In this episode of The Jenny Beth Show, Dr. OJ Oleka, CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), shares how state leaders are taking bold steps to push back against ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policies and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) agendas. With over $3 trillion in assets under management, SFOF is empowering state financial officers to prioritize fiscal responsibility, free markets, and economic freedom. Dr. Oleka discusses the dangers of woke investing, the impact on public pensions, and how grassroots activists can support this critical fight. Discover how SFOF is championing federalism and protecting taxpayers from harmful financial policies. Listen now to learn how states are winning the battle for economic liberty!
In this episode of The Jenny Beth Show, Dr. OJ Oleka, CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), shares how state leaders are taking bold steps to push back against ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policies and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) agendas. With over $3 trillion in assets under management, SFOF is empowering state financial officers to prioritize fiscal responsibility, free markets, and economic freedom. Dr. Oleka discusses the dangers of woke investing, the impact on public pensions, and how grassroots activists can support this critical fight. Discover how SFOF is championing federalism and protecting taxpayers from harmful financial policies. Listen now to learn how states are winning the battle for economic liberty!
Twitter/X: @OJOleka | @jennybethm
Website: sfof.com
Dr. OJ Oleka (00:00):
The federal government should not be this big behemoth that controls so much of our lives, which again is why I'm excited for President Trump and his reelection into the White House because hopefully God willing, you can have Doge and some of these accomplishments to shrink the size of the federal government to make it small and limited in its
Narrator (00:19):
Keeping. Our republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazines most influential people in the world. But the title she's most proud of is Mom To Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:51):
Today I'm joined by OJ Ekka, the CEO of State Financial Officers Foundation to explore how state leaders are promoting fiscal responsibility and pushing back against the harmful financial policies. You'll hear about real solutions to protect taxpayer dollars and to ensure economic freedom for future generations. OJO Lakehead, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. OJ Oleka (01:15):
No problem. Thank you for being here with me.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:17):
So you are with the State Financial Officer Foundation. What is the state financial officer and why do they need a foundation?
Dr. OJ Oleka (01:25):
Well, that is a wonderful question. A state financial officer is a financial officer who leads the issues as it relates to finance, obviously at the state level. So we have 40 different financial officers who are a part of our Mary Little group, and it is over half of the American people, $3 trillion assets under management. And what's most important is that these are people who fully believe in you as the American worker, you as the American family in this country. And the benefit for that is we focus on economic freedom. We focus on federalism and making sure that we have a focus on free markets. Our mission is to make sure that we educate the American people as it relates to fiscal responsibility and financial management from a free market perspective. Those things are important because that's what we were founded on and that's what we need to make sure that businesses and governments are doing all across the country.
Jenny Beth Martin (02:17):
And are these positions elected or appointed, or how do people
Dr. OJ Oleka (02:21):
Fill? Most of them are elected. They've got four year terms. Again, we've got treasurers, auditors, comptrollers, commissioners of revenue. Some folks are appointed by their governor. But again, all of these folks are good, strong patriots who believe again in the American people and free markets and federalism, and making sure that individuals in individual states get to make financial decisions for themselves, not coming down on high from Washington DC.
Jenny Beth Martin (02:45):
And can you give an example of how that works?
Dr. OJ Oleka (02:48):
Yeah. A number of our states over the past couple of years in particular have been pushing back against ESG and DEI as it relates to our finances. States like Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia. They've passed bills in their states to say, instead of pushing politics as an agenda, we want to make sure that we can focus on returns in public pensions in other funds that states manage because it's more important that we get the best possible return. Then we do playing leftist politics in our work. So that's one of the things that our folks have been doing. But of course there are countless other examples as well.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:24):
Okay. I want to go through some of those and delve into that in just a second. But let's tell people a little bit about you. Who are you and what makes you right for this position?
Dr. OJ Oleka (03:34):
Yeah. Well, to know about me, you've got to know about my parents. My parents first came to this country in 1980 from Nigeria. They came here with nothing similar to the country choosing new leadership in 1980. They came here seeking new opportunity and they found it. They worked hard. They played by the rules. My dad in particular, he ended up getting a PhD and my mother got her degree as a nurse, a labor and delivery nurse in particular. And it was that life that allowed them to buy a house in Frankfurt where I grew up in Kentucky and they put me and my sisters through college and now as I like to say, their favorite, their baby boy that gets to be sitting here with you today talking about how this country is so great. My parents got to live the American dream. And so for me, growing up every day I heard you can do anything you want to because you are your father's son.
Dr. OJ Oleka (04:26):
You are an oca, but you're also an American. And so for me, that was always the mantra that I had in college in life. It's what my wife and I teach our two little girls that you can do anything in this country because you're an American citizen. And the sad thing though is that there are people who are in this country who were born here, who are Americans just like you and I, who have forgotten that they think that this country is something that it's not. They say things like it's irredeemably racist. They say, this country is not a land of opportunity. Well, those things are wrong. And so every day in my adult life, I've been trying to fight against that. And this opportunity came along where I had a direct role to say that not only are those things wrong, but we believe in a better way.
Dr. OJ Oleka (05:08):
We don't believe in the victimhood mentality or this idea that you are oppressed by every person who's different than you. That we believe in merit, we believe in hard work. We believe in achieving your God-given potential and your talent that we believe in the American way. And so when the opportunity came along to be the Chief Executive Officer for the State Financial Officers Foundation, I took it because I knew that our members stood for those same things. I've always stood for those things in my life. So when I got the opportunity to shout that from the mountaintops, I certainly took it. And I'm excited to be doing that every single day.
Jenny Beth Martin (05:40):
That's great. Now, what was your dad's PhD in?
Dr. OJ Oleka (05:43):
It was actually in sociology. His research focus was on, again, making sure that people, wherever they came from, had the opportunity to thrive and succeed as long as they found folks who were like-minded. And again, I think that's really important because there's this warped idea about what diversity is today, people focus on skin color, people focus on gender, of which there are only two by the way.
Dr. OJ Oleka (06:05):
But our interest, and what I was always taught growing up is find people who have similar interests as you, people who share your faith, people who share your background in terms of what you believe. And those people can look any kind of way. They'll come from different backgrounds. Their ethnic background will be different. Some will be Irish, some will be Scottish. I'm from Kentucky, so most people have an Irish or a Scottish background, but some might even be Nigerian like my family is, it doesn't matter where they come from, it matters their values. Do they care about family? Do they have a faith? Do they value community and hard work? And again, that was built in me from what my dad studied, what my parents taught me, and that's what we're telling our girls.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:45):
This is just an amazing American dream story. Now, what did you study when you were in college?
Dr. OJ Oleka (06:53):
I studied business and politics in undergrad marketing and political science were the technical terms of my major and minor. And then I got an MBA as well. And I also got a PhD in leadership and higher education. So I've got an interesting background academically. And the higher education degree part was interesting because that's where I started to see some of this craziness that we see now in higher education. We would have weird conversations in class about, again, the fact that for some reason people were saying there was more than two genders. I always thought that that was odd. I tell you what, one of the most interesting experiences for me in my doctoral program was the day after or the weekend after, because they were weekend courses, the 2016 presidential election. Now, this is a doctoral level course,
Jenny Beth Martin (07:39):
So
Dr. OJ Oleka (07:39):
Everybody in there, they're adults at least I thought. So you could be emotionally mature. One of the things that we did was we took an hour to talk about our feelings about the election. And I remember sitting there being very confused. I said, we do this every four years. We have an election. Some people win, some people lose. We don't need to process anything. We need to be talking about what I'm paying you to help me study and learn. But it was then that I started to see there was a real problem with some people in the country where they don't get what they want politically when they don't get what they want culturally. And that's when you really started to see this move towards how do we begin to take over some of these institutions without even winning anything at the ballot box. So it was then that I began to see the perniciousness of this idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion creeping in to other aspects of life. So it was a slow takeover, but again, what our officers are trying to do in SFOF is push back against that from a financial perspective. We're trying to push back against it from a cultural perspective. And the good news, I think you saw this November, we're winning.
Jenny Beth Martin (08:48):
That's right. We are winning. And it is very good news and Americans agree with us. It's not just the electoral college who agrees with us, it's Americans broadly agree with us. Now, when you mentioned before that your organization has been helping state financial officers peel back some of the ESG and DDE, I first explain to people in case they are not familiar with what ESG is, what it is, and because we take it for granted because we're thinking about it often, and you're probably talking about it every day. So let's explain that and then talk more about how they were able to do that.
Dr. OJ Oleka (09:28):
Yep. ESG, it's an acronym. It stands for environmental social governance, and the environmental piece is this belief that climate, climate action, climate change, global warming, all that stuff is the most important aspect of people's lives. And you should reject our lifestyle, our way of life, oil, gas, coal, anything with carbon, and sacrifice it at the foot of the altar of the climate gods. Now that sounds a bit extreme, but that's effectively what folks believe. So A OC, the Green New Deal, all that stuff is the E and what you saw a number of asset managers and institutional investors, these are the financial folks that take your pension money and invest it hopefully to get you a better return. They said, instead of focusing on the funds where we can get the best possible return, where you can get the most money for the thing that you invest, let's instead push it towards funds that are invested in green energy, in wind and solar and all these things that aren't proven, aren't tested on the scale that are trying to be used.
Dr. OJ Oleka (10:37):
Some of the folks who listen to the podcast may remember of the Obama years and the Failed Lyra experiment, this was a private sector, green company that Obama and his team put a bunch of public dollars in. Well, it failed effectively. The E and ESG is trying to put your tax dollars into that same failed experiment. And so all of our financial officers are against that. The S is social. This is where DEI comes in heavily. It's this belief that because people feel, for whatever reason that they've been oppressed, they've been slighted, they have some victimhood mentality that we should give them all types of goodies, all sorts of handouts, all sorts of board seats, all different jobs without at all looking at merit. Now look, I think any of us would say, again, it doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter your background.
Dr. OJ Oleka (11:26):
If you can do the job, you should have the opportunity to try to earn the job. But DEI says, none of that matters. It's all based on my perception of some historical oppression. So again, what that does is it suggests that pension managers asset funds should sign on to these pledges that say, we can only do business with companies and only invest in companies that pledge to put a certain number of people of color, which again is an odd phrase, but to put people of color on a board, to put women on a board regardless of their connection to the industry, regardless of their connection or ability to speak about that particular company and how it can again, do the best returns. The reason why we're against this is because if you're going to put people on boards, if you're going to put people in senior positions in a company, it should be because they are able to make the shareholders more money.
Dr. OJ Oleka (12:21):
That's the purpose of a business shareholder primacy. That's something that we believe. Again, that's the American way, not because we're greedy or because we think that people should be gobbling up all the money, but if you have a clear responsibility, a clear job as a business to make the people who invested in your company money, that means you're going to do your job well. You're going to hire people who can do their job well. You're going to listen to your consumers. You want to make sure they purchase more of your product because ultimately that's how you make the most money. You're going to be efficient with other people's resources so you can get a good return. So that's why we are against the S and the social because it says none of that matters. Just put people in positions because they feel bad about themselves, which again, it's not a good way to do business, and it's certainly not the American way.
Dr. OJ Oleka (13:07):
And the last part is the G, which is similar in terms of the governance, and it's this belief that again, you put people in positions only because you believe that they've got some grievance background, you vote on different ideas for your business and how to move forward because they adhere to some ideology or some leftist political agenda. So you see the crazy ad that came out with Jaguar, how they completely ruined their own brand. That's because of DEI, which is tied in to the ESG portion of what we discussed. Bud Light is the prime example as well. So these are the reasons that we oppose ESG while we're against the E, while we're against the S and why we're against the G and why our members are fighting against it every day.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:52):
And when you talk about pension funds, these are state pension funds,
Dr. OJ Oleka (13:57):
These, that's a good question because it's a little bit of both. For us as the state financial officers, we focus mainly on public pension funds. So yeah, these are state employees, these are teachers, these are members of law enforcement. So again, I want your viewers and your listeners to think about it this way. You've got a member of law enforcement who goes through a difficult job every single day, tries to pull someone over for a routine traffic stop. They never know if their life is in danger or not. It's one of the most difficult jobs dealing with people in the country. It's a hard job. What the left would say is that when that person retires and God bless them for their service and their hard work and keeping our family safe every day, instead of making sure that they get the best possible return in their pension, we're going to go invest their money in some failed green experiment company and now man, or that woman who spent 25, 30 years on the force in the service as a Leo, instead of them getting the best possible return, they're going to get a lower return because politics is more important.
Dr. OJ Oleka (15:03):
We absolutely reject that. The same thing is true with teachers. Teachers who spend their career educating our kids, making sure that people are in a position to believe in their God-given talent, go achieve wonderful jobs. They retire. The same thing happens to them. Some politician or some political actor from a leftist perspective says, we don't care about their pension returns. We want to inject politics into business. And we reject this wholeheartedly. And again, this is a personal thing for me. I mentioned my parents and their story. My father was a public university professor. He went on to glory and went to heaven in 2016. My mother is the beneficiary of his pension. So I shudder to think that the fact that my mother, who is a wonderful caretaker to our little girls as their grandmother wouldn't get the best possible returns, that she wouldn't be able to receive the benefits that my dad earned for her. Because some leftist bureaucrat says it's more important to put that money into some failed experiment. So these are the reasons why we're against it, not because of the numbers, but because of the people. These are our mothers, these are our fathers. These are the people who protect us and keep us safe. They educate us. These are our community members, so we are fighting for them as opposed to the politicians in the bureaucrats on the
Jenny Beth Martin (16:22):
Left. It's so important that you are doing that. And they deserve to have the most profitable pension
Jenny Beth Martin (16:30):
Fund
Jenny Beth Martin (16:32):
Available because especially police officers, firefighters, they are putting their lives on the line every single
Jenny Beth Martin (16:39):
Day.
Jenny Beth Martin (16:39):
And teachers are helping take care of our children whether we think they should or not. That is part of what they do. And by and large, I think most teachers care very much about the kids. So they deserve to be, they may not have had the same kind of salary throughout their entire career. They deserve to have their pensions work for them.
Dr. OJ Oleka (17:07):
The thing is, most Americans live in rural communities and in rural communities, the department of education, the school board
Jenny Beth Martin (17:13):
Teachers, number one employer,
Dr. OJ Oleka (17:14):
Number one employer. So again, you're not only talking about the returns for the individual, but you're talking about the lifeblood of a lot of these communities. So if you all of a sudden turn around and ruin a retired teacher's pension, you're also probably taking away income opportunities for the local grocery for some of these other local businesses. You're taking away ties from the local churches. I mean, this becomes a real issue in terms of how a community, our small communities can thrive. So it is something that we take very seriously, and our financial officers are working hard to fight every day in their job.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:47):
And if they invest the money poorly and the funds don't return properly, what does that mean? Is the state on the hook for making up for any of that?
Dr. OJ Oleka (18:01):
Yeah, it actually is one of the major questions that happens within state treasurer's offices in particular, those that sit on a lot of these pension funds. And I know this because I was a deputy treasurer in Kentucky for a while, and this was all the conversation that we had for some of these pension plans. A lot of the older ones are defined benefit plans with the state guaranteed because they've got an INVIABLE contract, meaning you cannot violate it, you've earned it, so you get whatever your pension dollar amount is. So what happens is that oftentimes the legislature will work with some outside company and set some 30 year projections based on what they think the returns will be. Well, to your point, if they don't meet those, if they don't get the 7%, 8%, 11% return, whatever they projected, then the state will have to be on the hook for paying those dollars back for those retirees.
Dr. OJ Oleka (18:50):
So when you make a silly decision to, instead of focusing on the best possible return, the best possible investment, but instead you look at the politics of something, then yeah, you're costing your state money, you're putting your state into a deeper financial hole, which ultimately means you're putting taxpayers in a financial hole. You're putting workers in a financial hole because politicians will make the decision to tax people instead of cutting their own spending. And even when you cut spending, there are some services from folks who really do struggle financially, who are in a really tough spot. You now no longer can provide the services that they need so people don't benefit again because of leftist politics. So what our financial officers are doing, they're saying instead of doing that, focus on the returns, preserve those pensions by making the right decisions and by focusing only and exclusively on the best possible returns and not doing business with these companies that are not focused on the right things and are focused on politics,
Jenny Beth Martin (19:51):
It makes such common sense. You would think everyone would be for it. So listening to what you were saying, something that occurs to me as you're saying it all, is that the people who are pushing for ESG and DEI probably have never owned a business,
Jenny Beth Martin (20:07):
Probably
Jenny Beth Martin (20:08):
Have never had to worry about making payroll and whether they're bringing in enough money to be able to pay the employees who they have and all the other things that they do, there's a real responsibility in that, in managing cashflow as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a state financial officer. And I think that they think, well, it's almost like they think it's monopoly money that they can kind of play with and rig things the way they want to rig them. And they're not thinking of the actual financial consequences of doing that.
Dr. OJ Oleka (20:46):
What you'll find that's fascinating there is I have come in contact with more folks on this issue over the past, we'll say five or six years. What I have found that there are largely three buckets of people who are pushing or supportive of the E-S-G-D-E-I regime. You've named one. There's a group that these folks, again, they've never owned a business, they've never had to make a payroll. They simply just don't understand. So they think that this is something that's beneficial.
Jenny Beth Martin (21:15):
It's not. And I think they think they're being compassionate and they don't understand that the consequences of this, because they're always unintended consequences. That's right. Are actually cruel and heartless.
Dr. OJ Oleka (21:24):
That's right. That's exactly right. And that group is actually split into two of the categories. So you have one group that knows they know exactly what they're doing. These folks are entirely focused on dividing up the country into smaller groups, grievance politics, to win elections and consolidate power. Exactly. To put people against one another. They know exactly what they're doing. That's one group. Another group is exactly what you have just mentioned, folks that are well-intentioned that say, well, yeah, it's true. Historically, some things have happened in the country that are bad to some folks, and we think that these things would be helpful. That group you want to try and win them over. I think that they're getable. Now, a mistake that I've made in the past, I try to be well-intentioned with them and try to use some of their language to bring them to our side.
Dr. OJ Oleka (22:07):
But what I have found is that that is an ineffective way because this other group will work very hard to make sure that they don't hear the message and they don't hear the truth. And then you're simply swallowed up by the leviathan as it used to be called in the old days of the larger, more corporate side of this, which is the third group. The third group is the corporate government kind of woke industrial complex. If you've ever read Vivek Ramas Swami's book, woke Inc. He talks about this a lot. What they do is that you have these larger financial institutions, again, the BlackRocks of the world. What they do is they work with governments across the world to say, well, we now need to change the definition of what it means to be a good business shareholder to now stakeholders, basically anybody who has a grievance at all.
Dr. OJ Oleka (22:55):
And they do that so they can divert attention away from their own failings as a business to actually deliver on the product. You saw this with the oh eight financial crisis. Regular Americans were struggling. They lost their houses, they lost their savings because of the decisions that big banks made. Well, what happened? Those same banks work with the Obama administration to instead of giving relief back to the American people who lost money, the Obama administration said, we'll settle with you through the DOJ and we'll take a portion of that money and give it to our favorite interest groups. So now you've got this cabal, you've got the big businesses that are corrupt. You've got the government that's corrupt, and you have these institutions on the left that have always been corrupt. And that's the third group. That's the hardest one to break down. And this is why you've got folks now who talk about this idea of a new conservative movement because you've got to dismantle some of these institutions because you need to build new ones up in their place because the interest in the goal is to have institutions in this country that put Americans first.
Dr. OJ Oleka (23:59):
It is the focus and the interest of Patriots, I think like you and I and people listening to this show, to actually have institutions that care about the American people. Not some global elite, not some American elite, but the American people who work hard every day to put food on their table, to take care of their families, who do the right thing. And in order to do that though, you've got to recognize, I think those three different groups, the woke industrial complex, the people largely in academia who know what they're doing and trying to divide people. And then these folks over here who are uninformed, we got to bring 'em over. But again, as Reagan said, we got to speak in bold colors and not pale pastels. We can't use their language. We got to use our language and say, this is right and this is wrong, and you need to come to our side and stand for what's right and what's good.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:43):
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And when you try to use their language, as you said, you get swallowed up, they don't listen. And as Roosh Limbaugh Limbaugh used to say, and I may not be quoting him exactly right, but you can't out left the left. You can't out democrat a Democrat.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:00):
That's true.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:00):
So if you try to sound like one, well, the Democrat's always going to sound even more Democrat or the liberal is always going to sound even more liberal. So you have to create that contrast.
Dr. OJ Oleka (25:12):
That's right. That's right.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:14):
So has it been successful what you're doing?
Dr. OJ Oleka (25:17):
Yes, with the State Financial Officers Foundation, we have been incredibly successful in these few years that we've been pushing back against this stuff. We've seen billions of dollars being divested from BlackRock across our different states. We've seen some 20 states pass anti ESG pension laws. We've seen a number of states move to push back against DEI. Some of our auditors in particular, I want to shout out Auditor Shad White in Mississippi. He's uncovered some, I think $500 million in the universities on just DEI spending alone. So again, all that money that could be going to actually educating kids through scholarships again for low income kids, creating opportunities for kids to thrive and succeed, or just not spending that money at all lowering tuition. It's being spent to bloat the administrative state at universities, not really leading to any positive outcomes. So he's got a legislative agenda that he's pushing back on that.
Dr. OJ Oleka (26:16):
In Oklahoma, our treasurer, Todd Russ has been leading the fight on this issue by passing legislation in his state as well. And again, the Kentucky now auditor, former treasurer, Allison Mall, she got legislation passed in her final year on this same issue. So you're seeing our folks push back on it in a way that's critical because it is through the law. If you're able to push what is right and what is good through the law, then you can build precedent, then you can challenge it in the courts. So you're able to build, again, layers upon layers of legal precedent of statute, and then also within interest because then you can shift the culture when you've got the law that's on your side. So we've got some ideas about how we're going to do that in 2025. Don't want to give away the store now, but stay tuned.
Jenny Beth Martin (27:04):
Well, then we'll just have to have you come back when you're ready to roll that out.
Dr. OJ Oleka (27:07):
That's right.
Jenny Beth Martin (27:07):
Now, what can the average grassroots activist who's listening to this do to help you and your organization?
Dr. OJ Oleka (27:14):
It's a great question. There are a few easy things you can do. You can go to our website, sfo f.com. We've got a real quick, easy explainer about what ESG is that you can send out to friends, again who may not know what it is, but then also support our financial officers. You could follow 'em on social media. You can call their offices and say, we're with you, we support you. But then also challenge your legislators. Ask 'em specific questions. Are you focusing on the law as it relates to pensions and high returns? It's a simple question that you can ask. Now, the legislators themselves may not be as involved, but if they get a ton of questions, then they're going to ask the right people on their pension boards. So again, it's simple questions. Are you following the law as it relates to pensions and getting positive and high returns? What's going to be most important? But again, supporting our folks, checking out our website so you can learn exactly what ESG is in a quick primer and you can send that to friends. That'd be the best way to help with our folks.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:15):
I think one thing that is extremely important is to just learn about ESG and keep reminding people what it is post about it regularly. Because your post that you may post on Facebook or Instagram or X today, some people will see,
Jenny Beth Martin (28:33):
And
Jenny Beth Martin (28:33):
If you post it again in a couple of weeks, a different group of people may see it. There may be overlap, but you're likely going to hit a few people who didn't see it the first time. And the more people understand what it is, the more we can push back against it. I think they're very familiar with DEI because we've done that over and over and over. But ESG is still a little bit new and a little bit esoteric.
Dr. OJ Oleka (28:57):
And let me say it like this too, because people say, well, why does this matter to me? I didn't work for the state. I don't have a pension. Why should I care about this?
Dr. OJ Oleka (29:04):
And the reason why you should is because when you have ESG investments, that means people are not, or you're telling people not to invest in oil, in natural gas in coal. That's what keeps energy costs low. So if you benefit from having low energy costs, if you come from a state like Kentucky or some other place, basically not California, and your energy costs are low, it's because people are investing in oil and gas and natural gas. And in coal carbon, people say that you should lower carbon emissions. There is no industrialized nation in the world that does not have a high output of carbon because practically everything that we utilize the stuff in this room, our cell phones, how you communicate with folks has a carbon touch to it because of oil, natural gas and coal. And the other thing too is that when you don't invest in those things, that's when the price increases.
Dr. OJ Oleka (29:59):
So when gas goes up, it's because there's not a push to make sure that gas or that oil can be cheaper to actually pull out of the ground and actually be cheaper to get into your car through its long process. So when President Biden cancels the Keystone Pipeline, it's because of the climate agenda. It's because of ESG. So to be against ESG means you are for lower gas, it means you are for a higher quality of life. It means you are for making sure that people who are poor all across the world actually have access and opportunity to, again, good jobs. They have access and opportunity to electricity that is actually going to be beneficial to them so that they can improve their lives. That's the reason why it's positive is because it keeps your gas low. It creates a high opportunity for you and for people across the country.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:51):
I think that's a very important reason, and you've named a couple of others. If they get this wrong, taxpayers are going to be on the hook for bailing out the pensions. And if they get it wrong, there's less money coming into your community for the pensions of the people who have already retired from being teachers or police or
Dr. OJ Oleka (31:13):
Other employees. You can now be an evangelist to be against. I'm happy to be an
Jenny Beth Martin (31:17):
Evangelist for it. So it's really good that you're working so hard on this and that you've pulled together the state financial officers. How old is the organization?
Dr. OJ Oleka (31:27):
We're pretty new. We're actually only about 12, 13 years old. And again, we came about because our founder, Derek Kre Fools, he saw a need. He said out there, there doesn't seem to be folks who are tackling these issues that treasurers work on, that financial officers work on from a free market perspective. So he and a number of just treasures at the time decided, well, we've got to be the ones to start this thing. And so they did. And from there, it has grown. And like I said, now we've got 40 members at 29 states. Over half the American people are represented with $3 trillion of assets under management, which is incredible. And one of the things that we do with all that collective power is we push back and fight against Washington too. We've sent a number of letters to the Biden administration. We've killed some of his early political appointees and didn't get them appointed.
Dr. OJ Oleka (32:25):
We fought back against this concept of natural assets companies, nacs or NACS as they were called, which was a push from, again, some of the people in the woke industrial complex to try to label some of these companies as natural asset companies and then enlist them as more risky because this is how it works. If you label something risky, then you have a business case to not make the investment when really it's political from the beginning, but you can hide and shield yourself to say it's a business case. So we able to fight back and stop that. So that's the collective power of the folks that decide to join SFOF.
Jenny Beth Martin (33:06):
And it is another way to have checks and balances in the government. That's right. Which I think are, I always find it interesting to go, oh, that's another check and balance because the founders built them into the system up and down and left to right.
Dr. OJ Oleka (33:20):
And that is the beauty of the country is that the power lies mostly with the individual, the local community. And then at the state level, the federal government should not be this big behemoth that controls so much of our lives, which again is why I'm excited for President Trump and his reelection into the White House because hopefully God willing, you can have Doge and some of these accomplishments to shrink the size of the federal government to make it small and limited in its scope. And then the things that ought to go to the States should, and the things that shouldn't exist at all, they can be completely and totally eliminated. That is what makes a limited government. That is how our country is supposed to be run, and our folks are excited to be a part of it.
Jenny Beth Martin (34:00):
Well, I'm excited for you, and when you're ready to roll out more in 2025, let us know and we'll interview you again. We'll
Dr. OJ Oleka (34:07):
Be back.
Jenny Beth Martin (34:07):
Thank you so much, oj.
Dr. OJ Oleka (34:08):
Thank you.
Narrator (34:09):
I appreciate it. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (34:30):
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