- Help wanted: ESG controller
- Accounting (with a minor in Environmental Science)
- A triple-threat power tripper faces an “inconvenient truth”
- ESG investing: “compromises and contradictions”
- Nigeria and notes on a naira… TikTok’s “inflection point”… And more!
If you have qualms that AI is coming for all the jobs, you’ll be interested in a novel workplace role: ESG controller.
Since Team Biden and states including California have been running a full-court press toward ESG — environmental, social and governance criteria — companies are scrambling to add key financial officers to their ranks.
Taking a look at LinkedIn, for instance, Citi, the sixth-largest bank in the world, has put out a “help wanted” sign for an “ESG disclosures controller.”
Courtesy: LinkedIn
According to the LinkedIn profile, the right Citi candidate would be a master’s degree holder or, preferably, a CPA.
The job description?
“Responsible for oversight of ESG-related disclosures in our financial and reporting processes for Citi’s SEC filings, as well as information contained in Citi’s publicly available ESG reports,” says LinkedIn.
Concurrently, tech firm Cisco has a few job openings for “ESG finance leaders” who would report to its ESG controller. (Which should not be confused with a “chief sustainability officer” — yet another C-suite extension circa 2020s.)
Fordham University professor and CPA Barbara M. Porco believes the new ESG-related roles will get university students hot-and-bothered for accounting because it “resonates with students… it’s something that talks to their own personal goals.”
Professor Porco says blithely: “Students may begin to think: So you mean to tell me that if I go into the accounting profession, I need to understand environmental and social issues?” (Emphasis ours.)
Heh, be that as it may, one eco-elite fixture could really use an ESG controller PDQ.
Former Vice President Al Gore is coming face-to-face with his own inconvenient truth: Eco-sustainability plus capitalism is… complicated.
Namely, the fly in the ointment for Gore is the Generation Investment Management firm he co-founded in 2004, which Crunchbase describes as “a private equity firm that specializes in integrated sustainability research and client alignment.”
Predictably, the largest of Generation’s eight funds collapsed 28% in 2022 — notably worse than the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) that slumped 18% last year.
“There’s another, potentially more consequential issue,” says Bloomberg. “Despite Generation’s focus on environmental, social and governance… companies that make up almost half the holdings of its largest, $26.4 billion fund have increased their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in recent years…
Source: Twitter
Gore’s apoplectic sermonizing at Davos 2023: “Who cares if our children and grandchildren curse us and ask, ‘What in God’s name were you thinking? You had the ability to stop this hell on Earth!’”
“Last year’s losses, along with the growing carbon footprint of some of Generation’s holdings, highlight just how messy sustainable investing can be — and raise an uncomfortable question…
“If Gore and his partners struggle to deliver on lofty environmental and financial goals, can anyone?” Bloomberg frets. (Remember Betteridge’s law?)
So the rub for ESG investors: The goal is to make money, right? By investing in companies that grow. (Granted, in a “sustainable” way.) But growth requires more and more energy — across the board.
It’s these “compromises and contradictions that make it tough to measure the effectiveness of ESG investing more broadly,” Bloomberg acknowledges.
Ahh, but by one measure ESG investing is easy to quantify. “Sustainable funds in the U.S. — including ETFs and mutual funds — shed $6.2 billion in last year’s fourth quarter,” says an article at ETF.com.
Source: Strategas
Outflows from ESG ETFs alone comprised $2.1 billion during the fourth quarter of 2022.
“That seems like a bad deal, especially in what is a very investor-friendly industry/vehicle,” says Todd Sohn of Strategas. “What defines an ESG stock still seems up in the air…
“As for ESG overall,” Sohn says, “the structural issues… haven’t been fixed.” But that makes zero difference to control freaks and power trippers worldwide.
Mainly because eco-elites like Al Gore — with a net worth of $320 million — consider losing 28% of an investment a “little blip” (his words). Not so much for the rest of us serfs..
And you should know, in a matter of days, a series of new regulations authorized by Team Biden are scheduled to go into effect. Once they do, the stock market will never be the same.
If any of your money is tied up in the market, these new regulations are set to have a direct impact on which stocks you invest in and what taxes you’ll pay on those investments.
If you’re caught unawares, you will likely suffer serious consequences. That’s why we encourage you to attend Jim Rickards’ upcoming “Counterstrike Summit” on Monday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. ET.
During this LIVE event, Jim is going to expose you to what he believes is the most brazen attack on capitalism he’s seen in 40-plus years of economics and finance. Reserve your spot, with one click, today.
The stock market is in the red today… Of the three major U.S. indexes, the Nasdaq has lost the most, down 0.50% to 12,000. At the same time, the Dow is down 100 points, hovering just under 34,000; the S&P 500 is down 0.45% to 4,130.
Crude is moving sideways, at the time of writing — a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is priced at $78.66. But gold is getting a little traction, up $7.60 per ounce to $1,852.90, and silver is up 0.85% to $21.70. (Just for kicks, we mention that copper is up over 3%… while palladium is up about 6%.)
Crypto, you ask? Doing dandy today. Bitcoin is approaching $25,000, the highest level since August 2022, and Ethereum is above $1,700. According to CNBC, inflows into the crypto market in the last 24 hours total $85 billion. It’s a real thumb in the eye for pro-regulation Gensler’s SEC.
As for the major economic numbers today, the Commerce Department’s PPI report shows retail sales in January, up 3%, blew economists’ projected 1.8% increase out of the water. It’s also a massive increase from December’s decline of 1.1%.
Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reports the number of housing permits was cooler than anticipated in January — 4.5% below December’s revised number, in fact. And the Philly Fed, which measures manufacturing activity in the Mid-Atlantic region, is ice-cold. February’s reading at -24.3 is way, way worse than the number wonks had in mind (-7.8).
Now, for more war on cash-related news…
“People in Nigeria have taken to sleeping outside banks,” BBC reports.
“A lack of newly designed naira notes has led to a cash shortage and a growing sense of anxiety among those desperate to get hold of their money in a country where 40% of the population don’t have bank accounts”…
“I have not eaten today,” says 36-year old construction worker Abraham Osundiran who missed work for several days because he didn’t have cash to pay for a taxi. “I’ve had to skip breakfast so I could come to [the bank], and I don’t know what I will eat for the rest of the day.”
Mr. Osundiran, unfortunately, is not alone. “Nigerians were told last October that the old notes were being replaced with new notes and they were encouraged to deposit any cash savings in the bank,” the BBC adds.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it redesigned the higher-denomination notes –- 200, 500 and 1,000 naira — to replace the dirty cash in circulation, to tackle inflation, curb counterfeiting and promote a cashless society.” (Emphasis ours.)
Promote a cashless society in a country where 40% of the population is unbanked?!? Just… What the hell?
With a February deadline to deposit cash — plus, a presidential election this month — riots have broken out throughout Nigeria.
“Rioters have attacked bank ATMs and blocked roads in three Nigerian cities as anger spilled on the streets over a scarcity of cash,” The Guardian says.
Because of the looming election, the opposition Peoples Democratic party (PDP) blames the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party for sowing seeds of discontent. “Although the people are dissatisfied with the naira scarcity, the APC capitalized… and instigated hoodlums and thugs to cause violence in the city,” a local government spokesperson alleges.
“Nigeria’s election on Feb. 25 has been described as pivotal to the progress of democracy in Africa,” the article notes, “where military coups and attempts by long-standing rulers to cling to power have raised fears of a ‘democratic retreat’ from advances made since the end of the Cold War.”
Nic Cheeseman, a professor at the University of Birmingham, calls Nigeria a “bellwether country.” He says. “If the election is successful and seen to be democratic, that is going to be a big shot in the arm for democracy more generally across Africa … but the opposite is also true.”
“It feels like an inflection point for this new news media ecosphere,” says Paul Matzko of the Cato Institute.
Specifically, Mr. Matzko addresses TikTok’s ascendance, with 10% of adults reporting the app is their go-to news source. “That figure jumps to 26% for adults under 30,” a Wired article reports.
And the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in particular, has captured the imaginations of TikTok-ers. “The disaster, in a town of fewer than 5,000 people, didn’t dominate mainstream news coverage,” the article continues.
“People have insisted there’s a media blackout at play. Some, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, have taken to social media to slam the national news for failing to cover the disaster.”
Which has left a vacuum for social media to fill, including engineer Nick Drombosky who says: “The nature of TikTok is so unique, that me — essentially, on paper, just a guy in my home office reading what’s going on — I was able to reach millions of people.”
“This has always been happening,” says Cato Institute’s Paul Matzko, “TikTok creators commenting on local news stories.
“What’s interesting is we’ve got a feedback loop. The felt lack of reporting is commented on by TikTok creators, which then has led to more reporting by traditional media outlets.”
Not sure how to feel about this… In one sense, we might be witnessing the democratization of media. On the other hand, social media might be playing into the hands of corporate media, directing the news they air. More airtime, more eyeballs, more ad revenue. Your thoughts?
On that conundrum, we bid you a good day. We’ll be back at it tomorrow…
Best regards,
Emily Clancy
The 5 Min. Forecast
