by Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse
West Virginia had been the tip of the spear since early 2021 {link} removing Blackrock in January of 2022, and even removed banking contracts from multiple investment firms during the battle and asked other states to join in the effort {link}.
Today, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced the DeSantis administration would be following the lead from West Virginia.
[FLORIDA] – […] State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced Thursday that Florida will immediately freeze about $1.43 billion in long-term securities and about $600 million in short-term overnight investments managed by BlackRock because of the firm’s use of “Environmental, Social, and Governance” standards — known as ESG.
Patronis in a prepared statement said he doesn’t “trust BlackRock’s ability to deliver” and “BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is on a campaign to change the world.”
“Whether stakeholder capitalism, or ESG standards, are being pushed by BlackRock for ideological reasons, or to develop social credit ratings, the effect is to avoid dealing with the messiness of democracy,” Patronis said.
Republican leaders in Florida and across the country have targeted ESG ratings, which can involve considering a wide range of issues in investments, such as companies’ climate-change vulnerabilities; carbon emissions; racial inequality; product safety; supply-chain labor standards; privacy and data security; and executive compensation.
Patronis said the state Department of Financial Services oversees about $60 billion and that the money with BlackRock will be moved “elsewhere.” (read more)
As part of the ongoing 2024 positioning effort,…
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