share a little proposal asking for a carbon accounting. They would do an exempt solicitation filing in the run-up to the vote saying, this is why we think you should vote for our proposal. It's a mechanism to inform shareholders outside of the strict guidelines of the proposal itself. Inform shareholders about your reasoning and your thinking, why it's valuable give them some more data that kind of thing. The SEC is now said, those are being used as marketing campaigns and political stunts, which they're not totally wrong. But they're also like who reads exempt solicitations that you and me, like, I don't know who's who's getting the market? Some actually, I think there's someone in England like it's a little bit weird. They think that Dave, in the united in the United Kingdom actually, it's electronically filed. It's not taking staff time. Or the company doesn't have to respond to it. It's really just, you know, they're not even easy to find because they're not like they're not part of like a proper 8K news event report. Yeah, you can't like filter for the very easily. Like they're so so the whole thing is dumb but now they're stopping and it basically is targeting small shareholders, because blessed and fight, it's part of the Great Wine Down of Cheryl democracy. The great Wine Down is a good name for it but do you blame the smaller investors themselves? Okay. Else for three decades? Yeah, they basically been using predatory proposals that to get more data out of companies, right? They've been using it to improve governance and they have been using it as a means of advertising, but it would like, irrespective of the fact that they lose at the vote, almost every single time. Sure. And then, in the last two or three years, the anti-walk have really flooded The Zone. They are just putting out proposals off to proposal and exemplification after exempts solicitation. That's their right to do it. But in fact, I saw I saw the entire right? And we can talk about this next week's proxy content but they actually put one out. To separate the roles of CEO and chair. There's no left wing ESG. Now it's not left-wing or right-wing. It's just. Okay. But I like it, it's pure, but they but they're the ones that cold at left wing. They have called governance and telling a company what to do to be like, a liberal woke thing. I'm using their words. Yeah, sure, sure. Well, so we can blame the small shareholders or we can play one small shareholder in particular, John Chevette and why John is the gadfly father. Yeah, he's the winningest shareholder in history good. If you added up all the wins at like Nelson, pelts and all like big like activists with billions of dollars. Yeah they have they have win board seats and all that kind of stuff there. It's all like big circus and like fireworks a lot of money spent and we're gonna take over a company. The fact is when Nelson, pelts gets on a board, the board ends up underperforming like that. There's a long track record of all that stuff. You want to know whose winning more than anyone else. It's John Chavin. So that's what the blaming him for winning. He know, everyone hates us Champion, he's too successful, these two successful. The data actually shows that the SEC is taking more time to say no to Chavez. And even though, like, they are not saying know, they're they already have blanket exclusions for proposals, if a company wants it, but the sec's wasting its time, responding to the veterans proposal saying, no, right? Like, they're taking their time to do that. No one likes to Dynasty everyone. Hates the dynasty Chevettes, the dynasty. This is targeting him. You could blame me SCC themselves, right? The, yes, he is out there suggesting maybe no one should vote proxies now. That's that mean Trump. I mean, or who do you mean by when you say the SEC, who do you mean the people? I mean, like chair Atkins. And Brian. Like, Mark, you ate a commissioner you ate a lip building off the legacy of Hester Peirce. You remember Hester Peirce SEC commissioner there's so much hand ringing from Hester Peirce I believe she stepped down but she was great for a long time and and voted against every proposal in the SEC. She hated your version of Tipper Gore. Number two, before she was against all the lyrics, She didn't like rap lyrics, remember that? I guess that's like your tip or Gore. Like we just took a very nuanced reference and made it even more nuanced. Yeah. Um, at the same time, the SEC is trying to exclude spending their time, excluding small shareholders from having any rights. It. In, in 2025, the SEC saw one of the steepest drops ever in enforcements, they just stopped and forcing shit. And they've been green lighting crypto scams and Retail vote capture plans out of Exxon. This is all a grand plan. This is all part and parcel of we are tired of listening to you fucking shareholders, just buy the stock and she regulation. Yeah. Getting ready to Regulators so you could blame the SCC themselves or you could blame. Bigger investors, not the smaller ones. Why the bigger one because they never cared about the vote. Anyway. 96% average will for directors point, two percent of directors, Global out, voted out annually. And the ones that are voted out, which is 20 to 25 a year more than half of them, stay on the board either because of a bylaw, like, cumulative voting, you get one vote, you could stay on the on the board or they just stay on a zombie like, j-hope. They don't care at all. No one cares, no one's about again. No one votes out the rest of the board. No one even. No one gives a shit and now we've got AI just saying yeah, whatever vote for band management because like one Yeah, so those are your options, your options are small investors chiven in particular the SEC or big investors. I mean I can't take small of users and shove it in seriously. In this one, the SEC Kevin and I think is the real reason. I honestly think like is pioneering of shareholder rights. What he gave us a shareholders as not gotten lost. I'm still not gonna vote for him. He's not the yeah I can't call him the ass hole. I don't blame him the big parks and rec guy. I don't, I I've only seen it once, but the modern government, the modern SCC reminds me of It helped me out with a references here. The guy with the mustache Ron Swanson, who was John Swanson? Yeah, isn't that what we're living through now? Isn't the SEC now? Isn't the all Ron Swanson now? Just just deregulation, shutting down, Ron Swanson had a moral Center. Like that's what makes such a good that might be true. That might be true. This is literally a money grab from smallest to Big from like investors watch the management that's an important distinction here because it'd be one thing if there was some kind of like a theory here so that deregulation led to blah blah blah blah but you're right. It is is purely to enrich a very small subset of society. All of the all of the moves yes he is doing Has no justification that's up. Like there's no positive justification. There's no deep study done. They're getting rid of democracy know. It's gonna wind down. The Democracy. Shifting to General. That's right. Yeah, they're winding it down. Accountability is for women and for the woke, right? Isn't that what they're saying? I think everybody. Yeah, I think that was Mark Twain. That should be my answer but I'm gonna go for the head of the fish like I do with the CEOs. I'm gonna blame bigger investors only because it's like Once again, here's a group who it could make a difference. Right. And SEC is always tied up into some like political headwinds or the, you know, Trump or whoever is the president the bigger investors. That they if they put down their pain, I whatever metaphor I'm reaching here for it. If they made a statement, if they did a thing, everyone would know about everyone. Would it would make a difference, it would change it, would it would change that. Remember, we're now seven years removed from that bullshit moment, where the Business Roundtable talked about the purpose of a corporation, right stakeholders. That was important seven years ago. So, wow, again, they still have the power. Let's not, let's not let them off the hook. They still have the power to make a difference still. Can we just Anything that was seven years ago. Can we just point out that from from Apex to Nadir? Is probably the fastest drop in the history of, but you could reverse it too, it could be changed. It could be changed and what he started by this everything up down. You know, you could start stop voting at all so we can see what like, you're just your watering down the vote. Anyway, it's all yeses, so it's like you killing the vote. So if you just removed your yeses, we could at least see what people are really saying. But I mean that anyway, I'm bigger. There's there's a possibility because Brian Daly put out a speech that said proxy. Voting might not be a fiduciary duty particularly if you're an index fund. So but that's and it's good because they only vote, Yes. Anyway the SEC is actually been really good at like giving a speech and then like a month later, all the sudden they just kill whatever it is, they decided to kill with with some gas lit. Reason here's what triggered me is that there's an article out this week, I think it was a financial times New York Times, whatever. Doesn't matter talking about. How, CEOs, they're gonna stop, just like letting employees off the hook. They're now they want proof. They want objective proof to what they're really achieving. So what about the executives in the directors, where is there whereas their objective proof that what are they achieving? Let's show us what they're achieving and then make your decisions. Made this case you've always make your decisions based on how you vote on them like what are you waiting for? You've always been the case that it's like we that like these people stuff, prove it. And yeah, they assert stuff without proof. And the the like onus is on us to prove the opposite and they're not negative to prove what they're saying is right. Like we're called cynical. We're called negative work whole pessimistic but start proving your yes vote. So I want to show me. Show me, how are you coming to that? I love anyway, so I go. What else do you have? One last one and this is a short one which asshole, do you blame? Here's the headline. Marketing says the building right here? Yeah, this is the real crisis, is an AI job losses. It's what would have happened without AI. Oh, so, Mark Andreas, and once again, he he's all knowing he's all knowing he basically said, we are on a path. To like what? No more sustained growth and population. Deceleration him and his friends implosion of like that stuff. Hey, is that owners and Founders and CEOs. That's because of that, basically, you were worried about your small job, but I'm worried about population growth and infinite growth into the future. Who do you blame the powerless that's air quotes? AI makers? Sam Altman. From this headline, Sam Altman says, AI will cause massive deflation making money worth vastly more, which is pretty good. If you're a billionaire, but he's worried about it, right? Like and yeah, and yet he makes AI Dario Emoji. Anthropic CEO warns that AI Tech he's creating could ravage humid civilization. He came up like a 20,000 word like Dissertation this week right about the state of AI. I didn't have to read a dissertation to suggest the same thing. Stop making it don't make it anymore. You fuck face the CEO of Microsoft who is ended up and it's not names. Suddenly sounds extremely nervous about AI why? Because of the bubble like because like it it won't make money. Don't know. Stop doing it. Stop doing it sounds actually nervous. Yeah AI anxiety. So widespread that veteran, Microsoft researchers are having panic attacks because they're making themselves obsolete. Quit You're gonna make yourself obsolete anyway, Quest so many. There's so many corners of our society that need help that yes, stop chasing the salary, high salary job. Just make a normal living wage, and join the people and help out well that that'll be my last potential asshole. Here we'll come back to that, okay. The second asshole is VC, Naval gazing, Man Child economy, like these fucking VCS who are funding the Manchild economy and Jason's G Street. I still think history will will assert that. There they are. The one who brought our society, they're the worst andreason's genius is he was an early investor in in Manchild in Facebook and musk and roll them in Airbnb. There is no sammelman. I mean the whole VC industrial complex exists. To prop up man. Children. That's the industrial. Can we rename Stanford? The VC industrial complex. Can we do that? Yeah, we could do that. Everything we have complex now and then finally, the option is you me, your you everyone where all the asshole of the week because according to Jensen Huang and and Alex, karp, and all of the, these big Tech, bro, mouthpiece CEOs. The man children, we should have been plumbers or construction workers because Jensen way just said, like, there's gonna be an infrastructure. Boom. So, you're gonna be having construction workers with six figure salaries? Yeah. Or literally a peasant that's out, is this why is this their horrible view like they're horrible binary view of our culture. What about why couldn't we be like teachers or Community leaders or stem, scientists or like like, you know what I mean? Why do we have to be plumbers in peasants? Like What this is their binary view of our culture, you're either. A rich schmuck or you're like sweeping dirt. I this is this is what they think these people. I I just like so Alex karp said this. He said you went to an elite school. You you got a degree in philosophy. Hopefully hopefully you have another skill and he said, you'll be working with your hands like a peasant, because he's the one who said the humanities is going away right Humanities. Yeah, he's a Humanities are just so who do you blame him? Blame artists the power. The poor powerless, AI makers. The VC Naval gazers or you, it's all of our fall. It's us so far construction workers. Again, I'll go to the top of the, of the, of the totem pole, the top of the head of the head of the dragon. And I mean, I should pick the AI CEOs, because I agree with you. Just stop. I mean, just, that's the motto of the show today, just stop, but stopped going out, but Hey, you're building something to destroy us, but I think the unforgotten villains in our culture currently are these, are these men who hand out the money and these VCS. The VC Naval gazing, Man, Child economy, as he called it, because Ah, you know if they were if they were giving money to to you know, women-led groups who are working on like you know, better educational software for for public schools, whatever. I mean, just think how good our culture would be after 30 years of giving like that. But instead they're all giving for companies that can scale instantly and make them just billions. Yes, that's it. Like like money in their pocket and destroying our society because really the only way to get money quickly and to destroy our culture is to is to scale something like overnight. Right is to without just like with Reckless. Abandon no regulation, no guard rails. Not worrying about safety. Not worrying about long-term risk or culture just going fast. That's the only way to do this. So I'm blaming them here's here. Now, I want you to pick who's the biggest CEO of the week CEOs on ice. The bigger investors on the SEC stuff or the VC Naval gazers I I'm gonna go to CEOs. It's got the CEOs. Yeah, that's the win. They make so much money, they have. So they hold so many shares. A lot of them are you, you discovered in the database that like, how many of them are? Founders is incredible. Like yeah, it's like more and more. They don't have any they control their Universe. Like they don't have any pushback on their own boards, so yeah, I blame them. All right, Let's do let's get out of here, headlines. Winners predictions and get crashing. I'm exactly this is an exhausting week. Now, here in Maine, which is, you know, a very small state and I'm hoping eventually will become part of Canada, although and I think, Minnesota two should join Canada. They claim. That Susan Collins are Senator claims that the ice all the ice happening is over. I don't believe no. Yes sir. Yeah, of course believe her but it's been so exhausting up here that I hope I hope she's alright. I hope she's alright but I don't believe. Anyway, so where are you on headlines? We're on headlines headlines headlines. I got a quick one, my headliner of the week. Cracker Barrel wants its staff to eat one thing on work. Trip's. Cracker Barrel. They want them whenever possible. No, I'm serious. I read the article. This is from The Wall Street Journal of all places. This is what they're writing about. They want them to only eat Cracker Barrel when on business trips. So that was the only can go to places where there's a crack to stop blowing the budget on like subway. You just gotta go to Cracker Barrel, Cracker. I just love that only Cracker Barrel. I mean, how do you Keep working at Cracker Barrel with. Have you seen the menu? Imagine how much you how uncomfortable your arteries would be? If that's like a gravy covered fried like calculators or fried meatloaf. Yeah. What do you got, headlines? I got two. Um, one is the company. American says the best place to work in 2026? Isn't who you think? I clicked the link and its crew car wash in Indianapolis based Car Wash company. They're okay. What's so good about that? Sounds horrible. I like that. What's good about her, right that right that headline. Hey it's like it's not like working at palantir. Who's you know? Alex says his place the best place to work but the other one is I like better. The headline is the worst people alive are obsessed with meta's video recording glasses. Yeah, I believe that like of course they are. Yeah, fact, that the article names one of them. They interviewed his guy names, a guy named Brad, podray who formerly went by the name scumbag dad, not kidding. That was he wears the glasses and films girls butts? like, It's the worst. That's what that's, what man-child Mark Zuckerberg and allowed you to do. And you know what? That is way better than the things that the director of the Melania movie did. So it's way better. Yeah, it's way better. Step up step up who won the week. I forgive me. I'm like attempting to end here with a little bit of optimism. It's not gonna. I'll say the winners are the resistance in Minnesota especially in Maine but Minnesota like I have the community there for a month of hard work and resistance and protest and helping their neighbor's and their fellow immigrants, just everything they've been doing look. Let's call it a minor miracle that your month of resistance efforts actually got a CEO to open in his mouth, like, even that is like a miracle. You got Michael fiddelke to open his dumb mouth. That's a miracle. So I said, nothing Burger, he opened his mouth, you know what, I had a different, I had a more of a joke winner, I'm gonna just flip it and agree with you the resistance because you know what without the resistance There were really it's it's horrible. Like it's horrible now, but it's even worse, right? So I I'm gonna I'm just gonna agree with you predictions. All right, pair with me on this one. January 1st. Will officially be recognized but the business runtime table as equality day. Because that's the day, CEOs, celebrating the grueling minutes. It takes a CEO to earn more than their average worker for the year. They will issue engraved badges with the exact time for. So, for Starbucks this year, it'll be 10, 10 a.m. They'll be created to honor the achievements. So quality day I really like that. Okay. But maybe I okay, I admit that's a joke. That's silly. That's a great predictions. So here's my real one. My real prediction is that Target announces, its D escalation collection. A Minneapolis inspired line of high fashion, neutral tone hoodies. Specifically marketed as non-threatening to ice agents in heartbroken CEOs. So it won't trigger any like CEOs, where should be nice beige. Nice tan. Well dsal collection. I can't wait for that. Press release. That's my real story. All right, mine. My simple. Alex carp, the social justice Warrior. CEO of palantir. Who's the, who's out for the little guy? He said he looks like peas, guys. Yeah, Mass fires, his staff at palantir because of their dissent about ice and working with ice. Replaces them with an AI robot named the job displacer or something that he thinks is funny. Does a Roadshow cleaning. He's freed is employees using Ai and now they can have authentic jobs like bagger at grocery store and guy who mixes paint, Actually mixing paint might be a good career move for me. Everybody needs a paint mixer, you can't replace that with a full-time machine. That's all we got. That says a lot. So, I'm at mascar, we are free float. Come back next week when we've got a bevy of shows. Coming up next week, heavy show. We got, we got a proxy countdown, we got the Friday show. There's gonna be a shareholder Primacy on the other Channel with Mike Levin, and lifting come back and see those and stay tuned for massive updates from free float date of world, because We're working on it. They updates are happening until then good.