Nearly 200 financial institutions have signed-on to the U.N. Finance Initiative’s Principles of Responsible Banking. One of its six core principles is alignment of a bank’s business strategy with, among other things, the Paris Climate Agreement, which has broad implications for the oil and gas industry.
Thirty banks, including the six largest banks, are refusing to work with entire industries because they have cowered to their leftist WOKE masters. This is a dangerous and alarming trend. It’s authoritarianism at its worst.
It includes conservative social media sites like Parler, Brandon Straka, and others hated by progressives, but also oil and gas companies, private prisons, and gun manufacturers.
If you remember, back in 2013, Rahm Emanuel threatened and pressured banks to not do business with gun manufacturers. The same people in charge then are in charge now behind the curtain.
The decisions to refuse services to these industries came from progressive leftist nutjobs. This trend could lead to banks discriminating against any industry that the progressives don’t like at any given minute.
If more banks continue to commit to refusing financial services to the energy industry, our country will be heading for a catastrophe. So far, as one example, six of the largest banks in the United States have already said they will not fund new explorations and production projects in the Arctic.
The Bank of America ruled out financing drilling in the Arctic, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which helped make us energy independent. They were followed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank. They’ve decided they must morally protect the Arctic as if drilling will damage it.
Ben Cushing here is a Sierra Club extremist:
https://twitter.com/bmcushing/status/1333542149191823367?s=20
👀 Important detail in the update to @LananhTNguyen‘s story — a commitment to “net-zero emissions by 2050” would be new for Bank of America.
Morgan Stanley had been the only major US bank with that same pledge so far. That’ll need some follow-up…https://t.co/aTsEDn76yM pic.twitter.com/ungpc7bYuD
— Ben Cushing (@bmcushing) December 1, 2020
THE END OF A LIFESTYLE
Debanking fossil fuel firms will lead to a severe energy shortage in this country.
We already have dangerously low investment commitments for new exploration from energy firms hit hard by historically low oil prices.
Several of the same institutions — as well as others including SunTrust (now Truist) and Bank of America — had earlier announced they would stop lending to operators of privately run prisons, prompted by the attention given to illegal alien detention centers. They want open borders and doing away with these prisons does away with detention.
These companies must spend money on exploration and production projects now to ensure that we have sufficient energy in the future. Even if we continue to expand renewable energy production at high rates, we will still need fossil fuels for power and for industrial production.
However, if you will remember, Biden recently nominated a communist for comptroller who wanted to put all banks under one central bank — the Fed. It’s easier for an authoritarian government to handle. She was knocked out thanks to a few Democrats but his next nominee won’t be much better.
Despite what activists say, if we want to maintain our current lifestyle, let alone improve the circumstances of developing countries, we will need oil and gas for many years to come.
Leftist control of banks means they will also be used as a political weapon.
MOVING AWAY FROM CAPITALISM
This growing trend concerned the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) enough that it decided to weigh in with a proposed rule that essentially says to any national bank of $100 billion and up that is making such decisions: “You can’t do that.”
OCC calls the proposal the “fair access rule.” It doesn’t single out any particular institutions nor the U.N.’s list of principles. But the regulator notes an increasing number of similar initiatives aimed at encouraging or pressuring — depending on your perspective — financial institutions to commit to climate change, sustainability, and other environmental or social targets and agendas, not only by words but actions.
Banking leaders have increasingly been responding to such forces and not necessarily out of altruism.
Banks are now basing their decisions on fleeting leftist WOKE morality. That is not capitalism. They are moving away from capitalism and that should terrify people.
Banks are being pressured into aligning with the UN, the Dictator’s Club.
Leftist morality is based on an atheistic, lawless, relativity. Be afraid. It allows banks to blow with the wind of tyrants.
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