Transcript
Come on. That'll wake you up. Let's go live live from a basket of Class. B lifts shares. Oh, I found that it antique shop in rural Vermont. Not but not by a Cracker Barrel. There are no Cracker Barrels in Vermont so just an empty shocked. Yeah, it's a business pants Friday show here at August 29th Studios. Featuring analyst whole Matt mascardi. I think it's great that those Class B lift chairs are already showing up in antique shops at the kids cute. I'm just waiting for one to show up like, on eBay and or Etsy and it'll be like looking for 1100. Dollars for this vintage Class B share on today's weekly wrap up. Double and anti rainbow Cracker Barrel. Do you see what kind of did their double? Yeah this is the right. The restaurant chain black Lobster. And Matt's favorite cheater. I don't want my favorite. Our show today is being sponsored by free-float analytics.com measuring board power connections performance for free. you know, sometimes I look at Some of our peers I was gonna call them Rivals, but do we? I don't think we get enough business to call anyone arrival. We have that, I look at like ESG Consulting companies, corporate governance, consulting firms, I look at data, ESG data providers, you know, like the msci's and smaller boutiques. Yeah, none of them. I mean, some of them offer, like some Bloggie stuff they post, like little like, statements and little news articles. None of them, provide, you anything, any analytics? Any data nothing for free? Nothing. Yeah, that's true. We do for you, fully analytics.com. Does I mean? No, no, it is free for analytics, have a giant database that is free and is in the middle of an update. So if you're wondering, you know, when's the next update, it's coming in the next couple days. Now not only do they not offer anything for free but we all so offer a Zine that has a crazy scene that is information and analytics like underneath the pile of snark we offer more than we're doing. Two shows on business pants or doing one show on Fox account and mic holder Prime. That's the thing. There's so much content and information that is actually useful. Here's where I have amazing, is that, I fall a lot of people on. I don't the only social media I use is LinkedIn, although it Sort of drives me crazy, and I kind of be happy not to do LinkedIn anymore, but that's a whole nother story. Every occasionally people post these Kind of little news items about corporate governance matters people. We are the only ESG corporate governance news service in the world. We cover dozens of these stories on every show. I mean, we have so much information. Here, we, if you're posting on LinkedIn, we've already talked about it on the podcast three. I was before, not to mention that we've gone into great depths of analysis. We don't just post like something like quirky and witty and, and hope and kind of ask for your likes. And yeah, I have never, I have no. We put a whole shows on this stuff, so I don't know. So if you care about this stuff, tell your friends. This is the only well, yes, company. If you're listening to the show, you probably should get some friends first and then tell them to all right. This show. All right. Let's go story. I'm sick of talking. Oh, we have to do a show now. I yeah, that's not it. We have to do the actual show. There we go. Store of the week. I I don't want to do this anymore. I'm thank God, it's over. Can we just skip it? Look, I guess we could go. I'll try to go quickly gloss. Yeah. The crack, I'm calling this. The Cracker Barrel BS. So Everyone knows about this story. We don't have to spend too much time in a nutshell, the the female CEO, and I should mention that, because I think that's kind of, sort of a part of the story, and I combined it with female powered board. It's one of like, like we, this was in the scene. There are none of those like, 120 female power boards in the United States. This is one of them. Yeah, Julie, Messina is the CEO. Okay, so she changed the corporate logo which wasn't even the original logo. They get rid of the barrel. They get rid of some old white man and everyone goes, I shouldn't say. Everyone goes crazy, a very small seven guys. Seven, white dudes went crazy, including some of the classics. Like, I think, I think the Robbie Starbucks, right? Yeah, Robbie Starbucks. And, of course Fox News on this because hey, is the new, this is what we sell. Now, in America, we sell hate and you know what, kind of works it actually. Yeah, it was social media works on the News. So the CEO and the board. I should the board should be included in this. They decided correct after apologizing is saying we're sorry that we the way we did this but we're gonna keep the logo. After Donald Trump the president weighed in they then said never mind. We're going to keep the old logo. Okay, that's the story. Yeah. Okay. Don't that was so within a week all of that happened in one all within a week. So and don't pretend anyone actually cares that nobody cares and there's a great article and Fortune today or yesterday says Cracker Barrels. Inconvenient fact, all the customers who loved its old logo had stopped going to the restroom. Correct. Did we say that? Yeah, Matt said. Like maybe literally 10 days ago that about it. The average age of their customer is like 642 it's like only Yoda goes there anymore. Yeah and so I don't know what we're protected. What's that? So what are we doing? Why is CEO protecting this logo? Because like what choice does anyone have any more except to capitulate like everyone just sends the knee. It's not true. You don't have that. You have choice is I I don't I don't know why. Honestly, I might have stepped in a Cracker Barrel if they had said, you know, we're keeping the logo, go f yourself, I might go to a Cracker Barrel still and just gotten one order of meatloaf and said, I will never eat here again, because the food is horrible. That's why people don't eat here. So here a few other things happening at the same time. And of course Fox, the one that's reporting is the most is Fox News and Fox Business. There's nothing else to report. On Cracker Barrel has already taken down its Pride page, right? Yeah, I heard that and including some of these other groups. They linked to these business resource groups. The good news is gays, don't eat meatloaf anyway. So they got rid of not that they're no longer pointing to all these groups that you used to support. One was bold, which develops black leaders. One was Ola which promotes Hispanic and Latino culture, the lgbtq plus Alliance, of course is gone. The neuro verse Collective which focused on advocacy around nerd diversity. Even the veterans group they took down and they took it in all a women, a women's group all died on the veterans. Yeah. So hey vets. Did you know, you're diverse and all that information is available in the way back machine. I don't want to ever use the way back machine, but when incorporation is take down information on their website, it's the first place I go, is the way back machine. You can look at the site. Before that mostly I used to look at pictures of directors from the past. Here's another headline, despite claims it's too woe. Cracker Barrel actually has a fraught lgbtq plus history so their founder Dan Evans ervin's Evans. One of the things he's famous for unfortunately, sexual harassment is that he had up there was a policy That if you're, when you're sick, if your sexual preferences, fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values, that's according to their quotes, their quote, you you, you were to be fired. That was a directive of written directive and in the founder and former CEO and former chair Dan Evans, his explanation for this was that the edict was that gay people made customers in rural areas uncomfortable. So they, they actually there's many as 16 employees were who were openly gay or suspected gay. I don't know what that means. What does that mean to be suspect? Someone's gay. You either gay or you're anywhere? They were fired. The shareholders actually stepped in, I was spending all morning, looking at very old filings from the SEC that go back to 2000 on their their database in 2002. 58% of shareholders, actually, supported a shareholder proposal to explicitly forbid anti-discrimination at this company, which is crazy to think that we were made way more Progressive liberal in 2002. At the same time, the board. I couldn't find any proof of this in filing. But shareholders led to the board removing Dan Evans does the CEO, right? Sure. So all this was happening there are also some other things happening in 2004, the justice department sued, the chain for discriminating against Black customers. Well, We're back to that. Yeah. And so so anti-gay anti-black. So this, I guess. And I'm not saying this, this is not even tongue in cheek when I say this, I guess this is what Maga Donald Trump. Donald Trump Junior. Robbie sudberg are referring to, with Heritage. They're referring to this. This supposition that people in the South like to hate on gays and hate black people, which I personally don't believe. I don't think America is filled to hate Phil with hate. I think that it's just a divisive thing that we sell now that seems to work. But I actually don't think that most people who go to Cracker Barrel believe in this shit, but they're being told, we're being told, they do I want to take it further back go get. So my biggest problem is you can't even get. So look a Cracker Barrel is a barrel of effectively so teams like Saltines whenever I have like whenever I have a throw up or I die or die, I assault teams. Yeah. I think that's the only useful to our listeners. I want to be clear. It's That's not. It doesn't happen often. Okay it's a version of like a soda cracker, right? Like and and they used to be stored barrels and people sit around and they, you know, hang out and they'd be I guess that was the thing. I don't think we've gone back far enough in our heritage I think they should only serve crackers from Cracker Barrels now, I mean, where do we cut it off? Where do we say? Well, that's where our heritage starts and this is where it ends like you. You can't change this if you don't want to change the past, even though the logo goes already changed. And now we're going back to the second logo of the company, right? Like we're not going back to the first. We're going back to the second you are you are effectively saying there was a period from like 1969 until 2024 2025 that that's the period. Where the logo matters most. But there were saltine crackers in the stores in 1969. So should we? We need to go back to them. We need, we should it all should be the same. You should not be allowed in without overalls on like you, like what is the line? It's bananas to me, that this is even a conversation. It's, I'm really am sick of it. I'm sorry. I'm tired of this. Yeah, I'm gonna add one more thing. Before we move on this, this delightful little tidbit of misinformation. So the, this guy in the, in the, I'm sure a lot of some of our listeners. Never even seen this guy because we don't have Dan Evans know. So, Uncle Herschel. Oh, the guy in the logo because I did a picture of Dan Evans and I thought, of course, that's what he looks like I'll get to. I'm, I want to say one more thing about Dan Evans, too. But the thing I love about Uncle Herschel, who I guess he worked for the company. He was one of the he was his uncle. Of course, like it's involved with nepo, but nepo, baby. Them. But he was a real person person Herschel McCartney. He was a younger brother of Cracker Barrel, founder, Dan evans's mother, I don't know what that means. It's his cousin, right? They claimed, he was a Goodwill Ambassador of the brand. Here's a funny part, brother. It's the person in the sign that everyone thinks is that guy Uncle Herschel. It's not actually that got him. I know it's not him. Yeah, I read that. Yeah. So one more thing about Dan Evans which is fun, is that Prior to founding the company. He worked for Consolidated oil company founded by his grandfather. So that, you know, this is a real hair American Heritage. That is America only crackers. Yeah, I love that. All right. Okay, that's it. I get anything to add about Cracker Barrel because I hope this is it. I hope we're done under Barrel. There's nothing to Add here. I mean the things to add here actually bigger picture things, which some of which I'll come back to you but Brazen ultimately we are we have dropped all pretense, we are just saying that we want white old men to have his prominent, a place even in a store where no one goes. It's lost 16% of its business over the last three years and all its all its actual customers are dying off. No one cares about Cracker Barrel. We want white men to be as prominent as possible and as many places as possible, and if you dare, you dare lay a finger on an old white guy and say, oh well maybe it's time to get somebody younger. Who doesn't look like an old white guy. A chance, we are going to fuck you over as much as possible. That's that's, that's the bigger pretext. You know what pains me to is that you mentioned this before? This does kind of its a blight on one of my favorite talking points was the, you know, This happened at a female LED board. This is a it's a female-led board with a female. Let's be clear about the female lead board here, and this is what I anticipate being some of them being in the scene this week, like female LED companies, female-led boards do not exist, except in like two cases. The primary one is as cleanup. This is your classic company is failing. No one is going to it, she came in. She came 2023 to turn this company around this company around. Yes, part of turning. The company around is appealing to new customers who what you might want to sell shit to, which is what he said, which is she said, when her initial apology, yes, her whole job was to create growth in this company. Not to preserve your heritage to sell meatloaf for Christ's sake. Well, their job is to make it interesting to someone, not the original customer who's not going. And to be fair uh 20 28% 37 percent of the companies held by institutional owners, at least the top three, institutional owners. I'm sure there's a lot beneath that the other 9% is held by a very loud, Maga dude, who also owned Steak and Shake named Sardar biglari. So she's dealing with some like very strange activist. Investor Maga investors attention here so that at this point is par for the course for the failing companies. Failing companies, attract like, you know, weird outlandish activist. Yeah. But so overtly political, this guy is now doing the round with his Maga had on, like, they used to doctor, you've got like, every Tech, bro, in the universe now is overtly political, and I said, I was gonna stop talking about it, but I do want to add one thing. What what happened to this notion of like, we were angry woke companies for for not looking for not performing. Their fiduciary duties, right? We're basically want to send ISS and glass Lewis and BlackRock to jail for looking at ESG things. Since, when should a company be preserved preserving its Heritage, overlooking at the bottom line, and trying to get customers in and try to make a profit automatically? What the hell is happening that you're, that's the trade refuting? All of the bullshit? This is all this is is misogyny and racism. That's all it is. And sorry and homophobia. I'm sorry that don't forget, that was standing that that sums it up the trade. That's happening. Come the company struggling. How dare you here is the trade, the trade is you are trading. Growth turning the company around capitalism, making money. For your perceived victimhood as a, as a as a cultural heritage and no other facet of America. Do we make the trade that says, you're perceived victimhood should actually take the take a stance over making the money. In fact, the argument against being woke was that like your you aren't doing it on Merit, you're losing growth, you're giving something up to be doing ESG or environmental things or be woke. And the fact is Cracker Barrel proves the opposite. You're stupid cultural heritage is holding the company back. Why do you think companies went to this in the first place? Do you think they do it? Because for moral reasons, they want to take a political position money. They want to attract customers money. They will say whatever they fucking can. Well, every one of us to go in and buy shit. I went to the website and I ordered four Meatloaf's for dinner and four Diet Coke. With tax and tip, that's a hundred dollars. So there's yeah, I'm sorry. But your customers, your heritage you customers. They can't afford a grocery not. You want to talk about this company again. Shame on you, Cracker Barrel, you really you suck? I mean, you really suck. Number two story of the week, unfortunately, it's kind of more of the same, the anti Dei Purge continues. So I have I have three stories under the same umbrella, the FED emphasizes its commitment to Independence as Lisa Cook pledges to sue over Trump's illegal firing. So Trump trying to fire black woman Lisa Cook from the fed and then the White House, they also fire CDC. Director another woman Susan moneris. Who says because she said that I suppose the RFK Jr. Is weaponizing public health. Now, the person they replaced her with Is the stooge named Jim O'Neill. He's referred to as RFK Juniors. Deputy he is. So unlike Monera is unlike Susan, he's a former investment executive who does not have any medical or scientific background. He's being chosen to be the new CDC director, He just for, he's a speech writer for the health department during the George W, Bush Administration, and went on to work for the tech investor and conservative Mega donor, Peter Thiel. So, just, this is the guy. There are placing the woman with at CDC. That crazy. I mean, he stands for Centers for Disease Control. It's the place where it's basically, you know, how you want a wall to keep the Mexicans out Mega. Well, CDC is the wall to keep viruses out and you basically put in charge of that wall. A guy who doesn't do science and doesn't know how to build walls. Like it's great. It's great. And then the final one, Trump fires member of bored that approves railroad mergers. His name is Robert Primus. He received an email from the White House, a couple days ago. Maybe yesterday turning his position. He likely to cook. He says, he's gonna stay, I think they're gonna Sue Trump. But the reason why I point him out is another one of the anti DIA periodico. Put Robert Primus in that position in 2020. It was Trump and Congress Trump's Congress who approved him in that in that position. And now terminated him for with no, cause they just said he wasn't America. So, America enough with all the, with all the data we've given you about boards, we just had several news agencies cover some of our and Analysis about the Bro, the Bro, IP of the pros summer. Yeah, this is No longer anecdotal. This is what's happening across Corporate America and and the private sector the government. The the Maga world is systematically getting rid of women and people of color and you should you should you should know this and you should fight back and you should be angry about it. I would say this because a lot of people say that the countries, you know, government is running efficiently deals. Well, I mean, like if you talk to a lot of people, if you watch a lot of, you know, like conservative commentary or whatever, and a lot of it by Regular People on social media, they'll say things like the government is really inefficiently run. The reason why Donald Trump is so appealing is because he's a businessman, he knows how to get stuff done. He knows how to make deals, all that kind of stuff. If you believe that, then what you should spend your time doing is figuring out. What happens in the business democracy, the corporate democracy there is a democracy there where, uh, boards are Collected people are fiduciaries. They have roles and jobs, and all sorts of stuff. And if you pay attention to that, then you know how they're going to lead over here. And it turns out they're not that efficient. In fact, all they do is hire their friends, they're incredibly expedient, they just move around whatever the wind political winds are, they don't really care. They chase the highest dollar, and they do it for the shortest possible term. When you make a decision, like the CDC director and you put a business person in charge of that, which you end up with is horrible. Horrible CDC, cdc's place for science, not everything is a business because if you, if it was, it would run horribly the business. The alternative democracy is a joke. 26% of American companies are totalitarian. They actually there is no democracy. They are run by a dictator, those companies do not outperform the Democratic companies but investors put up with it because that's it, I don't know. That's what we're doing. It's bananas to me or even talking about this. This everything's the worst. That was the second story of the anti Second Story. And finally, the third I did you a favor and I got rid of my fourth story, the third and final story is I'm calling the oligarchy rules to your point because I don't want anyone to get mistaken by any of this. We talked about Bernie Sanders also, favoring the move for the US government to get shares and Intel, but the, but Bernie Sanders wants that for a very different reason than Donald Trump wants it. Bernie Sanders is not attached to. The oligarchy is actually fighting the oligarchy. He says this as much, every time he speaks his idea of government control is to is to is to give back some of the props to the people. This is not why the US government. Now don't Trump is getting involved. And what I'm speaking of is I that the US government is making a nine billion dollar investment. Intel nearly 10% stake, a steak does not have voting rights. Uh, another story that we missed this the same week this, or maybe this happened last week, but it's the same company Intel's that soft bank group led by oligarch. Massey's son, you know. The great billionaire. Yeah. He also bought two billion dollars of Intel. Right? This is this is really what Trump buying a portion of Intel is really about the oligarchy. It's not about government control. It's about, it's about his people having control of the things that he wants to have control of, but I I don't know what happens if if a Democrat wins the next election, but maybe he's hoping, that'll never happen again. But anyway, the third story of the week is, basically is just everything around the government. Taking a stake Intel, like so I read that. the way the in the, in the 8K, it says the way that the government stake will work. Is the government will have voting rights, but is only allowed to vote. Here it is. You know, with must vote, any shares of common stock held by it in favor of nominees of, and any proposals recommended by the company's board of directors and against any other nomination, or proposal, not recommended by the board of directors, right? Meaning. Take a stake, its government governance rights are pro CEO process to vote with management company has to vote was management. So this is not so Bernie Sanders like this for a very different reason. I want everyone to be clear about this. They are taking a 9% stake, meaning. Now 91% of the vote is effectively, all you get as investors because 9% is just management voting for itself, right? Yeah. And so and and stopping again is going to billion dollars which is about that's like a 3% stake or something. So within a week 12%, basically, 12 13% of Intel has gone over to the billionaire class with the last week. It just like, they will vote entirely with management crazy. There will be no end. This is the management team to say crazy that Trump said needed to be fired. He wanted him fired about that. Yeah, just a week and a half ago. So the guy he wanted fired, he has no right to fire. In fact, he can only agree with Yeah, I ordered. What is the deal that the US government got? I don't what their pilings, don't make clear is how the board was involved with this. I'm I, I'm kind of surprised that something of this magnitude is not get presented to the shareholders too. Like it's very unusual. Did they just strong arm until like, how did this happen? So quickly, what how was the board involved? Why is this not up for vote? It's very confusing but it's mostly confusing because it's never happens. So there you go. It not only does it never happen. The stock has dropped nearly 4% in the last five days. Well, why does, why does the Trump Administration? And they all Arky, having nine point nine percent control, until why should that help Intel? I don't understand how that helps Intel I mean and again once again what about the so called fiduciary duties of the investors and the board over Intel. Like I just can't I can't get over like just from the government side, right? Like you took a 10% stake in the company because you were making a trade, the trade you were making was we were going to give you nine billion dollars that we had already allocated to you, but we were gonna withdraw and wheel and deal and whatever. We're just, it's just fun to make deals and we'll just do it. But let's say they gave 9 billion dollars of US taxpayer money and they handed it to Intel. And they said, what we want in return is a equity stake in in the company, but our Equity stake will have absolutely no equity REITs. What is the trade? You just made you just everybody else can vote on Intel but you can't everybody else is entitled to the same Equity REITs. You basically said, we are willing to see all control to the company. To make this deal. I don't, this is a, you know, I thought it was like a bad deal for Intel and capitalism is a fabulous deal. They get 9 billion dollars. They, they don't have and they have, they actually, they gave 9 billion. They got nine billion dollars and 10% of the vote. That's what they got. Ya in definite definite. Yes, for anyting. A definite, yes, on everything. You can't remove it. Just if you're trying to poison pill ever because it's comes with cash. What is the trade? What the US? Government doesn't get mad at you. I I guess the trade is that Trump doesn't get mad at you when Intel gets rid of the barrel from their logo, No 9 billion dollars and 10% of the vote. This is like watching like like a Cleveland draft party for the NFL where somehow they end up trading all their first round picks and they get a kicker in return. Actually does happen to Cleveland. Let's get up here and vote because I got I hate all the good Cracker Barrel Roll. I'm on the same story, I heard and Intel. I'm not voting for Cracker Barrel's story of the week because as much as it was talked about, I never want to talk about it again, it's terrible. I'm not gonna talk about the stupid Intel trade because it really, I don't I don't want let's not get messy Yoshi's son too. He was involved. Yeah, but I need to talk. I need to say that the anti Dei Purge is the story of the week, because this is a way this is now Beyond, anecdote. It's beyond like, you know, guess we're of data for this. We now have data that shows we are disproportionately purposefully targeting men and women of color wherever they are. So if we can make up a reason, right mortgage fraud against women at work against gay people, they didn't even bother making up a reason for Robert Primus. They didn't even bother, they just said your fired. Like this makes all the wheels and dealing with the universities that we talked about. In past shows we talk about Columbia. We talked about Brian, all the more appalling and upsetting to me. Like, how do you how do you dealing? How are you making deals with this Administration? How do you say the knee? All right, let's move on. Let's go goodly the shortest goodly. I think we've ever done in our production notes. Well, I'm gonna start because I'm gonna prove that you can do things, Korea passes boardroom reform, curbing, cable power, So, see what a table is essentially, is an oligarchy in control of your corporations where billionaires and their families control corporations for generations and do whatever that they want and Korea saying well maybe not the greatest idea. So I know everyone jokes at me when I say hey why don't we regulate some stuff? Why don't we change some rules here in America? And people like I'll never happen but it can happen. It does happen. You hear. But do you hear that investors? We had to go to Korea to get a good list of the week. This week, we had to go home all the way to Korea. I have two options. Go, neither one. I feel like is great. The other one I like yours involved colors. Yes. First is the, this headline Red Lobster is betting on black diners with his brand comeback. Okay. Now who's gonna get upset about that? Should we get upset about that? We there? So if I'm white, I don't feel comfortable going in there anymore, right? They're taking away my Heritage. Well, the great news is like Cracker Barrel. Never went to let Red Lobster either. But at least I'm from Maine. So you'd get punch. If you went to Red Lobster, at least I like Lobster. At least at a bare minimum. I like the lobster. I just like that. This is this is out strategic. This is thinking like you know what? We are going wait see black people can be, can be customers too, is that all learning? They turns out they buy stuff. So, yeah, but when you're company is companies struggling, you can reach out for other demographics, to get them to buy stuff. That's a, that's a part of American capitalism, still, that's I guess it's still somewhere in there. I didn't read those bylaws but it's somewhere but that is no black to eat. I didn't realize it's exactly what Cracker Barrel was trying to do. Yeah, literally trying to do the exact same thing which is no one's coming to our store. Let's get rid of some of the Vestige of the really old stuff to attract new Young customers. So that were cool again. What you're saying basically money? If you're gay, if you're Key. If you're black, if you're Jewish, like Cracker Barrel, scares you a bit, like, you know, no offense, Cracker Barrel but and that's and We're in this week is that it's supposed to scare you a bit. Like, we're trying to scare you a bit? Yeah. Now we figure out like scaring us, so I'm actually not actually not paranoid. I'm just, I'm just reflecting the what's real. It's literally an ongoing Halloween haunted house for everyone under 35. I like that. This is, this is the exact opposite they're doing Exactly what they want and said they were to do, and we're gonna turn this around. What else we're gonna bet on black diners? I like that. Um, the other story I have is Blue Sky. Now, platform of choice, for Sykes Community, you know, I know this to be true because I don't use Twitter, but I do use blue sky, although I will say this blue sky is still super depressing. Like I everything I read just makes me feel really sad. It's well, you're not in the science Community know, I am thank but I'm in a lot of the communities but it just that everyone has very set. Things reporters what I'm trying to tell like, oh everyone's being fought from everyday angles. So, but what I like about this is they, they found a they ditched me all major social media companies. I love, I love that somebody basically said. You know what, if we're not welcome, we're gonna go to a place where we are at Blue Sky. We are, and it makes me want to go on Blue Sky and I've never been on Blue Sky. So now I'm excited to sign up just because well because that's where the smart people of God. We can hide together. I will add that now that this is the reason why you pick these stories but the Red Lobster. It, the CEO is a black man. Nigerian American and Chinese American woman, runs Blue Sky. Yeah, love it. So those are my options now. Let's bring it back down again as well. What do you choose? What's the winner for the winner list? I got to go with the nerdy one career, right? Yeah, cuz I mean that's important. Yeah, and we're gonna get more deal. The first time we do proxy content. Again, we're gonna go really in the detail about all that because there's actually a lot of Reform going on here. You're supposed to get people to listen to the show. You're not supposed to drive them away. All right, let's do us. Because honestly, I don't even care if Red Lobster survives or not. And well, yeah, that's that's your main Century attitude. I have three options. I'm actually gonna go in reverse order because we've already covered two of them. The options are shareholder and democracy, meritocracy, and surrendering boards. I'm gonna start with surrendering boards because we have Cracker Barrel. The headline that I saw was Cracker Barrel CEO Under Pressure, resign after logo U-turn, I just want to highlight the Illuminati on the board of Cracker Barrel because we don't know one anywhere has really discussed the board of Cracker Barrel except for one guy. Yeah. Whose name is Gilbert Davila. Yeah, I saw him in the news. He's the CEO of a diversity marketing company. And there are, I've already seen headlines of people are mad at him. People are mad at just that guy because they think, like, well, it had to be had to be the guy who was a person of color who does diversity marketing, who's the one who got rid of the white guy in the logo, right? Despite the fact that he's been there for five years, and clearly loves the company. It's paying him. A big paycheck. He is the one who's trying to get rid of. Yeah. Well, the, the Illuminati running the board includes Carl. Berquist. Who was X Arthur Andersen. Oh, do we remember Arthur? Yeah, tell us it's the accounting firm that fail miserably during Enron because it basically helped fraud. It just America's most counting for you. Yeah. Totally total disaster. It has John Garrett, who worked a Dollar General. Well, when we think of Winning companies. We don't we all think of Dollar General, that's that's the saddest place. You can go no one abuses it to work first or its customer base really more than Dollar General. So congratulations or how about Giselle Ruiz, who is X Sam's Club, which is Costco's crappier brother, right? Like owned by the Walton family, right? Yes, correct. Um, like it's the Costco. No one goes to really. Um, speaking of the oligarchy, do you know how many stories I tag I tag stock instead of stock trading whenever a director cashes out, more than a million dollars, a direct or executive, the Walton family routinely. It's like every week, they're like they're taking another 80 million dollars. Oh yeah. What? The tree where we have Walmart, where everything is like cheap and gross and breaks in a week and just they just people keep going in yet, the family is just Cashing Out 80 million dollars at a time. Every two, every two weeks. What is this what's crazy to make? Well I mean just keep going, just just for point of reference, Cracker Barrel expanded, the board about three months ago to add Steve bramlage. This is an 8K who is that? Casey's general. Oh, we just talked about Casey's general. We just talked about Casey's general, one of the things we set up about Casey's general is they suck? Oh yeah. That's another story I've never seen I've actually never I mean, Casey's general is a store, that's that also losing to the S&P over. The last five years is down in just the last month. It's down almost 6% like These are the winners on the board. So when you're picking boards, you're investor, you're picking a board. Maybe pick someone that will say to Julie messino. Hey stand, your ground here like I would turn this company around. You want to know why? Because we're good at our jobs and you could be good at yours. This is one of the most upsetting things about Corporate America and and our jobs, here's I would actually love to know like after a Celtic game when they Grill. All the players are like, like why did you you know, why did you throw the ball out of bounds you jerk? I would I wish reporters could actually ask the board. Like how are you involved with the decision? Tell me about your week like yeah, how many times you talk to CEO? Did you actually did you vote on anything like how did this go down? Like I'm with him. I want that. I was like no other boy was involved with this Netflix. Where the fuck are you? You you you you managed to pull out like The Game? Stop. Be seven months after getting the GameStop mean thing. Like you you cast it and he paid for it. Whereas this one the second board I have here is obviously Intel's board and anyone in the Intel board from Dollar General or Casey's general turns out. No, but they do have Greg Smith from Boeing from X Boeing. So look we're when you look at the boards of these companies like they have a guy from Sequoia their chair, their quote unquote, independent chair has been there since 2009, a guy named Frank Geary, he's a private Equity, VC, Tech Guy. When he on weasler, he was at the board in 2020. He's xhp, because everybody talks about HP is being relevant in 2025, like printers. When you look at these companies, you realize they are not the boards of a lot of these companies are not stocked with the The top minds of America necessarily these are not top performers as all I'm saying and we should know who they are because if you want to get pissed at Intel for actually, what is I've convinced myself is now a brilliant trade you know they got 10% of the vote and nine billion dollars for that. That's a brilliant trade and the CEO keeps his job and I guess Trump will shut up now and Trump is shut up what a trade it's really the worst thing possible for America the best thing possible for Intel every vote now at their company is now rigged because they get a free 10%, yes for every vote. It's great. And guess what? Barbara Novick on the board Barbara novik is one of the founders of BlackRock BlackRock owns. I think 9% of Intel, which means it's a guarantee that black rocks. Not going to vote against their ex founder, you kidding me. Can you imagine that vote? If you could do this in sports too, I wish Trump could give the Red Sox some money. They could buy some new players and then every game starts out there. You have a lead one to nothing for every game, That's cool. It's basically what it is. I mean it's like they bought 20% of the vote just by having a BlackRock founder on the board and getting Trump to agree, to give up all his voting rights. It's really fabulous. But no, you're bored. That's my first people who don't know their boards. Yeah, it's surrendering boards, I don't like boards and surrendered to anybody. I don't, number two, is the meritocracy, some old meritocracy there should be a way of saying that with air quotes. Because again, I've still never seen any quantifiable measuring data to support. Yes, one analytics out. That's true. They actually the only one that have one. I've only won. That's actually quantifiable that I've ever seen. But I just, you already covered the Dei Purge Muriel browser, Karen bass. That these are cities led by black women or targets of trump. Latisha Jones. She's a attorney general. In New York, she is under a campaign, a pressure campaign from the Trump Administration, get removed Lisa Cook, you talked about Robert Primus you talked about, I just want to focus in on what might be the most asshole statement I've ever read. Ever go about the meritocracy. It came in response to Robert promises termination. Yeah black man, here's the quote from the Trump Administration. Quote, Robert Primus did not align with the president's America First agenda. That sounds gross, which is just not see now, right? Like, um, like I don't like the son of the and was terminated from his position by the White House. The administration intends to nominate new more qualified members to the surface Transportation board in short order. So, using the dog whistle of. Merit right. Like well, anyway, because I because the first thing I think of is, when I think of the surface Transportation board, if you're going to make a statement that you're going to hire more qualified members the board, I need a, I need a long list of criteria that establishes what it means to be qualified for the surface Transportation board. I need to see that because that way, I can, I can actually do my, my checks and my data and looks say who's qualified. You can't just say a thing. Yeah. Well, you can, you can, that's the problem. And right now, the two people that are left on this board are three people left on this board are Patrick Fuchs, Michelle Schultz and Karen Headland. One is a Democrat Karen headlined and the other two are Trump. Appointees the guess, which one of them actually worked at the Federal Highway Administration. Federal Railroad Administration was a, Deputy Administrator, she's been on this board since 2021 guess which one of them has experience dealing with something like Transportation. Who's the Democrat? It's fucking Democrat, who's definitely next because the guy leading the surface Transportation board. The chairman Got a master's degree in public policy. He was part of an international economic program in the National University of Singapore. Even though he's a white American, don't worry. He's a white American. He basically has no prior background in transportation over the surface, right? But we're firing the guy who did not, we're looking for more qualified members to align with the president's America First agenda. So America First is white, I mean, they should be, they should be, that's it right? Should be white conservative to anytime you make a statement like that anytime you reference a meritocracy or or qualifications, you should be forced to give that list of criteria. I want to see that list. Unbelievable to me. It's the most asinine right like ever heard in my life, just like they would. You mean asshole? Bring it back to the sports analogy. If the Red Sox are gonna hire a new cleanup hitter, you're going to want to see that that clean up here has actually played baseball before and hit a home run. You know, I would be ideal that would be on the qualification list. I love that money. Ball is basically woke like it's and then my my other one. It is the shareholder democracy, okay? So, I got four examples in the shareholder democracy. Sounds like it's gonna take three hours. First of all, Mike Levin of the shareholder Primacy podcast. He's also the writer of the activist investor newsletter. He put out a newsletter this week. He's part of a lawsuit Detroit vs Tesla. They basically were sort of its a similar lawsuit about Elon musk's pay package. It was a club act for directors pay and Detroit pension fund sued Tesla about clawing back direct pay, they won the lawsuit, effectively, here's what Mike writes. I'll just gonna read, what he wrote followers here should recall 10 current and former Tesla directors, agreed to repay 735 between 2717 and 2020 as part of the settlement of the derivative lawsuit Detroit vs Tesla. On February 25th of this year, Tesla got 735 million in cash and returned options from the defendants from the directors. Okay? Tesla got the money back. That's what the lawsuit said. They swore it in an affidavit that they had the money. From the directors. They did not specify how much each defendant paid, but they said they had the money in March of this year March 31st, they filed a brief acknowledging, the receipt of the damages and noting that five director defendants currently on the Tesla board had not filed form fours, showing their change and options that they held meaning. If they paid the money, you need to file with the SEC to show where the money came from for active directors. Sure. On April 29th, the full month later, Tesla authorizes, the cancellation of the options to reflect the settlement. So now they file a form force and they canceled the options on May 1st the defendants filed, the actual form Force, but it is impossible for Tesla to have gotten the money from the directors on February 25th without having canceled the options that didn't happen until April 29th. So Tesla files a brief. Yes, Tesla files a brief, a sworn affidavit to a judge. Saying, we took the money from our directors as part of the settlement and then they don't actually do that until three months later, it sounds very. So they're just fucking lying, okay? There's just line now we're just making it up because we don't care. I don't really stop. You're trying to plug Another show in our Network called shareholder promise with Michael because I got an email from Kevin Barnes of kaybar Holdings who filed a little proposal at Eagle materials. Also this year asking for shareholder, write to files for special meetings. He won 92% in favor. Wow, a massive win. Good for Kevin for investors It was a non-binding vote obviously advisory vote but 92% of investors this isn't j-hope with like 53% voted him out. This is 92% investors, right? 92%? Okay, which is what I will say which we now know is in an impossibility. Intel that will never be a 92% vote in the National won't happen. But but in order for this to work Fidelity, Vanguard BlackRock and JP Morgan not communists, These are massive. Institutionalized managers had to vote in favor of this, right? Kevin. Emailed me Tuesday and said Eagle materials has yet to notice a special meeting to formalize. The Amendments. They have not actually sent out anything to investors saying, they are going to change the bylaws to allow for investors to do this. They're just ignoring him. They're just they investors one 92%, they're just ignoring investors, they literally have not done anything in a month reach out to us. If any of your listeners. Know what is the what is the expected time period for for situations, like this? I mean, you said the vote was August. 4th is through your weeks enough. I mean, does it take longer if anyone knows reach out to file, a notice to change the Bible to do is tell investors, we're going to use the Bible, I agree, but I don't know, it's probably all at their third home's, on, Cape Cod, or Lake Michigan or something. Well, they did have time. This was, this is the like, the Stupid part. They did have time to file like all sorts of other filings like yeah true you think you could have slipped this one in? Yeah. He got meanwhile at samsara where Marc Andreessen and Sue Wagner whose ex BlackRock also spend their time on the board. They held their AGM on August 16th and 19th. I was after August 16th hasn't happened yet. I think you're now hallucinating. Oh sorry not August. 16th was when they added the person right and 19 days prior they held their AGM. Yes. And corvo, John Chavez and filed to shareholder, proposal asking for right for investors to call a special meeting all. So we got 44% in favor and investors, only approved pay with 59% in favor of. Yeah, they're mad at corvo one day. After the annual meeting the board approved, a giant golden parachute for the executives, one day after a reason You know why they do that? Because they don't, they do it. They looked at the data and then they know that investors are not going to vote against them next year. So those year three options, the Cheryl democracy the meritocracy in surrendering boards. Oh, I feel exhausted. Not going to be the meritocracy because that's pretty Evergreen. We talked about that one. A lot that the shareholder now. They're all Evergreen. What are we talking about? They're all Evergreen. I'm gonna go with just a classic. It's probably the boring. Winner here, but I'm gonna go with, no, your surrendering boards. You gotta people, you gotta know who are on your boards. This, I know you're selling ours. Yeah, but you know, the Cracker Barrel story is a little bit bigger than just, kind of a barrel roll in some stupid talking points. We, you know, we, there are people behind the decisions. I'm gonna vote for that, that's correct. There are people black? All right, let's move on. Let's do headlines predictions. We got to get out of the show. Okay. I got a good headline, so I think I'm only gonna pick one and Lou of revity and I don't want to get more depressed. I'm gonna, I'm gonna eliminate my second one, but my first one is a classic. The only I would probably like, pork industry, leader, David Newman selected, as National pork boards, next CEO, Oh, I love that, right? I mean, it's great for industry leader. Pork leader selected. I don't even know why that makes me laugh. I just it's I just think there's just something funny to me that we still eat pork. Anyway what are we doing? Stop killing I love pork. Okay get industry leader imagine that's your that your moniker important industry leader selected to lead pork. It's like pork and eat it like I guess I won't super judge you but pork industry leader? I don't know. I have two. The first is this headline Jeff? Bezos said he would have felled icky. How do you take in any more shares of Amazon? I just didn't feel good. What the hell is that about? Where did this stupid quote come from? Didn't he have 16% of the shares? What is he talking about? He's like a hundred billionaire. Is he not the top three? Most wealthiest people in the world? I shouldn't say people. If he took, if he took another billion worth, he would have felt icky. What a dope. What else he got? I love that. And then Sam Altman says are glad. He's Is a dad now because they think raising a child will help make him a better help, make help him make better decisions for Humanity. Well, you know it's weird you say that because the the one I raised which I just didn't want to get into because it's just too depressing is open. AI says it will make check GPT safer after parents Sue over teen suicide. Yeah, I guess it wasn't. The dad part that made him worry about Humanity. It might be the lawsuit part, by the way, if you, if you make changes directly after you being sued for for someone's kid, kid killing themselves. Doesn't that mean you're complicit? Yeah, yeah, pretty sure you just admitted. Yeah, you just can't, we shut down. Open AI for that alone. Come on. What we doing? All right, who won the week? Mine's very easy and probably because I'm a Manor, and I'm a local. And I, I have a company, that was a homer, talks, again all the time, but my winner of the week is hopeful Susan Collins Slayer. She's our Senator here in Maine, who was been Senators since like, I think 1912, And oyster farmer. Graham plattner, he had this to say quote I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps in the army. I'm not afraid to name an enemy in the enemy is the oligarchy, it's the billionaires who pay for it, the politicians who sell us out. I mean he really is just summarizing everything that we're talking about today. At least, that's my winner of the week. I was like, I think he is Hopefully the guy who beats Susan Collins to be the next US, senator from Maine. Yeah, go ahead. What is my winners journalists journalists? Who listened to business pants? Oh, okay. Well, I like them actually the most. Yeah, I like them a lot but this story Cracker Barrel's, inconvenient fact, all the customers who loved its old logo at stop going to the restaurant d, an urban of the Associated Press theater. Took him literally took our rant about foot traffic and stock movements almost part for part in the story. It's like which good you're winning. Feel free to attribute, you know like all journalists listen to us because we'll make you so smart. At your next meeting. At least, we'll give you some ideas. Let's go to prediction. I'll try to do this briefly because I know we don't want to talk about Cracker Barrel again but I just had some things that I know that will be deleted from Cracker Barrel's next proxy statement. As an example, the fact that the public responsibility committee reviews the company's progress in its diversity and inclusion initiatives. Oh, you just delete that that they're definitely a delusion part there. Definitely need to look. That they also going to deliver the fact that they said that they're boarding armies are racially or ethnically diverse and they embody the diversity. That we believe, is critical to the effective functioning of any public company board today. Oh God, particularly in a consumer faceing industry such as our definitely not just talking about out there and finally they're definitely going to delete the term non-binary from their board diversity Matrix. Yeah, they might get rid of the whole board diversity Matrix, but they're definitely getting rid of non-binary. That's my friction. What do you got? That's a pretty good one. All right, my prediction is shorter. My I'm predicting that Ramon laguarta the CEO of Pepsi. Quietly scraps a plan they had for their brand Quaker Oats. They to remove the picture of the old white Quaker. At the top of Quaker Oats, they had a plan to get rid of him. And and instead he says, scrapped the plan, he goes to the marketing team and he says, can we make the Quaker guy even older and whiter than he is and possibly give him a shotgun? To hold. That says boobs rule on the side of it. Yeah, that's not good. Well, we got, we almost got rid of the white Quake or guy. We got we how dare us. That's all we got. That's a horrifying show that's his float. Come back next week. Next week we're launching relaunching proxy countdown. We've got a ton of shows next week so keep checking until then good. Bye.