{"id":1493424,"date":"2022-05-26T15:15:06","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T19:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1493424"},"modified":"2022-05-26T15:15:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T19:15:10","slug":"a-billionaire-battled-mcdonalds-hypocrisy-for-its-not-so-woke-treatment-of-pregnant-pigs-mcdonalds-emerged-victorious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-billionaire-battled-mcdonalds-hypocrisy-for-its-not-so-woke-treatment-of-pregnant-pigs-mcdonalds-emerged-victorious\/","title":{"rendered":"A Billionaire Battled McDonald\u2019s \u2018Hypocrisy\u2019 For Its Not-So-Woke Treatment Of Pregnant Pigs. McDonald\u2019s Emerged Victorious."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-billionaire-battled-mcdonalds-hypocrisy-for-its-not-so-woke-treatment-of-pregnant-pigs-mcdonalds-emerged-victorious%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1493424&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The latest saga surrounding corporate wokeness involved a billionaire investor taking on McDonald\u2019s treatment of pregnant pigs \u2014 a battle from which McDonald\u2019s emerged decisively victorious on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Legendary financier Carl Icahn sent an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/news\/home\/20220421005377\/en\/\">activist letter<\/a> to McDonald\u2019s last month blaming the fast food giant for \u201chypocrisy\u201d in using gestation crates to hold pregnant pigs. He contended that McDonald\u2019s board of directors is \u201cfailing shareholders and stakeholders by presiding over animal welfare violations, supply chain lapses and what I perceive to be a hollow environmental, social and governance (\u2018ESG\u2019) agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Companies that adopt ESG standards constrain themselves to certain \u201csocially conscious\u201d behaviors. A company may, for instance, emphasize its use of green energy, seek contracts with LGBTQ suppliers, prioritize animal welfare goals, or otherwise arrange its operations such that producing shareholder value is linked to a progressive agenda.<\/p>\n<p>In his letter, Icahn criticized Wall Street for \u201ccapitalizing on ESG to drive profits without doing nearly enough to support tangible societal progress\u201d \u2014 and said that \u201cthe ESG status quo on Wall Street needs to change.\u201d In particular, he pointed to McDonald\u2019s use of gestation crates \u2014 tight containers in which sows are trapped during their pregnancies \u2014 as a source of the hypocrisy.<\/p>\n<p>The letter noted that McDonald\u2019s pledged ten years ago to source over 85% of its pigs from sows not housed in gestation crates by the end of 2022. In an attempt to hold McDonald\u2019s accountable, Icahn \u2014 who only owns around 200 McDonald\u2019s shares \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/mcdonald-s-poised-to-retain-both-seats-in-proxy-fight-with-carl-icahn-11653434141\">selected<\/a> two board nominees and attempted to rally other shareholders behind them. However, they only received votes from 1% of outstanding shares.<\/p>\n<p>According to prepared remarks from McDonald\u2019s chairman Enrique Hernandez Jr., which were obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/05\/26\/carl-icahn-loses-proxy-fight-with-mcdonalds-over-animal-welfare.html\">CNBC<\/a>, Icahn was invited to discuss his nominations at the company\u2019s annual shareholder meeting, but withdrew two days ago.<\/p>\n<p>In some sense, Icahn succeeded in drawing attention to the issue \u2014 which his daughter and the Humane Society of the United States encouraged him to pursue ten years ago. However, Icahn also succeeded in drawing attention to ESG hypocrisy.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, a recent poll of American investors conducted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/poll-by-two-to-one-margin-investors-reject-woke-companies-pushing-political-causes\">Echelon Insights on behalf of The Daily Wire<\/a> revealed that respondents want no part in the ESG movement.<\/p>\n<p>Most investors recognize ESG as promoting \u201cmore liberal positions\u201d than conservative ones. While 50% believe the former and 16% believe the latter, only 21% believe that ESG investing is neutral. When choosing their own assets, most investors prefer to focus on profits instead of ESG \u2014 and most believe that other investors should have the same opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>Asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street \u2014 which collectively manage over $21 trillion \u2014 subscribe to ESG. However, 64% of respondents believe that \u201cindividual investors whose savings are being invested\u201d should ultimately decide whether retirement funds and pension plans are allocated according to ESG criteria. A mere 20% believe that \u201cWall Street asset managers\u201d should make that call.<\/p>\n<p>An even stronger margin of respondents \u2014 66% versus 20% \u2014 supported the right of individual investors to opt out of ESG-style investments. By a 56% to 28% margin, investors also supported states\u2019 decisions to pull pension funds from investments not solely focused on the strongest possible financial returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest saga surrounding corporate wokeness involved a billionaire investor taking on McDonald\u2019s treatment of pregnant pigs \u2014 a battle from which McDonald\u2019s emerged decisively victorious on Thursday. Legendary financier Carl Icahn sent an activist letter to McDonald\u2019s last month blaming the fast food giant for \u201chypocrisy\u201d in using gestation crates to hold pregnant pigs. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":1493498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1493424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1493424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1493498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1493424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1493424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1493424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}