Climate and Race Have No Role in Financial Regulation

When the acting chair of the SEC testifies before the House Financial Services Committee and invokes race and climate with regard to financial regulation, you have a different ball of wax than you had before.

There is no such thing as systemic racism in financial regulation.  There also is no role for financial regulation as it relates to the weather.

Financial regulation should be there to create an unbiased marketplace.  It should also be there so you can compare and contrast companies in an unbiased manner.  If I want to individually look at United vs American vs Southwest vs Delta corporate policy as it relates to climate, race or anything else, it’s up to me to discern the differences.  Financial regulation needs to be about the process and the numbers, nothing else.

Besides, anything else is a normative subjective opinion not based on data or fact.

As it is today most markets are computerized.  Much of the analysis is being done by algorithms and artificial intelligence.  Point and figure chart analysis just plots the points and the market adjusts.  Computers do not care who is pushing the button to trade or who is doing the analysis.  Double-entry accounting has never cared about it either.

It’s also worth remembering that all relevant information is already computed into the price of a stock or asset when markets are efficient.  So, if these sorts of “woke” ideas being touted by the new administration are relevant, the market will have already priced them in.  There is no need to regulate or bias the regulatory state to them.

In case you haven’t noticed, every single bureaucratic part of the Executive Branch has become a place where socialist policy will be cooked up and administered.  The military, the EPA, the Justice Department.  No branch is immune.  There is a crisis that was artificially created by the Biden Administration.  You might notice the way the mainstream media has reported the news, if at all.

It goes further than that.  Democrats are moving to restrict freedom of speech and the freedom to advocate for yourself. From the linked WSJ article,

Ms. Lee also wants to mandate that public companies report political spending. The Federal Election Commission already reports corporate donations to candidates and parties. But Democrats want businesses to disclose their contributions to trade groups, conservative think tanks and outfits like the American Legislative Exchange Council. The goal is to suppress corporate political advocacy by exposing companies to political and media harassment, but they haven’t been able to pass legislation. Now Democrats on the SEC seem poised to do so by fiat.

Of course, if Big Tech donates to “get out the vote” or puts its thumb on the scale by eliminating conservatives from their platforms it is okay.  If Big Corporate donates to causes the Democrats believe in, the media will stay obediently silent and they will look the other way.  It’s also okay for financiers like George Soros to donate to socialist candidates who implement and administer socialist policies to try and destroy the capitalism he built his fortune on.  Look at the treatment Soros gets vs the treatment the Koch brothers or the Mercer’s receive.

There is no place for this sort of “wokeness” in financial policy or regulation.  There will be double and triple standards for sure.  It will be detrimental to long-term growth, and detrimental to the entirety of society.  This path will also further the divide between the two warring factions in America.  The consequences of which are not pretty.

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