This Hypocritical Investing Trend Lets China Destroy America

Andy Snyder|March 30, 2023

We’ve had a revelation… an epiphany of the financial sort.

We’re shunning the old idea that money makes the world go round.

Hypocrisy does.

Because the more we have of one, the more we get of the other.

The scene in Washington tells that story for us. No need for us to take up your time pointing out the obvious.

But there is a story you likely haven’t heard. It involves billionaires, massive amounts of money… and the destruction of America from the inside out.

Vivek Ramaswamy wants Joe Biden’s job. He quietly announced his candidacy a month ago.

He won’t win. Not a chance.

He’s too smart. Too ethical. And instead of oozing the sort of hypocrisy that gets folks to the top… he picks it apart and does all he can to get it in front of the world.

Few folks listen.

He’ll probably die broke.

Dirty Business

Late last year, Vivek wrote a letter to his pals in the corner office over at Chevron. The message was clear. “You can do better… just stay out of the hypocrisy.”

The subject… the oil company’s focus on emissions.

Pressured by all sorts of do-gooders, Chevron had recently announced it was reducing its “Scope 3” emissions.

That’s a big deal – read this next part with a very sarcastic and, preferably, annoying voice – for an oil company.

You see, in the oil world, there are three types of emissions.

Scope 1 is the dirt directly emitted by the company – the stuff that comes out of the smokestacks.

Scope 2 is the indirect dirt – perhaps the emissions from the coal plant that provides the company’s electricity.

And Scope 3 is all the indirect emissions up and downstream of the company’s operations. When folks commute to work… that’s part of Scope 3 emissions. When they order pizza for a lunch meeting… ding, ding, the company takes a hit, too.

But when the company is an oil company… that hit gets big. So-called downstream use of its products is quite large – and quite dirty.

As Vivek puts it in his letter, “For an oil company like Chevron, Scope 3 emissions caps may represent an existential risk to the business itself.”

This is the part where America begins to eat itself.

Just the Facts

It’s important to understand that Vivek and so many of his ESG-wary counterparts are aiming directly at the hypocritical investors that are applying all this pressure to clean up.

Some of the loudest voices belong to Chevron’s top three shareholders – BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard.

And now the hypocrisy starts to boil over…

As Vivek points out, these three fund managers aren’t the real owners of the company.

“Chevron’s actual owners are the clients of these institutions: everyday citizens whose capital is invested in passively managed index funds.”

That relationship gives BlackRock, et al. a much different motivation… a $20 trillion motivation (that’s the massive value of the assets under the trio’s control).

It’s marketing. It’s branding.

These big boys want to show you commercials about how green and good they are. They put pressure on the oil companies because they know it’s what gets the media’s attention… and gets folks investing in their funds instead of the competition’s.

They know it’s what brings more dollars to their coffers.

How do we know they don’t really care about this environmental stuff… that it’s all a farce?

How do we know this uber-hypocrisy is destroying America’s economic prosperity?

Well, it’s the facts, darling.

When Chevron backs out of projects because of the ESG headlines they’ll make, the fine folks at PetroChina are the next ones in line. It’s happening all the time… all over the world.

And here’s where our epiphany comes in.

Guess who owns a huge 7% stake in PetroChina…

BlackRock.

And does it put the same emissions pressure on the Chinese company? No.

There’s no marketing value in it… no virtue signaling. And there’s no chance the Chinese company would ever bend to BlackRock’s pressure.

It’s pure hypocrisy that is giving China a massive advantage – cheap oil, fewer regulations and far less of the unfair ESG pressure.

Indeed, hypocrisy makes the world go round.