ESG and Woke Madness – What’s Next?

It’s been a bloodbath for the majority of companies that go overtly woke in the new era of American consumer rebellion, and the establishment is not happy. Corporations like Disney, Anheuser-Busch and Target are plunging in profits and losing billions in market cap after pledging fealty to the trans agenda. In particular, the public is setting out to make examples of institutions that support trans indoctrination of children. Simply put, a line in the sand has been crossed.

ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) is becoming a well known term and is, at bottom, a form of “impact investing” – Meaning, major lenders such as Blackrock or Carlyle Group, or think-tanks like the Ford Foundation, seek to control societal outcomes using lending as leverage.

But what happens in a world where consumer loyalty is no longer a guarantee and the public stops buying from chains that promote woke concepts? What happens when going woke also means going broke? Is ESG cash really worth losing half your customers or more?

Twenty years ago, the name of the game in the business world was “brand building.” If you could build your brand and gain market loyalty you could sustain your profit model for decades to come. Now, corporations are actually willing to destroy the very brands they spent so much time and money developing all in the name of political idolatry.

It seems like pure madness, but what if they know something we don’t? What if they are riding out an engineered economic crisis so that they can be rewarded later with “too woke to fail” riches?

Maybe international banks are limited in how they engage in ESG lending, but what about central banks? What if they drop their facade of being “politically neutral” and come out full force in support of the woke mind virus? What if central banks become the foundation of ESG? Wouldn’t woke lending then become perpetual?

I believe that this is exactly what is intended to happen, but it would have to be tied directly to an economic crisis as well as the introduction of digital currencies (CBDCs).  A debt crisis (along with stagflation) could force a majority of companies into a corner. With lack of funds, falling consumer spending and a tightening loan market, central banks and stimulus measures would once again become the only official mechanism for rebuilding the economy.

This would explain why so many corporations are refusing to back away from woke marketing even though they’re losing millions of customers; they know what’s about to happen and they’re preparing in advance for the fallout as well as the inevitable digital bailouts.

I am afraid ESG is not going away on its own. Woke ideology is not going away on its own. These structures will have to be destroyed, but you can’t rebel against a structure you rely on for your daily survival. You would first have to completely separate from it.

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Ziad K. Abdelnour, Wall Street financier, trader and author is President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a private family office that backs accomplished operating executives in growing their businesses both organically and through acquisitions and trades physical commodities – mostly oil derivatives – throughout the world.