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ESG: Another Fraudulent Hustle That Progressive Elites Have Foisted on the Economy | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 29, 2023

ESG funds have done worse than their S&P counterparts, and the typical ESG fund fees can be three times the reported figure.

Research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology asserts that ESG goals don’t always align with shareholders’ preferences. Even when there is an explicit mandate to pursue social objectives, ESG funds still vote against shareholders.

https://mises.org/wire/esg-another-fraudulent-hustle-progressive-elites-have-foisted-economy

Lipton Matthews

The allure of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals has hypnotized corporate America into offering ESG funds that score investments for prioritizing social goals. Companies that account for environmental, social, and governance goals in their decisions collectively held $8.4 trillion in US investment assets at the beginning of 2022. Leading investment firm BlackRock more than doubled its holdings to over $500 billion and other players are following its lead.

ESG investing is becoming a permanent fixture in the global corporate landscape, but not without backlash. Some entrepreneurs and politicians in the United States argue that prioritizing ESG investing at the expense of shareholder welfare will diminish returns for investors. Strong concerns about the viability of ESG investing led Florida to pull $2 billion worth of assets from BlackRock in a nationwide ESG purge.

But the battle is only heating up because President Joe Biden overturned a Senate bill that prevented fund managers from factoring environmental, social, and governance goals into their investment decisions. In the private sector, tycoons have been launching firms to counter ESG investing by buying shares in companies like Apple and Disney to undercut the activism of management.

Undoubtedly, ESG investing is creating a storm in the United States, but aside from the excitement surrounding ESG investments, what are the implications? Maximizing shareholder welfare is the primary objective of an investment fund and ESG funds should not be pursued if they fail to meet this goal. Some posit that since shareholders are the owners of the company, they must be free to advocate policies that achieve ESG goals. Therefore, ESG investing can be compatible with maximizing shareholder welfare.

However, companies must ensure that shareholders are appreciative of the costs and benefits of ESG investing. Shareholders might perceive virtue in using their investments to effect social change, but learning that ESG funds are uncompetitive will surely alter their outlook. Although research on the feasibility of ESG funds is in its infancy, studies show that they have not been delivering for investors.

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IRS Seeks To Hire Agents With Guns In All 50 States

Posted by M. C. on April 29, 2023

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has vowed that the new resources will not be utilized to increase audit rates for households earning less than $400,000 per year “relative to historical levels.” She failed to clarify that “historical levels” of enforcement were far higher as recently as one decade ago: audit rates for Americans earning between $25,000 and $200,000 decreased 76% between 2010 and 2019, according to data from the Government Accountability Office.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/irs-seeks-to-hire-agents-with-guns-in-all-50-states

By  Ben Zeisloft

Onfokus via Getty Images

The IRS is attempting to hire individuals qualified to wield firearms for the tax collection agency’s Criminal Unit as enforcement activities are expected to increase amid a recent funding windfall.

Candidates for the special agent position, which is the only job at the IRS where employees are permitted to carry guns, will be expected to combine their “accounting skills with law enforcement skills to investigate financial crimes,” according to a posting on the IRS website. Individuals interested in the job must be “legally allowed to carry a firearm” and “maintain a level of fitness necessary to effectively respond to life-threatening situations on the job.”

Those who work for the Criminal Unit must also be able to “use firearms in life-threatening situations” to the point of “deadly force.” There are roughly 360 vacancies for the position in some 250 locations across the United States, according to the job application link, which said that salaries for the position range between $53,900 and $94,200.

The job posting from the IRS occurs as the agency works to double its headcount over the next decade as a result of the $80 billion windfall allocated through the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS will hire for the position, in which staff members must work at least 50 hours each week and be available at all hours of the day, through the end of the year.

Biden administration officials have claimed over the past several months that the increased funds will enable IRS staff to more easily assist individuals and businesses attempting to properly file their taxes. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration nevertheless revealed in a report that the agency’s budget for enforcement activities will increase 69% over the next decade while the budget for taxpayer services will increase 9%.

House Republicans successfully voted at the outset of the new Congress to nix the $80 billion allocation, although the repeal is unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate and would almost certainly be vetoed by President Joe Biden.

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TGIF: Free Markets and the Pursuit of Happiness

Posted by M. C. on April 29, 2023

For Aristotle, the path to happiness in the sense of the good life is to live according to one’s nature as a rational/social being. Reason is in the driver’s seat in individual and social matters. This suggests a society based on individualism, persuasion, and trade rather than collectivism, force, and domination. (The Greek philosophers’ politics, however, left much to be desired.) The virtues we associate with the ancient Greeks — such as justice, prudence, moderation, and courage — described this way of living intelligently.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/tgif-markets-happiness/

by Sheldon Richman

aristotle

For some time now I’ve thought that many people’s antagonism to the market is motivated not by moral or economic objections but by aesthetic criteria. (I discuss this in What Social Animals Owe to Each Other and here.)

By that I mean they simply find market relations — involving private property, contracts, profit, competition, and “impersonal forces” such as supply and demand — unattractive, even ugly. They wish society had nothing to do with such relations, which they (mistakenly) believe have displaced the cozy cooperation and communalism that marked an earlier golden age. They long to return to the beautiful but lost Garden of Eden, where markets don’t exist and people can be human again. They make just two errors. First, they misunderstand the market. For example, competition and cooperation go together. And second, the longed-for Eden never existed. Before human beings transformed the earth, nature was a cruel master. People weren’t always so nice either.

The aesthetic rejection of markets could explain why we libertarians have made little progress in persuading people that crony capitalism is significantly different from the free market. The people who find markets ugly don’t care whether businesses get favors from the government or not. That’s not what matters to them.

Something underlies this revulsion at the market and the freedom it entails: self-interest, or what the critics would call selfishness. It’s also been called the pursuit of happiness. (Of course, Ayn Rand, who held that the pursuit of self-interest is entirely proper embraced the word selfishness at least for the shock value. See her book The Virtue of Selfishness.) The aesthetic rejection of markets may rest on an aesthetic reaction to self-interest. The line between ethics and aesthetics can be blurry.

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Trapped Americans In Sudan “Shocked & Disgusted” – Left By Biden To Fend For Themselves

Posted by M. C. on April 29, 2023

And how low on the totem pole are you?

Another American stuck in Sudan called the embassy and State Department “useless”. “To be honest with you, the State Department was useless, utterly useless throughout this entire period,” a man named Imad said in an interview. “We expected the Department to provide some kind of guidance, but the guidance was the template, just shelter in place, no critical information being provided.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/turkish-evacuation-plane-comes-under-attack-sudan

Update(1302ET)Sudan is continuing to stare into the abyss of full-blown civil war as the battle for control of the capital of Khartoum between two rival generals – now reaching the two week mark – results in a mounting death toll. Currently, dozens of countries have for days been racing to get their citizens out via military transport planes, ships, and via cross-border land routes into Ethiopia and neighboring countries, but not the United States.

A surprisingly blunt report voicing intense criticism toward the Biden administration has been issued by CNN Friday, which writes, “As the crisis in Sudan continues to unfold, there is mounting anger among Americans who feel abandoned by the US government and left to navigate the complicated and dangerous situation on their own.”

CNN further points out that robust evacuation efforts are underway by many other countries. As we detailed below, a C-130 evac flight sent by Turkey even took on small arms fire while landing outside the capital. And the Chinese government has said it has successfully evacuated at least 1,300 of its nationals thus far, with state media confirming evacuation operations ongoing by “land and sea”.

“I am incredibly shocked and disgusted by the American lackluster response to the health and safety of their citizens,” Muna Daoud told CNN, whose parents were forced to exit via Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia. And CNN follows with this

Despite a number of nations evacuating their citizens, the US government has continued to say that the conditions are not conducive to a civilian evacuation. All US government personnel were evacuated in a military operation this weekend. US officials have said they are in “close communication” with US citizens and “actively facilitating” their departure from Sudan.

However, CNN spoke with multiple people whose family members are among the “dozens” of Americans who want to leave Sudan, and they said the State Department has provided “barely any assistance” since the deadly violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out more than a week ago.

Another American stuck in Sudan called the embassy and State Department “useless”. “To be honest with you, the State Department was useless, utterly useless throughout this entire period,” a man named Imad said in an interview. “We expected the Department to provide some kind of guidance, but the guidance was the template, just shelter in place, no critical information being provided.”

SCPM: Most Chinese citizens in Sudan have been evacuated or are in the country’s ports pending transfer, China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Image: Weibo

Already two American have lost their lives. CNN further presents that more are coming close to getting shot in near-miss situations due to the lack of formal US effort to get citizens safely out:

“The might of our military and resources does not get used to save our lives in war zones,” she said.

When CNN spoke to Daoud, her 69-year-old father and 66-year-old mother – both of whom are US citizens – were making the “harrowing” nine hour bus journey from Khartoum to Port Sudan.

“They had to find a bus this morning after waiting outside on the side of the road,” she said. Daoud said that the bus had been stopped three times by RSF soldiers “and at one checkpoint they held my father at gunpoint because they believed he was in the Sudanese Army.”

“They told all the men to step off the bus and searched and questioned them,” but they kept her father at gunpoint, she described to CNN.

“My mum believed he was going to be taken or shot. Luckily they decided to let him go,” Daoud said.

Meanwhile, Chinese media pundits are mocking and gloating…

China’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed it is sending the PLA Navy to help evacuate Chinese nationals from Sudan, with defense ministry spokesman Tan Kefei announcing Thursday that that more navy ships are on their way

Already, Chinese evac ships have been spotted at Sudan ports in the Red Sea:

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Public Service Announcement

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

https://open.spotify.com/track/3vo9w9eK0cxIAMae02aMXa?si=8BdC4oc-Q_uc67-Ipc8-NA

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Global Alliances are Changing… Here’s What it Means for the Current World Order

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

The “non-Western Bloc” holds some 70% of the world’s crude oil reserves, 80% of natural gas reserves, and 43% of coal reserves (probably a lot more given that China has Indonesian coal wrapped up).

by Chris MacIntosh

It’s called the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation… and the head choppers just joined. Long-term readers will recall we suggested as much two years ago. Well… tada!

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that grants the Kingdom the status of a dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Tuesday.

In late 2021, following the absolutely atrocious withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan (leaving US citizens on the ground, including those who worked for the US) and the resulting subsequent slaughtering of “sympathizers” and their families (oh, you didn’t see that on mainstream media… weird), we explained that there were two key countries to focus on: Saudi Arabia and Taiwan. The reason? Both relied on US protection for their very existence. It wasn’t even a month after the US withdrawal in Afghanistan that the Saudis struck a military deal with Russia, moving rapidly to secure their new military partner. Their main economic partner, we already know, is now China.

As I have said repeatedly, where trade goes so go military and political alliances.

Now, realize this war is fought on multiple fronts. As the West attempts to destroy demand for oil, OPEC+ fights back.

Of course they did.

OPEC+ announced a surprise oil production cut of more than 1 million barrels a day, abandoning previous assurances that it would hold supply steady and posing a new risk for the global economy.

While the US strategic Oil Reserve chart now looks like an NFT price chart.

But wait, it gets better. While the head choppers cut output by 500,000 b/pd from next month, Iraq, feeling left out, decided to a “voluntary oil production cut” of 211,000 b/pd as of May till year-end. Then Kuwait “voluntarily” cut production by 128,000 b/pd also from the beginning of May. Oman, feeling lonely, followed with a “volutantary” 40,000 b/pd cut from the beginning of May. And one more. The UAE cut 144,000 barrels of the stuff from May, too. Oh, I nearly forgot one — Russia. The Russkies will also cut 500,000 gallons of production this year.

All up, we’re looking at over 1.5m b/pd coming off market. If this isn’t a collective middle finger, then I don’t know what is.

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The Growing Russia-India Relationship

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

BRICS represents 40% of the world’s population, the SCO represents 43%, and both are growing. China and India make up more than a third of the population of the world.

antiwar.com

by Ted Snider

The US has made much of its success in isolating Russia internationally. But that boast is hard to take too seriously when Russia is growing ever closer to the two largest countries in the world. While the world has been watching the “no limits” partnership between Russia and China grow into “a relationship that probably cannot be compared with anything in the world,” Russia has been growing quietly closer to the second largest country in the world.

India has long been a close partner of Russia. In 2009, India and Russia signed the Joint Russian-Indian Declaration of Deepening and Strategic Partnership. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia where the two sides agreed on a number of steps to enhance that partnership.

That partnership did not come apart under US pressure after Russia invaded Ukraine. Despite intense pressure from the US to “take a clear position” against Russia, India has refused to condemn Russia at the UN and has repeated Russia’s call to take “into account the legitimate security interests of all countries.” India has also offered Russia an escape from sanctions by swelling from a country that once imported little Russian oil to a country that now has Russia as its top supplier of oil. India imported $41.56 billion from Russia in the last fiscal year, which is about five times its previous level. Before the war, Russia was India’s eighteenth largest import partner; since the war, Russia has become India’s fourth largest import partner.

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America’s Pulpits Under Indictment: Let the Adjustments Begin!

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

And, sadly, we have come to see that real Americans and real Christians are a much smaller portion of the whole than we had realized.

I’m not discouraged, however, because half of the battle is being able to accurately identify one’s friends and one’s enemies. The veil has now been lifted on that subject, which allows people to make the appropriate adjustments.

By Chuck Baldwin

Chuck Baldwin Live

To say that America’s pulpits are failing is an extreme understatement. They are not just failing; they are failing miserably!

For decades, I’ve been saying that America’s principal problems are spiritual, not political. The results from George Barna’s latest research prove it once again.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, fewer born-again Christians now say that Jesus lived a sinless life during his time on Earth, and church attendance has dropped by some 15 million people weekly, a new study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University shows.

The findings came from The American Worldview Inventory 2023, an annual tracking study of the worldview of U.S. adults involving 2,000 people from across the country and conducted under the supervision of George Barna, director of research at the Cultural Research Center.

While born-again Christians make up about one-third of all U.S. adults and are considered “the backbone of local church activity because of their higher level of commitment to the Christian faith,” the study shows that between 2020 and 2023, the share of those who say they believe Jesus did not commit sins during his lifetime on Earth fell from 58% to 44%.

This shift in belief among born-again Christians was among six that showed a significant decline in the past three years that Barna characterized as “indefensible.”

Fewer than half of born-again Christians also now believe they have a unique, God-given calling or purpose. The share of those who held that belief fell from 88% to a staggering 46% during the pandemic.

A downward trend was also observed among those who say the Bible is unambiguous in its teaching about abortion. That belief fell from 58% to 44%. Those who say human life is sacred fell from 60% to 48%, and the number of born-again Christians who say God is the basis of all truth fell from 69% to 63% over the period.

The share of born-again believers who say they are deeply committed to practicing their religious faith fell from 85% to 50%, while the share of those who say they read or study the Bible at least once a week fell from 60% to 55%.

When it comes to the general population of U.S. adults, Barna said the share of the population that claims to hold a biblical worldview fell from 6% to 4% in the last three years, while less than half now claim to be “deeply committed to practicing” their religious faith. That measure fell from 60% to 48%.

The veteran researcher said the findings on the drastic shift in Christian belief over such a short period of time are “highly unusual” because “religious beliefs and behaviors have typically been a hallmark of consistency.”

“Most religious beliefs change over the course of generations, not a few years,” Barna said. “However, we know that major life crises have the capacity to introduce substantial change quickly in the foundations of people’s faith.”

And the impact of COVID-19 has been significant.

The statistics contained in this research are staggering. In truth, we could accurately say that they are unprecedented in U.S. history—perhaps in all of Western Civilization.

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Ex-US Army Psyops Expert: Fox News Fired Carlson To Maintain “Semi Lobotomized Quasi Retarded Population”

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

Maintain!

The former US army psyops officer suggested that Senator Chuck Schumer had threatened to utilize the CIA and the FBI to deploy secret government operations against Tucker to get him off air unless he was fired.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ex-us-army-psyops-expert-fox-news-fired-carlson-maintain-semi-lobotomized-quasi-retarded

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A former US Army psychological warfare officer says that Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News because of the regime’s agenda to maintain an “uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population.”

The remarks were made by US counter-terror expert Scott Bennett.

Carlson and Fox News “parted ways” on Monday with speculation still raging as to the specific reason why the network canned its highest rated and most popular host.

According to Bennett, Carlson posed too much of a threat to institutional power because he turned Americans into proper “researchers and thinkers”.

Carlson offered an “intellectualism, truthfulness, and an analytical depth that no other news personality has ever done in the history of the United States as far back as I can remember,” said Bennett.

Tucker needed to be “silenced” because he represented too big a threat to the “powers and principalities, institutions and agendas that seek an unenlightened uninformed semi lobotomized quasi retarded population that do not question, do not research, do not analyze but simply digest and follow instructions,” according to Bennett.

“Tucker Carlson also exposed the fraud and money laundering racketeering crimes of FTX and the Democrat Party in Ukraine involving the United States government. He exposed the US biochemical labs in Ukraine and their connection to the Democrat Party, President Barack Obama, Vice President Biden, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates, and other US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies,” Bennett told Sputnik.

The ex-host’s anti-regime rhetoric “could no longer be tolerated by the corrupt American media and political establishment,” said Bennett, adding that his exit signals “the death of American media”.

The former US army psyops officer suggested that Senator Chuck Schumer had threatened to utilize the CIA and the FBI to deploy secret government operations against Tucker to get him off air unless he was fired.

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Should Local Municipalities Default on Their Debts? Seems Like a Good Idea | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 28, 2023

Government issued debt is essentially immoral. Government debt issuance is an aggressive action and should be rejected as such. It involuntarily transfers money from the taxpayer to the government’s creditors. There is no positive obligation to pay back the creditors because the creditors are fully aware of where the payments come from—involuntary transfers from the taxpayer.

https://mises.org/wire/should-local-municipalities-default-their-debts-seems-good-idea

Benjamin Seevers

Most Americans do not understand debt default. When it is explained, debt default comes off as immorally reneging on the financial obligations of the government. In contrast, libertarians have demonstrated that it is, in fact, moral and beneficial. However, when default is brought up, it is hardly ever discussed in terms of local governments. So, here is why your local government should leave their creditors in the dust.

Government issued debt is essentially immoral. Government debt issuance is an aggressive action and should be rejected as such. It involuntarily transfers money from the taxpayer to the government’s creditors. There is no positive obligation to pay back the creditors because the creditors are fully aware of where the payments come from—involuntary transfers from the taxpayer. The creditors are about as morally culpable as the government. Local government debt is only different in one way: it is easier to repudiate.

Ask yourself: how much control do you have over whether the Federal government defaults on their debt? If you are sane and honest, your answer should be “no control whatsoever.” Your congressman or senator has little to no control as well. The Federal debt is a monster that we have just about no control over. However, rejecting local debt can be relatively easy. All it takes is a majority on a local government board to pass an ordinance stating, “Government X will only pay zero dollars for every one dollar owed on bond Y.” It is that simple.

Additionally, local government debt default will restrict the spending activities of future administrations because the creditworthiness of the local government will be wrecked. Some might say this is a bad thing—“You are restricting our future”—but this is exactly what you should want. You kill two birds with one stone. You get out of present obligations and, to some extent, you prevent future board members from taking the town into more obligations. They are unable to pay for more of their pet projects.

One might say, “Local debt is only the tip of the iceberg. The national debt is the real problem.” Au contraire! Local and state governments owe just over a total of $3 trillion. This roughly comes out to $9,700 per person. They owe even more in other obligations—$5 trillion to be exact.

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