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When I first heard President Donald Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” scheme, it brought back memories of the hopes Palestinians had three decades ago during the heyday of the Oslo Accords. Back then, I was serving as co-chair of “Builders for Peace,” a project launched by then-Vice President Al Gore to encourage American businesses to invest in the Palestinian economy to support the fledgling peace process.
We had prepared for our mission by reading the exhaustive World Bank study on the pre-Oslo Palestinian economy. The observations and conclusions were sobering, and yet hopeful. It noted obstacles that stifled the development of a Palestinian economy—problems like: Israel’s control of Palestinian land, resources, and power; its refusal to allow Palestinians to independently import and export; and the impediments Israel had created to Palestinian travel and even to conducting commerce within the occupied lands. The bank, however, concluded that if these Israeli restrictions on Palestinian entrepreneurs were removed, external investment would provide opportunities for rapid growth and prosperity.
We also read Sara Roy’s brilliant study of the cruel measures Israel had implemented to “de-develop” Gaza so as to stifle the development of an independent economy, thereby creating a cheap pool of day laborers for Israeli businesses or a network of small workshops that produced items for export by Israeli companies.
When Yasser Arafat spoke to us of the future of Gaza, he would say that with investment and freedom from occupation it could become Singapore; if denied both, it could become Somalia.
We also made a few exploratory visits to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to meet with business and political leaders to assess the possibilities before us and the challenges we would confront. In short order, both became quite clear.
When the project was ready to launch, my fellow co-chair, Mel Levine, and I led the first of a number of delegations of American business leaders (which included both Arab Americans and American Jews) to the Palestinian lands. Our first exposure to the problems we would encounter came as we attempted to enter via the Allenby Bridge from Jordan. American Jews and others passed easily, while Arab Americans were separated from the group and forced to undergo humiliating screening.
We convened a session in Jerusalem for Palestinians to meet with the Americans interested in investment opportunities, only to discover that in order to enter the city Palestinians had to secure a pass from the occupation authority. Since the passes only permitted them a few hours in the city, the time they were able to devote to our discussions proved limited.
Entry into and exit from Gaza was equally problematic. One scene on leaving Gaza has stayed with me. Hundreds of Palestinian men filled what I can only describe as cattle chutes, waiting in the sun for permission to enter into Israel. Straddling these chutes were young Israeli soldiers shouting at the Palestinians below, ordering them to look down and hold their passes above their heads. It was deeply disturbing.
In both Gaza and the West Bank, our meetings with Palestinian business leaders were hopeful. They were eager to discuss possibilities with their American counterparts, and the Americans were impressed. A number of partnerships were discussed.
Two projects were notable. One sought to manufacture leather products and another to assemble furniture. Both sought to take advantage of Gaza’s proximity to Eastern Europe so as to export there. As both projects required that the Israelis permit import of raw material and export of finished products, both projects failed. It appeared that the Israelis might have been willing to entertain such projects but only if the Americans and Palestinians operated through an Israeli middleman, thereby reducing the profitability of the ventures.
Even opportunities that the U.S. government tried to implement failed. One day I received a call from an official in the Department of Agriculture who told me that they had provided 50,000 bulbs for Gazans to develop a flower export industry. These bulbs he told me had been sitting in an Israeli port for months and were rotting. He said that the department was able to send another 25,000 bulbs but could only do so if the Israelis ensured their entry. This too proved fruitless as Israelis wanted no competition with their flower export industry, and therefore wouldn’t allow a competing Palestinian industry to develop.
After a few frustrating years, I saw then-President Bill Clinton who asked me how the project was developing. I told him about the frustrations we were encountering due to the Israeli impediments on investment in independent Palestinian economic growth. He appeared troubled and asked that I write him a detailed memo. The letter I sent to the president both outlined the specific problems we were facing and my complaint that his peace team was not taking these challenges seriously, as they insisted that any U.S. challenge to the Israelis would impede efforts to promote negotiations for peace. I told the president that since Oslo: Palestinian unemployment had doubled, poverty had risen, and Palestinians hope for peace was evaporating. To my dismay, the response I received from the White House appeared to have been drafted by his peace team, and was no response at all. At the end of Clinton’s first term, Builders for Peace (BfP) was disbanded and with it the hopes for Palestinian independent economic growth.
Over the next decade, absent any U.S. pressure on the Israelis to change their behavior, negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians continued to falter, Palestinians became poorer, Israeli became more emboldened and oppressive, and Palestinian attitudes hardened, leading to renewed violence.
There are two other memories from that period that need to be recalled.
One of the more optimistic projects BfP endorsed was a proposal by a Virginia-based Palestinian-American company to build a Marriott resort on the Gaza beachfront. Securing initial investment, they began construction, starting with the foundation and a massive parking garage. Because of the risks involved, they sought risk insurance from OPIC, the U.S. agency created to guarantee investment against risk. The project was endorsed by then-Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, a champion of our BfP, and supported by PLO head, Yasser Arafat—both of whom saw the resort hotel as laying the foundation for the future economic growth of a Palestinian state.
When Yasser Arafat spoke to us of the future of Gaza, he would say that with investment and freedom from occupation it could become Singapore; if denied both, it could become Somalia. Israel did everything it could to guarantee that Gaza would become Somalia—and they appear to have succeeded.
Against this backdrop, it was painful to hear of Trump’s insulting plan to build an American-owned Gaza Riviera. It reminded me of what might have been, but, three decades later, is being discussed without benefiting any Palestinians from its development.
"Banks and investors can still act to put an end to the unrestrained support they offer to the companies responsible for LNG expansion," the authors of a new report said.
Liquefied natural gas developers have expansion plans that could release 10 additional metric gigatons of climate pollution by 2030, and major banks and investors are enabling them to the tune of nearly $500 billion.
A new report published by Reclaim Finance on Thursday calculates that, between 2021 and 2023, 400 banks put $213 billion toward LNG expansion and 400 investors funded the buildout with $252 billion as of May 2024.
" Oil and gas companies are betting their future on LNG projects, but every single one of their planned projects puts the future of the Paris agreement in danger," Reclaim Finance campaigner Justine Duclos-Gonda said in a statement. "Banks and investors claim to be supporting oil and gas companies in the transition, but instead they are investing billions of dollars in future climate bombs."
"While banks will secure their profits, it's at the expense of frontline communities who often will not be able to get their livelihoods, health, or loved ones back."
The International Energy Agency has concluded since 2022 that no new LNG export developments are required to meet energy demand while limiting global temperatures to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. Despite this, LNG developers have upped export capacity by 7% and import capacity by 19% in the last two years alone, according to Reclaim Finance. By the end of the decade, they are planning an additional 156 terminals: 93 for imports and 63 for exports.
Those 63 export terminals, if built, could alone release 10 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions—nearly as much as all currently operating coal plants release in a year. What's more, building more LNG infrastructure undermines the green transition.
"Each new LNG project is a stumbling block to the Paris agreement and will lock in long-term dependence on fossil fuels, hampering the shift toward low-carbon economies," the report authors explained.
Many large banks have pledged to reach net-zero emissions, yet they are still financing the LNG boom. U.S. banks are especially responsible, Reclaim Finance found, funding nearly a quarter of the buildout, followed by Japanese banks at around 14%.
While 26 of the banks on the report's list of top 30 LNG financiers have made 2050 net-zero commitments, none of them have adopted a policy to stop funding LNG projects. None of top 10 banks have any LNG policy at all, despite the fact that Bank of America and Morgan Stanley helped found the Net Zero Banking Alliance. Instead of winding down financing, these banks are winding it up, as LNG funding increased by 25% from 2021 to 2023. In 2023 alone, 1,453 transactions were made between banks and LNG developers.
All of this funding comes despite not only climate risks, but also the local dangers posed by LNG export terminals to frontline communities. Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG, for example, has harmed health through excessive air pollution while dredging and tanker traffic has disturbed ecosystems and the livelihoods of fishers.
"Banks still financing LNG export terminals and companies are focused on short-term profits and cashing in on the situation before global LNG oversupply kicks in. On the demand side, financing LNG import terminals delays the much-needed just transition," said Rieke Butijn, a climate campaigner and researcher at BankTrack. "While banks will secure their profits, it's at the expense of frontline communities who often will not be able to get their livelihoods, health, or loved ones back. People from the U.S. Gulf South to Mozambique and the Philippines are rising up against LNG, and banks need to listen."
The report also looked at major investors in the LNG boom. Here too, the U.S. led the way, contributing 71% of the total backing.
Just three of these entities—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—contributed 24% of all investments.
Reclaim Finance noted that it is not too late to defuse the LNG carbon bomb.
"Nearly three-quarters of future LNG export and import capacity has yet to be constructed," the report authors wrote. "This means that banks and investors can still act to put an end to the unrestrained support they offer to the companies responsible for LNG expansion."
To this end, Reclaim Finance recommended that banks establish policies to end all financial services to new or expanding LNG facilities and to end corporate financing to companies that develop new LNG export infrastructure. Investors, meanwhile, should set an expectation that any developers in their portfolios stop expansion plans and should not make new investments in companies that continue to develop LNG export facilities. Both banks and investors should make clear to LNG import developers that they must have a plan to transition away from fossil fuels consistent with the 1.5°C goal.
"LNG is a fossil fuel, and new projects have no part to play in a sustainable transition," Duclos-Gonda said. "Banks and investors must take responsibility and stop supporting LNG developers and new terminals immediately."
Enormously rich people tend to get bored easily, especially those on the younger side. Stocks and bonds, such a yawn. Wealthy Baby Boomers certainly do still get a kick out of watching their financial portfolios fatten. But their Millennial and Generation Z counterparts have an added expectation. The fortunes they’re investing, they’re expecting, will be filling their lives up with fun.
And what could be more fun than collecting classic cars! The ageless-auto “alternative asset class,” the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index documents, has nearly tripled in value over the past decade. And investors in classic cars can even get to drive their investments!
Private equity fund managers, not surprisingly, are plugging themselves into this classic car frenzy. They’re doing their best to make investing in classic cars an effortless pleasure. Wealthy car collectors, thanks to their efforts, no longer need to bother checking under the hood of classic Bugattis and Ferraris. Private equity firms will arrange all that tiresome checking for them.
Billionaire and billionaire-wannabe fund execs are shelling out much more than ever before on candidates they’re counting on to keep our tax code rich people-friendly.
These private equity firms, notes auto analyst Benjamin Hunting, are buying up veritable fleets of fine autos they see as likely to appreciate strikingly over time, then offering deep pockets an opportunity to invest in these collections of classics. In return for providing this opportunity, private equity execs typically collect a 2% annual service fee and then claim 20% of the profits the sale of the cars eventually produces.
The classic car-loving investors, meanwhile, get to share the rest of the profits, on top of the joy rides some of the classic car funds invite them to take in their “alternative asset class” investment.
How secure as an investment do classic cars rate? An “elite automobile storage boutique” industry has emerged to make sure stashed-away collectible cars don’t get either scratched or stolen. One such outfit, the Vault in San Diego, uses biometric scans and personalized access cards “to guarantee that only owners, or their designated representatives, can get anywhere near luxury vehicles.”
Not all the Millennial and Gen Z super rich, of course, have taken the dive into classic car investing. Plenty of the wealthy in these age cohorts are flocking to other alternative investments, everything from fine wines and watches to sneakers and crypto. The overall “alternative asset” category, notes a new Bank of America study, has an amazing 94% of wealthy 43-and-unders interested in it.
This Bank of America Study of Wealthy Americanssurveyed 1,000 deep-pocketed adults of all ages and found that 73% of those not yet 44 years old consider themselves “skeptical” of any investment strategy that has them investing only in traditional stocks and bonds.
The wealthy who took part in the new Bank of America survey are all sitting on at least $3 million in investable assets. The younger ones among them turn out to have less than half their investable millions invested in traditional stocks and bonds. Their older counterparts have three-quarters of their investable assets in these classic categories.
The younger rich, the Bank of America study goes on to show, have almost a third of their fortunes in crypto currencies and other alternative investments like classic cars. The older rich have just 6% of their wealth sitting in these alternate asset classes.
But both the younger and older rich do share one intense investment fixation: Both age cohorts want to pay as little as possible in taxes on the income their investments—in whatever category—end up creating.
Under current federal tax law, profits from the buying and selling of assets, traditional and alternative alike, face a significantly lower tax rate than paycheck income. The top combined federal tax rate on ordinary paycheck income now runs 40.8%. But income from capital gains—the income from buying and selling assets—only faces a top 23.8% overall tax rate.
Private equity fund managers have an even lusher loophole—the so-called “carried interest tax deduction”—they will go to any lobbying lengths to forever preserve. This loophole, note analysts at Americans for Financial Reform, “allows private equity and hedge fund executives—some of the richest people in the world—to substantially lower the amount they pay in taxes.”
The loophole lets these fund execs “claim large parts” of their compensation for services rendered “as investment gains.” Ending this carried interest loophole could raise billions in new revenue.
To make sure that this ending doesn’t happen, private equity and hedge fund execs spent $547 million on political campaign contributions in the 2020 presidential election year cycle.
In the current cycle, just 11 private equity billionaires all by themselves have so far pumped over $223 million in contributions to congressional and presidential candidates, an amount that more than doubles, notes the Center for Media and Democracy, what moguls from 147 private equity firms plowed into political campaigns back in the 2016 election cycle.
In other words, billionaire and billionaire-wannabe fund execs are shelling out much more than ever before on candidates they’re counting on to keep our tax code rich people-friendly. For America’s richest, no big deal. They can easily afford these gargantuan political campaign outlays. And they also consider these outlays money exceedingly well spent.
Takes money, as the rich like to say, to make money. The American way! We need to change it. One place to start: passing the pending Carried Interest Fairness Act, legislation that U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has introduced to eliminate the tax loophole that only “wealthy money managers on Wall Street” could love.
In a recent Gallup poll, the vast majority of Americans surveyed said they were not even “somewhat familiar” with the term “ESG.” But on Capitol Hill, Republicans have developed a fixation on the issue, holding not one but two intensely partisan hearings on the topic.
“Republicans Are Losing Their Minds Over ESG” read one headline.
“Anti-ESG talk leads to partisan fireworks” read another.
Now you may be wondering, what the heck is ESG? What’s anti-ESG? What the heck is “woke” capitalism? And why should I care?
What Is ESG?
ESG stands for “Environmental, Social, and Governance,” which are categories of metrics that businesses use to assess performance and risk on a range of issues. To reduce risk and create value over the long term, businesses may seek to reduce carbon emissions (Environmental), improve working conditions for workers through racial equity and other measures (Social), or take steps to bring executive compensation closer in line with the company’s median salary (Governance).
Companies’ practices on ESG metrics can have an impact on future performance, so there is tremendous value in understanding long-term risks associated with environmental, social, and governance factors.
The simple concept that businesses should care about their communities and their workers and govern themselves accordingly is not new. In the 1980s, some companies and banks stopped doing business in South Africa to protest racial Apartheid. In the 1990s, a number of institutional investors divested from the tobacco industry as a way to take a stand against the harmful and deceptive practices of companies like Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. And in the 2000s and 2010s, support for environmental shareholder proposals grew substantially in response to the worsening climate crisis.
Who’s Against It?
This leads us to the current backlash. “Anti-ESG” efforts, promulgated by long-time conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and newly prominent groups like the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Consumers’ Research, and the State Financial Officers Foundation all have one things in common—connections to conservative big money donors in the oil and gas industry.
“The anti-‘woke investing’ movement was not created by financial experts,” observed environmental reporter Emily Aktin, “It was created by two of the fossil fuel industry’s most notorious climate disinformers.”
The anti-ESG movement is a well-funded and well-organized campaign led by top conservative political operatives.
Big Oil wants to end ESG investing and ESG business practices because they’re at odds with the continued growth of the fossil fuel industry. Big Oil would rather let our planet burn and increase short-term profits than adjust its business practices to stave off the worst of the climate crisis and invest in long-term profits.
Big Oil also wants you to think that this “anti-ESG” movement is organic, that it emerged from the conservative grassroots, but that could not be further from the truth. The anti-ESG movement is a well-funded and well-organized campaign led by top conservative political operatives. I recently corresponded with Meaghan Winter, author of All Politics Is Local, who explained that:
“Ideological donors and their foundations and think tanks have deliberately chosen to push their agendas through obscure-seeming front groups that work incrementally on the state level because they don’t want to call attention to the profound (and very unpopular) changes they are initiating. This strategy is decades-old, it has worked against unions and abortion and more, and the anti-ESG effort is just one of the latest incarnations.”
One shining example of this is the recent House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on ESG, where the majority witnesses (those called by the GOP, because Republicans control the House of Representatives right now) were Mandy Gunasekara from the Independent Women’s Forum, Jason Isaac from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Stephen Moore from the Heritage Foundation. These organizations have a long history of receiving financial support and carrying water for the oil and gas industry, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.
Watch Congresswoman Summer Lee lay it out for us, plain and simple.
While the right wing foments a culture war crusade and attempts to make ESG the next critical race theory (“CRT”), the fear mongering campaign has real-world impacts on investors and companies who are scared of being caught in the backlash. For example, some private companies are now backpedaling on their climate commitments.
To be clear, this is what the funders of this movement want.
In December, Vanguard, the world’s second largest asset management firm, pulled out of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, which was a voluntary industry-led effort to reach net-zero emission targets by 2050. This was a major setback for anyone who cares about the health and shape of our environment, because Vanguard manages roughly $7 trillion in assets. In order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement—less than 1.5°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels—global markets must shift capital away from the fossil fuel industry and toward renewable energy systems.
But this goes beyond the climate crisis. In recent years, workers and shareholders have been demanding more corporate accountability on workplace safety, workers’ freedom of association, data privacy, racial equity, and executive compensation, among other issues that fall into the Social and Governance categories of ESG. The right-wing campaign against ESG is a campaign to roll back these victories.
How Do We Fight Back?
My organization, Take on Wall Street, is organizing with unions, public interest groups, and grassroots groups to fight back against this regressive movement. But it’s not just about playing defense. We also need a forward-looking vision for worker power, climate justice, and racial equity. Watch this space.
Today is Earth Day. “Invest in our Planet“ is this year’s theme. This week also includes our national Tax Day when we fund our nation's priorities. At this point in history our planet faces two existential threats: the threats of catastrophic climate change and of nuclear war. It is important to recognize their interconnectedness. Taking a closer look at our tax expenditures gives insight into our investment in our planet and all of its inhabitants.
A critical component of addressing climate change is moving to a carbon free economy. Yet, the United States spends approximately $20 billion annually on fossil fuel subsidies that are the principal cause of climate change. As the effects of climate change continue, precious natural resources become scarce. This promotes conflict as access to these resources diminishes. That conflict on an international level can result in climate wars. This is clearly recognized by military leaders who have long described climate change as a “threat multiplier,” further connecting these existential threats, which is ironic as the Pentagon remains the world’s largest single emitter of greenhouse gasses. This fear of impending conflict has resulted in the largest U.S. defense budget in history, including over $90 billion in funding of all U.S. nuclear weapons programs as noted in the release this week of the “US nuclear weapons community costs” program.
As we look towards our future and investing in our planet, we must realize the interconnectedness of our existential threats, and we must demand a redirection of our national priorities.
These expenditures rob our communities of precious resources necessary to address the most critical needs. What is needed is a rebuilding of their infrastructure and a just transition from a fossil fuel economy. Tragically, much of the impact of the fossil fuel, extractive economy, at every level exists in and around the most at-risk communities dramatically affecting their health and well-being. These communities that have been overlooked or left behind bear the brunt of our misplaced priorities.
Just how do these nuclear expenditures impact our communities? In Jackson, Mississippi, with its population of 148,761, recently in the news for water shortages and contamination, its residents earn a per capita income 62% of the national average. Their tax dollar contribution to nuclear weapons programs is ~ $25 million dollars. For Flint, Michigan, still recommending lead-removing filters for its water, with its 80,628 residents earning a per capita income of 50% of the national average, has a nuclear contribution of over $10.8 million dollars. The Navajo Nation, whose 143,435 residents have experienced the health legacy of having been victims of significant radiation exposure from nuclear weapons testing and development for decades, whose per capita income is 40% of the national average, will spend over $15.6 million on nuclear weapons programs. The nation’s poorest county of Buffalo County, South Dakota with its 1,923 largely indigenous Crow Creek Sioux Tribe residents, earning on average 32% of the national average, will spend ~$167 thousand dollars as their contribution to nuclear weapons programs.
Is this their priority? Does it add in any way to their security, health, or wellbeing? In reality, nuclear weapons are among the greatest threats to their security. In a participatory democracy is this how they would choose to spend their treasure and invest in our planet this Earth Day?
As we look towards our future and investing in our planet, we must realize the interconnectedness of our existential threats, and we must demand a redirection of our national priorities. Bold actions on each of these crises include the Green New Deal and fossil fuel transition, the abolition of nuclear weapons, supporting “Back from the Brink”, and the recently introduced H. Res 77, that supports the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the precautionary measures necessary during that process. Ask your Representative to Co-sponsor this resolution.
Ultimately to achieve peace with the planet we must have peace on the planet. Each of us has a role to play in achieving this reality.
"It's wrong that some lawmakers would play politics with Americans' financial futures by preventing retirement fund managers from considering all risks—including financial risks related to climate—when making investment decisions," said one activist.
U.S. President Joe Biden is
expected to issue his first veto after two Democrats—Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana—partnered with the GOP on Wednesday to pass legislation that would block his administration's rule allowing retirement plan managers to consider climate and other factors in investment decisions.
The
50-46 Senate vote came a day after a 216-204 House vote in which Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) joined with Republicans to advance the resolution about the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rule on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors—which is notably opposed by fossil fuel companies.
"The DOL rule simply restores the longtime status quo of allowing retirement plans to consider important financial factors like how a company is run, whether its practices match its values, and the risks it faces from global disruptions like climate change,"
said Rachel Curley, democracy advocate with the group Public Citizen, in a statement Wednesday.
"Repealing a rule protecting retirement savings for millions of workers is irresponsible and puts personal political ambitions above long-term financial responsibility," Curley continued. "Leaving investors in the dark is a disservice to our entire economy. Anyone claiming to care about workers voting to overturn such a reasonable rule is clearly playing politics with workers' retirement savings in a way that flies in the face of common sense."
Public Citizen is among dozens of groups—including Americans for Financial Reform, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), League of Conservation Voters, and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility—that have warned against blocking the rule this week.
"It's wrong that some lawmakers would play politics with Americans' financial futures by preventing retirement fund managers from considering all risks—including financial risks related to climate—when making investment decisions," declared EDF senior vice president for political affairs Elizabeth Gore. "The standards they're trying to undermine help fund managers make the best possible decisions when investing our money."
In a policy statement on Monday, the Biden administrationstressed that the DOL rule "is not a mandate—it does not require any fiduciary to make investment decisions based solely on ESG factors. The rule simply makes sure that retirement plan fiduciaries must engage in a risk and return analysis of their investment decisions and recognizes that these factors can be relevant to that analysis."
"The president will continue to deliver for America's workers," the statement pledged, concluding that if the resolution reached his desk, "he would veto it."
As Politico reported Wednesday:
Biden's threat in a way gives moderate Democrats a free pass to distance themselves from the president because they don't face the risk of the rollback actually being implemented.
Asked whether Democratic leadership had pressured him to vote "no," Tester told reporters that they gave a presentation to the broader caucus Tuesday. But "it wasn't like, pestering."
[...]
Manchin took to the Senate floor to blast the Biden DOL rule as "just another example of how our administration prioritizes a liberal policy agenda over protecting and growing the retirement accounts of 150 million Americans."
During a floor speech Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took aim at the GOP, saying in part that "for a long time, my Republican friends prided themselves—prided themselves!—for being the party of free markets. The party of small government. The party opposed to injecting political ideology into the decisions of private investors and managers and companies."
"But apparently, all that was talk. Because today, our Republican friends are making an effort to limit free market choice and inject hard-right ideology into private sector decision-making," he continued. "Now, the hard-right has made a lot of noise trying to make ESG their dirty little acronym. They say this is about wokeness, that this is a cult, that it's some grave intrusion into finance. It's the same predictable, uncreative, unproductive attacks they use for anything they don't like."
Reutersnoted Wednesday that "Republicans used a tool called the Congressional Review Act that allows them to bypass the customary 60-vote Senate threshold to challenge the Labor Department rule. They are expected to mount similar efforts on other issues in the coming months as the 2024 presidential campaign gets into full swing."
Even if Biden vetoes the resolution, his DOL rule still faces another hurdle, as CNN analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladeck pointed out on Twitter.
"The Biden ESG rule is also currently the subject of a legal challenge filed by Texas and a group of other red states in federal district court in Amarillo, where—stop me if you've heard this before—it had a 100% chance of being assigned to Judge [Matthew] Kacsmaryk," Vladeck said, referring to a right-wing judge who is expected to soon rule on a crucial abortion medication case.
Days ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew asked whether our nation would "muster the political will to avoid the self-inflicted wounds that come from a political stalemate."
It's a fair question. And there's only one economically sound answer: Congress must raise the debt ceiling, end the sequester, put more people to work, and increase our investment in education and infrastructure.
Here are the three reasons why Republican deficit hawks are wrong. (Please watch and share our attached video.)
FIRST: Deficit and debt numbers are meaningless on their own. They have to be viewed as a percentage of the national economy.
That ratio is critical. As long as the yearly deficit continues to drop as a percentage of the national economy, as it has for several years, we can more easily pay what we owe.
SECOND: America needs to run larger deficits when many people are unemployed or underemployed - as they still are today, when millions remain too discouraged to look for jobs and millions more are in part-time jobs and need full-time work.
As we've known for years - in every economic downturn and in every struggling recovery - more government spending helps create jobs - teachers, fire fighters, police officers, social workers, people to rebuild roads and bridges and parks. And the people in these jobs create far more jobs when they spend their paychecks.
This kind of spending grows the economy, increasing tax revenues and allowing the deficit to shrink in proportion.
Doing the opposite - cutting back spending when a lot of people are still out of work - as Congress has done with the sequester, as much of Europe has done - causes economies to slow or even shrink, which makes the deficit larger in proportion.
This is why austerity economics is a recipe for disaster, as in Greece. Creditors and institutions worried about Greece's debt forced it to cut spending. The spending cuts led to a huge economic recession, reducing tax revenues and worsening the debt crisis.
THIRD AND FINALLY: Deficit spending on investments like education and infrastructure differs from other forms of spending because this spending builds productivity and future economic growth.
It's like a family borrowing money to send a kid to college or start a business. It should be done if the likely return on the investment exceeds the borrowing costs.
Keep these three principles in mind and you won't be fooled by scare tactics of the deficit hawks.
And you'll understand why we have to raise the debt ceiling, end the sequester, put more people to work, and increase rather than decrease spending on vital public investments like education and infrastructure.
Pope Francis's bold call to tackle climate change and save the planet appears to conflict with U.S. Catholic churches' millions of dollars of investments in fossil fuels industries, including fracking, a new Reuters report shows.
Journalist Richard Valdmanis combed through church disclosures and portfolios. They found: "Dioceses covering Boston, Rockville Center on Long Island, Baltimore, Toledo, and much of Minnesota have all reported millions of dollars in holdings in oil and gas stocks in recent years."
"The holdings tend to make up between 5 and 10 percent of the dioceses' overall equities investments," Valdmanis noted, "similar to the 7.1 percent weighting of energy companies on the S&P 500 index, according to the documents."
Furthermore, the investigation finds that, while the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides ethical guidelines discouraging investments in firms related to contraception, abortion, pornography, and war, it does not issue similar warnings about fossil fuels stocks.
This is despite Pope Francis's 180-page Papal Encyclical, a formal letter to Catholic bishops released in June that underlines the moral imperative to take aggressive steps to address climate change. This home of ours is being ruined,, and that damages everyone, especially the poor," he wrote, adding: "The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system."
The Archdiocese of Chicago acknowledged to Reuters the contradiction between the pope's message and its over $100 million worth of fossil fuel investments. "We are beginning to evaluate the implications of the encyclical across multiple areas, including investments and areas such as energy usage and building materials," Betsy Bohlen, the archdiocese's chief operating officer, told Reuters.
In response to growing grassroots campaigns worldwide, over 300 institutions worldwide have committed to divesting from fossil fuels, roughly a quarter of which are faith-based organizations. The United Church of Canada announced Tuesday that it would be the latest religious institution to divest, and the Catholic institution Georgetown University voted in early June, two weeks before the encyclical, to halt the direct investment of its endowment funds in coalmining companies.
