Why do Republicans have a problem with ESG?
The acronym for environmental, social, governance principles isn’t widely known outside investment circles but is fast becoming a popular GOP talking point in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
The GOP says the nation’s top money managers are pursuing an ideological agenda at the expense of financial returns in violation of their fiduciary duty.
In an effort to stop public pension funds from using ESG as a consideration when making investment decisions, red states from Texas to West Virginia have pulled billions from BlackRock and other money managers despite concerns that doing so may hurt financially.
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They’ve also launched investigations into the influence of big money managers on everything from reducing emissions to racial justice.
“As worthy as those goals may be, they are not goals that may be entirely motivated by value maximization and they do not align with the views of many Americans who invest with those asset managers,” Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam” and co-founder of a new investment firm Strive Asset Management, told USA TODAY.
Big money managers disagree. “We have one bias,” BlackRock Senior Managing Director Dalia…
