To your "In the end are we better off as a society with metal and oil based products or not?"
I believe sincerely that if we recycled and reclaimed our used metals and oils we would not need to keep stripping and sucking up those products from the earth to meet a base level need for those resources. It is the sheer waste and drive to dig that kills. A wrecked ship on a reef in New Zealand spewing containers and oil into the sea, an entire building full of useable materials blown up to make way for a new shopping center. Gazillions of tossed cathode ray tubes, printer toners and cellphones litering the dumps: our waste of resources is absurd.
I am not sure at all that we need more metal and oil based products. I have been riding an (alloy) bike for 18 months to work without damage to my ego. I am saving: gas, insurance, car payments and yes, all those resources GM would love to use up to sell me some financing. Cars and many consumer goods are after all only an excuse to sell financing. Round 2.
I AGREE WITH YOU! "There are a thousand times worse pollutants and toxins in every major city in America."
The fact that we can witness environmental disasters at every turn does not excuse miners or any other company with permits to go out and dig up our earth's resources ANY excuse to continue to contribute to the degradation of our planet. You know darn well that inspectors and safety measures are finagled and damage keeps mounting up. Do you wish intestinal diseasess and cancers on future generations?
People in Georgia - whole towns and water tables were devastated by the coal fired power plants not bothering to line their holding ponds, while belching pollutant into the air. Lining those ponds was too expensive? Now Georgia Pacific is buying houses and bulldozing them and sealing up the wells; while citizens who drank that uranium filled water are dying of cancer.
Safeguards are only as safe as the people who follow through. As are the econonimc incentives offered. Are Ghana farmers now growing orchids and improving their lives, or was that just a nice consulting contract for you to meet the mining company's environmental study? Really I'd like to know if you followed up and feel Ghana has actually benefitted socially, environmentally and economincally. Most third world countries (like Louisianna) are left holding the bag after some slip up by well run companies and their environmental regulations.
I AGREE WITH YOU! "There are a thousand times worse pollutants and toxins in every major city in America."
The fact that we can witness environmental disasters at every turn does not excuse miners or any other company with permits to go out and dig up our earth's resources ANY excuse to continue to contribute to the degradation of our planet. You know darn well that inspectors and safety measures are finagled and damage keeps mounting up. Do you wish intestinal diseasess and cancers on future generations?
People in Georgia - whole towns and water tables were devastated by the coal fired power plants not bothering to line their holding ponds, while belching pollutant into the air. Lining those ponds was too expensive? Now Georgia Pacific is buying houses and bulldozing them and sealing up the wells; while citizens who drank that uranium filled water are dying of cancer.
Safeguards are only as safe as the people who follow through. As are the econonimc incentives offered. Are Ghana farmers now growing orchids and improving their lives, or was that just a nice contract for you to meet the mining company's environmental study?
While companies promote their environmental policies, I know of tailings dams leaking toxins into pristine New Zealand waters. Mountain sides laid waste in my native Appalachia - scarred by coal extraction, abandoned. On Lummi island, WA, a stone quarry is curently eroding precious soils and gravel into the sea unchecked.
Many decades of damage preceeded your 'correct process' and mining companies will attempt to get away with the minimum knowing the inspectors will turn a blind eye. Your Alaskans are smart enough to extract the funds early in the game knowing the chances of having a pit left to cover up themselves. Have you ever been to Lake Nasser? Famous now for sport fishing, the lake was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the waters of the Nile between 1958 and 1971. The dam innundated scores of Egyptian ruins under the depths and put entire villages of Nubian farmer/herders out of work. They became tour guides for boats plying the Nile. Is that progress? That they are forced to be nice to tourists while their culture dies?
I will review the PMI document you shared. Thank you. It does seem to me that the value of 'jobs' could be defined as to whether they contriute to that particular people's futures or whether the destroyed resources leads to eventual decline of the local economy after the exploitation is over, and the company that profited most is long gone. I am pretty sure many mines have laid waste to millions of acres of land that did not regenerate to a productive state for decades, if ever.
davefairtex, I do not suggest anyone here is acting mindlessly. However, without mindfulness, it is clear we generally make poor choices and we have plenty of examples of that in this world. I have my own standards and refrain from tobacco and coal for example. I blithely bought elecricty from Georgia Power for years before realizing their coal powered plants were (likely) sickening fammilies near those plants who drank water full of uranium.
ARE there reasonable standards to which we hold the companies we invest in besides monetary perforance? Do you ever ask an advertiser of a potty mouthed talk show host to reconsider that placement if only to stop such indecencies on the air? If we are attempting to secure 'stores of value' then what do we value?
I ask myself this every day. It is said that an act has karmic weight depending on your intention. One cannot undo acts of thoughtlessness (I was peeved at Ilya - I reacted badly). I just wondered sincerely if others ever felt inclined to forego tantalizing profits based on principles.
Davefairtex, I was not asking to discuss the merits of any particular hot button; that recent example was merely to note who backs such initiatives and their motives. The actual question was do you care what/whom your investments are doing with your financial support. We may be mere cogs in the wheel here: but rest assured we are fueling the greater engine with every click of the mouse. Calvert Funds and others propose to invest in ethical well run companies. Is ethical anything really possible? Only in our hearts, our own minds, homes and possibly our portfolios might reflect this intent. I strive to 'do no harm' yet with every blade of grass I walk across I am likely killing some ususpecting bug. It is not possible to be entirely free from one's impacts. It is possible to be clearer about one's intent.
There are no absolutes (as Kaimu points out) and I am not asking anyone to agree with me. It's hardly cricket to be slammed by suggestions that my industry is 'responsible for suicides in Amercia' just for asking a question about how we see our investment choices and the chain of conditons set in motion by those choices. Feel perfectly free to shoot your guns and dig your mines and think not what may be next: your own life or the earth beneath your feet or the water in your glass. It's pretty basic really. That fellow who was not trained in respect for guns is no different from my brother who was trained in guns - like you - you all own handguns. That fellow used his to express his hatred and fear by murdering a stranger. My brother killed himself with his. It's about the choices we make in the moment. the mouse click, the trigger pull. Some have greater lasting impact than others.
Pardon my previous naiive question whether investors here might care about the extraneous anti social exploits their favorite companies support for sheer financial gain and cronism. Apparently it's all about making money while justifying the means. Hang social conscience or a concern about future generations much less the earth.
Ilya, I expected no less from a self professed cow poke ignorant of the ways of sound mortgage lending because of course you never need money. Your insults are almost predictable, tired but predictable.
What I asked (and actually hoped to spark some intelligent discussion) was if investors here bother to know or care what your companies are supporting with the money you give them. Oh well, what matter social conscience. Poke away!
Are investors concerned to know (or bother) that their investments are companies who back certain products, bills, causes? In the case of recent shooting of a black youth (all over the news I won't belabor it) apparently the real news behind this is that money to sell arms and legitimize 'self protection' means your AT&T's of the world are being called on the carpet for their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
Why do you think major U.S. corporations support ALEC, which, working with the National Rifle Association, helped write and promote around the country the law that allows anyone to shoot in self defense? Do you think the gun lobbies are backed by people who sell these arms? Of course they are. While one is correct to say that guns don't kill people - people kill people - with these new laws it is becoming increasingly easy for unstable people and others with less than happy backgrounds to acquire guns for the express purpose of harming others. In so doing they often harm themselves, their families and the community.
My question: do investors here know or care what companies you invest are paying to supoport? Googling the contributors behind ALEC will get you the information. You can also contact the Public Relations folks for your investees and ask them point blank what organizations they support with (your) money.
exerpt from a petition: "And although many of you won’t be surprised that Koch Industries supports ALEC, you might ask why so many other major U.S. corporations like Wal-Mart, Kraft, AT&T, UPS, ExxonMobil, and State Farm sit on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board, and help fund these controversial efforts"
Do try to balance that a bit as we want you around for a long long time. Your work and your commitment has attracted each peson here and your much deserved success. Thank you.
Mea culpa and my apologies for distracting you from your important work. I have noticed the discourse can get a bit squabbly - especially when you are out of town! I would urge you to refer complaints to your 'board' for review and save yourself the hassle of our childish outbursts.
I sadly will watch the film called Nuclear Nation. Reminds me when I lived in New Zealand - my American friends considered it 'quaint' when NZ declared itself a Nuclear Free Zone. New Zealand does not allow any nuclear devices to be built, or ships into it's waters that have nuclear plants, thereby eliminating their economic benefit from visits of our US Navy because we refuse to say which ships are nuclear powered. Imagine standing on principles to protect your economic and ecological safety for future generations?
I listened to a Public Radio interview with Thomas Jefferson (history professor who speaks as the former president) just yesterday wherein he suggested (paraphrased) to his interviewer that in modern times we have elected our officals based on their claims to represent us with no real accountability. Until we make our elected officials actually accountable for what they promise, and we become informed citizens who MAKE them accountable, we are handing away our liberty. He referred to the 'candor' of politicians before they are elected and their blatant inability to match their words with actions after. Jefferson suggested that only by individuals arming ourselves with the truth, how things work and demanding accountability of every official from our lowest city officials to our presidents can we reclaim our democratic republic.
We live in a state of denial when we delegate such things as 'safety' or 'balancing our budget' to politicans and then let them off the hook when they so miserably fail.
I am less familiar with your Union Tribune. The article you reference is about the microscopic issues of safety of that particular nuclear power plant in Califronia.
"Nuclear power, as clean an energy source as there is, must be a part of U.S. energy policy. But the many difficult safety issues must also be resolved."
Who made this news media the official word on what constitutes 'clean energy'? How can anything with the potential to render an area of the earth and every fish that passes through its waters off limits for thousands of years be considered 'clean'?
Soma has some interesting references on Wikipedia. I immediately connected your reference to Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World, hallucinogen?
Sure - we can attempt to downplay such events if we choose, but real permanent damage to our planet like Chernobyl and Fukishimia cannot be willed away.
To your "In the end are we better off as a society with metal and oil based products or not?"
I believe sincerely that if we recycled and reclaimed our used metals and oils we would not need to keep stripping and sucking up those products from the earth to meet a base level need for those resources. It is the sheer waste and drive to dig that kills. A wrecked ship on a reef in New Zealand spewing containers and oil into the sea, an entire building full of useable materials blown up to make way for a new shopping center. Gazillions of tossed cathode ray tubes, printer toners and cellphones litering the dumps: our waste of resources is absurd.
I am not sure at all that we need more metal and oil based products. I have been riding an (alloy) bike for 18 months to work without damage to my ego. I am saving: gas, insurance, car payments and yes, all those resources GM would love to use up to sell me some financing. Cars and many consumer goods are after all only an excuse to sell financing. Round 2.
Kaimu,
I AGREE WITH YOU! "There are a thousand times worse pollutants and toxins in every major city in America."
The fact that we can witness environmental disasters at every turn does not excuse miners or any other company with permits to go out and dig up our earth's resources ANY excuse to continue to contribute to the degradation of our planet. You know darn well that inspectors and safety measures are finagled and damage keeps mounting up. Do you wish intestinal diseasess and cancers on future generations?
People in Georgia - whole towns and water tables were devastated by the coal fired power plants not bothering to line their holding ponds, while belching pollutant into the air. Lining those ponds was too expensive? Now Georgia Pacific is buying houses and bulldozing them and sealing up the wells; while citizens who drank that uranium filled water are dying of cancer.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/31/us/georgia-coal-power/
Safeguards are only as safe as the people who follow through. As are the econonimc incentives offered. Are Ghana farmers now growing orchids and improving their lives, or was that just a nice consulting contract for you to meet the mining company's environmental study? Really I'd like to know if you followed up and feel Ghana has actually benefitted socially, environmentally and economincally. Most third world countries (like Louisianna) are left holding the bag after some slip up by well run companies and their environmental regulations.
No comment, davefairtex. this site is not friendly to environmentalists. Paint me green.
Kaimu,
I AGREE WITH YOU! "There are a thousand times worse pollutants and toxins in every major city in America."
The fact that we can witness environmental disasters at every turn does not excuse miners or any other company with permits to go out and dig up our earth's resources ANY excuse to continue to contribute to the degradation of our planet. You know darn well that inspectors and safety measures are finagled and damage keeps mounting up. Do you wish intestinal diseasess and cancers on future generations?
People in Georgia - whole towns and water tables were devastated by the coal fired power plants not bothering to line their holding ponds, while belching pollutant into the air. Lining those ponds was too expensive? Now Georgia Pacific is buying houses and bulldozing them and sealing up the wells; while citizens who drank that uranium filled water are dying of cancer.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/31/us/georgia-coal-power/
Safeguards are only as safe as the people who follow through. As are the econonimc incentives offered. Are Ghana farmers now growing orchids and improving their lives, or was that just a nice contract for you to meet the mining company's environmental study?
While companies promote their environmental policies, I know of tailings dams leaking toxins into pristine New Zealand waters. Mountain sides laid waste in my native Appalachia - scarred by coal extraction, abandoned. On Lummi island, WA, a stone quarry is curently eroding precious soils and gravel into the sea unchecked.
Many decades of damage preceeded your 'correct process' and mining companies will attempt to get away with the minimum knowing the inspectors will turn a blind eye. Your Alaskans are smart enough to extract the funds early in the game knowing the chances of having a pit left to cover up themselves. Have you ever been to Lake Nasser? Famous now for sport fishing, the lake was created as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam across the waters of the Nile between 1958 and 1971. The dam innundated scores of Egyptian ruins under the depths and put entire villages of Nubian farmer/herders out of work. They became tour guides for boats plying the Nile. Is that progress? That they are forced to be nice to tourists while their culture dies?
Kaimi,
I will review the PMI document you shared. Thank you. It does seem to me that the value of 'jobs' could be defined as to whether they contriute to that particular people's futures or whether the destroyed resources leads to eventual decline of the local economy after the exploitation is over, and the company that profited most is long gone. I am pretty sure many mines have laid waste to millions of acres of land that did not regenerate to a productive state for decades, if ever.
davefairtex, I do not suggest anyone here is acting mindlessly. However, without mindfulness, it is clear we generally make poor choices and we have plenty of examples of that in this world. I have my own standards and refrain from tobacco and coal for example. I blithely bought elecricty from Georgia Power for years before realizing their coal powered plants were (likely) sickening fammilies near those plants who drank water full of uranium.
ARE there reasonable standards to which we hold the companies we invest in besides monetary perforance? Do you ever ask an advertiser of a potty mouthed talk show host to reconsider that placement if only to stop such indecencies on the air? If we are attempting to secure 'stores of value' then what do we value?
I ask myself this every day. It is said that an act has karmic weight depending on your intention. One cannot undo acts of thoughtlessness (I was peeved at Ilya - I reacted badly). I just wondered sincerely if others ever felt inclined to forego tantalizing profits based on principles.
Thank you Dr. Srangelove.
I notice we all (apparently) keep using money in spite of it's origins and the psychopaths who enable empires and currencies.
Davefairtex, I was not asking to discuss the merits of any particular hot button; that recent example was merely to note who backs such initiatives and their motives. The actual question was do you care what/whom your investments are doing with your financial support. We may be mere cogs in the wheel here: but rest assured we are fueling the greater engine with every click of the mouse. Calvert Funds and others propose to invest in ethical well run companies. Is ethical anything really possible? Only in our hearts, our own minds, homes and possibly our portfolios might reflect this intent. I strive to 'do no harm' yet with every blade of grass I walk across I am likely killing some ususpecting bug. It is not possible to be entirely free from one's impacts. It is possible to be clearer about one's intent.
There are no absolutes (as Kaimu points out) and I am not asking anyone to agree with me. It's hardly cricket to be slammed by suggestions that my industry is 'responsible for suicides in Amercia' just for asking a question about how we see our investment choices and the chain of conditons set in motion by those choices. Feel perfectly free to shoot your guns and dig your mines and think not what may be next: your own life or the earth beneath your feet or the water in your glass. It's pretty basic really. That fellow who was not trained in respect for guns is no different from my brother who was trained in guns - like you - you all own handguns. That fellow used his to express his hatred and fear by murdering a stranger. My brother killed himself with his. It's about the choices we make in the moment. the mouse click, the trigger pull. Some have greater lasting impact than others.
Pardon my previous naiive question whether investors here might care about the extraneous anti social exploits their favorite companies support for sheer financial gain and cronism. Apparently it's all about making money while justifying the means. Hang social conscience or a concern about future generations much less the earth.
Signing off.
Ilya, I expected no less from a self professed cow poke ignorant of the ways of sound mortgage lending because of course you never need money. Your insults are almost predictable, tired but predictable.
What I asked (and actually hoped to spark some intelligent discussion) was if investors here bother to know or care what your companies are supporting with the money you give them. Oh well, what matter social conscience. Poke away!
Are investors concerned to know (or bother) that their investments are companies who back certain products, bills, causes? In the case of recent shooting of a black youth (all over the news I won't belabor it) apparently the real news behind this is that money to sell arms and legitimize 'self protection' means your AT&T's of the world are being called on the carpet for their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
Why do you think major U.S. corporations support ALEC, which, working with the National Rifle Association, helped write and promote around the country the law that allows anyone to shoot in self defense? Do you think the gun lobbies are backed by people who sell these arms? Of course they are. While one is correct to say that guns don't kill people - people kill people - with these new laws it is becoming increasingly easy for unstable people and others with less than happy backgrounds to acquire guns for the express purpose of harming others. In so doing they often harm themselves, their families and the community.
My question: do investors here know or care what companies you invest are paying to supoport? Googling the contributors behind ALEC will get you the information. You can also contact the Public Relations folks for your investees and ask them point blank what organizations they support with (your) money.
exerpt from a petition: "And although many of you won’t be surprised that Koch Industries supports ALEC, you might ask why so many other major U.S. corporations like Wal-Mart, Kraft, AT&T, UPS, ExxonMobil, and State Farm sit on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Board, and help fund these controversial efforts"
"Men, it has well been said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds; while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/business/the-ret...
Sometimes the kiss of death takes a while to take effect?
davefairtex,
"Its all one big sugar high, its completely unsustainable, and we've kept it going since 2009."
Couldn't agree with you more!
Bill, It sounds as if you never sleep!
Do try to balance that a bit as we want you around for a long long time. Your work and your commitment has attracted each peson here and your much deserved success. Thank you.
Bill,
Mea culpa and my apologies for distracting you from your important work. I have noticed the discourse can get a bit squabbly - especially when you are out of town! I would urge you to refer complaints to your 'board' for review and save yourself the hassle of our childish outbursts.
Thank you for all you do most sincerely,
Susan
Kiamu,
I sadly will watch the film called Nuclear Nation. Reminds me when I lived in New Zealand - my American friends considered it 'quaint' when NZ declared itself a Nuclear Free Zone. New Zealand does not allow any nuclear devices to be built, or ships into it's waters that have nuclear plants, thereby eliminating their economic benefit from visits of our US Navy because we refuse to say which ships are nuclear powered. Imagine standing on principles to protect your economic and ecological safety for future generations?
I listened to a Public Radio interview with Thomas Jefferson (history professor who speaks as the former president) just yesterday wherein he suggested (paraphrased) to his interviewer that in modern times we have elected our officals based on their claims to represent us with no real accountability. Until we make our elected officials actually accountable for what they promise, and we become informed citizens who MAKE them accountable, we are handing away our liberty. He referred to the 'candor' of politicians before they are elected and their blatant inability to match their words with actions after. Jefferson suggested that only by individuals arming ourselves with the truth, how things work and demanding accountability of every official from our lowest city officials to our presidents can we reclaim our democratic republic.
We live in a state of denial when we delegate such things as 'safety' or 'balancing our budget' to politicans and then let them off the hook when they so miserably fail.
Earl,
I am less familiar with your Union Tribune. The article you reference is about the microscopic issues of safety of that particular nuclear power plant in Califronia.
"Nuclear power, as clean an energy source as there is, must be a part of U.S. energy policy. But the many difficult safety issues must also be resolved."
Who made this news media the official word on what constitutes 'clean energy'? How can anything with the potential to render an area of the earth and every fish that passes through its waters off limits for thousands of years be considered 'clean'?
Grym,
Soma has some interesting references on Wikipedia. I immediately connected your reference to Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World, hallucinogen?
Sure - we can attempt to downplay such events if we choose, but real permanent damage to our planet like Chernobyl and Fukishimia cannot be willed away.