Larry Fink on ESG, the Economy and the State of Democracy

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of the Free Expression Podcast, BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink tells Wall Street Journal editor at large Gerry Baker about why he thinks ESG investing has become so controversial but also misunderstood. He outlines his concerns about embedded inflation in the economy and how it will change investing and says he thinks cryptocurrency could represent a viable hedge against inflation and other risks. He expresses his concern about the state of free speech on university campuses and the wider decline in the quality of American public discourse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:08.7	Hello and welcome to the Free Expression podcast from the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.
0:13.0	I'm Jerry Baker, editor-at-large, the journal. If you're not already a subscriber to Free Expression,
0:17.4	please do sign up at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you do, you're listening.
0:21.7	This week, an interview with the man who has a good claim to the title of the most influential
0:26.3	capitalist in the world, but a man who has become in recent years, especially for conservatives,
0:32.0	something of a controversial figure. Larry Fink is the co-founder and chief executive of BlackRock,
0:37.1	the world's largest asset management company. The company Fink is the co-founder and chief executive of BlackRock, the world's largest asset
0:38.4	management company. The company Fink founded 35 years ago now invests more than $9 trillion of
0:44.5	customer funds, and it has major stakes in most of America's biggest companies, as well as many,
0:49.7	many more businesses around the world. But in the last few years, Fink and BlackRock have been at the
0:53.8	center of a roiling debate about the nature of modern capitalism and the right role of business
0:58.7	in society. Critics accuse him of using the powerful leverage his control of so many assets gives
1:04.0	BlackRock to coerce companies into pursuing what they call political objectives instead of simply
1:09.0	seeking the best and highest financial
1:11.5	returns for his investors. Fink's been a leading proponent of ESG investing, he approached
1:17.6	that places high value on the pursuit of environmental, social and governance objectives in
1:22.0	investing decisions. Now, he's always claimed that there's no contradiction between pursuing
1:26.6	those goals and achieving the best returns. But in the last few years, it's always claimed that there's no contradiction between pursuing those goals and achieving the best returns.
1:29.3	But in the last few years, it's striking that ESG funds have significantly underperform the overall market.
1:35.3	In the last year, a number of Republican-controlled states have announced that they're pulling their investments out of BlackRock funds.
1:41.0	So I sat down this week with Larry Fink to talk about all these issues and ESG and others,
	...

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