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Meeting of Minds Podcast

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Meeting of Minds brings together the top minds in history, theology, finance, economics, language, mathematics and science. Host Jerry Bowyer invites guests to be both intelligent and clear and to follow truth wherever it leads.
64 Episodes
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American Family Association has been the leader among evangelical Christians when it comes to boycotting companies that violate the values of their Christian customers. AFA still leads in that area, but recently they widened their mission to focus their attention on the powerful strategy of shareholder corporate activism. Non-profit ministries often are given stocks as gifts from donors, but they do not use the legal authority that comes with those stocks to influence the companies they own. AFA is breaking the mold by using shares in Apple, and also banks they own, to oppose the pernicious practices of deplatforming and/or debanking Christian and conservative customers. AFA's Walker Wildmon reveals for the first time in this interview how AFA itself was the victim of debanking by the payment service Stripe and also how a security company refused to help the AFA protect its employees from violence because that company didn't like AFA's politics.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In his new book, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning Life (https://www.fulltimebook.com/), entrepreneur David Bahnsen confronts the anti-work-ethic culture of modern evangelical Christianity and calls upon churches to reassert the Biblical mandate for hard work and high productivity. He talks about the problem of a deficient pastoral work ethic, and the tendency of the church to focus on things like family time to the exclusion of a focus on economic productivity. He argues that the modern faith at work movements and the call for business leaders to get out of the business world and spend their “second half” in ministry in order to move “from success to significance” both fall far short of the high Biblical calling of business.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
CEOs Rebuke the Left

CEOs Rebuke the Left

2024-02-0129:01

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Alliance Defending Freedom recently released its second annual Viewpoint Diversity Index, and the findings are shocking. The survey looks at 75 of the most prominent companies in America, with an emphasis on technology and financial firms. With few exceptions, their scores are in the single or low double-digit range (out of a scale of 100). Jeremy Tedesco, who heads up the Corporate Engagement project for ADF, describes the survey, explains where companies are failing and highlights the few companies that are moving in the right direction. Whether you are a customer, employee, investor, or all three, you should go to Viewpoint Diversity Score and find out who you are doing business with.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dave Brat, former econ professor, congressman and now Vice Provost for Engagement at Liberty University explains how monetary bubbles have obscured the continuous declining productivity in the real economy, how a Christian culture shift made the West the leader of global prosperity, how the loss of the culture is causing us to lose that prosperity and how we might get both back. Brat explains the fundamental equation of economic output and inflation (MV=PQ) in clear language. He also talks about woke capitalism and ESG and previews Liberty’s Upcoming CEO Summit for Christians in the C-suite with a special outreach to CEOs who do business with Africa.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Todd Russ was a community bank CEO in Oklahoma who decided to become a public servant. He ran for Treasurer which he saw as a low-key “worker bee” kind of job. But when he learned how gigantic Wall Street firms like Blackrock were managing the pension assets of public workers and using those assets to undermine the hydrocarbon economy on which the workers of Oklahoma depend, he decided to go to battle. Working with the state legislature he helped change the law to allow the state to stop doing business with financial firms that boycott or undermine the energy industry. But then came the backlash. Treasurer Russ tells his story and why he is undeterred in his fight to see that ESG investing will not be used as a weapon against the people he works for – the citizens of Oklahoma.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A group of 14 state-level financial officials, led by Nebraska state Treasurer John Murante, recently wrote a letter to the CEO of JPMorgan Chase asking the bank to account for the recent cancellation of banking services to conservative organizations. Murante also discussed a new Biden proposal to impose an extra tax on mortgages for people with high credit ratings, a move likely to hurt the people it is intended to help as well as the banking system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Stephen Moore is one of the leading voices in favor of economic freedom and wealth creation. But being pro-wealth doesn’t necessarily mean being automatically pro-business. Moore talks about a new report created by The Committee to Unleash Prosperity https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/ , which exposes how many of the most trusted names in finance have been actually voting with their clients’ money for decarbonization and other policies, which if they were enacted, would severely harm their clients. Few people know that when they invest their money in investment funds, they give up their right to vote on corporate ballots, delegating their voices and their votes to fund managers. But fund managers, often unwittingly, end up voting for policies that are anti-growth, racially charged and highly ideological. Moore and Bowyer discuss the new index, what it tells us about the finance industry and also the limitations of the research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
David Bahnsen of The Bahnsen Group has used his authority as an investor to put a resolution on the ballot of JPMorgan Chase’s annual meeting held on Tuesday, which asks the company to be transparent about a troubling apparent pattern of debanking conservatives such as former Ambassador for religious liberty Sam Brownback. Bahnsen explains the difference between shareholder activism (which is hostile to capitalism) and shareholder engagement (which affirms the capitalist system). And he explains precisely how he and other investors can put corporate America back on track to wealth creation and away from social engineering.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Stephen Soukup is the leading intellectual critic of the "Woke Capitalism" movement, including its stakeholder capitalism and ESG investing elements. He talks with Meeting of Minds about his book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital (https://www.encounterbooks.com/authors/stephen-r-soukup/), and the intellectual and spiritual roots of that movement. Soukup's historical research reveals how intellectual elites built governance structures intentionally designed to minimize the ability of citizens to use their voting authority to determine policy, and how those insulated power structures which they built were captured by cultural revolutionaries. His research can be found at https://wokecapital.org/.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Paul Chesser of the Corporate Integrity Project talks about why he and others have filed a statement in opposition to a proposal to be voted on by the shareholders of the Coca-Cola company, which would pressure the company to divest from pro-life states. The proposal is being voted on during Coca-Cola's annual meeting tomorrow morning, April 25th, 8:30 AM EDT.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Will Hild is the Executive Director of Consumers’ Research (Consumers' Research (consumersresearch.org), America's oldest consumer advocacy group. Hild told Meeting of Minds that "stakeholder capitalism" models of money management hurt the customer by diluting financial return goals in favor of social ones. He also explained the failure of Silicon Valley Bank as an example in which the customers' and shareholders' interests were demoted beneath the political agenda of managers. Hild also discusses a recently released resource (Home - Our Money Our Values) which helps ordinary citizens who want to understand what ESG is and how it harms them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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