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ESG: Woke to Broke

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What’s more important for a company: to make a profit, or to do “social good?” More and more companies seem to be focusing on the latter. But is that a good business strategy? And, what does that mean for the economy, for you… and your bank account?

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Script:

Why do millions of people invest in retirement accounts?

The answer is obvious: to have money to live on when they’re no longer working.

The best way for those accounts to grow is to invest in companies that make a profit. Less profit for those companies means less money for retirement.

This might seem like common sense but it’s becoming less common, thanks to a new investment strategy called ESG. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. If you’re wondering what that means, you’re not alone.

Generally, it means that a company’s first concern should no longer be how much money it makes, but rather how much social good it does. In other words, get woke, or get shamed.

If you’re an oil company, for example, you’re out of luck because, by the nature of your business, it’s assumed you’re destroying the planet. Never mind that you’re powering homes and hospitals. That doesn’t count.

In fact, if you’re a company just trying to make a profit, you’re the problem.

ESG proponent Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum, puts it this way: “We can’t continue with an economic system driven by selfish values, such as short-term profit…”

The message is clear: we need ESG to save us from ourselves.

Really?

The pursuit of profits has fueled many of mankind’s greatest innovations and greatest companies.

It led Elon Musk to build electric cars, Andy Grove to design computer chips, and Reed Hastings to develop the world’s most popular streaming service.

Everything from aspirin to commercial airplanes, to yes, solar panels and wind turbines came about because of the desire for profit.

Profit is why you have a job, clothes, a house, food, and every other necessity, not to mention luxuries.

It’s the reason why you can live in Phoenix and stay cool, or live in Buffalo and stay warm.

The genius of capitalism is that it requires businesses to do good things for society to make a profit.

Think about it:

If you want to start a business—whether it’s a dog hotel or a shoe factory—you’ll have to create a product or service that helps others—at a price they can afford.

If you want to hire employees, you’ll have to offer attractive wages and safe working conditions. Otherwise, nobody will work for you.

If you want customers, not only will you have to make a good product, but you’ll need to cultivate a good reputation. That means treating those customers well and offering competitive prices.

In a free enterprise system, you can’t make money without providing a social good. Capitalism is, by its very nature, conscientious.

It turns out, then, that profit isn’t selfish—it motivates us to contribute our talents to help others.

ESG threatens this system. By denigrating profit, it lessens the incentive and the means to do good. Without profits, companies won’t have the capital to provide jobs, pay investors, or fund innovation.

But that’s the world ESG wants you to live in: a world where profit takes second place to a preoccupation with income inequality, race and gender sensitivity, and climate alarmism.

But even if you wanted to address those concerns, how would ESG help you do it?

That’s a fair question because there’s no consensus on ESG standards.

Here’s a good example:

Three self-proclaimed ESG watchdogs have given Tesla three completely different ratings: best, worst, and middling.

In capitalism, there is a simple metric to determine success: how much money you’re making.

Under ESG, there is no such thing. It’s a judgment call.

To make ESG investment strategies even more problematic, according to Meir Statman, professor of finance at Santa Clara University, “in the long run, ESG investors are likely to earn lower after-fee returns than non-ESG investors.” Over a period of say, 30 years, those fees alone could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, if ESG endangers profits, offers no clear metric for success, and is a mediocre investment, why is it even a “thing?”

For the complete script as well as FACTS & SOURCES, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/esg-woke-to-broke

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50 Comments

  13. Except that's not what ESG is. ESG means mitigating the negative impacts you do with your business. If you're a business who make important medicine for people but at the same time buy cheap manufacturing from slave factories in China while polluting the local environment with waste and have a toxic management culture then you should probably change the way that company works. That's what ESG is

  20. Go woke go broke isnt real anymore.
    Blackrock is merged with the fed so they basically have the infinite money cheat code now. Whenever say Disney puts out a woke disaster even if no one watches ESG helps them break even. "Oh no our pandering trash failed and our movie studio lost all their money? Oh well; lets just print more money, give it to our favorite corporations to profit and devalue the dollar even further for everybody else".

  22. It’s been a bloodbath for the majority of companies that go overtly woke in the new era of American consumer rebellion, and the establishment is not happy. Corporations like Disney, Anheuser-Busch and Target are plunging in profits and losing billions in market cap after pledging fealty to the trans agenda. In particular, the public is setting out to make examples of institutions that support trans indoctrination of children. Simply put, a line in the sand has been crossed.

  23. This is just another mechanism for complete control by the Uber-elite. It's in your schools, work places, local government, police departments, fire departments, hospitals, military. Plain old unchecked evil. The wolf in the shephard's clothing and the sheep have turned cannibal.

  27. I reckon that it depends on what someone understands ESG is. In India, despite wokeism's infantile nature, ESG is the most rapidly adopted components of business. Thus, ESG here is meant for making business models as sustainable as possible while making the reports emphirically verifiable. In India, the route we follow is not People-Planet-Profit but Profit-Planet-People.

  30. ESG is NOT new – it is TWO decades old. It was introduced in 2004. I used to direct my retirement plan manager to invest in socially conscious funds back in the mid-2000s!
    The takeaway from this video is "financial profits are good no matter the social, environment, or moral cost." SMH. Greedy clowns.

  35. This definition of ESG is patently untrue… ESG is about finding sustainable ways to be profitable. Tesla was definitely not built on the foundation of profit either. In fact, the company was unprofitable for a very long time. This is a straight up propaganda-focused video

  39. Very disappointed by PragerU, never expected them to be so anti free market. ESG is just another tool created by free and competing corporations to judge their investment. It is capitalism.

  43. Prescient video it explains the current Madness the forced acceptance of transsexuals mental illness, the bud light controversy, and pretty much the current climate of companies/corporations willing to die at the alter of wokeness. We are on a bullet train to Orson wells 1984. A historic confrontation of good vs evil is on the morning horizon.