thank you for those investment links. I've been avoiding switching the bank my TFSA is in and it's going to be a project/goal I take more seriously this quarter. thank you for sharing/remotivating me!
Wonderfully written and extremely helpful- I’ve been stuck in the doomsday phase and this offers concrete advice, especially for investing in the future! Thanks!!
I confess I haven't dug into the methodology of calculating the "pollution of investments" argument, but I take issue with the general premise. The term "investment" has been twisted to cover stock purchases, which are in fact largely mere "speculation". While in principle buying stocks purchases a proportional ownership of shareholder equity, that's totally illiquid (only realizable on company dissolution) except for the portion of profits distributed as dividends. Except for large enough blocks of stocks to influence company policy, a company doesn't care who owns its stock; it has nothing to do with its business model or corporate management.
When you buy stock, you're buying a virtual piece of paper, on the hopes that you can sell it at some point in the future at a profit (speculation). Except for IPOs, the company never sees the money; it goes to the former holder of the stock, so you're not actually "investing" in the company.
And if someone buys Treasury Bonds, what is he "investing" in? He's just loaning money to the government for a fixed return, like a bank. One can argue that purchasing certain corporate bonds at the time of issue could be instrumental, but municipal bonds? And if a utility floats a bond issue to add solar capacity, or to rework its grid to better handle distributed power and home solar, is that "polluting"?
And so I'm dubious about the entire premise that equates magnitude of "investment" with degree of pollution.
Well…….. I move through all the feelings quite regularly, though despair and being very cynical are the most common. Ive worked in the area since 1990, and seen some signs of hope, but many things just get worse and projections become even worse then in the early days. To quote BD ” it aint dark yet but its getting there”. So on good days I think we have some hope to ameliorate. On bad days we are stuffed!
Loved this one and will use with a new student group I'm going to start! A sailboat!!!
This is great and I'm going to use it in a talk, with credit!
best, Richard
thank you for those investment links. I've been avoiding switching the bank my TFSA is in and it's going to be a project/goal I take more seriously this quarter. thank you for sharing/remotivating me!
Great! Yes, it is my experience too. I will share it!
Wonderfully written and extremely helpful- I’ve been stuck in the doomsday phase and this offers concrete advice, especially for investing in the future! Thanks!!
Thank you for this excellent post. I love your idea to drill down on how investments pollute and how the wealthy pollute more than the poor. T
I confess I haven't dug into the methodology of calculating the "pollution of investments" argument, but I take issue with the general premise. The term "investment" has been twisted to cover stock purchases, which are in fact largely mere "speculation". While in principle buying stocks purchases a proportional ownership of shareholder equity, that's totally illiquid (only realizable on company dissolution) except for the portion of profits distributed as dividends. Except for large enough blocks of stocks to influence company policy, a company doesn't care who owns its stock; it has nothing to do with its business model or corporate management.
When you buy stock, you're buying a virtual piece of paper, on the hopes that you can sell it at some point in the future at a profit (speculation). Except for IPOs, the company never sees the money; it goes to the former holder of the stock, so you're not actually "investing" in the company.
And if someone buys Treasury Bonds, what is he "investing" in? He's just loaning money to the government for a fixed return, like a bank. One can argue that purchasing certain corporate bonds at the time of issue could be instrumental, but municipal bonds? And if a utility floats a bond issue to add solar capacity, or to rework its grid to better handle distributed power and home solar, is that "polluting"?
And so I'm dubious about the entire premise that equates magnitude of "investment" with degree of pollution.
Well…….. I move through all the feelings quite regularly, though despair and being very cynical are the most common. Ive worked in the area since 1990, and seen some signs of hope, but many things just get worse and projections become even worse then in the early days. To quote BD ” it aint dark yet but its getting there”. So on good days I think we have some hope to ameliorate. On bad days we are stuffed!