To Engage or not Engage
The Dividend Cafe
The Dividend Cafe - The Bahnsen Group
4.9 • 572 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today's Post -
We live in interesting times. Is that fair to say? Does anyone disagree with that? I didn’t think so. Now, I didn’t say, “We live in unprecedented times.” I think there are a lot of reasons to barely ever say that (Ecclesiastes 1:9 is a good place to start). I certainly understand that some things seem unprecedented, and many times the particular manifestation of something may be unprecedented. But honestly, most of the time, people say something is “unprecedented,” they are just a person who does not value the study of history very much.
I value history a lot. I believe in almost all disciplines, a better understanding of history is needed for a better understanding of the present and to be prepared for the future. Current social unrest is not unprecedented. Neither is political tribalization. Neither are class divisions or any of the many other things adding to societal angst. It is somewhat arrogant to believe we are the first people in the first time in history to experience a certain thing.
So I prefer the word “interesting” to “unprecedented.” And one of the things most “interesting” right now is the state of corporate America. For some, corporate America is not doing enough to save the environment or participate in various social or political causes. For others, they have stepped knee-deep into a political and cultural agenda that is detrimental to their well-being as a company.
Today I want to talk about the concept of shareholder engagement, what it means, what it ought to mean, and what The Bahnsen Group is doing in this regard. You may find it not political or audacious enough. You may find it too opinionated. You may find it outside the core of investment advice. You may find it the heart of investment advice.
Links mentioned in this episode: TheDCToday.com DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Dividend Cafe weekly market commentary focused on dividends in your portfolio and dividends in your understanding of economic life. |
| 0:12.4 | Well, hello and welcome to the Dividend Cafe recording from beautiful Nashville, Tennessee, where I've been all week. |
| 0:19.9 | We'll be flying home on Friday night back to |
| 0:22.6 | California. But in the meantime, I'm kind of excited to bring an interesting, a little different |
| 0:28.2 | than normal message this week. I think that it's a different message for a Divida Cafe, |
| 0:36.3 | and it's of a topic that many would say is |
| 0:39.2 | unprecedented. And I'm not sure I agree, partially because I have a pretty permanent aversion |
| 0:45.2 | to the word unprecedented. I do hold to the bias that there's generally nothing new under |
| 0:52.3 | the sun. It's just that what we refer to as |
| 0:54.3 | unprecedented is usually not so much unprecedented as it is the specific manifestation |
| 0:59.7 | of something, the specific implementation is a bit different, but that it does have some connectivity |
| 1:06.3 | to history. That's almost always the case in financial markets that there's nothing new |
| 1:13.2 | under the sun and a more robust understanding of history helps people from keep prevents people |
| 1:20.2 | from saying things like such and such an event is totally unprecedented. Even if there is |
| 1:25.8 | unique novelty to some of the stuff that happens. |
| 1:30.7 | Unprecedented sounds too dramatic of a word. Right now, I would suggest that one of the |
| 1:37.2 | things happening is a new debate around an old issue. It's been debated in a new way with new ramifications, |
| 1:47.2 | but it's by no means a new topic in terms of the kind of philosophy or philosophical tension |
| 1:55.5 | that underlines it. I want to start by talking about what a company's duty of care is. |
| 2:03.9 | Primary responsibility for publicly traded company, what they're there to do. |
| 2:09.7 | We know, as a general rule of thumb, any enterprises there for the production of goods and services |
| 2:15.3 | around the particular good or service or poor |
... |
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