Transcript
Ah, yeah. Oh Live from the Green Room at the CFA institutes podcast called sustainability story. Ooh, it's a plug there. Matt, plug for you. I feel magical Monday edition of business pants. Join is always by Emma desus alerting and Matt formerly known as ivy league. Egghead mascardi, how come you're not called that anymore? Um because no one ever called me that oh I'm Johnny Depp's least favorite Lyft driver. And today's molten back of moldy shape nuggets, Called June 13th, 2022, sexy story updates and sleazy academic papers. That's her Monday. Can you say, what's a moldy shaped nugget? What's molded shape? I can't I don't know that's up. There are right. I'm very excited. That answer all the answers. Here on Freeport, we got a lot to cover Matt. Let's get into it. Let's just quit our lives and do it matters. Start off with your favorite woke versus anti wolf. Yeah, let's do it. What do we got here? The headlines ESG forces. Vanguard BlackRock State Street to choose on abortion smaller. ESG managers recently filed abortion rights proposals at Major annual. General meetings including Walmart and Lowe's, hundreds more will follow demanding cost evaluation of abortion bands, including staff retention impact. So Matt, what are they gonna do? Can, what are they gonna do? Honestly, I'm gonna pick a body, you with a vote for this? Yeah. Well, I'm gonna headline that says, ESG forces someone to do ESG, forces ESG. What does ESG their? I mean to be fair, who's worth calm? I don't even know what that is. All right? A Biz. That's I'm pretty sure that's like, responsible investment Association Biz. Which means our own industry doesn't know how to use the acronym ESG. No wonder why. Okay, you're getting you caught? Up in semantics, I like this, you like it because it's gonna Force everyone to figure out what shareholders actually think about you vote against this, Larry Fink. Come on. Well, We'll find a way. All right, moving on scripted. Find a way man. I found a business pants hater. Oh really? Yeah, that's neat. That's North Carolina. Lieutenant, Governor Mark Robinson, he had these cringe-worthy comments. He said, First, he said, after claiming women's bodies aren't their own and that God, says abortions are wrong. Robinson is now claiming that Christians are called to be led by men. That's the quote called to be led by men not women, so, I guess we're wrong. We've been pushing women in leadership, since we started this company, but according to North Carolina, Governor Mark Robinson, we're full of shit. Not only are we full of shit, but the market got it, right? Because it's mostly led by men. So that's true. A guy speaking. Back to Black Rock extends a GM vote choice, to more Equity index clients. They are expanding how to control, how the vote our cast of annual meeting. I don't talk about but they're expanding their choice program. Okay. Who they? Let me tell you since their launch clients holding 120 billion dollars of asset to have a ticket control, the voting process and they claim it's up to 530 billion. Now the reporting on this is weird but it looks like 10% Of the people holding their funds. Now are taking control of their vote 10%. That's a pretty weak number. Yeah, this is that. What I like about this battle? Yeah, this is a battle of sloughing. No YouTube, no YouTube. No, you're gonna make the vote. We try know, we want to you make the vote because whoever makes the vote. Gets Ron DeSantis and Texas all up in, and not about how woke they are, and never want to do business with them again. I will say this to their credit Block rock was predicting the anti woke backlash because they did launch this back in last October. So this voting Choice program so they they were anticipating this like I guess I liked that there were using the word choice there. Good heading back to the abortion vote's coming up And finally, I have to vote on. Stefan Hoops has a new friend I guess. Here's the headline from The New York Times. Goldman Sachs. Is being investigated over ESG funds. The sec's investigating Goldman Sachs over its ESG investment funds funds that invest in company. We know what the issue investment, Yeah. Yeah. Yeahs agency is examining ESG mutual funds overseen by the Banks Asset Management unit. So, here we go, Matt. Yeah, all they're doing all the well actually, what they're gonna examine is the same thing. They did at bny Mellon, which is to say, you said their ESG funds Now show us what makes them ESG funds and if you can't show us what makes the ESG funds then we will charge you. Something people go and sex hire us we can help with all this this is all we do we tell you we do Consulting. Yeah I don't want to tell this. You see what is and what is new board? Saber metrics. Now we don't do Consulting. Forget that. I'm moving on. Let's talk about Kimball's brother, Elon. I'm gonna go to the bathroom while you talk about this. Uh, more big news in our governance category here. Matt, we've had a lot of high-profile resignations in the last few weeks months, Lots month or two Tesla board member Larry Ellison to step down. Oh yeah, which is a little surprising. He made a billion dollar investment in Tesla whole over at least one and a half percent of Tesla, which is extremely significant amount. It's been on the board for only four years. so, this is a This is a a moment at a Tesla. We don't know why he's leaving but it's it seems giving all the other crap. So, rolling around Elon, it seems important. I don't know, that's all I like the important, the the press release around this, the announcement, which is they, first of all, they have, it's a clash, its director classes, right? So that's just, it's a, it's a multi-class director system Larry Ellison, a class three director determined collectively with the nominating, and corporate governance committee and the board that he will not stand for re-election before, right? Like, I understand that there's literally no information, Except that they determined collectively that he won't do it anymore. Yeah, and yet Egon Durban over, Twitter gets voted out, but they, they determined collectively that they don't care. That's staying on the board. There's a lot of collective nomination. More from Elon. This is from fortune.com Elon musk's regulatory woes Mount as us moves closer to recalling Tesla, self-driving software, and a move. That could prompt a mandatory recall. That doesn't sound good for Tesla. That's a slow clap for a regulatory agency, doing something. And the business inside are also has this Elon musk's rant could signal a bigger problem. We kind of talked about this a lot but I'll give credit to Insider for listening to our show and then reporting on what we talked about. That's probably musk has been talking about a lot of stuff lately, Twitter Bots, Joe Biden, recession evils of working from home Business Insider saying all of musk's recent outbursts are simply misdirections that point the public away from underlying problems with Tesla. Tada honestly, we've been saying that for months that that well it's a method to our Madness. It's literally The Wizard of Oz like just don't pay attention behind the curtain. Look at all the fancy things that I could talk about because guess what, I got 90 million Bots. Following me, it's Donald Trump, Playbook say a thing so that everyone looks over there while you do a thing over here and it's masterful and I hate it. Let's move on to Zuck platforms, Inc. I like this is. Okay, now, it's just getting weird over. There's okay. What now is getting weird? Now, let me, I'll let me start with a smaller stories over at meta platforms. First, a story, Facebook's 2018 effort to boost Revenue elevated. Republican claims even at hyperlocal levels, a new study concludes that Facebook's 2018 emphasizes over Democratic content. I'm sure well, Chuck. Okay. Second this one. Oh, you're not gonna like this one. How does this sound to you met? Avers Yeah, that's right, Facebook announces, launch of metaverse academies across France, shame on you France. A Facebook's parent company, meta and a French digital training. Firm will launch a metaverse Academy in France for the new Academic Year. Here's a creepy quote from this program from Adam meta. The metaverse is the real world only better. Oh no, I don't like that at all, like that at all. And And shame on you France and metaverse all this in in the EU that just announced that they're upping the boards board quota to 40% for women across all of Europe. The target for this program is only 30%. Oh good. Well, Aim High. Um come on. Does this come? What about the nice 50%? What do you just come complete with meta student debt and maybe metal gearless. It's free, it's free. It's free. Oh, good. Yeah, this is like, handling the weed. You the kids, okay. Here's the truck. Here's the more trouble in story out of Facebook. I don't know the other two were not at all. Let's do another today. Today, the Wall Street, journal's reporting for the second time since Sheryl, Sandberg resigned that Facebook has been investigating Samberg since at least the fall for the possible misuse of corporate resources. Here's what's under review and tell me if you can hear a common theme Here, Matt, I'm listening, yeah, coming with about her being a woman. Oops, I give it away here. Under review. This is from the gun from The Wall Street Journal, whether she had Facebook employees engaged in work. That supported her lean in Foundation, okay? Whose mission is to Foster women's leadership and workplace inclusion. God, hey. Whether she pulls Facebook staffers into the writing and promotion of her second book, option b, which focused on overcoming the sudden death of her husband in 2015. And finally, whether she had diverted the time attention of Facebook employees to her upcoming wedding this summer and again, wedding on we knew was alleged, okay, but but still like, all of these seemed to have to do with Sheryl Sandberg as a woman. Know dealing with. Yeah. Okay. I guess that. Their. Partially because she's a woman that, I mean, do we think do we really think come on the S&P 500, there's a lot of men. Running those companies you're telling me they've never had their secretary be like, can you get my kid a birthday present? Because, I don't know when their birthday is, and they're using corporate resources, to do personal stuff, you telling me that's never happened. Never never, it's Facebook. Sheryl Sandberg. We got 30 instances of it. Every other, dude, this feels like the Martha Stewart like insider trading is bad. Doesn't it bad? Because this is, this is not a one-off. This is the third time that someone has leaked information to the Wall Street Journal. Again, this isn't to our AI Biz or whatever. This is the Wall Street Journal. Remember first? It was the Bobby Kotex story. Yeah. And then, yeah, as you pointed out, it was about playing the wedding, and now this new information. But what why the hell will they do? Really like how many of our listeners are Boston sports fans? But is this the Boston Sports? Yeah. Like yes, like Theo at whatever a Red Sox manager left, the Red Sox, they would find, you know, like he put a receipt to you know, shopping save in the in the wrong cycling container. I don't know what the blue Gatorade instead of the yellow raid, he smoked weed in 1974. Yeah, it would be Crashing them in the way out. It's ridiculous. And this is after like, so and and keep bearing in mind, this is Zach platforms. This isn't there aren't other people. There's not like an accountability like board. That is looking at your into Sheryl Sandberg. This is just Mark Zuckerberg. Effectively if there's a leak happening and there's actual investigations happening. It's just Zuckerberg saying we need to investigate this, right? Like going there's there's ample opportunity for Zuck to step up. Right? This second actually, he could call into business pants and say this, I know this is all but basically was our CEO. She was our CEO essentially made this company big and great and whoever's leaking. This is an ass, you know, you know, he's not doing that. Nobody like for first of all, nobody likes the dorm room mom and second of all, he's not doing that instead, he writes a really glowing letter about how like greater skin is and how happy he was. To have her for the years that she was there. And then and then we're finding out this little drip of leaks afterwards about how she was actually like CEO and she's you It's a good play, but the reasons they're planting though, are so, they're so crass. I'm sorry. It's just such a crap. I wonder if we're gonna learn about these things that metaversity about like how to use corporate resources. Let's talk about the acronym that Matt hates ESG. First, let's start with the climate crisis. You know, that's the E and ESG New Zealand, tackles climate change with cow burp, tax, a tip, the plan is adopted. The nation would become the first to charge Farmers for the methane emissions emanating from their livestock. That's right, cow burp. Tax New Zealand. Come on baby. Well. How does one? Okay. Okay, don't even two more headlines to depress. You women children more likely to be affected by climate change. And the second headline, scientific Scientific American Western Mega drought worst in 1200 years. Now, that's not just, just in case you missed, you thought you misheard that that's not 12 years. It's 1200 years worst. Yeah, in 1,200 years it could be actually could be longer because the scientific record of these events started around the year 800. So they really it's going back to the start of the study essentially. So as long as we have any sort of information that's how long okay, I'm moving on to the S part of ESG that's the stakeholders rule category. Google pays out 118 million dollars to female staff who earned less than their male colleagues to settle lawsuit. Unfortunately, that only comes to an average of 7600 per employee. Congratulations women's soccer team you finally made. They were Their originally seeking 600 million dollars. They're getting 118 million dollars and of course a Google. Spokesperson told said that they both sides agreed to settlement without admission of or findings. So they're made anything. Nothing happened and a story in a company that we've been following very closely for years. Now here's the headline, Two Dollar General stores were cited by OSHA for padlocking their emergency exits, shut this follows, a pattern of Dollar General stores obstructing access to emergency access. You know why they do that? That sounds terrible map. I want to tell you, I'm gonna tell you why a point tell me time wasting that's really bad. So I once worked at Blockbuster Video and I was like restocking shelves taking out trash and whatever. And one day I took the trash out and I took it out the back door of the building rather than doing the half mile. Walk around the mega Warehouse of, you know, shopping center thing to bring it to the trash. I went out the back door, I had the manager of the store, basically, tell me if I did that again. I was fired because and then accused me of stealing that's where they're worried employees are taking the merchandise out, the emergency exits and giving it to their friends. So importantly, Matt rather than following a regulation. Just easier to just padlock it and pay the 580,000 dollars of fines that it cost them. More importantly, Matt, No One Believes you, you realize because what trash does Blockbuster Video? How do you make Trash about you just renting video tapes and DVDs, tell you something about? Where's the track when people walk into Blockbuster Video, they are always, they're shedding their skin. You have a trash can that I can use and then they're throwing out three weeks worth of trash. All right, let's move on sticking in this category. Oh, Starbucks CEO. Howard Schultz says, that's the name of this cat. I've already Starbucks CEO. Howard Schultz says. On getting workers back to the office. These are all quotes from Starbucks, CEO, Howard Schultz. I think this is like, the 8th time. He's been CEO at Starbucks here. He says, I have been unsuccessful. Despite everything I've tried to do to get our people back to work. I pleaded with them. I said, I'll get on my knees. I'll do push-ups whatever you want come back. I did hear that there was a demand out of a Schenectady Starbucks. They were looking for an executive who could just do some push-ups and they would start working. uh, this guy seems to be a failure at his job, that's all, yeah, that's CEO Howard Schultz says, this is on why he opposes unionization. We know this is why he was brought back into to bust up the unions. He says, quote He said this is a little bizarre, right? He says, now I've said publicly, I'm not anti-union except for the thing that but, yeah, but the history of unions is based on the fact that companies in the 40s 50s and 60s, abused, their people were not in a coal mining business. We're not abusing our people. That's just a strange quote all together. I like it back because that yeah, with the other quote, Okay. Shops where he'll do anything to bring people back. Except And I'm pretty sure the history Union is not just solely centered on the 40s 50s and 60s in the little bit more new ones, too, it, but good try there. Howard Schultz. He also said about unions. We don't believe that a third party should lead our people. And so we are in a battle for the hearts and minds of our people. The Third Party is the people themselves, right? Like, that's, it's the union of the people. He said this about on the responsibility of CEOs to speak up. He said, it can't be convenient. It can't be about ringing the register in the world. We're living in, no company, no CEO, can hide, everyone knows everything. Everything you say publicly or privately is out there and so let's be sure that you're standing up for truth. What does any of that mean? I don't disagree with that mean. No. Is he the one who coined the phrase like speak your Capital teacher or that Melody Hobson us mellody Hobson. That was an interview with mellody Hobson. Who is the chair of the board of Starbucks at Starbucks about truth there? But there are on this this soapbox of speaking your truth. But as you pointed out before, like you can you get to Define your own truth though, right? So they prefer if you don't speak your truth to each other about, unionized about you, don't speak that truth? Yeah. And finally, I wanted to add this because I just thought it was like, silly and cute and stupid. All the same time here's Howard Schultz on the Mental Health crisis, he says if you ask our people, what are the two or three biggest benefits that Starbucks provide number one is Spotify. Oh yeah. And number two, is Lyra Health, that is the mental health that they provide their people. What? What's going on there. Number one, Number two. Is he doing what? I don't. Okay, let's move on. That's like that's. Yeah, number one is drugs. Number two is drugs, it's true. Actually when you think about it, let's finish up the ESG category. This is the G part of that category, this is the who owns your company part of the discussion. Let's talk about the NFL, the Washington commanders defensive coordinator. Jack Del Rio, deleted his Twitter account one day after he was fine for controversial comments, he made about the Insurrection. Last year, I want to remind you, Matt, that the Washington commanders are owned by Daniel Snyder. Who made his wife Cosi CEO as the primary measure to fight off allegations of systemic sexual harassment at the organization, this is who owns this company. Just reminding you. Well, the comments that he made, did he call the Like the events of January 6th. What he dust up? Like yeah. Well this is like man, talk. That's like bro, talk. That's these man. He's a man. I I mean Just a dust up. It's a little dust up. Here's another story NFL. The Cleveland Browns are firmly committed to Deshawn Watson their new quarterback despite the 24th lawsuit. Alleging, the QB of sexual misconduct, I'll remind you who owns the Cleveland Browns. It's a man named Jimmy Haslam. Who was a white man who inherited his daddy's Corporation. That's the pilot company. One of the 10 largest private companies in the US. So that's who owns the Cleveland Browns. Just in case. You forget who Jimmy Haslam is they actually tell me trial for fraud because they were overcharging, they were misleading investors in overcharging. So, but In fairness to the Browns, it was only the 24th. They don't have a threshold of not bringing in a quarterback, until you hit at least 25 Central Horizon complaints. Let me remind you two things, though, that, that contract giving to that guy is the biggest, the biggest guaranteed contract ever in the NFL, to this, man. Yeah, who is 24? But not 25. Damien. And secondly about the fraud at Pilot Corporation. Jimmy's daddy. Can't teach him everything about business true. So real, how dare you really? It's true? Come on, give me a break. That was it, can you imagine the father, son talks? Like where they're talking about other things and they're and at one point he's like, trying not to fraud but I can't teach you that's like a 2:30 a.m. after like, a fifth gym beam or whatever. Okay, let's go to the blowhard index. We've been covering users of Donald Trump's truth social social media Network claimed. There were suspended after posting about January 6 committee hearings. This was that remember this is the company that promised a free speech platform. It's maybe this is a peek into Elon musk's Twitter. Thank God. I mean I don't think you need to say anything about the irony of people on the right. Not wanting to hear anything. Considering Fox News did not hold broadcast the hearings of something. They didn't want to hear about while they are busy complaining about the that their free speech is somehow limited continue and this other one on the blower index. I actually, I pulled for Emma, but Emma is really lurking and not here today. The headline was that cathie Woods Ark invest has seen all its gains wiped out. But investors aren't losing faith. I just want to hear. Emma Scott and puking her mouth is only doing it because of face Jesus told her to And finally, I'm sure you're all relieved and all of our updates. All updates stories. Let's let's close the book on the on the Russian. McDonald's story over a dozen former McDonald's restaurant in Russia, reopened Sunday with different branding in a new name. The name is called is in Russian is Fox Sunoco, which translates to Tasty and that's it. Well, done. Are you, are you disturbed by that? A little bit though tasty and that's it like that you don't do anything else. Tasty. Shut up and eat it. It's tasty. So there's a new logo and a new and the new slogan, too. Here's a new slogan. The name changes love stays. I do. Remember they did, Infuse a lot of those Burgers. Previously, would love. Okay, that's all I got. Oh, it's time for Matt mascardi. I mean it's not a new segment. What is this segment? I was calling it egg head say, but you I just you were calling it all morning a pre-production nerd alert and I think that's a better name anyway. So it's now nerd alert. All right. Here's your nerd alert where someone smarter than us, says something smarter than us about something. We wish we understood. I have a pop quiz for you, Damien, rolas? Oh yeah, which free float staff member is more likely to be discriminated. Again, is it a Matt mascardi, B, Damien Rallis or C Arianna Burana, Shea I mean, do I know obvious? Do I have to even answer this question if you're thinking Ari because she's a woman and she is also Peruvian you'd be right? I'm thinking you'd be right, you were right about that. But if you said Ari, because her last name is a shit show for a white dolls, for a white, dude to pronounce, it's hard. Yeah. According to this paper, you'd also be alright. Here's the paper. Oh the name of the paper is, how do you say your name? Difficult to pronounce names and labor market outcomes? Ooh, I like this. You can guess where this is going the paper actually succinctly summarizes and adds dozens of citations to the ways. Labor participants are discriminated against citing multiple papers. Here's the list and seriously being a 40. Something white male has never been so good. You can get discriminated against in the labor market academics. At proven this for your age, race ethnicity, national origin religion, sexual orientation, physical appearance, and add to that list, how hard it is? To say your name. That is the contents of this paper. The paper actually created something called name fluency ratings, which is how easy it is for a native English speaker to say your name. And looked at outcomes of phds, getting academic jobs after they get their phds for 1500, candidates and found phds with hard to pronounce names. Despite the fact that they had similar backgrounds ended up at lower tier programs, non-tenure positions and non-academic jobs, more often between 2016 and 2818. Here's another pop quiz for you. You know what Matt this is all making sense because first of all, I got sent to a speech therapist. I couldn't pronounce my own name. What does that say? What does that say about me? When I was a child? I couldn't say the, I can't understand half of what you say now, and everyone always call me rayless and, you know, Rallis and so that's why I wasn't promoted. Is that what you're saying? Well here that's the only reason, right? I'm gonna give you another pop quiz, which is which of these authors of the paper. Do you think proposed the study is it? Number one, Steven Wu of the Department of Economics at Vassar or number two, queue of the Department of Economics at Hamilton. And the second name is spelled qi. Space GE the way. I feel like the way you intentionally butchered the second name, I'm going to go for it. I don't know how to pronounce it. I'm a white guy. I think it's it. Is it not she gay? She there you go. Yes, you're a winner to wrap up here. I want to give you a list of CEOs. By 2021 pay. Let's see how many names regardless this is brilliant. I love this for my exhaustive research. I actually I I proposed the following tests. Is it hard for me? A white middle-aged man. Born in privilege who aggressively asserts himself without knowledge to say their name. And if it is Ivy League ahead, then I'm pulling their name out as discriminated against, okay? Shout out, first of all, to equilar for providing this list because the amazing part of this list is they actually give you data with like pay ratios and it's just down the internet, they just put it there but it turns out the paper suggests that white people will discriminate against other white people, if their names are hard to pronounce, this is the first strictly believe that easy to believe. Yeah. So, here's the list. My short list of who's probably discriminated against for having shity names from the top 100 by pay. These are your hard names. Son, Jay Merrell tra. Yeah of Micron don't overdo it. Don't over mistreat. I know. I have to think about it. You could be more retra meh. I don't know. It's I think it's more rotora. He's number 19 on the list for pay with 25 million 316,000 or 25 million 316,725 million. Yeah, and a 391 to one pay ratio. Okay Darius, Adam zick. Chick. Probably Adam's chick. Adam chick. Yeah, of Honeywell, he's number 39 on the list, 20 million, or 953,260. Andrew cesari, I'm going with cesari, or is it consider Italian? Yeah. I'm saying it. Like an Italian would. Yeah. I I'm thinking to chair could be it actually. It's pretty good. You a minute to chair and I'm tired. All right, keep going Corp CEO. He's number 70 on the list 225 to one pay ratio. And then finally, number 91 on the list, Philip Morris the CEO. J6 old. Check old, check old Chad's poet write Json. Yeah, check old check. Yeah, yeah, yeah, look, there's a lot of in the Polish. There were only four on a list of 100 that I could not pronounce at a glance that tells you something. These are the most paid CEOs. Only four of them have hard to pronounce names. These are us companies, four, with hard to pronounce names. Does tell you something, does tell you, I feel like it does, I don't know. And it does tell me that every one of their biographies, Should actually read. Climbing to a place where I could make between 200 and 1100. Times the median employee was fraught with barriers that we don't talk about like being generally white with a hard to pronounce last name. I think that needs to be and every one of their bios that they were discriminated against no matter what because that's what the world say. That's the end of my second not to take you seriously but I'm going to what this follow-up question? Do you think that if we could reach out to the authors of this report? Could we ask them whether this is all. So part of the, the intentionality of Silicon Valley hiring as we've been pointing out a lot of new CEOs from East Asia. Because there's something about the week because we think they're doing it because the because the people and then the names are hard to pronounce. And there's a mysterious type of person and because they're trying to hide behind these people do they not? They think there's some Credence to this Theory. Yeah, I think actually, the vast majority of them have very easy to pronounce names, Sundar pichai, not that. Because we've been saying it for a long time. I mean, you look at his name, it says it up. Originally, I had a look at, I didn't, okay, if you just said, it's not easy. Either. His name was John Carlos Nadella. You'd be like, oh, that's an Italian dude. Like that's but you but, you know, it's such an adult. Because we've been saying it for years, same with paragraph wall at Twitter, I'm probably won't be there very long. But no, he well and there's your perfect example. The guy who's name is hardest to pronounce. Is the first one, who's probably gonna get candy. That's all we got. You have any other plenty, that's not funny. You want to hear from me more. I just want to say A shout out to the authors of this. I love this paper. It was I loved I. Yeah, it sounds amazing to me. I love all the. The nerd alert reports that you pull out every week. This is one of my new favorite segments. Probably one of my top 80 favorites segments, that we do, here you go finally made the top 80's. I'm not scared. We are free float media. Yes, tomorrow. Emma might be back tomorrow, but maybe No pressure. No pressure but we well a little bit of pressure a little bit. Yeah, get on the show you jerk. All right, that's all we got. We'll see you then. Goodbye.