Transcript
Hail. Hell. Live. You digs from the black rock bath house. Oh, gross is the grossest place in the universe. It's a good game. Mulligan episode of business pants. Join us always by the Lord of BS. Matt mascardi, I'm your host. In today's proxy and that's it. You don't have a name is proxy and crusted bag of nomination, committee scented nuggets. Called February 2nd 2023. The good. game casting this live, like we used to but since our Our listener bass are idiotic and they just they just listened to what they don't watch us. We tried Matt we tried to Do a live video feed around lunchtime but nobody really watched. Let's be clear. You know, what's funny? I just had somebody like, I was in a meeting yesterday or two days ago and they were like, you know, what you guys should do live streams. Oh sure. And I was like, oh, Jesus, good idea. I'm willing if somebody would walk Um, no one's gonna watch. Don't care. Okay, here we go. You so here. Yeah. Do you want to say something before we get going? Well, I want to say first that, this is a little uncomfortable for me. Why? Because we open a new office, and I'm in the new office, it's a flex. This is a free float Flex. You showing off that we just opened a physical office. I mean, maybe you should, I mean that we're growing, that means that we're moving on up. Yeah, I'm humble bragging right now but like, my setup isn't my set. My, the setup and like my home office is like cozy and like all the background, so it's like, we get it nice and your office we get, and this is like, you know, I got, you know, co-workers farting in the same room and people sneezing, and there's giggling. And yeah, there's it just feels like across the whole is the, you know, the periodontist for 79 year olds. What's good? Because your teeth are disgusting so it's like a good. I mean I it's useful but it's feels a little uncomfortable so I just got To say, I love the new office, I'm a little uncomfortable. We gotta get used to it. Well, speaking of uncomfortable, let's get uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. So the reason why we're doing this, good game. All again, is that we had a guest Vivek ramaswamy came in a couple weeks ago. Yeah, and really, let's be, let's be truthful about it. He took a professional crap. All over my good game, he did, which I think is, you know, Vivica, I know you're listening. I know you're listening on the daily as you like to say right after he right after you go to Fox News, I think you throw on our podcast. It was rude to take over the show like that. And not let me play my goodness, that's what we had him on for this. We had a good game, good debate. I invited him on back on already. The good game is more important than all of us. It's been door deigned by rabbis and Priests everywhere. No, has not been. All right, let's do it. So what we're gonna do Matt is we're gonna finish. We're gonna we're gonna do some of the, the good game topics that we missed and I added a few more, and this is how the good game works quickly. I pick up headlines that just sound good and then our fabulous pundits. Being you met, tell me if it's actually good in the school from the 10 and we have a bonus this week in honor of Vivek ramaswamy and I joke. But he's of course, welcome back all of our. Actually our former guests are welcome back. So if you're one of them listening, a former guests, come on back. We I already invited Vivek back. No, invite others back. Oh, okay but Doug Chia whereas he Dug Dug. Wants to make an appearance, we got to figure out how to get dug in on the regular. Come on. Doug, what are you afraid of Doug from Jersey? So, so here's the new feature this week, Matt, you're gonna answer for yourself, you're gonna give us a score of the 110, and then you're gonna Channel Vivek, and you're gonna give us a score, four Vivic, we're gonna play Four Vivek because I just really want to finish off the Vivic. Brahma Swami, good game, this is my dream. How do okay, all right, let's so well, ironically channeling. Vivica is not like the opposite of me. It's like sometimes. But not always it's like the the it's the little voice in me that that can absorb the other side. I don't know. He's talking about it sounds like a Stephen King novel. It is. I think it's like it. I ate my brother. Okay. Let's go. All right, let's do this. First headline, I need some kind of give me some kind of transition music. I feel like I can't do it without give me a bell. Oh you want to bail? And there we go. Point. I mean he said well let's do my vote first. Okay look I think it's more. Like the anti ESG Drive is one study. This is anti-esg per se, it's just a band Black Rock from our. It's more than that. It's more than Black Rose now they've they've they've actually brought it to Vanguard. They took about State Street. They talk about, it's not Thanksgiving out of the climate action. 100 still hate them. They they don't hate them as much and as much worse. But the ironically, you know, there was reports that they moved a lot of their money to a subsidiary of Federated Hermes, which they, which is like one of the most ESG places in the universe. So like, it's all the same. Like, they can't get away from it. So it's just, I don't think they can get away. Let's be fair. I good luck. Getting away from ESG, whatever you think it is in general, you're not going to get away from its already been adopted, it's everywhere. As I was talking about the show yesterday at Starbucks. It's everywhere and there, and they probably It's part of their short-term planning. It's part of their long-term planning. It's part of their risk assessment part of the opportunity assessment. I mean, it's just a bunch of data points. They're looking at to make their company better. That's all it is the point. Yeah, that's the problem. You can't get away from a bunch of data points. Yeah, you gave people a bunch of data points over the last 20 years and now you're asking them to ignore those data points. Imagine that work. Imagine the risk of that of saying, I know we're not gonna pay attention to 250, imagine imagine if the anti will anti-esg are entirely correct and that that like they should have never used this. It goes against fiduciary duty. It means for 20 years now. Everything Black Rock did in the last 20 years is suitable. Yes, so what they should sue them. Yeah, perfect. I mean it would be like killing and I'm not sure what they would sue. Like they would have to prove that he could have made more money. They have to prove a negative right? But yeah, the real chuckle here is the, you're, you're suing a company for not being excellent, which is literally the most excellent company. Of its kind ever in the history of the world. He's got the most money ever. All right, so here's here's what I think about this headline, I think this headline is a six and I think it's a six because it underestimates dramatically the amount and I'll explain capitalism really briefly when you have a lot of options. The cost of those options goes down right basically supply and demand. So that's why the Burger King opens up across the street from McDonald's. That's why I should cheer exactly because the cost of both of them to compete ends up going down. But when you remove a bunch of options because you say I don't like the biggest option, or the second biggest option or the third biggest option because they're too woke for me for no good reason. Then you have fewer options that cost more. That's it. That's it. Plus you played, you played your hand too. It's like it's like you you want to get a bathroom remodel and you announce to all 10 of the remodelers in town that you only going to use one of them. Not only that, I'm not gonna use those nine. Yeah so you basically said the one you're going to go to that one. Like how much So that is what is going to cost more but if I'm channeling my inner Vivic go, here's vivix score. Vivek's, not I'm Vivek. I'm not anti-anything. I'm gonna throw. Excellent process. That's true. That's true. He has G drive. Yeah, this is about Excellence. Excellent doesn't cost taxpayers money by not doing it's true. A racial Equity audit. I'm actually saving money. I'm not, I'm sorry, not jumping into Political Waters which isn't about capitalism. I'm saving the money by not doing it and yeah and because Excellence is not actually a real thing and or and or you have yet to Define it. You can't measure it. Anyway, so you're good. It doesn't have a value. I think everybody knows Excellence when they see it. It's smells like I was gonna say, I don't I was gonna say I don't actually know when I see. I know when I smell it. I'm yeah, it really bacon. I love bacon smells Pizza. It's like a metallic flavor in your mouth of excellent. What's his score? And we don't Advocate Banning and investment. We Advocate. Banning the use of corporate proceeds to End on social and non-fiduciary issues. Okay, I would give this headline a two, it fundamentally misunderstands the the concept of slew of companies Matt have been cutting CEO pay packages in the last few weeks. I don't know if you've been paying attention Apple Intel alphabet Goldman Sachs, they're all, you know, it's either a buckle to shareholder pressure or it's a buckle, a pre Buckle to shareholder pressure. I don't know what's going on free Buckle but that's been happening. What do you think is that good? Well I mean good bad in different it's the alternative democracy works like we finally got to a point. When do we pass say on pay? It was 2000 and 2009, posts financial crisis. And it took like 15 years for people to realize they could vote against pay right now. It's all advisory votes. So like none of it, no one has to listen to it, but the bigger companies tend to listen a bit more because when you get 50% Of your owners pissed at you. Like they tend to listen to you. I think it's great. I think it's a 10 like I just think it's that's what alternative democracy was supposed to be. Um, look, we routinely vote against PayPal packages, especially corporations that place being woke up about the excellent. I've noticed in their, in their, I should say, you're not say there. And yeah, I've noticed in strives of voting, what do they call? It? Voting results that they publish you. That strive routinely votes against most people? Yes. Most. Yeah. I mean, look, the, the CEOs have been most CEOs today are placing social issues above being, excellent and capitalism, and there's no like Walker company, then Apple, right? So I I'm 100% for this. I think it's a great move. I think it's a way to register your displeasure with the, you know, focus on social issues directly with the CEOs themselves. I'm giving this a 10. What was Vivic by the way? Not, Matt. I know it sounds like they sound very similar. Yeah. Next one US. Labor secretary says he wants more women. To be CEOs and board members. So, the gender pay Gap can immediately close All right, so this is Matt like I always first yeah I want to I mean like I think the question here is oh wait this is Vivic. I'm interrupting no. But that's the way it goes. That's what it is. Yeah, that's true. Um alright. So Matt, just channeling Vivek, you don't have to be Vivek. Oh, I should have explained this in the pre-production is very confusing. Yeah, you just have to give it a little bit. Say what would his score be? I feel like, yeah, I'm feeling like a little Duality like a bad movie. The question is, does this actually work? Because what they're trying to do is close, the pay Gap and they're assuming that they pay Gap gets closed when you put more women as CEOs or board members. Well, and again, that's a, that's a, those are two different classes. Now, we're talking about we Executives and and then board members right there. It's two different things going on here. So there's an assumption that the broader pay Gap will get closed if females or CEOs across the workforce and that the CEO pay Gap might get closed by the board, or I don't really know and it just assumes all. So, and this is our, this is our problem. Yeah, I just seems by putting more women in those positions that they have. Power to close the pay Gap. We know for a fact that, you know, in places like and we said this in our predictions paper and places that have, Female quotas for boards. We know the power Gap is actually the largest in the world. A place. Is that have? That's just a board. That's just the board. So I think it's a good Thought and initiative but I'm not sure that by itself, it's the solution. I think it probably needs more. Well, what we don't know, unfortunately, since we have basically no data on it, as we don't know how female CEOs are female Executives because there's just not, they're not a lot of them. Let's be fair. We don't know the effect of it yet. Yeah, we really don't. So I, I'm gonna give this an eight because it's like, I want it to happen and necessary, right? And it's what she Walsh from Boston. Yeah. Um, but I don't know that it is the solution. All right. Get more data would say, um, look, when you reduce the meritocracy to a binary heuristic, this is not capitalism. This is not. And first of all, the pay Gap might exist because of CRT. Oh, because women have been marginalized for decades prior to this. And frankly, maybe there's a pay Gap because we shouldn't be paying people who are less experienced being CEOs, for the same thought that you pay CEOs. So my score is a 0. I frankly hate this. Makes me sad Altria to conduct equity and civil rights audit. All right, and before you get into that, this is based on a shareholder proposal. Just so, you know, this isn't, this is not come out of thin air right last year. 2022. A shareholder proposal brought by the sisters of Saint Francis of Philadelphia. That's right. Catholics, I'm actually, this is truthful. They come from a bunch of nuns. Yeah, it was none, they put this proposal up. 62% of shareholders, said yes, at Ultra. How do you argue against the 62% said, and this is actually, why the anti-woke love? Vanguard? Vanguard was the one major to vote against it? Okay. They own 9% of all three. And they were the BlackRock ssga, the capital group owned by three biggest and they voted for it. Okay, over 16% of the vote. So the title of the audit is actually misleading because it makes you think they're Doing like a audit internally but this is an audit of how selling tobacco. It actually harms communities of color more than white communities. Well, that sounds better. I like that even more. Yeah, well, I mean, the audit is about like, how are you killing your customers in which ones are you killing? That's basically what it's saying, right? Because that's what the question is here. Um, and not only that, it includes a litigation risk review, what it asks for is, you smart estimate, the amount of litigation you can expect from different communities, particularly communities of color, give in how disproportionately your products hurt those communities. I mean, I think that, like, this isn't this basic due diligence of a company. If you sold a car and it only, it killed black people twice as much as white people, okay? But you were, you're what you're saying, makes sense but I'm I don't know that the, the pro Excellence movement would agree with you. This is where Vivek would step in and say, absolutely not. This is exactly why we vote against this. This is the number one thing that the vix company wants you to. Look at this is the number one thing. They vote against your investment advisors about racial Equity audits. Can someone explain to me, like, so, BlackRock ssga and capital group, the next three largest owners, they own 16% of all Tria, And I'm just gonna do some quick math. When I subtract 16 from 60 That leaves me, 40% of shareholders to account for. Yeah. Do we think all of them are woke every. What is the matter for what the label them? It's their their shareholders. So the argument Vivic has is that ISS tells them to vote for it but recommends recommends, I don't understand. Matt is going to give this a nine and vivica's gonna give this a 0. Walgreen's become first US, Farmers Pharmacy, chain to say it will sell abortion pill. It's I mean yeah I'm assuming Matt's gonna love this but my real question here is, Will Vivic think this is too political, is this anti Excellence to sell an abortion pill? Is this pandering to the woke? I actually think we're gonna agree here. Let's do it. Let's do a quickly for once. All right, then there was a study by numerator that showed it doesn't sound good. The typical Walgreens Shopper is a white Suburban, baby boomer woman, okay with income 80,000 dollars or more. Wow. And this that's the typical Walgreens so if you're single that might be a good place to hang out. Right. Yeah. Single baby boomer. Yeah if you're like 70 years old and the second was black and Latino Shoppers of the same income range about 80,000 dollars. Abortion pill selling it Walgreens. It is Market extension like if all of your buyers typically are baby boomers like 70 year, old people, imagine tapping into a market that Could use an abortion pill, which is a younger cohort, which doesn't shop there. I just think of it as Market expansion, so good for them, they're offering health care and Health Equity, at 200 cohort and expanding Market, I give it a 10 pick Vivic Vivic who's me right now? This is purely capitalism, right? I agree with Matt. This is great for the consumer segment. It's not a political stance. You're just selling a product Up. Okay, I don't see. This is where I don't understand Vivid because I don't understand when something is political and when it's excellent, I don't get the When is it politics? And when is it not? When you can make money on it, okay? Okay, then, let me skip ahead to this one. Okay, what score is vivid giving? It 10, awesome, let me skip ahead to this one. Green projects are boosting UK growth transition to a Greener economy is worth 71 billion pounds. And has brought jobs and investment to parts of the UK experience in manufacturing losses. So is that political I don't confuse Matt's gonna go with? This is a 10. Yeah, this is obvious and this is the coming for decades, sure, we know it. In vivica's going to say, yeah, but the green transition is not necessarily a real thing and it's not like abortion where you just selling a new product to a market segment. Oh, this is like a concerted effort of the world economic Forum in Davos elitist crowd to move the economy into this new future that they want. This has nothing to do with like selling a new product to say Market segment. Should you say the name? Larry Fink too. Just to help Larry know. Okay, Larry Fink zero zero. All right. How about this one? BP. Now this is an oil company. They love strive loves oil. Companies BP says demand for oil, and gas will drop dramatically by 2050. So what what are we supposed to make of that? That sounds good. Yeah, they're they're actually they're calling peak oil. That's what they're calling. Okay. So is this political anymore? I mean that says yeah go ahead. Matt says it needs to drop dramatically by like tomorrow forget 2050. We just need to it needs to it. Can't. We can't wait till 2050 and then stop selling oil. Okay? If we don't want the world to be on fire. So I'm giving this a five because it's great that BP saying BP just gave itself, basically 25 years to come up with an I think just something. Yeah they're not being Oil Company anymore. Um Vivek would say, will it dropped dramatically or was it forced to buy a market? The course, by Larry Fink making ridiculous Net Zero proclamations in a time where we need fossil fuels. Now More than ever. And we need energy Independence and your kneecapping energy independence with your ridiculous green transitions social justice Warrior. 0, what I understand is that in there, in the anti, apparently is a 10 or a zero for me? I don't know. Well, he does speak in that way. He speaks in negative or positive. Platitude it in the anti-esg world, Right. You with me? I'm saying anything. I'm filibustering because I've forgot was gonna say when Is it? Okay. Let's move on. Walmart raises minimum wage as retail labor market. See I was gonna ask the question but I didn't want to hear more. I didn't want to hear you Channel more Vivic talking points and it does make you feel a little uncomfortable. Yeah, well I think you Walmart raises minimum wage as retail labor market remains tight. So looks like they're raising their minimum wage to 14 dollars an hour. 17% jump. I love that they just won't get to 15 like that. They're just like we're not doing it. I'm not you all said 15, we're going 14 because if you all look this is done. This is is this is stupid? Why? It is okay. Not enough. Forget not enough. I don't, it's not an amount question. So much as it is like everybody else's already at a number, that's higher than you. I mean, Walmart's stupid, you're saying yeah. Oh, I mean like everyone else is paying more than you. So, if you, if you have a choice of being employed, Anywhere, do you go to the place that pays you the least and it's still a shity job? Or do you go to a shity job that pays you more? It's not competitive. So I, I'm gonna give it a two. I wonder what bibik would say about this, is it excellent to pay your employees? A little, is that, is that a sign of Excellence? I think? No, this is a sign of pure economics. I think Vivek would agree that they're behind the economic curve at this point and it's not about the amount, it's about supplying demand, and they are simply reflecting the Excellence of capitalism. All right, move on what's their score? Vivica gives it all to because you think they're dumb to Green With Me Now 11. Trillion dollar. Investor group, says carbon removals no longer count towards net zero goals. I mean, was that a rule? Like what who's who's going through and being like up? I see that in the line items, take that out, it's not. I'm assuming it's gonna, it'll help with their decision whether they're going to invest or not. I don't know what, I don't understand what move on from this one. I mean, based on the headline I'm gonna give it like, did they? We know we can't remove enough carbon anyway, it's a 0 like this is the 0 assets owner Alliance and for Vivica it would also be a 0 because that this is a group of people who are making policy decisions. Shouldn't be political Pro. Capitalism, here's a car. Here's an odd one. Two more left. Good game. February 2nd 2023. Matt mascardi and Vivek ramaswamy pretend. He's here now. Big short. Investor. Michael burry. Delete his Twitter profile after ominous sell warning. So he gave a one-word tweet sell and then he bounced he jumped off of Twitter. So the reason why I'm asking if this is good is because is it good that he left Twitter and we don't have to listen to him anymore. It good. He's saying, so what helped me out this one I just I really just wanted to hear vivica's take on this, but go ahead. Matt, I don't care about this is a big fat five five, really? No one cares. Same for Vivic. I think Vivic would say that he's an interesting guy who thinks Against the Grain but it's really hard to read into a tweet here. So five what do you think? He deleted his Twitter profile after he's done like five times. Oh yeah, he says something cryptic and he releases and then comes back. He just looking for attention and I don't know what this is. I don't really okay, let's end this show on this. Yay. Yeah, the good game February. Like I said that and and the good thing about this one is that doesn't really fall into a typical ESG realm or political realm or Excellence realm. So this will be interesting to hear Vivic sake on this. So we talked a lot about chat GPT these days and we're kind of all wringing her hands and being like, Oh, but I found a headline that made me feel good. about chat GPT and here, it is really A top UK private school is changing, its approach to homework amid, the rise of chat GPT. So what they're going to do is they're gonna, they're gonna move towards something called flipped learning where students prepare at home. And then they do, they write the essays in school, which I think is brilliant. I think, I really honestly no shaking your head. I love this, I've already game this system, I in my head how, because all you do is they asked chat GPT at home. Then you write what generalized? Yes. Said into your notebook. As you separation. Oh no. I'm gonna hand you a blank like blue book or something. Well, then they hand you the blank Blue Book and my guess is all you had. Like, either you get your prep materials with you to write the essay or you have to write it from memory either way having chat GPT, right, it means you you just you know what, you're going to write. I you just bullet point it so Hopeful about this one and then write down the bullet points and the shock of the UK private school is going to be when every kid has the same five bullet points. All right thing, so excited about this, maybe you're right. Give me a number. I'm gonna give that a 2. I mean, I like I'll give it a five. I'll get a five because I think I like the effort. Like, I, yeah, I do, too. I think Vivic doesn't care at all about this. Yeah, it doesn't care about you, literally could care less about this. I'm personally, hates all kids are anti these days. I mean, he did do a little bit at the beginning of the show. He did a little bit of a rant about like, how he talks about lazy lazy Millennials, or something, right? Of which he or gen zers. So his parenting, the remarks of Home Depot Founder, The Home Depot founder has been, I guess he's been going on saying, he's really scared about gen Z's at their bunch of lazy socialists. They're gonna run America. Yeah, that's that's them. I'll ask her. He would agree. Give me one more score on this one. I think he's gonna give it a five. He didn't care. All right, that's it. That's the good game for birthday in 2023. Your scores. Matt, you, you got back to your normal score which is a six. Oh, baby. Good for me. Vivint coming in at a very sad three. Not a very hopeful optimistic person. I actually think that's probably great inflated because I was doing Vivic. Yeah, well there were two tens, that really helped that score. Yeah, I know he agreed with me mostly because I was him. So it wasn't that hard to agree. That's it. That's business pants. February 2nd 2023 that that's Damien Morales and that was not vivid Graham Swami. That was I don't actually it a few times so it felt like I know you you've got enough real shows. So like that's all we got for today. I think we're taking tomorrow off because we have technical problem. You are. No, I was not gonna be here. Yeah, I thought I was being joined by Ari and Justin tomorrow you might be John. I don't know what you're doing a shot. I'm not here, it doesn't exist in my mind. So if you're here tomorrow you're here tomorrow. Otherwise come back next week and we'll see you then goodbye.