Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG investing

Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by mbgerring on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @04:49PM (#39771847)

What’s funny about this is that, concerns about fraud in ESG metrics aside, this will cause Texas schools to lose out on the gains from rapidly growing clean energy companies, many of which are taking advantage of the deregulated Texas power grid to get a foothold.

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by toomuchtodo on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @04:54PM (#39771893)

As Ron White once said at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas, "You Can't Fix Stupid." (decisions, in this context)

It's one thing to burn investment dollars that are your own, but to do so with educational system dollars? That is a very Texas thing to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_School_Fund

https://texaspsf.org/our-history/

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by johnea on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @04:58PM (#39771957)

And man does it really need fixing 8-/

Doubly ironic that TX is installing more solar/wind than almost any other state.

Triply ironic that they're attempting to claim that Blackrock is some libtard tree-hugger organization...

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by toomuchtodo on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @04:59PM (#39771969)

It's fine to take issue with your identity, belief systems, and way of life being changed forcibly by a global energy transition underway that you have no ability to stop. It's a religion, put simply. But to waste resources like this out of ideology? It's just sad.

Texas has a teacher shortage [1] and ranks as one of the most uneducated states [2]. This does no favors to those who need the educational system. And those making these decisions will be long dead while those impacted will continue to live the remainder of their lives sub-optimally from these decisions.

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/20/texas-teacher-shorta...

[2] https://www.kxan.com/news/education/texas-is-one-of-the-most...

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by johnea on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @05:06PM (#39772030)

And [2] sure does play into the whole policy...

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by marcusverus on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @05:11PM (#39772098)

> this will cause Texas schools to lose out on the gains from rapidly growing clean energy companies

The existence of rapidly growing clean energy companies is only meaningful if BlackRock can reliably pick those winners in advance. A quick Google search for their clean energy funds returned two. Over the last 5 years, ICLN underperformed the S&P 500 by 50%. BECO gave negative returns. Yikes!

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/ICLN:NASDAQ?window=5Y&c...

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by mgk123 on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @05:39PM (#39772312)

In fairness BECO inception date was 3 Aug 2021, so under 5 years.

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Re:Texas schools fund pulls $8.5B from BlackRock over ESG in... by robocat on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @05:58PM (#39772492)

And the stupidity of lack of diversity.

Texas funds should be avoiding oil&gas: otherwise they are exposed to a double-whammy if the sector tanks.

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