Transcript
Hello. Oh, I already went against my wife. You said just yesterday? Business pants starts the clock. I'm Damon Ross. That's my biscardi. It is almost met met, April 28th 2020. I know my kids are so much stupider because this virus. It's already May. Yeah, because you're the teacher, it's, it's guaranteed stupidity. All right, we got a lot to cover today. I'll tell you the four different categories are covered today. Agms. That's shareholder meetings, right? Yes, oh no. I should say okay, sorry. The overall umbrella topic today is people getting pissed. All right, people getting pissed off, Matt. And here are the areas again. You are you getting this? No, I feel. Okay, shareholder meeting. That's the first topic executive pay. That's next topic. Yeah. Empires, right, things, Star Wars. And finally, some Panic tunity pissed off people grabby grabby going on, right? All right, let's start at the top. Let's do it. For you. I love it. I know that you want to talk about Boeing. You really want to talk about Boeing. They had their annual meeting yesterday. And on a side, note Boeing also has announced that they'll be pushing back the target day for fixing 737 Max planes. So there's also that going on but whatever. Boeing had its annual election. It looks like all the directors got a majority. Yes. But there are some notables that were very close to a no and out of the company's six or seven shareholder. Proposals only one pass. So I'll let you, I gave her the numbers on the sheet map. I'm gonna let you take over this topic. Anything. What number one can I say, just in furtherance of the stupefying of my kids while they're like, asking me questions about like, you know, math or how do I spell this, or whatever? I'm Furbish Lee hitting Refresh on the, the online shareholder, you know, meeting replay because I want, I'm waiting for it to come up so that I can watch it in the background. And yeah, it's, it's the only one I can't get from yesterday, so, already disappointing. Yeah, if I'm going to compound my disappointment, lo and behold, you go, and you pull all of the actual vote results. To find out that not one. Not one of these board members, God, voted voted out. Not the closest one closest was Susan Schwab, who had about 44%. No votes. Might I say that? There are three women on the board and the one that got the most knows was one of the women. So it feels like a victory. Anyway, that's because she was targeted. By what was it? I don't know. I s s or glass Lewis because of her long tenure. The thing that pisses me off, I think is that that their targeted for the long tenure. And but, David Calhoun, basically created the board, right? He was that wasn't he? He was the chair and he was also the wasn't he, the chair of the nominating committee? Yes. So, here's your, here's your time line. You've got and I didn't Target him. Yeah. And they didn't. Yeah, of course that you got Ken duberstein, who for 20 years, he's on the nominating committee or chairing it. You got Ed Liddy, who was who just retired. Not because he was forced out, but because he hit the mandatory retirement age for the Boeing board. He was on the nominating committee or chair. Did Mike, Zephyr ski was on the board for 15 years. He voluntarily retired. And Dave Calhoun was a chair of the nominating committee, all of these fools billed, this committee and the people who built it. Get there's no, there is no, there is no shareholder Justice. And the people who sat on it, they still couldn't get it together and vote any of them out. I, it's really, I'm, I'm looking forward to when you get the proxy voting reports from like the black rocks and the vanguards because they do tell you fund by fund, which is a hugely laborious task actually pull this out, but they will tell you who they how they voted on each member. And sometimes it's a blanket thing. Sometimes, it's fun by fund, but if BlackRock and Vanguard, who represent about 12% of Boeing ownership, if they voted for all of these people, Can we just can we just whatever? Stakeholder capitalism card? Larry Fink wants to hold up? Can we just light it on fire like while he's holding it? Is that? I mean, it's so ridiculous. Yes. The one shareholder proposal that passed was a policy requiring there to be an independent board chair currently there is an independent board chair. That is Lawrence. Kelner in but I, but I bet, but I bet the boy, I bet the company says no to this because They'll say well we have an independent here now. So we don't have to have a policy. and, Therein lies the other. Terrible irony even if you voted no on all these oh yeah members right. Like not nothing's binding is not binding so it's like blowing can basically be like we disagree with you. Yeah if you think about this is sort of this is strangely Un-American. I feel like you know this is the land of some sweet. Sweet democracy. So how the hell they get away with this one since when is it really that? All right, let's anything more on Boeing know. But I want to come back around on it because I do want to watch the shareholder meeting. And I think I'm gonna lie, I'm gonna watch it. And I'm gonna make some live commentary where as I watch it and maybe put that up on a patron feed. So if you're a patron on patreon.com slash free float media, look out for that. If you're not a patron, you know, have some fun for the cost of a latte for Christ sake. I got one on AT&T coming up to talk about their annual meeting. So up next, some good news, JB Hunt they're sure holders actually approved to shareholder proposals more than 50% of their shower holders approved one proposal, requiring the reporting for political contributions and the other one about a report on how it plans to reduce Is total contribution to climate change. So they approved proposals upon climate change and political contribution. That's, that's big news, that's I'm impressed. I don't know if JB Hunt's gonna care, but does everybody know who JB Hunt is? There are transportation company out of Massachusetts. Yes. Is that is that do we? What do we care? Do we care? I'm just dialing I'm just putting it out because it stuff happens. No, that's fun. Been like and the three of the top shareholders, there are tiro Vanguard and BlackRock. So it would be interesting to see what went on there. So when you wonder why the system of, you know, a democracy May malfunction in capital markets as much as it malfunctions in regular world, the real world which we live. You can ask Taro price. Fidelity, State Street, BlackRock, and Vanguard because they're the ones who pick that's it. That's like five people who picked. They're like the Koch brothers of capitalism. Like that. Yeah, good analogy. I like any, I like any bone. Got me fired up this morning. I like any reference to Coke, whether it's Coke, like nose, candy, Coca-Cola, Coke brothers. I think it's all great, it's all great by his, let's move on to the next Topic in people getting pissed off executive pay. The first one is not a pub public corporation, but it's worth reporting on. Top Executives at Denver Health Medical Center. Receives significant bonuses this month for their performance in 2008. 19 won. After Frontline, Hospital workers were asked to voluntarily take leave without pay or reduce their hours as the hospital dealt with the financial downturn. Resulting from the coronavirus pin demek So this is a bit awkward. The next day, the next day, the CEO of Denver Health, Robin wittenstein. Apologize. She said being informed of incentive payments. Now to the executive staff, no matter what the explanation has clearly been painful and dividing especially because you did not hear about this from me directly first for this. I am deeply. Sorry. So wait. All right. What is she sorry about? She saw that she didn't she didn't tell the employees that she's screwing over that they're getting wait. I assume then said we are going to not give the bonuses right? No I finished the quote that there's no report of them. They're not handing the bonuses back despite, you know, city council. People. Pissed off, is already petitions, pissed off. I'm sure the workers are pissed off. I'm sure all of Denver and Colorado are pissed off, but no, there's not giving them back yet, although, as if yesterday, they were not deeply. Sorry. So, let's see how they're just, here's the part that that Is so this is how she this is, how the CEO explained it yesterday. She tried to give this excuse for why they're getting and these were large bonuses. Hers was 230,000 dollars. But most of these bonuses equal pay for, at least one person. There was significant. Bonuses between 40 and 100,000 dollars but she said she had this to say Ah, this is her excuse for the executives getting bonus one week after she told workers, you know, to go screw themselves. She said we want to try to pay people fairly The right. She said without the bonus payments Denver Health Executives would be paid less than the average for their counterparts Nationwide. That was that was the excuse. I don't I that's, that's a sad. I mean, that's just bad PR. I mean, you can do better than that but we, we set it on this show and I want spend time on this because you've already talked about it. Denver Health is is likely a nonprofit. I haven't looked into it but they're likely a non-profit organization. They are likely funded through, you know, Foundation grandsons and Medicaid, you know, revenue streams and yada yada yada. But their boards are usually populated with like your local car salesman who made a hundred thousand dollar donation and wants their plaque up somewhere in there and they're the ones to whom these. People are accountable. If you don't like something like this, find out who's on the board of everything that. Yeah, the thing to do, I'll tell you this I try to do a deep dive on the board. I all I could find is that they're they're appointed by the mayor for five years terms but I could not find bios like they just names listed. So that was a tough. I couldn't figure out these people are Yeah, so maybe write a letter and say what was the boards culpability or what responsibility? Yeah. What kind of car do you sell? All right up next and people getting pissed off and maybe this is just me getting pissed off but whatever the story is Ford executive pay exceeds companies profit. That's wow. The cumulative compensation for the six top Executives at four this year is 70 million dollars that exceeded, the automakers annual, net income of 47, million dollars in 2019. Wow, isn't there shouldn't be a trigger here. I mean, if you suck this much, that's, that's crazy to me, there should. There should be a suck trigger on all at all S&P 500. Hey policy. That's actually shocking, to me, that's hard. That's hard to do. So, it sucks so much or that they're walking away with more than the net income. No company. It is actually, it is hard to pay yourself more than the prophet was like optically. Sure. But like, I mean, yeah. Like how do you, how do you even like? I think that should be a game. In fact, I think maybe we should love them like congratulations. How come we can't figure this out, man. We don't make any money. How about how come we're not paying ourselves? Like what myself a check right now to figure this out? I don't think we're thinking enough. All right, let's move on. People getting pissed off. They're getting pissed off at Empires. You're the three Empires getting pissed off at today, a three of our favorite Empires actually, Matt, Amazon, Facebook, in China. We'll start with start with Amazon last time, the same. Let's start getting real people. When we talk about a nation's, let's start including some of our biggest corporations like, anime movie. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that Amazon uses data from third-party sellers to help develop its own private label Goods. Among the findings were that some Amazon Executives had privileged access to data on individual third-party sellers which was then used to develop the company's own products, despite it being in violation of company policy, use the data for their own means what findings directly contradict Amazon's previous messaging around how it uses. Third-party data, including testimony Executives gave to Congress last year. They didn't say something truth. Oh, this is causing Congress to say, you're basically, your Witnesses are liars. That's all and Congress to call on federal prosecutors to open a criminal antitrust investigation in to Amazon. So, that's what's going on in Amazon map. Oh, what else is going on? At Amazon, the New York attorney general. Had this to say, Amazon's health and safety measures taking in response to the covid-19. Pandemic are so inadequate. That they may violate several provisions of the occupational safety and health act. She also went on to say that the preliminary findings raised serious concern. The Amazon may have to start discharged a Critic of the company's Warehouse conditions in the pandemic in order to silence his complaints. So I like that that's the PS to this story. So the Attorney General of the state of New York state of about 20 million people that's significant this isn't Maine people she's pissed off at Amazon. So Amazon is yeah. So what was it take away from my map makes on Amazon? Tell me it was when you look at the stakeholder reporting, right for Amazon. The one they were screwing. The most was the government and next was investors and this is I'm sticking to the fact that despite the fact that the stock is that basically an all-time high and continues to go up that they are one government probe away, whether it's Anti-Trust or health and safety or whatever, from potentially getting hit with fines or getting broken up and then investors will there be a Cascade of investors saying you guys screwed this up? We give us some money. You've never paid a dividend, you've never had to buy back. What's going on? yeah, so you ESG naysayers All right, listen up. This is a. Do those listen to this show. All right, so your ESG analysts are listening. There we go. It take this to your client meetings and say this is a good good use for ESG. Is that where you're pointing out shit client meetings. We're pointing us up before it happens. All right. Next, next Empire, people are pissed off about, of course, Facebook Facebook investors launch third. Attempt to remove Mark Zuckerberg as chair. So cute. I I giggle because the vote is obviously doomed to fail because of the billionaires controlling stake in the voting power point is, they're pissed off his suck and then there's some other stories on on Zuck today. This is crazy. So last week, Facebook CEO Zaki wrote a post pledging to combat misinformation about covid-19, right? But at the same time, investigating investigative reporting found that Facebook was allowing advertisers to profit from ads targeting people that the company believes are interested in pseudoscience. According to the to the reporting, the pseudoscience interest category. Contains more than 78 million people. That's the story, right? Yeah. Shocking. And then there's another advocacy group reported last week. This is a different different reporting that a sample of 104, coronavirus related pieces of misinformation content on Facebook, analyzed by the group had reached over 117 million, estimated views. So this is, this is serious stuff. You know what serious about this that we have, like 200 downloads per episode and we are doing like real news. Yeah. And Facebook manages to get 100 117 million views on pseudoscience. That's the real Injustice here. Thanks for pressing me. Well, I well, I mean, do we expect anything else? Like I don't know why this is because your next story, an Empire is China and I I sort of wonder when we were just gonna flip the stories around. Know, it's a good point. Um, but before we go off to off of Facebook, I want to add one more disturbing thing because this is the way I'm not Disturbed. This is Facebook always operates. I want to point it out. The Facebook spokesperson said in her email about the pseudoscience category that it should have been removed. Whoops, so that right. So, every time that comes out and says that we're on top of it and we're doing stuff and you can't legislate us because of China because China will take over and we're on top of it. We're doing it, never buy that. Bulshit. Ever ever, ever believed him, never how many spokespeople do they have at Facebook? That they have to try it out to say. Oops. Do they do a different one every time? Because it's not Sheryl Sandberg. Every time it's someone different. Every time I feel like it'd be a genuine. Oops. And not like a like a oops should have been done already. Oops, that's like the most confusing type of. Because what do you do with that? It would be nice. If one spokesperson just got up there and started weeping uncontrollably and saying, well, I can't do anything this about this because Zuckerberg owns 52% of the voting power. I'm sorry, but not that happened. Remember, it was like the head of the CTO? Well, yes, actually started crying because he knew that Facebook could not get in control of everything. Going crazy. If Facebook, I forgot that happened. That was the last time I saw that little tears. I finally, the last empire that people are pissed off is China, I guess, at least here in the United States. If there's one thing that is coming to be very clear out of this, pandemic is the fact that Americans believe the US relationship with China has to change, and this is not a left or right thing, this is support that runs across party lines and education levels. 72% of survey respondents say they do not want China to be the go-to manufacturing Hub or American companies in a post-pandemic world. 75% felt that the US should end its dependent on China for medical import and 59% which is a big majority. Think the US should outright with draw manufacturing from China. I have a lot of thoughts. Good So, the 59% know that their iPhone would be 5000 dollars after they do that, right? Like do they also feel like they're entitled to iPhones? Is that? Well, here, I got a solution for them. Keep the iPhone you already have you. But more. Well also it strikes me that 59% want to withdraw from China. That's actually larger than the percentage of people who think the board members at Boeing who helped crash planes should keep their jobs. Okay, so there's that. But why do we want to? I don't. Why do we want to decouple from China? China is not showing pseudoscience misinformation to 117 million Americans. Sure about that. Have you ever shopped on? Have you ever shopped on Amazon? Have you seen some of the stuff that's going on there? Isn't that he did? That's Amazon and it's mostly Amazon's feeling from China. The stuff is coming from China. I should. My point is like, we don't have to go to China to find where like, like you, yeah, you're making this about Facebook. I agree. I I that's why I lump them together. I mean I think we should start calling them Empires but they are their Empires. It's it's a little nuts to me and it's fine. If you want to like diversify your manufacturing portfolio, it's but 72% of respondents don't want to be. Go to manufacturing Hub. Why? I I mean well I mean look it's you know when you find, okay. Yeah. When we consider the rhetoric from the president and that they are basically our number one enemy. Now if we talk about the Cold War Channel, all the time, what are supposed to people supposed to think? I mean, aren't aren't they having them trained to hate China at this point? When so what we need is Dr. Fauci to get up there at the next press conference and call it the Facebook virus. And and then will we be looking at like around and say, oh that's the problem. It's it, it's not China because it's just xenophobia. When you it's just in some ways, it's ridiculous. It's in, it's arguably worse than Russia. Who for whatever reason, no one seems to care about. Here at business pants. We, we are against xenophobia but we are actually Pro Zuck phobia. Figured that one out. All right, last up last and people getting pissed off for April. 28th 2020 is oh Panic tunity grabby grabby. Panic tuning, the grabby grabby. So essentially these are all the different entities corporations or whatever that are basically grabbing money. Uh, when they shouldn't be, some of them are giving back that money and some of them aren't. But let's start at the top with my least favorite company of the year, which is Carnival. Carnival to me, is the is like the bloated poster, child, for a company, that is destined to be to, that should be left to fail, you just ages. Yeah. No, I am. I'm everything. I'm everything is, but though, but again, the Wall Street Journal. All right. Well, it's your Journal. Two big finds a is reporting that the feds March pushed to throw tons of money into the markets, was a nice way of bailing out. Carnival by creating a cheap lending Market to move the failing companies debt around. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cruise line company was dead in the water when it began looking to borrow billions and high interest loans. They had they found a crew of hedge funds willing to offer up about six billion dollars at a high interest rate. But when the fed and entered offering up, Billions at now included loans, to companies with investment, you know, blah blah, I'm not doing good job of reporting story. Here's the point is that the FED is funneled some money essentially, over to Carnival Would you did leave out that they called the crew of hedge funds. The Consortium? Yeah, this is a lot going on the thread. I don't, I don't quite this is the get so level of financed that. I don't quite understand. But essentially what they're saying is that when the FED lowered, the interest rate Carnival was able to to grab a lot of cheap taxpayer money, right? Is that the takeaway? Yeah, I mean, because the where yeah, more or less. But okay, um, this is and, and this is so bad I guess that even Jim Cramer on CNBC who was who was not a socialist Loser. Like Me, he's more like, Matt Mascari he's calling this bail out of Carnival, a disgrace, Jim Cramer. He's calling a disgrace. Saying why would we why would we give money to a failure of a cruise ship business and ask out loud with the logic was Kramer wondered if big bale from the Federal Reserve was limited to companies. Run by Mickey Harrison, so Mickey Harrison's, the chair and founder of Carnival has a deep relationship with Donald Trump. So this is another board that we should probably. Yeah, we're gonna do, we should do some more time on this, but but I think Jim Cramer is wrong because he said, why would someone give money? To a failure of a cruise ship business. I think he shouldn't have said the word failure and just said, why would you give money to a cruise ship business because it's absurd. Yeah, I think there's one thing we can learn 2020 is there's nothing more absurd. Right. I mean, considering all of the ways that shits on stakeholders, I mean, it's got to be, I can't think of a company that craps on stakeholders in a better way than Carnival, or all the cruise ship industry. But Let's move on up next in the Panic. Tunity, grabby, grabby, this is a category. I'm calling, I would have said yes. But now I'm saying, no, because people are looking and these are all the companies that we're trying to grab the Federal Loan money for small businesses. And now we're paying it because essentially people they call them out, right? The first one on this list, I know that you love is of all. Companies, it's the Los Angeles, Lakers the, the basketball. Right? Which has a valuation of 4.4 billion dollars. They somehow managed to get a 4.6 million dollar loan earmarked for small businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. I mean, what the hell. So, but anyway, they're giving it back because they got called out on it. Hey, Lakers? Yeah, two things. Number one, It's called the small business. Yeah. Paycheck Protection Program, right? So it's like, bookstore on the corner in downtown Portland that sells shity coffee or the Los Angeles, Laker remember what we talked about number two, Javale McGee is on your payroll for 4.2 million next year. That right, he's not that good. You could have cut him and not taking loans from small businesses. Developing I don't have anything against you. I'm gonna give you. Yeah. I mean if you really want to do the popular math here, the Lakers accepted a 4.6 million dollar alone and they are also pay LeBron James 37 million dollars a year. So this is there's some crazy shit going on there, in the Lakers Lakers, that's like pocket, fluff for LeBron. Two other companies, they got called out Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, they took 20 million dollars. Now they're paying it back that their part of the Ruth's Hospitality Group and oh Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, they they're returning 1.2 million dollars. I what the trend I'm noticing here is that basically, if you're a company that people I've heard of you're going to give the money back, right? Well, I don't Is it wrong that? I don't mind that Nathan's. Hot Dogs. Got it though. I gotta say. Nathan's makes a damn good, hot dog. I mean it's it's just it's a good hot, dog product. There are there there are some better ones but it's good. Um, but Ruth Ruth, Chris The shouldn't the rule be, if your publicly traded. Yeah, I think that's the, let's go, let's finish up today's show because it's staying on topic. I'm gonna put this into the fake warning category because you guys Treasury Department actually, is has something to say about this. There are saying that they will audit every loan for more than 2 million dollars. Giving under the paycheck Protection Program for businesses hurt by the coronavirus Fallout. They are saying that this was a program designed for small businesses. It was not a program that was designed for public companies if they had liquidity. So I don't buy a word of that, by the way, there's no way they're gonna be looking into every loan because they came to figure out how to give a loans in the first place. But but yeah, that's what they're saying. They're saying stop messing around, you believe it. ah, They just but they did such a good job of. I know the whole thing is crazy. There's a, there's another story out there that I don't know. Maybe you posted it but how the hell? How the hell is? JP Morgan screw this up? Yeah, I did post that. I, it's, um, It's a little bit. Crazy. That you, after bailing out the financial sector. And, and this is a sector that's actually doing, not, not great. But, you know, they're gonna be okay through this pandemic and we're turning to them for help. They somehow can't do their core function, which is lending on basic requirements. Like did, you know? Like there's a, there's an employee number of employee guideline for what constitutes a small. I'm gonna keep saying small business, small because these companies had to have set down and played for it. They didn't like wake up and a check was in the mail and they're like, oh we don't need this. Well, just send it back. They went through an application. Yes, definitely. Alright, which means they know full well that was Chris has over 5,000 employees. They know they do not qualify as a Small business, like no one thinks that's that. Yeah, the Lakers are worth 4 billion dollars. Do we do? We honestly stay small that we honestly think that the team that LeBron James is playing for thinks of themselves as a small mom-and-pop, the good news is Matt is a the word small is its relative. It's a subjective term. So there you go it's where it is. Also worth saying that that JP Morgan gives out billions of dollars to in small business loans every single year if anyone should know the definition of a small business yeah it should be the bank that conducts small business lending which makes you wonder are they lending to the LA Lakers as part of their small business lending program. Oh that's a good thing. Governance around that. Before I wrap up the show, that's all I got. I want to make can I make one correction? Oh a correction. Yeah it's actually not Nathan's famous hot dogs that I like it's Hebrew National. Oh Oh, sorry, Nathan. Because that's sponsorship deal. That's all I got for today, April 28th, 2020. That was business pants. That was Damian Roz. I met moscati. We are free float media. If you like what you heard, Please Subscribe. Alright, us. Send us to your friends clip it on overcast and send that to your friends because I know you're not gonna send the link to your friends. Gotta be honest people, we're plateauing numbers here. I want to see more numbers because I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Like I actually need to eat something and I'm ambitious hungry so let's get it done. All go to patreon.com slash free float media and you know buy us a lot today. One latte a month brings you us to your balls and they all get the perks of asking us any question. You want ESG or otherwise and we will research and answer it for you Damien. I will talk to you tomorrow for another business.