We mind our personal investments, but do we mind how our investments are invested? Many of the state pension funds and personal retirement accounts are farmed out to large investment houses, such as Vanguard, Fidelity, or BlackRock. Those three companies have trillions of dollars of assets under management and, thus, enormous power and influence in the marketplace.
For example, the CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, is explicit in his embrace of “Environmental and Social Governance”, which seeks to use social justice ideology and the supposed “threat” of climate change to force public companies to change how they run their businesses. He is pushing oil companies to go green, even though “green” energy costs more in energy than it produces. Vanguard and Fidelity have also bought into ESG and both investment houses use ESG scores to evaluate the companies in which they invest.
ESG is a method of investing money that disregards profitability in favor of WOKE ideology. In Communist China, the people are given social credit scores to determine their faithfulness to the government's ideology. ESG is similar: a social credit score for investors to judge companies on political ideology. The companies tout their ESG score so that they can attract the big institutional investors as they try to ensure that their business won't be canceled by the social mob.
Even if we are not personally invested in those newly-WOKE companies, we are investors because our state government may be invested. We do have a voice to leverage our taxpayer money away from shady investments or investments in totalitarian regimes like China. The State Financial Officer Foundation (sfof.com) is an organization committed to helping state treasurers manage taxpayer money in a fiscally responsible way — and not according to Leftist ideology. Contact your state treasurer to find out how and where your state's money is invested. Urge your state treasurer to avoid investing state money with companies that use ESG.
In addition to minding your own investments and state government investments, you can also mind the investments of your favorite charities. If you are on the board of directors of your church or school, be sure to check where and how their nest eggs are invested. If we all do our own due diligence on the money we can control, we can make an impact. Don't let your money or the money of your favorite nonprofit be invested in totalitarian dictatorships or in companies that use policies and practices that oppose American freedoms and liberties.
