Transcript
Live. What does it, what does it matter that we're live? What does that even mean? What is live to anyone anyway, as a podcast who cares, live? From Halloween Boulevard, that's clever. It's a candy corny, Halloween, spectacular. Here at the orange and black rock Haunted Mansion. Ooh, I didn't know they were getting into it. Nice. Join is always by our BS correspondent, Matt mascardi. I'm Bob the Builder and today is we're better than laundry detergent scented nuggets have no idea what that means. Call October 31st 2022. Halloween adjacent stories. Okay. Matt's gonna talk about some Immortal vampire directors. Yeah, forget zombie directors. and I'm gonna talk about, This is a game. It should take over the ESU Community. I'm guessing I'm guessing this will be a new standard in the ESG world. I'm gonna do a segment called directors, who should be dead. Board takeover game. Is that acceptable? Do I should be dead. I like everything we're doing directors to be good. Let's be honest. Yes, you have one tire trick. Yes, she Community for Halloween and that's every year every company tried to a list of so-called zombie directors which is they do everything directors who've been voted off the board but stay on the board because of stupid voting standards and that's all you got. But we we're gonna up the ante. We're gonna be killing people. We're gonna be bringing them back to life, they are sucking the blood and we're doing everything's yeah, yeah, we're doing all the should be dead. Might might warrant on these all of it based on our own proprietary data that you can't get anywhere. But here. Yeah, true. The trick here. Do you see what we up the ante? All right, let's we don't have any. Is there like a news? That's good. Let's start with these are what? I'm calling the Halloween adjacent stories about these are all the stories this morning. God. I mean, it's really hard to believe that you can get all these stories in one day. All the stories essentially that scared me. That should be a lot. All right, on a daily basis. I'm terrified. Does that for a concept? Let's start with the start in the covid world. I'm I'm a bit fixated on covid. I'm almost two weeks since I tested positive and Still feel like crap, although I am technically negative now, so if you want, if anyone from glass, Lewis wants to come over and like lick my desk, it's fine. I would suggest doing that. Okay. Oh, I'll put my address on Vine. I'll post it on parlor. Here we go. Here we go. Matt, you're gonna love these covid, headlines that scare me first. Covid hospitalizations Are Climbing as the US braces for a triple demick. Yeah I thought they were calling it a try Lemma. What like what? Dilemma. I like triple demick and you know what state is leading in covid, hospitalizations as we speak. Tell me, it's Maine. The great state of Maine so I'm not I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. Oh, the Northeast is getting slammed by Sarcan up there Vermont like all of us. Good Liberals are getting hit hard. Yeah, but we're getting hit by the RSV too. The respiratory thing, whatever your kids. Okay. Now I mean really, I should probably see these stories for the end but I can't resist. These two are, they're almost like they're written for us. These two stories. First of all, this one's for you really. Especially this is at a Shanghai Disney. Here's the headline, visitors. Unable to leave the Disney park without negative covid tests as the park shuts down. So, if you're there and you test positive, they are keeping you there. Can you imagine? I mean, I guess if you're Disney fan, it's good news. You're like trap there. Do they let you keep riding the right? The thing you want to do. When you feel shity with a respiratory disease is Stace stuff in a place with a cartoon mouths and really bad food. That's what you want. How about this is a companion. Piece workers are fleeing from Foxconn China's. Biggest iPhone Factory by climbing over fences and walking down highways on foot a mid covid fears. So they're busting out of Foxconn. Because they're afraid of covid. Yeah. You don't care about that one. This is This is all the worst news you've ever said, I know this is stuff that scares me. I don't like either one of those things. Know, the thing that should scare you is that you got this all in the last 24 hours so I know they're happening. Like literally just now this isn't like macro Trends. How about this one? Oh I don't know how you. I don't know how you just summoned that word macro you're you're soothsayer but here we go. Over the next headline Wells Fargo double downgrades Haynes brand says, it can fall 30% on macro and balance sheet pressures. Come on. You don't love that. I love a good blowhard headlines. Come on. Yeah, I like the terrified scream of a double downgrade from Haines brand. I love that. A company that makes tidy whities. It's just publicly traded. I think it's amazing. Look, is there a tiny supply chain problem? What is to? I mean, double downgrade. We're gonna always need Teddy whities. I guess they're not cool anymore. All right, back. Uh, Matt, unfortunately, we have a whole new whole new list of Elon Musk, Twitter, headlines that we got to go through. When is this gonna end? actually, this we haven't about this. Ostensibly. From everything we know Twitter's going private. So do we actually get to, to do we get to officially stop? When do we officially get to stop talking about it and we don't we typically cover publicly traded companies. So what do we do here at free flow at business pants? What do we do? We cover some privates. Okay, so you're saying we have to keep talking about it. no, I think this is going to be a thing that like, Just exists in perpetuity in the background. What the reason why we're gonna keep talking about it, is because the next proxy season is warming up right now. And at some point we're going to get to vote on whether Elon Musk should be on the board of Tesla. The publicly traded company that he still runs. Yeah. Answer to that. Should be no because he's the CEO of five fucking companies, right? Where is Elliot management when you need them, it's really fantastically unbelievable that the same company that we removed the CEO from because the CEO was busy managing two companies. Replace that CEO with the CEO who now runs five companies. So well, done to everybody involved but we have if we're even a modicum of consistent, then musk should not be the CEO of Tesla or the, on the board of Tesla at a minerals. Let's get to this Gary must headlines. Here we go. Oh, that wasn't it? No. First of all, under Elon Musk leadership. Here's the headline, Twitter could become a supercharged engine of radicalization. But, let's, let's back that up with some other headlines. Twitter's head of safety and integrity says more than 50,000 tweets. Containing a particular slur were posted in 48 hours amid reports of a racist trolling campaign. And unfortunately, this next headline tells you what that slur is LeBron James said, Elon Musk needs to address. Scary, AF surge of n-word use on Twitter. But here's what I want to talk about. Actually, Matt LeBron said this, and that article, I don't know, Elon Musk. And to be honest, I could care less who owns Twitter wrong attitude. Right, let's talk about that attitude because this, I think this is the Prevail, this is why we can't get business pants over the hump and onto CNBC and onto whatever. I want to MTV wherever you want to Netflix. Because as it turns out normal, people like, LeBron don't seem to care. It was I, I'm really, I was really floored by this over the weekend. He is scared AF about the surge of n-word use on Twitter, but doesn't care who owns it. And, but once the owner's to deal with it, why does he care? Why don't people care about this stuff? Help me. I mean, I feel like they don't totally understand what it means to own it. Maybe. Oh, why don't you Twitter? Twitter is a Vacuum of like celebrity plus media, talking to itself filled with crypto trolls and racists. Sounds nice. You want to deal with the bigger problem, you deal with Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp. And okay, yeah, that's kind of the social media share globally and tiktok right? Okay. Twitter is like third in line at its top. I did notice that the what Twitter actually is is musk's followers, went from like 80 million to 110 million since he bought the company, how's that possible? Because it just means it's because the there they basically everybody's Bots are now following him. I don't know. Okay, more boss. Now, just feel like though this is that's all the vanity project was right? You just bought it. Cost you 44 billion dollars to buy 20 million more followers. I think you're under selling it a bit. I mean maybe maybe the primary reason is that as you pointed out is that so many journalists are in Michigan Twitter and and but journalists seem to run the narrative. I mean of course they run the narratives. I mean media journalists they run our cultural narrative. And so Twitter is just a big player in that world. um, here's what else is going on, Twitter? There's more scary stuff, believe it or not. And LeBron you should care about who owns Twitter and you should reach out to us because we could actually tell you about who runs and owns everything we can. And by the way, this is completely ass headed and disingenuous LeBron. Because you come from a league that has done actually sort of well for itself recently, when when owners act a boringly and terribly, you've actually kind of figured out a way to band together, get rid of them somehow, okay? So why don't care who owns things. That's the best point you could make you play and in the league you work for, why don't you care about thank you. The people who own. Yeah, that's the best point you could make. She care about, maybe you should care because like you so, Kanye West was banned from Twitter. I wasn't gonna talk about them. Go ahead, but he was banned from Twitter and then he is a count was reinstated like just before musk closed. But musk said that he had nothing to do with it is like his account was restored before the acquisition. They didn't consult him except that October 8th. He was saying welcome back to Twitter my friend to Kanye. So he wanted him restored, three weeks ago. But now that he's restored after saying every anti-semitic thing you can think of doesn't want doesn't want to weigh in. That's the owner of Twitter now, I think he realized it. Do you think musk is realizing what he bought? What he did. What just happened? Like now I don't think realizing was gonna be like the whole thing. Just, yeah, I don't think real estate is living his world. I think he's Like a, he's a reactor. He just, he's constantly in add reaction mode. I don't know that he takes time to, to have those kind of thoughts. I don't think he sells reflects, he doesn't. And here's proof. Let's get to the scariest part of the Twitter weekend. Nancy, Pelosi's husband was attacked over the weekend and his San Francisco house attacked by One of the members of this ecosystem of misinformation and extremist views right? A man bred in this world. I mean, it's sort of undeniably bread in this world. This is according to Experts of far, right groups? That's a fun thing to be an expert of, by the way far, right? What if we thought our lives were depressing and then in this conversation, Elon Musk, the CEO of everything, the new owner of Twitter responds to a tweet by Hillary Clinton. He responds by spreading a conspiracy theory on the Pelosi attack, suggesting that the attack. Came because the husband was intoxicated and quarreling with a male escort. He retweeted something from from a newspaper that has been deep into conspiracy theories. The point is he the new CEO, the new head of Twitter Essentially retweeted a qanon conspiracy post just play. He just, he's just in the mud pit. Of course hours later when he was called out for this. He then deleted that tweet. I don't know what that oh no. Nobody will know, which is a form of, you know, oddly, a form of of what is that? A form of free speech, correction. I mean, I don't, I mean, okay, I sang all this to get to this, Elon Musk says he's creating a Content moderation Council for Twitter. So he so he is taking a page out of the mark, both the Mark Zuckerberg Playbook and the ESG Playbook by claiming that he's in a crate, a Content. Moderation, console full of diverse voices. So yeah, This like that show, that is Twitter. This is so, what do you think about this? Why don't before we move on? What do you think about this? I don't want to ever think about. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to know like, I like, I don't. This is like where we're spreading 12 minutes later misinformation about I don't care who she is. It's a woman's husband who was attacked at their home by someone with a hammer and apparently the real story is like the like the police were already on the scene and there was it was like there was there were it wasn't like people didn't see what happened. Like it wasn't like he did in front of the police. Did it in front of police officers. Yeah. So what do we get by by posting this like this? This is this, this is but this is what isn't this? What he wants? This is what he said. We got remarkably. We get two things at once that he fuels conspiracy theories on his own platform and homophobic. That putting the blame, you know a Confluence of a relationship with a male escort. Is it really a remarkable? But I ask you again, before we move on. When do we get to stop talking about this? Never do we. Okay moving on. How about this? This another one and maybe this is not scary but it kind of scared me. I don't know. I just the idea of more social media but here's this headline. Jack Dorsey, while all this is going on, has launched a beta for his new social media company. That's right, Jack Dorsey has a new social media company, a decentralized social media platform called Blue Sky social In now currently in beta mode, I'm serious, this happened this right when? Okay, so here are the conspiracy theories. Matt, I don't believe them. But this theory is, is that he's doing this in coordination with Elon Musk. I think it's, I think it's crap. I think that Jack Dorsey is proving what he said before, which is that Twitter shouldn't be accompanied. These types of social media, things shouldn't be companies in themselves. They should be these decentralized platforms. I don't know what it means. I don't know what a decentralized platform means for the future of social media, but he, this is what he claimed to want. And now he is now putting it into action. I don't want to think I'd like though it is. This is the this is a scary Halloween. Yeah, I don't like this, literally nothing about this makes me feel good. All right? The ridiculous sound effects that those make me feel the best. Let's get out of social media. I'll wrap up with three headlines, that made me scared summer, he and flashed drought dried up the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River choking a crucial shipping Corridor, that could devastate America's agricultural exports. The Mississippi River is drying up. Matt, this is not scary you a little bit. The missus Skippy River, the drying up, what the look, this is what it is. This is terrible. The people who live along the Mississippi River. Almost all of them vote for people who don't believe in climate change. When the river is going outside, do that anymore. Like look, you could look out there right there, there it is, just gone. But no, it's a scary part. It won't take more than a river at the heart of America drying up for anyone to do anything about it. How about this one? I don't know why this one scared me. UK, approves packed for octopus to acquire bulb customers? I don't know what. All right, come on, stop. Let's end on this. This scary headline for Halloween 2022, thawing permafrost, exposes old pathogens and new hosts. I don't like the sound of that at all. I don't like that. I don't like a thawing permafrost. I don't like this is Jurassic Park. I don't like this. I could live with the thawing permafrost if they're not new pathogens. I don't like it. I don't like that's the part. I really don't like. All right, Matt talked about some Immortal vampire directors for us. What do you go? All right. Something fun here. These you've heard of zombie directors. Damien tells you what they were. These are our own creation. They're Immortal vampire. Directors. Here's what immortal. There are mortal. Here's what makes an immortal vampire director. They have been on the board for at least 30% of their life. They have okay. Yeah, they've been there for a really long time, or they're really, really young. And they got there. Even younger they have less than 10% influence, which means they're sucking the blood from the shareholder because they really don't have any role on this board, just right. Okay. Well maybe there's someone's Pawn, they're another directors Pawn except that I excluded any family founder large shareholder controlled companies. So these are companies that have ostensibly directed like they're not controlled companies. There's not like a single major influencer and These are directors that are still considered independent. So they're independent directors. There were 102 of them out of 80,000. There are 102 vampires Here's your top. Are you ready? Your top three vampire, directors in the world map of influence? Course I love this. Yeah. The blood suckers in order of longest board to real life ratio. Number three, Counting up. William stead of HealthStream Incorporated. Yeah. She does not like him. He's been on the board for 30 33% of his life. He is 73 years old. Here is what the company said about his qualifications the company believes that doctors said Services, Chief strategy, officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, plus leadership, and organizations devoted to the study of biomedical informatics. Give him a qualifications and skills to service director. He's been there. He's been there a really long time. I mean, 33% of 73 years that's a long it's when he's been there for 24 years, and blackrocks vote in 2022 for that vampire, director was Four. Oh that's so woke. Black Rock. Oh, they voted for him. You'll be happy to know that William stead only has 1.6% less than two hours. What's the point? There is no really good, cinnamon rolls or something. He's just sucking the blood number two vampire. Yeah. And this is actually probably my favorite because just for his name his name is Ronnie falcioni. Yes. Hingham savings. Okay. Ronnie felt she only has a whopping point zero five percent influence oh that's just sad he's a nobody. But he somehow at age, 71 years old has been on the board for 29 years 41% of his life. Wow. He is still considered independent and his qualifications include. This is a detailed description from the proxy quote self-employed real estate investor What does that mean? He died like two family homes you Ronnie falcioni. Probably it's like saying he works in waste management or something. Yeah, you don't know what things. It's like a whole bunch of nothing burger and BlackRock says in 2022. Yeah, four Ronnie falcioni of course, Hingham savings. And my last vampire director for your vague Amusement. Yes. Very big. Very slightly vague Steven Crandall. Oh this sounds like a, this sounds kind of Halloween. Yeah. Stephen Crandall has been he's at Washington Trust Bank. Yeah, he joined their board at the tender age of 31. Okay. 31 years. And he is currently 70 years old. He has been on the board for 56% of his life. Wow, good for him more than half of his life was on this board, his business experience, according to the proxy is he's the vice president, he's not a CEO, he's the vice president at Ashaway line in twine, Manufacturing, Company, can you guess what they make their, I'm guessing they make dental floss. They have, in fact, do make medical threads and same difference Sporting Goods products. Okay, this also sounds like a character from Freaks and Geeks. Something like Midwestern white guy, driving a Paula Wright. He is a white guy, but this, he's on the board of a bank. He's on the board of a bank. In fact, he's been on the board of the bank for 39 years. Like I said, he's worked at us waiting in twine for 40 years, so he started making And line entwine. And one year later joined a bank board, somehow This sounds like the kind of guy that when he leaves when he retires, it'll take like 18 months for the rest of the people to realize that he's not there anymore. That's that's what makes him a vampire. Yeah. And he's on the audit committee. He's still considered independent, of course. 39 years of being on the board and blackrocks vote in 2022 is give me a drum roll. Somewhere drum roll, right? We get you. Four. Blake, thank you for that rock. That's a deep dude diligence. So are your Immortal vampire, directors of 2020. All right. Let me wrap up today's halloween show with my segment called directors, who should be dead board takeover game? Okay. Game though, every time you say that I think I just have to do that direction. You should. Here's how I did it. I looked at Ari the data Queen sent me a list of like what 85,000 directors. Literally 5000. Yeah 85,000. Um and I looked at life expectancy expectancy by country. All right I'm not a I'm not a dope. I knew that the life expectancy is different for every country. Okay. And I and I look what I, yeah, thank you what I looked for or directors who are over that age? Should be dead. So, for instance, if a man is expected to live till 70 in India and you're 85, you're a director who should be dead? I'm sorry. That's just the way it works. All right, here's what I found. First of all, let less than this is only 677% of the universe or directors should be dead. Okay. And what you what you'll notice very quickly is that when you start to, when you look at company countries like Sweden, Norway, all the proper smart countries. None of their are no directors. There should be dead because probably they have they have retirement policies that they actually listened to. They have high life expectancies, that just doing things good in those countries. Well, you just call like a bunch of Western countries this smart countries like no. I called Northern Western Emma is rolling over in her provide apartment, right? Here's what I found by far the most directors should be dead or in two countries. And that is the US no surprise. Yeah. All right. We're best at everything but that's not a really big deal because 29% of the universe is American director's, 34% of directors are should be dead or American directors. Okay, here's the big one. India, India, India represents four percent of the of the all directors 4% of total directors, but represents 203% of directors, who should be dead? So that's your target. I give us investors Target in the old Indian male directors. Okay. That's very creepy. Here's what also found. Women women make up 24% of the directors. Women wake up 24% directors overall but only 4% of directors should be dead. So once again, women are excelling in another area. Okay, they're better at everything. So here, let's wrap up the show with this three directors, who I want to Target three directors, who should be dead? I want I want you to Target if you want to take over the company, okay? Because I'm channeling Twitter here, you're an activist investor, you have a bunch of money, you're trying to figure out how to weasel your way, into a boardroom, how to gain influence, how to convince the other direction, to take over the the company and do whatever you want. Here are your choice is Matt you ready, I'm ready. Maybe you want to bank. How about Bank First director? H-e rainbow? He's been there for 38 years, he's 93 years old, and he represents 37% of the influence on that board. So you target that dude, you take over that dude board seat and suddenly, you have yourself a lot of power. Remember this guy should be dead anyway, so you're doing him a favor. Okay. Next one of these clinging to life because he's on the board, like this is not only thing, keep him alive. Maybe you like shows like the Property Brothers. How about Hardwoods distribution? Take over the company. Hardwoods distribution, and your target should be Bob Brown. That's right boring. Bob, Brown is 87 years old represents. 32% of the influence. How about that? In 87 year old Bob Brown representing a third of the influence at this company. I mean, first of all, congratulations Bob for having the brainpower to do that. Like I don't, I'm I don't even know, I don't know. How it's remarkable but anyway, he should be dead. Target him take over that company. And finally it's Halloween and Halloween is a big party. So why not activist investors? Why not take over? I'm looking at you and engine one, I'm looking at you Elliott management. Why don't you take over Party City holdco? Because there's a man named Norman Matthews. That's Norman 89 and by all the data he should be dead, I'm sorry, 89 year old shouldn't be alive, but by the data he holds 20% of the influence of Party City holdco. So all you have to do is put a little extra salt in his soup, he'll probably kill over and then what you and then you'll have an opportunity to take over this board. This again, Matt, this is all proprietary data that we have here at free flow. This is all based on influencer numbers. The only we sell that was Damon rolls telling us precisely who should be dead. That was a segment. And I was scared. We are free float media, come back tomorrow, when it's not Halloween and things can go back to being normal because most of the world doesn't celebrate or care about Halloween. So come back for that and we'll talk to you, then until then goodbye.