Latest / Merryn Talks Money / A Conversation With Vivek Ramaswamy: the Man Who Warned of 'Woke Capitalism'

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A Conversation With Vivek Ramaswamy: the Man Who Warned of 'Woke Capitalism' · Merryn Talks Money

0:00
Speaker 1: John Maldon. I thought you were on holiday, didn't you.
0:04
Speaker 2: I did, did well, you kind of are, and we
0:07
Speaker 2: will be again very soon. But we just wanted to
0:12
Speaker 2: give our listeners a little bonus episode, and I'll tell
0:16
Speaker 2: you why. It's because we've got this conversation that I
0:19
Speaker 2: had a little while ago with vive Ramaswami about his
0:24
Speaker 2: book and about what he thought about capitalism, about what
0:26
Speaker 2: he thought about what was going on in the world, etc.
0:29
Speaker 2: And that doesn't sound very interesting, except for this guy
0:32
Speaker 2: is now really interesting. We'll get onto the conversation with him.
0:36
Speaker 2: But he's running in the twenty twenty four Republican Party
0:39
Speaker 2: presidential primaries and he's doing really well.
0:43
Speaker 3: What's the context for really well?
0:46
Speaker 1: Excellent?
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Speaker 3: Please? Aren't we by by producers who keeps an eyeing
0:53
Speaker 3: these things bitter than I do?
0:54
Speaker 2: So takes place eight percent behind two, you know, really
0:57
Speaker 2: quite big names. But that's quite a lot of the
1:01
Speaker 2: audience to gather when you come from nowhere. Really, so,
1:05
Speaker 2: I think is interesting.
1:08
Speaker 4: They made.
1:10
Speaker 2: President that i'd be really interday and I'll have interviewed
1:13
Speaker 2: him early. Okay, well, listen. One of the reasons the
1:18
Speaker 2: other reasons I wanted to reintroduce this chat today is
1:22
Speaker 2: because we talk a lot in it about woke capitalism.
1:26
Speaker 2: The book that prompted me to interview originally was called Woke.
1:30
Speaker 2: And we talk a lot about ESG, the nature of
1:33
Speaker 2: ESG and what he expects to happen in that environment.
1:37
Speaker 2: And I feel, as I suspect you do as well,
1:40
Speaker 2: that the last year or so, in particular the last
1:42
Speaker 2: few months, have suggested there's a lot of change going
1:46
Speaker 2: on in the way that companies are approaching ESG thinking
1:52
Speaker 2: about ESG, a lot of change in many of the
1:57
Speaker 2: topics that have kind of been taken for granted over
1:59
Speaker 2: the last couple of years. And I may give you,
2:00
Speaker 2: for example, net zero in the UK, which was a
2:03
Speaker 2: complete political consensus that we must get to net zero
2:06
Speaker 2: and that we must do it as fast as possible.
2:08
Speaker 2: That was a full consensus until about two weeks ago.
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Speaker 2: Right now it's not consensus anymore. It's amazing how quickly
2:15
Speaker 2: things can change. So these are a lot of the
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Speaker 2: topics that come up in this conversation with with them.
2:20
Speaker 2: So I thought it might be interesting if we listened
2:23
Speaker 2: to it again and we provided our listener, our loyal
2:26
Speaker 2: listeners with the special bonus summer issue for them to
2:29
Speaker 2: talk about round the pool. Welcome to Meren Dogs Money,
2:39
Speaker 2: the podcast in which people who know the markets explain
2:41
Speaker 2: the markets. I'm merin Sumset Web this week is John
2:44
Speaker 2: and I just discussed We're bringing you out podcasts I
2:46
Speaker 2: originally recorded in November twenty twenty one as part of
2:49
Speaker 2: the Money Week podcast, but they very kindly allowed us
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Speaker 2: to bring to our merin Talks Money listeners of conversation
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Speaker 2: with the veg Ramaswamy, author of Woke, Inc. Biotech entrepreneur
2:59
Speaker 2: and candidate in the twenty twenty four Republican Party presidential primaries.
3:05
Speaker 2: We started our conversation with him sharing a little bit
3:07
Speaker 2: about his history and his experience in business, and we
3:10
Speaker 2: took it from that.
3:13
Speaker 5: So. I was born to the cad of immigrants in Cincinnati, Ohio,
3:18
Speaker 5: in the American Midwest.
3:19
Speaker 4: Went to Harvard for college, studied molecular biology. Thought I
3:22
Speaker 4: was going to be a scientist.
3:24
Speaker 5: Instead, I got into the world of biotech investing in
3:26
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven when I graduated.
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Speaker 4: Did that for seven years.
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Speaker 5: Three of those years I spent simultaneously at Yale Law School,
3:34
Speaker 5: scratching an itch in law and political philosophy that I
3:36
Speaker 5: had never fully scratched after I came back from doing law,
3:41
Speaker 5: studying law and being a biotech investor at the same time.
3:44
Speaker 5: When I went back to being a full time biotech investor,
3:47
Speaker 5: I realized that I had a lot of extra time
3:48
Speaker 5: on my hands. So I had a six month failed
3:50
Speaker 5: stint as a stand up comedian. It didn't go that
3:53
Speaker 5: well in New York City, but I did learn some
3:55
Speaker 5: lessons about actually, you know, they say you make a
3:59
Speaker 5: joke out of something that annoys you, Well, one of
4:01
Speaker 5: the things that annoyed me was actually the pharmaceutical industry,
4:04
Speaker 5: and so I decided to make my version of a
4:08
Speaker 5: joke in the entrepreneurial sector was actually, instead of just
4:10
Speaker 5: telling a joke about it, let's actually fix the problem.
4:13
Speaker 5: And so I started a company that was designed to
4:15
Speaker 5: go faster in developing drugs and reduce cost.
4:18
Speaker 4: I started that.
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Speaker 5: Company in twenty fourteen called Royvent led the company as
4:22
Speaker 5: CEO for seven years. We had our fair share of
4:27
Speaker 5: successes and failures along the way, but I think that
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Speaker 5: at the end of the day, it was a company
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Speaker 5: that actually did a lot of things that I'm incredibly
4:35
Speaker 5: proud of, including developing medicines, several of which are FDA
4:37
Speaker 5: proof products today. I stepped down as CEO in January
4:41
Speaker 5: to write the book that I did, and to be
4:44
Speaker 5: able to speak out on the topics that I'm speaking
4:46
Speaker 5: out on with candor, And so though I remain on
4:48
Speaker 5: the board, I have really extricated myself from the day
4:51
Speaker 5: to day operations there so that I could separate my
4:54
Speaker 5: voice as a citizen from my prior voice as a
4:57
Speaker 5: CEO to talk about what I think is one of
4:59
Speaker 5: the defining issues of our time, the merger between the
5:02
Speaker 5: neo progressive work movement in big business, both in the
5:05
Speaker 5: United States and around the world, a curious phenomenon that
5:09
Speaker 5: I think goes to the heart of what it means
5:11
Speaker 5: to be a modern American in the American context, and
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Speaker 5: to the heart of what it means to live in
5:16
Speaker 5: a democracy, which I think is an issue that many
5:19
Speaker 5: democracies around the world are grappling with today.
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Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's start with how you're defining the problem.
5:28
Speaker 2: You know, you talk about a sort of wonderful phrases,
5:32
Speaker 2: you know, work smoke being a favorite, and what is
5:36
Speaker 2: the core problem with companies getting involved in politics?
5:41
Speaker 6: Slice the social justice movement. Why does it matter?
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Speaker 5: Yeah, So, look, I think I think that it matters
5:49
Speaker 5: for a lot of reasons. But it matters for one
5:51
Speaker 5: of the reasons that's different than what Milton Friedman worried about. So, so,
5:54
Speaker 5: back when Milton Friedman was criticizing stakeholder capitalism, the model
5:58
Speaker 5: of capitalism wre companies don't just pursue profits but advanced
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Speaker 5: social agendas.
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Speaker 4: He criticized it from the standpoint.
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Speaker 5: Of worrying that that would cause companies to operate less efficiently.
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Speaker 5: And to be clear, I'm sympathetic to a lot of
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Speaker 5: his arguments. My argument is actually the reverse. It's not
6:12
Speaker 5: that I worry that businesses are going to be less profitable,
6:15
Speaker 5: it's the opposite. It's that, actually I worry not how
6:18
Speaker 5: politics will infect business, but how business will infect our
6:22
Speaker 5: politics by causing corporations to exercise power not just in
6:26
Speaker 5: the marketplace of products, but in the marketplace of ideas, where,
6:31
Speaker 5: at least in a democracy, everyone's voice and vote ought
6:34
Speaker 5: to be counted equally. On how to address climate change,
6:37
Speaker 5: on how to fight racism.
6:39
Speaker 4: Do you use quota systems or do you do something else?
6:42
Speaker 5: Are you supposed to trade off higher prices for consumer
6:44
Speaker 5: goods in relation for lower carbon emissions, or take a
6:47
Speaker 5: different approach. These are fundamental societal questions that ought to
6:50
Speaker 5: be grappled with in the open, through free speech and
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Speaker 5: public debate in the public square. According to a one person,
6:57
Speaker 5: one voice, one person, one vote system that is co
7:00
Speaker 5: opted into a one dollar, one vote system, when a
7:03
Speaker 5: small group of elite executives and investors get to decide
7:07
Speaker 5: behind closed doors what the right answers to those questions are,
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Speaker 5: and to me, that's not America. That's a perversion of
7:12
Speaker 5: what America is supposed to be all about. It might
7:14
Speaker 5: be a version of how old world Europe used to operate,
7:17
Speaker 5: where a small group of labor elites and business elites
7:19
Speaker 5: and church leaders got together behind closed doors and decided
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Speaker 5: the common good for everybody else. But speaking as an
7:25
Speaker 5: American myself, that wasn't the American way. And that's a
7:27
Speaker 5: big part of why I wrote the book is that
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Speaker 5: I feel like this actual new trend was a betrayal
7:32
Speaker 5: of the workings of democracy itself.
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Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's go back a step then and talk
7:37
Speaker 2: about why it is that companies have got involved in
7:41
Speaker 2: this in the first place. I mean you're talking to
7:42
Speaker 2: you in the book about the purpose of a company,
7:45
Speaker 2: the point of a company, And you know, a companies
7:47
Speaker 2: should have maybe a purpose, but it's not necessarily to
7:50
Speaker 2: see a big social purpose.
7:51
Speaker 6: Or a moral purpose. And that purpose should be to make.
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Speaker 2: Something and sell it, perhaps as opposed to make something,
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Speaker 2: sell it and also lect you people about the line it. So,
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Speaker 2: how did we get to the point where the purpose
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Speaker 2: has become or many companies seem to believe they do
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Speaker 2: have a social purpose as opposed to simply a capitalist purpose.
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Speaker 5: Yes, so, look, I think that I think there's no
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Speaker 5: one simple answer I could give you in a few minutes.
8:15
Speaker 5: That's why I wrote a book to describe it. But
8:17
Speaker 5: I'll give you a couple of If.
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Speaker 6: You have two minute answers to all of these questions, I.
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Speaker 5: Know you do, Okay, Okay, Well I'll give you an
8:24
Speaker 5: example of an answer, which is that part of this
8:28
Speaker 5: story traces back to the two thousand and eight financial crisis. Actually,
8:31
Speaker 5: it's an untold story I laid on in the book
8:33
Speaker 5: for the first time. It's a story that traces back
8:36
Speaker 5: to the O eight crisis, and I saw it personally
8:38
Speaker 5: by the way I got my first job in the
8:40
Speaker 5: fall of two thousand and seven at a hedge fund
8:42
Speaker 5: in New York City on the eve of the two
8:44
Speaker 5: thousand and eight crisis.
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Speaker 4: I saw this, I lived it firsthand.
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Speaker 5: What happened was that big business in the United States
8:50
Speaker 5: was viewed as the bad guy, especially by the old left,
8:53
Speaker 5: following the ignominious bailouts of two thousand and eight, where
8:56
Speaker 5: bankers got paid a lot of money when times were
8:59
Speaker 5: good and got bailed out by the public when times
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Speaker 5: were bad. This was a bad moment for capitalism. Side note,
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Speaker 5: I actually think that that was just a version of
9:07
Speaker 5: crony capitalism, but we'll put that to one side. What
9:09
Speaker 5: happened was that the old left wanted to take money
9:13
Speaker 5: from those wealthy corporate fatcats and redistributed to poor people
9:16
Speaker 5: to benefit poor people. Agree or not, that is what
9:18
Speaker 5: the old left wanted to do. But there was the
9:21
Speaker 5: birth of this new, woke strand of the left that
9:24
Speaker 5: said that actually the real problem wasn't quite economic injustice,
9:28
Speaker 5: it wasn't quite poverty. No, it was racial injustice and
9:32
Speaker 5: misogyny and bigotry and so forth. Well, that actually presented
9:36
Speaker 5: the opportunity of a generation for big business in this country.
9:39
Speaker 4: For occupy for Wall Street, because if you're Wall Street,
9:41
Speaker 4: occupy Wall Street is a pretty tough pill to swallow.
9:44
Speaker 4: But the new woke stuff was actually pretty easy.
9:48
Speaker 5: You plawed diversity and inclusion, you put some token minorities
9:51
Speaker 5: on your boards, you muse about the racially disparate impact
9:55
Speaker 5: of climate change after you fly in a private jet
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Speaker 5: to Davos.
9:59
Speaker 4: This is actually pretty good work if you could get it.
10:01
Speaker 4: But they didn't do it for free.
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Speaker 5: They effectively expected that the new Left look the other
10:06
Speaker 5: way when it came to leaving their own.
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Speaker 4: Corporate power structures intact, and so that worked so well
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Speaker 4: for Wall Street.
10:13
Speaker 5: Actually, the way I joke around about it in the
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Speaker 5: book is that you had a bunch of woke millennials
10:17
Speaker 5: get in bed with a bunch of big banks. Together
10:19
Speaker 5: they birthed woke capitalism, and they use that to put
10:22
Speaker 5: Occupy Wall Street up for adoption. But then Silicon Valley
10:25
Speaker 5: g is it on the act and realize that they
10:26
Speaker 5: can use their power to censor certain content that the
10:29
Speaker 5: new strand of the Left doesn't want to see on
10:31
Speaker 5: the Internet. But again expect that then the new Left
10:33
Speaker 5: look the other way when it comes to leaving their
10:35
Speaker 5: monopoly power intact.
10:37
Speaker 4: And so that's just one of the many undercurrents.
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Speaker 5: But I offer it because it sort of reveals the
10:43
Speaker 5: essence of what's going on here, Maren is it's.
10:45
Speaker 4: It's an arranged marriage.
10:47
Speaker 5: It's not a marriage of love though, it's more like
10:50
Speaker 5: mutual prostitution. And the net result is what I call
10:54
Speaker 5: the illegitimate birth of the woke industrial complex, a new
10:58
Speaker 5: force in modern American life. And I think the same
11:01
Speaker 5: is true in the UK, by the way, I think
11:02
Speaker 5: the same is true in a lot of Western Europe.
11:04
Speaker 5: I think the same is true in Canada. Increasingly true
11:06
Speaker 5: even in places like Israel and India. Is the rise
11:09
Speaker 5: of a new force that is far more powerful than
11:11
Speaker 5: either big government or big business because it is a
11:14
Speaker 5: hybrid of the two that together can do what neither
11:18
Speaker 5: one of them can do on their own.
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Speaker 4: And that's what the book is really all about, Okay.
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Speaker 7: And one of the great middlemen this new wow industrial
11:26
Speaker 7: processes is the fund management industry, right, because you have
11:30
Speaker 7: correct big men at the top of the fund management industry.
11:34
Speaker 6: Larry Thinks, etc. Who control, you know, basically have a
11:37
Speaker 6: controlling shareholding and every big.
11:38
Speaker 2: Company there is and have kind of made themselves into
11:42
Speaker 2: God's You know, Larry Think can write his letter every
11:45
Speaker 2: year telling every company in the world what they should
11:47
Speaker 2: or shouldn't be doing. Make it public so we can
11:49
Speaker 2: all see what he's telling everybody they should or shouldn't do.
11:52
Speaker 2: And suddenly it's Larry Think. You gets to decide what
11:55
Speaker 2: the world does about plan to.
11:56
Speaker 5: Change exactly, and by the way, to charge a fee
11:59
Speaker 5: for doing it, ft fee for doing it. Actually, a
12:01
Speaker 5: lot of what happened over the last couple of decades
12:04
Speaker 5: is that a lot of funds switched from actively managed
12:07
Speaker 5: higher fee funds to passive index funds.
12:10
Speaker 4: Well, Blackrock and the likes.
12:12
Speaker 5: Of them had to justify their own existence and the
12:13
Speaker 5: fees that they charge, so they decided to dowse it
12:16
Speaker 5: in morality instead by becoming part of the new ESG
12:20
Speaker 5: movement Environmental, social and governance factors. If that doesn't mean
12:24
Speaker 5: anything to you, and it sounds like it doesn't mean anything,
12:26
Speaker 5: then you probably have a good interpretation of it, because
12:28
Speaker 5: in my opinion, it really doesn't mean anything.
12:30
Speaker 4: It's a load of jargon.
12:32
Speaker 5: That often comes in three letter acronyms ESG CSR for
12:37
Speaker 5: corporate social responsibility, DEI for diversity equity inclusions.
12:40
Speaker 4: Somehow these come in sets of three.
12:42
Speaker 5: That's the optimized model for being able to actually pass
12:45
Speaker 5: over a societal filter that somehow takes it for granted.
12:49
Speaker 5: And that's what the ESG movement represents today is a
12:51
Speaker 5: movement in the asset management space that says that the
12:54
Speaker 5: people who control the most capital get to determine how
12:57
Speaker 5: companies ought to behave on so called social and environmental matters,
13:01
Speaker 5: get to charge a thicker fee for doing it, and
13:04
Speaker 5: get to wear the mantle of being an investor who
13:06
Speaker 5: tells companies what to do. That actually subverts Milton Friedman's
13:10
Speaker 5: narrative on its head, because Milton Freeman again would have
13:13
Speaker 5: told you that when an executive misuses his seat of
13:16
Speaker 5: corporate power, he's betraying the shareholder and ultimately failing to
13:21
Speaker 5: maximize value for the firm by pushing these.
13:23
Speaker 4: Orthogonal social values.
13:24
Speaker 5: They've turned that on its head now because they're saying no, no, no,
13:27
Speaker 5: you got it backwards.
13:28
Speaker 4: We are the shareholders.
13:30
Speaker 5: We are the ones that are demanding that you, as
13:33
Speaker 5: the company behave in this way or else we're going
13:35
Speaker 5: to take our money and put it elsewhere.
13:36
Speaker 4: We're going to fire you as CEO.
13:38
Speaker 5: Side note, Actually, Milton Freeman had a point, because Bill
13:42
Speaker 5: Larry thinks of the world. He's not investing his money,
13:45
Speaker 5: He's taking trillions of dollars of other people's money, many
13:49
Speaker 5: of whom actually disagree with the social agendas he's pushing
13:52
Speaker 5: but simply don't know it because of the non transparency
13:55
Speaker 5: of the financial system, and is using that as a
13:58
Speaker 5: pulpit to push values that actually would make the blood
14:01
Speaker 5: boil of the very people whose money he's entrusted with protecting.
14:04
Speaker 5: But that's a side note. We'll sort of put that
14:06
Speaker 5: to We'll sort of put that to one side. The
14:09
Speaker 5: difficult thing is that what you do about it is
14:13
Speaker 5: a lot more complicated when that becomes the new norm
14:16
Speaker 5: for how capital is allocated. So one of the things
14:18
Speaker 5: I talk about in the book is because capital is
14:21
Speaker 5: now being allocated by these fund managers according to principles
14:24
Speaker 5: that don't directly map on to fundamental economic value but
14:28
Speaker 5: map onto these social values instead, and because there's so
14:31
Speaker 5: many funds now flowing into that asset category asset class category,
14:35
Speaker 5: especially as governments like the United States government implicitly pass
14:39
Speaker 5: regulations that sort of favor that kind of fund's flow,
14:42
Speaker 5: we're at risk of creating a new kind of asset bubble,
14:45
Speaker 5: a new kind of market distortion. Akin to the lead
14:48
Speaker 5: up again to the two thousand and eight financial crisis,
14:50
Speaker 5: when governments around the world, including the US, fostered policies
14:54
Speaker 5: to favor home ownership.
14:55
Speaker 4: What did we do.
14:56
Speaker 5: We created a home ownership bubble that went burst hurt
14:59
Speaker 5: the very people it was supposed to help the most.
15:02
Speaker 4: By the way, I think the same thing may happen
15:03
Speaker 4: in the so called ESG.
15:04
Speaker 5: Movement today, where more funds are flowing into the ESG
15:07
Speaker 5: category simply because it's a government favored, culturally favored popular
15:13
Speaker 5: thing to do. Right now, that creates the early stages
15:16
Speaker 5: of that bubble that when it bursts, may actually hurt
15:19
Speaker 5: the very causes that it was supposed to help as well. Now,
15:23
Speaker 5: one thing I note in the book is that I
15:25
Speaker 5: might be wrong about that. And if I am wrong
15:27
Speaker 5: about that, it's going to be because actually the Larry
15:29
Speaker 5: Finx of the world do have the last laugh in
15:31
Speaker 5: the end.
15:32
Speaker 4: They say ESG is going to make for better investment
15:35
Speaker 4: returns over the long run.
15:36
Speaker 5: Well, there's one way in which they may be right,
15:38
Speaker 5: and that's through the capture of government itself. You look
15:42
Speaker 5: at actually the head of the White House Council of
15:43
Speaker 5: Economic Advisors, I believe is actually a BlackRock's head of
15:46
Speaker 5: ESG fund management. Look at the way Goldman Sachs has
15:49
Speaker 5: a captured of government in prior administrations, earning a seat
15:51
Speaker 5: for itself as seat of the US Treasury Secretary. What
15:55
Speaker 5: I worry about is, actually, you know what, maybe the
15:58
Speaker 5: ESG stocks do go up and persistently are worth more
16:01
Speaker 5: because government passes regulations that treat them more favorably when
16:05
Speaker 5: they're able to actually infiltrate the government using their so
16:08
Speaker 5: called progressive values to be able to gain a competitive
16:11
Speaker 5: advantage over those peer over their peers who don't flaunt
16:13
Speaker 5: those same values. So there's a version of it where
16:15
Speaker 5: either we're in a bubble because capital is being misallocated
16:18
Speaker 5: according to what actually maximizes long run value, in which case,
16:21
Speaker 5: when that bubble bursts, it's going to hurt some of
16:24
Speaker 5: the very people it was supposed to help. Or they're right,
16:27
Speaker 5: but the reason they're right is because they captured government
16:29
Speaker 5: in a way that's an even greater betrayal of all
16:32
Speaker 5: in terms of the citizenry of a democracy that may
16:34
Speaker 5: not lose money when the ESG bubble bursts, because it
16:36
Speaker 5: wasn't a bubble.
16:37
Speaker 4: It was even worse than a bubble.
16:39
Speaker 5: It was the new reality that was codified by a
16:41
Speaker 5: new form of crony capitalism that favored the very firms
16:44
Speaker 5: using government and state power at the expense of those
16:47
Speaker 5: who didn't favor those same values.
16:49
Speaker 4: So you pick your poison. I think either road leads
16:52
Speaker 4: to a bad place.
16:53
Speaker 6: Well, I mean interesting, this is one of the things
16:55
Speaker 6: we saw at COP twenty cities last week. Right, So we.
16:57
Speaker 2: Had Mark konicam and announcing that there is now three
17:02
Speaker 2: hundred trillion dollars sitting behind the climate change agenda without
17:06
Speaker 2: mentioning that you know, these dollars are simply dollars that
17:09
Speaker 2: are run by big financial institutions and they're not actually
17:12
Speaker 2: invested in the green agender a tool by just other
17:15
Speaker 2: people's money and all kinds of different vehicles.
17:18
Speaker 4: Exactly, exactly right.
17:20
Speaker 5: And you know what I think everyone at the COP
17:21
Speaker 5: twenty six summit should do. Anyone who's a representative of
17:23
Speaker 5: a democratic nation should take the agreements that they reach
17:27
Speaker 5: and then go back and have them voted on back
17:29
Speaker 5: at home and see how their citizenry actually feels about it.
17:32
Speaker 5: And if you think there's a reason they don't want
17:34
Speaker 5: to do it, then that reveals the essence of the
17:36
Speaker 5: disconnect here is that in the name of being democracies,
17:39
Speaker 5: we're actually converting into a new Holy Roman empire, a
17:43
Speaker 5: transnational Holy Roman empire that's advancing certain church like values
17:47
Speaker 5: and what I view as the new church of fighting
17:48
Speaker 5: climate change. And I say that not because I'm skeptical
17:51
Speaker 5: of certain of the underlying claims. I am skeptical of
17:53
Speaker 5: certain claims, not of others, but because I actually think
17:57
Speaker 5: that it's more nuanced than talking about one agenda. It's
18:01
Speaker 5: not like there's one monolithic conception of what is more
18:04
Speaker 5: green than something else. The Earth, for example, today is
18:07
Speaker 5: covered by greater green surface area, by more plants than
18:10
Speaker 5: it was fifty years ago, in part because the surface
18:13
Speaker 5: temperatures are slightly warmer, in part because there's more carbon
18:16
Speaker 5: in the atmosphere, because carbon is plant food. So there's
18:19
Speaker 5: no one monolithic narrative, and we should sort these questions
18:23
Speaker 5: out through a free speech and open debate. Really, the
18:27
Speaker 5: building blocks of scientific in Qorean and of a democratic
18:29
Speaker 5: process that's how we should sort these questions out, not
18:32
Speaker 5: through the use of force, including economic.
18:34
Speaker 4: Force, that has it done by Fiat instead.
18:36
Speaker 5: Yet that's the world we live in today under the
18:38
Speaker 5: banner of so called stakeholder capitalism.
18:42
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting that, let's pick up on stakeholder capitalism because
18:46
Speaker 2: you know, there's this big difference between the sheolders and stakeholders.
18:48
Speaker 2: And you know, when we talk about stakeholders, I always
18:51
Speaker 2: say that in the UK because everyone's got an auto
18:53
Speaker 2: enrollment pension. A stakeholder in a sheholder kind of the
18:56
Speaker 2: same thing.
18:57
Speaker 6: But you still need to.
18:58
Speaker 2: Wannk shoolders what they want before you deliver they may
19:00
Speaker 2: not want. But another stakeholder today, of course, is are
19:05
Speaker 2: what you call in your book dictators. You talk about
19:07
Speaker 2: the stakeholder as dictator and the way in which companies
19:11
Speaker 2: are beginning to pander to the kind of stakeholder in
19:14
Speaker 2: the past they may not have pandered too.
19:17
Speaker 4: Exactly. And I think that this is the thing that
19:20
Speaker 4: progressives miss.
19:22
Speaker 5: Once corporations become vectors to advance progressive values, they become
19:28
Speaker 5: vehicles to advance anyone's values. And no one has mastered
19:33
Speaker 5: that dark art better than the Chinese Communist Party, which
19:38
Speaker 5: has realized that they can use corporations to create a
19:42
Speaker 5: false moral equivalence between the United States and China, thereby
19:48
Speaker 5: endangering the greatest geopolitical asset of the US of all
19:51
Speaker 5: that is not our nuclear arsenal, is our moral standing
19:55
Speaker 5: on the global stage.
19:56
Speaker 4: Let me ask you, Marin and I could go on
19:58
Speaker 4: about this one for a while. I think it's an
19:59
Speaker 4: important topic. But possess something you want to talk a
20:01
Speaker 4: little more about. Yes, it is, so let me just
20:05
Speaker 4: say a word about it.
20:05
Speaker 5: Then take a look at Disney just a few years ago,
20:09
Speaker 5: which says it could not shoot a film in the
20:11
Speaker 5: state of Georgia if Georgia passed the equivalent of a
20:14
Speaker 5: new anti abortion statute. But last year goes to the
20:18
Speaker 5: Shanjing province of China, literally ground zero of the Weiger
20:21
Speaker 5: human rights crisis, where there are over one million weekers
20:25
Speaker 5: enslaved in concentration camps, subject to forced sterilization, communist indoctrination,
20:30
Speaker 5: and worse because they're religious minorities, and Disney.
20:34
Speaker 4: Does not say a peep.
20:35
Speaker 5: In fact, at the end of the film, you could
20:36
Speaker 5: see in the credits to the film Milan Today they
20:39
Speaker 5: thank the local CCP authorities for allowing them the privilege
20:43
Speaker 5: of filming there. Nike does the same thing, the NBA
20:46
Speaker 5: does the same thing. Black Rock is perhaps one of
20:49
Speaker 5: the most most hypocritical actors in this respect, professing ESG
20:53
Speaker 5: values here at home, yet lying prostrate before their Chinese
20:57
Speaker 5: overlords abroad. This is the new game where actually what
21:01
Speaker 5: China has been able to do is to deflect accountability
21:04
Speaker 5: for their true macro aggressions by allowing companies to instead
21:07
Speaker 5: criticize microaggressions like transphobia or racism or whatever in the
21:11
Speaker 5: United States. And so when Chijinping is pressed by EU leaders,
21:16
Speaker 5: as he was last year on the weaker human rights crisis,
21:19
Speaker 5: it's no surprise that the first thing he says is
21:21
Speaker 5: that black Lives Matter shows that the United States is
21:23
Speaker 5: no better, or that his top diplomat lectures the United
21:26
Speaker 5: States in Alaska this year on how China wants to
21:30
Speaker 5: see the US.
21:31
Speaker 4: Do better on human rights and to stop slaughtering black Americans.
21:34
Speaker 4: These would be laughable.
21:35
Speaker 5: Claims if it weren't for the fact that global corporations
21:40
Speaker 5: are implicitly lending moral credibility to their claims by equating
21:44
Speaker 5: any allegation of, for example, even any inquiry into the
21:50
Speaker 5: origin of the coronavirus pandemic for that matter, with the
21:52
Speaker 5: equivalent of being a so called racist inquiry. Using our
21:57
Speaker 5: own woke values. Against this, we talked a little bit
21:59
Speaker 5: of stakeholder capitalism.
22:01
Speaker 4: Baron.
22:01
Speaker 5: I think that this actually traces itself to a different
22:05
Speaker 5: philosophy of capitalism as a vehicle in the nineteen nineties,
22:10
Speaker 5: called democratic capitalism. Back in the nineties, it was a
22:13
Speaker 5: popular idea in the United States on both sides of
22:14
Speaker 5: the political spectrum, by the way, to think that we
22:17
Speaker 5: could use capitalism as a vehicle to spread democracy abroad.
22:21
Speaker 5: That we thought we could export big max and happy
22:23
Speaker 5: meals and somehow that was going to spread democracy to
22:26
Speaker 5: places like China, that we could use our money and
22:28
Speaker 5: our investment to get them to be more like us.
22:31
Speaker 5: They turned that game on its head, and they realized
22:34
Speaker 5: they could actually use their money to get us to
22:37
Speaker 5: be more like them, because they could deny market access
22:40
Speaker 5: to any company that criticized the cheese CCP while rolling
22:44
Speaker 5: out the red carpet to.
22:45
Speaker 4: A company that criticized the United States.
22:48
Speaker 5: Even better, they realized they could use our money to
22:50
Speaker 5: get us to be more like them, and they realized
22:52
Speaker 5: they could send back those Nike sneakers and Disney movies
22:55
Speaker 5: as effectively trojan horses that undermined the United States from
22:59
Speaker 5: within by creating that.
23:01
Speaker 4: False moral equivalence between the US and China.
23:04
Speaker 5: And as I said earlier, that erodes our greatest military
23:07
Speaker 5: asset of all. That is not our nuclear arsenal, That
23:11
Speaker 5: is not our naval arsenal. It is our moral standing
23:15
Speaker 5: on the global stage. And I'm sorry to say it
23:17
Speaker 5: is working masterfully for the CCP.
23:20
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a horrible situation the way you describe it,
23:24
Speaker 2: and I agree with you on most of it. It's
23:26
Speaker 2: also something that I'm guessing the majority of the American
23:28
Speaker 2: population I'm not particularly happy with.
23:30
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know about in.
23:31
Speaker 2: The US, but certainly, if you ask in surveys here,
23:34
Speaker 2: should business and politics mix, Should big companies have a
23:37
Speaker 2: view and cultural identity issues, et cetera?
23:39
Speaker 6: The majority generally answer no, they shouldn't.
23:42
Speaker 2: They should make its stuff, be nice their employees along
23:44
Speaker 2: the way, and kind of sell it in a reasonable way.
23:46
Speaker 6: And that's kind of it, and then discribe the profits
23:48
Speaker 6: into our pensions.
23:49
Speaker 2: And we're kind of done that, and I assume the
23:51
Speaker 2: majority of Americans film it's the same.
23:54
Speaker 5: I think that's true, and that's why I think this
23:55
Speaker 5: is we're going to see a course correction happen very soon.
23:59
Speaker 5: I hope that course correction takes a good form rather
24:01
Speaker 5: than a bad form. The bad form is if we
24:04
Speaker 5: start to get businesses that respond and say, oh, yeah,
24:07
Speaker 5: well you're for Democrats, well then we're for Republicans. You're
24:11
Speaker 5: for black people, well then we're for white people, and
24:14
Speaker 5: in a way that further divides and fractures society. I
24:16
Speaker 5: think that could be a commercial opportunity that's available to
24:19
Speaker 5: a lot of people. You know, let's say Major League
24:22
Speaker 5: Baseball issues statements about a new voting law in Georgia
24:25
Speaker 5: that make it sound more like a super pac than
24:27
Speaker 5: a software manufacturer favorite one into the political spectrum. I
24:31
Speaker 5: certainly hope we don't see the emergion, the emergence of
24:35
Speaker 5: an alternative form of baseball in response, because I think
24:37
Speaker 5: that one of the beautiful things about the private sector,
24:39
Speaker 5: one of the beautiful things about sports, about the arts,
24:42
Speaker 5: about the a political spaces in our lives, is that
24:45
Speaker 5: they bring us together, irrespective of our race or our
24:48
Speaker 5: gender or our politics. And I think that's one of
24:50
Speaker 5: the roles of capitalism in an a political marketplace, in
24:55
Speaker 5: an otherwise divided polity, is to provide those social force
25:00
Speaker 5: is that result in cohesion across division. It's actually what
25:04
Speaker 5: what Touville many years ago remarked upon in the United
25:06
Speaker 5: States was the existence of those so called intermediating institutions
25:10
Speaker 5: that otherwise held a divided, dispersed nation together as one.
25:15
Speaker 4: So I hope that's not the way it goes now.
25:17
Speaker 5: The way I do hope it goes is that maybe
25:19
Speaker 5: as some of those businesses startup in a more elegant way,
25:22
Speaker 5: serving customers who may feel left behind by this new trend,
25:26
Speaker 5: that wakes up the rest of corporate America to say,
25:28
Speaker 5: oh boy, we just lost a million customers to this
25:31
Speaker 5: new business that's operating according to political principles.
25:34
Speaker 4: G We probably screwed that up over the last ten years.
25:36
Speaker 5: Let's course correct a little bit and use market mechanisms
25:39
Speaker 5: to bring that back. I think it will depend on
25:43
Speaker 5: what kind of leaders step up in the private sector
25:45
Speaker 5: to determine which of those two paths were on. I
25:48
Speaker 5: also think that public policy can play a role to
25:50
Speaker 5: create the conditions for that cultural revival. I don't think
25:53
Speaker 5: the solution is a legal one, but I think certain
25:55
Speaker 5: legal solutions can create the conditions for that cultural revival.
25:59
Speaker 4: I lay those out the book.
26:01
Speaker 5: One of them simple, simple enough, is that I would
26:03
Speaker 5: say we should make political belief and political expression a
26:06
Speaker 5: protected class, just like race and gender and sexual orientation
26:10
Speaker 5: and religion and national origin. That is to say, so
26:12
Speaker 5: long as we have protected classes at all, which is
26:14
Speaker 5: an idea that we can debate, but so long as
26:16
Speaker 5: we have them at all, that we should apply those
26:18
Speaker 5: standards even handedly to include political belief and political expression too.
26:22
Speaker 5: That cause people to liberate themselves from this culture of
26:26
Speaker 5: fear that we're experiencing today, and so I think that
26:28
Speaker 5: will also be one of the ingredients towards the solution.
26:31
Speaker 5: But as I said, Maaron, we could barely skim the
26:33
Speaker 5: surface in a half hour.
26:34
Speaker 4: That's why you'll have to read the book. To be
26:36
Speaker 4: able to.
26:36
Speaker 6: Read the book. Everyone's going to read the book. Let
26:39
Speaker 6: me ask you one what's saying tim more things?
26:40
Speaker 2: Actually, First, you mentioned earlier the side show of the
26:44
Speaker 2: fact that the big fund management companies have all the
26:47
Speaker 2: power use all the boats that we've delegated our responsibilities
26:51
Speaker 2: effectively as shareholder democrats to them. Do you see any
26:55
Speaker 2: future in which, because there are movements springing up here,
26:59
Speaker 2: any future vibe it's a big fund management companies will
27:01
Speaker 2: be effectively forced to return our votes to us and
27:05
Speaker 2: hence respond to what it is that their end clients want.
27:08
Speaker 2: Because that seems to me to be a big part
27:10
Speaker 2: potentially of the solution.
27:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, So look, I think that's an important component to it,
27:17
Speaker 5: and you're one of the few people actually who's focusing
27:19
Speaker 5: on it. I actually think we are going to see
27:21
Speaker 5: that trend and a redemocratization of the ability for people
27:26
Speaker 5: to vote their own shares. I don't think that's going
27:29
Speaker 5: to be the end all bell solution, but it is
27:31
Speaker 5: another example of the pendulum swinging back in the right
27:35
Speaker 5: direction in a way that restores a greater sense of
27:38
Speaker 5: democracy to at least the way people have their own
27:40
Speaker 5: voice attached to their own shares.
27:42
Speaker 4: To be clear, that still doesn't solve.
27:44
Speaker 5: For the fact that the people who own the most
27:45
Speaker 5: shares will still have the greatest say, and that's something
27:48
Speaker 5: that I think ought not be the case on moral
27:51
Speaker 5: matters that a society ought addressed through democracy I think
27:54
Speaker 5: it's perfectly fine to determine who's elected to Apple's board
27:56
Speaker 5: of directors, or to determine which products rise to the
28:00
Speaker 5: top in a marketplace of products. Yes, it's a one dollar,
28:02
Speaker 5: one vote system, but when settling moral questions, we ought
28:06
Speaker 5: to have a one person, one vote system. So you know,
28:09
Speaker 5: there's only a step in the right direction. But today
28:11
Speaker 5: we have even a worse perversion of that system, where
28:14
Speaker 5: even the people whose dollars it is don't always get
28:16
Speaker 5: to even express their own voice, because the people who
28:18
Speaker 5: manage their dollars, like the Larry Finx of the world,
28:21
Speaker 5: get to express their views for them, often in ways
28:23
Speaker 5: that betray their own views in the process. We've already
28:26
Speaker 5: seen in the last month some change in that regard. Actually,
28:29
Speaker 5: black Rock, under pressure has begun to say certain investors
28:33
Speaker 5: in certain of their funds will get to vote their
28:34
Speaker 5: own shares. I think that's a step in the right direction,
28:37
Speaker 5: but I think it's a pendulum that's going to swing
28:38
Speaker 5: much further.
28:40
Speaker 7: So how do last question, I promise, how do investors
28:44
Speaker 7: navigate this?
28:47
Speaker 5: So, look, I think that there's going to be a
28:49
Speaker 5: couple emerging trends. I think there's going to be a
28:52
Speaker 5: rise of businesses who are actually created to serve the
28:56
Speaker 5: kings of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of customers who
28:59
Speaker 5: are quietly disaffected from their private sector, but to do
29:03
Speaker 5: it in ways that are elegant rather than combative. I
29:06
Speaker 5: think those businesses, if they're run well by the right
29:09
Speaker 5: people and have high quality products, are going to be winners,
29:11
Speaker 5: are going to be undervalued on day one. I think
29:14
Speaker 5: there are a number of capital market distortions created by
29:16
Speaker 5: the rise of the ESG movement, certain businesses that are
29:19
Speaker 5: overinvested in, other businesses that are under invested in. I
29:22
Speaker 5: think it's a great opportunity for value investors to be
29:24
Speaker 5: able to take advantage of today, and I think those
29:26
Speaker 5: will be the right ways in which investors can see
29:28
Speaker 5: opportunity to make money for themselves. I'm personally much more
29:31
Speaker 5: interested in seeing the revival of a civic politic and
29:34
Speaker 5: am body politic, and a civic restoration that goes beyond
29:38
Speaker 5: just how you know, certain investors can use this to
29:40
Speaker 5: create profit for themselves, but I actually think that could
29:43
Speaker 5: actually be a force for good too. As investors capture
29:45
Speaker 5: that opportunity, they're helping actually.
29:47
Speaker 4: Suing the pendulum back for the better too.
29:49
Speaker 5: So those are some closing thoughts thereon, and of course
29:52
Speaker 5: much more detail laid out in the book.
29:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you so much, and thank you
29:56
Speaker 6: so much for making you time to talk to us
29:57
Speaker 6: for Make.
30:02
Speaker 1: Okay. John.
30:03
Speaker 2: That was recorded a couple of years ago, as discussed
30:05
Speaker 2: at the beginning, but still pretty interesting, right, he's fairly prescient.
30:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I read through the
30:13
Speaker 3: transcript again, there's not really anything that I would say
30:17
Speaker 3: jumps out as having been wrong. And the only thing
30:20
Speaker 3: that's changed is the absolutely the tone has now shifted
30:25
Speaker 3: and we're starting to see a lot of the things
30:27
Speaker 3: that you kind of mentioned coming through where you know,
30:31
Speaker 3: as you said at the start of the show, it's
30:33
Speaker 3: like two weeks ago, it just took one basically random
30:35
Speaker 3: by election result for net zero. It suddenly no longer
30:39
Speaker 3: be the political consensus, and it's interesting how that's all changed.
30:45
Speaker 3: And I still sort of see it as a zero
30:48
Speaker 3: interest rate thing, I.
30:50
Speaker 1: Know, but that's so interesting.
30:52
Speaker 2: Can you just just explain to our listeners what you
30:56
Speaker 2: think about this, because you know, I totally get what
30:58
Speaker 2: you're saying that there's some thing to do with the
31:00
Speaker 2: changing interest rate environment that has changed politics and changed
31:05
Speaker 2: the environment around the culture was But how does that
31:07
Speaker 2: work in your head?
31:09
Speaker 3: Well, maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with central bikes
31:12
Speaker 3: and interest rates, but I think so, I would just
31:15
Speaker 3: say that for since two thousand and eight, we've kind
31:18
Speaker 3: of had this weird kind of fire blanket sitting on
31:24
Speaker 3: top of the economy in the form of somewhat repressive
31:28
Speaker 3: kind of zero percent interest rates, and whenever we got
31:33
Speaker 3: inflation coming back due to you know, yes, there was
31:36
Speaker 3: obvious what would happen, but for some reason it took
31:38
Speaker 3: everyone by surprise. The sort of reacceleration of the economy
31:44
Speaker 3: and the waking up with the economy, if you like,
31:47
Speaker 3: I think has kind of taken all of these rather
31:51
Speaker 3: flimsy ideas that came about as a kind of almost
31:55
Speaker 3: a form of magical thinking during the zero interest rate
31:58
Speaker 3: era and basically just trash the more by subjecting a
32:01
Speaker 3: bit of hard reality. So you're talking about everything from
32:04
Speaker 3: modern monetary theory to on the other side kind of
32:07
Speaker 3: like you know, cryptocurrencies to an ESG. I think was
32:11
Speaker 3: very much part of that sort of kind of although
32:16
Speaker 3: maybe we can have capitalism that's based on a whole
32:20
Speaker 3: loaded somewhat idealistic views or on and not terribly well
32:25
Speaker 3: thought through things, and it kind of detached from reality.
32:29
Speaker 4: Really.
32:29
Speaker 3: It's like it's like ed Coin Maves talking about with
32:32
Speaker 3: the material world in the ethereal world. It's like we've
32:35
Speaker 3: kind of all been living in the ethereal world, and
32:36
Speaker 3: now the material world is making itself felt again.
32:39
Speaker 1: Suddenly make itself haud.
32:40
Speaker 2: And it's also about the fact that for a long
32:42
Speaker 2: time you could pretend that things would cost nothing because
32:45
Speaker 2: it kind of didn't cost anything, because if you can
32:47
Speaker 2: borrow for nothing, everything's free. And it's interesting that the
32:50
Speaker 2: beginning of the pushback against zero, which I think is
32:53
Speaker 2: absolutely fascinating, by the way, is based on the fact
32:56
Speaker 2: that people are beginning to see what they have to
32:59
Speaker 2: pay for it, and they say, well, what do I
33:01
Speaker 2: get for that?
33:02
Speaker 1: What do I get for that? What do I get
33:03
Speaker 1: for that?
33:04
Speaker 2: And if the answer is is Tony blairstaid the other day,
33:07
Speaker 2: very little, because it doesn't matter how much the UK
33:09
Speaker 2: cuts is carbon emissions, it doesn't begin to touch the
33:12
Speaker 2: size of the problem given what's happening around the rest
33:15
Speaker 2: of the world. And then you have this bizarre situation
33:18
Speaker 2: where net zero is one of the few things that
33:20
Speaker 2: we have to pay for. We have to pay for
33:22
Speaker 2: everything obviously, one of the few things that we have
33:23
Speaker 2: to pay for immediately and out of our own accounts.
33:27
Speaker 2: So all the other things that feel good, like improving
33:29
Speaker 2: the NHS or better education, all that kind of thing,
33:32
Speaker 2: we might have to pay a little bit more intact,
33:33
Speaker 2: and it comes out of a big generalized account. But
33:35
Speaker 2: some of the zero policies, of course everyone would like
33:38
Speaker 2: not zero net zero, but you have to pay for
33:40
Speaker 2: your own heat pump with a little subsidy. But nonetheless,
33:43
Speaker 2: that's your checkbook. That is, they won't have a checkbook anymore,
33:45
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. You have to pay for
33:47
Speaker 2: an electric car, that's again that's your checkbook or modern equivalent,
33:50
Speaker 2: et cetera. All these things come directly from your pocket
33:52
Speaker 2: for the individual net zero related product, and that's a
33:57
Speaker 2: very different dynamic to any of the other things that
34:00
Speaker 2: we want to pay for. And as soon as that
34:03
Speaker 2: cost hit the feel good factor, the feel good factor vanishes.
34:10
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of that kind of insight in
34:14
Speaker 2: what Vivek has to say in that interview and in
34:18
Speaker 2: his book and he also one of the one of
34:20
Speaker 2: this breeding as you did through the transcript and looking
34:22
Speaker 2: at a couple of things that we talked about the
34:24
Speaker 2: return of shareholder democracy absolutely happening, absolutely happening with as
34:30
Speaker 2: as we discussed in that Black Black Rock at the
34:32
Speaker 2: forefront of saying, look, actually this is too much for us,
34:35
Speaker 2: all this this woke stuff and corporate responsibility in thesg, etc.
34:39
Speaker 2: How but you just you know, take your votes back,
34:41
Speaker 2: do it yourself. And then he also talked about about it.
34:45
Speaker 2: He didn't actually use the phrase go go broke, but
34:48
Speaker 2: he talked about, you know, companies that might go too
34:50
Speaker 2: far down this road and find themselves with a massive
34:53
Speaker 2: rebellion from customers who don't accept the ideology that they produce.
34:58
Speaker 2: So and of course we've seen that, haven't we in
35:00
Speaker 2: in but whise a Bear and a few other brands fascination.
35:04
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he was spot on about most
35:07
Speaker 3: of those things. And another interesting thing is the I mean,
35:11
Speaker 3: the next zero thing that gets me is that it's
35:15
Speaker 3: more about politicians being given the political permission to give
35:20
Speaker 3: voice to a whole load of concerns that people already have.
35:24
Speaker 3: Because the thing that I think is find it mild laritating.
35:29
Speaker 3: So so this by election happened and it was over
35:33
Speaker 3: this Ulez thing. So the extension of this kind of
35:37
Speaker 3: low emission zone to specific party London, and what people
35:42
Speaker 3: are actually objecting to is that it's people who own
35:46
Speaker 3: carls currently and live in that bit were suddenly going
35:50
Speaker 3: to get charged because they had, you know, these kind
35:53
Speaker 3: of as I understand that they had these kind of
35:55
Speaker 3: you know, diesel cars, so basically as an impertinence to
35:58
Speaker 3: somebody coming along and saying, you know how you know,
36:00
Speaker 3: you live here and you part your card in front
36:02
Speaker 3: of your house every every day. Now you're going to
36:05
Speaker 3: have to pay for that. So what they're objectity is
36:07
Speaker 3: not even as abstract as some kind of you know,
36:10
Speaker 3: esg thing. It's somebody coming along and suddenly taxing them
36:13
Speaker 3: for something that they feel is absolutely their right to have,
36:17
Speaker 3: and that it's you know, completely it's actually very regressive
36:20
Speaker 3: as well. We start so, but my point is it's
36:24
Speaker 3: like there are very specific reasons by this particular type
36:28
Speaker 3: of tax like is actually outrageous and terribly cheeky, and
36:32
Speaker 3: people kind of like voted against that. So it's actually
36:35
Speaker 3: not particularly tied to the wider kind of net zero stuff.
36:39
Speaker 3: But the point is is this particular by election result
36:41
Speaker 3: that is enabled kind of like Richie and all the
36:44
Speaker 3: other kind of like politicians to turn around and give
36:47
Speaker 3: voice to the wider concerns that people have, you know.
36:49
Speaker 3: So it's it's it's more, there's the kind of arbitrariness
36:53
Speaker 3: of all, right, well, suddenly people are allowed to talk
36:56
Speaker 3: about this because something basically unconnected and what would have
37:01
Speaker 3: harmed if you know, going the other way and labor
37:02
Speaker 3: it actually one we wouldn't be talking about it now,
37:05
Speaker 3: which I mean, I think that's that's kind of sobered in.
37:08
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be talking about it now.
37:10
Speaker 2: But something else would have opened the floodgates at some point,
37:13
Speaker 2: I think, and at some point, you know, politicians will
37:17
Speaker 2: would have realized that that's that too much cost piled
37:20
Speaker 2: too much on individuals, and particularly on the individuals who
37:23
Speaker 2: have the least money, was going to provoke some kind
37:26
Speaker 2: of backlash. It would have happened. It's just a matter
37:29
Speaker 2: of what it was that was going to trigger it.
37:31
Speaker 2: But you're right, this was it. And as you say,
37:33
Speaker 2: this is not even this was not even specifically a
37:35
Speaker 2: net zero policy, right, This is that less is a
37:37
Speaker 2: pollution policy.
37:38
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also, like I said, it's the format of
37:41
Speaker 3: the tax is kind of is the cheekiness of it
37:43
Speaker 3: rather than you know, you know, you'll tell me something
37:47
Speaker 3: that I've done for ages and that is on my
37:50
Speaker 3: own line. If you like, is now being taxed because
37:54
Speaker 3: you know you don't like it any of that. I
37:55
Speaker 3: think it's that sort of the element here. You know,
37:57
Speaker 3: it's about like inheritance tax. Everybody objects the inheritance tax,
38:00
Speaker 3: not because most people get hit by it, but because
38:03
Speaker 3: of the cheek of kind of lake tail and somebody
38:05
Speaker 3: just after they believement or by where you was a
38:07
Speaker 3: load of tacks. It's it's like an emotive thing right then.
38:12
Speaker 1: And I wonder if they will now begin to look at.
38:16
Speaker 2: ESG policies and e SG regulation and say, well, maybe
38:19
Speaker 2: that's just too much for this company. You know, we
38:22
Speaker 2: just wanted to make some stuff, sell some stuff, make
38:24
Speaker 2: some money, send us the dividends, and these many many
38:27
Speaker 2: overlayers of regulation are actually pushing it and make it stop.
38:30
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because because BP is kind of peddled back
38:34
Speaker 3: from oh it's kind of green stuff.
38:37
Speaker 1: And with with impunity basically yeah.
38:40
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I mean because it's an oil company.
38:43
Speaker 1: It's like company.
38:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was closing the name, you know, And I
38:49
Speaker 3: think it's I mean, it's good that this stuff is
38:51
Speaker 3: going by the way, see because it's you know, it's
38:54
Speaker 3: not very democratic, as he points. So I think that's
38:57
Speaker 3: a really good point that he makes, you know, because
39:01
Speaker 3: and I think that boys, I'm not sure that actually
39:04
Speaker 3: Milton Friedman didn't bring that up. I mean, I think
39:06
Speaker 3: Milton Friedman talked about that. I feel a bit as well,
39:11
Speaker 3: being if you're if you're pushing, if you're using profits
39:13
Speaker 3: to push a deferent agenda that's political rather than designed
39:19
Speaker 3: to make more profit than that is something that undermans
39:23
Speaker 3: democracy because it's not getting the scrutiny and it's not
39:26
Speaker 3: getting you know, people aren't able to vote for it.
39:29
Speaker 3: So I think that was a really good point. But yeah,
39:31
Speaker 3: I do. It does seem as if we're seeing a
39:34
Speaker 3: retreat from that, and I think companies will be glad
39:36
Speaker 3: of that.
39:38
Speaker 2: You know, companies will be extremely glad of it. There's
39:40
Speaker 2: been a very difficult period for companies. Yeah, it's hard
39:43
Speaker 2: enough to make money at the best of times. It's
39:45
Speaker 2: extremely hard to have to conform to many many cultural
39:50
Speaker 2: strictures and EARESG Related regulation at the same time. It's
39:54
Speaker 2: just not to say, by the way that it should
39:56
Speaker 2: be total free for all out there.
39:58
Speaker 1: But you know, there's been an all for lot added
40:00
Speaker 1: very very quickly.
40:02
Speaker 3: You know, I know when all of this stuff, it's
40:04
Speaker 3: more that this stuff does need democratic oversight. It's like
40:08
Speaker 3: it's more when kind of companies are sort of starting
40:10
Speaker 3: to do massive overreach and kind of decide on all
40:15
Speaker 3: these are things that should be essentially be laws or
40:20
Speaker 3: cultural norms where people are saying, well, hold on a minute,
40:22
Speaker 3: who who voted for this? Or where do we discuss this?
40:26
Speaker 3: Or there's there no way to kind of like raise
40:28
Speaker 3: my own point of view about this particular decision without
40:33
Speaker 3: you know, being shouted down by kind a group of
40:35
Speaker 3: people who think they're better than me. So I think
40:38
Speaker 3: that that will be good to exit that particular environment.
40:43
Speaker 1: You're running for political office, John.
40:45
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure I could get four percent.
40:48
Speaker 2: I think.
40:50
Speaker 3: The accent do you think.
40:52
Speaker 1: That you are to be born in America for American president?
40:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking more of you, as you know, local
40:58
Speaker 1: mpay gradually working your way up to junior minister.
41:03
Speaker 3: God, that's unambitious.
41:06
Speaker 2: Okay, you're right, you can do more. Now what what
41:08
Speaker 2: where do you think that's going to get to? Where
41:10
Speaker 2: is this journey of is going to end?
41:13
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, I can't see him being president. I
41:16
Speaker 3: don't really fully wrap my head around US politics, but
41:21
Speaker 3: it's it seems quite sowing up from the point of
41:24
Speaker 3: view whoever the big people have been an again, you know,
41:27
Speaker 3: I mean no idea Trump is going to become president EIDL.
41:30
Speaker 3: So you know they'll know.
41:32
Speaker 2: I know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a limb
41:33
Speaker 2: here and say I think he's going to top out
41:35
Speaker 2: at fourteen percent.
41:37
Speaker 3: That's pretty good.
41:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I plug that completely for the air. I have
41:42
Speaker 2: no idea no more. I'm just going to see I
41:44
Speaker 2: know more about American politics than you.
41:45
Speaker 5: I think.
41:46
Speaker 1: Let's go on holiday, John, let's go back to it.
41:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, thanks for listening to this week's bonus
42:00
Speaker 2: episode of Maren Talks Money. We are still technically on
42:03
Speaker 2: our summer break, so we should be back on the
42:05
Speaker 2: eighth of September. But again, you never know when we'll
42:07
Speaker 2: be inspired to drop another bonus, so do keep an
42:10
Speaker 2: eye on your feed in the meantime. If you like
42:13
Speaker 2: our show, rate it, review it, and subscribe it wherever
42:16
Speaker 2: you listen to your podcast positively please. This episode was
42:20
Speaker 2: hosted by me Maren Sunset Web. It was produced by Samasadi,
42:23
Speaker 2: additional editing by Blake Maples. Special thanks to Vivek Ramaswami,
42:27
Speaker 2: to John Steppek and the Money Week team were kindly
42:30
Speaker 2: agreeing to have us re release this episode