![]() This was made clear last year when Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and conservative rabble-rouser, attacked ESG at a Bitcoin conference in Miami, as Fink’s face stared out of the screen behind him. Call it defunding the climate police.įink has become the right wing’s bête noire. Some states have blacklisted firms like BlackRock from handling their investments. This year alone, Republican lawmakers in 37 states have proposed at least 167 laws targeting ESG (most have not passed). Less than 3 per cent of BlackRock’s investments in America are ESG-related, but Fink has made himself the face of the movement since 2016, when he began urging the chief executives of the companies in BlackRock’s portfolio, in increasingly strident terms, to make their businesses more sustainable.Ĭonsumers’ Research and other well-funded right-wing organisations have formed a powerful lobby transmitting the message deep into Republican-governed states that ESG is wrecking social norms and dooming fossil-fuel production, on which many rely for jobs and tax revenue. The theory behind it suggests that you can measure companies’ performance on metrics other than financial returns, though the scoring systems are subjective, inconsistent and often set goals that conflict with each other. One of the main targets of this vituperative cabal is ESG: environmental, social and governance investing. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and the leading challenger to Donald Trump in next year’s Republican presidential primary contest, is its most prominent advocate. But in recent years a faction has remonstrated against firms that speak out on issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and other subjects that they consider “woke”. Historically, Republicans have allied themselves with business to oppose government regulation and promote free enterprise. These days though, it looks more like a hit squad for a clique within the Republican Party. The advertising trucks were paid for by Consumers’ Research, a group that describes itself as America’s oldest consumer-protection agency. When Fink talks, people listen – and Fink certainly likes to talk. Its assets under management, valued at $US9.4 trillion, include stakes in about 18,000 listed companies across the Western world. The firm, with a market value of about $US100 billion ($153 billion), is the world leader in innovative low-cost investment funds. ![]() It invests trillions of dollars on behalf of its clients, which include pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies. ![]() accuses Fink of being enamoured of China and exploiting those in financial misfortune, but it doesn’t mention the most salient facts.įink is the 70-year-old chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager. Both asked, “Who is Larry Fink?”īlackrock’s Larry Fink has become the right wing’s bête noire. Beneath the advertisement was a question and a website URL. It showed a balding man dressed in a dark business suit, bearing a Dr Evil stare.Ī columnist for the New York Post wrote, tongue-in-cheek, that “it made me wonder whether this dude was about to assign a hit squad to come to my house”. In early 2022 New Yorkers encountered the sight of black trucks driving around Times Square displaying a peculiar billboard.
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