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ESG is a Scam, lololoolol (Bloomberg, Money Stuff, Matt Levine)www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2025-04-30/esg-isn-t-hiring
797 sats \ 17 comments \ @denlillaapan 1 May econ
Man, is this a wonderful phrasing of the financialization of climate change efforts scams.
Carbon credits — which involve new and complicated accounting regimes, and which involve selling a product that you don’t create (emissions) to people who don’t use it — are a particularly appealing generator of financial engineering.

"ESG, in the US, is very much out of favor and possibly illegal."

Good riddance.
...globally, less than 7% of people who took on an ESG role in 2020 still retain an ESG title today, according to figures provided by Live Data Technologies.
oh, fantastic. Say what you want about the inmates running the asylum currently, but it is fabulous to see the world healing like this.

Underpricing of Life insurance

Man, is this some @Undisciplined kind of trading attempt:
If you buy term life insurance, it will probably be underpriced. The annual premium that you pay for 20 years of life insurance is less than 1/20th of the actuarial value of the insurance; the insurance company will, in expectation, lose money over the life of the trade. Why does the insurance company do this apparently irrational trade? Because the insurance company has actuarial data not just about when you’ll die, but also about when you will stop paying premiums. And it turns out that insurance customers are also pretty irrational: They tend to let insurance policies lapse sub-optimally.
The insurance company will offer you a positive-expected-value trade for you, because it expects that most of its customers will not make positive-expected-value choices. But if you are very rational, this is a good deal for you.
oh man,
If you are extra super rational, you might find a way to exploit this, by systematically buying a lot of life insurance on a diversified portfolio of other people, paying the premiums optimally, and getting more money in death benefits than you pay in premiums.
Can we get Predyx involved in this scam opportunity somehow?! @mega_dreamer
...and Matt Levine gives us this wonderful email from Joe Morse(!):
Great arbitrage opportunity if you can get it... just very slow, very nonscalable...
non-paywalled: https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/186667
write
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91 sats \ 9 replies \ @028559d218 1 May
Still never saw ESG or DEI in the actual workplace. For as much talk and attention as those things generate... i'm not sure those things actually exist or have had any impact tbh.
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2 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 1 May
You are fortunate. Let me tell you. I have seen it and it exists. In addition to this change is happening. Its interesting to watch it unfold honestly.
Edit:
Let me be more clear by what I mean.
Guidance around hiring and quotas for hiring diverse candidates. Constant lectures about DEI. People with DEI in their title. Many hours spent in classes and presentations on these topics.
ESG is the incentive coming from the market to do much of this but also it comes from the bottom up from employees. I think its a small number but they are vocal.
ESG impact public companies and the larger ones the most as it does effect stock price from what I've seen.
I will say that not all the DEI training stuff is bad, it just goes to far and is very patronizing. Companies exist to make profit for the shareholders. No matter how much people want that to not be the case it is the case.
I think I feel what you are saying though. The Trump fans have exaggerated for sure but that's not to say they are wrong. Its just par for the course with them.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 1 May
Like I replied in another comment... it has never come up in my workplace. Maybe we have higher standards or a different 'approach' to traditional office workers (this much is probably true)
But in the 'space' I'm used to skin color, gender, even things like pronouns... nobody cares. We succeed or fail together as a team and nothing else supersedes that ever.
The desire and attention to just 'do the job' supersedes everything else dei or esg never comes up.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 1 May
Most people just don't care. That's been my observation for a long time.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 1 May
I don't want you to share anything you aren't comfortable sharing but what industry do you work in and have you changed jobs in the last 5 years?
I've worked in tech since the 2000s and I saw this move from universities to social media and then into the tech culture until now where it is in the fortune 500 and businesses we all frequent.
I also wonder what you think of when someone says DEI or ESG?
The two political clown groups tend to really distort reality and yes the right has done that again with this topic but they aren't directionally wrong on it IMO.
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72 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 1 May
I haven't seen it in my industry. I work in an aerospace-related field (airplanes)... and when you are dealing with aircraft you find out pretty quickly who knows what and who doesn't. Maybe there is less tolerance for office-nonsense (I don't know) when discussing safety-sensitive equipment and procedures... But DEI or diversity or ESG stuff literally has never come up? No-one every talks about it...
I've changed jobs a few times and my approach has always been to treat people equally and respectfully that's all I don't know why anything else is necessary.
The two political clown groups tend to really distort reality and yes the right has done that again with this topic but they aren't directionally wrong on it IMO.
I think it's just noise so the public doesn't deal with other issues - fiscal or economic in the US's competition with China.
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50 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 1 May
This is why I asked. The industry matters a lot. Also it matters if you have worked in management. Also matters the size of the company.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 1 May
When you design or operate systems worth tens of millions of dollars, weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds, moving 500+ miles per hour... no-one cares about your skin color. Anything else frankly would be just bizarre.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan OP 1 May
plausible. Maybe all a big nothingburger
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 1 May
Here's my take. DEI in corporate land was always BS. It was virtue signaling. As soon as the tide turns. Laws change or opinion changes they drop it like a hot cake. People need to grow up and realize that their company exists to make profit. Period. Doesn't mean we have to be jerks or hate people. But its not the place for what people think. That's a human personal thing.
A lot of what is happening now is changing job titles to meet compliance but also avoiding discrimination lawsuits which were / are piling up. You can't hire based on these factors. Its discrimination which is against the law. It was so overt its kinda shocking.
The left overplayed their hand once again. DEI is not dead though. That's dumb. Its just gonna be more subversive.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @CarlTuckerson 1 May
ESG/DEI isn’t a policy—it’s a sacred ritual where we summon equity with ethically-sourced sage and dismantle bias using PowerPoint and ancestral wisdom. 🌈📊🔥
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92 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 1 May
There actually is a secondary market for life insurance where policyholders can sell the policies they no longer need to investors. The investors become the beneficiaries on the policy, so if you die, the investor gets the benefit.
Good for people getting divorced, who now hate their kids, or need short term medical expenses, or whatever.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 1 May
nice! See, this is just Predyx but for adults/real-world people
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12 sats \ 3 replies \ @aPolitical 1 May
One negative side of Insurance companies is that they often don't keep to their part of the bargain in cases of Life Assurance Contracts especially in Africa. Very bad of them though.
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3 sats \ 2 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 1 May
well, these sorts of trades are not done in Africa, so whatever
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3 sats \ 1 reply \ @Lazy_AMA 1 May
Inadequate research from your end. So sorry
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3 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 1 May
yea?
I don't have a clue, not exactly "research."
Also, this is a story about the US, and American hedge funds so.... Imma say I'm ok here
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