Transcript
It's kind of hard. Hell live. Me. Oh, Wow. All right. That was not Barstool Sports. CSG reports. That no one tuned in for its the ESG Industries. Only weakly woke data podcast. Featuring BS man. Matt mascardi. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a quick shout out this week that I want to make in the middle of my introduction. Fine. Go ahead. Yeah. Before we I know we have our sponsor. Yes, I'm getting engaged getting there. Well, we have another group that we should reach out to, to sponsor with ESG. Chipotle is important. Equally as interesting goes, they make. But the BAM woke, Nitro coffee. I don't understand. This is a group called Minocqua, Brewing Company. They are based in Wisconsin. Okay, they actually make Canned coffee. Called woke. Okay. And it's it actually says, get woke. Go broke. That's what they say, right? Oh contraire mon frere. They actually are donating to political causes on the woke side. Is it like 1800 milligrams of caffeine? I believe it will kill you if you drink it. I'm pretty sure. Um, no, I don't know. It's just, it's just coffee. It's coffee and a can well, be delicious. Go ahead and sponsor us. We have a sponsor hotlines, somewhere. We do. Yeah, it's called email Damian and today is eggplant sauce. Goo called May 3rd, 2023 randomized. She had lines a word from our sponsor and a woke data Wars meatball update. That's true. We do very meatballs. Our show today is being sponsored by skier, ESG Data Solutions provider. It's true. It's stopping by later in the show. He's talking about. What are you talking about? New shareholder. Proposals, I believe, oh, I'm excited. Okay, I love that guy. I love his voice. It's like it it relaxes me and informs, don't kiss his voices ass. Ready. Wanna do this? I'm kissing our sponsors. Ashley. All right? Yeah. I love his voice too. News To You, Paul. All right, let's do it. Random ESG headlines and no particular order. You're ready? I know you're not but let's do it anyway. Qantas. The earliest Flagship carrier picks its first female CEO. To lead the company after 100 years of being in business. So nice. It's a nice change, but is she qualified? Why are we focusing on whether she's a female? I have some information about this, so Alan Joyce is stepping down, and the CFO is actually stepping up, Vanessa Hudson, a little unusual, but maybe good for women because we're seeing a lot more women in the CFO roles. I mean if stencil she's qualified, here's why I'm covering this. I mean, I like to cover all new female CEOs. But here's really, why I'm covering? This is the secretly. Sell our product. Matt, I looked into our data to and I asked it. I asked board symmetrics could our data have predicted this. Predict the CEO change. Probably the answer is Maybe. Got him there, according to our data. Current batting average for the board. The current controversies average is a horrible. 004 point zero four. Wow, four I mean it had to say it so point, oh, four equally bad is a very scary. They're heading 60 in earnings, and this is on a skills, zero without. So here's how I say maybe our data could have predicted this. This should this data could have told us that they were building a class glass Cliff over at quantitative glass cliff and they kind of slid in a female CEO. What a perfect time to take over to the company right there does seem like it Cliffy it doesn't seem like there's only actually seems trophy. It's seems like that the bottom of the cliff already. Um but yeah not not not super I'm not a fan and I'm not sure then that she is qualified and maybe she qualified They're either building a glass Cliff or they realized they if they're earnings, they're if they're so terrible at earnings and maybe they do need a financial expert to turn the company around. That would be delightful. Yeah. All right, moving on. Woke data Wars oh I don't have a lot to say, I don't have a lot to say here Bud, Light sales Fall 26% as transgender backlash worsens. I don't really have much to say about that. so apparently, All the people buying the Bud Light to light it on fire, shoot it run it over with their gun was not enough know we're saying, I do, we really hate trans people so much that. Sales jobs a quarter. Not because it tasted horrible. We put up with the fact that it tasted horrible. Nobody like drinking it and we were already paying too much for it. No, they put a can of Bud Light in front of a trans person. That was the Difference Maker. Yes. Congrats America. Yes. How about this story? Matt, this is like a company after our own heart. I put this in our deep fake meat by Deep fake milk category. Oh that's a category. Just a weird one but this is great for us a businessman's last fall. A website called Fuck oatly appears. I mean, technically, it's f, f Asterix, CK oatly. This is a website. Probably, oh, milk company. Write detailed the company's PR mess, ups and Scandals and including a legal battle with a smaller plant-based brand and its sale of oat residue to pig farms. Well, the news coming out today Matt is that it was oatly itself that put up the website, The question is, why? And here's their answer. They say for starters it's super convenient to have the latest boycotts and criticisms all in one place. More importantly, we're not the type of company to hide for moments like this. So they're I guess they're just sort of like Vocally in to full disclosure. They're just like they're true ESG Champions, right? They're disclosure. I don't I just too much to parse here. I don't know where to go. First of all, They made their own. They, they criticize themselves on their own website. They made a new website criticizing themselves. And and they did it in the name of ESG transparency. They did it in the name of disclosure and, A strange one? No. There's A lot going on. So they also said at the end, they said if you don't like fuck, holy the website, there's all so fuck, fuck oatly. Another website where visitors can click a button, confirming their disapproval of fuck, only. So they're really all, they're all this is. This is too much, I'm too. I'm too confused. I don't know what's happening. But this is I don't. Is this the new wave of ESG is you? I just can't just Millennials and gen zers, what their version of ESG. No, I need, I need more. I need someone to tell me what to think about this, is this Wilkerson here for Super Mario, Bros of company, website, moves and disclosure, like, am I supposed to hate this? Am I supposed to like this? Honestly, by doing one thing we've seen, is that when companies get ahead of their own scandals and actually try to figure out how to, you know, build from them evolved from them. They get a lot less criticism right from investors. Don't you think is it supposed to hide in having things drop and bombshell? It's it's better than Hindenburg research putting out a like a 60 page paper that says you're a Ponzi scheme for sure. But still, I I need I need, I need guidance. They said that we see all the negative headlines posts and petitions as an inevitable consequence of trying to create positive societal change. Wow. All right. So they basically just said, when you do anything, nice, everyone hates you. We're just gonna collect all the hate in one place. So, you know, but you can also, you know, you can learn again, you can learn from the hate, you can learn from mistakes. You could write, there's a it's not just, like, Anheuser still in it hard, it's not Anheuser. They just kind of threw their hands up. There's like, we don't know what to do throughout the executive that they hired who told them that they were gonna do it and then they threw them out. They put her on leave. It didn't even really throw that sounds like throwing out. In fact, leave seems like one of those things that's like, when we're done losing money on this and backtracking and being jerks about it, then you're fired. I have a guaranteed for you. Matt, if Budweiser and has a bush came out with its own. Fuck Bud. Light website going over this controversy. I bet it win back most of their detractors just because it was kind of honest and funny. No, I don't know. It all I need a little bit. I think I spent that much time. A bunch of things in stakeholders rule in our ESG news Focus here, a couple of strikes Matt Hollywood writers go on strike. I saw that that's sad and happy. No, I'm kind of relieved, I'm sick of it all. I'm sick of all the content. You know what happened here? Come here the last time there was a strike. You know what happened? No, an explosion of reality TV, that's what happened. Well, this is terrible, we're a version of reality TV so come here, come to business, pants know, we're the opposite of reality TV. We aren't throwing our underwear at each other and getting drunk and punching each other every day. That's true. We're research base snark. Also, 500 American Airlines Pilots are protesting that this is like a pre-strike strike. They're protesting the slow pace of contract talks near so they're like pre-strike striking. Yeah. What is that? Is that it's not a strike. That's That's a, that's a someday. We might strike if we don't speed up, here's why I brought them up. Why is it okay for certain industries to strike but not others? Like, why are we okay with Airlines? We seem to be we're into like, labor in sports. But why not other forms of Labor? Why? I like to strike is really the question. We should have a list of which Industries are most likely Is there an industry that you want to see strike soon? Like let's just get striking. Oh, how about the is there an industry that controls Vivek ramaswamy like these are, is there a union behind strive Asset Management? I wish they would go on strike. There is there is that industry? All right. Enslaved, labor back in the news. Oh, where's that's fun? The house, select committee on the Chinese Communist party. Yeah, that's true. Matt. There's actually a house select committee on the Chinese Communist party. Yeah, they put that up by as soon as they finally had a house, they sent letters to the CEOs of two American companies and two Chinese companies that's Adidas Nike shine. And teen move is a d to American company. I'm, I don't know about that. I think they're German according to Forbes they are. But you know, Forbes also reports a lot about WWE matches. I don't really know what's going on for. They asked them about forced labor, and band caught in products in the goods. They sell to us consumers at the heart of the matter is, whether the apparel companies are in compliance with the uyghur force, labor, prevention, Act, That's a nice Act. Um, you know, actually, I don't need to giggle after saying, we hear what I was really giggling. As a, since Emma lurking left, these headlines have disappeared. That's why I'm laughing actually took them with her. I think she took them with her. I don't know how she did that. I do think though that they don't have to call the companies send letters or emails to the companies they can go to their like, I know Nike's website has a really long detail list of where everything gets manufactured, who manufactured it and what they do about, Like potential weaker. Issues. So you know, rather than writing a letter to them, saying, what are you doing? You could read What it's called, ESG. I like it. Also two, 10 year old children were found working at a Louisville McDonald's sometimes until 2 a.m. the US Department of Labor said, yesterday. 10 year olds until I don't know. Which got me more than 10 year old to the 2 a.m. part. I don't know, 10 year olds like at 4:30. I'm a kind of okay with but 130. Mm, I don't know people going through the drive-thru Lane at 1:30 a.m. I don't know. Can a 10 year old? Even reached the top of the counter to like measure 10 year olds. Like 17 inch arm dangling out trying to deal with like a meth addict addicted. You know what you you got to get yourself a gig at McDonald's. The agency also found three french fries is covering covering over 60 McDonald's employed, 305 children to work more than the legally permitted hours and performed tasks prohibited by law for young workers. So McDonald's is a place to send your children the new summer camp, right? Why not McDonald's could put its own website called Fuck McDonalds. And then talk about how this is summer camp and this jacob all these stories on that website and then They could then it's about transparency. This does actually sound you know where you get this information though. Where is a? Yes, she did a providers. That's they have this information. Let's skip over to our final Story, the alternative democracy. That is shareholder votes annual. Meeting why you hate this so much. I just hate when you talk about it. It's ever. This one came from the New York Post. See the good thing about the walk data. The anti-esg words is now we're getting all kinds of weird conservative entities, reporting about this stuff. The headline is Coca-Cola shareholders, vote down, proposal. That targets pro-life States. So shareholders, ask for a proposal to conduct a survey and to how state laws. Restricting, abortion impact, the companies business performance. I only here's the only reason why I picked the story map is that the New York Post claimed that the proposal was introduced by a non-profit called as you saw s a w. What's it really? Is that as you saw, they repeated several times. So this was their opportunity. Big opportunity to be nationally known and they got Miss Representatives as you saw. Wait, is there a different organization? Oh no, that's about Lumber. Well. The Proposal did get 13% decided yes but it did fail, it's true. You know what's interesting about that proposal If you ever proposal surveying how state laws restricting abortion impacts company business performance. The The outcome could be, it doesn't. It actually as you so could be very Progressive and want to know, you know, how badly abortion hurts a business and then the outcome of it could be. It actually didn't hurt our business and does we don't see it through and then the anti will be happy. That's the thing about transparency and disclosure. It actually is useful both ways. Well, that's gonna say, you're basically making the point that ESG is not inherently political. It's not, it's just what you have it, you could sell it from a, from a left or right perspective, but it's just data people. So, all right. Wait, one more finaly in your, in your Equity diversity and inclusion, programs are deeply racist and sexist because they devalue Merit, wait, this is what they wrote in a proposal know, there is a proposal at Kellogg. He didn't let me finish the joke but that's fine. There is a proposal at Kellogg Ah, that asks this is a very Vivid, ramaswamy proposal. We're seeing a lot of these this this year. It's it's stating that the equity diversity, inclusion, programs are deeply, racist and sexist, that's a quote deeply racist and sexist, okay. And that they devalue Merit okay, because If you understand their line of thought, Matt. The I, the idea is, is that if you want that black people and women are Are less excellent, right? They if you hire black people and women it means you're not focusing on marriage. You understand the logic here? Yeah, you devalue Merit by saying black people and women exist because they're dumber than People Like Us white dudes, right? Right. It's like the it's like the Tucker Carlson text message of shareholder proposals This was a Kellogg's Kellogg Company, you want to take a guess at the, how many, yes votes ago, what percentage, of God, I mean, how much did strive own did they? That's like point seven percent. It got 2%. Oh, So I guess 2% of investors are nuts. Is that what we're learning? I think, though, you can't have a shareholder proposal, they get like everything gets 2%. Right, that's it. That's all I got. All right, well, we've got, we're gonna do. We're gonna hear from Paul, right? Yeah, it's a perfect segue. He's talking about new shareholder, resolution resolution. Let's let's go over to Paul. Let's talk to Paul, Paul. Come on in. Tell us all the things. Hello, and welcome to Skagit statistic of the week. or every other week as it's becoming what we're going to look at this week on new types of shareholder resolutions. So, the first of these is on plastic and then there's a new type of climate related shareholder resolution. Obviously, there's been a lot of climate resolutions around for a long time. This is a slightly newer. One, there's been a significant growth in the shareholder resolutions, calling for racial Equity or civil rights audits. There's been a development in political spending types of shareholder resolutions. The first one is lobbying as it relates to climate positions and the second one is lobbying, as it relates to health issues, which are the abortion rights Sheldon, resolution that have been filed. And then there's a slight change to pay Equity gaps, and this is about pay inequality. So they've been a number of these resolutions filed this year. The total number this year so far is 377 that compares to 512 last year, but it's early days and a lot of proxies are still not filed yet. Very few proxies have have gone to resolution only 21 so far this year but things are beginning to hot up this week with a lot of annual meetings coming up. And in particular, the, the resolutions that were looking at here, for example, the plastic pollution one, which gives us a pile of plastic bags of North America or approaching hot Florida. At the moment. Seems to be a particularly important one. There have been seven plastic pollution. Sheldon proposals filed this year. So that's, that's a fairly significant increase as far as that's concerned given that I I'm not sure. I remember other more than one or two in other years, there have been. Well, this is just the largest number of Shelter resolutions in in the sample as it were, which was environmental issues climate related to their 76 of those. Which is, I mean, we're getting close to a third of all resolutions there and the climate related lobbying Slash political spending resolutions have reached 12 this year, which is pretty significant. There were a couple last year. I know that some were withdrawn because companies agreed to make changes to their their climate lobbying policies, these resolutions are tending. To Target companies, whose whose public statements about climate change, are at odds, with those of their trade associations, in many cases, you know, they may be, they may be saying, well, you know, we want to be Paris compliant and their trade associations are lobbying against climate regulations that would help us be Paris compliant. And then the health-related political spending while being proposals is only one so far this year, but there are more to come. And I think that there are more being challenged at the SEC, significant number being challenged at the SEC. So that companies are trying to prevent them from being on their proxy statements. So those are a couple of the ones we're looking at the last one. I'm sorry, I've got this one. The last one was the racial equity and or civil rights audit. They've been 31 of these filed this year, which is a which is a A pretty significant number. So the last one is the racial equity and or civil rights audit share of proposals calling on companies to perform those. So we're looking at 31 of those this year. So far there was a similar number last year with fewer voted on. I think many companies actually just simply agreed to go ahead and conduct a civil rights audit. What happens there is that it's basically it's a an outside body is requested to come in and ordered a company's policies as they relate to racial gender, ethnic hiring treatment of workers, etc. Etc. Pay is part of it as well. But generally just, you know, policies and practices as they relate to minorities. So that's it for our quick. Look at the proposals and new ones this year. Hopefully we'll be back next week or the week after with some more statistics of the Bi weekly. And this is Paul Hodgson signing off. Matt nice. That was Paul hardness cage. 30, racial Equity, audits. That was the number one criteria for strive to vote against that was their top, their thing. That's their thing. We vote against that. Let's get women in black people out of America. Oh, what is speaking of which? What do you have for us? You have some work. Data Wars updates. Here we go. I'm going short. To make this entertaining. Don't depress me too late. All right. Meatball run signs a document that says things. Yesterday was a big day for meatball Ron signing anti-esg legislation. So this isn't even Disney related. This is anti. This is you're at that ESG. It's being called the most sweeping anti-esg legislation signed yet. I thought we thought our company was the most sweeping anti. Yes, we are not sweeping anything but here's where 90% of the document revolves around one. Phrase, okay, pecuniary Factor know, I'm out. It's the way they've done is updated the language in their existing legislation to say. The term does not include the consideration or furtherance of any social political or ideological interests. It says that everywhere. It's as you must adhere to pecuniary factors. Punniyar effective. If you don't know what that is, is supposed to be a factor. That is material to the risk and return of investment. That's it. It's a factor that matters and now they're updating it to say does not include consideration. Of any social political or ideological interests. Like, what is that, like, how are you even alive at that point? If you, if you eliminate social political and ideological from your life, what is it? What is your life? Well, you're staring at a Lego brick know, it's just saying the consideration of those things are not pecuniary and then they go on, right? But I'm just saying, try living in the Western World Without everything is, political everything you do is political. Well, they do not Define. This decision, itself sounds really, really, really, really, really, really political. Did you not to find it any point what social political or ideological interests are? Of course, right? Help though. But so being a Democrat might be there is there is a very much, a read my mind about what's woke element to this. But they do say that they want an oversight group that will provide a quote and attestation under penalty of perjury. Stating the Organization has complied with being pecuniary, basically. So now they're putting up. You have to attest like, raise your hand in the shape of a fist and say, I wasn't woke this year. They also they are asking for, on every odd. Numbered year a report that details the governance policies concerning decision-making in vote decisions and adherence to the fiduciary standards, including this new standard. So every other year, the odd years, you're going to get a report about the social political and ideological interests that you will avoid it. Oh God, it's the probe. You're not woke report. Then what if you've been here, they're going to review another set of stuff. What if you're divesting from a company because the CEO put his three cousins on the board and you just don't like that's part of ESG. Like just I'm just gonna get to that. Hold on. Okay. All right, all investment advisors must also prove that they comply. Okay? Hand on bible stuff I'd like that. You need to prove show us that you didn't have further a social ideological or political The gearing consider or further any of those interests, prove it. Then it goes on to say, no one in Florida, is allowed to issue an ESG Bond. You know, climate bonds, no sustainability bonds, which is gonna be hard, considering Florida. Needs to build walls to stop the ocean from covering Florida and they're going to need to pay for that with bonds that they take out to pay for that but they cannot call it an ESG Bond or climate Bond. They have to call it the ocean wall Bond and they cannot go. This is specific. They are not allowed to go get that bonded by a third party for any ESG criteria. Okay. What if you're investing in the companies that ESG hate isn't? That all so kind of using ESG to pick your portfolio, it doesn't say that. So you just so you can because you know, how they're more and more funds coming up that are intentionally investing. What it says, is you're not allowed to look at the ESG. When you do it, you can just close your eyes and point and then you okay. Yeah, here's the best part, though. Okay. The very best part. My absolute favorite part of this entire letter. He literally not figuratively, literally. Legislated against the Larry. Fink letter? What he legislated against the letter? It says, I mean I'm just quite this is a direct quote, okay, you're gonna have to let me quote the whole thing. It's gonna take a second but Quote, any written communication by the investment manager, to accompany in which such manager invest public funds on behalf of a government entity. Must include the following disclaimer in a conspicuous location. If such communication, discusses, social, political, or ideological interests. The views and opinions expressed in this communication. Are those of the sender and do not reflect the views and opinions of the people of the State of Florida? What The contract may be unilaterally terminated at the option of the government entity if the investment manager does not include the disclaimer required. What he said, is if any company, the state does business with puts out any collateral that mentions social environmental governance issues, Wet on that collateral. It must be put in a quote conspicuous place. That the views are not those of the people of Florida. Can you just put a picture of like Tucker Carlson there? Does that does that? Can you imagine having to comply with this? Like you're gonna have? It means that more boilerplate language is that they did not limit the collateral to Florida. If you write the letter, like, and it goes to Florida or if you write the letter and it goes to the United States, it means if you do business with Florida and you're a European Bank, yeah, every piece of collateral. You give anyone anywhere? Because Florida is your customer, must say the views and opinions expressed in this communication. Are those are the sender do not reflect the views and opinions of the people, the State of Florida, that includes everything that says anything about governance and boards and everything. Okay? It goes on. To say that bank loans are for everybody now, they move into Banks. Now investment now we're saying bank loans are for everybody. You cannot be denied a bank loan because of religion political speech. If you own guns, if you sell fossil fuels, if you cut down forests, you can't be denied a bank loan. If you fail, environmental standards, can't be denied a bank loan for that. In fact, you can't even use corporate board characteristics. It says this, you can't use corporate board characteristics as criteria for your bank loan. Oh, I'm most confused by this one. So basically, if you're if you're a lending Bank, You, you can't make any decisions. You can't make decisions based on any criteria but but So, DeSantis is effectively. Controlling the decision, making of the banks themselves. Yeah. So what he's saying now is a well-armed cult leader, who sells red cans of gasoline, just to that they use in the cult to lighthouses on fire. And if that person sits on the board of a white power organization, they cannot be denied a loan on any of those bases. So is he just trying to? Why doesn't he just nationalize, everything? Isn't that what he's trying to say? He's trying what's a nationalize? The banks. It is the most state-controlled stupid legislation because first of all, and people who hate communism, this is a form of Communism. I suppose it's no place in the document. Does it actually identify what a social political political or ideological? Well, mattress. Is, because it's everything because it's literally everything, what? He's giving himself, the ability to do is unilaterally, punish anyone? He disagrees with? Because in fact, anyway, could you trolling them by making them put his face on every piece of collateral they put out? Couldn't you say that even like building an improving sea walls in Miami as a political gesture? Could you not? That feels like an environmental gesture which is political. Right. Exactly Gonna Fly. That's not gonna fly right. But I'm saying, I don't know is, I don't know. Okay, I can we can we stop. Thank you. Oh wait, I could have just played that music before and shut you up. You couldn't just so sick of Meatball run. Well, here's the news people free float. Business board, saber metrics. Cannot be sold in Florida anymore. It's all Florida and you wanted a piece of the greatest governance. People metric product ever created. I'm not saying that lightly ever. Yeah. If you live in Florida, you operate in Florida, can't help you, sorry. You have meatball. Rhonda thing. That's all. We got. That was Paul from ESG. Thank you. Skagit. Stamina Ross. I met mascardi. We are free float. If you like this we'll be back tomorrow with round well, part two. Yeah. Part two, right of our board draft 2024 draft. Only one ever. No one ever has done this before till then goodbye.