Transcript
Hey hey hey, it's business pants. now, if you're watching the live stream, Using yourself. No, you're not business pants. You're a guy like one guy, what is that? It's true. I'm just one guy, but I'm live from the dark and of a flashlight. For an anti woke. Wednesday edition of business pants. Damian is out sick today with agoraphobia and I'm a double a rated ESG entity on a scale of three to six stars. Yeah, that makes sense right in the ESG. Adjacency that is October 9th 2022. Some ESG Kabuki theater. Oh, everybody likes theater woke washing And anti woke washing. This news broke the morning. Which is. Missouri. Well, does the latest state to divest from BlackRock over ESG initiatives for their quote, woke political agenda? Yes. Another conservative political appointee is finally shoving. The blunt end of the stick, in the eye of BlackRock, the woke, communist money manager, and in response. Here's what BlackRock had to say. They issued this statement Oh, that's it. That's right. They stuck it to him with deafening silence. I said nothing. But they did manage to Rebrand their division. To lean a little lesson, to the sustainability sound of it. They stopped voting on climate proposals this year and climate change can wait a year anyway, and they put up a new website. And, which they calmly, and quietly describe that they are, in fact, capitalists and fiduciaries, and that their clients have many choices. And they can use all the information at their disposal to. Oh my God, it's so fucking boring. Hey, BlackRock. I got news for you. Nothing you're doing works. Larry Fink. Last week was quoted as saying, he's being attacked equally by the left and the right in the ESG fight quote. So I'm doing something right. Unfortunately, he said, quote facts are not important with some subgroups in this country. Welcome to America, you idiot facts. Haven't been important here for seven years. I mean, are you really longer are we kidding? Who are you kidding? But don't worry Larry. I have fixed your problem. I have a three-step solution to fix. What is your constant problems with this ESG? Kabuki theater? It's not going away. It's an election issue. It's gonna go right on to the presidential election in two years. So let's let's just fix it right now. Here's solution. Number one. Stop doing business in these states, sue them for slander, and breach of contract. If you're like every other multi-national corporation you make like all your employees signed, forced arbitration clauses. You can't be seriously telling me that you didn't put in your contract with Missouri and every other full State a sentence that says, oh, FYI, while you're while we're managing your money, you can't talk shit about us. Just sue them for slander. Option number two, can't sue them fucking yank, them, close their accounts. Take 100 billion, hit to AUM, most contracts, allow you to kick out and investor. So give that a shot, leave them like a shity date. You had when you were 24 when they spilled wine on your pant suit made you order Buffalo tongue just quote for fun and then said you could talk more about tongues later your place. Don't let yourself be politicized even if it costs you and if you can't yank them, Then how about trying being woke? They're calling you that anyway, stuff fucking around, try to convince your world. You don't have to convince anybody, your capitalists we all know your capitalists Republicans don't care. Just be woke. Instead, go back to talking about stakeholders and how they matter climate change, how it's going to fuck you up. No matter what you do, maybe even vote vote on these issues. And why not just say investing in fossil fuel is like a long bed on Polaroid, be a winner stop hiding. What do you doing? Elsewhere and Kabuki theater news. Texas school asks, UBS to refund after energy, boycott or label. Yes, I read that to you correctly. A Texas school district was forced to stop using UBS, who they were whose under their bonds? Because the State Comptroller put UBS on the state enemies list, that's enemies of fossil fuels. unfortunately, the school had already paid them to do some stuff and now they had to switch to a different Investment Bank. So, what did the Texas school district decide to do? They sued UBS. For being added to the enemy list. Not the Comptroller for costing, the money, just let the stupidity sink in. Is it sunk? Oh, does anybody happen to have any crypto notes on how capitalism and capital markets work? Because last time I checked, when you pay something to do something and then decide you don't want them to do it anymore. For no, fault of that person, you still owe them the money. Being a woke is getting expensive. And finally in our coordinated ESG, Kabuki theater, I want to give you a Dilbert update. We have a comeback to Dilbert and so long till it's like our fave. First up in our Dilbert update, how Dilbert author, Scott Adams doesn't realize. There's an s in ESG and it usually means employees here are some of the things on Dilbert from just the past week. This is the boss saying, tell all the work from home people to come in Friday for an employee meeting. His secretary says, how will I explained to them? The sadistic absurdity of your request and the boss says, tell them. We're like a family and I missed them. And the secretary says, does this fall under the umbrella of domestic violence? That's right. The freedom to work from home. Guess who measures that? ESG. Yes, she does that. Oh how about this one from last week, ready? This is Dilbert. My pay is not keeping up with inflation. The boss says, perhaps you could cultivate an abundant mindset. And then the boss pauses and says, do you have any other problems I can solve for? You know, that's about Income inequality. And living wages. My paid doesn't Keep up with inflation. You know who tracks that? Yes she yes she did that's an ESG data point. I collected it wherever I could But next up Dilbert author. Scott Adams thinks that Dei diversity. And climate change are not real issues. ESG bad. This from yesterday, the boss says Tina, there's an opening for director of AI and you are one of the people. I'm considering Tina says, I have no qualifications for that job. The boss says, that's okay. The AI will tell you what to do. Tina says, are you only offering me the job to meet your ESG and Dei goals? And the boss says I'm not allowed to say, Yes, no, you're totally right. That's what ESG does. Is she's not a mandate Scott. It's not it's not something anyway and the last one I'm going to read out is this one from October 15th. Dilbert says, I calculated the impact. Of meeting all of our company ESG goals for the environment. The ripple effect from our actions will Doom the entire country of el Bonilla to an icy death. Can we blame climate change to which the boss says? I was thinking either vaccinations or long covid. I don't even get it or just throwing around words. Now, words are fun though, aren't they? Speaking of words, let's move on to some news and woke washing Green hushing on the rise as companies keep climate plans from scrutiny. Yes. To avoid scrutiny from woke regulators. And investors companies are now avoiding releasing data so they can't be sued if they're wrong. Now do you understand ESG is a game of transparency. The reason why we ask for all that data is so we can sue you when you do something wrong. So green hushing is a wonderful reprise of like 1987. It's great to go back though. It was a good. It was a good year. I had to Walkman. We were rollerblading places. I mean, does anybody do that anymore? What happened to the rollerblades? Here's another headline. HSBC ads, banned from misleading, consumers about green credentials. Turns out. I don't want to say this too loudly. If you say you're woke and you're not Someone can sue you. Or ban yell. Kinda related to the first one. Maybe HSBC should have green hushed its own advertising. Finally, in woke washing news, there's this headline. Synthetic ESG funds found to hold polluting collateral. Yes, she isn't one thing to all people. They think about it different ways. The news is out. I hate these headlines. Because it assumes. That if you do the ESG. There's one way to do. It, does the right way to do it, that right way. Is you don't invest in this, you don't invest in that. There was a headline, a Bloomberg this week, talking about how Abbott know was it Abbott Abbott Labs, yes, Abbott Labs Somehow is got upgraded by msci to like the middle of the pack. And that was news. It was news because they're recalling baby formula and baby formula recalls should Trump every other factor in any ESG rating? That's what the headline implied. This headline implies that if you're an ESG fund, and you hold something that Smells funny. Or does bad things to the environment. You can't be any ESG fund. You can be anything stop saying. Yes, she fund. It's just a fund and they use ESG data. That's what it is. Finally. In what is the greatest woke headline of 2022 and I'm dead serious about this. I'm gonna make up nothing in this. I'm going to quote, it directly, no commentary, because this is my favorite thing maybe ever Here is the headline. World's fattest parrot banned from woke bird of the Year contest. That's right. There's a bird of the Year contest competition in New Zealand. And it banned the twice winning kakapo bird to give other birds a shot at winning. What is effectively a competition? Whose only goal is to raise awareness for endangered bird species? When asked about the kokopo band. Local Martyn. Bradbury said, quote bird of the year is so woke suggesting the kakapo kakapo, kokopo kakapo. The kakapo had been quote, canceled And the contest had become quote, a participation award for ugly birds. Fuck the skinny, endangered birds of New Zealand. Am I right? My favorite headline ever? Finally, let's wrap up with some anti-wolf washing Heroes. You thought greenwashing was a thing. No, it's anti woke washing. Here's the headline. Jamie Diamond says, some investors, don't give a shit about woke ESG investing. Jamie dimon cold clients this week. That some investors don't give a shit about ESG. He also blasted companies for quotes seating governance to do good, her kids on a committee. Whose members are selected for their Bonafide days and so-called ESG or environmental, social and governance. Here's a list just for reference, just puts the back of your mind of committees. That old grumpy Banker. Jamie Diamond currently sits on chairs of the JP Morgan board executive committee of the Business Council partnership for New York, City Financial Services Forum Council of former relations. He's the former head of the Business Roundtable and once upon a time, he was invited to Donald Trump's business Forum, but fuck those do gooders. It's not enough room on my lawn for them to get a committee. Am I right? No committees. It's the Committees do good or committees. And other news. Here's a headline. Netflix. Rejects woke stages. Stunning comeback. That's right. What's happening now is because Netflix stock is up. They're writing articles about how they're up because they are anti-woke Despite releasing a 42-page ESG report this year working towards net, zero detailing their drive towards quote media pluralism, Which is higher diverse candidates. And generally being awoke disclosure extraordinaire. They are an anti-woke folk hero because they didn't fire Dave Chappelle And that is resulted in their stock going up. That's all it took. Its all took We are desperate need of anti-walk Heroes specially since the CEO of glorified that anti will Bank, just was forced to resign. Because turns out having a drinking problems, not great for investigators or investees. Finally, as evidence that gravity is no longer real. Here's your headline. State Treasurer Boozer Retirement Systems of Alabama deny using ESG criteria for Investments. This was an entire article, from a conservative Alabama, content generator focused on the fact that the state treasurer should and had to deny ever using ESG. I imagine it unfolded something like this. Sir, can you confirm that Alabama, doesn't and has never used ESG criteria in their retirement funds? Ah, yes, I'd love to answer that question proudly we in Alabama prefer, not to ask any companies. We invest in whether they have employees, that get paid a living wage, whether they will follow applicable laws, whether they are ongoing concerns, or even whether they're real, we just invested in my son, Dale's lawn, mowing service to the tune of 16 million with no stipulation. He's 12. That's just how we do business here with no information and no follow-up questions. Next question. The Witch Hunt is on everyone. That's all I got today. For anti woke. Well Wednesday. This has been business pants, a lonely business pants. Come back, tomorrow. Damian might be back. He might actually be done of a gorilla. It's unclear. I haven't heard from him like most of the day. And that's not a good sign. Maybe I'll make Ari join me if Damien's dead. Otherwise. Come back tomorrow. Listen to the podcast. Subscribe rate US. You know what? No one does that. Why should you do that? Just click the little red button and we'll see you tomorrow until then goodbye.