FRIDAY WRAP: Dockworker strike/unstrike, Texas stock exchange is not woke, and parrots fight back

Introduction

LIVE from an empty shipping container used by Vanguard to hold its votes against AGAINST management, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here on October 4th, featuring a very lonely AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Dockworkers strike and unstrike, the UK is now powered entirely by crumpets, the Texas Stock Exchange announces white people, and parrots finally fight back..

The Friday Show is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.

Story of the Week (DR):

1. ‘We were illegal immigrants’: Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal admits in resurfaced video

1. The decade-old footage from an interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference reveals that the Musk brothers were once illegal immigrants in the US. During the interview, Kimbal Musk admits they illegally moved from South Africa to Canada and then to the United States.

2. Elon Musk said “it’s a gray area” as Kimbal says they were illegal immigrants

2. 45,000 dockworkers are on strike. Here’s how global companies are responding

1. At 12:01am Tuesday until..Friday morning!

2. Port strike ends as workers agree to tentative deal on wages and contract extension

3. The tentative agreement would bring the hourly wage for a top dockworker to $63 per hour at the end of the new contract, up from $39 per hour under the expired contract.

3. A Southwest Airlines director bought $100 million in stock to fight activist investor Elliott

1. Most interesting defense against activist I’ve ever seen - buy the stock!

2. Rakesh Gangwal bought about 0.5% of the stock and demanded no more changes to management

3. Gangwal was put on the board as a response to Elliot’s stake in July, and is part of a series of additions with Robert Fornaro, ex CEO of Spirit Airlines (who is now near bankruptcy) and Roy Blunt (the senator who voted for school prayer, does not believe in climate change, voted against background checks for gun purchases, voted to ban same sex marriage and gay adoption

Goodliest of the Week (MM, pretending to be AB):

1. EVgo gets $1.05B loan to build 7,500 DC fast chargers

1. EVgo said the charger build-out will be concentrated in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas and should be completed by 2030.

2. The U.K. just closed its last coal power plant

1. The country’s last coal power plant, built in 1967, shut down on September 30. Renewable energy—including thousands of massive wind turbines—now makes up around half of the U.K.’s power generation.

3. Boomer women are pouring into the stock market—making up for lost time and wealth

1. 23% increase in one year, 71% of boomer women now invest up from 60% a year ago

2. Partially due to death of male spouses

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. The true anti-woke ask:

1. Texas Stock Exchange moves closer to launch with leadership team, board

1. Leadership: Leadership team: 22 people

1. How many women? One: Nicole Chambers

2. How many people of color? One: Harvey Cloyd

2. 7 directors have been named so far, how many are white dudes?

1. ALL OF THEM

2. This is how seriously we take directors:

1. Member of TKO's Board of Directors to fire Roman Reigns from WWE due to one major reason? Potential swerve explored

1. Wrestling fans are actually speculating that new TKO director Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, will join a wrestling storyline

2. As part of joining the board, Rock got a $30m licensing deal in the form of stock plus he continues his $491k/year royalties deal

3. Fundamentally misunderstanding how power works:

1. Charles Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger to retire at end of 2024, Rick Wurster to replace him

1. Charles Schwab’s real CEO is Charles Schwab, executive director on the board, who owns 6% of the company and it’s straight up, no dual class, outpacing Blackrock

2. Bettinger owned approximately 0.01%... Wurster before his golden handshake had 0.001%

Exhausting-est of the Week (DR, pretending to be JS):

1. A Florida congressman wants you to subsidize the state’s flood insurance. It’s a terrible idea

1. FL Democrat Jared Moskowitz: It can’t just be on one state or two states to deal with this

2. Voted for anti-ESG bill?

2. Meta is ready to inject AI images of you into your Instagram and Facebook feeds

1. Part of “Imagine Me” feature where you fake glorious selfies of yourself

2. "Imagine you're talking about fishing with your friend, and all of a sudden, because you've clicked on some fishing stuff, you're just scrolling through your Instagram feed and you see a picture of yourself in a fishing outfit going fishing," 

3. Fun side benefit: increased body dysmorphia!

3. The most common U.S. export is an empty container

1. 75% of containers on ships from US returning to foreign countries are empty

2. Container ships emitted 221.5m metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022, most of any ship

3. If even an estimated 50% of the containers were empty on return trips, that would mean about 56m metric tons of carbon dioxide are spent moving empty boxes around Earth, the equivalent of 13.3m gas powered cars, 7.3m homes, or 2.6bn gas powered home bbqs

Headliniest of the Week

1. Bargatze named to National Comedy Center Advisory Board

1. 25 members

1. 11/25 are women (44%)

2. 4/25 are PoC (16%)

3. 2 nepo babies?  Joan Dangerfield, Rain Pryor

2. Parrots Orchestrate Brutal Revenge on Small Town After Deforestation Drove Them Out of Their Homes

1. They’re chewing on powerlines

3. Climate change threat to winter sports prompts agreement between ski chiefs and UN experts - BBC.com

1. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year warned only 10 countries will be able to host snow sports by 2040 because of the impact of climate change.

2. "Climate change is, simply put, an existential threat to skiing and snowboarding," said FIS president Johan Eliasch.

4. Jamie Dimon says America used to be a ‘can-do nation’—now it’s as bureaucratic as Europe

Who Won the Week?

1. Rio de Janeiro, where the mayor promised every citizen access to Ozempic so that there would be “no more fat people” in his town!

2. Parrots

Predictions

1. Damion will be back next week

2. After reading this headline: QVC gets into the live sports business—with pro pickleball, QVC being the home shopping network, I predict that ESPN counters by starting ESPNShop, auctioning off cheap perfume and dog hair vacuums!