Opinion. Other people’s money: ESG investing and the conflicts of the consultant class

We should not play political games with other people’s money. That gamesmanship is the very essence of ESG investing, with all of the self-dealing and other perversities that politicized investment choices engender. Unintended consequences are a longstanding effect of public policies, an eternal truth seemingly invisible to one generation after another of policymakers eager to improve upon the economic arrangements emerging from market competition and individual choices. Witness, for example, a regulation implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...