Another state Constitutional Officer calls out the ESG industry

John Murante is Nebraska's State Treasurer. He's spoken publicly about how Blackrock and others are not just attacking the energy industry, but attacking our food producers as well

I recently talked with John, on my podcast "Meeting of Minds" and he talked about how politicized investing hurts farmers, and also empowers tyrants, and how it functions as a kind of secular religion. Below are a few highlights from that discussion, lightly edited for clarity and length.

Jerry: One of the things that I have been delighted to see have been these constitutional officers, sometimes called row officers, be good financial stewards. They don't normally get a lot of attention, they're not considered sexy offices. The people in these offices want to get the debits and credits right, they want to do the due diligence. That's part of finance: detail work. And then they find themselves in an onslaught or politicization of capital. They didn't enter these offices to fight, they're just trying to do the accounting, and suddenly they're under this pressure. They're being ranked negatively by S&P on political grounds, they have these Environmental Social Government restrictions pushed down on them.

I'd include you in this list, along with Marlo Oaks and Allison Ball. And you all said, wait a minute, we have an obligation to the taxpayers of our state, to the pension holders of our state, to advocate for their good. And that means fighting against the politicization of capital….










https://www.christianpost.com/news/...ional-officer-calls-out-the-esg-industry.html








ESG is a clear and present danger to the financial well being of the investor class. So many Americans have their savings for health savings accounts, theirs or their kids education, long term life goals, and retirement moneys invested in these companies, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds. We need the managers of the fund companies to look out for the financial well being of their investors. These political issues have no place in investment portfolios other than the one directing their own assets.

 

It’s great to see so many states divesting themselves of fund management companies engaged in ESG. It’s also great to see alternative funds devoted to profit and fiduciary responsibility come into being.

 

Well... ya I mean its good that there's still folks trying to protect investments for regular folks, but really, the best course of action to tell these companies how they should operate is to STOP INVESTING WITH THEM when they go along with the ESG crap. I promise you, if they all start losing their asses for going along with regulations, they will get the regulations changed. Chances are they helped lobby for them in the first place.

 

I dumped several vanguard and black rock ETF products for their index equivalents in Strive over the ESG vs fiduciary responsibility issue.

 

I think that the bicoastal secular progressive elites hate the fact that investing has been spread to the masses and that it’s no longer their private preserve to do as they please.

 

Get ESG Grifters out of investing.

W. Virginia realized that their energy companies had barriers to 'capital thanks to the big banks’ ESG lending policies.'

'The cost of capital is 15 percentage points higher in high-carbon versus low-carbon energy products today. Sectors like shipping, oil and gas, cement, steel, are all investing 40 percent less of their cash flow than they have done in their long-term history.”

W. VA then wondered 'why should we do business with firms that seem determined to hobble our state’s economy?"

WV 'responded to BlackRock’s call for companies to embrace net zero by dropping the asset manager’s funds from West Virginia’s investment portfolio. West Virginia deemed five financial institutions — BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo — ineligible for state banking contracts. “I simply cannot stand by and allow financial institutions working against West Virginia’s critical industries to profit off the very funds their policies attempt to diminish,” said Moore when he announced the move.'

US Bank got smart first and “actually changed their prohibition on lending to thermal coal and pipeline construction for natural gas and oil” to avoid ending up on the naughty list.

'Louisiana pulled nearly $800 million of funds out of BlackRock. Missouri and South Carolina have done the same. In total, at least a dozen Republican state treasurers have been involved in a pushback against ESG in some form. In a sign of ESG’s growing political salience, Moore has announced a run for Congress and framed the move as a chance to take the fight against ESG to Washington.'

Taking The FIGHT to DC!

'Nineteen state attorneys general wrote to Larry Fink, warning that BlackRock “appears to use the hard-earned money of our states’ citizens to circumvent the best possible return on investment, as well as their vote.” The charge is that by factoring in anything other than maximizing return on investment, money managers are in breach of the “sole interest rule,” which requires investment fiduciaries (i.e., money managers) to maximize financial returns. Others go further, claiming not only that asset managers have breached their fiduciary duty to their customers, but that trustees who sit on public pension boards that invest with those firms have also violated their fiduciary duty.'

Largest Fraud of the 21st Century?

'The use of customers’ money to advance political objects rather than their best financial interests a “cut and dried fiduciary breach” and one that “might be the largest fraud of the twenty-first century.”'

 

The bottom line here. We are winning this fight and the fund managers other than black rock seem to be backing down from their prior abandonment of fiduciary responsibility in favor of ESG.