Dear Reader,
I flew this afternoon to Phoenix from Boise. The last 3 times I have flown I got “pulled over” by TSA for having something suspicious. Today it was 5 items that were a possible danger. My neck area was suspect. Also, my groin area. I had earned my pat down. The flight screener guy explained that for the body he would use open palms and fingers and the sensitive areas (where the bomb would be) with the back of his palms. So, when he got to the spot where the danger was supposed to be, he turned his hands over and felt me up with the back of his palms. You know, the way you look for your pill in the dark.
From there he swabbed my hands for dangerous substances and found that yes, my palms weren’t just sweating they were possibly deadly. That prompted the detailed search from a woman and him and a more extensive pat down. While he was doing that she was rifling through my carry on roller suitcase. I asked, “was there something suspicious in my suitcase?” She hesitated and then said “yes.” When she grabbed my computer and scanned it, she also found something suspicious in the laptop. She had to cart off my computer for further investigation. In the end it turned out there were 5 false alarms. Pretty efficient, all in all, for the Federal government.
ESG, DEI are insidious and Dangerous
I have been working on a detailed article on the growing control of corporations by the government through what is known as ESG and DEI. ESG- Environmental, Social, and Governance. DEI- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. It is a lot and will be out sometime soon in 2-3 parts. Here are some previews:
What if you owned a company that you have worked on for the last 34 years? It has had hurdles and setbacks, but you persevered, and the business has become incredibly successful, employing 150 employees. One day you get a letter from the government that says you must start keeping track of certain items to make sure you maintain a “moral” enterprise. The glaring issue for you is that the government has chosen which “morals” they require. As you may guess the 20 or so items on the list address everything “woke,” and nothing for those of us who don’t want to wake up to their version of the world. Of course, there are the environmental requirements based on their version of “following the science,” but also woke minutiae such as “animal fur” involvement. They have been convincing the easily convinced for a few years now that “people are demanding this accountability from corporations!!” In 37 years, meeting with 1,000’s of people, I have not had one person demand woke standards from corporations. When I ask if there are any industries they want to avoid (which could possibly hurt their returns,) the answer has always been “no.”
A Scary, made up word.
Stakeholders and shareholders continue to shine an increasingly bright spotlight on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Regulators are also intensifying their scrutiny; recent announcements from the SEC and G7 nations indicate that organizations will soon face ESG and climate disclosure requirements. https://www.diligent.com/insights/white-paper/how-to-prepare-for-mandatory-disclosures/
The whole push to force “woke” reporting on companies is bathed in a false narrative about how much desire there is for this from real investors. You commonly hear phrases such as “investors are demanding these rules on corporations.” When they grow regulations and hire inspectors they say it’s not them, the public is the one who is demanding it. See the word above in red letters. What is that? Why isn’t it just called shareholders? Did we see this word 5 years ago? Stakeholder is not a made up word but is being used for a made up purpose in ESG.
The word “stakeholder,” has recently been snuck into the language of a stock report or analysis, news story, etc. This imaginary person, the stakeholder, does not have anything to do with the company. He has no money invested in it. He probably doesn’t know much about the company, besides what he has heard from activists, lawyers and the media. The stakeholder is loosely described as anyone who has a “stake” in what a company does. An example would be a person who lives 20 miles from an Exxon facility. That’s it. He lives somewhere near Exxon. So, he is a stakeholder. The victim industry has him available to change him from stakeholder to victim as needed. If “studies suggest Exxon’s drilling project is stirring up dangerous dust,” the stakeholder is now a victim of Exxon.
We never hear about the positive aspects the company brings to these stakeholders. The infrastructure, jobs and commerce, improved neighborhoods or anything good. It is only when the company is accused of some kind of infraction when we hear about these people… “George Lester, a local stakeholder in GE suddenly had a fuzzy feeling in his fingers then dropped dead. Investigation opened.” GE is impugned for no reason. The word stakeholder basically brings with it some extra sort of culpability to the corporation. It is all just another anti-capitalism resource.
We need to be aware of these tools that are being used to bring down our institutions by a few people who think they are the chosen ones. It is easy to go along because we have a woke media that is largely a rubber stamp for anything the government says is good or bad. We need to stop and really think. Is this true? What is the source? Is this a “could happen,” or a “will happen” and so on. Right wing media, unfortunately jumps on every negative story and makes it sound like the end of the world. We don’t need to exaggerate to explain what is going on. What is actually happening is plenty.
See you soon,
Craig
Please forward to a friend!