The Nasdaq Stock Exchange is trying to nudge its roughly 3,300 listed companies to become woke. The company recently submitted a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to mandate board diversity, specifically aimed at having fewer white males boardrooms. Indeed, nothing shows that your wokeness more than practicing discrimination based on skin color and genitalia.
Nasdaq Takes the Social Justice Route
If the filing is approved, all publicly-traded firms on the exchange would be required to disclose their boards' make-up by race, gender, and sexual orientation. Nasdaq-listed firms would be forced to have at least two "diverse" directors – one board member who is female and another who belongs to a racial minority or a member of the LGBTQQIP2SAA community. Should they choose not to comply, they could face delisting.
A statement from Adena Friedman, the CEO of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, said:
"Our goal with this proposal is to provide a transparent framework for Nasdaq-listed companies to present their board composition and diversity philosophy effectively to all stakeholders. We believe this listing rule is one step in a broader journey to achieve inclusive representation across corporate America."
Robert Wenzel, the editor and publisher of Economic Policy Journal, did some digging and found that Friedman is a wannabe central planner, advocating the statist and cronyist notion that capitalism only works well when there is a strong government. Her public statements show that she is a mini-Mao, imposing her demands on corporations' board rooms in the name of social justice.
Paul Krugman
So far, the SEC has yet to comment on the proposal, but the agency has studied wokeology. It has made diversity its priority, and it published its first diversity and inclusion strategy earlier this year. This means that the SEC would likely approve the measure. It is unlikely there would be any pushback by Corporate America as these firms have bent over backward to appease the woke mob.
Burn, Baby, Burn
Will corporations run out of cash by the time the coronavirus pandemic is over? As the COVID-19 public health crisis reaches close to a year old, a growing number of companies are burning through cash. In the third quarter, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis, 47 junk-rated corporations tapped the bond and loan markets and lost money before servicing their debt. Analysts also noted that many of these firms, like Royal Caribbean Cruises and Delta Air Lines, are doing worse than many zombies.
The only way these struggling businesses can survive is if interest rates remain zero for longer. When this is the case, investors are more likely to finance these lifeless entities for better returns. Considering that ultra-low rates are here to stay for a few more years, they might miss the next wave of corporate bankruptcies. Even if the pandemic ended overnight, the private sector would need to devise a plan to rein in ballooning debt levels and adapt to a post-coronavirus economy.
Noel Hebert, director of credit research at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a statement:
"We've got companies where we don't know if they're functionally okay or not because we don't know what the economy looks like on the other side of Covid. You've got companies that need a fast solution to figure out how to make their debt levels work, and absent that, those are companies that over the course of the next year may need to file for bankruptcy."
The junk bond market might save the day. Still, that part of the broader financial market is only surviving because the Federal Reserve has intervened and kept the overall corporate bond market afloat. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, in a hedge maze, in a Franz Kafka novel.
Paul Krugman. Enough said
As Liberty Nation has written before, Keynesian darling Paul Krugman is ostensibly ditching the field of economics and embracing a new career as a comedian. This has been a blessing for a planet that has had a rough 2020. Obviously, he was flirting with this midlife career swap years ago when he started discussing space-alien invasions to stimulate the economy and minting a $1 trillion coin to solve America's finances. His takes on former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2020 election are more comedy fodder. In his latest New York Times blog post, Krugman writes:
"When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will immediately be confronted with an unprecedented challenge. He'll be the first modern U.S. president trying to govern in the face of an opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy. And no, Democrats, by and large, were not claiming Donald Trump was illegitimate, just that he was incompetent and dangerous."
If you need a few minutes to compose yourself, it is totally understandable. Krugman either suffers from memory loss or has conveniently forgotten about the last four years. Since Election Day in 2016, the only thing the Democrats and their partners in the establishment press talked about was how President Donald Trump's victory was illegitimate. They cited everything from the Russians using Pokémon Go to manufacturing memes that looked like they were designed on Microsoft Paint to help the real estate billionaire mogul. It was 24/7 hysteria in the media.
But let's examine Krugman's work from the last couple of years. He opined in November 2016: "Whatever happens, however, let's be clear: this was, in fact, a rigged election." A few months later, he reported that the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) intended to skip Trump's inauguration because he considered him an "illegitimate president." This past summer, he wrote on Twitter that a potential Trump re-election win would not be legitimate because "he will try to steal the election."
According to the mind of the Krugster, it is everybody else who is being mendacious – never himself.
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