GOP critics say politics drives ESG choices for investment firms

23 thoughts on “GOP critics say politics drives ESG choices for investment firms”

1. Remember when Republicans believed in the free market? Yeah, me too.

   Log in to Reply

   1. Did you even read the article? Nothing to do with free market. As usual your ignorance is enlightening.

   2. Sure did. Apparently you didn’t.

      “ Dax Denton, chief policy officer for the Indiana Bankers Association, said restricting investments or state commerce based on objections to ESG approaches is a “fundamentally flawed” approach.”

      “These types of bills attempt to prioritize specific industries for access to capital, an approach that runs counter to the free-market structure and the very foundation of our nation’s banking system,” Denton said. “This free-market approach has given our nation the strongest and most resilient financial system in the world.”

      You want to try again?

   3. What may be missing is that Black Rock is not about capitalism. Black Rock is working in concert with government to control capital and global commerce through ESG ratings.
      They are not asking corporations to comply, they are mandating compliance, to a scheme that has no investor ROI. Of course they are banking on investor ignorance to what outcome they are attempting mandate.

   4. Steve R., you couldn’t be more wrong. Black Rock, like any investment firm, has to provide above-par ROIs to its investors or else it loses business, loses money, and ceases to exist. As of last Friday, Black Rock has a $90.5 billion market capitalization, putting it in the 99th percentile of companies in the Investment Management & Fund Operators industry. It’s current price-earnings ratio is 15.6. For your myopic mindset, you deserve a lump of coal.

   5. D D — you are of course correct, but you have to bear with those at IBJ who are part of the “Lincoln Project Republican” collective who basically embrace everything coming from the Biden administration but will at least go tsk-tsk-tsk when Biden constituents loot and riot and set fire to small businesses or rampage through a Christmas parade or run over an 18-year-old with full intent to kill. But will still ensure the lawlessness continues because, of course, MAGA is far far far more dangerous and violent. They know this because “moderate” news sources like Reuters and NBC tell them this, even though they’re also perfectly happy with sites like Daily Beast, RightWingWatch, and Raw Story–essentially QAnon for lefties.

      You have to bear with them: they think that corporations taking marching orders from the Washington Uniparty is actually “public private partnership” and that the very existence of the Uniparty is “reaching across the aisle”.

      In their world, Romney and Sasse and Kinzinger are the true voice of the GOP, even as this ethos gets trashed in 80% of the GOP Primaries. But it doesn’t matter: Kinzinger and his ilk can run to the Dems and be welcomed with open arms. And to the Lincoln Leftists, there’s nothing weird about this. Nancy Pelosi has far more integrity than Liz Cheney, but then, that’s because although they’re fundamentally the same person with different colors of hair dye, only one pretends to stand for families and community and small businesses. And it ain’t Nancy.

      Big Tech and the legacy media take marching orders from the current administration. Any attempt to point this out, in their eyes, is standing in the way of the free market. This is crony corporatism, it’s favor-granting and anti-competitive (since the richest corporations are helped by the government to keep competitors at bay, while they then reward the government by donating $$$ to their campaigns who will ensure the cartel remains unchanged).

2. Companies make more money for their shareholders when they use tools and methods that keep expenses low. Examples: 1) renewable energy sources are cheaper than coal; 2) treat your workers fairly who are therefore happier and more productive; 3) don’t break laws and therefore avoid legal costs.

   ESG is straightforwardly good capitalism. To subsidize coal, which a hundred years ago was the cheapest source of energy but no longer is, is not good capitalism. To cheat or mistreat your workers is not good capitalism. To cheat your contractors, befoul the air, water, and soil, or get tied up in litigation because you are dishonest are not good capitalism.

   Log in to Reply

   1. ESG is about CONTROL, not capitalism. Keep researching it is pretty sinister when you get in to the details.

      Black Rock is a globalist cartel.

   2. If companies were engaging in these practices voluntarily, we wouldn’t witness such intense pushback. It’s not “good capitalism” if alternative business practices aren’t allowed to compete freely, or if the moral cartel that controls the legacy media and big tech wouldn’t defame a company for defying the ESG cult and thereby destroy them…thus indicating that many of them are doing this out of fear. Just look at how John Schnatter got treated after he dared question the NFL’s woke practices on helping him sell his sugary pizzas. Thrown out of a company he started from a garage in Jeffersonville IN. And some people here would be cheering this on. Such a “free” market.

      Does anyone really think that the Salvation Army, a rock-ribbed conservative religious organization as recently as 10 years ago, would start promoting Queer and Critical Race Theory through its charity due to “shifting business culture”? Course not. The Woke Cult went after them.

   3. So I’m supposed to buy into your thoughts about the global elite and groupthink and cancel culture and all that for billionaires business owners … when you dox regular citizens like me who post strong opinions you don’t like.

      I don’t see a difference, whatsoever, between the two. If you don’t want it practiced against people you agree with, don’t practice it yourself against those you don’t agree with.

   4. Joe B. Just because I know you full name (only because you wrote here all the time back when you…we…used a Disqus acount) doesn’t mean I know your address.

      You’ve never been doxxed. I wouldn’t even know how to doxx you and wouldn’t even if I could. I don’t have a cult of followers who would do my bidding, even if I asked them to. With few exceptions (and yes, I’m willing to admit there are exceptions), doxxing what leftists do.

      Like most people who write at IBJ, you’re a white-collar individual whose income and life achievements are significantly to the right of the bell curve. You’re not a victim. Why do people of your socioeconomic caliber continue to pretend that they are?

   5. Doxxing: “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge”

      You love to mention you know where I work and have done it at least twice. That’s attempting to intimidate me to be silent and irrelevant every single time you mention it, which just so happens to be at the end of debates when you’ve run out of points to make.

      If the IBJ wanted us to hang our place from employment over each other, they would still include our full names on the comment forms. Just because you data-mined everyone’s names several years ago, quite possibly when you were using someone else’s account (as you recently admitted), doesn’t mean you should use the information.

3. Public entities, such as the state pension fund, have a fiduciary responsibility to invest state monies where the opportunity exists for the best potential return on investment.

   Yet in essence critics such as Rokita, Soliday, and others want to deprive public entities the opportunity to invest is portfolios that may very well achieve the best financial returns. They decry “activist investing” by Black Rock et al which they allege seek “to control board seats of major companies and push their political agenda.”

   But isn’t that exactly what Rokita and Soliday seek to do? Isn’t their aim to steer public investing entities away from some firms so as to favor other firms, to suit their political preferences? Are they not the “activists” in this effort?

   For the record, BlackRock Future Climate and Sustainable Economy ETF (BECO) purports in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to be investing for value – not values – stating that it “seeks to maximize total return by investing in companies that BlackRock Fund Advisors believes are furthering the transition to a lower carbon economy.” Similarly, Morgan Stanley touts its sustainable equity funds as outperforming their traditional peer funds. To me, it sounds like a “win-win” when investors can achieve the best ROI while at the same time helping solve a serious public policy problem.

   An attorney general and a state representative are not seasoned experts in investing. Rokita and Soliday need to stay in their lane and let the investing professionals do the work without being micromanaged by politicians who themselves want to use political means to achieve political ends.

   Log in to Reply

   1. ESG is the opposite of profitability.

4. What may be missing is that Black Rock is not about capitalism. Black Rock is working in concert with government to control capital and global commerce through ESG ratings.
   They are not asking corporations to comply, they are mandating compliance, to a scheme that has no investor ROI. Of course they are banking on investor ignorance to what outcome they are attempting mandate.

   Log in to Reply

   1. Steve, you couldn’t be more wrong. Black Rock, like any investment firm, has to provide above-par ROIs to its investors or else it loses business, loses money, and ceases to exist. As of last Friday, Black Rock has a $90.5 billion market capitalization, putting it in the 99th percentile of companies in the Investment Management & Fund Operators industry. It’s current price-earnings ratio is 15.6. For your myopic mindset, you deserve a lump of coal.

   2. Brent is cheering on the railroad tycoons. The railroads of the Gilded Age yielded tremendous ROIs to their investors too. And Weimar and–ahem–post-Weimar Germany had a surging economy. So has China for most of the last 20 years. All of them also exploited weak management of public goods, which (during the Gilded Age) Presidents like Arthur, Cleveland, Indiana’s own Harrison, and McKinley failed to rein in sufficiently…because their campaigns undoubtedly benefited greatly from letting them go.

      I recognize that one could pose the same argument about fossil fuel energy companies–that they have enjoyed cozy relations with the feds (especially the GOP) in the past. And that’s probably true. So then it comes down to what people want: an energy sector spread heavily across low-emissions, boutique green producers that may result in the sort of shortages that California and Europe are facing…or the capacity to afford heat for their homes this winter, even if it means a dirty (but cheap and plentiful) resource like coal?

      If you think the former, I’m not sure I can be of much help to you.

5. As usual, count on the GOP to conjure demons with crooked noses every time they’re called out for literally robbing the poor and burning the forests.

   Log in to Reply

   1. As usual, count on Dems to try to use the Antidefamation League’s favorite intellectual shield and bogeyman when trying to deflect from legitimate criticism of corrupt, anti-market corporatist practices like ESG.

      All the while they have not one, not two, but at least three members of US Congress who openly share “crooked nose demon” propaganda focusing on a tiny, Western, democratic country that they don’t feel should have a right to exist. And the ADL lets them get away with it because the ADL (much like the SPLC) only scrutinizes “hate” from one political wing.

6. Our country’s system allows so many investment choices. It seems someone (or any entity) can pick an ESG focused investment or not – free country.

   Log in to Reply

7. Investment decisions should be based on expected return.

   Log in to Reply

8. Completely missing from this conversation are the preferences of the retirees whose retirement funds are being invested. What if they prefer investments which are BOTH profitable and environmentally responsible? Shouldn’t the State of Indiana prefer that as well?

   Log in to Reply

9. I do not get why this is such a fraught issue – all the uber-agitated comments about things like ADL and legacy media and leftists and on and on.

   Republicans are ideologically opposed to mandates, bans, regulation and the “nanny state”. That is definitionally what legislation that prohibits ESG investment is.

   Republicans are ideologically supportive of free market concepts. Investment managers providing investors with both opportunities to invest in vehicles that are either ESG or not and allowing investors to pick and choose between those different investment vehicles are both couldn’t be more aligned with free market principles.

   Back in the early 20th century, some were excited for the arrival of the motor car and supported it enthusiastically. Others insisted it was foolish, couldn’t work, would harm the horse breeding business and would likely be a failed venture. This is the modern equivalent of states attempting to ban the ability of their citizens to invest in automotive companies back then.

   Bad faith argumentation and hyperventilation then, bad faith argumentation and hyperventilation now.

   Log in to Reply