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Comment by ethanbond | Hacker News Reader

I'd have thought the Ideologically Pure folks over in Texas would invest/divest solely and exclusively on the basis of whether it's a good place to get returns? Even accepting their excuse that ESG investing is suffocating their oil and gas-dependent "long term financial health," that's ultimately just saying they think the government needs to more strongly place its thumb on the scales.

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> that's ultimately just saying they think the government needs to more strongly place its thumb on the scales.

They have $8.5B. They've got a big enough thumb themselves.

I don't think there is long term evidence that ESG adds alpha. Even if it did in the past, there's no reason to believe it will continue once it is being gamed as it is now and the term becomes amorphous. Texas ever investing in ESG in the first place was the ideologically impure thing to do, if their only goal is performance.

That’s fine, but that’s not why they said they’re pulling their money.

There is an "ideologically pure" faction of the GOP that continues to oppose such measures. That faction recently backed Nikki Haley in the primaries, and the results show that this faction no longer carries the majority. There's been a reckoning on the right since the Bush debacle and a growing recognition that free market libertarianism and conservatism are actually two different ideologies.

Whether or not the disgruntled group controls a government - this can decide whether [unliked cause] is

worthy only of ridicule or

an imminent threat needing action

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