The recent BRICS summit in South Africa heralded significant changes, most notably the planned inclusion of six new member countries by January 2024: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which makes BRICS even more diverse in its representation. The summit, however, did not reveal […]
Blue-chip U.S. companies increasingly rely on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics to determine top executives’ bonuses, raising concerns among investors about manipulation to maximize payouts. Approximately 3/4 of S&P 500 companies have revealed that environmental, social and governance metrics contributed to executive compensation, a rise from two-thirds in 2021, […]
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is facing heavy criticism from leftist organizations over its recent rejection of numerous environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder proposals. After attracting criticism from conservative figures for supporting the ESG agenda, it is now being attacked by Democratic officials who are alarmed at its […]
Republican Representative French Hill (AR), vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, recently conducted an interview with Forbes in which he expressed concern with the burgeoning impetus for a national central bank digital currency (CBDC), and emphasized that any authorization would need to come from Congress. Recently, Hill introduced […]
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has publicly criticized major investment firms as part of his campaign against the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework. Ramaswamy specifically referred to BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, commonly known as the “Big Three,” stating they represent “arguably the most powerful cartel in human history.” […]
During the Cold War, the U.S. government, big businesses, and ordinary American citizens did everything they could to prevent Soviet infiltration and espionage. To be fair, sometimes this resulted in unfounded accusations—e.g., the McCarthy hearings. However, for the most part, the sense of heightened alert and suspicion of the Soviet […]
The state of Texas has reportedly ended its association with the American Library Association (ALA) following the election of a self-described “Marxist lesbian” as its president. Republican Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison disclosed on August 17 that the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) will not renew its affiliation […]
Entrepreneur, biotech mogul, and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has made headlines with his remarks about President Joe Biden during a recent event in Atlanta, in which Ramaswamy asserted that Biden isn’t “really the person running the country.” Elaborating further, Ramaswamy emphasized that the “cancer that lies beneath [Biden]” is the […]
As schools and libraries continue to ban books en masse across the United States, Iowa’s Mason City School District has opted to utilize ChatGPT to determine the fate of books in their collections. “There’s no good method for banning books… but the Mason City School District’s decision to use AI […]
“When players are piled on top of each other after a mad scramble for a loose ball, it’s a free-for-all. There are no rules. Anything goes. That’s because there’s nobody in the pile to monitor what’s going on.”—Mike Thomas, sports editor What is playing out before our eyes right now should be […]
A recent study by the University of East Anglia has found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a strong liberal bias, with results showing a “significant and systemic political bias toward Democrats in the U.S., Lula [Brazil’s leftist president] in Brazil, and the Labour Party in the U.K.” Although questions about ChatGPT’s […]
A recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Sustainable Business reveals a substantial disparity between the lip service corporate directors give to ESG during board meetings and firms’ actual strides taken to achieve ESG objectives. The survey found that: 43 percent of employees […]
In a recent research report, Morgan Stanley observed a surge in companies highlighting the impact of artificial intelligence on their businesses during the first half earnings season. “Around 15% of firms quantified a revenue or cost-benefit from using machine learning across a broad spectrum of applications,” the bank stated. Out […]
BlackRock Inc., MSCI Inc., and other major firms anticipate heightened scrutiny as congressional investigations delve into investments in Chinese companies considered national security threats, especially after a recent Biden administration executive order prohibiting certain investments in China. Over $294 billion from more than 2,000 US mutual and exchange-traded funds are […]
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) campaign committee, the Friends of Bernie Sanders, transferred $200,000 to the Sanders Institute, a nonprofit founded by his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, and stepson, David Driscoll. The payments were made in two equal tranches of $100,000 each in January and March, as revealed by filings with […]
The United Kingdom’s central bank, the Bank of England (BoE). is progressing with its efforts to develop a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC), commonly termed as a “digital pound.” In an announcement, the BoE confirmed the establishment of an advisory group dedicated to the digital pound. This initiative marks […]
S&P Global Inc., a leading global credit ratings provider, has taken a noteworthy step by announcing it will no longer include ESG (environmental, social, and governance) scores alongside its credit ratings. This significant change, announced on August 4, 2023, comes as a direct response to investor feedback, with many expressing […]
Allianz, a prominent German insurance company, recently withdrew from the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), one of the top global industry consortiums focused upon achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions goals by 2050. Allianz Chief Financial Officer Giulio Terzariol expressed concerns over legal implications, emphasizing the responsibility to its shareholders. “We […]
“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today. Instead of being taught […]
In the span of less than a year, Open AI’s revolutionary ChatGPT has already evolved from using GPT-3 technology to GPT-4 technology, which is more intelligent, accurate, creative, and useful than its predecessor by multiple orders of magnitude. Now, reports are swirling that GPT-5 may arrive as early as the […]
According to a recent Bloomberg client poll, the vast majority of Wall Street brokers and other market insiders are highly skeptical of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, believing ESG funds will continue to underperform and do not have the ability to sustain profits. Eighty-seven percent of 116 Bloomberg terminal […]
The Digital Dollar Project (DDP), in partnership with Western Union and BDO Unibank, has successfully completed a pilot study of remittance payments to the Philippines using a simulated retail Central Bank Digital Currency (rCBDC). Utilizing DDP’s Champion Model, the transaction involved a simulated central bank issuing CBDCs to an intermediary […]
The financial industry is taking a step further in evaluating customers’ worthiness for banking facilities, as they begin to scrutinize social media accounts based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) screening criteria, warns former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. Farage, who has been vocal against what he calls “woke capitalism,” […]
A newly released report by the advocacy non-profit Parents Defending Education has illuminated the growing infiltration of U.S. K-12 schools by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda through a program known as “Confucius Classrooms.” The report reveals the existence or past existence of at least 143 such programs in K-12 schools, […]
At the beginning of the 19th century, the idea that the Prussian government would provide education to all children probably sounded very nice to many people. Everybody would be included, and nobody would be left behind. Government would fund education. Seminaries would prepare professional teachers. Not only Prussia but also […]
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”—Ray Bradbury What we are witnessing is the modern-day equivalent of book burning which involves doing away with dangerous ideas—legitimate or not—and the people who espouse them. Seventy years […]
In June, A.T. Kearney, Inc. — a global management consulting firm — announced a partnership with Al Gore’s nonprofit, Climate TRACE. Along with its various management consulting services, A.T. Kearney boasts about its role in helping organizations “establish and implement decarbonization strategies.” This new partnership, according to A.T. Kearney, will […]
On Friday, Google DeepMind unveiled Robotic Transformer 2 (RT-2), a groundbreaking vision-language-action (VLA) model aimed at creating general-purpose robots adept at navigating human environments. RT-2 leverages a substantial language model, similar to the technology behind ChatGPT, trained on text and images sourced from the internet. This innovative approach empowers the […]
A few semesters ago, I received an e-mail from my finance student at Illinois State University (ISU) claiming that this is the case. I wondered whether the student tried to educate me—I was interfering with his attempts to get a university degree without doing any useful work. It is a […]
AI research leaders testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the prospects and challenges of AI technology. The general consensus was a call for swift yet considerate action to prevent the abuse of AI or to avoid hindering the industry’s progress. Experts included Dario Amodei, Anthropic co-founder; Stuart […]
President Vladimir Putin has officially approved the digital ruble bill, positioning Russia to be one of the first major countries to adopt a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). The law, due to come into effect from August 1, 2023, bestows the Russian central bank with the authority to launch […]
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) likened the Republican party’s attempts to challenge corporate America’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives to a “Taliban-like attack on the private sector,” in an interview with Politico. His commentary comes amid a growing partisan divide over the role of ESG principles in corporate decision-making and […]
The National Police Agency of Japan is set to test AI-equipped security cameras as a countermeasure to protect public figures. This move is triggered by recent incidents involving high-profile individuals, including the murder of former prime minister Shinzo Abe and an attack on current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The advanced […]
I’ve been watching and listening to Glenn Beck, a radio hall-of-famer, renowned author, and the founder of the Blaze Media, for many years. I’m sure he’ll be unhappy to hear me say this, but when I first started watching him, I was still in high school. (Sorry, to make you […]
A recent survey conducted by WTW and the Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence ostensibly shows that a strong majority of board members believe that a coherent environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy fosters sustainable organizational value and improves financial outcomes. However, the survey’s legitimacy is under scrutiny due to its […]
The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing model is currently facing significant challenges, as outlined in a comprehensive report by the Republican congressional ESG Working Group, many members of which have dubbed July “ESG month.” With nebulous objectives, politicized portfolios, and underwhelming returns, ESG investing has garnered criticism, leading even […]
The recent surge in corporate commitments to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles is leading to increased pressure on the personnel involved with corporate social impact (CSI), with potentially serious implications for employee wellbeing. According to a recent survey by the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals and YourCause from Blackbaud, […]
BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager with $9 trillion in assets under management, declared plans to extend its Voting Choice program to retail investors in the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV), its biggest ETF, worth $305 billion. The initiative originally targeted institutional investors and was operational from 2022, […]
On August 15, China’s lead internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), will implement the nation’s first regulations governing generative artificial intelligence (AI). The regulations reflect China’s unique socio-political backdrop, mandating that generative AI services uphold the “core values of socialism”. This contrasts with the AI development landscape in […]
The rise of roles within the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) industries have offered numerous job opportunities to recent graduates, which helps buttress President Biden’s already nebulous claims of job growth under his economic policies. These positions, such as sustainability coordinators, DEI officers, and […]
In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Friday, presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has pledged to oppose the introduction of a central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) in the United States, stating, “If I am the president, on Day 1, we will nix central bank digital currency. Done, […]
U.S. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), together with Republican North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop and Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, has issued letters to major international entities including the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) and asset management titans such as BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard regarding their actions […]
Tesla, the Texas-based electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy company led by Elon Musk, has reportedly agreed to promote “core socialist values” as part of a pledge to the Chinese auto industry. The pledge, a four-point commitment agreed upon with over a dozen Chinese car manufacturers, involved promising not to […]
Being a former teacher of U.S. history and American government, I am not surprised that the percentage of eighth grade students who tested “proficient” in U.S. history and civics continues to decline at an absolutely alarming rate. According to the most recent results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress […]
Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the White House and the Federal Reserve have started to lay the groundwork for a programmable, trackable, easily manipulated digital currency. It might sound like something from a dystopian science-fiction novel, but it’s all too real, and it could soon change life in […]
Most Americans are familiar with the tale of the Trojan horse, in which Greek warriors hid inside a hollow horse statue left at the gates of Troy in an attempt to fool their enemy and win the decade-long Trojan War. Eventually, the Trojans opened the gates, pulled the horse in, […]
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scoring systems have rapidly become one of the more polarizing issues in the United States. Over the past half-decade, the economies of most sovereign states—especially those in the Anglosphere—have been rapidly transformed, with wealth, power, and influence becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a […]
This article has been lightly edited from the original, authored by Simon Elmer at Off-Guardian.com The World Health Organization (WHO) s the One Ring to Rule them All, and its written goal, inscribed in fiery letters along both sides of its band, is the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Treaty. […]