FRIDAY WRAP: Norfolk Southern's train, board, and investor fail, Eli Lilly recruits black patients, and oil giant carbon whiplash

LIVE from your ESG sock drawer, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at February 17th Avenue Studios, featuring Ari the data queen, Jessie the money whisperer, BS-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: wimpy Norfolk Southern, Drugs, fear of the future, and oily liars.

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Ongoing train derailment disaster MM AB JS

1. Norfolk Southern skips Ohio town-hall meeting over safety fears after derailment

2. Norfolk Southern Train Derails Near Detroit

3. After Ohio train derailment, residents are living the plot of a movie they helped make

4. Non-apology letter

1. “I hear you,. We hear you.”

5. 2018: Norfolk Southern apologizes, says won't use 'bait truck' tactic again

1. The joint investigation with Chicago police — dubbed "Operation Trailer Trap" — used a truck loaded with goods that was left parked near 59th Place and Princeton Avenue in Englewood as a lure for potential thieves.

2. Despite the railroad’s apology, Smith said in the letter to the editor that community residents “deserve more context” about the investigation he said was prompted by ongoing cargo theft from parked and locked containers and trailers in that area.

3. Those break-ins included thefts of guns and ammunition “that found their way in the local community,” he said.

2. The woke war that was the Super Bowl?

1. M&M's "They're Back for Good"

2. Dueling anthems, female flyovers, etc.

3. AI fear ramping up

1. ‘I want to be alive 😈’: Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing is now telling users it loves them and wants to ‘escape the chatbox’

4. Ongoing proof to listen to Business Pants first

1. Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki To Resign; Indian-American Neal Mohan To Replace Her

2. Tech CEO salary cuts aren’t always the sacrifice they seem

3. One of China’s top investment banks has a big problem: It can’t find its CEO

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Eli Lilly recruits Black patients for Alzheimer’s trial, as drugmakers seek more diversity in clinical studies DR JS

1. Non-white communities have traditionally been underrepresented in clinical research and Black patients have generally shown more hesitancy to participate in clinical trials than white patients (Tuskegee syphilis experiment when gov’t researchers withheld treatment from Black patients, but not white patients, in order to study the progression of the disease)

2. Eli Lilly developed a mobile testing lab during the pandemic to continue clinical trials amid lockdowns, and it has now expanded it and repurposed it to serve as a vehicle to recruit and engage new communities on location.

3. Eli Lilly drove two mobile labs to the Black Women’s Expo in Atlanta, to recruit older Black women for a new trial.

2. “Game-Changer” Male Contraceptive – Experimental Drug Stops Sperm in Their Tracks and Prevents Pregnancies MM

1. A study published in the journal Nature Communications on VALENTINE’S DAY shows promising results in male contraception in their preclinical models! 

2. Researchers found an inhibitor that works within 30 min to an hour and  immobilizes mice sperm. The mice that received this inhibitor did not impregnate female mice after 52 different mating attempts, male mice in the control group impregnated almost A THIRD of their mates!

3. Other experimental methods take WEEKS to bring sperm count down. Men would take this drug as needed, don’t have to always take it, which is KEY because since men don’t bear the risks associated with carrying a pregnancy, men have a LOW tolerance for contraception hoops. Condoms and vasectomies are really the only options to date.

3. Hard times: Russia to make Viagra replacement after US manufacturer halted supplies

1. HIGH DEMAND: up 88% in 2022 compared to 2021, says the article

2. In 2022 Pfizert announced that it would stop the supply of Viagra to Russia

3. 36 russian companies have been issues registration certificates to produce a pill

4. Russia’s industry and trade ministry has a TOP priority`

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Investors in Norfolk Southern AB JS DR

1. Vanguard (8%), Blackrock (7%), JPM (5%), State Street (4.5%) = 25%

1. 100% with management every year, 100% with management every year, unknown, 100% for directors every year (ONE vote against for a climate change report)

2. Investor day selling point:

3. “Labor Productivity” and “Fuel Efficiency” are key focus for accretive incrementals

1. Board Sabermetrics says…

2. 60% of board ranks in the BOTTOM QUARTILE GLOBALLY for labor productivity

3. 70% of board ranks in the BOTTOM QUARTILE GLOBALLY for carbon emissions

4. Network safety = “discretionary spending” - 1.2bn spend from 2022

1. 2.8bn buyback 2018, 2.1bn buyback 2019, 1.4bn buyback 2020, 3.4bn buyback 2021

1. In context: 25% of revenue in 2018, 19% in 2019, 14% in 2020, 30% in 2021

2. Quarterly dividends increasing since 2017 per share - target 35-40% of earnings paid out

5. MSCI says: watch out for sucky health & safety and community relations!

2. Armageddon

1. Bing

2. Tesla recalls more than 362,000 cars for a software issue that may cause them to 'act unsafe around intersections'

3. Why are BP, Shell, and Exxon suddenly backing off their climate promises?

4. Virginia blocks a bill that would have stopped police from viewing period app data, raising fears it could be used to prosecute abortions

5. Meta develops an AI language bot that can use external software tools

3. We value AI burnout more than human burnout

1. Microsoft may limit how long people can talk to its ChatGPT-powered Bing because the A.I. bot gets emotional if it works for too long

4. Walgreen’s CEO Shrink tears

1. Employers Steal Up to $50 Billion From Workers Every Year. It’s Time to Reclaim It.

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

1. BP, Shell, and Exxon suddenly backing off their climate promises

1. In 2020, BP promised to slash its emissions, Shell pledged to go “net zero,” and ExxonMobil trumpeted its efforts to transform algae into fuel

2. But in recent weeks, these oil giants have begun tapping the breaks on these much-publicized initiatives. 

1. BP walked away from its target to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2030, instead promising a cut between 20 to 30 percent. 

2. Shell said it would not increase spending on renewable energy this year 

3. Exxon has pulled back funding from its decade-long algae effort

3. These quiet announcements coincided with their recent blockbuster earnings reports

4. "If we see value, we’ll do it. If we don’t, we won’t."

2. Rank and yank

1. Rank every employee, then fire the bottom 10%. Popularized by Jack Welch, former GE CEO

2. Research done in 2013 showed that rating-based performance reviews “often fail to change how people work, and dissatisfaction with the process has been associated with general job dissatisfaction, lower organization commitment, and increased intentions to quit.”

3. Experts tell Fast Company that the practice of ranking employees has recently increased. HR software company Corvisio estimates that about 30% of Fortune 500 companies stack rank employees. 

4. Stack ranking has “become a fairly common practice and it’s one that creates a pretty harsh workplace environment. People feel constantly under the gun

5. Professors at Wharton Business School have found that fear motivates workers less than hope, and that fear can ultimately lead to a toxic work environment. 

3. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin

1. A Virginia bill to shield data on menstrual cycles stored on period-tracking apps from law enforcement has been killed this week after he announced his opposition to the motion

2. A 2019 survey found that around a third of menstruating adults use period-tracking apps

3. Abortion rights activists have raised alarm at the idea that period-tracking apps could be used to prosecute abortion-law violations, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.

4. Youngkin’s deputy secretary of public safety: Currently any health information or any app information is available via search warrant. And we believe that should continue to be the case.

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: M&Ms

2. AB: Mice

3. MM: Michael D. Lockhart, the chair of the safety committee at Norfolk Southern, who, while the CEO wrote a very heartfelt “we’re sorry we spent all our money on buybacks, but we promise to hold your acid covered hands before they melt” letter, STILL NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD OF.

4. JS: Rihanna- Fenty Beauty sales up 883% after Super Bowl

Predictions

1. DR: Vivek returns to our show realizing we are the perfect EidiotSG woke foils to create talking points (and because he assumes we have a huge audience in swing states)

2. AB: Missing Chinese CEO ran away because of fraud/shenanigans 

3. MM: Bing’s chatbot gets a tattoo and joins a biker gang and is last seen riding in the direction of an electric utility waystation with a large metal rod