While at Davos, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon called for elites to acknowledge the economic accomplishments of the Trump administration and to stop showing contempt for 75 million Americans who are not on the left. Exxon, the world’s largest public oil company, is suing shareholder activists who pretend to represent the interests of investors while pushing oil companies away from their core businesses. On this edition of Meeting of Minds, we talk with financial advisor David Bahnsen, who last year addressed the CEO, board of directors, and shareholders of both JPMorgan Chase and Exxon, urging them to restore the trust of conservatives and focus on and defend their company’s business interests.

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At this year's Davos conference, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, called for elites to acknowledge the economic accomplishments of the Trump administration and to stop showing contempt for 75 million Americans who are not on the left. Exxon, the world’s largest public oil company, is suing shareholder activists who pretend to represent the interests of investors while pushing oil companies away from their core businesses. On this edition of Meeting of Minds, we talk with financial advisor David Bahnsen, who last year addressed the CEO, board of directors and shareholders of both JPMorgan and Exxon, urging them to restore the trust of conservatives and focus on and defend their company’s’ business interests.

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The New Civil Liberties Alliance (https://nclalegal.org/) has exposed the extreme extent to which the Biden Administration has been coercing social media companies to censor the research of credible experts who dared to disagree with the party line on lockdowns, vaccines, and mandatory masking. A combination of legal discovery and Congressional subpoena powers reveals an astounding amount of collusion between the government and social media companies to deprive dissenters from their right to speak and citizens of their right to hear things the government doesn’t like. Even worse, subsequent events have shown the dissenters are right far more often than the enforced consensus. Jenin Younes, the attorney who led NCLA’s efforts in this regard, joined Jerry to talk about what the courts have done to protect the Bill of Rights, and what comes next, and what it was like to sit in a conference room deposing an uncooperative Anthony Fauci.

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Another state treasurer is taking on ideologically-captured Wall Street firms. Dale Folwell of North Carolina is publicly calling for Larry Fink to be fired because he is isn't doing his job. The job of asset managers is to manage assets, to put the financial returns of investors above all else. But what happens when the "invisible people…the people who work with their hands and their backs…the people who shower at the end of the day" lack the wealth and power to keep Wall Street firms from using their own money against their interests? Answer: the state officials whom they trust to look out for them should step up. Treasurer Folwell talks about how he has been fighting Blackrock and other entities that are politicizing finance, including rating agencies, which have been attacking local governments for not being politically aligned with the ESG movement. He also explains why he thinks that taxpayer money should not be going to elective surgery such as sex change operations, especially for minors. A video of oral arguments before Fourth Circuit can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/live/Cuc32k5BETw?si=aw89_bKII29Oz4ID  Don't miss the discussion about how unaccountable health care bureaucracies use lack of transparency to distort markets and take advantage of patients. https://www.shpnc.org/what-the-health/nc-hospital-price-transparency-report 

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Like most people who run for a constitutional state-level row office, Dan Elliott has a business background and a desire to focus on “worker bee” type issues, such as cyber-security. But on the campaign trail running for Indiana Treasurer, he met a law-abiding gun store owner who had his bank account cancelled for no reason other than being a gun store owner. That’s when Elliott became aware that ESG and corporate politicization was going to be battle he would have to fight. Treasurer Elliott talks with Jerry about his frank conversations with Blackrock about retirees who had to decide between food and medicine, and why financial return--and only financial return--should be the focus of the pension plans under his supervision. Elliott also talks about the importance of school choice, and why he administers a program that aids young people who don’t go to college, but instead want to apprentice in the real world.

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The Christian Employers Alliance is the leading association of Christian business people who employ others. Shannon Royce, its president, talks to Jerry about their upcoming conference and how Christian employers can learn what they’re up against, but also how to triumph. Topics include agility in the marketplace, how to maintain Christian identity and not run afoul of the law, strategies for dealing with ESG, and a great deal more. Listen to the interview, share it with others and visit here: https://christianemployersalliance.org/2023fallsummit/ to sign up for the most important conference for a most important group of people, Christians on whom others depend for leadership and livelihood.

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It is clear that certain political factions have been highly successful at hijacking the debate over whether and how American companies should engage in non-core social issues. Jonathan Berry, Managing Partner of the prestigious DC law firm Boyden Gray, and a leading authority on the overlap between federal regulation and corporate law regarding ESG and proxy voting, explains how the SEC arrogated to itself powers not granted by Congress and used those powers to shift the balance of power towards political change agents whose interests are not aligned with investors. Berry also shows how the recent SCOTUS ruling against Harvard’s affirmative action program makes racially biased corporate diversity goals and human resources training highly vulnerable to legal challenge. Berry also lays out concrete ways in which excess power could be stripped away from bureaucracies and their favored interest groups and shifted back to the interest of investors.

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After decades of neglect, conservative shareholders just had a banner year placing far more proposals on the ballots of companies than they ever have before. Scott Shepard, who heads up The Free Enterprise Project (Free Enterprise Project - The National Center) at the National Center for Public Policy Research, has been tracking the resistance movement against the ideological capture of American corporations. Shepard discusses the fight to get JPMorgan Chase away from de-banking religious liberty groups, tech companies out of the business of suppressing verboten politics, and oil companies to stay in the oil business. He also discusses the highly influential, but not highly visible, businesses known as proxy advisory services, which set the agenda for corporate governance far more than high-profile asset managers such as Blackrock.

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Conservative activists have focused largely on complaining about celebrity corporate brands associated with ESG and stakeholder capitalism, such as Blackrock. However, state treasurers have turned their attention to the large proxy advisory services, which are arguably the most influential voices when it comes to whether your shares are being used to vote for policies that are in your interest. Led by Utah Treasurer Marlo Oaks, these financial officers are trying to fulfill their constitutional duty to the taxpayers and retirees of their states by constructively challenging institutions that are not highly visible, but are highly influential. Oaks talks with Jerry on this edition of Meeting of Minds to dive deep on this important topic.

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Bob Pruitt serves as Senior Counsel and Corporate Affairs Director with Alliance Defending Freedom. He recently appeared on Meeting of Minds to update our listeners about the state of affairs of the battle over religious freedom at America’s largest bank. He gave a helpful overview of the pattern of apparent discrimination, the engagement with the company by Financial Advisor David Bahnsen, the conflicting answers which the bank has given to shareholders and the press about the cancellation of Ambassador Sam Brownback’s account and the unwillingness of the company to participate in the Viewpoint Diversity Survey (Viewpoint Diversity Score). Pruitt also had some good news to offer about comments which the company has made to Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron which suggest that the company may be willing to participate in the survey.

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