Posted on 03/21/2023 8:11:31 AM PDT by Twotone
Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced the addition of banking giant HSBC to his list of firms deemed to be "boycotting" energy companies and therefore subject to divestment of state funds.
Hegar said the bank's updated policy restricting financing of oil and natural gas was cause for its addition to the list, which brings Texas's blacklist to a total of 11 global financial firms, including investment giant BlackRock.
“HSBC’s new energy policy is a prime example of a broader movement in the financial sector to push a social agenda and prioritize political goals over the economic health of their clients. HSBC’s policy clearly makes the firm a suitable candidate for listing under Texas law," Hegar said in a statement Monday.
HSBC announced in December that it will no longer finance new oil and gas ventures because of climate change. The bank and many of its peers have adopted similar policies in recent years to either limit or phase out investments in fossil fuel ventures, or otherwise to preference investments in renewable energy sources.
Republican-led states have taken issue with such policies, characterizing them as a "boycott" of traditional energy sources, and sought to punish banks and fund managers for implementing ESG-related measures in the name of climate change mitigation.
Texas law includes investment prohibitions and divestment requirements for state funds entrusted to firms on Hegar's list. The state is the predominant producer of oil and gas in the U.S.
Some of the firms targeted by red states, including BlackRock, continue to finance new oil and gas ventures and have disputed Republicans' characterizations of their policies.
Proponents of policies such as HSBCs argue the banking sector must limit new fossil fuel financing in order to constrain greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming in check.
HSBC doesn’t want fossil fuels? Okay the board can stop taking medication, using plastic, eating non-organic food, flying, driving, owning a car...
They can all walk. I dumped this bank 30 years ago.
Great idea, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Add all firms practicing ESG.
and don’t just divest state funding from them. Inform them they’d better staff up on internal auditors and lawyers because the state audits of their businesses are going to be absolutely brutal every single year they remain in the state. In fact, its likely they will lose their banking charters in the state.
Get every other red state to do the same. Being run out of 20-25 states will get their attention.
“state audits of their businesses are going to be absolutely brutal every single year”
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Don’t inform them, BLINDSIDE them.
That is happening.
And similar efforts are happening in NY and Kali that make it illegal for their public money or business to go to institutions that fund Oil & Gas companies or the NRA and Sturm Ruger.
A lot of companies are going to get run out of a lot of states for a lot of reasons before this has run its course.
Yes. That's what Cuomo did in very thuggish fashion when he was still Governor of New York. Basically "nice bank you have there.....it'd be a shame if the state's auditors came in and found all sorts of violations and you were fined to oblivion or thrown out of the state". So they caved and gave him what he wanted which was to push that ESG crap.
OK. Two can play at that game. "How'd you like to get tossed out of Texas, Florida, etc etc? No? You don't want that? OK, then you WILL immediately do a complete 180 on all the ESG stuff. Otherwise we will find the violations that enable us to pull your banking charter in our states."
“Add all firms practicing ESG.”
And check the mutual funds you own to see if they have bought into the scam.
Nice to hear Texas standing up to this nonsense.
And cash will have to be delivered to and from their branches by horse drawn stagecoaches.
HSBC was literally started as a drug smuggling bank. The Hong Kong, Shanghai Banking company... started to facilitate the opium trade the British were forcing at gunpoint on China.
Was still involved with the drug cartels up until very recently. They were very big into money laundering and in bed with Sinaloa.
“Lax money laundering controls at HSBC allowed two cartels - one each in Mexico and Colombia - to move $881 million in drug proceeds through the bank over the second half of the last decade, according to prosecutors and federal court documents.
So rampant was the practice, prosecutors said, that on some days drug traffickers deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars at HSBC Mexico accounts. To speed things along, the criminals even designed “specially shaped boxes” that fit the size of teller windows at HSBC branches, according to the documents.”
Then they brought in James Comey. Now they are supposedly clean. lol
HSBC is the entity that bought all SVB assets in the UK for———$1.21 US dollars——1 British POUND.
Need fossil fuels to Deliver the hay to the horse breeders.
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