Transcript
Live from the ESG incubator 8000. It's a woke data Wednesday here at business pants Business Park. We have a business park. Join us always by entropic ml lurking, and I wasn't a call, Matt mascardi Machiavellian, but you look more just like a boring old Steve Jobs today. Jobs. In which means you're dead. You lose. I know. I'm the reverse part of the folded over inverse. That's what I am. in today's, Wok Center bag called March 16th 2022, Damion literally prattles on. About the alternative democracy. Matt gets his nose. Dirty in black rocks. Fink. Yo, and Emma lurks. Here we go. This is a, if you don't like the boring ESU news, you can turn your volume down. But this is for all the, why do you have to go first? Then this little girl serious because I have two stories It's called bound. This is for all our serious listeners. I think we still have some, and I think every once in a while, they want to learn something. So, I'm gonna try to tell them something interesting today. Here we go. Well, not just, it's Professor Damien today. I don't know how to sell, its not even perfect, it's not even professorial. It's more just like, Here's some shit I found. Here we go. Although that's really what Professor does not? I think about it when I was younger. I thought it, I thought it was magic sauce. Stay Stan course, shareholder proposals on environmental, social issues are up This year maybe about 25% due to like likely to the ship at the SEC under the Biden presidency in November, the regulator issued new guidance, on its interpretation of rules used by companies and recent years to exclude shareholder, proposals on ESG issues from going to the vote. Okay, previously us companies, avoided shareholder proposals by persuading the SEC that the proposals fell within the ordinary business of a company or did not have economic relevance to that company. But now the balance of power seems to have shifted back to the hippies the SEC effectively, deleted the ordinary business exclusion instead. It will quote, no longer focus on determining the Nexus between a policy issue and instead will look at whether the proposal raises issues with a broad societal impact. Such that such that they transcend the ordinary business of the company. Are you with me? I love it. Yeah, Hester Peirce loved it. This is it. This is a big one for the stakeholder capitalists, let's be honest. And and luckily because we're in America and when when the Biden presidency is over and we go back to Republican this all be reversed anyway because this is the way, like, can I, you know, can I actually just summarize really succinctly what you just said. So if you think our audience, don't you calling them dumb more or less? If you the SCC is said, if you think the company is a dirtbag to you or Society, you can now bring a proposal to them. Why not? That's it, that's it. That's seems to make sense. They're not dirt back. This is like, this is just like, you know, all my, my Jesus fanatic friends, trying to prove to me that Jesus exists. It's like, you know, we're on the Seesaw. They're like, yeah, he is he, you know, there's a lot of questions that, that we could follow. I love that. I just move on another new shareholders are challenging drug dealers. Specifically. Shareholder proposals are asking big drug to start sharing its damn covid covid vaccines with the rest of the world at Johnson & Johnson's. Upcoming annual meeting shareholders, will have a chance to vote on an AUX fan, proposal to force the company to release, its covid-19 vaccine pricing strategy and at more Danner advisor. Similar. Similarly shareholders will vote on whether the company should study the feasibility of sharing vaccine technology to help increase Global Production. So, yeah, this is your alternative democracy at work. I mean really if this is effective, It means a pesky nerdy stupid. Shirley proposal. Actually could save lives, right? I mean, that's pretty crazy. I know, Emma's like shut up, Amy, move on. And finally, Kraft, Heinz has agreed. This is a win, Matt. A wynncraft Hines agreed to set a goal to reduce total virgin plastic use. Was that total virgin plastic use its plastic. That hasn't had a text yet following the filing of a Chevrolet proposal and engagement with as you So here we go, so good. So yeah, I was gonna pick on the brain. I love you as you so I know you. Some of you listen to us. So come on, reach out to us. The proposal asked Kraft Heinz to report on how the company would reduce plastic packaging, including planned reduction strategies or goals materials redesigned blah blah blah. However, after craft High degree to set, substantial virgin plastic packaging reduction goals, as you sew with Drew proposal. That's it. This is how share Works. See that. Wow, not even a vote. They're like fine, we'll deal. Oh, well, I love speaking of backroom dealing on. Are you ready for this segue? Yeah. Okay. So you ready for this segue? Yeah, the Bureau of investigative journalism, which sounds eerily made up yeah. Reported this week that BlackRock was telling the Texas oil regulator to ignore Larry Fink's climate pledges That's right Wayne Christian 70 year, 71 year old Texas, Republican. Ex-oil commissioner was in a meeting with Dahlia blast. The head of external Affairs for BlackRock and a group of other black rockers where they told him that BlackRock super loved oil, a wicked lot well for Wayne from Wayne's leaked email quote. It was also nice to hear that BlackRock didn't mean or no longer believes many of the disagreeable things, the company and its the CEO Mr. Fink have said about the oil and gas industry, First of all, disagreeable what century is this is anybody says I might I might really okay Wayne, I'm gonna talk to you. I know you're listening. I know you're a big fan. I'm gonna calm your oily snowflake heart with the trip, down member Fink Lane, Blacklock loves your money. And here's the evidence, one Fink letter at a time. Are you ready for this? I'm going five years of finkler. Here we go. Let's do it. From 2017, Larry Fink letter to CEOs, the words climate and sustainability do not appear like anywhere. That was not a letter 17. That's a long time ago, man. Are you starting to feel better, Wayne maybe, Wayne's feeling a little better now from 2018. Yeah, Larry. Fink's letter. One mention of the word environment and I'm pretty sure he was talking about operating environment, not like the environment. Sure. You don't even know, just guessing. No, he was. This was the first of Fink's. Companies must have purpose letter series when you went to that. No mention the environment 2018. But don't worry Wayne digging up Gooey dinosaur remains counts as a purpose. You're still good it's 2018 still good 2019 Larry thinks letter Zero mentioned of climate environment sustainability. Wayne. What do you worry about? What we? What was disagreeable. 2020 Larry Fink letter. Oh, Wayne climate, what's the number one? Word in the letter, the number one, in the letter. So maybe he doesn't have a point, Matt. Oh no, hold on to say wait Wayne hold on. I'm reading the fine print disclosure Calamity products. No thermal. Oh here it is. Quote as we move to a low-carbon world investment exposure to the global economy will mean exposure to hydrocarbons. For some time, that means until while the low carbon transition is well underway, the technological and economic realities, being the transition will take decades. As a result, the portfolios, we manage will continue to hold exposures to hydrocarbon economy as a transition advances. Wayne. Go we dinosaurs for decades. Yeah, this you're fine. And if you don't believe me, let's go to 2021. Yeah, let's go one more year, 2021, Larry Fink letter, quote, no issue ranks higher than climate change, on our clients list of priorities. But yeah, hold my glass Wayne because here it is. Quote, a successful transition one that is just Equitable and protects. People's livelihoods will require both technological innovation and planning over decades, That. Cage that's code for when win all OS rich white dudes are dead. Like right? Yeah decades. Let's just wrap this up with 2022 and make sure Wayne you have nothing to worry about. This is the capitalism. Capitalism rules letter, righty? Yeah, quote. From the letter. Wayne's. Really unhappy about listening well divesting from entire sectors or simply passing and carbon intensive sex assets from public markets to private markets will not get the world to Net Zero and BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy C. Wayne capitalism is awesome. Capitalism is just storytelling, we love Are and shit. Let's go make some money out of that. Oh, oh, we also love burning stuff. We can make money out of that too. Capitalism is about winning Wayne winning. It's not woke. It's winning rest easy tonight. In your 71, year old bed because BlackRock has your backstory Things. How does, how does Larry know that divesting from entire sector's will not get the world in Missouri? That he said it full divestment. What if it was full? I must know. Secondly, Wayne play, our March sadness tournament with us. We actually have black rock in the tournament. I mean, you could root for your favorite team and this is exciting Wayne. There's no oil and gas in there either way. So you don't even have to like worry that you're going to betray your sector. All right, let's get back to boring. Matt, thank you for that matter. I actually enjoyed that. Although, I feel more depressed. Look. BlackRock, is this black rock is I think I'm sorry, I'm starting to more fully realize that 2050 is just code for. It's like a dog whistle to old white rich men saying, relax. You're gonna live your whole lives being like fat and Rich and happy nothing's gonna happen. Like you're like something might happen many decades from now, but don't worry about it. We're just, we're just greenwashing the back window of the Tesla Wayne will be 100 and 4 years old when this matters. So, okay, relax, let's get back to the alternative to democracy because I do want Matt to catch a little sleep because he does work harder for this company. Let's look at shareholder, vote, very different companies, Walt Disney and Tyson Foods. First, let's talk about the actual democracy, Walt Disney. This is a democracy people, you know, that the Disney Family isn't even in on the ownership of this company. Miraculously, I don't even know how the hell that happened. The two big owners here are Vanguard and BlackRock, which is not surprising because they're basically owners everywhere but this is an actual democracy. One share, one vote. Here's what I learned this year. That just had their their annual vote the shareholders, really love the hell out of the directors. I mean, they love love their board. You don't see this very often but they love these people, big, big, wonderful Bob chapek, 99% of the vote. I mean, this dude is on it. All right. Moving on. I like that. I like, the whole country is polarized for every election except shareholders. I love directors. Here we go. Uh shareholders are getting warmer and warmer on ESG. Proposals, I'm seeing this across the board. Actually we got 33% say yes, on a report on lobbying policies 39% said yes to to reduce the ability to call special meetings. 35% say yes. On a report, evaluating human rights and here an actual win, 59%? Oh, yes. A report on pay gaps across race and gender. I'm gonna call this a win for Abigail Disney. She's been. Yeah, for years. I'm guessing. This is why this past at Disney because here's the weird thing, the same Pavo got 85% support. So I don't I don't understand shareholders. Okay. Lastly and most mysteriously with only three percent of the vote A workplace. Non-discrimination audit and Report was absolutely destroyed. Why? Abigail Disney didn't talk about it but no, but all the other numbers. Everything was in the 30s. Why? That one I really do. Wish BlackRock Vanguard, I'll eat people. Can you please call us? We do love you, I want to hear why I don't get it, you know, I just did a bit on BlackRock loving capitalism and not caring about, they're not. Alright, let's wrap it up with Tyson Foods because we love to point out fake public. Companies Tyson Foods is a fake public company. This is a Tyson family's company, they actually only own. There's about 360,000 shares there. They only own 70,000 of them, but they're worth 10 votes each so effectively. They don't they they're voting power is over 70% of the vote and in fact, not everybody actually vote for so they're effective. Voting power is 76%, yeah, I did the math, I did. Wow, I can do simple math. Does that the abstention? Yeah, and this is how fake this company. Is a fake of a public company. Is they don't even do say, on pay every year, it's every three years. Despite the fact that the policy changes year to year, they want you to vote arbitrarily ever three years. So what was that better or worse than Berkshire Hathaway? Which in their CEO pay ratio disclosure this year, said that their median Oakley got a promotion so they're no longer the median employee anymore. It was like a joke. Ah, well, everything's a joke with Charlie. Munger, uh, what else happened to Tyson Foods sustainable? Packaging efforts that was a shareholder vote. It actually received 58% of the vote if you're not a Tyson family member, That's exciting, right? So well would be if it was a real public. All the shareholders, the company, 58% of them, supported a sustainable packaging efforts. But yeah, because the Tyson family, dominates this company. It actually only turned out to be 14% of the vote. So this is why you should reject fake public companies Larry Fink. I know you secretly love us because we're challenging, we challenge you, you know, you need a little bit of intellectual challenge in your world. It makes you smarter person. Larry. Thanks A Bridge Too Far divest and all fake. Public companies immediately just stop the scam, it's it's nonsense, stop it. They're private companies, let them let them go off into the private Market. One final thing for you, Matt, I thought you might be interested in. There are two Tysons on the board, John Tyson and Barbara Tyson one more million voters. Hey John over Barbara John hated more than Barber. That's true. Babs is way nicer. Okay, I'm just saying, I just, it's a new one. So I enjoyed Why I get a, why, what was John up to last year? I want to well, like I love it. When like little musk gets more votes than Elon Musk. Like that is a bit. Is a, it's a fetid character. No. Oh, but John and Barbara SAT words, I don't know what's going on. John Barber and again, Tyson family board members. Please reach out. We actually have a board member just agreed to come into our show. We'll as a fancy expert. I will more about that later. So Board members, you can reach out to us. Don't be afraid. Yes, you don't be too. Yeah, especially if you're one of the Tysons. Yeah I'm looking John Donnie King Kevin McNamara. Whoever come on, John Tyson, Barbara Tyson Mike Tyson. I don't care any Tyson, I'm done. We are free float media. This was business pants. It was woke Wednesday. If you like this, tell someone about it. If not come back tomorrow. When we have another show for you and Friday, we have an expert know. We have. I'll say we have an exciting. We have exciting list. Are you the data Queen came back from her special fancy conference. She got a whole bunch of friends, Matt, we're not experts coming, we got experts, I'm gonna break some, I'm gonna break some like, breaking his little bit. We have a potential board member joining us. Yeah, we have a dude, at one of the most famous ESG firms. Now ever the most big name dropping I've ever heard keep going, we have well, Well, we gotta confirm it all. We've got a dude who places helps Place board members like that was part of his career. We've got a columnist from Bloomberg, you've got there so we have got some academics talking about gender endemics, we got a turn. Okay, yeah experts. Yeah. They're calling to play the stupid, good game with us comes. Check that out. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll talk to you then goodbye. Moon.