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Prosecutors are asking a California federal judge to jail a recent fugitive, Justin Costello, without bail. He is accused of a brazen $35 million fraud.
Costello falsely told investors he was a billionaire, a Harvard MBA and a special forces veteran who was wounded twice in Iraq.
When an FBI SWAT team caught Costello, he was carrying a backpack containing gold bars worth $12,000, U.S. currency worth $60,000 and $10,000 in Mexican pesos.
He is accused of schemes involving penny stocks, shell companies and cannabis businesses, and faces a related Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit.

Source: FBI

Prosecutors on Tuesday asked a California federal judge to jail without bail a recent fugitive accused of a brazen $35 million fraud that involved him falsely telling investors he was a billionaire, a Harvard MBA and a special forces veteran who was wounded twice in Iraq.
An FBI SWAT team caught the fugitive, Justin Costello, in a remote area near San Diego on Oct. 4. He was carrying a backpack loaded with six one-ounce gold bars worth $12,000, U.S. currency worth $60,000, $10,000 in Mexican pesos and banking cards and checkbooks, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Costello, 42, also had a receipt for a prepaid phone number in the backpack, along with a driver’s license with his photograph under the name “Christian Bolter,” the filing revealed.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California cited the backpack’s contents and other factors in the filing as it urged a judge to remand Costello to jail pending trial. Prosecutors argued he is “a serious flight risk and a danger to the community.”
They noted that Costello failed to surrender to the FBI’s San Diego office as he had agreed through his lawyer on Sept. 29. He had been informed that he was set to face a new indictment in federal court in Washington state on a slew of charges related to schemes involving penny stocks, shell companies and cannabis businesses.

Cash and gold bars as detailed in court filing in US District court in San Diego in case of former fugitive Justin Costello.
Source: US District Court

Instead, he “became a fugitive,” prosecutors wrote.
“The FBI tried to track Costello by his known cellphone numbers but were unsuccessful,” prosecutors wrote. “It is believed Costello took countersurveillance measures to prevent being tracked on devices registered to those numbers.”

The FBI eventually “was able to track Costello through location information received from the theft recovery service for the Alfa Romeo vehicle he was driving,” the filing revealed.
The SWAT team tracked that car to a remote area of El Cajon, California, where they saw him walking wearing the backpack, the filing said.
When agents arrested him, Costello “stated he was surprised agents had found him because he turned his phone off.”
He also told the agents he had not surrendered as agreed, “because he recently had a stroke and needed to recover.”
“Costello said that he could have outrun the SWAT agents but for the stroke,” the filing said. “Costello admitted that he was the person charged in the Indictment and encouraged agents to ‘Google’ him to read about the case,” it continued.
“Costello was likely referring to the very significant media coverage of both his criminal charges and subsequent flight from prosecution,” prosecutors wrote in a footnote, which links to CNBC’s article about him published last week.
Prosecutors said the FBI soon after learned that the gold in the backpack was part of a larger quantity of gold, worth $94,000, that Costello purchased in April “using money he had stolen from a banking client.”
Investigators have determined that since mid-September, the accused stopped using his only known personal bank account for personal expenses, and instead was using multiple corporate accounts in an apparent effort to cover his tracks online, prosecutors said.
“The weight of the evidence” against Costello in the pending case — where is he charged with wire fraud and securities fraud — “is strong and heavily documented,” they added.
Costello, who has ties to La Jolla, California, and Las Vegas, is accused of scamming thousands of investors and others out of millions of dollars by making false claims that companies he controlled had plans to buy 10 other firms.
He also is accused of using one of the companies, Pacific Banking Corp., to divert at least $3.6 million from three marijuana companies that were clients to benefit himself and other companies he owned.

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Prosecutors have said that Costello used about $42,000 of money allegedly scammed from investors to pay for costs associated with his wedding. The event featured a cake and ice sculpture with the iconic James Bond 007 movie logo, as well as a belly-dancing performance by his bride.
Costello allegedly duped investors with his tall tales of being a billionaire, an Ivy League grad and an Iraq veteran, prosecutors said. They noted that none of the claims were true.
He also “falsely claimed that two ‘[l]ocal titans’ of the Seattle business community were ‘supporting’ him,” prosecutors wrote in their court filing. They did not identify those business leaders by name.
Costello is due to appear in San Diego federal court on Tuesday. He is expected to soon be transferred to Washington state to face the indictment in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
A lawyer who is representing him in civil litigation by one of the marijuana companies he is accused of swindling did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Costello also faces a civil lawsuit filed by the SEC on the same day that criminal charges against him were unsealed. That suit largely tracks the claims in the criminal indictment.

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Free weekly credit reports are now available from the three major credit bureaus through the end of 2023.
Credit reports can help you spot areas where you need to improve your finances or errors you need to dispute.

vitapix | E+ | Getty Images

Your credit score can make or break your ability to open a credit card or buy a new car or home at attractive interest rates.
To boost your score, you need to know where you need to improve.

Keeping tabs on your credit report — which outlines your debts, bill payment history and other financial information — can help you do that.
The three major credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — recently extended the availability of free weekly credit reports to consumers through the end of 2023. By law, consumers are entitled to one every 12 months from each agency, but that during the pandemic, the companies expanded access to weekly free checks.
The reports are available at the Annual Credit Report website.
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“We always recommend once a year, at least, to always check your credit report at annualcredit report.com,” said Trent Graham, program performance and quality assurance specialist at GreenPath Financial Wellness, a nonprofit providing free debt counseling services.

While the free credit report you’ll get won’t show your credit score, it can offer clues in terms of how to boost that number. You can access your credit score by paying for it from one of the three credit reporting agencies, or access it for free from your credit card company if it offers the perk.
In terms of credit scores, anything in the 700 range or above is generally “pretty good,” Graham said. The closer your score gets to the high 700s or 800s — approaching popular scoring models’ perfect score of 850 — the better off you’ll be, he said.
The national average credit score recently reached an all-time high of 716, according to FICO.
Your credit score may vary slightly by provider.

A recent NerdWallet survey found more than a quarter of respondents — 27% — say their credit scores have increased since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, while 14% have seen their scores decline.

Two key factors influence your credit score

If you’re looking to boost your credit score, keeping two priorities in mind — paying your bills on time and keeping your debt balances low — will help.
“That’s 65% of their credit score right there,” Graham said. “The more they focus on those two key categories, the better their score will generally improve.”
If you pay a bill more than 30 days late, that misstep stays on your credit report for seven years, according to Graham.
But the good news is the longer you make on-time payments without falling behind, the more your score will start to improve, he said.

We always recommend once a year, at least, to always check your credit report.

Trent Graham
program performance and quality assurance specialist at GreenPath Financial Wellness

“It’s not a short-term fix, like one to two months of making on-time payments,” Graham said. “It can be fixed; it just takes some time.”
Your report will also show your credit utilization, or how much debt you have compared to your credit limits. Ideally, you want to have under 30% utilization.
Debt was a big factor for those who have seen their credit scores move since the start of the pandemic, according to NerdWallet’s survey.
Of those who saw their credit score go up, 69% said it was due to paying down debts. Meanwhile, almost half — 47% — who saw their scores decrease said it was due to taking on more debt.
Other factors also included in your credit score, according to Graham, include length of credit history, which represents about 15%; different types of credit and use, 10%; and applications for new credit, 10%.

While those factors are not weighted as heavily, you may want to think carefully before closing an older account, thereby reducing your available credit.
NerdWallet’s survey found 46% of respondents incorrectly believe closing a credit card will help your credit score.
Applying too much for new credit can also ding your score.
Your credit report will help you identify the accounts that have been open the longest and how many inquiries have been on your report.

What to do if you spot an error

Your credit report may have incorrect information, and that can hurt your credit score.
If you spot a mistake, you can fill out a dispute form with each of the three credit bureaus. It generally takes 30 days to have those claims addressed, Graham said.

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There are already an estimated 400,000 cars being driven today that are damaged from past flooding.
Floodwaters can destroy electronics, lubricants and mechanical systems in vehicles, problems that aren’t apparent now but can show up down the road.
Be sure to research the car’s history, as well as search for signs of water damage in the vehicle itself.

Vehicles float in the water on Sept. 29 in Bonita Springs, Florida, after Hurricane Ian.
Sean Rayford | Getty Images

If you’re planning to shop for a used car in the next few months, be sure to check for flood damage before signing on the dotted line.
In the wake of widespread flooding across Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina last month due to Hurricane Ian, vehicle history report website Carfax now estimates that up to 358,000 autos were damaged by floodwaters. Some of these vehicles will end up being resold, as an estimated 400,000 water-damaged cars are currently on the road from past flooding events.

“Floodwaters cause all sorts of hidden damage, which can surface months later,” said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. 
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“You don’t want anything to do with a flooded vehicle, no matter whether the damage is disclosed and no matter what assurances you get from a seller,” Murray said.

Flooded cars are ‘rotting from the inside out’

Floodwaters can destroy — sometimes slowly — electronics, lubricants and mechanical systems in vehicles. Corrosion can eventually find its way to the car’s vital electronics, including airbag controllers.
“The bottom line on these flood-damaged vehicles is they are literally rotting from the inside out,” said Emilie Voss, spokesperson for Carfax.

“They might look fine cosmetically, but there can be mechanical, electrical, safety and health issues that will show up down the road,” Voss said.

Buyers should research a used car’s vehicle history report to make sure they know what they are buying, regardless of when or where they make the purchase, because flooded cars often end up for sale in places far from where they originally were damaged.
Through services like Carfax or the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s VINCheck, you can input a car’s vehicle identification number, or VIN, and see if there’s anything in its history that’s a red flag. However, those efforts alone may not be conclusive. 

Not all titles will reflect flood damage

That’s because not all flooded cars are recorded as such unless an insurance company is involved. When an insurer receives a claim and the vehicle is totaled — meaning the repairs would cost more than the car’s worth — the car’s title generally is changed to reflect its status.
Those ruined cars are typically sold at salvage auctions to junkyards and vehicle rebuilders. Reselling them to consumers can get on the right side of the law if the title discloses the flood damage.
But not all car owners file an insurance claim. If they don’t have comprehensive coverage — the part of car insurance that flooding would fall under — they’re generally out of luck when it comes to coverage. So, with no insurance company involvement there may not be any official record of the flood damage.

“If you suspect a vehicle may have sustained flood damage, move on,” Murray said.
There are things you can look for in a used vehicle for that could suggest flood damage, according to Carfax:

A musty odor in the interior, which sellers sometimes try to cover with a strong air-freshener;
Upholstery or carpeting that may be loose, new, stained or that doesn’t match the rest of the interior;
Damp carpets;
Rust around doors, under the dashboard, on the pedals or inside the hood and trunk latches;
Mud or silt in the glove compartment or under the seats;
Brittle wires under the dashboard;
Fog or moisture beads in the interior lights, exterior lights or instrument panel.

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Amazon’s “Prime Early Access Sale” kicked off Tuesday.
Here’s a look at some of the best deals being offered.
Rival retailers are also getting a jump-start on the holiday shopping season.

Amazon’s two-day “Prime Early Access Sale” is underway.
Look for significant discounts on Amazon devices, such as the Kindle, Echo and Fire TV streamer, and its private-label clothing, according to Julie Ramhold, a consumer analyst at DealNews.com.

As part of the sale, the Fire 55-inch 4K Smart TV with hands-free Alexa is 80% off and some Echo devices are discounted by 55%, according to Amazon.
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Beyond Amazon’s own brands, other deals include half off earbuds, speakers and headphones from Sony and Bose, 50% off Hasbro toys, some laptops from Dell and HP marked down 35%, Solo Stove fire pits for 30% off, 30% off Hydro Flask water bottles and 15% off Peloton bikes. CNBC’s Select has a full roundup of best early Amazon Prime Day deals.
Unlike July’s Prime Day, Amazon is featuring more gift suggestions this month — with more deals on well-known brands, such as Lego, Barbie and Sony — rather than household goods.
“They will try to hit all of the big holiday gifts: home decor, apparel, name brand accessories and toys, toys, toys,” said Casey Runyan, managing editor at online discount marketplace Brad’s Deals.

“The summer Prime Day was very toothpaste; that’s not the same as buying that great kitchen appliance or hot toy,” Runyan added.
Even the Amazon coat is back and marked down 30%.

The ‘Amazon coat,’ from Chinese label Orolay, went viral on social media.

New deals will drop every 30 minutes. When a deal is live, add the item to your cart immediately. Some items will sell out quickly, Ramhold said.
However, in order to take advantage of Prime Day deals, you must be an Amazon Prime member. 
You can sign up for a month-to-month membership or a 30-day free trial.
Deal hunters should be wary of the monthly promotion, Ramhold cautioned, since it won’t extend to Black Friday.
“By hosting this Prime Day event in October, Amazon has effectively assured that people will have to pay if they want to shop in November,” Ramhold said.
The annual Prime membership also comes with a catch, since the retail giant raised the price to $139 from $119 earlier this year.

Rival retailers kick off early holiday sales

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

“October is really going to be the month of unprecedented deals,” said Deborah Weinswig, the founder and CEO of Coresight Research.
Big-name competitors, including Target and Walmart, are also getting a jump-start on the holiday shopping season with discounts across all categories.
“Retailers are taking advantage of the fact that shoppers are in the market for deals during this time to create their own events to move inventory and win volume from Amazon,” said Rakuten’s retail and shopping expert Kristen Gall. 
Here’s a look at some of the other sales events happening now.

Target’s “Deal Days” started Oct. 6, with daily deals across all categories including furniture, electronics, beauty, apparel, toys and sporting goods. Shoppers also have the benefit of the retailer’s price-match guarantee, which means purchases made between Oct. 6 and Dec. 24 can qualify for a price adjustment if the Target price drops any lower before Christmas Eve.
Walmart is holding a “Rollbacks and More” event from Oct. 10 to 13, which will start before and end after Amazon’s sale and include discounts on top gifts and electronics, home, toys and clothing.
Kohls has its two-day Deal Dash on Oct. 11 and 12, with an extra 20% off already reduced merchandise. 
Bed, Bath & Beyond’s fall savings event is underway, with markdowns up to 50% on almost everything plus an additional 20% off one item and $15 off a purchase over $50.

With sales starting earlier, retailers are hoping to lure shoppers with promotions well ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as consumers become increasingly concerned about higher prices.
In fact, many consumers have already started their holiday gift buying, studies show — and nearly 1 in 3 will shop this round of the Prime sale, according to a recent report by market research firm Numerator.

Fears that prices will only go up from here have motivated more people, a separate report by the National Retail Federation found. Roughly 44% of shoppers said it is better to purchase gifts now, because those items could be more expensive before the end of the year.

How to get the best deals this season

To maximize your holiday savings, start tracking prices now. 
Ramhold recommends creating a wish list and then using a price-tracking browser extension such as Camelcamelcamel or Keepa to keep an eye on price changes and get price-drop alerts for the items you want.
“Once you have an idea of what they’re charging now, you’ll be able to tell much easier whether something is a really good deal,” Ramhold said.

That may also depend heavily on the type of item, Runyan added. “Deals vary a lot depending on the category,” she said. “For electronics, 10% off is good; with apparel and accessories, the margins are much greater, so there’s more room to discount.”
“For extra savings, apply promo codes or digital coupons, and use a rewards credit card to [earn extra] points or cash back,” Gall said.
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The sewage sample in Brooklyn and Queens that tested positive is genetically linked to the virus that paralyzed an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County over the summer.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has extended the state of emergency declared in response to the spread of poliovirus in an effort to boost vaccination rates.
A total of 70 sewage samples have tested positive for poliovirus in the New York City metropolitan area so far, according to New York state health officials.

Polio virus particle, computer illustration.
Kateryna Kon | Science Photo Library | Getty Images

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has extended the state of emergency declared in response to the spread of poliovirus after sewage tested positive in Brooklyn and Queens.
Hochul said the state disaster emergency will remain in place at least through Nov. 8 to support statewide efforts to boost the vaccination rate against polio.

The New York State Department of Health, in a statement Tuesday, said the sewage sample that tested positive in Brooklyn and Queens is genetically linked to the virus that paralyzed an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County over the summer.
The unvaccinated adult from Rockland County is the only known case of paralysis in the U.S. so far, but state health officials have said there are likely hundreds of people spreading the virus without symptoms.
“These findings put an alarming exclamation point on what we have already observed: unvaccinated people are at a real and unnecessary risk,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett and New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a joint statement.
A total of 70 sewage samples have tested positive for poliovirus in the New York City metropolitan area so far, according to New York state health officials. The virus has been detected in sewage from Kings, Nassau, Orange, Queens, Rockland, and Sullivan counties.
More than 28,000 doses of polio vaccine have been administered since July in Rockland, Orange, Sullivan and Nassau countries, according to state health officials.

Most people are vaccinated against polio as children and are not at risk, but New York has been struggling with low immunization rates in some communities for years.
In Rockland County, the vaccination rate for children under age two dropped from 67% in 2020 to 60% in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In some areas of Rockland, only 37% of kids in this age group are up to date on their vaccine.
State, national, and global health authorities believe the poliovirus found in New York originated from a country that still uses the oral polio vaccine. The oral vaccine uses a live virus that in rare circumstances can mutate and cause disease.
The U.S. stopped using the oral vaccine more than 20 years ago. It now administers an inactivated vaccine that contains killed virus that cannot mutate. The inactivated vaccine is highly effective at preventing disease but does not stop transmission of the virus.

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Unlike tolstoy’s description of families, mergers and acquisitions that end happily do so for a variety of reasons. It’s the unhappy ones that are alike. This is particularly true of m&a deals done at the top of the business cycle, when hubris runs amok, lofty valuations make acquirers sloppy with their money and the most radical ideas are made to sound plausible. In this category sits Elon Musk’s shotgun wedding to Twitter, once again in the offing after a judge gave both sides until October 28th to consummate it. Mr Musk’s latest attempt to justify it is to describe it as a step towards a Chinese-style “everything app”. It is just as likely to go down in history as a top-of-the-market “deal from hell”. The annals of business have colourful examples of such Stygian mishaps. Sony’s ill-fated acquisition of Columbia Pictures in 1989 occurred when Japan’s bosses thought they were invincible, the bubble economy made any price appear worth paying, and dreams of the convergence of hardware (consumer gadgets) and software (entertainment) were in the air. AOL’s merger with Time Warner, an even bigger mess, was first announced in 2000 at the apogee of dotcom frothiness. The bosses of both companies, one an internet upstart, the other a fading media giant, fantasised about creating a colossus of the internet age. They torched nearly $200bn of value in a matter of months. In 2007 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), an acquisitive financial institution, led a consortium to buy ABN AMRO, a sprawling Dutch banking group. It was the biggest banking takeover in history—yet done with little due diligence or oversight of gung-ho executives, even as the world was on the brink of the great recession. It occurred shortly before RBS’s spectacular demise and a bail-out from the British taxpayer. Mr Musk’s approach to Twitter is different from these in one important respect. He is acting in a personal capacity as the world’s richest man. He has no known plans to integrate the social-media platform with Tesla and SpaceX, his electric-vehicle and rocket firms. Mercifully. Yet the stock phrases that sum up such debacles—wrong target, wrong time, wrong price tag—already seem applicable to his pursuit of Twitter, and may explain why he has spent so long trying to wriggle out of the deal. If the two sides do not reach an agreement later this month, the judge says she will haul them back to the Delaware Court of Chancery and decide their fate for them. Whatever the outcome, Robert Bruner, a professor of business at the University of Virginia who in 2005 wrote a book called “Deals from Hell” to explain m&a fiascoes, says Mr Musk’s Twitter saga already bears many subtler hallmarks of the genre. In Mr Bruner’s diagnosis, the first hints of hell come from hubris. The self-styled “Technoking” has every reason for self-belief. Tesla is the world’s most valuable carmaker. SpaceX is literally rocket science in action. Yet for executives like him it’s a fine line from that to overconfidence. Sony’s Morita Akio crossed it. So did AOL’s Steve Case and RBS’s Fred Goodwin. In Mr Musk’s case, excessive faith in his ability to turn Twitter around is exacerbated by a saviour complex: his main goal, he said when he announced the deal in April, was furthering the cause of free speech. That appears to have blinded him to the need for due diligence. Moreover, like other exalted leaders, he is surrounded by yes-men. Billionaires compete to throw money at him. No chairman of any board appears to put a restraining hand on his shoulder. For now his reputation for walking on water continues to sustain him. But if he has overplayed his hand, history will not let him off lightly. Just ask Messrs Case and Goodwin (Morita passed away in 1999). The corollary of hubris is sloppy financing, another attribute of top-of-the-market megaflops. This is particularly true at the tail end of bull markets, such as the one recently vanished in a puff of smoke. Not only was Mr Musk so unconcerned about overpayment that he based his $54.20-a-share offer for Twitter on an overused cannabis joke. Big banks jostled to back one of the world’s largest-ever buy-outs, even though by then cracks had started to appear in leveraged-loan markets. Yet as with many M&A deals, deteriorating markets can turn a flawed acquisition into a disaster. That possibility must haunt Mr Musk. The digital-advertising market on which Twitter depends has crumbled. Tesla’s own shares, the source of most of his wealth, have lost a third of their value since he made the bid (don’t cry for him, he is still worth $220bn). The deal financing includes $13bn of high-risk debt and spreads on this kind of instrument have soared. Whether Mr Musk reaches a deal with Twitter or the judge forces the sale to go ahead, the repercussions are likely to be troubling. Either banks are stuck with hard-to-sell debt and suffer hefty losses or, in the unlikely event that they abandon the deal, a superhero of 21st-century capitalism faces a $44bn day of reckoning.The X-factor Finally there is strategy. In Mr Bruner’s analysis, the worst M&A deals are done when the target is in an industry far beyond the acquirer’s “domain knowledge”. That is surely true of Mr Musk and Twitter. That may explain why he has started to offer hints of a grander strategic vision. He has raised the prospect of reducing Twitter’s reliance on advertising, and instead incorporating it into an “everything app”, known as X, with online payments that hark back to the days when he helped found PayPal. It is a tantalising idea. The model is WeChat, Tencent’s superapp in China. Others, like Meta, have tried it with mixed results. If it works, it would provide yet further testimony to Mr Musk’s ineffable genius. But it also has a hellish side. It could pit the world’s most powerful businessman against tech regulators. It could stir up trouble geopolitically (imagine a reinstated Donald Trump weighing in, as Mr Musk has done, on Russia and Ukraine). And it could enrage China, thwarting Tesla’s prospects there. Another deal for the history books, no doubt. ■ More

ESG Impact Events

Abigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney and shareholder in the media giant, rose to prominence as an activist with a tweet that criticized the $66 million pay of former CEO Bob Iger in 2019.
She praised Costco, but criticized Disney and Amazon, during a recent interview on worker pay and how the profits of companies are distributed at the CNBC ESG Impact conference.
“Capitalism is the invisible hand that creates a kind of magical surplus when it’s worked right. And it can still do that, without being this, you know, predatory entity that it has become,” she said.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 20: Abigail Disney speaks at Firehouse DCTV’s Cinema For Documentary Film Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on September 20, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)
Santiago Felipe | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Abigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney and shareholder in the media giant, went viral back in 2019 when she criticized former CEO Bob Iger’s $66 million compensation package. Ever since, the Disney heiress — who is a documentary filmmaker and social activist — has used her connection with the company to make the case for broader changes in corporate America related to the pay fairness issue, and to redefine success in a corporate context.
“How can you call a company successful when people are suffering?” Disney recently told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin at the ESG Impact virtual summit. “Part of the problem of this is in how we define the idea of what a successful company is, and if we pushed human interest to the center of our set of calculations about the well-being of a company, we would feel very differently about Disney as a successful company.” 

Disney, who recently released the documentary, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales,” said she thinks of ESG as one aspect of a much larger set of principles that determine how a company operates and determine what it can and cannot do.  
“It’s also a question of helping companies do the right thing,” Disney said. 
Worker issues are, in fact, the No. 1 ESG theme, according to polling of the American public. The polling finds that paying a fair and living wage is the single-most important issue for Americans when asked what they want to see companies do.
Disney doesn’t buy the argument that the market dictates wages. “The market is a bit of a yardstick, but it’s not really dictating anything,” she said. “These are boards of directors that are populated by people who are CEOs or would like some day to be CEOs and are loyal to the class … they identify with the CEO,” she said.
A Disney spokesman said in an emailed statement to CNBC, “Our amazing Cast Members, storytellers, and employees are the heart and soul of Disney, and their wellbeing is our top priority.” The Disney spokesman cited “competitive pay and leading entry wages,” affordable medical coverage, access to tuition-free higher education, and subsidized child care for eligible employees.

Just Capital, the ESG research nonprofit that produces the polling of the American public on corporate issues of importance, ranks Disney No. 1 among media companies overall in its annual ranking of the top 100 companies, but its lowest category score is workers, where Disney ranks 10th among 15 media companies.
In March, Disney shareholders voted in favor of a proposal for greater transparency on pay data, including data related to race and gender, a rare loss for Disney management in a proxy battle which garnered support from 60% of stockholders. According to a June article from entertainment publication The Wrap, Abigail Disney is gearing up for another shareholder fight next year against the pay of current Disney CEO Bob Chapek, whose compensation doubled last year to $32.5 million.
Disney, who told the FT in 2019 that she had a net worth of $120 million and called herself a “traitor” to her class, doesn’t think that the idea of wealth redistribution is necessary.
“I don’t think we need to do redistribution. But I think we need to think more carefully about pre-distribution, and maybe businesses need to be taking less as owners and seeing the workers as their true partners who deserve to participate in profits just as deeply,” she said. “Capitalism is the invisible hand that creates a kind of magical surplus when it’s worked right. And it can still do that, without being this, you know, predatory entity that it has become,” she added.  
Watch the ESG Impact video below for more of the Disney heiress and shareholder’s views on CEO compensation and worker pay. More

Mortgage rates are soaring, and credit availability is the lowest it’s been in over nine years.
The rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is over 7%.
Lenders are concerned a weaker economy can lead to a rise in mortgage delinquencies.

JB Reed | Bloomberg | Getty Images

It’s a double whammy for would-be homebuyers. Not only are interest rates soaring, it’s getting harder to qualify for a loan.
The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage climbed over 7% at the end of last week, according to Mortgage News Daily, and is expected to hit around 7.125% on Tuesday. It’s been over 7% for several days.

Meanwhile, mortgage credit availability is now at the lowest level since March 2013, which was when housing was in a slow recovery from the financial crisis at the end of the prior decade. It fell for the seventh consecutive month in September, down 5.4% from August, according to a monthly index from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
While lenders may be desperate for business, as mortgage demand drops due to higher rates, they are also more concerned about a weaker economy, which could lead to higher delinquencies. Executives and economists have warned the U.S. could fall into a recession in the coming months as the Federal Reserve hikes rates to battle high inflation.
“There was a smaller appetite for lower credit score and high [loan-to-value] loan programs,” Joel Kan, a Mortgage Bankers Association economist, said in a release.
Mortgage delinquencies, at the moment, sit near record lows. While new foreclosure actions rose 15% from July to August, they were still 44% below pre-pandemic levels, according to Black Knight, a mortgage software and analytics company.
Credit availability fell the most for jumbo loans, which more borrowers today have to use due to higher home prices, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Higher prices also have more borrowers turning to adjustable-rate mortgages, because they offer lower interest rates. These loan rates can be fixed for up to 10 years, but they are considered riskier mortgages.

Borrowers are clearly concerned that mortgage rates will move even higher. While mortgage rates don’t follow the federal funds rate exactly, they are influenced heavily by the Fed’s policy.
“The Fed is determined to hike rates as high as it can and keep them there as long as it can, even if that means the economy suffers,” Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily, wrote on its website.
Graham noted the Fed is not considering mortgage rates or the housing market because home prices are overheated and a correction is “good and necessary.”

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