Transcript
Live. From the east side of the eastern. And it, I need a shower edition of business pants. It sure is join. As always, by Emma, deliquio and Matt Mardi. 151, I'm the unslap worthy kid in the corner and today's bag of used bags, called March 29th. 2022. Matt. You don't do that thing anymore. Where you're like surprised at the date. Are you just resigned to life? I'm excited for April. I'm counting down to April. When it feels like it's gonna get Damian does diversity, head scratchers. Matt does anti-walk shareholders and Emma does lurkin, I think. Emma's Larkin. I love it. Here we go. I'd like that the day she's lurking is the day. She has the least delay, she's like on us. It's like finally. Here goes, there's a lot. We got a lot. Let's get right to it. Come on, stop talking. Here's a weird one. I found Coca-Cola company has officially walked away from race-based Staffing. Requirements for law firms. Doing work for the company. Following blowback from some investors. Right. And then and the removal of the executive who developed the plan. So Matt, this one actually ties into you. I didn't even mean it to tie into your story, but somehow we get there, here we go. So in 2021 coax top lawyer that's general counsel Bradley Gayton announced one of the legal Industries most rigorous outside counsel diversity programs. He said, at the time, we will no longer celebrate good intentions or highly unproductive efforts that haven't and aren't likely to produce better Diverse Staffing. It's the results that we are demanding and will measure going forward. It was a great policy forced outside. Consul to staff, at least 30% of new matters with diverse attorneys. With at least half of that billable time going to Black lawyers in particular, it's not forget Coca-Cola headquarters in the black Capitol. The United States Atlanta, right? So this isn't so crazy. Gate and hope to increase the overall diverse billable hours, Staffing requirement to 50% within the next two years. So, ambitious project there. But here's what, here's what happened. The American Civil Rights project, I hate even saying that out loud because it's ridiculous. And this will just kind of where, you know, overlaps with mattress reporting. This is an anti-affirmative action group, they threatened to sue Coke over the policy. In fact, over the last few days, the acrp has sent letters to McDonald's Starbucks in Novartis threatening to sue over their policies as well. They said that the policies outlined appear to violate laws prohibiting discrimination based on race sex so they're taking the they're doing the anti-woke. Yeah, here's a brilliant. These jerk offs are the American Civil Rights project which does not represent civil rights and any level they have a genius anti diversity diverse board. The seven people four, people of color, and a female chair so they're really playing the game remarkable. Be well, that's brilliant. That's, that's so brilliant. It's hard to disagree with them, because look, how first they are civil rights. There are getting fortunately, and this instance, I don't know what Matt's gonna tell us, but in this instance, the acrp got exactly what it wanted. Because after eight months, only eight months as general counsel at Coca-Cola Gayton was fired. Okay, and in a definite coincidence. Wink, wink. Coca-Cola. Immediately. Put his new policy on pause. Yes, it did say pause. Oh yeah, so officially the course the company didn't say he was fired. They said he resigned And that he entered into a Consulting agreement as a strategic consultant to the chairman and CEO for a year. Yeah. And here's what that looks like. This is a major payoff this. What this, you know, this resignation he got four million dollar lump sum, he got Consulting fees of 5.3 million dollars and then he got monthly check of 667,000 dollars. so he's roughly getting, I don't know, do the math 15, 16, 17 million dollars, lots of resigned, And just so in case you're wondering, I know, you are surprisingly Bradley, gaten has not updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new made-up role as strategic consultant to the chairman CEO. I would be proud of that role. If I had that role like say at msci where I was on promotable, I would actually put that on my LinkedIn profile that's important but he clearly knows it's a bunch of bulshit. So here's what, here's what Coke did. Here's what they're saying. Now they're saying that that policy never existed. It never went into effect actually. oh, so this one so you can't pause the policies that never existed though. So they're just like, don't worry, like never happened. Despite the 50 million dollars. We're paying for this guy. And basically, I looked at the Consulting agreement, it's there's one line about all the money he's getting, and there's 4,000 lines about a non-disclosure agreement. So basically it was a shutup, the new coach General console. Just just to be to play the game right here. Monica, Howard Douglas is all so black. So you know, then they know what they're right. They know what they're doing there and sadly coaxed message is like a warning shot. I found an article from law.com called lawyers of color. Have already concluded the worst about gatens exit as Cocoa's top lawyer. So this is a pretty big deal, you know, it's a kind of story that will not exist anywhere else other than the fine. Shed that we work on of. But this is a, this is a crazy story. Is Congress to conservatives trolling like everyone else by calling their group, the American Civil Rights project, and then getting a black lawyer, one of very few Council lawyers who are black after eight fired after monthly. For a policy of trying to promote inclusion and diversity through through policy, congrats to them. That's receiving their goal of limiting. Black sick representation has existence as go. I'm gonna take a cue from you here. And I'm gonna talk about how how to do this. Alright, are you ready for this? Yeah. So, the alternative democracy that is proxy. Voting, we talk about it all the time is long, been a Bastion of independent gadflies and left-leaning ESG, folks, basically poking the greasy underbelly of Corporations. All in the grand effort to create transparency around the shity things that companies do in fact. I'm going to say right here, right now that these petulant shareholders are entirely the reason you have the acronym, ESG. Without them. There's no disclosure Control Data. No, whoa, corporations is no nothing. And here are some examples of what I am talking about. Some shareholder asks, for more ESG data. From the Eli Lilly 2020 proxy. There was a request for a board diversity policy. Why? Because quote, we believe that boards that incorporate diverse perspectives, can think more critically and oversee corporate managers more effectively by providing a meaningful disclosure around potential board. Members shareholders will be better able to judge how well, suited individual board nominees are for the company. Shareholders. They just want diverse perspectives, they don't want cronies. That's the backbone of the argument for women and people of color on boards. Or how about, how about this from the 2017 Duke Energy proxy. There, they're asking for transparency around lobbying. Quote as shareholders, we encourage transparency and accountability in our companies, use of corporate funds to influence legislation and regulation. Shareholders. They just want to know how Duke Energy is subverting democracy. I mean, Duke gave 75% of its money in 2016 to conservative candidates. Mostly through like dark, money and packs trying to Lobby to neuter. The clean air and water act. This becomes a risk because we can't like drink water and breathe air. Or. Lastly, how about this classic one from the 2022? Coca-Cola products. You ready for this? Brand new. This is speaking of Coca-Cola. Quote. The Coca-Cola company's chief executive officer is also board chair. We believe these roles each with separate different responsibilities that are critical to the health of a successful. Corporation are greatly diminished when held by a singular company official, thus weakening its governance structures board, Cherry dependents, It's like classic ogs OG does, right? Oh, stop consolidating influence with the CEO start getting accountable. How can shareholders exert influence by making sure all that influence isn't with one inevitably white guy acting as board and board, chair and Company CEO. So all the all that said, what I'm about to say right now might shock you I'm here to tell you, hold on, to something actually study yourself. Hold on. You've been trolled woke, leftist, ESG, Elite liberal Soros, child porn communist immigrant loving, gay, white, radical progressives. Yeah, we have Here's the misleading headline, from yesterday, quote, conservative activists file record shareholder proposals. That's right. Every one of the proposals is I just read were submitted by conservative think tanks among them the most prominent. Now, I'm not joking about any of this. The most prominent are the National legal and policy Center. Nice innocuous name and the national Center for Public Policy research. All pretty innocuous name. They're not clever with the naming, there's a reason. Yeah, this year, this year, they submitted a quote record number from 16 last year to 19 this year, of course, conservative Financial Times. It's 16 to 19 proxies like separating board chair and CEO roles at Coke or issuing, a human rights report this year at Disney. Jokes on us, ESG crowd, they really got us. Good. So good. In fact they got featured on Fox News recently, as part of Laura Ingram's, the angles day where they are apparently. Apparently they are exposing woke corporate hypocrisy. Think they think. If you think it's okay for Disney to take a stand against the don't say gay bill in Florida? Well, how about helping Communists? Kill uyghurs. You hypocrite? That's why they're asking for a human rights reported Disney, let's be clear. Conservatives didn't care that uyghurs existed until they could use it as a political point. But I because obvious because they I didn't exactly see them standing up for like a pressed women under the Taliban or anything like that but Disney hypocritical wokeness does have a nice ring to it and this in a nutshell. is the great misconception about ESG that Larry Fink got Cracks. Correct. ESG. Is not woke. It is data. And if you want proof, Okay, here it is. The proxy I read to you, from 2017, filed to Duke Energy by the national Center for Public Policy research. This is not a joke. Was a copy paste of the same proxy filed in 2016 by Mercy Investment Services, a group of nuns. The nuns categorize their critical Mission as again, not a joke, saving the Earth being anti-racist being non-violent and protecting diversity. The conservative think tank copied and pasted the woke proxy from the year before. And filed it with energy. So difference between the two, The difference between the two was in the statement of support Mercy Investment Services stated that Duke's lobbying against regulation of coal. Ash basically posed environmental and reputational risks, and lobbying through trade groups, created, a lack of transparency. That's why they wanted a report on lobbying, The ncpr use the same language and trolled the nuns by saying, they want to transparency because Duke Energy should be quote, proud of its lobbying to protect its quote pro-business, pro-growth initiative. They wanted to, they wanted to expose, I'm so confused. Keep going. Duke. They wanted to explain. They wanted to energy to release the same show that the woke nuns wanted so they could show off how they're actually protecting themselves by lobbying. They trolled the nuns by asking for the same exact but they don't they don't explicitly troll. The nuns right? The implicitly troll them. Do they mention the nuns? No. No. They literally took every paragraph of the nuns statement of support, including the nun saying you are part of the Business Roundtable. We want to know what you're doing with them and said, you are part of the business route table. We want you to be proud of what you're doing with them, like, they took like every segment and trolled them. And they asked for the same output. You guys know that's what we want. Yeah. Like you didn't, you didn't dwell woke the corporation. You effectively are just asking for the same thing. I love everything about this. It's all Kabuki theater. When you can get super woke, nuns who routinely talk about positive impact, investing and Scott Shepherd, who's the head of ncpr quote, free enterprise project, who said at CPAC the conservative, you know, like, basically Lollapalooza that liberals call it a quote, stakeholder capitalism, but it's really the real Insurrection. You just got those two groups to agree on what they want, isn't ESG, just the data grab, is it anything? But a giant data grab And side note, here Scott, The Business Roundtable actually called its stakeholder capitalism. Not not us. We didn't call it take her when they when they agree on what they want, the Business Roundtable and the nuns it's just data, right? so, I want to summarize by saying, There is no anti-woke proxy. There's just proxies and the alternative democracy Works America. Because finally, we got something right. It's all about transparency. It's all anybody wants, including you conservative sounds. So it's like good news. We're all gonna end up in the same place. Anyway, it's, it's kind of like the toilet Theory or like the is there a toilet Theory? I don't even know. I love. I just love watching. Laura Ingraham. Say that we're exposing Disney through a report on human rights, Well, all like I that's because they're woke and that's not. I mean, is it? It's a love it, it's a good one. That ESG practitioners are not necessarily liberal they've they've they might very well be liberal. But that just need disclosure, they just wanted to know what the fuck is going on, so that we can analyze right? I mean, so thanks for helping us out. I guess, I actually I don't even, I'm not even gonna say things because I don't really want to be a friend. I just looked at their leadership, I don't really want to be friends with those people. I will say, I read a lot of rocks for you today from these people and some of them are really amazing like asking for a climate change report from Goldman Sachs because they wanted to see if they relied on science. They thought was dubious but they still get a climate change report out of Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs saying like this is how we use climate change and then like and then what we got more transparency. So it's great. They, they've asked for lobbying and charitable donations everywhere, mostly because they're trying to find out who's giving the Planned Parenthood. So they can get angry at them. But then we know who else? They're giving to and corporations, just mind you. They don't exactly, they're not actually that political. They basically are taking like, stands on both sides all the time. Like this. Like we're surprised by him. It's more data, it's fantastic. The ESG Revolution as brought to you by concerning. This is really is just another Washington DC area, non-profit, just looking for a way to justify his existence. This is how they raise money that they don't really want to do anything all day long, which is a copy and paste from nuns. And when you copy a face from nuns, this is my favorite thing. Let's wrap up to today's all the diversity head scratcher. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to cut this one short. We're already running pretty long. I can. I'll open this up to discussion because I'm confused by this one. The NFL. Says all teams must add. Minority offensive coach, okay? That's the, this is what's been released. First of all, they don't mean a coach who offends people, right? They don't, they mean, is there another way of pronouncing that? Yeah, a coach on the knot. On the defense, not the special teams on the offense. But there is a reason behind that. Got me. Technically, they're saying that most head coaches come from the offensive staff. I've no idea. Why am I were talking about before maybe? Because you know, the offense actually is more associated with white people in the NFL, the, the line, the quarterbacks, like so maybe, like maybe it's the white part of the team and that's why they get all the head coaches. I don't, I don't think you can. I just start this off by saying that I couldn't find any information about this on the NFL's website. I'm not frozen, I'm just, I'm pause for dramatic effect. Like, they don't. Why do we care if they don't seem to care? Ah, this is why I don't get about the world, they got a bunch of other nonsense up there but they don't exactly showing this off. Okay, here we go. The coach can be a female. So this is the big news they're adding female to the language. Here, they're adding women, the coach can be a female. Or a member of an ethnic or racial minority, okay? That's the quote, according to the policy again, which I can't find the stupid policy, but this is supposedly adopted by the NFL owners and it will be paid. This, this position will be paid from a league-wide fund, they're not even making the teams pay, I don't really Write, I don't know what the hell is going on. It's like rent a woman. So here's also says, it says, some teams already have a coach or coaches in similar assistant roles, which will count toward the program. I looked, oh good. This was, I did not enjoy this. I looked at all, 32 teams offensive coach list and they all have at least one black coach, so I don't even know. All right, everybody. The best kind of came and find the stupid pulse. I don't know why you wouldn't publish the stupid policy but I I don't know if this has is gonna be a special position or or I don't even get it. Like I the whole thing just doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, it's kind of like bring your kid to work day. I don't even know. I don't really. I don't get it. I don't get it. All right, the good news here is that this was announced by the chair of the NFL diversity, Equity inclusion committee, which is a white, dude. I kind of, I just thought that was funny. I like that. Um, other than that, the oh, the, the NFL also, there's a commitment to increase diversity among ownership. And here's the commitment. They put out a quote saying that when they are evaluating perspective ownership group, the membership will regard it as a positive and meaningful Factor. If the group includes diverse individuals, that's the commitment. That's the commitment is we will view it. They put oh they put out that statement this I could find on the website. That's the statement, they proudly put out that they will think it's positive if you're a woman or black or something or whatever. I will say this, they did also announce a diversity advisory committee and there's no white dudes on the committee. These are outside people from the NFL, so I was like pretty shocked by that, but that's it. I'm wrapping it up there. I just don't get any of this. I just don't that talk about Kabuki theater. Matt, I just don't understand. Just don't get it. I don't get it. Helped me out. Um, so I'll say this as one thing that I need to make an addendum to yesterday. I did a whole rules. If you're going to slap somebody slap a stakeholder, what happened there, there's a new Step here. I missed a step, which is after you have your board, make a fake policy. Make sure you already comply with the policy. You don't have to do any changes. Like, if you've already got all the coaches, that's that. That's no brainer. That's a policy. You should just an act because it sounds great. That was Damian, Raleigh and I'm a lurking. I was Madness. Cardi, um we are free full media. If you are on the live stream stick around we'll discuss this. If you're on the podcast watch the live stream. Go to our YouTube channel and you can watch the discussion otherwise we'll see. You tomorrow, with more Biz New Gods. See you there.