On Monday, Biden exercised his veto powers for the first time to strike down a bill that would ban states from taking ESG into consideration when investing state pension funds. In his veto message, Biden said:
Retirement plan fiduciaries should be able to consider any factor that maximizes financial returns for retirees across the country. That’s not controversial — that’s common sense.
At the risk of using the loaded word “gaslit,” it continues to be the operative word in describing the policies coming out of the Biden White House. It is painfully obvious that ESG itself inhibits investors from “maximizing financial returns.” That was never ESG’s goal in the first place. Yet Biden said the opposite.
ESG aims to incentivize investors to make “socially conscious” (a.k.a woke) investments, even if they are at odds with the greatest return on investment. It has enabled state governments and investment firms to use their monopoly over the investment space to force companies to choose between adopting their woke ESG standards and losing critical investment. Isn’t there a word for that? Extortion? Or modern-day politics?
ESG enables state governments to force companies to choose between adopting their woke ESG standards and losing critical investment.
That is the sole reason why Republicans brought the bill to his desk in the first place: As Glenn said, “ESG poses a clear and present danger to the American way of life, the soul of our nation and every sector of our economy. ESG was never about ROI. It was always about pushing a leftist agenda.
And Biden knows this.
Why would he want to give up something that enables his political party and corporate elites to control and manipulate the political affiliations of their people? Who would want to give up that power? Biden certainly doesn’t.
And he didn’t.
Instead, he boldly asserts the exact opposite: that ESG itself “maximizes financial returns,” relying on the divided American people to debate the policy into oblivion, while he gets exactly what he wants: the retention of power over the American consumer. Dare I say again that “gaslit” is the operative word here?
If one thing is clear, it is that we cannot rely on the federal government to act in the best interests of the American people. However, in this critical moment, the state governments are stepping up to do what the federal government refuses to: protecting the rights of the American consumer.
In a joint resolution led by Florida Governor Ron Desantis, 19 states have pledged “to protect individuals from the ESG movement” at the state level. This is critical.
We cannot rely on the federal government to act in the best interests of the American people.
Florida leads Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming in signing the historic policy agreement among all 19 states, pledging to ban ESG practices within their jurisdictions.
The anti-ESG alliance calls ESG what it is:
A direct threat to the American economy, individual economic freedom, and our way of life, putting investment decisions in the hands of the woke mob to bypass the ballot box and inject political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance, and the everyday economy.
This alliance takes aim at two specific practices used by left-leaning states to force companies to adopt ESG-approved practices.
First, the alliance promises to protect “taxpayers from ESG influences across state systems.”
While other states are using YOUR taxpayer dollars to fund pro-ESG corporations, these states pledge to BAN this practice to ensure “that only financial factors are considered to maximize the return on investment.”
The chief factor behind any investment should be determining whether that investment yields the maximum return on their investment. However, many states are using YOUR taxpayer-funded pension and retirement funds to invest in ESG-approved businesses. This not only forces businesses to consider adopting ESG standards in hopes of obtaining investment. Moreover, states are using YOUR taxpayer dollars to fund them! Would you want your government to invest your hard-earned money for partisan purposes?
The anti-ESG alliance is taking the politics out of investment and putting consumer power back in the hands of the American people. These state governments pledged to make investment decisions based solely on maximizing the return on investment, not in using your taxpayer dollars to fund their political agendas.
Second, the alliance promises to protect “citizens from ESG influences in the financial sector.”
ESG standards force businesses to consider the political leanings of their customer base. For example, Discover announced they will begin tracking its customers’ gun-related purchases. One of the leaders behind this push is Amalgamated Bank, which boasts on their website that their institution “supports sustainable organizations, progressive causes, and social justice.” Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown said:
We all have to do our part to stop gun violence and it sometimes starts with illegal purchases of guns and ammunition The new code will allow us to fully comply with our duty to report suspicious activity and illegal gun sales to authorities without blocking or impeding legal gun sales.
This virtue signaling at the cost of your privacy is earning both Discover and Amalgamated ESG brownie points.
There are countless stories of Americans, like YOU, getting locked out of their bank accounts, dropped as clients, tracked and targeted, all because their personal political beliefs don’t align with big corporations’ ESG goals. Their individual privacy and dignity as a consumer aren’t worth the risk of lowering the company’s ESG score.
That’s why the anti-ESG alliance is pledging to protect the residents in their states from this corrupt ESG exploitation. The alliance promised to ban “so-called social Credit Scores’ in banking and lending practices aimed to prevent citizens from obtaining financial services like loans, lines of credit, and bank accounts.”
They also promised to stop “financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs, such as owning a firearm, securing the border, or increasing our energy independence.”
In short, they have targeted the political extortion hidden behind the virtuous ESG veil to protect citizens from being discriminated against based on political affiliation.
It’s time to step up.
Biden may have struck down the effort to restore the freedom of the American consumer at the federal level. However, these states are taking it upon themselves to do what they ought: to ban practices that threaten the freedoms and privacy of their citizens.
If your state did not joining the anti-ESG alliance, it’s time to demand that they step up and do their job to protect you and the rest of your fellow citizens from corrupt ESG practices. As Glenn said, “The conservative movement is best when it moves in unison.” We must act and unison and push our states to protect our economic freedom and our way of life.
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