This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

After causing the 2008 (and, arguably the 2020) financial crises, moderate- and low-income citizens bailed out large financial institutions. They did so again in 2019 and 2020.  When all individual transactions are summed across all Federal Reserve credit facilities, a total of $29 trillion dollars was spent, including $16.41 trillion to 14 larger financial institutions. This includes bailing out Goldman Sachs, a firm with a record of unethical behavior: https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_698.pdf    Now, THIS was truly unfair. Forgiving a small portion of student loans is not. As to the claim that somehow bailing out banks (and companies via PPP loans) is required, this is false. In 2008 and 2020, “gains..were captured disproportionately by the recipient banks” and their management in the form of bonus compensation.  95% of the benefit went to people making over $250,000 a year. They “ended up getting a subsidy to the tune of” trillions of dollars.  Likewis...

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), passed by the 117th Congress and signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, will have a significant impact on the African American community. We estimate the initial economic impact to be $22.322 billion over nine years, 4.5% of $490 billion in spending and tax rebates, with much of the benefit going to Black women. Details Increased Health Insurance: Black Americans are much less likely to be covered by health insurance than whites. [1] This law has the potential to address this disparity. If successful, this provision will have the largest social and economic impact of any provision in the law by increasing health care, life expectancy and, consequently, years worked and income. This provision may lower the economic impact of health issues in the Black community. We estimate the initial impact to be $6.4 billion. Lowered Prescription Drug Pricing: We estimate the initial Medicare prescription drug benefit to have an initi...

  According to an article in Black Enterprise Magazine, "Columbus, Ohio’s largest city and capital, could become home to a Black-owned bank if leaders can make it happen. Adelphi Bank founder Jordan Miller said it is talking with 'high net-worth individuals and institutions in Central Ohio as it seeks to raise the initial $20 million, ' according to Columbus Business First. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted approval subject to conditions in May for the startup." See:  https://www.blackenterprise.com/proposed-black-bank-aims-to-raise-20-million-to-open-an-effort-that-could-reverse-trend-of-such-banks-closing/

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a law passed by the 117th United States Congress in August 2022. It "includes a first-time provision that would allow the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate prices of certain prescription drugs in Medicare and Medicaid. Savings would be generated by requiring drug manufacturers to pay a rebate for drugs whose prices increase faster than inflation under Medicare, and would create several reforms in the Medicare drug program, also known as Part D, including a cap on out-of-pocket drug spending for seniors beginning in 2025. It also extends by three years the expanded and enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credit ahead of planned premium increases set to take effect in 2023." We estimate the impact on the African American community to be significant, on the order of 8% of the total. (For a detailed analysis, email info@creativeinvest.com). The law's climate provisions consist of "subsidies for energy that...

               Recently, The Economist Magazine  published an article arguing that the effort to increase the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of corporations and businesses is deeply flawed. The article suggested many reasons ESG is not effective and proposed an alternative they believed would better serve the purpose of improving the environment. However, when analyzing the methods promoted by The Economist , a more effective approach to dealing with these issues is not presented.               The first point that the article makes in arguing against the effort is that ESG is too confusing. The author believes there are too many ESG objectives and that the multiplicity of commercial, business and social goals makes it difficult for firms to know what to do. The article states that ESG provides “no coherent guide” to the trade-offs that busi...