Month: July 2023

It’s Easy To Make Oil Companies ESG

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-12/it-s-easy-to-make-oil-companies-esg#xj4y7vzkg

Excerpt:

You can do this with anything! Absolutely anything:

  • Horrible Coal Inc. wants to raise money.
  • It sets up a special purpose vehicle, Hypertechnical Investments Ltd.
  • Horrible Coal issues bonds to Hypertechnical Investments.
  • Hypertechnical issues its own bonds to ESG funds: “We are just a little old investment firm, just two traders and two computers, no carbon emissions here! And our credit is very good, because we have no other liabilities and our assets are all investment-grade bonds. ‘Which investment-grade bonds,’ did you ask? Sorry, I’m not sure I heard you right, you’re breaking up. Anyway we’ll look for your check, bye!”

Though my made-up names are silly, and in the actual Aramco case one of the not-an-oil-company SPVs is named “GreenSaif Pipelines Bidco.” “Pipelines” is right in the name! The only way you would think that GreenSaif Pipelines Bidco “had no direct links to the fossil-fuel industry” is if (1) you started reading the name but stopped after you got to the “Green” part (plausible!) or (2) you never read the name at all, never thought about it, just looked at the balance sheet and saw only shares of stock, not pipelines or oil wells, and said “ah, stock, well, that’s green enough.”

Author(s): Matt Levine

Publication Date: 12 July 2023

Publication Site: Money Stuff at Bloomberg

Biden Seeks to End Cheaper Obamacare Alternatives, Expect Another Supreme Court Smackdown

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://mishtalk.com/economics/biden-seeks-to-end-cheaper-obamacare-alternatives-expect-another-supreme-court-smackdown/

Excerpt:

Biden’s efforts to produce more inflation are nonstop, 24×7. His latest move is a set of regulations to force people into Obamacare despite the fact a District Court already ruled against his proposed regulations.

Biden Attempts to Make Healthcare Even More Expensive

To understand what Biden wants to do, and why the Supreme Court is likely to smack it down, we need to review a District Court ruling from 2020.

On July 24, 2020, CATO reported In a Win for Consumers, a Court Ruling Affirms the Legality of Short‐​Term Health Insurance Plans

….

Jam City, Dateline July 7, 2023

The Wall Street Journal comments on Biden’s Short-Sighted New Health Rule

Behold the President’s plan to limit short-term health insurance plans in order to jam more consumers into the heavily subsidized and regulated ObamaCare exchanges. The Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury Departments on Friday proposed rules to roll back the Trump Administration’s expansion of short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI) plans. Since 2018 these plans have been available in 12-month increments, and consumers have been able to renew them for up to 36 months.

These plans are especially attractive to young people whose employers don’t provide coverage. Why would a healthy 26-year-old want to pay for maternity, pediatric and other services he probably won’t use in the near future?

The Inflation Reduction Act sweetened ObamaCare’s insurance premium tax credits that are tied to income. As a result, a 60-year-old making just above four times the poverty level has to pay only 8.5% of his income toward his insurance premium while the government picks up the rest. If premiums increase, government is on the hook for more.

Author(s): Mike Shedlock

Publication Date: 9 July 2023

Publication Site: Mish Talk

Data Vis Dispatch, July 11

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://blog.datawrapper.de/data-vis-dispatch-july-11-2023/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Welcome back to the 101st edition of Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we’ll be publishing a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators.

Recurring topics this week include pollution, transportation, and high temperatures. Plus: an opportunity to work on the Dispatch yourself as our Werkstudent*in.

Author(s): Rose Mintzer-Sweeney

Publication Date: 11 July 2023

Publication Site: Datawrapper