Liz Peek
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Radio
  • About
  • Contact
Screenshot 2023-03-23 at 9.34.32 AM
March 23, 2023

Biden backs woke ESG investing 

Liz Peek Articles

President Biden used his very first veto to squash a bipartisan resolution that would effectively ban using environmental, social and governance (ESG) guidelines when investing retirement funds.   

He knew overriding both houses of Congress on the issue was unpopular, so he lied about it. He (or someone on his staff) tweeted: “This bill would risk your retirement savings by making it illegal to consider risk factors MAGA House Republicans don’t like. Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings — whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not.” 

Note the dog whistle references to “MAGA” Republicans and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Democrats’ favorite bogeyman. Biden doesn’t explain how Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), both of whom voted with the GOP, have become MAGA supporters. 

Manchin said of Biden’s veto: “President Biden is choosing to put his Administration’s progressive agenda above the well-being of the American people.” He is correct.  

ESG investing has been shown to produce below-average returns and to be riddled with fraud. Why has it attracted trillions of dollars? Because it’s a gold mine for fund managers who charge significantly higher fees and because there are a lot of gullible people in the world.

Many Americans haven’t a clue about ESG, and probably wonder what all the fuss is about.   

The argument boils down to this: Biden wants the people running pension and retirement accounts to be able to pick stocks and bonds that meet ESG guidelines, which favor climate-friendly or otherwise socially conscious companies. They claim (without evidence) such firms will outperform over time. Opponents of using ESG as a guide want investment managers to simply make the most money possible for retirees. 

Sometimes those things overlap. But sometimes they don’t.   

Look at last year. The 10 best-performing stocks in 2022 were oil and oilfield stocks like Occidental Petroleum (up 119 percent) and Exxon Mobil (+87 percent); all 10 rose more than 70 percent. 

More broadly, the Energy Select SPDR Fund, the largest oil stock ETF, rose 64 percent in 2022 on top of a 53 percent jump in 2021. By contrast, the S&P 500 fell 19 percent last year, after a 27 percent gain in 2021. 

No ESG investor worth his Sierra Club membership would be caught dead investing in oil shares. True, there are numerous oil and gas companies ranked by Dow Jones in the top 100 ESG firms, but that’s because they claim corporate citizenship and other virtues; few true believers will buy them. As a result, for the last two years, ESG funds have underperformed.    

Consequently, enthusiasm for the practice plummeted. Investors began to reassess their commitment to doing good as opposed to doing their best, and inflows to ESG funds tanked 76 percent globally, to the lowest amount since 2018.

In the U.S., overall assets invested in ESG funds dropped 20 percent. ESG investors were hurt by not owning energy companies and also by avoiding defense firms (definitely a no-no for the woke crowd), which got a boost from the war in Ukraine. Instead, many were heavy into virtuous tech companies that bombed when the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates.

Picking companies that satisfy sustainability or ethics guidelines is more complicated than you might think. For instance, you would imagine Tesla to be a perfect ESG investment, but you’d be wrong. Elon Musk may have put electric vehicles on the map, and so actually reduced U.S. carbon emissions, but his workforce is not unionized and his company does not score well on ESG.   

Also, one might question whether Apple, a company that manufactures a large share of its gizmos in China, should make the ESG cut. After all, China’s record on human rights and the environment is deplorable. Nonetheless, Apple is an EGS darling, ranked in the top 10 by Investor’s Business Daily.

Naturally, given the winners and losers last year, some (flexible) investment managers have upended their definition of ESG, with some caving and buying oil stocks in desperation. As the Financial Times wrote last year, there is no “universal, objective, rigorous framework for ESG investing.”

Does investing in highly-ranked ESG firms pay off? Is it really better for the beneficiaries of the funds under management? The answer to both questions is no. 

A devastating study by a professor at Columbia Business School and an assistant professor at the London School of Economics looking at results from 2010 to 2018 showed that “ESG funds appear to underperform financially relative to other funds within the same asset manager and year, and to charge higher fees.” Worse, the analysis found that “portfolio firms [have] worse track records for compliance with labor and environmental laws, relative to portfolio firms held by non-ESG funds managed by the same financial institutions in the same years.” 

The study also showed that, “ESG funds hold stocks that are more likely to voluntarily disclose carbon emissions performance but also stocks with higher carbon emissions per unit of revenue.” And, “We show that ESG scores are correlated with the quantity of voluntary ESG-related disclosures but not with firms’ compliance records or actual levels of carbon emissions.” Ouch. 

Why, given this damning assessment, are managers still offering ESG funds? Because they make more money. A recent Harvard analysis showed that “the average ESG U.S. stock ETF charges 0.17% in annual fees, according to Morningstar, 0.05 percentage points more than non-ESG funds.” 

And, because there’s a sucker born every minute. 

In 2021 the Securities and Exchange Commission undertook to root out fraud in ESG-world, acknowledging that managers were making a lot of bogus claims about how such funds might help save the planet. Last year, the German police raided a Deutsche Bank-owned asset manager accused of “greenwashing,” or making false statements about their ESG funds.

Investors picking money managers should not be distracted by questionable claims of doing good though ESG investing. Better for everyone if they choose investment professionals ready to buckle down and maximize profits for their customers the old-fashioned way.  

Published on The Hill

Economy is in the tank, banks are reeling, inflation is sky-high and there’s more Biden isn’t telling you Fox Business: Janet Yellen’s job is to fix the banking system

Related Posts

Screenshot 2019-06-26 07.54.58

Articles

John Kerry, climate crazies are coming for your burgers and Fourth of July

Screenshot 2020-02-17 12.35.07

Articles

Ron DeSantis: The good, the bad and the beautiful

Screenshot 2019-06-26 07.54.58

Articles

Biden wants to blame debt crisis on this group but can’t avoid his own economic incompetence

Recent Posts

  • Screenshot 2019-06-26 07.54.58John Kerry, climate crazies are coming for your burgers and Fourth of July
  • Screenshot 2020-02-17 12.35.07Ron DeSantis: The good, the bad and the beautiful
  • Screenshot 2019-06-26 07.54.58Biden wants to blame debt crisis on this group but can’t avoid his own economic incompetence
  • Screenshot 2023-05-19 at 9.23.07 AMNow Is the Time To Raise the Alarm: The Democrats Are Coming for Central Park

Tweets by Liz

Unable to load Tweets

Follow

Liz on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

Liz Peek

2 years ago

Liz Peek

Are you better off than you were 2 years ago?
www.foxnews.com/opinion/inflation-hurting-americans-biden-bill-worse-liz-peek
… See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Inflation already hurting Americans, and Biden's Build Back Better will make things even worse

Are you better off than you were two years ago? That’s what Republicans will ask voters a year from now.

Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 5
  • Shares: 2
  • Comments: 24

Comment on Facebook

Inflation is worldwide and COVID induced.

No Trump, No Trump Doctrine

There's a growing rumble, by the minute, from people all over the planet who are suddenly missing Trump's policies, not necessarily Trump.

First, Trump's policies, domestic and foreign, were clear and common-sense driven which is anathema to the Swamp control freaks who thrive on complication and confusion to mask their real agendas and who they're really working for.

Second, the hypocrites who are now lamenting Trump's policies are the same, domestic and foreign, who fought Trump every inch of the way to prevent the implementation of policies that clearly worked.

Third, without Trump the fighter, no Trump policies would have ever seen the light of day.

And without what is now collectively the Trump Doctrine, what clear metric would we have to truly understand the depth and devastation of the Biden/Swamp debacle?

Don't you know that the global supply chain story is done on purpose for there to be empty shelves at the grocery stores and what not to screw with the public. This is done by the world economic Forum with the likes of Klaus Schwab Bill Gates and George Soros and their ilk

YOU are the delusional personality, dear. Sticking it against the US to please 🖕trump and putin. Disgusting anti American.

Nope

Maybe Liz you would support some immigration reform , you bitch about not having enough servers in your entitled selfish world , oh and you are against mask wearing too , how trumpian of you, the pandemic is all a hoax to you , just dont get sick out there might not be any hospital beds for you . The drs and nurses are sick and tired of taking care of anti mask anti vax selfish repubs Go claim your Darwin Award .

Stupid doesn't describe Liz Peek well enough. No one knows who you are so whenever you troll your way onto some useless FOX program, you utter absurd TDS infected nonsense. Stay smart Mensa. I will never have you on my radio talk show.

how soon some forget. after herschel loses- PRES TRUMP got these jobs done- cheap gas. no soldier deaths the last 18 months of afghan when he was in office. He cut taxes. the largest in America's history. cut regulations. got us out of the Iran deal. put the american embassy in jerusalem. took it to the terrorists. such as soleimani, and al-baghdadi. built the wall on our southern border on 350 miles of our southern border. REAL MEDIAN household income grew to $68,703 in 2019, an impressive 6.8% increase over 2018. While the overall growth rate was 6.8%, real median income grew by an even greater 7.9% for Black Americans, 7.1% for Hispanic Americans, and 10.6% for Asian Americans. All record highs as were the new income levels for each of these groups. Joe's handlers are heading us to the "misery index" purposely. Did I say cheap gas? Please list for me what Joe's handlers have done for you? be the first to answer my question. LOL

TRUMP VS THE GLOBALIST MURDOCH MEDIA EMPIRE

This has been brewing from the day Trump became president and refused to tow the line for the Murdochs or anybody else in the Swamp Establishment, comprised of RINOS, the Democratic Party, their globalist masters and media propagandists all rolled into one.

And it's been a non-stop, phony, six-year witch hunt ever since.

What's breaking out across media land is the central battle between the self-serving globalist crowd who want to rule the world as their personal piggy bank and their greatest obstacle: a strong, independent, self-sustaining American Middle Class of all stripes and creeds – in the majority – that made this country great and will not be told how to think, how to live their lives, raise their families or certainly how to vote.

The big threat here is Trump's policies that worked for and empowered the American people, not the Swamp full of special interests. Not to mention the eye-opening example Trump's successful policies set for people around the world who are needlessly suffering under globalist rule.

We became known as the land of the free for hard-earned reasons.

Now the globalists want to drag us back to the good old feudal days of serfdom where we get to labor for their great benefit while with our heads bowed we are given the privilege of eking out basic subsistence for ourselves and our families.

The Murdochs have launched in unison their media troops/mouthpieces in a full frontal assault. Some who have been chomping at the bit, others, it appears, reluctantly. With big paychecks hanging in the balance, it'll be interesting to see who, if anybody, breaks ranks.

DeSantis has done a great job as governor of Florida, has great potential and to his credit has followed Trump's lead in revolutionizing the Republican Party as the party of the people.

But there's no appeasing the Swamp globalists. The billionaire class is impatient. They are solely focused on creating the trillionaire class and will not be denied.

As push is now coming to shove, DeSantis will have to clearly pick a side. There's no middle ground here.

You either work for the globalists and follow orders or you work for the people. If DeSantis sides with the people, in a nanosecond the globalists and their minions will turn on him with the exact same tactics they've been using on Trump for the past six years.

So, finally, it's on, out in the open for all to see. And long overdue.

The stakes could not be higher.

President Trump lost the election you are such a dummy he got over 95 million the other yo-yo got about 45 million the rest was fake you're a disgrace. Www.magapill.com

View more comments

Liz Peek

2 years ago

Liz Peek

Progressives got hammered on Election Day- but that was only the latest big defeat. What does this mean for Dems? Can Joe pivot? (spoiler-probably not)
www.foxnews.com/opinion/progressive-drubbing-biden-pivot-changing-guard-liz-peek
… See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Liz Peek: Progressives' drubbing opens door to (unlikely) Biden pivot, changing of the guard

They may not know it yet, but the ultra-liberal cabal that has choked Democrat politics and humiliated spineless party leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has lost its mojo.

Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 3
  • Shares: 1
  • Comments: 2

Comment on Facebook

Liz have you not heard latest on the “russia collusion” “steele dossier” Fiona Hill???
Or are you a typical msm reporter?

President Trump lost the election you are such a dummy he got over 95 million the other yo-yo got about 45 million the rest was fake you're a disgrace. Www.magapill.com

Liz Peek

2 years ago

Liz Peek

Joe Biden wanted to be an historic president- and he has done that. Worst ratings slide of any president since WWII.
He (or whoever is running WH) doesn’t care about voters’ top issues – instead Team Biden obsessing about climate change, gender and race.
No wonder he’s in trouble!
www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-polls-ignoring-voter-concerns-liz-peek
… See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Liz Peek: Biden vs. Americans – his priorities, like climate change, ignore top worries of most voters

Voters are worried about inflation, jobs, crime, education and our open border, while the Biden White House is laser-focused on climate change, transgender rights, racism and reducing inequality.

Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 11
  • Shares: 7
  • Comments: 10

Comment on Facebook

The great days turned to very bad days in less than a year.
Congress needs a flip to GOP next year to stop the craziness

Climate change is important.
The GOP may not care about it now, but their children will.
He is trying to get an infrastructure bill through.
He has had issues with Afghanistan, but what else could he do
The people who are taking over Afghanistan were released by the previous administration.
I am sure that Biden is not perfect but he is better than Trump.

Your bias is ridiculous. Makes you a bad writer. Btw avg teacher pay is way above 31000. Sensationalize much?

www.facebook.com/1218170708/posts/10226625535324074/

Liz.

Duuuuuh President Trump lost the election you are such a dummy he got over 95 million the other yo-yo got about 45 million the rest was fake you're a disgrace. Www.magapill.com

worst ratings only from a side thats ignorant to the truth. the effects of coming off a pandemic with oil companies profitting off the pumps in order to pay their shareholders back from profits lost. inflation effects the entire world but of course your base doesnt pull their heads out their asses for one second to look around and use common sense. keep spreading bullshit and weakening our country til it no longer functions as a democracy….bc i see through your fake Christian patriotic pow wows. you are the opposite of ehat you claim and you are the definition of what you claim your rivals are. deflection, projection, hypocrisy. 3 words that sum you up

#LetsGoBrandon

View more comments

LOAD MORE

Tags

AGENDA AIR FORCE BIG GOVERNMENT BORDER WALL CHINA CLINTON CONGRESS CYBERWAR DEMOCRATS DRAIN THE SWAMP E-VERIFY ECONOMY ELON MUSK FILLIBUSTER FREEDOM CAUCUS FREEDOM WATCH GOP GORSUCH GRADUATION HACKING HEALTH CARE HILLARY IMMIGRATION INFRASTRUCTURE KUSHNER MEDIA MIDDLE EAST MOODY'S NUNES NYC OIL RAND PAUL STOCK MARKET SUPREME COURT SUSAN RICE TAXES TAX REFORM TECHNOLOGY TED CRUZ TERROR TRUMP TURKEY WALL STREET WEATHER WELLESLEY
  • Articles
  • Videos
  • Radio
  • About
  • Contact
©2017 LizPeek.org. All Rights Reserved.
Site by Steeplechase Strategies