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ESG Puppeteers

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7 minute read

From Heartland Daily News

By Paul Mueller

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework allows a small group of corporate executives, financiers, government officials, and other elites, the ESG “puppeteers,” to force everyone to serve their interests. The policies they want to impose on society — renewable energy mandates, DEI programs, restricting emissions, or costly regulatory and compliance disclosures — increase everyone’s cost of living. But the puppeteers do not worry about that since they stand to gain financially from the “climate transition.”

Consider Mark Carney. After a successful career on Wall Street, he was a governor at two different central banks. Now he serves as the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance for the United Nations, which means it is his job to persuade, cajole, or bully large financial institutions to sign onto the net-zero agenda.

But Carney also has a position at one of the biggest investment firms pushing the energy transition agenda: Brookfield Asset Management. He has little reason to be concerned about the unintended consequences of his climate agenda, such as higher energy and food prices. Nor will he feel the burden his agenda imposes on hundreds of millions of people around the world.

And he is certainly not the only one. Al Gore, John Kerry, Klaus Schwab, Larry Fink, and thousands of other leaders on ESG and climate activism will weather higher prices just fine. There would be little to object to if these folks merely invested their own resources, and the resources of voluntary investors, in their climate agenda projects. But instead, they use other people’s resources, usually without their knowledge or consent, to advance their personal goals.

Even worse, they regularly use government coercion to push their agenda, which — incidentally? — redounds to their economic benefit. Brookfield Asset Management, where Mark Carney runs his own $5 billion climate fund, invests in renewable energy and climate transition projects, the demand for which is largely driven by government mandates.

For example, the National Conference of State Legislatures has long advocated “Renewable Portfolio Standards” that require state utilities to generate a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources. The Clean Energy States Alliance tracks which states have committed to moving to 100 percent renewable energy, currently 23 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. And then there are thousands of “State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency.

Behemoth hedge fund and asset manager BlackRock announced that it is acquiring a large infrastructure company, as a chance to participate in climate transition and benefit its clients financially. BlackRock leadership expects government-fueled demand for their projects, and billions of taxpayer dollars to fund the infrastructure necessary for the “climate transition.”

CEO Larry Fink has admitted, “We believe the expansion of both physical and digital infrastructure will continue to accelerate, as governments prioritize self-sufficiency and security through increased domestic industrial capacity, energy independence, and onshoring or near-shoring of critical sectors. Policymakers are only just beginning to implement once-in-a-generation financial incentives for new infrastructure technologies and projects.” [Emphasis added.]

Carney, Fink, and other climate financiers are not capitalists. They are corporatists who think the government should direct private industry. They want to work with government officials to benefit themselves and hamstring their competition. Capitalists engage in private voluntary association and exchange. They compete with other capitalists in the marketplace for consumer dollars. Success or failure falls squarely on their shoulders and the shoulders of their investors. They are subject to the desires of consumers and are rewarded for making their customers’ lives better.

Corporatists, on the other hand, are like puppeteers. Their donations influence government officials, and, in return, their funding comes out of coerced tax dollars, not voluntary exchange. Their success arises not from improving customers’ lives, but from manipulating the system. They put on a show of creating value rather than really creating value for people. In corporatism, the “public” goals of corporations matter more than the wellbeing of citizens.

But the corporatist ESG advocates are facing serious backlash too. The Texas Permanent School Fund withdrew $8.5 billion from Blackrock last week. They join almost a dozen state pensions that have withdrawn money from Blackrock management over the past few years. And last week Alabama passed legislation defunding public DEI programs. They follow in the footsteps of Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Utah, Tennessee, and others.

State attorneys general have been applying significant pressure on companies that signed on to the “net zero” pledges championed by Carney, Fink, and other ESG advocates. JPMorgan and State Street both withdrew from Climate Action 100+ in February. Major insurance companies started withdrawing from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance in 2023.

Still, most Americans either don’t know much about ESG and its potential negative consequences on their lives or, worse, actually favour letting ESG distort the market. This must change. It’s time the ESG puppeteers found out that the “puppets” have ideas, goals, and plans of their own. Investors, taxpayers, and voters should not be manipulated and used to climate activists’ ends.

They must keep pulling back on the strings or, better yet, cut them altogether.

Paul Mueller is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He received his PhD in economics from George Mason University. Previously, Dr. Mueller taught at The King’s College in New York City.

Originally posted at the American Institute for Economic Research, reposted with permission.

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Automotive

Auto giant shuts down foreign plants as Trump moves to protect U.S. industry

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MXM logo  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Stellantis is pausing vehicle production at two North American facilities—one in Canada and another in Mexico—following President Donald Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars. The move marks one of the first corporate responses to the administration’s push to bring back American manufacturing.

Key Details:

  • In an email to workers Thursday, Stellantis North America chief Antonio Filosa directly tied the production pause to the new tariffs, writing that the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” but is “temporarily pausing production” at select assembly plants outside the U.S.

  • Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario will be paused for two weeks, while the Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico will be offline for the entire month of April.

  • These plants produce the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the new Dodge Charger Daytona EV, the Jeep Compass SUV, and the Jeep Wagoneer S EV.

Diving Deeper:

On Wednesday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs aimed at revitalizing America’s auto manufacturing industry. The 25% tariffs on all imported cars are part of a broader “reciprocal tariffs” strategy, which Trump described as ending decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out U.S. industry.

Just a day later, Stellantis became the first major automaker to act on the new policy, halting production at two of its international plants. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Stellantis North American COO Antonio Filosa said the company is “taking immediate actions” to respond to the tariff policy while continuing to evaluate the broader impact.

“These actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations,” Filosa wrote.

The Windsor, Ontario plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica and the newly introduced Dodge Charger Daytona EV, will shut down for two weeks. The Toluca facility in Mexico, responsible for the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S EV, will suspend operations for the entire month of April.

The move comes as Stellantis continues to face scrutiny for its reliance on low-wage labor in foreign markets. As reported by Breitbart News, the company has spent years shifting production and engineering jobs to countries like Brazil, India, Morocco, and Mexico—often at the expense of American workers. Last year alone, Stellantis cut around 400 U.S.-based engineering positions while ramping up operations overseas.

Meanwhile, General Motors appears to be responding differently. According to Reuters, GM told employees in a webcast Thursday that it will increase production of light-duty trucks at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant—where it builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. These models are also assembled in Mexico and Canada, but GM’s decision suggests a shift in production to the U.S. could be underway in light of the tariffs.

As Trump’s trade reset takes effect, more automakers are expected to recalibrate their production strategies—potentially signaling a long-awaited shift away from offshoring and toward rebuilding American industry.

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Business

‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

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JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.

“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.

Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.

“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.

WATCH:

With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.

“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.

“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.

The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.

“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”

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