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'Socialism in sheep's clothing': Pro-market leaders rip ESG, creeping capture of corporate America

TigerGrowls

The Jack Dunlap Club
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Dec 21, 2001
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Socialism without a shot fired. Out of control bureaucrats taking over everything by edict.


State elected leaders describe growing pushback against left's drive to leverage asset management to engineer social change via private sector.

By Charlotte Hazard
Updated: September 4, 2022 - 11:09pm
Pro-market elected officials and thought leaders decried progressive activists' creeping capture of corporate America through politicized investment on "The Push for ESG: Social Credit and the New Cancel Culture," a new RAV-Heritage Action for America special report hosted by John Solomon.
Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) investment strategies, increasingly prevalent among large asset management firms, seek to leverage passive investors' assets to steer corporate decision-making to promote progressive social and environmental priorities. ESG has often been compared to the "social credit" system used by China's ruling communist elite to enforce political conformity on its population.
Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt made headlines recently by signing a major anti-ESG bill called the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act of 2022, which requires the state to divest holdings in financial organizations that boycott the energy industry.
"As a state, we're not going to invest with them if they're going to be attacking our way of life and if they're going to be attacking our energy industry," Stitt told host John Solomon.
"Why would an investor not want you to be focused on returns and focused on more of these social issues?" Stitt asked. "It just makes no sense to average Americans, and we're pushing back. We're not going to do business with people that don't promote our assets."
Warning that ESG is a "significant threat to democracy," Rep. Paul Renner (R-Fla.) explained how Florida is now requiring state pension funds to be invested in the financial interests of beneficiaries rather than to advance extraneous politcal agendas.
"We put guardrails around our pension and made sure that they can only invest based on rate of return," Renner said. "We have conservatives and liberals in our state. I'm going to be defending this in the House and in the Senate, and the governor is going to be defending everyone's pension. That's their money, not ours. And it should be invested based upon rate of return and rate of return alone."
West Virginia has also been pushing back against ESG by not investing its assets with financial institutions that boycott energy companies.
"We generate a lot of money from the fossil fuel industries here in West Virginia," state Treasurer Riley Moore said on the special.
"There's a clear conflict of interest there for us to hand over dollars generated from those industries, to a financial institution that's trying to diminish those funds at the exact same time," he explained. "So it did not make sense for us to continue to do business with those firms."
Former CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardees Andrew Puzder has created an anti-ESG exchange traded fund as a counterweight to ESG investing.
"ESG investing is all about accomplishing liberal political objectives," said Puzder, author of "Capitalist Comeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop It."
"But the right objective is to concentrate on returns for investors, returns for shareholders," he said. "And our theory is that companies that focus on profits rather than politics are going to be more profitable than companies that focus on politics rather than profits."
Puzder called ESG "socialism in sheep's clothing," warning it could end up destroying the U.S. economy.
"Elon Musk came out and said that he was convinced ESG was the devil incarnate," Puzder noted. "I mean, the CEOs will tell you that this is an evil, terrible thing. And they're being forced to focus on things other than the interests of their investors and shareholders."
 
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id argue its less socialism and more like a cartel operation. what began as a genuine and well meaning movement, albeit to solve problems that either couldnt be solved or didnt exist, was hijacked as a means of control by some ultra rich and powerful self appointed saviors. some drink the kool aid and take immediate action. its ideas are so good though, they hold a gun to companies/countries heads to sing its praises as they shove a cactus up their hoop, or suffer worse consequences to deter any resistance. see sri lanka was a country that dove headlong into esg's seduction...that went well.
 
Republicans: using market forces to encourage businesses to act responsibility is socialism!

Also Republicans: let's pass laws to ensure that the market can't dictate to businesses what they have to do!
 
Republicans: using market forces to encourage businesses to act responsibility is socialism!

Also Republicans: let's pass laws to ensure that the market can't dictate to businesses what they have to do!
wut
 
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