Hi all,
I was going to post this in the Palantir Technologies thread but I thought I'd air my thoughts with the general group. I do not invest in Oil & Gas, Tobacco, or Weapons companies, or in specific companies like Amazon, Palantir, etc.
All of them are morally suspect - either in terms of being a member of a general industry (i.e. Tobacco companies sueing Governments for potential loss of profits or trying to advertise outside schools) or because of specific issues (e.g. Amazon having meetings with start-up companies and then - completely coincidentally - using their deep pockets to create a cheaper product that happens to be exactly the same, not allowing / resisting unions, etc.; or Palantir, which has had several controversies against its name including being an integral part of the US ICE programme, with Amnesty International being critical about their due diligence).
You may say that 1. you don't care, so obviously this post isn't for you, 2. that you're only one individual so how can you make a difference? Well, corporate governance is increasingly part of businesses these days and plenty of fund managers are moving out of ethically suspect stocks, so you're not alone, or 3. You're going to lose out on a lot of money! See below for that one...
Personally I just don't want to feel that someone else has suffered for me to make some money. There's plenty of companies out there that could make me a good profit but aren't screwing over someone else / the planet to do it.
Maybe this is something that's come with age as well, I'm 47 now and previously I wouldn't have considered such things. The thing is...I'd like to think of myself as a 'good' person, I give to charity each month, I try to consider other people's feelings or think about their perspective, I don't give unrequested advice, etc. but how would I reconcile that with investing in companies whose stock and trade is producing items that kill people or contributing to climate change. More precisely, can my general ethical principles be discarded for a quick profit?
Anyway - this isn't supposed to be an admonishment or even a call to arms - I'd just thought I'd raise the case for ethics playing a role in our investment decisions.
Disclosure: I'm a University lecturer whose research is in sustainable behaviours.
Submitted March 10, 2021 at 03:24AM by Donkey_Launcher_7 https://ift.tt/3byBGkR
