Tag: us senate

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Ethics in Government, language, Marketing Trends/News, Politics, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , , , , , ,
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Creator: Sam Valadi
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Copyright: via ZUMA Wire

It’s been a pretty heavy news week, so you may have not heard about this incredibly stupid action in both houses of Congress.

Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill “that would prevent the Labor Department from enforcing a rule that makes it easier for plan managers to consider ESG factors when they make investments and exercise shareholder rights, such as through proxy voting” (as reported by Reuters). The Senate, with four members absent and the complicity of two Democratic Senators, did likewise one day later.

This push says that pension funds must not be allowed to even consider any factors pertaining to ESG–Environmental, Social, Governance. It doesn’t say they have to make sure that ESG investments perform as well as non-ESG investments (which, often, they do). That would be a reasonable law to protect retiree pensions. But this one would bar fund managers from even considering anything involving ESG.

For decades, smart fund managers have been shifting investment toward ESG, and their reasons are fiscally sound. From avoiding corrosive investments in “stranded assets” like fossil-fuel or nuclear processing infrastructure that’s been plagues, by leaks, spills, explosions, etc. to avoiding ethics scandals that destroyed once-respected companies like Enron and Arthur Andersen, ESG investing makes so much sense that, as no less an authoritative source than NSDAQ notes,

In 2020, net inflows into ESG funds in the U.S. reached $51.1 billion, a significant increase over 2019 when flows equaled $21.4, which itself was a record.3 Global ESG investing by end of the first quarter in 2021 was nearly $2 trillion4.

The article goes on to list six factors in ESG investment growth and notes that even during the pandemic, “funds with ESG strategies outperformed traditional funds.2″ (Click the link to see the footnote sources, too.) This updates and reinforces the research I did when writing my 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, a few years ago. Every single one of the dozens of studies I checked at that time showed that ESG criteria lead to better financial results.

This growth started decades before the pandemic and was accelerating rapidly and consistently, as this 2020 article from Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, states:

Net flows into ESG funds available to U.S. investors have skyrocketed, totalling $20.6 billion in 2019, nearly four times the previous annual record set in 2018, [1] while ESG funds in Europe also attracted record inflows of $132 billion in 2019. [2] More than 70% of funds focused on ESG investments outperformed their counterparts in the first four months of 2020, [3] and nearly 60% of ESG funds outperformed the wider market over the past decade. [4]

One unintended consequence I haven’t seen addressed anywhere is the possibility of widespread rebellion by private investors that could put the whole pension system at risk, as stakeholders demand that funds embrace sensible, profit-driven ESG corporations in their portfolio choices while an inane law makes that commitment illegal.

Fortunately, President Biden has promised that he will use the first veto of his presidency to block a law that is just as crazy as the various “anti-woke” measures authoritarian Florida Governor Ron DeSantis keeps shoving down the throats of his state’s residents and businesses. Oh, and in the unintended consequences department, please read this Daily Beast commentary on how the anti-woke law even puts Fox News at risk.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Politics Tagged with , , , ,

It is worth remembering that the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which was one of the sparks leading up to the American Revolution, was as much a reaction against the corporate greed of the British East India Tea Company—the most powerful corporate monopoly of its time—as it was against overreach by the British monarchy.

Yesterday, the Senate keeled over in front of their corporate masters, represented by the NRA, despite overwhelming public support for the tiny steps toward sensible gun policy. How can anyone make a coherent argument that criminals or crazy people should be able to walk into a gun show and buy a weapon of mass destruction without getting a background check? And yet the Senate balked at this simple and sensible little step, just two days after the Boston marathon bombing.

You need a license to cut hair or drive a car. We have a long list of behaviors that are subject to government regulation. Why can’t the federal government take even the slightest step toward sanity around gun control? Assault weapons are far more dangerous than a barber’s shears and shavers.

My conservative friend Ted Cartselos thinks gun control will happen state-by-state, as it did in Connecticut. But Connecticut is a liberal, northern state, still reeling from the Newtown tragedy. I can’t see that happening in, say, Mississippi.

Let me state clearly: I am not opposed to gun ownership per se. In the rural community where I live, most of my neighbors—good, friendly, caring people—have guns. But there’s a big difference between a hunting rifle or a personal-protection pistol and an assault weapon that has no defensive purpose.

Voters will remember this betrayal. We, the people, have the right to walk down the street or go to school or shopping mall without some lunatic coming after us with an assault rifle. Let’s invoke the spirit of our wise revolutionaries from 200 years ago and say no to corporate intersts and their government bootblacks that trample on our rights.

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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Assault weapons have only one purpose: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest possible time. And yet, the Senate leadership just pulled the limited assault weapons ban out of the new gun control legislation. Apparently they cannot even figure out that we don’t have to put up with them. Either they are too intimidated by thuggish pressure from the NRA or they are actually in favor of people walking down the street with enough firepower to take out a whole schoolyard full of kids. And where is the pressure from honest citizens to regulate these ultradangerous weapons? If Congress has no spine on its own, it needs to find its backbone through citizen pressure for an assault weapons ban.

I see no justification for refusal to control assault weapons in the Second Amendment. On the contrary, I see that regulation actually comes before the right to bear arms. Grammatically, the phrase “well regulated militia” is the focus point of the paragraph—the justification for what follows. It could be restated as “BECAUSE a well-regulated militia is important, citizens may possess guns.” Here’s the complete text:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Seems to me, the Second Amendment actually creates an obligation to regulate weaponry. I don’t see how regulating semiautomatic assault weapons is any more a contradiction than banning fully automatic weapons (which have been illegal for most of a century). And those regulations could clearly include banning weapons of mass murder, background checks, and the rest of it.

Do we really want more Newtowns and Auroras and Virginia Techs and Columbines? Isn’t it time we approached this with some common sense? After all, the government regulates who can cut hair, for goodness sake!

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