Entries by Bob Rubin

ESG investing may be popular, but be careful: there are many things to dislike.

ESG investing may be popular, but be careful: there are many things to dislike.

The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement is the latest part of a more significant effort to use undemocratic means to achieve public policy goals. As the Business Roundtable tried to replace the focus on maximizing shareholder value with a broader duty to “stakeholders,” ESG initiatives want to replace the long-standing principle of companies and investors on profit and financial return with vague ideas of “sustainability” as a way to make decisions and decide where to put assets in the private sector.

ESG is based on ideas that have been around for a long time. Socially responsible investing and its predecessors are ways of investing that consider the economic effects of limiting investment choices. People who aren’t allowed to invest in “sin” industries let others take advantage of potentially profitable opportunities in, say, tobacco or gun companies. However, they know doing so means giving up economic returns in exchange for some other form of psychic value. This is a clear-eyed tradeoff of costs and benefits, even if it isn’t the most profitable.

ESG, on the other hand, has been called an evolution of socially responsible investing that goes beyond just using a “negative filter” to avoid investing in companies that do certain things. Standard & Poor’s says that ESG “provides a broader framework for looking at social impact than just excluding companies with a history of bad results.” It lets people in the market use positive and negative screens to invest in companies that they think are using sustainable practices, such as protecting the environment, and consumers, respecting human rights and having a mix of people of different races and genders. This strategy puts moral values ahead of financial returns.

 

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This last point is getting more and more attention from commentators, people who trade on the market, and people who make policy. Proponents of ESG investing say that it can produce “alpha” or higher returns than expected based on the risk of an investment or portfolio. However, academic research suggests that this is not the case. Unless one is willing to throw out the efficient markets hypothesis completely, it seems clear that any temporary investment advantage from an ESG strategy would soon be arbitraged by how securities markets work. A diversified portfolio of high-scoring ESG companies would likely do worse than a similarly diversified portfolio that didn’t consider ESG. This is because it costs money to choose, track, and report on ESG investments.

Even if ESG strategies are oversold as “doing well by doing good” and only do as well as or slightly worse than index funds, is it wrong for institutional investors to use ESG factors to help them decide how to invest? Applying ESG principles to business management and institutional asset allocation presents several problems and harmful effects.

First, it takes a lot of work to figure out what makes an ESG company with a high score in real life. Even though ESG-driven investing is a relatively new trend, there are already several ESG rating services, and research shows that ESG ratings of the same company can vary a lot between these services (in contrast to bond credit ratings, which are tightly clustered). In one such study, a team from MIT Sloan’s Sustainability Initiative found a correlation of 0.61 between the ratings of five well-known ESG rating agencies. The correlation between the credit ratings of S&P and Moody’s is 0.99. Free cash flow and fixed asset coverage are more flexible criteria than the ones mentioned above. Due to this subjectivity and the fact that everything ESG is popular right now, ESG mandates leave room for service providers in the ESG ecosystem to act in a way that looks for rent.

The fact that ESG ratings are subjective and sometimes follow different rules shows another problem with ESG-driven investing: the tension between the E, S, and G. How to weigh environmental results against the social responsibilities of a company? How does governance rank among these, in turn? Also, “governance” in the ESG context is a misleading term in and of itself. In the traditional sense, good corporate or public-sector governance is based on openness, oversight, fairness, accountability, and, in the case of private enterprise governance, maximizing shareholder value. However, as stakeholder capitalism becomes more popular and mandates like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) make their way into the boardroom, it may be hard to find a lasting agreement on what “good governance” means.

ESG’s lack of accountability is a much bigger problem than the fact that its principles are only sometimes easy to put into practice. This shows up in two different, but both bad, ways.

First, considering non-economic factors when making investment decisions goes against long-held legal and judicial ideas of fiduciary duty. A fiduciary’s role is to maximize the risk-adjusted return of plan assets by Section 404 of the Employment Retirement Income and Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Putting non-financial factors into the process of choosing investments goes against this obligation. It shows one of the problems with what large institutional investors say about using ESG criteria. These “institutional investors” should be called “investment advisers” or “managers” because they invest on behalf of plan or fund beneficiaries, not for their accounts.

Even though ERISA makes it clear that these fiduciaries should try to get the best risk-adjusted return possible, and in stark contrast to ESG-focused or socially responsible mutual funds that the ultimate beneficial owner chooses for their ESG characteristics, it is irresponsible to use non-economic criteria without getting the end-permission, investor’s and to put this over getting the best risk-adjusted return possible.

ESG is just as bad for responsible financial management as it is for the idea that responsive and accountable democratic institutions should set the public policy agenda for society. No matter how good the goals that are part of ESG criteria are, they are better and more appropriate to be pursued through laws and rules, with the consent of the people being governed or their democratically elected representatives. When the private sector takes responsibility for public policy, it breaks the link between representative government and electoral accountability. It also uses capital markets to allocate resources and impose financial consequences based on things that have nothing to do with economics. Finally, it gives control over the direction of public policy to a group of institutional investors and corporate managers who are neither democratically legitimate nor necessarily experts in the field.

Even though ESG has good intentions, it is subjective, doesn’t make sense, and encourages people to act like rentiers. It also isn’t democratic, elitist, financially sound, lowers values, and doesn’t answer to anyone. What else is there not to like?

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FTX Scandal: A lesson in ESG virtue signaling.

FTX Scandel

By now, many Americans are learning the name of Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, a crypto company that has gone bankrupt and whose corruption is being exposed further and further each day. I’m sure there’s more to come.

But there’s already another little nugget of truth coming to light. And it’s coming straight from the mouth of Bankman-Fried.

After losing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds, he attempted to explain his actions through a series of tweets last week.

The guilty sure do like to talk. This one also tweets.

Bankman-Fried talked about how fame and supposed fortune got to him. He was on the cover of magazines, with FTX becoming “the darling of Silicon Valley.” He described how they became “overconfident and careless.”

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He also admitted that he engaged in virtue signaling by having FTX commit to being “carbon neutral.” He even donated to trendy causes, such as a foundation that provides solar energy in the Amazon River basin. Solar power in the Amazon. The only way to get more “virtuous” than that is if somehow they could be saving whales in the Amazon too! 

Bankman-Fried admits that being reckless with customers’ funds caused the downfall of FTX. He also confesses that one of the “dumb” things he did was get wrapped up in ESG.

“In the future, I’m going to care less about the dumb, contentless, ‘good actor’ framework,” he said. “What matters is what you do – is *actually* doing good or bad, not just *talking* about doing good or *using ESG language*.” 

If only Bankman-Fried had read The Rubin Report, he would have known what we’ve been saying about wise investments. Growing one’s wealth is not done correctly when you put yourself at the mercy of what the “woke” ESG crowd wants to do with your investments. There is no such thing as “woke” capitalism. Not unless you want to throw your money down the drain, as many investors did with FTX.

The Wall Street Journal  Editorial Board picked up on this in their editorial a few days ago: 

“Mr. Bankman-Fried also acknowledges that he genuflected to regulators and Democratic lawmakers to win political protection. ESG rating company Truvalue Labs even gave FTX a higher score on “leadership and governance” than Exxon Mobil, though the crypto exchange had only three directors. The directors were Mr. Bankman-Fried, another FTX executive, and an outside attorney. Tuvalu Labs says FTX was given an overall ‘laggard’ score.” 

For his part, Bankman-Fried told Vox that “ESG has been perverted beyond recognition.” He even added that he feels “bad for those who get” harmed by “this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” 

It’s both satisfying and sad to get such a confession from a corrupt financial manipulator who bought into the so-called “woke” ideology of ESG and yet also promoted and reinforced it himself.

The FTX scandal is teaching us many things. One of the biggest lessons we can learn is how much of a crock ESG is. At its best, it’s a virtue signal. At its worst, it will lead investors to financial ruin.

Companies with high ESG ratings may not have the financial scandals of FTX or experience the colossal losses it took. But the mere fact that a company like FTX was given a high ESG rating should make the entire ESG scheme a poster boy for poor decision-making. 

Remember, ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. It supposedly rates companies on that criteria. Leaving the “environmental” and “social” labels aside for a moment, there was nothing about FTX that should have signaled good governance. Then again, the entire ESG scheme is simply a signal, a virtue signal. It might be the only real thing Bankman-Fried has said to us. 

Take notice of the confessions of this very guilty man. Stay away from ESG.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, check out another article on the dangers of ESG by clicking here!

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Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

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Financial Lessons from the FTX Scandal.

FTX CRYPTO SCAM

By now, most people have heard that FTX Digital, created by Sam Bankman-Fried, went into bankruptcy over the past week. 

As reported in Axios, hardly a right-wing source of news, “dozens of Congressional candidates – most of them Democrats – received campaign contributions or indirect financial support from Sam Bankman-Fried.” 

Bankman-Fried was a relatively unknown billionaire and became the second-biggest donor to Democratic candidates. Second only to George Soros. Bankman-Fried contributed over $37 million during this past election cycle, almost all of which went to Democratic candidates and causes. 

It needs to be determined where his money came from. There is an alleged Ukrainian connection alongside President Biden.

But I want to concentrate on the financial lessons we can learn. After all, you don’t want your investments going to tycoons like Bankman-Fried only so they can turn around and support causes that go against what you and I believe in.

I’ve been talking for many years about the fact that 99% of fraud and problems in the crypto markets come from exchanges. Looking at crypto history, you’ll soon learn that almost $12 billion worth of crypto has been stolen from exchanges. And most of that was “your” money. 

There is even a case where the owner of QuardrigaCX, an exchange, unexpectedly died with all the private keys—supposedly losing $190 million of clients’ funds. Poof. 

Consider these facts:

 

  • Exchanges lose $2.7 million daily on average, and this figure is set to increase in the future.
  • The hacking attacks are becoming increasingly elaborate. It’s a highly-rewarding activity; therefore, it pays for ever-increasing time and effort spent plotting hacks.
  • Exchanges are not cybersecurity enterprises. They run financial marketplaces first, and experience has shown they need to guarantee top-notch security.

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As well as losing money on the exchanges mentioned earlier, investors are also losing money on obscure coins like Dogecoin and FTT (or the FTX Token, as it is more commonly known). And there are hundreds more.

Most exchanges will create a coin and offer staking and other services to drive revenue. The only proper way to own cryptocurrency is with Bitcoin and maybe Ethereum. No staking, no borrowing, and no elaborate ways to leverage your investment.

If you buy crypto, stay away from NFTs, stick with the two main currencies, and get them off the exchanges as soon as possible by transferring them to your air-gapped wallet.  

However, the honest advice is about something other than acquiring these two coins or whether you should do so while they are down in price. The most important thing is how you buy them and where you store them.

Our recommendations are straightforward. Use an exchange like Binance or Coinbase to purchase the coins. Then, frequently move them to your wallet. We recommend Trezor, but you can use anyone you want if it’s air-gapped and can hold it in your possession.

If you follow this recommendation, you’ll have a minimum financial exposure if the exchange pulls shenanigans like FTX did or goes bankrupt. Most importantly, your own Bitcoin or Ethereum will be under your control.

The FTX scandal is a financial one, for sure. It might even be a political one. It is undoubtedly a reminder of why you need a financial advisor who has your economic well-being at the top of your mind and shares your values.

I understand how financial tycoons can manipulate investors, especially with many unfamiliar new technologies and various digital currencies now available.

Refrain from being taken by swindlers and hustlers like Bankman-Fried. People like him want your money because they need your money. Sometimes those profits are used for their pleasures – and other times, they use it to support causes and candidates that you wouldn’t dream of keeping with the funds you’ve worked so hard to earn.

The American Dream is about controlling your destiny. At Rubin Wealth Advisors, we will continue to show you how to keep your investments in your controlled accounts and wallets and keep your dreams from becoming tales from the Crypt(o).

If you enjoyed this article, check out our next article on the FTX Scandal to learn more here!

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Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


ESG Funds held 2.7Trillilon dollars. The SEC looking to stop greenwashing.

ESG

In 2021, ESG funds held $2.7T around the world. But, again, BlackRock, the most significant asset manager in the world, has set the pace.   

But now the pushback is here. Politicians and investors against ESG say it hurts local businesses, doesn’t give good returns, isn’t transparent, and undermines democracy. The SEC is also looking at ESG funds to stop “greenwashing.” Republicans are at the front of the pushback. They say that CEOs of companies are forced to make decisions that go against what they think is best to keep the ESG label. They say the label started because blue-zone states like California and New York followed ESG guidelines when investing most of their pension funds. So maybe it’s time for red-zone states to fight back, say, Republicans. 

So far this year, 17 states run by the Republican Party have introduced at least 44 bills to punish companies that adopt ESG-friendly policies, especially financial companies that offer ESG funds.  Recently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told the state pension fund managers that they couldn’t use ESG criteria to choose investments.  Glenn Hegar, the comptroller of Texas, put ten major financial firms, like BlackRock and Credit Suisse, on a “blocklist” for “boycotting energy companies.” Likewise, West Virginia broke ties with some companies, saying their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts hurt the coal industry.   

Even “anti-woke” ETFs have been created in response. The largest is the U.S. Energy ETF (DRLL) from Strive Asset Management. It has raised more than $315 million in less than a month, mostly from small investors.  Vivek Ramaswamy, the executive chair of Strive and an entrepreneur, is a vocal critic of ESG. He says that if ESG didn’t limit U.S. energy stocks, their value would double or triple over the next two years.  With Europe having to ration energy this winter, many people agree that there are better times to lower energy prices, which would stop people from investing in energy.   Those on the left are also attacking ESG funds. 

Progressives say that many of these ESG funds only do little to support socially responsible goals. Instead, they try to make money from investors who want the “feel-good” label. Evidence? The most significant ESG funds, like the US ESG Aware ETF (ESGU) from i Shares, have similar weights for about 90% of the S&P 500. Their performance is also very similar to that of SPY. That’s a low standard. But that doesn’t stop these ETFs from charging much money to be an “ESG investor.” On average, the fees for ESG ETFs are 43% higher than those for other ETFs. For example, BlackRock’s ESG Aware fund has five times higher prices than its Core S&P 500 fund. The same things are said about rating agencies, which also get a lot of money from this considerable fee stream. About 160 providers make ESG rating data and sell it. By far, MSCI is the most used. Bloomberg Intelligence says that 60% of the money individual investors have put into ESG funds worldwide has gone into funds made with MSCI’s ratings. UBS Group AG says that 40% of all these fees go straight to MSCI. So MSCI has made much money from the recent rush of investors into ESG. From 2019 to 2021, its price went up, but it has been going down for a while now.  Let’s use MSCI to take a different look at our “low bar” point about ESG. The iShares ESGU fund has a AAA rating from MSCI. Not a big surprise. But SPY also has a AAA rating from 

MSCI! What’s up?  The drop of 5% in large-cap companies and underweighting of a more significant number of companies is a big deal for the underweighting of the larger companies. They are crying out. This is what keeps conservatives going. But it’s also a letdown for progressives, who may have thought that these funds would change capitalism for the better. At the same time, rating agencies like MSCI make a lot of money by selling their ratings to funds, which investors pay for. And that makes everyone mad. In short, there is criticism from everywhere. So, what exactly is ESG? No one knows, and that’s the thing. In 2004, the United Nations released a report arguing that investors should consider “ESG factors” when investing. When you read this report, you will encounter a simple definition puzzle. At times, ESG is about how companies do things that are good for the world, like reducing carbon emissions, ensuring workers don’t get hurt on the job, or helping their local communities, but likely at a high cost to the companies. In other words, ESG entails practices in the firm’s interests over time.   Which one is it? This is the beginning of the straddle. On the one hand, most retail investors (and politicians from blue states) who buy ESG do so because they want to save the world.   They want strong policies, not just wise advice for CEOs about how to look out for their interests. But on the other hand, rating agencies know they can’t tell pension portfolio managers to ignore their fiduciary duty to investors.   It might look like there’s no way around this. But there’s a way out. What if we look at a company’s self-interest over the next 20 or 30 years? (When defending its most vague ESG rating criteria, BlackRock emphasizes the word “long term.”)   It’s okay if CEOs of companies and experts hired by rating agencies don’t know what the world will be like in 2050. But, also, think about this: Laws and rules that haven’t been made yet will be among the risks of that future world. The original U.N. document discusses “increasing pressure from civil society to improve performance, transparency, and accountability, which can lead to reputational risks if not handled properly.”   Here’s the bottom line. By saying that laws and rules that will be in place tomorrow are a risk to a company’s reputation today, ESG raters say they know how our democracy will decide on all these issues in the future.   CEOs follow ESG guidelines despite not agreeing with the ESG raters about the long-term value of their companies, but to avoid reputational risk. In this way, the ratings are self-reinforcing in a strange way. They don’t need a reason.   When CEOs of companies say that adopting ESG standards is in the long-term interests of shareholders, they are telling the truth. But, of course, shareholders lose when there is bad press. But, as Ramaswamy points out, if you follow that thinking, ESG is not much more than “a protection racket.”   Let’s move on to the next problem with a definition. Let’s say we agree with this project as a whole. We want to determine the company’s risks over the next few decades. This includes risks that come from public policy. So how do we even start something so big? How do we know what the world’s risks will be in 2050? And how do we know.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, check out some of our other content here!

 Talk with a financial expert who has your same moral values and works in your best interest. Schedule a call with Bob today

 

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Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


ESG is Bad: Conceptually Simple, Yet Complex

ESG Investing

 

“Environmental, Social, and Governance” is a hot topic when it comes to investing, but what does it mean?

We all have a moral compass, and there are some investments that we should avoid because they violate our sense of right and wrong.

Despite the illegality of the narcotics trade, we know it can yield enormous profits, but we refuse to pursue these opportunities due to their moral wrongness.

This moral compass conflict is why I suggest that ESG should be tailored to the needs of each investor.

In other words, ESG is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Nevertheless, asset managers and corporate entities apply a one-size-fits-all approach to ESG investing.

The nature of investing is opinionated and exclusive to each individual.

Oil companies that produce hydrocarbon fuels may arouse the aversion of some people who believe anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions pose an existential threat. Others believe global warming is no big deal, so they invest in oil majors.

Russia Ukraine Test ESG Theory

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has undoubtedly tested ESG theory. ESG activists shun the arms industry because it costs lives. Could it not be argued that the manufacture of weapons acts as a defensive deterrent?

The Budapest Accord could have prevented Russia from invading Ukraine, averting war and saving hundreds of thousands of lives if Ukraine had not agreed to disarm. Should the arms industry be excluded from capital markets based on environmental, social, and governance concerns?

Answering this question is neither right nor wrong. Different people formulate different views about politics and religion. Therefore, I argue that managing ESG objectively is not possible. In a way, it is very subjective.

Fund managers should formulate their fund manifestos and let investors use that as the basis for deciding whether or not to invest in their funds.

In my opinion, ESG is poorly done. My next point will explain why too many people treat this as a “tick-box” exercise.

In trying to create an algorithmic screen for their fund managers, asset management firms often miss the nuances of ESG. ESG criteria cannot be objectively quantified, so that this approach will fail.

How can an algorithm based on the same third-party ESG data used by every other asset manager achieve to distinguish itself by having a more strong ESG ethos than its competitors?

Similarly, ESG analysts should publish their unique subjective view of the moral compass of corporate entities, just as equity analysts do with the fundamental economics of a company. Investing responsibly is the only way an asset manager can stand out from the competition.

Why ESG Compliance is Bad

In this case, there is a kind of self-serving flywheel at work. I will explain why ESG compliance is a bad idea.

In turn, asset management companies want to attract money from self-righteous investors. Those who manage funds on both financial and ethical criteria are likely to be able to charge higher fees, knowing its criteria are increasingly important to generate more extensive fees from self-righteous investors. So, when they try to appear ethical in order to attract capital from the markets, they often shoot themselves in the foot.

What would you do in any of these situations? Do you plan to sell your shares in these companies? Are you willing to divest from an irresponsible country’s sovereign debt?

 
If you’re more interested in how to achieve financial gains instead of perpetuating underperforming woke strategies, call Rubin Wealth Management to learn more.n

 

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Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


The Harsh Reality about ESG Investing

ESG Investing

 

Trillions of Dollars Spent On ESG

There were more than $2.7 trillion in assets under the management of global exchange-traded “sustainable” funds in December 2021, 81% were based in European funds, and 13% were in U.S. funds. These funds target investing in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. In the fourth quarter of 2021 alone, $143 billion in new capital flowed into these ESG funds.

What has been the experience of investors? Evidently, not well at all.

The financial performance of ESG funds is undoubtedly poor. Over $8 trillion of investor savings were analyzed by University of Chicago researchers in a recent Journal of Finance paper. Even though the highest sustainability funds attracted the most capital, none of them outperformed the lowest sustainability funds.

Investors might be willing to reduce financial returns to achieve better ESG performance if that result is expected. Unfortunately, ESG funds don’t seem to deliver better ESG results either.

147 ESG fund portfolios and 2,428 non-ESG fund portfolios were compared by Columbia University and London School of Economics researchers to understand how companies perform in terms of environment, society, and governance. Both labor and environmental regulations were less respected by the companies in the ESG portfolios. In addition, they found that compliance with labor and environmental laws did not improve after companies were added to ESG portfolios.

Sacrificing Financial Returns without much Gain

There are numerous instances of this. An ESG score comparison was conducted by the European Corporate Governance Institute between 684 institutional investors who signed the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) during 2013–2017 and 6,481 institutional investors who did not sign the PRI during that period. After signing the PRI, they did not observe any improvement in the ESG scores of companies owned by signatory funds. As a result, the financial returns for PRI signatories were lower, and the risks were more significant.

 

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What is the reason for the poor performance of ESG funds? In competitive labor and product markets, corporate managers should pay attention to employee, customer, community, and environmental interests of their own accord to maximize long-term shareholder value. This may explain the lack of an express emphasis on ESG. As a result, setting ESG targets can distort decision-making.

Additionally, there are some signs that companies embrace ESG to hide poor business performance. Ryan Flugum and Matthew Souther of the University of South Carolina published a study recently showing that managers often mention their focus on social and environmental factors when earnings expectations (set by analysts following their company) underperformed. However, they made few public statements regarding ESG when they exceeded earnings expectations. Sustainable fund managers who invest in companies that embrace environmental, social, and governance principles may be overinvesting in companies that are underperforming in the financial sector.

Based on the evidence presented, investing in companies that adopt ESG publicly sacrifice financial returns without gaining much.
 
If you’re more interested in how to achieve financial gains instead of perpetuating underperforming woke strategies, call Rubin Wealth Management to learn more.

bob rubin

Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


Rubin’s Bottom 10: Disney Stock

Rubin’s Bottom 10: Disney Stock

Rubin Wealth Advisors, in conjunction with American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF) has identified the ten worst companies for political conservatives (or patriots) to invest in. Investors can’t completely avoid placing their funds into all woke companies, but they can avoid investing in the worst offenders.

Announcing “Rubin’s Bottom 10”

Let’s get to #1 Disney Stock

“Buzz Lightyear went woke. The movie went broke.” Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio

Republican, tweeted back in June. Lightyear, Disney-Pixar’s latest film release, was by all accounts a total box office failure. In week two, the film brought in only $18 million, down from $50 million on its first weekend.

Why did the Toy Story spinoff do so poorly? Fans are probably waiting for its streaming release because Disney does not market it well.

Conservatives have a different idea. For us, we see the discontent with Disney’s anti-traditional, anti-American messaging starting to hit it in the corporate wallet. It’s an excellent start to what needs to become a trend.

Chris Evans replaces Tim Allen’s iconic voice with the ultra-woke, American-hating Captain of the Lightyear film. It is designed for children but contains a kiss between a gay couple.

It appears that the movie-going public isn’t too fond of Disney’s choices. (Top Gun – Maverick has proved that; Americans just don’t go to that movie because of the China flu).

In March of this year, Karey Burke, Disney president, announced films would represent alternative lifestyles.

According to the Independent Sentinel:

“As the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,” she supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities

As a mother of two children demonstrating potential signs of mental illness, clearly, Ms. Burke should be nowhere near children’s programming. More to the point, your hard-earned dollars should be nowhere near anything she is responsible for overseeing.

Disney Leader in Woke Culture

Disney has been a long-time and very bold leader of the woke corporate movement. Not only do they have a history of wokeness, but even now, as blowback has begun against woke corporate culture and actions, causing some companies to either step back a bit or at least slow down, Disney has doubled down on their wokeness. It is as if they are saying, “We are Disney. You need us so much you can’t possibly turn away from us no matter what we say or do.”

The entertainment giant’s spread of wokeness is so expansive it is challenging to know where to begin. If you want recent, on June 30 th three former Disney employees filed suit alleging they were fired from the company for not wearing masks and refusing to get vaccinated for religious reasons during the pandemic. The employees objected to the vaccination because fetal stem cells were used in its development. Despite Florida state law to the contrary, which prohibits the forced imposition of vaccines upon employees, Disney simply pulled down its corporate mask and spit into the eye of the employees and the state.

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Disney intro is now: WELCOME DREAMERS OF ALL AGES aka illegal immigrants!

The well-known introductory refrain of Disneyland and Disneyworld has been changed from “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…” to “Welcome dreamers of all ages”. (I am assuming by “dreamers” they meant people who enter the country illegally). This was part of their new “Diversity & Inclusion” policy designed to encourage hate under the guise of love. Yahoo News reported at the time of the welcome-language change:

“Inclusion is essential to our culture and leads us forward as we continue to realize our rich legacy of engaging storytelling, exceptional service, and Disney magic,” Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, wrote in an April blog post on the company’s website. “We want our guests to see their backgrounds and traditions reflected in the stories, experiences, and products they encounter in their interactions with Disney,” he continued. “And we want our cast members—and future cast members—to feel a sense of belonging at work.”

Disney’s diversity policy addresses the areas of people, community, and content. As to the latter, the policy reads:

I apologize if the preceding just made you throw up in your mouth.

Despite its flowery language, it’s always about what sort of specific actions are spawned from this script, not what sort of random decisions are taken. In Disney’s case, it means the denial of biology, same-sex couples kissing in children’s films, and, of all things, a ‘lady Thor.

Having lived in Florida for over 50 years, Disney World’s outright lies disgusted me.  Earlier this year, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that restricts the teaching of sexual content to children in kindergarten through third grade, Disney joined into the openly deceitful movement of characterizing the law as a “don’t say gay” piece of legislation. A company that reaches out to young children opposes a law banning sex education.

Why?

I’ll leave that one up to you to answer.

Disney is typically self-righteous, especially when it is a for-profit business.

The company that is so concerned about people being treated fairly isn’t quite as concerned when it comes to China. This was evident when Disney filmed some scenes in the live-action remake of Mulan in China. A brutal repression campaign was conducted by the Chinese government in the province where the filming took place against the Muslim Uighur people. The movie’s end credits mention it was partly filmed in Xinjiang, but no one noticed until some viewers posted on the internet.

Breitbart News reported:

Mulan’s end credits include a special thank-you to the Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security, according to a screenshot from the movie. The city of Turpan, which is located in the northwestern Xinjiang region, runs a concentration camp for Uyghur Muslims where detainees are forced to recite Communist Party propaganda, according to a 2018 investigation by The Wall Street Journal.

Even the Washington Post, itself an anti-American rag typically supportive of Disney-style wokeness, was critical of Disney for this one

“Why did Disney need to work in Xinjiang? It didn’t.

In addition to China, there are many countries around the world that offer the same breathtaking mountain scenery. In doing so, Disney normalizes a crime against humanity,” said Asia Society senior fellow Isaac Stone Fish.

Disney stock has worked hard to reach the “top” of a bottom-of-the-barrel list of corporate wokeness. Not only does this company not deserve your investment dollars, it doesn’t deserve any! Divest your stock, buy different toys, vacation in Clearwater instead of Orlando, and go see Top Gun – Maverick!

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Recalling Clinton Inflation Campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Political enthusiasts

By Ed Pozzuoli

Inflation Sky High: Political enthusiasts will recall the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign’s watchword: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Households across the country are concerned with inflation. Consumer prices are at a four-decade high, led by gasoline, which has doubled in price since January 2021. Investment portfolios are slashed in half. Meat, poultry, fish and egg prices are up by more than 14% year over year. Producer price indexes indicate that we can expect further trouble ahead.

Rising costs hurt in and of themselves. In a recent podcast with me, Steve Forbes — economic guru and former Republican primary candidate — zeroed in on an even greater issue. Inflation, Forbes says, is corrosive. It erodes the certainty needed to transact, people to people, business to business, even country to country. An inability to value products and services based on stable prices saps business confidence and engenders outright fear in consumers.

Right on cue after Forbes’ comments, the University of Michigan consumer confidence index underscored the impact of this psychological trauma, plummeting in June to the lowest point in its more than seven-decade history. Retail sales fell month over month in May as skittish shoppers eschewed durable goods, switched to discount brands when available and bought less, with gasoline and food costs taking up a rising share of falling real income.

The ripple effect is plummeting profits for Walmart and Target, $4 billion first-quarter losses for online retailing wunderkind Amazon and stock markets tumbling into bear territory. Moreover, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s forecast for second-quarter growth is now sitting at a big, fat zero as of mid-June, following a first-quarter GDP contraction.

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Biden Administration Playing the Blame Game

The Biden administration is offering blame instead of solutions. Blaming inflation on everyone from Vladimir Putin to the oil industry to congressional Republicans and, incredibly, even the normally left-supporting media, for supposedly “sensationalizing” bad news against him.

According to a recent I&I/TIPP poll, even a majority of Democratic voters aren’t buying the blame game the administration is trying to play.
Is it Putin’s fault? Not according to Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell, who testified before Congress that inflation started long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Is it the failure to pass “Build Back Better”? Not likely, as even staunch Democratic economist Lawrence Summers warned in May 2021 that “printing money” and “borrowing on unprecedented scales” risked dollar declines that would be “much more likely to translate themselves into inflation than they were historically.” If passed, Build Back Better would have added to the inflation woes.

Of course, there is the Biden energy policy. In 2018, the United States became the world’s No. 1 oil producer. Then came Biden’s Keystone Kop move shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, closing federal lands to drilling and even siccing the SEC on investors by over-regulating investments in new production. The result was not only in record highs for gas including $6-a-gallon diesel, a hike rapidly washing through to consumer prices.

Economic Solution In Sight?

Biden’s solution? Begging Venezuelan and Saudi dictators for more oil, and writing energy companies demanding they invest in more production.

Blaming anyone and everyone does not make up for bad policy. Inflation is by the government’s out-of-control spending and the need to print more money. Over-bloated, excessive spending government causes inflation. Inflation tanks our ability to transact business and live daily. Ultimately, inflation tanks the economy. Big government and big spending equal high inflation and big problems for all of us.

Who is hurt most by inflation? It’s not the wealthy progressive financier. It’s the construction or food-service worker struggling to get to work on a $5 gallon of gas who’s feeding a family on $4-a-pound chicken and $3 eggs. High inflation is a harsh regressive tax, harming those with less economic wherewithal.

There is no blame or lie that will help reduce the costs of groceries or gasoline. Inflation is eroding confidence and, most importantly, destroying our family budgets. Inflation is a tax. With the November election quickly approaching, remember the anger you feel when filling up your gas tank or at the grocery check-out line.
It is the economy, stupid.

Edward J. Pozzuoli is the president of the law firm Tripp Scott, based in Fort Lauderdale.

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Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


Time to “Unfriend” Meta in Your Investment Portfolio

Time to “Unfriend” Meta in Your Investment Portfolio

Rubin Wealth Advisors, in conjunction with American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF) has identified the ten worst companies for political conservatives (or patriots) to invest in.

Investors can’t completely avoid placing their funds into all woke companies, but they can avoid investing in the worst offenders.

Announcing “Rubin’s Bottom 10”

Let’s get to #3

If you are an American who believes strongly in First Principles, private property rights, and the U.S. constitution, you are not likely to be getting a “friend request” from Meta Platforms Inc., aka Facebook, (NASDAQ) anytime soon. The social media monster and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, have made no attempts in their outright hatred for traditional American ideals. In fact, Zuckerberg went so far as openly spend money to destroy them during the 2020 election.

Meta Pulls the Rug on Conservatives

While Facebook is the “face” of the recently rebranded Meta, several other companies, including Instagram and WhatsApp, also fall under its umbrella. With Facebook being one of the earliest entrants into the world of unsocial social media and being one of the few survivors, its power, combined with its satellites, is significant. Many conservatives came to rely on Facebook as a way to share their message at a very low marginal cost, only to have the platform turn on them and pull the rug out from underneath.

The stories of conservative political candidates having their Facebook platforms silenced or demonetized goes back as far as at least 2018, when they began silencing primary candidates who were running on an agenda that included support for the policies of then-President Donald Trump. One such candidate was Californian Erin Cruz, who was running for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in that state. Numerous other candidates reported similar instances of censorship for doing nothing more than promoting their platform and trying to engage voters.

Facebook’s “fact-checking” (also used on Instagram and WhatsApp) are guilty of the same sort of not-so-arbitrary abuses as they routinely target candidates, media, and everyday citizens for posting information contrary to their preferred globalist, collectivist narrative. The highly respected digital daily publication Human Events was a victim of such a practice in 2021 when Facebook placed them in “Facebook Jail” for three stories deemed to be factually inaccurate. All were proven to be on target.

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Liberal Fact Checkers Rule FB

Facebook uses what they call “independent fact-checkers” to decide what content can and can’t be posted. Their partner in this is the International Fact-Checkers Network, who, when you visit their website, is led by a board of team left members, some of whom are from recognized names like the Washington Post, others who are from unknown organizations of dubious origin, and funding. One of the fact-checking entities is a group known as Science Feedback, a group whose feedback in censoring a post by highly-respected Reason Magazine back in 2021 led to Facebook having to acknowledge a fact-checking error in the fact-checking. While that incident was highly publicized, most such instances go unnoticed because the victim is simply not big enough to fight back.

A similar approach is taken with the advertising and promotion of rallies and special events hosted by conservatives who dare to use the term “patriotic” in their materials. In the early summer of 2020, the Red White n’ Blue’s tour promotion for a July 4th weekend event featured patriotic imagery was repeatedly censored by Facebook, with anyone posting the digital flier finding it taken down or having their account suspended.

The suppression of the July 4th event is consistent with other various reports of anti-American activities at Meta. In 2016, Facebook’s employees were accused of suppressing conservative articles in Facebook’s newsfeed “trending” section, which has since been discontinued. Specifically, the platform prevented stories about CPAC from going into the newsfeed through its “news curators” contractors. Facebook denied that it happened.

For those concerned about personal security, there have been numerous stories over time about Facebook’s either careless or deliberate disregard for user privacy. In 2018, Facebook became embroiled in a scandal when the British firm Cambridge Analytica sold user data to the Trump campaign. The controversy focused on how Cambridge Analytica obtained Facebook user data without user consent and made money off selling the acquired user data.

While Washington has done little to curtail Facebook’s power (many politicians inside the ruling class benefit from their activities), it has not escaped notice. Hearings have been held where comrade Zuckerberg has been forced to testify, but he is so confident in his absolute power that he encouraged Congress to regulate him! That’s a man who knows he controls the system!

It isn’t just me who has a bad attitude regarding Meta. In 2019, a report by former Sen. Jon Kyl and Covington & Burling LLP found that conservatives distrust Facebook due to:

    • Ad labeling requirements (which potentially jeopardized non-profit status due to “political” labels)
    • General ad policies (which said no ‘shocking and sensational content.’ used to prohibit pro-life ads until the policy was changed)
    • Lack of page transparency about “false” ratings from the platform.
    • Lack of conservative viewpoint diversity in the company,
      slow ad-approval process.
    • lack of an oversight board to overlook appeals and decisions
    • Lack of transparency about algorithms and content on users’ feeds.

With all of that noted, nothing that Meta has done on any of its three main platforms compares to the interference of Zuckerberg in the 2020 election. Using his organization Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), Zuckerberg poured $350 million into the 2020 election to “help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic.”  Much of CTCL’s money found its way into strategic areas in swing states that magically swung to Joe Biden long after polls were closed on election day. The movie 2000 Mules did a fantastic job of making the case for election tampering.

To bring this home for me, one of my former marketing folks, whose role was to organize and optimize our Facebook advertising, expressed continued frustration at Facebook’s ongoing advertising censorship. Whenever he submitted an ad to Facebook that contained the words patriotic, Trump, or politically conservative our ad submission would be declined due to community standard violations. He would speak to his Facebook advertising sales rep, who said he would take care of it. Never happened. The only fix was to remove the “offending” words from the ad submission.

As mentioned in a prior piece in this series, Nike was a very early adopter of woke- corporate policies. While Nike may have helped launch the curve, Meta and its various entities have been an inflection point along its path. While it is a great place for grandparents in Boca Raton to view pictures of their grandchildren in Seattle, it is not a great place from which to view photos of your investment account statements.

“Dislike” Meta in your portfolio and then “Unfriend” them for good.

To read the next article in the series, click here.

bob rubin

Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!


America’s Great Wealth Migration

America’s Great Wealth Migration

American

America’s Great Wealth Migration

Within American states, the last two years have seen a dramatic shift of
relocation (both for individuals and businesses) and family income within
our country. About 70% of the moves were from urban to urban areas, and 56%
moved from suburban to suburban areas. The shift was from high-tax and
high-regulations states, to low-tax and reasonable-regulations states. Money
walks, and moves to where it is welcome. Just as important, these trends are
expected to become long-term

U.S. cities with populations over 1million experienced an 88% decline in
their growth rates from 2010 to 2018. New York and California were hit
hardest. New York lost 1.6% of its population but almost 3% of its income,
meaning that the people who left were big taxpayers and big earners. Low
taxes, low crime rates, and the freedom to live your life without fear of
government intrusion are the main reasons for the Great Migration.

40 Billion Vanished

In 2020, a total of $40 billion of income was lost by California and New
York. Most of the money went to Florida ($24B), Texas ($12B) and Arizona
($4B). California’s big state income tax is driving people out, along with
major increases in the cost of living, a terrible legal environment of
anti-business laws, high prices, and the homeless/drug problems in the
larger cities. It is also the most regulated state in the U.S. In recent
years, California has lost 2.6 million residents, even with big-time foreign
immigration. The California counties that have seen the largest exit of
their population are San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. New York
also saw a huge decrease in population, with roughly 70,000 leaving in 2020
alone. An example of why: New York City’s budget expenditures are equal to
all of Florida.

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Business headquarters are also abandoning California, which has seen 265
headquarter relocations from 2019 to 6/30/2021. The monthly average losses
in 2021 were 12. And this is probably an undercount, since many relocations
are not made public. The Tax Foundation ranks California 49th on its
state business tax-climate rankings. Only New Jersey has a worse tax
climate.

If Americans want to remain as attractive on the international stage, the
states should adopt policies that make us more like Florida and Texas and
less like California and New York. But, unfortunately, the Biden
administration and Congress are trying to turn the country into California.

Forbes stated, “America has had the strongest, most dynamic economy in the
world for the last 80 years, but economic success is not guaranteed. The
wrong public policies slow innovation, deter new business formation, and
repel talented workers.” Just look at California and New York. John R Smith

This article was written by John R Smith.

bob rubin

Are you concerned about inflation, ESG compliances, and the 2022 crypto crash?

Your investment portfolio can be affected by any or all of these factors.

Schedule an appointment with Bob Rubin, your dedicated, conservative financial advisor, for a free portfolio analysis today.

Get started by clicking the button below.

No BS… Just straight forward advice

Contact Bob, the Nation’s Predominant
Politically Conservative Financial Advisor Today!

Call Bob @ (561) 288-1111

Email Bob @ Bob@RubinWA.com

Or schedule a call below!