Disclaimer: This article may contain the personal views and opinions of the author.
Next to white supremacy, Democrats want all Americans to believe that our biggest threat comes from climate change. We are all going to die in ten years if we don’t throw billions of dollars at the problem.
To them, climate change is also detrimental to financial stability around the globe so they’re demanding that regulators do something about it.
Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib went so far as to call for banks to protest an institution’s investments in fossil fuels. The congresswoman from Michigan, one of the members of “the squad,” tried to get bank CEOs to commit to ending funding for fossil fuels.
Ms. Tlaib asked, “So I would like to ask all of you, go down the list, because again you all are agreed to doing this [supporting long-term net-zero carbon emissions targets], please answer with a simple yes or no, does your bank have a policy against funding new oil and gas products? Mr. Dimon?”
Mr. Dimon’s response caught her off guard: “Absolutely not, and that would be the road to hell for America.”
Ms. Tlaib followed up the pushback from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon with a veiled threat of a bank run. She suggested that people who received student loan relief take their money out of his bank and go elsewhere.
Ms. Tlaib: “Yeah, that’s fine. Sir, you know what, everybody that got relief from student loans [who] has a bank account with your bank should probably take out their account and close their account.”
Mr. Dimon discussed how the world is experiencing a global energy crisis. The best way to address it would be an investment in natural gas. He described it as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal.
When someone speaks the truth to Democrat members of Congress like Ms. Talaib, they’re caught off guard.
Mr. Dimon then hit her with another inconvenient truth, going on to label the student loan forgiveness plan as a “bad idea.”
He said, “I wish they had targeted the people who actually needed help,” Mr. Dimon said. He also described the debt-relief plan as a Band-Aid.
The chief executive of Citigroup also said that her bank would continue to fund fossil fuels. Jane Fraser said, “We will continue to invest in and support clients who are investing in fossil fuels and in helping them transition to cleaner energy.”
Brian Moynihan, chief of Bank of America, said that they’re helping their clients make a transition to cleaner energy. He said they are lending money to new energy companies as well as oil and gas companies, but “helping monitor their course toward the standard you are talking about.”
That answer may have pleased Tlaib, but she was not finished with Dimon. She told him that he obviously doesn’t care about working-class people and threatened banks with regulations that would require them to end the funding of fossil fuels.
Do banks need to kowtow to the Democrat policy agenda? If they don’t, do they take the risk that our representatives will incite a bank run? Time will tell.
