FRIDAY WRAP: Supreme suckage, cars get their knobs back, Leo DiCaprio is our trusted scientist, Carnival superpollutes, conservative safe spaces, Threads, and Larry Fink stops the ESG

LIVE from your ESG compost bin, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at July 7th Lane Studios, featuring all your favorites: Ari the data queen, Jessie the money whisperer, BS-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s the last 2 weeks-weekly wrap up: Threads, Traveling Nude, Celebrities are better than scientists, and cruises still suck

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Supreme Court Sucks AB JS

1. Affirmative Action

1. The court on June 29 struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, effectively prohibiting affirmative action policies long used to raise the number of Black, Hispanic and other underrepresented minority students on American campuses. It ruled that affirmative action admissions programs that consider an applicant's race in ways like Harvard and UNC did violate the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law.

2. The decision’s broad language and cultural prominence will likely embolden opponents of workplace diversity initiatives.

1. In responding to the Court’s analysis of racial preferences, corporations and their boards should carefully review both the design and presentation of their existing DEI initiatives to ensure they are well grounded in the company’s business strategy and mission. Although a program that was lawful last week remains lawful today, the decision can be expected to present new challenges and criticism, necessitating careful, deliberate, and well-counseled analysis.

2. Free Speech and LGBT Rights

1. The court on June 30 dealt a blow to LGBT rights by ruling that the constitutional right to free speech allows certain businesses to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings despite state anti-discrimination law. The Constitution's First Amendment allows an evangelical Christian web designer who objects on religious grounds to gay marriage to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings, it found.

3. Student Loans

1. The justices on June 30 blocked President Joe Biden's plan to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt. The court invoked the "major questions" doctrine, a muscular judicial approach that gives judges broad discretion to invalidate executive agency actions of "vast economic and political significance" unless Congress clearly authorized them.

2. Of all the apps that have tried to be the Twitter Killer, Meta's Threads is probably the one we're all going to start using

1. Musk’s X Corp. threatens to sue Meta over Twitter “copycat” Threads

2. Jack Sweeney, the ElonJet college student who got under Elon Musk's skin, has moved his private jet tracking operation to Meta's Threads

3. Musk Calls Out Meta’s ‘Algorithm-Only’ Approach And ‘Social Media Monopoly’ After Threads Hits 30 Million Milestone

1. Twitter owner Elon Musk has taken first steps in creating an ‘everything app’ to rival WeChat

3. For the third day in a row, Earth's average temperature breaks record highs MM

4. BlackRock's Fink: Why I won't say 'ESG' anymore

1. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Says Bitcoin Could ‘Revolutionize Finance’

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. This airline wants you to travel across the world without clothes JS AB

1. Japan Airlines has just begun a yearlong trial to encourage its passengers to rent clothing at affordable prices (which they will receive at their destination), rather than tow their threads along with them to its international passengers heading to Tokyo. 

2. The primary goal of the rental is to help reduce carbon emissions, though it could have a different benefit of reusing clothes. They have partnered with a sustainable fashion brand and a laundry service that has previously won a sustainability award.

2. Automakers Are Bringing Back Buttons and Knobs as Touch Screens Become Scourge for Drivers MM

1. For some reason, using your smartphone in the car is SUPER dangerous, but having a giant iPad on the side is chill.

2. Volkswagen, Hyundai and Nissan, have all taken public stances about instrumenting the return of buttons and dials for a safer, more distraction-free cabin

3. neither GM nor Mercedes have any intention of backing away from the screens, Mercedes is actually going for 3 screens in a single cabin.

3. ‘Huge blow for Meta’ as EU’s top court sinks legal basis for targeted advertising on Facebook DR

1. the Court of Justice of the EU, just ruled on a case that dates back to 2019, when the German antitrust authority decided that FB was “abusing its dominant position in the social-networking market by combining data from different platforms to provide more targeted advertising”.

2. This ruling means Germany can ban Mark Zuckerberg from combining user data from WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, now threads, and data from third party websites (when you log-in with FB) 

3. ON TOP OF THAT, the regulator said that even though FB got voluntary consent for this type of combo profiling in its terms and conditions, they had no choice but to agree if they wanted to use the “leading social network”. THEREFORE, it was illegally using its power to break GDPR regulations. 

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

The asshole of the week is the Supreme Court.  So we’re going to doing the second biggest asshole of the week.

1. Our first ESG regulation entry as asshole of the week - Sacha Sadan on ESG ratings regulations!

1. FCA director of ESG Sacha Sadan pushes back against criticisms of labelling scheme

2. "We will be able to see whether we think they are doing the right thing in the authorisation process," he added.

3. The bar ESG is held to in the voluntary standard is higher than the bar all credit ratings are held to - you can do indexes and consulting and sell credit ratings, BUT NOT ESG BECAUSE GREENWASHING BRO!

4. In December of last year, Sacha put together an ESG advisory committee to advise on ESG regs… with zero people who had ever made an ESG rating on the committee?

1. One the “winners” was Desiree Fixler, the DWS ESG whistleblower, which, cool, whistleblowing is hard and fraught, also she has never made a score or used the data???

2. Choosing between tech bro social options makes us think “Mark Zuckerberg is the adult in the room”

1. Meta’s Threads wants you on the ‘fediverse.’ Here’s what that is.

2. Twitter threatens to sue Meta after rival app Threads gains traction

3. Leonardo DiCaprio is the most trusted authority on the climate crisis — beating Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, and the Rock DR JS

1. THAT LIST IS A TEENAGER, TWO ACTORS, AND A POLITICIAN - ZERO SCIENTISTS

2. Not even Peter Kalmus, NASA scientist? Allison Crimmins, head of the National Climate Assessment?  Ken Golden, who’s called the “Indiana Jones of Mathematics”?  Brenda Hall, Professor at the School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Climate Change Institute at University of Maine? Bill Nye the Science Guy? 

4. Who’s the snowflake NOW, assholes? AB

1. Anti-Woke Brands Fuel Parallel Market for Conservative Shoppers - Bloomberg Law

1. I went to look for a job on Anti-Woke Monster.com and it was all a conservative PAC and Christian schools

2. Conservative pets.com told me that it focused on DOG wellness, not social wellness, and that it’s Big Guns dog food was great for hunters that have dogs

3. I found out I can buy a health supplement designed for patriots

4. Also, turns out Ecobaby, organic mattresses for babies, is anti-woke!

1. Also, French Home Shop is pro-America!

5. Locally, here just outside of West Hartford Connecticut, I found our new plumber - Keena, a “freedom minded” plumber!  I hate my plumbers when they love socialism

2. Conservatives had to create an ENTIRE ALTERNATE REALITY in order to feel included, special, and taken care of - that’s so ESG!

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

1. This week’s woke brand: It’s August, menstrual hygiene products

1. Because the CEO, Nadya Okamoto, chose to say menstruators rather than women while being interviewed by Gayle King. 

2. The internet is having a fit- INCLUDING OTHER WOMEN, who feel they are being erased by this language

3. 'As a liberal this is exactly why some people hate liberals,' one woman named Nancy said, adding: 'This sounds ridiculous. Just stop it.'

4. Piers Morgan chimed in, saying: ‘Menstruators’ ???? Try ‘women’.

2. Turns out cruises ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT! AB DR MM

1. A June study from The European Federation for Transport and Environment found that 63 cruise ships owned by Carnival Corporation emitted 43% more sulfur oxides, a group of harmful air pollutants, than all the 291 million cars in Europe in 2022

2. But if you owned Free Float Analytics, you’d already know this seeing as Carnival Corp’s carbon rating is .029!!!!! The LOWEST OF ALL THE COMPANIES IN THE S&P500

3. The exhausting return of Bryan Johnson to our headlines

1. Do you guys remember Bryan from a previous show?!

2. Let me jog your memory with the headline: Bryan Johnson spends up to $2 million a year on a rigorous program, Project Blueprint, aimed at reducing his biological age.

3. A 45-year-old tech exec who says he has reduced his biological age by 5 years says he finishes his last meal of the day by 11 a.m.

4. He eats b/w 6-11 AM…sounds a little like you Matt. Are you secretly a Project Blueprint participant????

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: Zuck JS

2. AB: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson - for saving being able to write about your experiences due to race in the essay portion of college applications. The questions and parallels she drew between legacy admissions and minority admissions (how you can say you are a 4th generation Yalie but can’t talk about how your great grandparent couldn’t attend a school because of segregation) were so powerful that the uber-conservative court was forced to carve out and name this particular caveat to the ban. 

3. MM: Conservatives who finally have a safe space

4. JS: Threads, obviously: 10 million users joined Meta’s Threads in just 7 hours. It took Twitter 780 days to do that.

Predictions

1. DR: Congress tries to amend the constitution to change the law that a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen of the United States so Elon can be Emperor.

1. Elon kills term limits

2. AB: You will need Apple’s AR headset to drive the Apple car

3. MM: Larry Fink accidentally says ESG in a conference call