DeSantis Takes a Stand Against “Woke” Banks and their Political Manipulations
Governor DeSantis of Florida was giving a speech at a Moms for Liberty event. Right in the middle of this, the crowd received emails that PayPal had frozen the accounts and they could not receive donations.
I’m thinking DeSantis was a bit pissed off about this.
DeSantis has announced legislation for the 2023 Legislative Session that will take a stand against banks and fund managers using the “woke” environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG). The ESG criteria are used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments. It will:
– Prohibit big banks, credit card companies and money transmitters from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs.
– Prohibit State Board of Administration (SBA) fund managers from considering ESG factors when investing the state’s money.
– Require SBA fund managers to only consider maximizing the return on investment on behalf of Florida’s retirees.
After the Governor’s announcement, Paypal, without explanation, turn the accounts of Moms for Liberty back on.
Here are some comments from the Governor:
“Do we govern ourselves through our constitution and through our elections or do we have these masters of the universe occupying these commanding heights of society?”
“They’re using things like social credit scores to be able to marginalize people that they don’t like,”
“Do we want our society to be governed by some of the most economically elite and powerful interests in society?” DeSantis asked. “And I think our economy is going to be much better off if everything is not politicized. It used to be it wasn’t a political issue.”
The governor said these criteria are used to target “disfavored” individuals and industries to advance a “woke” ideological agenda.
Banks, credit cards and money transfer services “should not be colluding with one another to marginalize people that they have political disagreements with. That is not the way you can run an economy effectively.”
If DeSantis does indeed get this passed, it sets an example for other states and will likely be adopted where Republicans hold power.
PayPal Unfreezes Moms for Liberty Funds After DeSantis Announces Crackdown on ‘Woke’ Banking
DeSantis plans to fight ‘woke ideology’ of Paypal and other financial services
This is pretty funny and chances are yet another DeSantis political stunt that will get him national press and hurt Floridians in the wallet just like the Disney decision. It’s pretty simple and basic really.
Ask yourself this: on one side, DeSantis doesn’t want to invest in certain companies because of their environmental and political stance.
On the other side, DeSantis only wants his money managers to make decisions based on bottom line ROA and not based on political ideologies.
Doesn’t this, by definition, create an investment strategy based on political ideologies guaranteeing that you can not get the highest ROA? I know that, but given the extra scrutiny and research over these issues, what the cost of acquisition rise? It has to. Practically, it has to guarantee less ROA unless no environmentally conscious or a liberal organization can make a buck and the cost of the research determining which companies are “woke” safe is free. Can’t be. .
I’ll give you an example, working the other way, that I learned on this website. I was talking about investing in first energy knowing that electric bills would go up this summer given the heatwave. Pretty basic stuff. Somewhere along the line and talking about West Virginia, I determined that first energy not only produces most of the power in that state, but most of it is based on to coal plants. Like 90%. Now, I am an advocate for less coal, would I pull my investment because of that? Considering the thousands of dollars I just made in dividends last week, I don’t think so. After we enter the fourth quarter and the revenues from the heat wave are realized, do you think a Desantis would hold the stock based on political reasons? Of course not. I am interested in ROA, the highest one I can get. How much time would it cost me to figure out the walk nature or unlock nature of any company, much less a mutual stock. It’s ridiculous, I would never waste my time this way. As long as it’s legal, politics and religion don’t factor, at least 99% of the time. I own gun stocks, big oil, nukies, cigarettes, pot, and many other that may be distasteful to my social issues, which I do not invest the time to factor in my business decisions. DeSantis does and, by definition, Florida has to lose. Just like they did on the Disney decision. That’s the bottom line. This is just a political stunt so DeSantis can get some national press at Florida’s expense. Maybe you should worry about all the people dying from Covid down there, still, like no other state in the union
The left canceled people who don’t kiss their ass. What’s the difference?
Well, they are people. And what the status is talking about, our businesses.
One is a business and the other would be a person.
Frank as they say you can’t fix stupid. If you live in Florida please move to California, Washington or Oregon where your type belongs.
Thanks for the advise, but FL is a nice place to visit, at least used to be, but I would never live there. Too flat. Nope, I’m is NJ where we accept all kinds.
I feel sorry for folks who hate diversity and just want to be left alone, with “their own kind,” and tend to hate anyone else. So boring.
Frank, Frank, Frank – is there anything that someone could say which would shut off your computer for “a spell” (as they’d say in the deep south). Your tirades are repetitive and tiresome. Come on down to Florida on a one-way ticket. After we teach you how to wrestle alligators, you won’t be able to leave from the excitement.
You couldn’t get me to the worst covid state in America for a zillion bucks, but thanks for the threat. I will back off cuz I am so afraid of my anonymous self being anonymously attacked by a covid-carrying, homophobic hobbling, woke-bashing, anti-everything anonymous victimized whiner.
Anytime you want to really take on the tirades, argue the facts, feel free. Until then, keep baying at the moon but veiled threats by an anonymous fool to another anonymous fool, seems pretty tepid to me.
If you make financial decisions based on who’s woke and who’s not woke, again, it’s just practical logic that you cannot achieve the highest possible return on investments or ROI. That was my point, politics and profit are mutually exclusive. It doesn’t matter which way you lean.
You guys can applaud biased financial decisions, you can make financial decisions based on bias, but you cannot maximize ROI based on bias.
The DeSantis decision grants him some great national press and, by definition, less return on investment for Floridians. Period. It’s just basic business 101 that if you limit your investment choices, odds are you will not maximize profits.
And the left still tries to cancel businesses because of political differences. And try to force conservative college students out of school. You still haven’t explained the difference. It’s either march in lock step with liberal idiots or suffer the consequences. But, thankfully, there’s many of us who will cancel them if they fuck with us. We all have a right to pick and choose what we believe in
OK, try to retain your focus on the topic.. Instead of whataboutism, the thread is about the recent DeSantis threat to legislate investment and purchasing decisions based on political agendas.
You can go to a thread regarding all these other issues if you would like.
Anyone can vote with their wallet anytime they want. The left can do it. The right can do it. People can do it who are woke. People who can do it who are racist. It is legal to vote with your wallet. But is has nothing to do with this
Whatever the hell you’re talking about with Wuk college decisions, if it’s legal OK, if it’s not legal it’s not OK. In any case, it has nothing to do with this. Unless you’re doing this for revenge for something else, which isn’t the most sound investment practice either.
I would gather what DeSantis wants to do is also legal. The fact remains that his decision, when implemented, will not maximize profits. It will reduce the choices to invest in profitable companies. It will reduce the ability for Floridians to diversify their investments and that adds risk to the portfolio. It will also add cost to the investment process. So you have a potential for less money coming in, more risk through less diversification, and you have investment cost going up.
I don’t think there’s much way to get around these factors. So, Floridians lose and DeSantis wins, at least on the national stage. It looks smokin
Do you know what to call a pregnant slave? BOGOF. Buy one get one free.
What does participants getting frozen account notices have to do with banks being “woke” or DeSantis trying to regulate free investment by the banks? Most likely, the activities at his rally triggered some sort of fraud alert. Either, DeSantis or Moms for Liberty were processing too many deposits to quickly, or they were processing deposits incorrectly, or maybe they somehow had a data breach. Maybe they created that account during the event and immediately took funds from so many sources that it looked like a Russian fraud account. Hell, maybe their accounts are banked in Russia and Paypal won’t convert to rubles. For that matter, DeSantis may have compromised a bunch of accounts on purpose just for his little “woke bank” stunt.
It’s unlikely that Paypal would have cut off deposits because of politics. But it’s par for the course for DeSantis to try to score some political or propaganda points.
The accounts were frozen because they are a conservative group. This happens constantly, organizations are punished for their conservative viewpoints. Facebook does it, Google does it, Twitter does it, Amazon does it.
Fraud? Who said anything about fraud? Certainly Paypal had no reason to suspect that. They had been processing payments for them for a year.
Actually, we don’t really know if the PayPal accounts were frozen or unfrozen. We really don’t know that if they were frozen, that it was because they were a conservative group, versus some sort of action like F noted. There is a lot of he said, she said, in this.
We do know that the DeSantis reaction will limit funding choices for Florida’s investments. And that restrictions limit investment choices. And limiting investment choices costs money to research, results in lower investment diversity, and probably lower roi. The converse of only investing in esg compliant funds and companies would do the same.
The fact that the fund freeze concerned $4500 would lead one to believe that the DeSantis move has little to do with this fund freeze and is more likely a political stunt taking advantage of the small problem.
The fact remains, that liberals brains do not function correctly. There is something seriously wrong in their brains. All of there ideas are idiotic, yet it has to be their way, or they will work to destroy you. And, the really weird thing is that, they are all equally messed up and function as a hive mind. If they are not kept somewhat in check, they will destroy the entire planet. They are actually doing a pretty good job of that right now. If we could find a cure for liberalism, most of the worlds problems would simply go away; not all but most. This is simply reality, but the liberal brain tells liberals that they are the smart ones. They are missing common sense, every single one of them, so they are a danger to themselves and the whole world. If you put all liberals on an island that was flowing with milk and honey, they would ruin it and they would all die because there was no one there with common sense.
First, we know EXACTLY why the Paypal accounts were frozen for the simple reason that they dragged their feet in responding. This is in common with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.
Second, DeSantis is starting a war. The ESG proponents are the ones who are limiting choices, not DeSantis. And if DeSantis wins then EVERYONE will have greater choices not just the investment options chosen those “woke” fund managers.
And this is not a small problem. It is corruption at the multi trillion dollar level.
Joe, you offer no evidence except your own opinions. You say: “The accounts were frozen because they are a conservative group. This happens constantly, organizations are punished for their conservative viewpoints. Facebook does it, Google does it, Twitter does it, Amazon does it.” This thread is about finance, I doubt twitter applies. Probably not Amazon either. Later you conclude: “First, we know EXACTLY why the Paypal accounts were frozen for the simple reason that they dragged their feet in responding. This is in common with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon……….And this is not a small problem. It is corruption at the multi trillion dollar level.” Foot dragging equals guilt of wrongful account freezing — interesting correlation, but BUSTED. Not necessarily true, it’s your conjecture. Not even a logical connection.
Wait — the Russians wrongfully detained Brittany because they are foot dragging the punishment out to nine years in narcotics trafficking’s for .70 grams of medicinal hash oil in a vape tube. Proof positive using Joe’s foot-dragging correlation conspiracy connection. Maybe you’re on to something here :>)
It was a $4,500 account, and a few donor auto pays. Paypal says paperwork, MOM says not. DeSantis made speech. They unfroze immediately in days, not exactly feet dragging. That’s what the facts are I believe, although hard to say with all the FUD. No one knows if there is a connection, why they where frozen, etc. except for Tucker Carlson who probably sees Paypal pedophilia here too. You have opinions and conjectures including that conservatives are constant victims in this. What is the this you refer too? I really doubt DeSantis did this for MOM, he has been heading this direction for six months. He is grandstanding. I doubt Paypal reacted because of DeSantis; in you opinionated mind, wouldn’t that be a red flag to progressives if they did bend to DeSantis?
Then you say: “Second, DeSantis is starting a war. The ESG proponents are the ones who are limiting choices, not DeSantis. And if DeSantis wins then EVERYONE will have greater choices not just the investment options chosen those “woke” fund managers.” Yes, DeSantis is waging a war, the war to gain the nomination that CPAC wants Trump to have. He’s waging a culture war, not for FL citizens, but for DeSantis be become President. Hes’ goin national baby. No, DeSantis is limiting FL investment choices, that’s what a ban does Joe. You know that already but can’t admit it given your opinion clash with logic and truth. And yes, as I noted before, following ESG limits choices too so those who ONLY purchase from ESG-approved companies, if you can even find one in the US, would be limited too. The reason I say “if you can find one is that there is no US ESG seal of a approval yet, I believe. I say, I believe in that I choose not to look and am not limited by either to ESG or to not ESG, I don’t even ask the question.
And then you seem to fabricate: “And this is not a small problem. It is corruption at the multi trillion dollar level.” Prove that one Joe, whatever you think you mean. Put on that tin foil hat and prove this one. I’ll take a trillion dollar example, you don’t even have to go the multi…….
It’s not my “opinion” its my experience and my research. You make these comments because you have no idea what you are talking about. Yes, twitter, yes, amazon.
As for the trillion dollar problem? Well, let’s see. As one of the reference articles says, Blackrock and Vanguard control multiple trillions in investments. They are forcing (their definition of) ESG on everyone. Which limits profitable opportunities. How is it you don’t understand this?
Getting testy? Blackrock and Vanguard control multiple trillions in investments, yet it’s not in your article nor either of the sources you link. I am sure you saw it, but you sure can’t pinpoint it….yet. Keep trying.
Blackrock does manage $10T in assets of which $500B is ESG companies.
Vanguard does manage $7.5T in assets of which less than $400B is ESG companies.
Do you really think they are forcing ESG at the cost of trillions of non ESG assets? It’s less than 5% of their assets.
You need more experience and better research. And how about a sorry, I’ wrong.
Deplorable Lanie: nope, your point is the point I was making. Anyone who limits their investment selection based on ESG — for or against — will 1) increase investment risk though lack of diversification 2) increase cost to figure out who’s ESG or not, and 3) limit their investment choices which risks a lesser return.
I agree, the goal is ROI, ROA, whatever — it’s the return. To be the best, one should select based on that across the field of legal choices, IMO. DeSantis is saying he will restrict those choices based on ideology. That’s fine, people do that for ESG as well. But restrictions means less choice, less choice means less chance of maximizing profit, and less choice means extra cost to figure out who’s bad and who’s good. There is more profit downside in his plan than upside. But FL conservatives can feel better, liberals can feel worse, Joe gets to print a story, but in the end —- investment ain’t about feelings, it’s not about ideology, it’s about money and capitalism and that means maximize your profits while reducing your risks.
Conservatives insist all the time that “they’re out to get us”… That’s more than a little paranoid. And given the typical viewpoints expressed by your conservative contributors, I would add schizophrenic to the diagnosis.
The very people you accuse of targeting conservatives, are the ultra-conservatives themselves, bankers, credit card companies, hell, the whole conservative establishment. Organizations that control “trillions” of dollars of investments don’t fuck around with other peoples’ money. They are, by definition, VERY CONSERVATIVE, because anything else will land them in jail faster than they can plead “no, really, we’re conservatives”.
As for your “studies” and “research” that you mention below, yeah, we all know that you only surf the most far right sources you can find. It’s destroying your brain. You can’t make a logical argument without pulling in the unsubstantiated right-wing rhetoric.
I think Frank has missed the point! Gov DeSantis was saying, I think, that he does not want banks or investment managers to choose investments based on the ESG but only on ROI. Which makes sense to me. I don’t want my investment manager to choose my investments based on some weird ESG criteria, I only want him to choose based on the ROI. I don’t really care what the business is, if the ROI makes sense then great. IF it is green energy, fine. If it is coal based energy, fine. If it is nuclear energy, fine. If it is precious metals, fine. I plain don’t care as long as it is making me money. I don’t have the luxury that perhaps some have, to be picky about the business I invest in. As long as they are not doing something criminal, I plain don’t care. And I think that is what Gov DeSantis was saying. That if Pay Pal actually turned off Moms for Liberty BECAUSE of their “ESG” that is NOT ok! That is what I took from it.
The market also is a check against investments that people think of as immoral or illegal. If an investor thinks that 70% of the population is against coal and for solar power, he might invest long term for solar power on the reasoning that popular opinion or pollution concerns will drive down coal prices in the long run. THAT is what DeSantis is trying to do – take away free investment decisions that might, for legitimate reasons, go against the backwards policies of the Republican Party.
Joe just can’t see basic logic:
– there is no way that a subset of the entire set of available US investments would be more profitable than the entire set.
– to determine the subset costs time and money, lowering your profits.
– the subset that DeSantis is so, so proudly attacked is 5% of the total set, at least for Blackrock and Vanguard, I am sure it is similar in other financial intuitions.
That’s the crux of the DeSantis defund the esg fund ban.
Paypal account freeze was about ten days, no one knows way, but certainly DeSantis did not fix it. It’s a red herring that DeSantis used to make his play for some national press with another “woke ban.” Floridians will bear the cost. Trumplicants will cheer, others will boo, he’ spend more tax dollars defending in court, a wonderful day for DeSantis, a stunt paid for by Florida. And Joe swills it all in.