Uncle Joe seemed quite proud of himself after he signed his first veto. This is a big moment for the old man since he’s been drooling over the chance to be President for decades. These days he’s just plain drooling due to old age.
So what did President Biden opt to shut down from Congress? A bipartisan resolution to overturn a retirement investment rule that encourages retirement fund managers to consider the impact of a variety of left-wing pet projects when picking investments for your retirement savings.
Because if you can’t force anti-capitalistic and democracy damaging agendas via indoctrination and legislation, you might as well go about it through the dollar bills of the citizens too distracted to know better. Lucky for you, dear reader, I am fine diving into the boring world of investments and economic policy.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Biden just vetoed a bill that was passed by both the House and Senate that would’ve protected Americans’ retirement funds from being wasted on ESG-backed investments.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 20, 2023
RELATED: ESG: The 3 Letter Left-wing Acronym That Is Secretly Coming For Your Retirement
What Happened
President Biden made good on his promise to veto anything that came to him that wasn’t in line with his vision or, more accurately, the agenda of the ideologues pulling his strings. The legislation that he struck down with undoubtedly a shaky swipe of his pen would’ve removed a rule allowing your retirement savings managers to balance regular risk with that of ESG.
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance factors, so in a broad sense, think of such concepts as how well a company’s product mitigates or allegedly adds to climate change. So the President said in a video of him vetoing the legislation:
“I just signed this veto because legislation passed by the Congress would put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country. They couldn’t take into consideration investments that wouldn’t be impacted by climate, impacted by overpaying executives, and that’s why I decided to veto it – it makes sense to veto it.”
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It’s important to note that to even get to the President, Democrats had to be on board. In this case, it was Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana in the Senate.
Biden’s veto is why I formed an alliance of freedom-loving states to combat the threat posed by ESG.
Now with Virginia, our 20-state coalition will protect our citizens against powerful economic actors using their financial might to impose an ideological agenda. https://t.co/3YSZl712EE
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 20, 2023
Strongly Encouraged
“What’s happened here is the woke and weaponized bureaucracy at the Department of Labor has come out with new regulations on retirement funds,” Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming explained, “and they want retirement funds to be invested in things that are consistent with their very liberal, left-wing agenda.”
However, the left argues that the Republicans are twisting what the 2022 rule means. For example, in a statement from the Biden administration, they argue that “The 2020 rule is not a mandate – it does not require any fiduciary to make investment decisions based solely on ESG factors.”
So what is the problem? The warning from the administration stated “The rule simply makes sure that retirement plan fiduciaries must engage in a risk and return analysis of their investment decisions and recognizes that these factors can be relevant to that analysis.”
Essentially fiduciaries don’t have to consider ESG, but they do. This reminds me of my time in the military when leaders would tell you that you don’t have to attend some forced fun event but that it is “strongly encouraged,” which is just code for mandatory.
But the real question is, why does any of this matter to you, the everyday American voter working hard every day, hoping to have a nice retirement stash to live off of while you golf your days away in style down in Florida?
Here’s the dirty little secret about Biden’s new ESG rule: the *draft* rule had a disclosure requirement to retirees if fund manager uses their dollars to advance ESG goals. But the disclosure requirement disappeared in the *final* rule that they adopted: they said disclosure… https://t.co/XJowyxV0RO pic.twitter.com/o2xG427s79
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 21, 2023
RELATED: Americans’ Retirement Accounts Have Lost Trillions – TRILLIONS – In 2022
Manipulated Investing
ESG isn’t some new investment concept; fiduciaries have been utilizing ESG factors since the early 2000s. The difference is legislation didn’t mandate that they include ESG in their risk analysis; it was a choice.
ESG can encompass all manner of fuzzy concepts, from weighing renewable energy and diversity among corporate leaders to the promotion of Black Lives Matter initiatives as positive attributes of an investment. So why do I call these ‘fuzzy’ concepts?
Because it’s tough to concretely define the positive risk associated with many of these factors. Renewable energy sounds great until whales start showing up dead on our shores because the wind turbines off the coast are messing with their navigation ability.
For years studies have gone back and forth on saying weighing ESG yields positive rewards, to that ESG can sometimes result in loss. Unfortunately, the truth about ESG, as in most issues involving money and business, was outed by Elon Musk last year.
When Tesla was booted from the S&P Global ESG rankings, but Exxon Mobil was included, Elon wrote “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”
Exxon is the world’s largest oil producer, while Tesla has been on the cutting edge of electric vehicle and solar-powered home innovation.
In his first veto, Biden just sided with woke Wall Street over workers. Tells you exactly where his priorities lie.
Now—despite a bipartisan vote to block his ESG agenda—it’s clear Biden wants Wall Street to use your retirement savings to fund his far-left political causes.
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) March 20, 2023
RELATED: Federal Government Interns Can Make $60K or More
A Case Study
The recent bank collapses have my parents and husband wigging out a bit. It’s only a matter of time before he tries to convince me to put our money in our mattress like in the ‘good ole days.’
But the concern is valid, although I’m not quite ready to stash our cash in mason jars and coffee cans scattered throughout the house. The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a prime example of how ESG has nothing to do with actual financial risk management but with pushing failed ideologies.
The State Financial Officers Foundation laid out how ESG played a role in the SVB collapse in a letter outlining their analysis:
“Instead of placing an emphasis on hiring qualified candidates for critical positions within the company and making prudent financial decisions, SVB focused on ESG, particularly diversity and inclusion initiatives, and courting China while the bank left its Chief Risk Officer position open for eight months.”
The letter points out that even though SVB was “awarded an ‘A’ ESG rating,” they still managed to flop like an undercooked flan. The best part is that while bureaucrats and the progressive left elites want to tell you how you should live your life and spend your money – they get to play by entirely different rules.
“It (SVB) even ran a joint venture in China with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. This is especially troublesome because it means the United States could potentially be bailing out our biggest adversary,” said the foundation.
ESG is so obviously bad for America that Biden’s veto of an anti-ESG bill looks like a favor to China.
All that “good faith seed money” the Biden Crime Family accepted from China is starting to make sense.
Reciprocity.
Biden can’t even explain why the veto makes sense. https://t.co/Uqr45rGDzE
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) March 21, 2023
Like clockwork, our government, of course, did bail them out. Yet again, your money is used to bail out investors who made poor financial decisions.
Yet again, your money is shipped off to a foreign country that the right will tell you accurately is our adversary, but the left will merely call a ‘competitor.’ So now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some mason jars, coffee cans, and a better mattress to purchase for my new savings plan.
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