The verdict is almost in. You may wake up bankrupt. And there are countless examples.
But there are also powerful leftist forces that continue to pressure companies to join the cultural revolution.
At the top of that scary list are federal agencies mandated by Congress to protect ordinary shareholders.
It’s called the Securities and Exchange Commission, and during Sleepy Joe Biden’s presidency, it has become another tool in the left’s arsenal to wage a culture war against the American people.
The SEC was created following the 1929 stock market crash to protect investors from fraud and ensure markets functioned efficiently.
Under former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Gensler, the company has implemented conscious policies and set a record.
The company is doing this despite strong public – and investor – resistance to corporate progressivism, including its net-zero carbon emissions mantra.
This is the kind of policy-making we expect from hard-core left-wing NGOs, far-left UN officials, and the office of left-wing Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, not investor protection agencies.
But Gensler has taken his cues from all of the above, and because the so-called watchdog group in the business media has largely approved of his use of the SEC as an instrument of public policy, he has escaped punishment.
Again, there is a lot of misconduct going on in the markets these days, but the Gensler Securities and Exchange Commission has a special and strange interest in left-wing dogma, especially when it comes to climate issues.
His calls for companies to disclose details of their carbon emissions are being challenged in court on the grounds that they are costly disclosures and exceed the commission’s parliamentary mandate, which does not include drawing up a plan to tackle climate change for the country.
Undaunted, Gensler is furthering his climate fanaticism in other ways.
One, which can be particularly costly for companies and potentially illegal, involves the so-called corporate proxy process, in which shareholders vote for measures that are said to increase the value of their holdings.
It occurs from spring to early summer, so it should be over by now.
The left has been pushing progressive proxy ideas on shareholders for years now.
President Donald Trump’s SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has tightened up the process, making it harder to stage political stunts.
Gensler and his minions have essentially undone Clayton’s reforms and opened the delegation process to any crazy left-wing proposal by political activists masquerading as shareholders.
These fake investors simply buy a few shares of stock (and I’ve heard they even borrow shares) to further their political aims, and in no time at all, because the SEC allows it, they can put a proposal on the ballot.
It costs companies and shareholders a lot of money to debate the foolish idea of getting oil companies to stop drilling and then there would be no oil companies.
Yes, very stupid.
According to corporate lawyers, this too may be illegal because the authorities cannot enforce what is proposed in the representation process, only how it is proposed, i.e. whether the lawyer lies or not.
The SEC essentially dictates what goes into the proxy statement by giving the green light to left-wing activists for anything.
Don’t dig it, baby, do you dig it?
Recently, one company exposed the SEC’s bluff.
ExxonMobil has sued a left-wing activist investor named Arjuna who added a proposal to drastically cut drilling to the company’s recent proxy, approved by the SEC, and a demand to “put together new plants, targets and timelines” to meet the left’s demands.
It doesn’t matter to the left that such a move would bankrupt Exxon, cause huge inflation for the working class in the form of higher gasoline prices, or not do much for the environment.
The biggest corporate polluters are overseas, namely China and India, countries and corporations that ignore left-wing environmental policies.
Nor do they care that these measures will deliver no value to shareholders – they will only garner media attention and be portrayed as left-wing policies.
In fact, Exxon shareholders have rejected Arjuna’s proposals multiple times, which is another reason why in a world with a low SEC awareness, these proposals would never have been put to a vote in the first place.
When Arjuna teamed up with other activists and tried again, Exxon filed suit in federal court to stop it all.
Last week, a federal judge in Texas dismissed the lawsuit after Arjuna felt it was facing imminent defeat and decided to withdraw its proposal.
This could be a big win for shareholders.
Perhaps, but Arjuna did not go away empty-handed.
I’ve heard it’s very cheap to participate in proxy voting (and get media attention).
For just about $10,000, that’s essentially free advertising sponsored by the SEC.
Arjuna said he doesn’t plan to attack Exxon again, but that others will fill the void.
Economist Jerry Bowyer, who has made significant efforts to track the ecosystem of progressive activist investors over the years, has reported how Israel has become a target for left-wing activists since October 7. Many investors see Israel’s right to exist as an imperialistic pursuit, on par with the war with Hamas, and are using proxy processes to pressure companies to divest from Israel.
You can thank Gary Gensler for this one, too.
Charles Gasparino is the author of the upcoming book “Go Woke, Go Broke: The Inside Story on the Radicalization of Corporate America.”
