BlackRock in crosshairs as conservative activists take aim at 'woke capitalism,' ESG investing



Conservative groups are launching a campaign aimed at stopping ESG's 'woke capitalism' from decimating investors' retirement savings, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, the first to exceed $10 trillion, is directly in the groups' crosshairs.

"The ESG movement is polluting our culture and assaulting the dignity and worth of people," Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo told WSJ. "Our enterprise stands with a growing group of Americans who are fighting to crush leftist dominance in this arena."

ESG is an acronym for environmental, social, and governance investing. Investopedia's nutshell definition of ESG investing is "a set of standards for a company's behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments." In other words, ESG investments take a company's climate change stance and diversity-related activities into account as financial factors.

A conservative nonprofit called Marble Freedom Trust, overseen by Leo, has taken the lead in the initiative to disentangle ESG from actual financial factors asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard consider when investing on consumers' behalf. So far, the group has put more than $10 million, mostly with Consumers' Research, into its anti-ESG efforts, the WSJ reports.

Marble Freedom Trust has provided grants to groups that are pushing back on the questionable, potentially risky investment strategy. Other groups receiving grants include the Heritage Foundation, the State Financial Officers Foundation, and the American Accountability Foundation, the WSJ says.

Their approach to ousting ESG includes distributing model legislation to state capitals and creating ads explaining the risks in supporting ESG principles.

Consumers' Research is the organization that launched viral ads in 2021 targeting targeting "Woka-Cola" and in 2022 targeting American Airlines for trying to "appease woke politicians to distract from its failures as a company."

Consumers' Research blasted BlackRock last year in a blistering, 30-second spot blaming it for soaring gas prices and outrageous housing prices. In the ad, the organization placed responsibility squarely in the lap of Larry Fink, BlackRock's CEO.

Further, group pointed out that BlackRock's former ESG head, Brian Deese, had become President Biden's economic adviser. Deese left his position on Biden's National Economic Council Team last week.

\u201cToday is my last day at @briandeeseNEC.\n\nI leave the White House humbled by what we have been able to accomplish over the last two years, and confident in the team moving forward. Time to finish the job! \n\nStarting tomorrow, you can find me at @BrianCDeese.\u201d
— Brian Deese (@Brian Deese) 1676983034
BlackRock has reportedly spent $3.5 million in lobbying last year, meeting with senators and representatives about ESG, the WSJ says.
Marble Freedom Trust, the anti-ESG group with Leo at the helm, received $1.6 billion to fund its efforts, which also include limiting abortion and opposing critical race theory, according to the WSJ.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Top Biden official says sky-high inflation underscores 'urgency' for Congress to spend even more money



A top Biden administration official suggested Wednesday the shocking new inflation report is evidence the government needs to spend more money.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the updated consumer price index on Wednesday, showing a 9.1% year-over-year inflation increase. The sobering figure is worse than every expert prediction.

What did Deese say?

Appearing on CNBC to spin the awful CPI report, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese called the report "backward-looking" and claimed "it doesn’t reflect what we’ve seen over the last 30 days."

In fact, what the report actually indicates is the need for more spending, Deese claimed.

"I just want to underscore if there's one thing to take away from this report it’s that there is more urgency now than ever in Congress moving to pass a bill to try to build more domestic semiconductors, to try to bring down the price of those goods," he said.

\u201cBiden Admin Senior Gaslighter @BrianDeeseNEC on the worst inflation in 100 years: "More urgency than ever to pass" new spending bills\u201d
— Tom Elliott (@Tom Elliott) 1657721286

CNBC host Carl Quintanilla immediately pushed back.

"Although that brings us right back to the circular argument, Brian, that more spending is not what you typically do in the face of high inflation," Quintanilla noted. "How do we break out of that circle?"

"No, look, I think you have to look at the unique situation that we’re in as an economy and think about how do we build more supply, how do we increase the productive capacity of our economy, so that we actually can supply more goods, bring prices down." Deese responded. "We know the answer on semiconductors exactly — we need more supply of those goods."

Deese was referring to legislation worth $52 billion that would help boost domestic semiconductor production, thus allowing American companies to better compete with China.

Anything else?

President Joe Biden released a statement Wednesday morning downplaying the bad inflation report.

Oddly, the statement celebrated that core inflation is below 6%. But Jason Furman, a top adviser in the Obama administration and Harvard professor, observed that June's core inflation figure — 5.9% — is precisely why the new report is "brutal."

Fortunately, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has already put the kibosh on any new spending.

"No matter what spending aspirations some in Congress may have, it is clear to anyone who visits a grocery store or a gas station that we cannot add any more fuel to this inflation fire," Manchin said on Wednesday.

Inflation core is too high: White House economist Brian Deese www.youtube.com