May 31, 2023

• Insurance companies leaving their little climate club as they come under attack from the right-wing.
• The anit-ESG crowd is now leaning on an "anti-competitive" narrative, saying that the companies are colluding illegally.
• Anti-trust laws were an issue from the start where the Net Zero Insurance Alliance could not force its members to sign a no coal investments agreement.
• The Net Zero Insurance Alliance is part of Mark Carney's ridiculous Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero that brings together financial organizations to greenwash their investments.

Issues remain for those thinking that finance capital can drive investment shifts. Apart from the right-wing who want the end of the world to come faster and do not believe in science, capital cannot choose to do things that do not—in aggregate—maximize profits.

If firms could make socially responsible decisions, it would not be called capitalism. It would be called Moralism and there would be a market in some commodified moral tokens. The only way capital can do things that look like they are putting something ahead of profits is if on the whole it increases their profits—which is the definition of greenwashing.

You may have seen in the news that Spain's inflation numbers had come down more than expected last month.

Inflation in Spain is at 2.9%, back down to pre-spike days.

The issue is that the prices of things consumers spend most of their money on barely moved:

The inflation issue in Spain is interesting in the backdrop of the massive loss of the Socialists to the far-right Vox and the just plain right-wing People's Party at the local level.

The loss forced the ruling Socialists to call an election. It is a rather cynical calculation that the Socialist's coalition partners will lose-out to the right wing parties and the Socialists might be able to hold on to government.

In all the ways that matter, Western economies are in a recession.

• Things are grinding for the poorest of workers with a massive shift going on in buying patterns to bulk-food and off-brand labels.
• Corporate investments are way down.
• Corporate orders are in contraction.
• Factory activity is in contraction.
• Consumers are generally feeling bad about the near future.
• Restaurant activity is slowing.
• Business confidence even in services is down.
• European enterprise survival rates are through the floor.

All this is not enough for the central bankers who are mostly gunning for increased interest rate hikes.

France knows how to guarantee profits like the best of them.

[Automative Cell Company] ACC, which is equally owned by TotalEnergies, Jeep maker Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz, has received a €1.3bn package of state aid from France, Germany and Italy as part of a €7bn plan to build a string of new facilities across the countries.

Contrast this to the UK and Canada where the company is threatening to leave and mothball its operations.

The battery war in Canada is going to be interesting. There are some technologies besides Lithium-based batteries that might be better suited to our climate.

Salt batteries for large-scale storage (and even short-distance appeasable EV batteries) work better in the cold, for example.

If only Canada had an industrial strategy, never mind one that was focused on its unique climate, economy, and culture.