Arthur
We’ve read about it and in some cases seen the results. A business suddenly has a brain explosion and decides to adopt some hare-brained scheme. Often this seems to be an attempt to ride what is seen as a trend or movement in society. Sometimes, considering those factors, it’s also the marginal idea of some dolt in management who believes their beliefs and ideology represent a majority in society or that of their customer base. This sort of bubble thinking can lead to financial disaster, as in the case of Anheuser-Busch. They let a woke marketing executive show complete contempt for their perceived ‘Frat boy’ customer base that turned out to also be ordinary working-class Americans that did not want a bar of some deranged, egotistical caricature of a woman, Dylan Mulvaney. Other firms are getting similar and varying degrees of backlash from customers.
This trend some businesses are trying to ride is the poison of woke, the neo-Marxist cultural invention to split and degrade Western society. Another is climate Marxism run by its totalitarian adherents with all its concomitant lies and propaganda. A combination of these is the vile trend train many businesses are jumping onto which has a name typical of the weasel words of Marxism: Environmental, Social and Governance or ESG for short. Some, like Blackrock, have been accused of wanting to control society via WEF/UN methodology using this tool. Others just see it as a ‘good idea’ or in reality an empty posturing virtue signal to boost their image. The UN even tries to push it on entire countries and gives them ESG scores to make them feel good.
We have to see ESG for what it is, another Trojan horse for neo-Marxist ideology and like all Marxist ideology it’s a vehicle for disaster.
Sri Lanka found that out the hard way by adopting UN ESG nonsense for their economy. They got a UN pat on the back and a fluffy feel-good score of 98 out of 100. A year later with a collapsing economy and people rioting on the streets and invading the government buildings, the leaders of Sri Lanka were on planes running for their lives.
New Zealand organisations such as Kiwibank and multinationals such as AMP indulge in this socialist nonsense too. I have been cynically waiting for one of the organisations I invest with to proudly announce their share of the posturing virtue signal cake. Sure enough, I recently got an email from ANZ. I’m in a modest ANZ Kiwisaver scheme started relatively recently, so I’m still locked in for the five-year period. This email contained their quarterly update. It contained, for me, some ominous and indeed astounding words that really put me off them.
There’s more to choosing quality investments than just financial criteria. So as well as returns, we take ESG factors (for example the impact on climate change and worker’s rights) into account.
What? There’s more to choosing quality investments than financial criteria? What complete and utter twaddle. The whole reason for investing with them is the return, the increase in money, the financial criteria. It’s their raison d’être. Indeed, it seems now with ANZ that returns are only a factor and not a prime reason. Posturing and boasting virtue is now a prime factor. Oh, yippee, I feel so good investing with these dolts.
But wait, as they say in the infomercials, there’s more and it’s self-serving rubbish,
We think that’s in everyone’s best interests – and the evidence backs that up. Studies show responsible investments can outperform ‘traditional’ investments.
ANZ’s opinion, likely some wealthy elite management drone’s, on what is in people’s ‘best interest’, is arrogance personified. I’ll decide that, not you. Then there are the uncited so-called ‘studies’ and unproven ‘evidence’ that show supposedly “responsible investments” can outperform “traditional” investments. You’ll note the ‘can’ rather than ‘do’. Considering so-called “responsible investments” such as wind and solar are failing if not propped up by vast Government subsidies, I call bull effluent on that.
But they don’t stop there.
We’re hands-on
We’re active managers and we control what we invest in. That means there are some things we won’t invest in. It also means we can act quickly to exit investments that don’t meet our responsible investment criteria.
But we don’t stop there. We use our influence to engage with the companies we invest in, and encourage them to incorporate responsible investing principles into their decision-making.
What I read there is good return investments will be ignored if they don’t meet ANZ’s neo-Marxist woke ideals and they’ll bully other companies into compliance or else.
Frankly, I’m sick and tired of virtue-signalling organisations that put self-promotion, ideology and ego ahead of doing their core job for their customers. I pulled out of Kiwibank for that reason and at the five year point when I can withdraw from ANZ Kiwisaver, that’ll be gone too. That’s because in your words ANZ, I control what organisations I invest in and can exit investments that don’t meet my criteria.
