“I believe we are going to reduce the distribution of assault weapons and I believe we are going to make it more difficult for those companies to get capital. (This) is by no means over.” -Calvert Research & Management CEO John Streur in A Champion of Responsible Investing Takes On the Gun Industry [via nytimes.com]
Snow Flake Banks
This is why your job is being taken over by robots.
Robots are logical and math driven. Less than 1% of shootings are committed by people using “assault weapons” and this guy thinks he’s going to save the world. This guy’s math is so bad its no wonder banks are failing.
Maybe he’s investing the bank’s money in a company that produces bolt action 6.5 Creedmore rifles, and AR’s take up too much of the market share.
LOL!
I was getting tired of the 6.5 Creedmoor jokes. I think you just salvaged them for the next hour or so!
Dear banks,
STFU!!! Your job is to be a middle man, you hold money and you lend it out. That’s it!!!
Responsible investing: losing to the market and feeling smug doing it!
Fund managers are like casinos. They get their take whether the client wins, loses or draws.
You’re going to do more to increase demand than limit capital.
This makes for an excellent opportunity for smaller regional banks to prosper. I have moved all my banking activities, including my mortgage, to a regional bank. Those large(too big to fail)banks that NEEDED tax payer money to survive, can kiss my a$$.
I’ve gone completely local.
I’ve also gone local. I think I’m on my third “go local” cycle after previous banks were bought out by national monstrosities.
They are too stupid to realize it,much in the way the Commiecrats and the former smartest man in the world did every time they spoke of a gun ban or released a bill for a ban,they drove increased sales.
Responsible investing = making me money. Not virtue signalling for your liberal ivory tower friends. In fact, that would be quite irresponsible for a business charged with securing returns on their customers money.
Just a few short years ago all his liberal buddies were shitting in parks and raping hippies in tents to protest the 1%. Now the 1% is the best friend of those liberal camping rapists who seek to nullify everyones natural rights?
How many elderly people has this cockroach swindled while getting rich… F%&k him…
“I believe we are going to reduce the number of Black-owned businesses and I believe we are going to make it more difficult for Blacks to get business capital. I don’t care if the Supreme Court ruled they are equal to Whites. (This) is by no means over.”
(Speculating on what people might have said in the 1950s.)
This is a civil rights issue, people. We had better get this nipped in the bud before it gets ugly…
I like that civil right’s angle. Too bad it’s mostly white folks being effed. Won’t be much traction unless Trump et al get involved…
There lies the problem though Geoff, nobody (except gun people) view gun ownership, personal defense, and individual liberty as civil rights anymore. When you say civil rights to the average idiot on the street they’ll tell you that civil rights is equality for all people. Equality to them means equal outcomes not equal opportunity. We keep boiling it down and it becomes give the loudest minority whatever it wants in the name of giving them an outcome equal to the largest most successful majority. Apply that to the current political climate and you get gun bans, impeaching a sitting president for being a boorish jackass, and installing a person not even in the damn order of succession into the presidency; further it would involve an assault on the 1st Amendment to ban all words that might offend some tard sitting in a college dorm, enacting socialism, and taxing anyone actually working at the rate of 110% of their income. I admit I may have exaggerated the tax rate number but I have a feeling I’m not too far off.
“…nobody (except gun people) view gun ownership, personal defense, and individual liberty as civil rights anymore.”
Clarence Thomas is ‘chomping at the bit’ to give the 2A the respect it deserves, according to what he said in a recent denial of cert. in a recent 2A case.
If it takes the Supreme Court to force respect of the 2A, so be it.
(Provided we a get a 2A-freindly SCOTUS in the near future…)
Take heart! I just heard that there will soon be a vacancy in SCOTUS which will allow Trump to appoint a principled conservative. Now I don’t know if this involves Ginsburg who’s contemplating retirement, but I’m hoping it isn’t so that we could get two conservatives on the court.
They follow this strategy because finance analyzes long term trends and calls them “fundamentals”. The fundamental trend is that the number of gun owners in the US has been declining since the 1960’s while the number of guns grows. To win, we ultimately have to make the number of gun owners grow.
Actually the number of gun owners has grown, it’s the percentage of the population that owns guns that is falling. That will be difficult to change as we become more and more urbanized. I don’t know about you, but if I had to shoot at indoor ranges, I wouldn’t shoot much at all.
You are correct about the trend; I should have corrected myself.
I am in an area that used to be Republican but has become urbanized and purple for the past 20 years and the only ranges are indoor.
They do a good job of promoting pistol and even do self-defense classes and competition but they wannabe tactifool types hang out there with their beards and Moron Lame shirts and intimidate every person I have tried to take shooting. It is the attitude of the wannabe tough guy gun owners that drives down our numbers because I have managed to take many Co-workers to the range but none have gone back a second time.
We need to be friendly to non-people of the gun and project a clean image (not Moron Lame) to turn around the demographic trend.
get in your car and drive a bit…lot’s of gun clubs and outdoor ranges just outside the city…
The real problem is that there are not enough pro gun conservative money mangers that believe in America and the second amendment. Liberals have figured out that money controls what happens. I shout out to those pro gun fund managers-form up and combat the america haters
Ok, WHY is the Government not jumping all over this?? I mean 99% of banks and lending institutions are FDIC insured right? OUR tax money has been spent to help these folks remain solvent!! WTF! I read where the banks are withholding payments to manufactures, retailers, distributors…! The only company that’s stood up to the pressure seems to have been Wells Fargo and the teachers union! I did read that Hornady is no longer going to supply ammo or components to NY’s government machine because of the stance NY’s “finance minister” (yes I meant minister) is pushing for the financial institutions in their state to go against any company related to the firearms industry! I think ALL ammunition supplies should dry up for those assholes!
I’m a big free market type. These morons are losing other people’s money to make a point, stupid though it is. I have a few hundred K to invest, why hasn’t anyone started a fund dedicated to the support of 2A business and making money? Because they are the same! Why no shareholders have sued this asshole for malfeasance/extortion I have no idea.
He’s not losing money for his clients by staying away from guns.
What you don’t get is that the gun industry has not been profitable for decades. That is why you see multiple bankruptcies and restructurings (Remington, Marlin, Winchester years ago…). Ruger is about the only profitable gun maker and that’s too small of a company to matter much in a bank portfolio.
Don’t be surprised if larger Credit Unions or other institutions in pro gun areas start lending instead of national banks.
Bullsheet, gun makers can be profitable, the reason they go under is from corporate types who suck every drop of free cash out of a company, reinvest nothing, market substandard products, file for bankruptcy, reorganize, sell off the bit and pieces of the company to extract the last few dollars that they can get and then move on. They have done this to the detriment of many US industries (airlines, steel, automobiles, even the banking industry). But why would they care? They get paid no matter if they succeed or fail.
They have. It’s called the stock market. Several of the larger companies sell stock there. That’s good for you because you can easily buy those stocks, the problem is that you (and frankly all of us) can’t buy enough to make much of a difference. The people that can are the institutional investors and those institutions are run by guys like this.
The CEO of Dicks got his dick handed to him by his corporate board members who didn’t like that he unilaterally decided not only to cut off a profitable revenue stream but to also destroy assets that could have easily been liquidated.
another anti-2a d-rat d-sucker. ru protected by 24/7 armed security, ah? not enough toilet paper in usa to wipe off the clinging ebola-bama legacy.
There are two separate financial issues involved in our industry today. The first is discussed in this article and it is the availability for large companies to gather the capitol they need to do business. This guy doesn’t understand the business as well as he thinks and I find this to be common. The MSR industry is made up of a lot of a lot of companies, but many are small players that have relatively small capitol requirements. Certainly, bigger companies play here, but frankly I don’t buy their products. I buy parts and pieces from small companies and assemble my own which is surprisingly easy to do. I can teach anyone to do it in less than a day. Alternatively I would buy from boutique builders of which there are many. Although I have bought guns made by the largest corporations (never an MSR) I have not bought a gun from a nationwide retailer in my life. If this guy is successful in making it difficult for large companies to get capitol, he is going to drive the business to the smaller outfits that have lower capitol requirements. In many ways this benefits us. The industry becomes much more diverse and harder to attack. He is going to have to get very deep in the weeds to get to all the small foundries and machine shops that can service this market. The downside for us is that things become more costly. There is another avenue of attack that he could use, that i won’t even discuss here, but his current plan plays into our hands to a degree. We also need handgun designs that lend themselves to the ability for the small company to be able to build and we may be getting there. 80% Glocks are a piece of cake and the Sig320 is a good platform for this as well. We need more.
The second financial issue is the move to a cashless society and our dependence on what are really a very few credit card issuers and processors. This has the potential to be a real problem, particularly in the internet age. If you control the currency, you control the population. Crypto currencies might be an answer, but we are a long way from knowing that for certain.
If this place had a better comment system, it would foment better discussions. This place could be a great asset to the whole community as a place to exchange ideas.
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. It’s always kinda fun to blow off steam with a big FU rant, but that doesn’t get us much beyond our personal (and maybe group) moment.
What we need is strategy, and to do that we need to know the players, their (true) interests, and the landscape.
I get the feeling we’re being pushed into an insurgency. The winds of change are blowing against us. Not a good feeling, but insurgencies can win–at least to the point of carving out a place to call home. Just need to adapt.
I don’t think we need to give up the up front stand up fight, in fact I want to go on the offense. I want to own the color orange. It’s ours. We’ve been using it for hunter safety, Range Safety officers and Instructors for years. I want it taken away from the demanding Moms. I want to own the Firearm Safety moniker. It’s ours. The NRA is THE firearms safety organization and we’re good at it and we have programs ready to go. I’m ready for my lawmakers to say that not only are they not standing up to the NRA, they are standing up FOR the NRA and in’t members as well as the other gun owners in the country because they know that we are engaged citizens that have the countries best interest at heart. I’m ready to show the nation that in many ways NRA members and the POG are the backbone of society. We are doctors, lawyers engineers, technicians of all types, preachers, teachers etc.
I also want to have that insurgent plan. I am already making sure that my descendants have working MSR’s. I have already assembled a several kits and had Grandkids do the build under my supervision. I’ll be doing the same with nieces and nephews soon. I hope that three generations after me will be armed before I go. I’m searching for handguns that I can do similar projects with now. I’m looking for banks that are run by people with good attitudes. I do business with firearm companies that have shown an insurgent attitude whenever I can. Magpul is but one example. Barret is out of my league, but he’d be another. There are others that have shown an up yours attitude as well. I’m also telling big players what I’m expecting them to do and why I’m not supporting most of them. Springfield really didn’t like my attitude at the NRA convention. That’s fine. I met a couple of custom 1911 builders that were only a bit higher in price and likely had a better product. They darn sure have a better attitude. That’s who I’ll be doing business with.
By and large, big is useful, but it’s not in our long term best interest. Big is too nice a target. We need lots of people and shops with skills and knowledge on our side. Yes we need plans and these are a few ideas to get started. There are a couple of major choke points that I don’t want to mention in an open forum. I’m not smart enough to figure a way around them, but we need to be talking about them at some level. We need to be sharing who the good banks are etc. I’ve seen two posts today that said their bak was a good one and then they didn’t name it. That’s dumb.
I’ll get off my soap box now.
Don’t limit yourself to the NRA. The Gun Owners of America (GOA) is actually a better organization than the NRA and is not the target of little pimply-faced pukes, egotistical elitists and sex-starved soccer moms..
Man I really want to hear the stuff your not posting. Maybe we need a ttag private FB group.
Crypto is one of the answers. It may not be bitcoins. It maybe another type of crypto. But the Jeanie is out of the bottle on crypto and big brother is nervous.
You may be right about costs being driven up by smaller manufacturers. But this assumes dickheads like this guy know enough to even deny capital to component manufacturers. With the AR platform the “fire arm “ is the least important part. As with the P320 platform , which I think could be the AR of handguns.
Of course big companies may just pay more for capital , or keep more cash in reserve , and stay in the MSR space. I don’t see Midway , Brownells or PSA leaving the space just bricks they can’t get loans. And they could easily start their own merchant bank OR switch to crypto.
I posted another rant just above our comment. I’m having that kinda day I guess.Thanks for reading.
That would be spelled, “Genie,” Commander Nelson.
Calvert Research (Eaton Vance) is a top Responsible Investment fund manager with consistently good results.
They are socially responsible only when the fundamental trends favor them. Most famously, they pulled out of investing in South Africa in the late 70’s as that country was going into a 20 year recession and starting to fall apart.
They pulled money out of tobacco in the 90’s when it became obvious that taxes and regulations will make cigarettes unprofitable.
They are “responsible” with money invested in pharmaceuticals that make opioids responsible for more deaths than guns because medical demand for opioids will never go away.
ONLY SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE WHEN TRENDS FAVOR THEM. They made their analysis and concluded gun makers are poor investments then made their “stance” known.
We should all tell these idiots to go pound sand and find banks that will cater to us.
Social engineering one step at a time until full-on communism and no rights. Be sure to boycott every supporter of this treason.
Financial decisions based on political opinions… should work swimmingly.
“I believe we are going to make it more difficult for those companies to get capital.”
Notice the “we”, boys and girls?
I believe this is conspiracy to restrict free trade, and conspiracy to deprive constitutionally protected rights.
Sounds to me like someone could use a good lawyer.
Dear John nobody : move to a COMMIE COUNTRY. You obviously do not believe in our American way of life , why stay and try to make us miserable ? Pack your shit & git.
Masters of the Universe gotta be masters. But the masses don’t like masters, which is why the masses must be disarmed.
He gets robbed or worse I bet he’ll be investing in guns on a personal level.
Any kind of responsible social investment fund almost inevitably goes belly up. I wouldn’t be surprised if the managers wanted their easy 2% management fees and don’t really care otherwise.
So if they decided they wanted to lower the number of smart cars? Or imports? Or foreign made tools? This is illegal or it should be. Its not the place of banks to discriminate against businesses based off of political belief.
Wells Fargo just announced that they do not believe that a bank should make buying decisions for thier customers.
Companies like Glock, Steyr, Sig Sauer, CZ and FN are all profitable.
Don’t forget Hornady, Lake City(ATK), Blazer, Speer, and CCI all make ammo and are profitable.
They all need financial services like loans, mortgages, credit card processing letters of credit, and a place to deposit all those profits!
If you don’t want to make money offering these services to gun and ammo companies, there are plenty of other entrepreneurs who would love to make money servicing these companies
Here is the problem. Markets want to be free. If gun companies can’t get capital from certain banks they may have to PAY MORE. But those higher rates will attract investors from other sectors. Eventually enough investors will be attracted to start pushing down the rates.
I think we need to be looking at a nationwide gun friendly bank. 6 million people join the NRA. We all have banks. Anybody who will send in 25 bucks will also accept free checking
How about a credit card that offers cash back on fire arms purchases ?
I like your basic idea on the free market and I agree. I think that the idea lends itself to more distribution of resources, I don’t think that the road to this is a single nationwide bank that is friendly to our cause though. It is a single point to target by SJW’s regulators and anti gun law firms. We need a bunch of friendly regional banks on our side that will be a bit more under the radar. Everything we do needs to be distributed and decentralized. JMHO
How about mutual funds that invest in gun and ammo manufacturers? Every gun owner in America would buy at least one of them for their 401k’s
Who needs democratic process when you can just lobby corporations to force the reprisals you want?
Libertarian logic.
If you think there will be a gun business in the USA if this continues, then you really are a Libertarian. Liberty will go away in America.
That’s OK customers will weaponize their buying habits and run you out of business as well. Bunch of social justice jack asses.