ESG Governance Fads

(00:01.022)

ESGDEI governance fads, because that’s exactly what they were. I find it odd today. I don’t know why. Various different publications that I read had stories talking about this, in essence, this retreat from ESGDEI investing. Jeb Hensarling had an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today, other publications as well.

And we’ve seen the stories as of late, companies saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we’re backing away. We’re backing away from our ESG, DEI investing. It was always from the get go, a governance fad. We get these things all the time, all the time. It’s much like a lot of the climate change stuff as well, except the climate change stuff has made people a lot of money. Again, the ESG, DEI stuff has as well.

talk about the amount of people that actually are in jobs because of this. Useless jobs. They don’t build anything, they don’t create anything, they really don’t serve any purpose, that much of government is actually that. I mean, you got to think about all the departments, all the people that work for the federal government, basically doing nothing. Remember all the hires that were taking place during COVID, everybody wanted to work and…

human resources and they got involved in all of this nonsense. They don’t do anything. They’re not creating any wealth. They’re not creating any value, just like these people in government haven’t done that. But again, it’s a government jobs program. Last week, we did a whole thing on teachers unions and the amount of employees in schools in comparison to kids. And most of them are not teachers, they’re administrators, and they’re people again, they’re not

adding any value. There’s no value added. And that’s much of what we have right now. And, they bring pressure on corporations. Corporations feel like they have to get in line. The issue, the issue that I had, OK, because again, I’m a big believer that, you know, businesses can do whatever they want to do. OK, they can do whatever they want to do. If there is a restaurant

(02:25.574)

in town that all of a sudden wants to go all in, I don’t know, trans, whatever it may be, they want to do, you know, drag queen bingo, whatever it may be. And they are a, you know, they’re a private business. That’s their choice. That’s their choice. Go ahead, do what you want. I can decide whether or not I want to go to that business or not. Now,

What was different when it came to corporations? We all saw what happened. We also had happened with Bud Light, Harley Davidson has been blowback, myriad of other things out there. These CEOs, these CEOs were not, I don’t know if they know it at the time, maybe they just weren’t that bright, were not acting in the best interest of the shareholders. Now, when you are the CEO of a publicly traded company, you have a job at a fiduciary duty.

to act in the best interests of your shareholders. And obviously they did not, didn’t work out that well. And quite frankly, should have lost their job based upon this. But the Biden administration actually gave them cover. Actually gave them cover. This was what, three years ago? If I’m not mistaken, it was a Friday after Thanksgiving. Okay, no one’s covering the story where the Biden administration gave a get out of jail free card.

for all financial advisors and anybody out there, if they lose their clients money, if they were investing in DEI, ESG, whatever it may be. Again, basically proving that the entire thing was stupid from the get -go. If it was such a great investment philosophy, gee, people would be clamoring to get into it. But no, it’s done nothing but generate losses here, there, and everywhere. Again, I run…

I’ve got three shareholders in my companies, my brothers and I. And if we decide, for example, if we decide that we want to take a portion of our money, again, we own it, we’re the shareholders, okay? We’re responsible for each other and we want to donate money to a church organization, whatever it may be. That’s our choice. We can do that, do whatever we want.

(04:49.496)

But when you are a publicly traded entity, different ball of wax, you have to act in the best interest of your shareholders. This was eventually gonna happen. like most governance fads, they go away. They go away and there’s gonna be a retreat here. They’ll come up with something new. Government will come up with something new so they can continue to employ people that do nothing.

live off the taxpayer dime, push agendas here, there, and everywhere, allow people to be rabble -rousers that can hold their little protests, whatever it may be, and they’ll move on. But again, this is nothing new. Governance fads have been around for a long time, and this ESG DEI thing was just another one. Watchdog on wallstreet .com.