This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

Recent Supreme Court decisions damage the international reputation of the US. On June 24, the Court, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , upheld a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exception for rape or incest. The decision strikes down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.  In West Virginia v. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA ) prevents the agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, a core mission and task of the EPA. The regulation questioned concerns carbon dioxide generated by power plants — in the middle of increased global efforts to reduce these emissions. This case was based on the Clean Power Plan, a plan to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants that was never implemented. Biden tried to have the case dismissed since the policy at issue was not operational nor was it being resurrected. The Court ruled anyway. The EPA decision will have the added impact of limiting the ability of the US government to addr...

Black women die in childbirth at disproportionate rates compared to their white counterparts. Research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) clearly shows that social determinants - access to nutrition, transportation, and healthcare——are crucial factors. With the decision to restrict access to birth control and care, the Supreme Court imposed additional penalties on a selected portion of the US population - Black women. They were added without due process or a trial at the individual level. These elevated risks are clear and undeniable, as explained below. Assume two population groups or sectors. In Sector One, women die in childbirth at the rate of ten per 1,000 live births. In Sector Two, the maternal mortality rate is 100 per 1,000 live births. With the elimination of birth control, there are 2,000 live births in each sector. This implies 20 Sector One deaths and 200 in Sector Two. Amanda Stevenson, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, ...

We note that, according to the minutes of the March 15-16 2022 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the Federal Reserve Board "reached consensus..that they would begin reducing the central bank balance sheet by $95 billion a month, likely beginning in May. There also were strong indications that half-percentage point, or 50 basis point, interest rate increases are ahead." This action is consistent with past policy errors: on July 15, 2015, Janet Yellen, then Chair of the Federal Reserve stated that "the Fed's concerns about inflation limit its ability to address high African-American unemployment."  This is indicative of the continuing inability of Fed policy makers to successfully balance social and financial policy when social policy goals do not serve the interest of non-minority, non-wealthy populations. As the Fed itself noted "the..balance sheet has grown to $8.9 trillion from $8.1 trillion in July, reflecting continued net asset purchases of...

We have requested the Fed, SEC, FDIC, OCC, and CFPB initiate rulemaking to create "transparency and accountability for corporate Black Lives Matter (BLM) pledges." The picture above is from  https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb iZ8MBppWI/  The Problem with Jon Stewart. For more, see:  https://www.prlog.org/12911485-creative-investment-research-requests-federal-agencies-hold-corporations-accountable-for-blm-pledges.html  

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. plans to auction off a controlling stake in Birmingham, Alabama-based Alamerica Bank on Wednesday, a move that could result in Alamerica passing out of minority ownership. While a preliminary bidder’s list included several large Black-owned banks, it also included some non-minority bidders. Founded in January 2000, the $15.4 million-asset Alamerica is the smallest of the 17 remaining Black-owned banks in the United States. According to William Michael Cunningham, CEO at Creative Investment Research and an authority on Black-owned banks, the FDIC-owned shares were used as security for a $4 million loan from Silverton Bank. They passed into the FDIC’s possession following Atlanta-based Silverton’s failure in May 2009. The FDIC “certainly has the right to do this,” Cunningham said Tuesday, but he called it troubling that Alamerica might wind up outside the minority banking sector as a result of the auction. “If Alamerica is no longer Black-owned, that c...

According to our BLM Tracker, American corporations have pledged $60 billion in memory of George Floyd, mainly to support Black businesses and communities. One year later, we can only identify roughly $250 million in actual dollars spent.  Also see: Request the Commission develop mandatory rules for public companies to disclose high-quality, comparable, decision-useful information concerning BLM Pledge fulfillment.  https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-774/4-774.htm BLACK LIVES MATTER: CORPORATE AMERICA HAS PLEDGED $1.678 BILLION SO FAR. June 10, 2020. https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-lives-matter-corporate-america-has-pledged-1-678-billion-so-far/ Valuable Changemaking for Remote Washington Semester Program Interns. https://www.american.edu/news/20200825-washington-semester-program.cfm Six Companies Account for 70% of Corporate Black Lives Matter Pledges. https://youtu.be/t7aqn7oGGj0 $50 Billion And A Year Later The World Still Searches For Accountability After George Floyd’s ...