Okay, we're live. Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on today's show of a very special guest. His name is Stephen R. Soakup, and he published a book in February 2021. Title of the book is The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, How Political Correctness Captured Big Business, very important topic, very important subject, read through the book. I learned a lot. I knew some of it, but definitely some of the more

kind of capital markets, financial stuff I really wasn't familiar with, but he can talk more

about that. So Stephen R. Soak up, are you there? I'm here, William. Thank you very much for having me.

I appreciate it. Awesome. Well, thanks for

agreeing to the interview. For people who may not know your background, can you talk about your

background and what led you to write this book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital? I started out

working in the capital markets in Washington research almost exactly 25 years ago.

In fact, it was 25 years ago last week.

Right out of graduate school, I took a job with Prudential Securities,

Washington Research Office, which was at the time the number one rated Washington

Office in Institutional Investors Magazine

and was considered among the best shops around for providing

information about what is going on in Washington and how it might affect capital markets

for large Wall Street investors. Within a few years, we found ourselves sort of on the outs at Prudential.

And part of the reason for that is because we continued to sort of tell the line on what we believe to be traditional virtues and traditional values in capital markets, which at the time was not

all that popular. It was becoming less and less of an issue of focus among some Wall Street

firms, including the one that we worked for. And before long, we found ourselves out on the streets.

My boss, Mark Melcher, was fired by Prudential

with a specific reason given by the firm that his views no longer meshed with the views of the firm.

In fact, that's what they wrote exactly on the form that they filed with the NASB, explaining why he was terminated.

That his views no longer meshed with the views of the firm.

What year was that, Steven?

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