Posted on 12/01/2020 8:00:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Today in "affirmative action for public company boards" news...
In a move that does little to help either diversity or equality, NASDAQ is now pushing for SEC approval of a rule that would require public companies on its exchange to have at least one woman director and one "diverse" director - meaning a director that self-identifies as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ. You know, like how Elizabeth Warren "self-identified" as Native American.
Oddly enough, there's still no requirement that Board Members need to know how to read financial statements. But, we digress.
The exchange is also pushing for its more than 3,000 companies to be forced to report "data on board diversity" or "face consequences", including having to publicly explain why they haven't done so. Also known as public shaming.
"Under the proposal, all Nasdaq-listed companies will be required to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics through Nasdaq’s proposed disclosure framework within one year of the SEC’s approval of the listing rule," a NASDAQ PR reads.
"To give companies time to comply, they will need to publicly disclose their board diversity data within a year of S.E.C. approval, and have at least one woman or diverse director within two years. Bigger companies will be expected to have one of each type of director within four years," DealBook reported this morning.
Even more frightening is the fact that NASDAQ wants to impose these rules on private companies as well. Adena Friedman, Nasdaq’s CEO, said: "The ideal outcome would be for the S.E.C. to take a role here. They could actually apply it to public and private companies because they oversee the private equity industry as well."
“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," she continued.
It was not immediately clear how anyone can uniformly impose such gratuitous virtue signalling across the millions of private mom and pop companies across America, but whatever.
And what would any good diversity initiative be without introducing a corporate partnership to implement it, where someone gets paid for enabling this latest virtue signaling lunacy. "Nasdaq will also introduce a partnership with Equilar, the leading provider of corporate leadership data solutions, to aid Nasdaq-listed companies with board composition planning challenges," its PR says.
Zero Hedge looked up Equilar's Board of Directors and found that out of its 5 members, there doesn't appear to be a person of color or openly LGBTQ member. We wonder if they will use their own "corporate leadership solutions" to diversify their own board further.
Not at all surprising, currently 75% of NASDAQ companies do not meet the new requirements. Which means that instead of making life easier for businesses, the regulations will unleash countless amounts of red tape, new meetings and diversity seminars that will slow down business and infringe upon efficiency at each organization they "save".
The irony of the new rule is, of course, that it limits a company's ability to select qualified/interested candidates to the pre-determined race and sex of NASDAQ's choosing.
The good news is that Elizabeth Warren's 1/2000th Native American heritage may find her a post-Congress job on the board of Goldman Sachs a little bit quicker.
The bad news is we now have super-duper-useful indexes like the “LGBT-350”, a market-cap weighted basket of LGBT-inclusive companies. Because everyone knows investing is all about diversity and ESG, and no longer about generating alpha.
INBOX: Credit Suisse introduces the “LGBT-350”, a market-cap weighted basket of LGBT-inclusive companies.
Top components: pic.twitter.com/xvuu8SV4bs — Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) December 1, 2020
At first glance, this story is funny but on second glance, it’s chilling.
No, that’s one of the little-known facts about the trans-madness. If a person “identifies as” male or female, there are no external requirements. It’s purely their feelings.
However, if my employer would like to pay a little more, I would borrow an outfit from one of my sons.
Another question I have is, does a so called LGBTQ have to be certified to make sure he or she is what they claim to be in order to be approved by the board of infinite wisdom?
Well, that will solve most of the world’s problems. Wonder why it took so long to see the light.
Would one of these geniuses go under the knife wielded by a surgeon who was chosen due to the color of his skin, sexuality, gender confusion, or just the plain old racist white privileged skill and knowledge.
And the right will just sit back and let it happen.
I would guess that all the more established Nasdaq listed companies have a woman director. Some of the newer ones may not.
The “underrepresented minority or LGBTQ” requirement is bizarre. It implies some equivalence between an African American and a “transgender”. Do any liberal African Americans have a problem with that? Of course the nutjob proposing this rule is a white liberal, and is non-LGBTQ in all likelihood. This is typical of how high income progressive white liberal nuts think.
Do they have to PROVE they are a woman or LBTQG or can they just self-identify? I’m looking to change careers.
“No, that’s one of the little-known facts about the trans-madness. If a person “identifies as” male or female, there are no external requirements. It’s purely their feelings.”
I keep meaning to call Guiness Book of World Records.
I have a pretty good, but not spectacular, raw dead lift.
It would, however, qualify me as the heaviest woman’s dead lift in the world.
I am happy to identify as a woman on my lift so as to get a world record.
Have to make sure they’re OK with my beard.
Wait. So at least one of the women has to be straight or can a lesbian check off both boxes? Otherwise, Sounds kinda homophobic to me.
Me too we can sit together
Seems like the easiest thing is for everyone to identify as gay and female. Done and done.
This is the most Transphobic ruling I have heard of!
What3 the new job title? Chief Token?
As I've said many times, what kind of "man" would vote Dem when it means deprivation of legal rights , being called a toxic masculinity male privilege perpetrator and having a huge continuing setback for their professional careers and earning levels for life?
But tens of millions did so. One commentator said males turned against Trump slightly and it was enough to reverse the 2016 victory in several states. If true (with vote fraud, too) then shame on them.
You left out POCs.
Hail to the New Tyrants! Same as the old... only more emboldened than ever.
Hail to the New Tyrants! Same as the old... only more emboldened than ever.
Plumbing and Light Reflectivity RULE!
quotas are illegal.
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