ESG isn’t about environmental solutions. It is a way for people to donate towards a religious vision they believe in.
If you oppose ESG, you do not have objections about how your money is invested, you are against saving the planet and for the oppression of minorities.
In Medieval Europe, people didn’t call it ESG, they called them indulgences.
"Most ESG rankings have a thing for Apple, even though it’s been accused of relying on slave labor to build its iPhones in China."
To say it's "been accused of" is just silly. It does... That's it. All these wokies walk around Tweeting about perceived injustice on their iPhone that some Chinese slave made. It's pretty wild.
If you actually poke around what's in these ESG funds it's garbage too. You'll find PayPal, Visa, Microsoft, whatever other crap. The only thing that's special about these funds is that by calling themselves "ESG" they can charge 3x or 5x the management fees. It's basically equivalent to 2017 when that iced tea company changed its name to blockchain iced tea and doubled its market cap. Pure nonsense.
I feel bad for people forced to invest in this stuff. I am very skeptical that any of it is actually changing the world for the better.
I worked for several decades for a company that was fully bought into the ESG bullshit from the top on down, and everything in this article is precisely correct.
One of the ways companies obscure the effect ESG is having is by lumping in those initiatives with other, larger and more profitable ones, then linking the growth of those overall portfolios to ESG...when in reality, the ESG pieces are optimistically a neutral contributor, but in many instances actually a drag on performance.
ESG also only cares about the simple, low-hanging fruit of the social change piece. BLM, female advancement in the western world, etc. But, you will never hear them, ever, talk about the Uighur Muslims in China (who constitute a critical part of nearly any company’s supply chain, which is involved in ESG), gay people in the Middle East, etc. They are completely silent about these things because it will cost them a dollar in revenue.
Principles, my ass...ESG can not die a more deserved, painful, and caterwauling death.
I wrote an article about the UN human rights report on the treatment of the Uighur Muslims here, called, The Woke Approved Genocide.
The biggest con people believe in is that this stuff and green energy is going to save the planet. The planet will outlive everyone. The only thing that gets saved is these grifter fund managers and bureaucrats jobs.
A Very timely article. I have all my retirement at Fidelity, about 20% of which is a Vanguard fund and another 30% in Apple stock. I see that Vanguard has dropped out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. So far, so good, but I'll do more investigation today.
Apple, of course, has been an investment superstar for the past fifteen years, but I'll also do a deep dive into the dealings at AAPL today. It takes a two-minute phone call to sell any and all of my retirement portfolio it and transfer to another company - one that has my interests in mind instead of using my money without permission to fund some quixotic, unscientific Climate Hoax or racist Board of Directors agenda. Get Woke, Go Broke, and any company pursuing such nonsense I intend to help accomplish that goal. Thanks once again to The Free Press. We just may make it.™
It seems a class action suit against a fund that relies heavily on ESG could go a long way to helping solve this problem. The fund managers have a fiduciary responsibility - not a moral responsibility - to the shareholders. Hold them to that.
There are two kinds of people. One group wants to leave you alone, to let you live your life as you see fit. The other is never content to leave you alone. They incessantly meddle, hector, wheedle, command and dream up new schemes to bother you and be up your butt.
ESG is doing to finance what the left has done to our universities. A bunch of know-nothings with an agenda ride a wave of sanctimony to take over an institution while the people who know better roll over and let it happen.
ESG is a cover for funneling money to friends. Recall bond rating companies during housing meltdown? It’s just another fraudulent means of money transfer on the backs of the common man.
Years ago I decided to educate myself on investing. Not easy, I assure you, but worth it. I started living off my retirement savings in 2009 and have more savings now than I did then. Never invest in a cause. Look for long term trends and solid companies poorly valued and priced low by the market. Pick your targets and know when to buy, but more importantly when to sell. And as you age, the most important tactic is capital preservation. You can make more dollars with a large investment base than you can with a small investment base. ESG “criteria” should never enter into an investment decision. The activists who praise you for investing in their cause will turn their backs on you when you lose money and find yourself in a worse position.
During a trip to China in 1955, Milton Friedman saw many workers digging a canal using shovels instead of modern excavators. When he asked why they weren't using machinery, he was told that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman then asked why they didn't use spoons instead.
I’m thankful to have taken control of my retirement account over 3 years ago. It took some education, but my money isn’t being controlled by bad actors (and fund managers who don’t give a shit about me). I’m sad for my fellow Americans who are stuck with retirements they can’t control.
“It’s not that she’s against the asset managers who handle her company’s pension fund investing in green energy. “I have no objection to saving the planet,””—————————————————
It does nothing to save or marginally improve the planet. It will result in catastrophe and a noticeably worse planet.
If these diabolical imbeciles are still effectively manipulating you with their satanic horseshit then you deserve to lose all of your money.
Love this quote: Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, said in an email: “ESG is a scam, an idea that was born in sanctimony, nurtured in hypocrisy and sold with sophistry.” ❤️
It perhaps needs to be said that Anthropogenic Climate Change is not real almost as many times as it needs to be said "Communism has failed miserably and violently every time it has been tried."
The Earth has been without ice, and covered in ice. Everything in between is natural variation.
And the DATA DOES NOT EXIST either to claim that our period is exceptional, or even that the Earth actually is warming. Most of the temperature sensors are placed in places like airports and cities which warm as obvious and very local human activity increases. We have almost none in the polar regions; and in any event the hypothesis, to the extent it is actual science (almost none, at this point), predicts differential warming about one mile up that IS NOT HAPPENING.
Humans in groups get progressively stupider. If that is progress, then Progressives are. I myself tend to call them Regressives, because that is what I see.
ESG isn’t about environmental solutions. It is a way for people to donate towards a religious vision they believe in.
If you oppose ESG, you do not have objections about how your money is invested, you are against saving the planet and for the oppression of minorities.
In Medieval Europe, people didn’t call it ESG, they called them indulgences.
Around and around we go.
"Most ESG rankings have a thing for Apple, even though it’s been accused of relying on slave labor to build its iPhones in China."
To say it's "been accused of" is just silly. It does... That's it. All these wokies walk around Tweeting about perceived injustice on their iPhone that some Chinese slave made. It's pretty wild.
If you actually poke around what's in these ESG funds it's garbage too. You'll find PayPal, Visa, Microsoft, whatever other crap. The only thing that's special about these funds is that by calling themselves "ESG" they can charge 3x or 5x the management fees. It's basically equivalent to 2017 when that iced tea company changed its name to blockchain iced tea and doubled its market cap. Pure nonsense.
I feel bad for people forced to invest in this stuff. I am very skeptical that any of it is actually changing the world for the better.
I worked for several decades for a company that was fully bought into the ESG bullshit from the top on down, and everything in this article is precisely correct.
One of the ways companies obscure the effect ESG is having is by lumping in those initiatives with other, larger and more profitable ones, then linking the growth of those overall portfolios to ESG...when in reality, the ESG pieces are optimistically a neutral contributor, but in many instances actually a drag on performance.
ESG also only cares about the simple, low-hanging fruit of the social change piece. BLM, female advancement in the western world, etc. But, you will never hear them, ever, talk about the Uighur Muslims in China (who constitute a critical part of nearly any company’s supply chain, which is involved in ESG), gay people in the Middle East, etc. They are completely silent about these things because it will cost them a dollar in revenue.
Principles, my ass...ESG can not die a more deserved, painful, and caterwauling death.
I wrote an article about the UN human rights report on the treatment of the Uighur Muslims here, called, The Woke Approved Genocide.
https://www.gordoncomstock.com/p/the-woke-approved-genocide
The biggest con people believe in is that this stuff and green energy is going to save the planet. The planet will outlive everyone. The only thing that gets saved is these grifter fund managers and bureaucrats jobs.
A Very timely article. I have all my retirement at Fidelity, about 20% of which is a Vanguard fund and another 30% in Apple stock. I see that Vanguard has dropped out of the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. So far, so good, but I'll do more investigation today.
Apple, of course, has been an investment superstar for the past fifteen years, but I'll also do a deep dive into the dealings at AAPL today. It takes a two-minute phone call to sell any and all of my retirement portfolio it and transfer to another company - one that has my interests in mind instead of using my money without permission to fund some quixotic, unscientific Climate Hoax or racist Board of Directors agenda. Get Woke, Go Broke, and any company pursuing such nonsense I intend to help accomplish that goal. Thanks once again to The Free Press. We just may make it.™
It seems a class action suit against a fund that relies heavily on ESG could go a long way to helping solve this problem. The fund managers have a fiduciary responsibility - not a moral responsibility - to the shareholders. Hold them to that.
There are two kinds of people. One group wants to leave you alone, to let you live your life as you see fit. The other is never content to leave you alone. They incessantly meddle, hector, wheedle, command and dream up new schemes to bother you and be up your butt.
They're known as Democrats.
ESG is doing to finance what the left has done to our universities. A bunch of know-nothings with an agenda ride a wave of sanctimony to take over an institution while the people who know better roll over and let it happen.
ESG is a cover for funneling money to friends. Recall bond rating companies during housing meltdown? It’s just another fraudulent means of money transfer on the backs of the common man.
Years ago I decided to educate myself on investing. Not easy, I assure you, but worth it. I started living off my retirement savings in 2009 and have more savings now than I did then. Never invest in a cause. Look for long term trends and solid companies poorly valued and priced low by the market. Pick your targets and know when to buy, but more importantly when to sell. And as you age, the most important tactic is capital preservation. You can make more dollars with a large investment base than you can with a small investment base. ESG “criteria” should never enter into an investment decision. The activists who praise you for investing in their cause will turn their backs on you when you lose money and find yourself in a worse position.
During a trip to China in 1955, Milton Friedman saw many workers digging a canal using shovels instead of modern excavators. When he asked why they weren't using machinery, he was told that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman then asked why they didn't use spoons instead.
ESG is like that.
Is there a traditional cultural system--religious, medical, legal, financial, you name it--that Leftist orthodoxy has not seriously damaged?
I can't think of one.
I’m thankful to have taken control of my retirement account over 3 years ago. It took some education, but my money isn’t being controlled by bad actors (and fund managers who don’t give a shit about me). I’m sad for my fellow Americans who are stuck with retirements they can’t control.
“It’s not that she’s against the asset managers who handle her company’s pension fund investing in green energy. “I have no objection to saving the planet,””—————————————————
It does nothing to save or marginally improve the planet. It will result in catastrophe and a noticeably worse planet.
If these diabolical imbeciles are still effectively manipulating you with their satanic horseshit then you deserve to lose all of your money.
Love this quote: Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, said in an email: “ESG is a scam, an idea that was born in sanctimony, nurtured in hypocrisy and sold with sophistry.” ❤️
It perhaps needs to be said that Anthropogenic Climate Change is not real almost as many times as it needs to be said "Communism has failed miserably and violently every time it has been tried."
The Earth has been without ice, and covered in ice. Everything in between is natural variation.
And the DATA DOES NOT EXIST either to claim that our period is exceptional, or even that the Earth actually is warming. Most of the temperature sensors are placed in places like airports and cities which warm as obvious and very local human activity increases. We have almost none in the polar regions; and in any event the hypothesis, to the extent it is actual science (almost none, at this point), predicts differential warming about one mile up that IS NOT HAPPENING.
Humans in groups get progressively stupider. If that is progress, then Progressives are. I myself tend to call them Regressives, because that is what I see.